The Villainous Me Turned the Losers into Blackened Bosses-Chapter 270 - Eir’s Wandering (3)

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“Am I allowed to see Will?”

Eir asked the question, her voice steadier now.

The guard didn’t seem to catch the subtle shift in how she referred to herself, the stronger emphasis on ‘I’.

He just...

Averted his gaze.

He felt it – that terrifying intensity in Eir’s eyes.

Within those grey irises, there seemed to be emotions he couldn’t name, boiling just beneath the surface, not directed at him, but ready to erupt.

What was this chilling feeling radiating from her, making the hairs on his neck stand up?

The spear in the guard’s hand trembled slightly. Noticing this tiny detail, Eir tilted her head, her wolf ears twitching with the movement.

That small, seemingly innocent head tilt, amplified by the movement of her ears, struck the guard as even more...

Terrifying.

“What’s wrong? Sir, why are you avoiding my eyes? Tell me... can I see Will? If not today, maybe tomorrow? The day after?”

Eir’s voice remained soft, almost timid, delivering the words with utmost politeness.

But the guard only felt...

As if this warm autumn morning had plunged prematurely into the freezing depths of winter.

`Why?` `She’s just a little maid.` `What am I afraid of?` `Why do I feel cold all over?`

“S-Sorry, ma’am. It’s really not possible... I... I requested permission from Her Majesty...”

“Why not?”

But...

His refusal was cut off instantly.

In his memory, the seemingly shy beastkin maid had never interrupted his refusals before—not even when he was irritable and blunt after a long night shift.

“Eh?”

“I asked you, why not?”

She smiled.

Her eyes crinkled.

It was a radiant smile, yet completely devoid of ‘happiness’.

Beneath the curve of her lips, a deep, simmering ‘anger’ seemed hidden.

“He definitely wants to see me, right? Desperately. He wouldn’t want to be alone there. That lonely, cold palace must be making him incredibly sad.”

“Because Young Master Will needs me the most.”

“He needs the protection of his little maid, who obeys his every command, at all times.”

“Y-Yes, yes, yes...” the guard stammered, unsure why he was agreeing—though the reason was bleedingly obvious. Everyone in the palace knew the Hysterm boy’s status in Her Majesty’s eyes.

Her canary kept in a gilded cage, the anchor for her moods, the person she guarded possessively, wanting her exclusively.

Even without asking, the guard knew he should refuse this maid on the Empress’s behalf.

But...

He was trembling, afraid, terrified of a maid who looked like she couldn’t hurt a fly.

“Young Master Will said so himself!” he blurted out.

`—Can’t blame the boss, gotta shift the blame onto the powerless-looking young master. That should be fine, right?`

Hearing this, Eir’s ears twitched slightly, folding inward as if straining to hear better.

“...Eh?”

`How...` `How could that be?` `What did I just hear?` `Could Mr. Carver... have been telling the truth...?`

Eir’s mind felt like it had been doused in ice water, a sensation chillingly similar to last night when Carver stood before her, declaring her ‘freedom’.

“D-Did you really hear him say that? W-Why didn’t you... tell me before?”

Eir froze the moment the words left her mouth.

She had been clinging so desperately to one thing.

Refusing to believe that ‘one thing’.

Which was...

That the young master truly didn’t need her anymore.

And...

That the young master genuinely wanted to give her back her ‘freedom’.

`Was I always the most useless person in the young master’s eyes?` `Did I never do my best?` `Am I a lazy, bad girl?`

“Y-Yes... that’s right. Honestly, we all know it. From the moment we met your young master... he’s been completely submissive to Her Majesty. Of course... she wouldn’t let anyone else near him.”

“Even, even at the engagement ceremony, when his father came to see him... he... he was quickly taken away!”

“That... Mr. Carver?”

Eir wasn’t clever. She couldn’t dissect information piece by piece like Will, analyze underlying reasons, and formulate solutions.

