“Who is attending Isela?”
“It’s Sarah.” Dana replied with an unpleasant face. That expression was interesting.
“What did you say?”
“.…..”
“Why, say everything truthfully.” Karen said with a slight smile.
Dona grumbled with a sulky face. “The food doesn’t suit her taste and said it was uncomfortable.”
“Mm.”
In truth, it was somewhat right and Karen agreed with her. Because of the difficult traffic, high-quality food was out of reach. The main crop of the fief is mostly ornamental trees, so no way to truly enjoy the food.
The crafts produced from these wood would make them a better profit rather than with agriculture, so not only for the commoners, even the households of the fief had to quench their hunger rather than having extravagant food. So even if the mountains were beautiful, for the youngest daughter of a rich family who is used to enjoying the life, this place is just torture.
“She also said that her dresses were not taken care of properly so she slapped the maid.”
“This.”
“Isn’t she so arrogant? In the end, isn’t she also the same working class people like us.”
In the end, she was also like me, acting all high and noble – it was discontenting. Karen just smiled. Evans wanted to swallow the Haiers and we won’t be able to stop it, so what use is us in mocking them? When Karen kept her silence, Dona realized that she had crossed the line.
“… I am sorry. I was presumptuous.”
“Nothing. In front of god all are equal.”
Maybe.
“Eeey, even if it’s in front of god, there are differences. Unlike me and Isela, Agassi is of valuable identity.”
Just identity. It’s not that Duke, Count, Baron, etc are born with territory of their own. Judging by the standard of the world, the Evans were much more influential than most of the aristocrats. So it was absurd to compare them with a maid like Dona. In financial terms, Evans were more than twice of Haiers in terms of wealth.
Seeing Karen’s expressionless face, Dona felt more and more disparity between herself and people like Karen and Isela.
“Still!It’s different. Agassi is blessed by God.”
When she was born, she would become the most blessed person in the world – you mean this? Karen snorted with laughter. Why take such words of blessing as truth?
Dona looked at Karen with envious eyes.
“It’s said that agassi’s beauty is the evidence of your blessing.”
“Ummm..”
She had lived all her life in the midst of being complemented to the degree of being embarrassed, so these sort of things were also quite natural. Thinking about ‘The Karen in the Story’, Karen felt complicated.
Her whole life was under the eyes and expectations of others. Then it was only natural for her to also dream like that.
Though the blessing was only worth the gypsies in the street. The blessing she received at her birth was meaningless when it came to the city. But in Karen’s case, her excessively eye-catching beauty became sacred and holy through the mouths of Countryside people.
There was no way for the girl who only received praises in her life to accept Dulan…..Karen doesn’t want to mock [Karen]. In the end, everything [in the book] was just an imagination, and she was too, just like these characters. There is both script and cast. But when the scars and flows repeat numerous times, it would become a joke and cynical of her to think like that.
Just like [Karen], many female protagonists of different novels dreamt of a bright and unrealistic future. As these are common writings that described the basic desires without any acknowledgement on literacy values, she still saw numerous people mocking such things. Mocking those female protagonists who can’t control their vanity and wild-fantasies saying that they disguise their mockery as sympathy to comfort themself.
Whether the [Karen] who disappeared after asking to find true love (T/N: Remember the summary, find true love and live happily ever after) or the [Dulan] she laughed at, held equal weight. But these are personal feelings and appreciation towards the main characters and sometimes she sighed lamenting the determined character setting.
Sometimes seeing those characters, the ordinary people who wore the mask named society, especially those like Dona who looked at Karen with a sense of fantasy, made her heart tighten.
They just wore different clothes, but did the same role with the same dialogues. Nancy, Dona, Serah. In the end nothing changes. Now looking at it…. in the end she herself too was not more than just a doll mimicking her role.. and that was too…
“Agassi?”
“Um, Oh nothing. Just dozed off for a moment.”
