“Kiaran! Kiaran!” A little girl yells as she runs across the mansion halls toward me. 

“Lady Noelle, calm down. A noble lady like you shouldn’t be running through the halls like that.” 

“Don’t worry about it, you don’t know anything about noble customs anyway, Kiaran.” 

“Ghk! You’re… you’re really blunt aren’t you, Noelle?” 

“See?!” 

OK, I clearly said something wrong there or else she wouldn’t have reacted like that. Was it rude to tell her she was blunt? I don’t think it would’ve been. It better not have been, that would just be stupid. 

“Lady Noelle, I don’t quite get what I said wrong there. Would you care to assist me?” 

“Stop talking like that, it’s annoying. And you called me “Noelle” instead of “Lady Noelle”.”

Oh crap, I did, didn’t I? And I thought I was doing better, yet I made such a simple mistake like that. “I’m sorry, Lady Noelle-” 

“No need to apologize. That part of you is really annoying, Kiaran. Go ahead and call me Noelle, we’re friends, right?” 

“Unfortunately, I think Baron Wisefang would skin me alive if he heard me calling you by name again…” 

“Ugh, it’s always father. I’ll talk to him, so don’t worry! Just act how you want around me, and I’ll take care of everything else!”

Man, Noelle really is a lovely girl. I’m not sure why all the other servants have such a hard time interacting with her. 

“Kiaran!” Another girl runs up to me, calling my name. 

“Oh, Heather, it’s been a while, want to talk?” 

“As if we could be talking right now… Oh! Lady Noelle, I apologize, I didn’t see you.” Heather bows to Lady Noelle, something she doesn’t really appreciate.

“So Heather, what’s the issue?” 

“An emissary group from Pitiful Girl has arrived. All the servants are supposed to be meeting them.” 

“Oh, Pitiful Girl! The slave girl running for queen!” I remember asking a lot about her with Azariah when we first came into this world. Those times are already nostalgic. I can’t really enjoy it though, as Heather is looking at me with a face full of horror and Noelle is laughing like crazy.

“Kiaran…” Heather starts “Please don’t call Pitiful a ‘slave girl’ when you’re around the emmisaries.” 

“Yeah, please don’t, they’ll probably kill you.” Noelle adds. 

“Huh?! That’s a little extreme isn’t it?!” 

“I doubt they will since they’re representing Pitiful, but they’ll probably really want to, so don’t talk like that around them, OK? In fact, it would probably be best if you don’t say anything.”

“Alright, Heather, I get it, my lips are sealed, let’s go.” Heather begins walking off to the front entrance of the mansion as I follow her. 

“Um, Lady Noelle? May I be so impolite as to ask what you are doing?” asks Heather. Turning around, Noelle’s been following us. 

“Why, I’m coming with you, of course!” This answer causes Heather to panic quite a bit. 

“Um, we’re coming to greet them as servants, a person of your stature shouldn't be joining us.” 

“Don’t be stupid, these are Pitiful’s men, right? A noblewoman welcoming them alongside her own servants? They love that sort of thing!”

Heather pauses, desperately trying to think of something to say back to that. “Well, it still makes me uncomfortable. Lady Noelle, if you are a kind young lady, please go and see your father instead.” 

“Oh really? Does it really affect you that much?” 

“Yes, Lady Noelle. I thank you for being so understanding.” Yeah, this isn’t going to go well. 

“Well I order you to take me with you. That fixes the problem, right? If you’re under orders there’s nothing to worry about!”

Yep, that’s Noelle for you. Heather’s just looking at her with a face full of annoyance but can’t say anything since she’s just a maid who got ordered by one of her masters. 

“Man, you can be really cruel sometimes, Lady Noelle.” 

“Don’t worry about it Kiaran. I just really want to see if Lucy’s among them.” 

“Lucy?” 

“An old friend of mine from Pitiful’s Domain. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Alright.”

><><><><

The three of us quickly head to the entrance of the mansion. A bunch of the other servants tried to convince Lady Noelle to go and see her father instead, but I convinced most of them to back off. For the unusually persistent ones, Noelle just ordered them to shut up.

The actual group that came in from Pitiful was only five or so people. They were all so pale I had thought that they were vampires at first. Me, Noelle, and my fellow servants go up to greet them in the place of Baron Wisefang, but they seem to be mostly annoyed by that. 

Until “Ruse! Hey Ruse! It’s me! Noelle! Don’t you remember me?!” Noelle shouts, running up to the biggest dude in the entire group.

“Oh, hey Noelle.” says the massive dude as he pats Noelle on the head. Hey! Not even I’m that close to Noelle yet! 

“Hey, just where is your father?” 