But her thinking was always straightforward.

A tiny clue, a simple keyword, was enough to spark her imagination, instantly confirming her suspicions without further probing for logical fallacies.

“Though, though I only heard this from an attendant who was there that day,” the guard rushed on. “After talking with Mr. Carver for a few minutes, he voluntarily left with Her Majesty. But I can guarantee, he...”

The guard didn’t know why, but seeing Eir today made him want to say more—even things forbidden by palace rules. He wanted to use more words to dissuade her, to make her leave.

Because...

He dreaded seeing this maid show up here again.

He had a ominous feeling that the next time she came, she would do something terrifying.

So, he wanted to deliver the ‘verdict’ quickly—

“He probably doesn’t want any connection to his past anymore.”

“!!!”

Eir’s eyes flew wide open.

She felt her heart pound faster and faster, yet paradoxically, her body grew colder.

“...Why wouldn’t he tell me himself?”

“No idea. I’ve never seen him leave the palace, anyway. But... apparently, he went out with Her Majesty today. At least, that’s what Her Majesty told me.”

“Is... is that so?”

Eir’s tail drooped.

Her ears on top of her head flattened downwards.

It was as if, in that instant, she understood why she’d been so restless since last night, why her gaze kept wandering, why her thoughts wouldn’t focus.

She also understood why she had been so fixated on coming here.

This past month, losing contact with Will for a month, felt like returning to a time long, long ago.

To her earliest memories, as an ‘abandoned’ beastkin, wandering a seemingly endless forest during the cold, harsh late autumn just before winter.

Even though it was so long ago, the memories of fighting wild animals for food, huddling under pitiful leaves during rainstorms, dodging small forest fires—those details were blurred.

But the ‘feeling’ remained sharp.

So cold, so very cold.

The air thick with icy moisture, every leaf underfoot freezing cold.

She hugged her tail tightly but couldn’t generate enough warmth alone. If not for her natural resistance to cold, she might not have survived long enough to be found by the Hysterm family, might not have even made it to true winter.

The towering trees overhead felt like upright coffins, looking down with indifference at everything beneath their canopy, assuming all they saw was already dead.

She was like an abandoned puppy left in a pitiful, open-topped wooden box on the side of the road.

Fur dirty, matted, messy.

Ears drooping, looking like she wouldn’t live much longer.

Curled up, unable to open her eyes, peering out of her coffin-box with a mixture of hope and terror.

If only someone offered food, if only someone provided a tiny flame for warmth, if only someone would stroke her fur and tell her not to be afraid...

She would cling to them tightly.

She really, really didn’t want to go back to that time.

Even if everyone, everyone, thought she could ‘stand on her own’...

The truth was, from the very first afternoon she met the young master...

Even before he handed her the ‘300 Questions for Going Dark’...

She had already...

“Ma’am... are... are you alright?”

The guard felt the surrounding ‘coldness’ lessen slightly, but conversely, Eir’s mood seemed even stranger.

Eir looked up, realizing her hands were gripping her own arms tightly, a distinctly odd posture.

“Do you need... me to call a doctor or something?”

“No.”

Eir shook her head, refusing the offer.

She had her ‘answer’.

Since the young master himself had rejected her, perhaps she shouldn’t bother him anymore.

`So cold.`

So cold that, paradoxically, her senses sharpened incredibly. The slightest rustle of wind through grass felt like an icy stab.

Just as Eir stood up straight, preparing to leave, she twitched her nose. She seemed to catch a scent...

A familiar scent.

In that instant, she felt the blood within her suddenly run hot.

No, not quite familiar, because she hadn’t smelled it often—couldn’t smell it too often.

But...

It was a smell she’d smelled once and would never forget for the rest of her life.

As a canine creature, Will had stressed to her more than once that her nose was an invaluable asset, that she should cultivate the ability to remember various scents from a young age.

It was just...

