The Maid and The Usurper - Chapter 17
“What?”
Leopold glared at Layla fiercely, as if he had heard something he couldn’t believe. Layla, however, didn’t back down and stared straight back at him.
“Think about it. If I came back and said the money was stolen, you’d immediately start suspecting me. You’d think, ‘Ah, she’s telling the Queen about how I’ve been secretly increasing my wealth.’”
If Layla were in Leopold’s position, those are exactly the doubts she would have had. Leopold laughed wryly.
“You think I can’t trust you that much?”
Layla, who had been ready to hurl another retort, suddenly fell silent.
“Sure, suspicion is valid, but at the end of the day, relationships are built on trust. And I chose to trust you.”
“And how can you be sure I’m not a traitor?”
“From everything I’ve seen of you so far, it’s enough for me.”
His voice brimmed with confidence, unwavering in his decision. Layla, for once, spoke in a rare, soft voice.
“It’s a gamble.”
“If trust is a gamble, as you say, then so is suspicion, Layla.”
Whichever path was chosen, the outcome was uncertain. In the end, trust and suspicion were one and the same.
“This time, I think I made the right choice, Layla.”
“……”
It was undeniable. For the first time, Layla had lost an argument to that bastard prince. Yet, she didn’t feel anger. The eyes of the bastard prince, which she could see through a gap in the blanket, revealed no deceit. This was a world far removed from La Ellosa. At least, that was how it felt to Layla. She repeatedly folded and unfolded the wrinkles at the edge of the blanket. There were many questions she wanted to ask and many answers she needed to give.
“If you have no questions, can I ask you something now?”
“Anything. I have a feeling my curiosity and your questions are intertwined.”
“What was your original hair color? Silver or black?”
“Silver. They say it has been a moonlit silver since I was born.”
Layla emphasized “moonlit” with pride. Leopold chuckled, prompting Layla to subtly pull the blanket up higher over her face.
“Then why did you dye your hair black?”
“My mother made me. She said that in La Ellosa, having silver hair would get me sold off early.”
The preferences of the perverts swarming La Ellosa varied widely. Some specifically sought out silver-haired girls, and the rumors surrounding them were dreadful. Günther, the pimp of Clarice, was money mad and Clarice didn’t want her daughter sold off in one of his deals.
“How did you dye it?”
“My mother would get ink and pour it on my hair. Dyeing agents are quite rare.”
A few times, Clarice had begged the courtesans for expensive dye. But the quantity was never enough. One of the courtesans, feeling sorry for the mother and daughter, had shared the trick of using ink as a substitute.
“And now? How do you do it?”
“…With magic.”
It was a story no one would believe. A girl from La Ellosa, where the sewer rats lived, was a magician. Leopold found it absurd, but he had seen things today that were hard to dismiss.
“Why did you keep that a secret? With that ability, you could have easily escaped La Ellosa.”
“You underestimate La Ellosa. If Günther had known, he would have sold me off as a slave to Sarban long ago. Don’t you know about the slave magicians in Sarban?”
Even as she spoke, she couldn’t help but think that there wasn’t much difference between the slaves of Sarban and the women of La Ellosa. If a woman couldn’t pay off the price that had been placed on her when she entered La Ellosa, she became the property of her pimp. Even her daughters would belong to him. Layla had been born into that reality and couldn’t escape her fate.
“The situation may be better than the other slaves in Sarban, but they are still slaves nonetheless.”
While they could acquire property and had some guaranteed freedoms, they were ultimately possessions of the King of Sarban. Their lives, loves, and everything was decided by the King’s whims.
“That’s why my mother desperately hid it. She said Günther would sell me to Sarban if he found out.”
Leopold was momentarily at a loss for words. Layla spoke calmly, as if describing her everyday life. Sensing his awkwardness, she continued.
“There’s nothing strange about it. When this becomes your daily life, your standards of normal tend to shift a bit.”
There was no strict average or norm in life. What you faced became the norm. Leopold hesitated before carefully speaking.
“So what did you do in La Ellosa?”
“There are few who can read in La Ellosa. So I desperately learned. Since I could read and do math, Benedict asked me to help with his work.”
The silver lining was that Benedict wasn’t a complete scoundrel. He was crazy about money, but still had some basic human decency. That’s why she survived back then. Layla disliked Benedict, but was grateful to him at that moment.