“Oh, he should be in his office. I’m not sure, though. Hey, where’s Lucy?” 

“Didn’t bring him with us. He’s still back at Avalan” Ruse says, as Noelle pouts.

“Sir Ruse. Please allow me to accompany you and your group to my master.” Says Virginia. Looking at Ruse, I can’t help but think he’s cringing? Is that my imagination? 

“First of all, it’s just Ruse, second of all, I don’t need a maid to show me where Jenil is. He can come down here and meet us himself.” Jenil? Is that Baron Wisefang’s first name? I don’t know, I've never heard it before.

“Oh! I’ll go and grab him real quick!” Shouts Noelle, excitedly. 

“That won’t be necessary, I can go and-” Virginia starts before getting interrupted. 

“Yeah, sure. Go and find your dad, Noelle. We’ll help ourselves to the dining rooms.” 

“Alright!” Noelle says before running off. 

“We’ll start eating now. You guys go and do whatever it was you were doing.” 

“If that’s the case, then please allow us maids to-” 

“That won’t be necessary, we can feed ourselves, thank you very much.” Ruse says before the group leaves further into the mansion, leaving us behind. Virginia sighs 

“I can never interact with them in any way…”

“Are they always like that?” I ask Virginia. 

“Unfortunately, yes. Lady Noelle seems to get along with them well enough, but I just don’t know how to get through to them. It’s quite a sore spot for me as a servant…”  

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why are they even here?” 

“I do not know. Baron Wisefang has not told me.”

Thinking back to them, they really didn’t seem all that bad deep inside, just a bit rude. Ruse and Noelle got along well, and they only got annoyed whenever we addressed them like servants. 

“I mean Pitiful is really anti slavery and anti nobility isn’t she? Maybe the people who work for her have a grudge against the kind of relationship we have with Baron Wisefang?” 

“That may very well be the case, unfortunately…”

><><><><

The tea is boiling nicely. I haven’t tasted the tea that comes from these leaves yet, but the aroma is amazing. I take the pot and pour the tea into two separate cups on a tray. I put the teapot on the tray as well and begin carrying it into the dining room.

Ruse and the rest of the people from Pitiful’s Domain are eating. I carry the tray over to Ruse. 

“Ruse was it? I heard Noelle say your name, but I’d like to know for sure.” Ruse looks at me, wide eyed. 

“Yeah, it’s Ruse.” I put the tray onto the table and sit next to the guy. The tea is still too hot to drink without burning yourself so I decide not to burn myself by not drinking it.

“What exactly are you trying to do here?” 

“Oh well, none of my other servants know the purpose of this visit and I’m actually kind of curious. If you could just give me a rough idea…” 

“Sorry, but Pitiful told us not to let any information out. You can take your tea back now.” 

“Oh don’t be ridiculous. You’re working with my employer right? It’ll be better for both of us in the future if we get along now.”

Ruse looks me in the eyes. “Your eyes… Hey, what’s your name? And what exactly is your position in this mansion?” 

“My name is Kiaran, just Kiaran. I’m just a simple servant under Baron Wisefang’s employ.” 

“Oh, that’s unfortunate.” 

“You mentioned my eyes. Have you met someone with a red and a white eye like me, before?” 

“No, that’s not what I was getting at. I apologize, I was thinking out loud, don’t worry about it.”

“OK then. So what about you? What do you do for a living?” Ruse looks at me, amused. 

“I act as Pitiful Girl’s bodyguard. Not that she needs one.” 

“Oh? Is she strong?” 

“Yeah, and her knight is in a completely different realm of strength when compared to welts like me.” Yeah, all of the Royal Selection Candidates have a knight to defend them. 

“If I remember correctly, Pitiful’s knight is a man named Alame, right?” 

“Yeah, his name’s Alame Como.”

Hm… I’m not really any expert, but he appeared kind of happy when mentioning Pitiful, but it dulled down when mentioning Alame. 

“Hey, if Pitiful didn’t have a knight, would she be strong enough to defend herself?” 

“Of course she would. She’s far too strong to die to some sort of stupid assassination.” Ruse considers Pitiful strong enough to defend herself, yet he also appears to pride himself as Pitiful’s bodyguard. Maybe I’m thinking too far into just a couple of sentences but…

“Hey, how did you and Pitiful first meet?” That appears to catch Ruse off guard. He smiles. 

“I come from the Emednes Mountain range, a cold hellish place where death comes around any corner. I grew up there as I reached my 20s, I was an accomplished warrior who had even fought frost drakes on multiple occasions. I was a mercenary, and the word that went around was that I was worth ten men in battle. I thought I was unstoppable, but eventually, I did lose, and I wound up getting sold into slavery.

