From the Tip of the Tongue of the Lowliest Maid - Chapter 2
The wet clothes clung to her body.
Unlike noble young ladies, Arzeletta wore no corset or petticoat, and her bare skin was plainly visible through the soaked fabric.
The laughter, which had been loud and harsh, suddenly stopped.
“……”
An unexpected silence fell over the bustling laundry site.
Soaked in water, Arzeletta looked like a statue of ancient marble, recreating a nymph from legend.
Just by standing there, she transformed the grimy, soap-scummed laundry basin into a secret lake hidden deep within a forest.
The damp, clinging fabric that traced the curves of her slender, delicate body felt—for this moment alone—like the touch of a skilled artist.
Even though it was nothing more than a worn-out garment soaked with lye and grime.
It was a beauty so striking, it made one forget to breathe, made one forget to speak.
As if gazing upon a crystal sculpture from a royal court, everyone stared in a trance at her surreal beauty—
And then they saw it.
As clearly as the softness of her skin, now visible through the transparent fabric—The mark of Arzeletta’s original sin was there, vividly engraved.
“…Disgusting.”
A girl with prominent cheekbones speckled with freckles spat the words like a tossed stone.That single phrase, heavy with contempt, stirred the silence like a rock thrown into a quiet lake.
As the silence was broken, Arzeletta’s small shoulders flinched.
She could all too easily predict what was about to happen.
It was a familiar sequence that repeated every single day.
It was now time for the scorn and humiliation she had suffered every day of her life in this domain, without exception.
“Disgusting!”
“Look at that rotting back! It’s revolting!”
What covered Arzeletta’s back in a dark, blood-red hue even deeper than crimson was a gruesome burn scar.
The skin, so severely melted it was impossible to imagine the nymph-like beauty from the front, devoured half of her once-beautiful back.
That grotesque scar, alien as though a monster were parasitizing her body, was the source of Arzeletta’s pain and the mark of her original sin.
“Because of you, Lord Theogrim was wounded!”
To save a mere orphan girl—who was nothing, who didn’t even remember her past—an indelible scar had been left on the noble heir’s face.
The doctrine of Impellias, which obsessively sanctified purity and perfection, demonized anything with the slightest blemish.
It was the lowly laundry maid Arzeletta who had left the one and only, fatal flaw on Theogrim, whose character, appearance, and intellect were flawless in every way.
“If only you had just died in that fire, then Lord Theogrim’s face would never have been scarred.”
At the sharp mockery, Arzeletta’s shoulders flinched again.
“Hurry up and go marry that hunchback Yoseph. Why do you keep loitering around the castle?”
“She’s probably desperate to catch Lord Theogrim’s eye.”
“A wedding night with the hunchback in the slaughterhouse would suit her just fine. Know your place.”
“Pop out five kids. Maybe one of them will have a normal back.”
Laughter.
Joyful laughter encircled Arzeletta.
If one didn’t know the scorn hidden in it, it might have sounded clear and untarnished, like the chirping of birds.
Arzeletta’s eyes burned, and she bit her lip tightly.
Her red, full lips were pressed against her pearl-white teeth and took on a wounded, luscious shape.
She was simply embarrassed for drawing attention—there wasn’t even a sliver of injustice in her heart.
Because it was true.
Because even she had thought so.
So many times… So many times she had imagined it.
She had imagined a time when the beautiful face of Lord Theogrim, crafted as though under the blessing of an angel, had not been scarred.
If that had been the case, wouldn’t people have loved him far more than they do now?
Wouldn’t Lord Theogrim—chosen by the gods to rule the domain of miracles—have reigned even more, far more absolutely than he does now?