“Sorry, I don’t have a way with words. The vacation that Nancy is on is taking a long…”
…. Is this gonna be taken care of like this? Karen felt curious to how long this can hold on in the name of vacation. The corpse disappeared and that too in a strange way.
But to simply conclude it as an external force, according to Isela there were injuries that were not done by Karen on the body. Did someone else mess with it?
It’s a Match.
“Aga, Agassi?”
“It’s that I am a bit sleepy.”
“No you can’t! your face.. your face how can…”
“Sleepy.”
Don’t sink into the sea of thoughts, Karen. The thing that can’t be found would just be an unknown. It would become known to others if she continued to experiment.
“Dona.”
“Yes?”
“If it’s hard, do you wanna take a vacation?”
“Eey, no need. The work is already tight, if I am also to leave, then it will be very hard for them.”
As she smacked her lips by the taste of disappointment, Karen checked the date.
“… the time flows very fast.”
Now it’s time for him to show up. As she concluded her brief rest, she got ready to meet the male protagonist. She must tighten her waist, cleanse her skin, and get her hair done. In order to meet him, there was no need to have a bundle of money nor power to wield, but one must have one thing – beauty, she must be beautiful.
* * *
“What the hell, when will she come back?”
“Do,Don’t know…. at least 2 weeks of vacation…”
“What sort of a maid takes a vacation for 2 weeks!”
It felt strange. Isela held onto Serah and raged at her as she threw her anger at the maid, who she held onto tightly, who was crying saying what she said was true, soon she got tired and sunk down on the bed.
“.…….”
Creeps, she felt goosebumps.
“I saw it here.”
A strange illusion. A decapitated woman. She needs conviction to assure that it was just a dream, an illusion. She needed to see the person alive with her own eyes but heard that she left on that day, taking a long vacation. No one saw her. It can’t be, nothing happened, but still she could not help but get nervous.
A maid took a long vacation because of the bad behaviour of a noble? Strange. Not even the maid of a noble, just the exclusive servant girl of the daughter of fief lord. A maid who not only took care of Karen, but also did all kinds of work, was allowed to take vacation because of an outsider like her too at a time like this. It did not make sense.
She wanted to be ignorant but she felt buried in her reluctant suspicion. Just like the discomfort of menstrual cramps, desperate and would not be able to get out of your mind.To show such a weak and clumsy appearance in front of Karen, it felt too embarrassing, but also intensified her doubt whether it was really like that.
Was everything her delusion? Isela had never experienced something like that. She does experience pain and frustration when she is on her period, but such extreme hallucinations – never. Visual or auditory hallucinations, she doesn’t even dream of such things.
When it darkened outside, there would be maids near her to drive away her fright. With fragrant aromas, decorations and veil in her room, it enabled an enjoyable sleep. After that enjoyable day, more good things would happen the next day. Her Father had never once failed in business. Now the only thing left was a bright future of being a real noble.
But why?
“No….”
Isela doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that she was panicked and nervous.
Let’s not doubt her happy future. She was the previous daughter of the Evans family. She would only be filled with happiness.
“Necklace….”
It was clean and glamorous, as if nothing had stained it. Was it really stained with blood? She outlined the gems on the necklace with her fingers. Those gems which had no physical change felt like they promised her eternal peace. But Isela felt more scared when she saw the gems because it reminded her that though the gems were eternal, she was bound to die someday.
“There is something strange with this county.”
“Can’t you feel it?”
“.…..”
What is the use of saying it to a maid from here? When she saw Serah’s face fill with doubt and irritation, Isela gave up her inquiry. There was something strange, but the maids here were not her own, so there is no way to find out what was strange as she could not put her hands on what this something was. With a click of her tongue, she closed her eyes.
What the hell is in here? When I become the owner, would everything be alright? Is this something she can ignore? Where the heck should I start to straighten this place?
“Isela Evan-nim.”
“Um?”
“There is a telegram from Lord Raymond.”
As she pushed the thoughts about the maid into a dark corner of her mind, she felt happy as she snatched the letter to read it right away and was seconds away from dripping tears of happiness.