I worked manual labor for my owner for years. When bandits or enemy warriors showed up, I was the first one who fought to defend him. Having a slave crest, I was unable to defy him. Magical thinking was never my strong suit, but I spent years trying to think of a way to get around the damn thing. Eventually I did, and I tried to kill my owner, but I failed. The slave crest was replaced, and I was whipped so many times nothing remained of my back.

I worked for him for several more years, until an army of slaves came to burn his property down. I was sent out to defend against them, and the battle lasted hours. Eventually, while I was fighting, one of the soldiers of that slave army had decapitated my owner, rendering my slave crest null. I immediately surrendered, and we reached an understanding.

After the battle was over, I asked to speak to their leader, if they had one. The person they introduced me to shocked me. At the time I thought they were playing some sort of cruel trick on me. The woman they introduced to me as their leader was an eleven year old girl, dressed in rags and covered in chains. She was the size of a six year old, her skin was pale, even by our standards, her limbs were thin, and she was so thin you could see the rib cage poking out of her skin. But they assured me this was their leader.

I was so angry, I couldn’t accept that my saviour was so frail. I wound up challenging her to  a duel, which she accepted. As we were about to fight, I realized something that I should have realized earlier. I realized that her body was covered in scars. As a warrior myself I knew what they were. Countless scars from countless battles. I also realized that none of her soldiers bothered to stop this duel, and no one was betting anything. They were all watching us, as if the conclusion of this battle was a forgone conclusion.

Then the duel started. I had been fighting and training my whole life, within the frozen, monster filled hell of the Emednes, and yet I could not land a single blow on this eleven year old. Fighting her, she didn’t feel like a human, she felt like some sort of crazed beast. She was faster than any beast that I had fought, though.

For the first time in my life since my childhood, I felt fear. I was afraid of that girl. I never did land a single blow on her, and she broke both of my arms and burnt my leg. I was left completely unable to fight, and I didn’t draw a single drop of blood. I had thought that she was in a completely different realm than me, but afterwards she walked up to me and said “Hey, you seem pretty strong, I was really straining myself through most of that. How about being my bodyguard?”

So after that I worked for her as a bodyguard. I apologized for looking down on her and we traded names. She introduced herself as Pitiful Girl. As we traveled with each other, I realized that her small size, her thin limbs, and her exposed rib cage were a result of her giving up her own food for her soldiers. As we fought, she fought alongside us, and led every single charge. I’m glad to say that she’s doing better now. She’s eating the amount a girl her age should, and she’s not fighting in battle everyday. Things became quite peaceful after she became a Royal Selection Candidate and received her own Domain.”

“Oh, that’s so cool! I couldn’t stop listening to your story, Ruse!” Back in my old life when I was watching anime, I had a thing for really short characters who moved around really fast, and Pitiful seems to be the embodiment of that trope I love so much. 

“Tell me more, I’d love to listen!” 

Ruse laughs. “Me telling you about Pitiful is the first time your eyes light up, huh?”

I pause at this. “Tell me, Kiaran, are you happy here?” 

“What’s with a question like that? I mean, sure. I love speaking with all the people here, and I get along with Noelle really well, but it could be better you know?” Ruse narrows his eyes. 

“Oh? You get along with Noelle do you? Anyway, why do you still work here then? A debt to Jahil, perhaps?” 

“Oh, it’s nothing that dark. It’s just that I’m currently with two friends I’d rather stay close with, and I’m the one raking in the most money to support the three of us.”

“I see. So, will you be content with serving Jahil for the rest of your life?” 

“Of course not! Aubrey’s working in the adventurer’s Guild right now! And Azariah’s going to be learning magic right after she learns to read and write! After a while, we’ll all switch to work in the adventurer’s guild, and we’ll support each other that way.”

“Devotion to each other is important. However, if that's all you have, then you are simply nobody.” The dining room goes silent for a bit. “I serve Pitiful Girl, but my life does not revolve around her. She is very thorough in making sure none of her men end up like that. Work for your friends all you want, but you have to know what you want to do.”

Before I can say anything, Noelle and Baron Wisefang enter. “Ruse! I brought my father!” 

“Good, come on Jahil, we need to talk.” 

“Of course.” Baron Wisefang walks up to us, and when he sees me, he looks really worried. How rude. 

“Alright, Kiaran this is where you leave.” 

“Of course.”

I get up and begin to walk out. “Come on Lady Noelle, let’s leave your father alone with Ruse.” 

“Right.” Noelle starts to follow me out. 

“Don’t worry about Kiaran, Jahil. He’s quite agreeable.” With that statement from Ruse, Baron Wisefang’s worried face turns into one of relief. How rude.