When her thoughts were tangled elsewhere, she might briefly register a smell without analyzing it—her brain could only focus on one thing at a time.

Precisely in that moment of relaxation, she analyzed the familiar scent.

The young master’s scent...

But...

The scent of his blood.

Which was why...

It was both ‘unforgettable’ and ‘rare’.

Eir’s eyes shot wide open again. She scanned her surroundings, not just visually focusing harder, but her ears also seemed capable of picking up every minute detail within the rustling grass.

Young Master Will was remarkably mature for his age. When other children stumbled even walking on flat ground—when even she struggled with balance—he seemed to have already mastered walking with balance and grace.

Plus, his athletic talent wasn’t strong, so injuries during physical activity were few and far between.

Eir had only... only smelled this scent once before, when Will first came to the city and got burned!

He had shown her the injured arm, letting her lick it clean, and his arm carried this scent.

`A very strong blood scent... possibly a very deep wound... maybe he hurt somewhere critical... a situation with massive blood loss.`

She stopped dead in her tracks, head whipping around, searching frantically. She tilted her head up, angling her nose to catch more air, sample a wider space.

“Young Master?! Young Master, are you here? Where are you? Eir... Eir is worried, you... please come out!”

`Here.` `It’s this direction.` `In these bushes.`

She stumbled forward, drawn by the scent. The smell of Will’s blood in her nostrils made her own blood rush faster, feeling like she’d spent the morning sitting in a sauna!

The scent she caught just now was right...

Eir gently knelt, parting the grass with her hands, revealing...

`296`

“Q-Question... two hundred ninety-six,” she whispered.

No conscious thought required. The moment she saw the number, her entire being reacted automatically. She began reciting the contents of the ‘300 Questions’ word for word.

Because every time the young master wrote a number in front of her, he told her that in the future, seeing a number should trigger the instinctive recall of the corresponding question’s content.

Only by mastering this, only then, could she obtain that ‘true love’ in the future.

“If... If...”

Her heart leaped, her lips stretched into a manic grin, her tail began wagging uncontrollably, and her ears shot straight up again.

She could even feel the surrounding ‘bitter cold’ gradually fading away.

“...If the one you love teams up with other women... or even other ‘species’, and forces you into a desperate situation, what should you do?”

Word perfect.

Eir, who remembered even the punctuation Will had used, recited the sentence, her voice trembling with emotion.

`YES!` `That’s it!` `The young master, leaving this clue in his own blood on the ground, definitely hadn’t forgotten his little maid Eir!` `Because because because because because BECAUSE—`

`This is a secret just between her and Will—only she could memorize the entirety of the ‘300 Questions’, only she could understand the meaning when Will wrote down a single number!`

`And that heavy book, thumbed through and caressed by Eir countless times, was the only one of its kind in the world. Eir had once searched every bookstore in the entire capital of Entark and couldn’t find a second copy of the book Will had written solely for her.`

“First... Hah... Hah... Believe one thing... he... he cannot possibly hate you. He cannot possibly fall out of love and abandon you for someone else,” she recited, catching her breath.

`YES!` `That’s it, I understand what Young Master means!`

“Second, find the woman standing beside him, and teach her a harsh lesson.”

She stopped panting, stopped trembling. As the maid trained by Will for years, exceptionally strong both physically and magically, she wouldn’t keep gasping over something this minor.

“Finally, take back the person who loves you. Protect him... keep him close, make it impossible for him to ever hate you.”

“Mm, Eir understands what you mean, Young Master!”

“You love Eir.”

“You need Eir.”

“You are desperate for Eir to save you.”

“As long as you always always always always need Eir, Eir will always always always always be here, just like before, being your dog, okay~?”

She looked up.

Today truly felt so warm.

She couldn’t feel any coldness.

It was as if the winter that had been relentlessly closing in, tormenting her, had finally ended at this very moment.

Except...

Beneath her feet, each step sent ripples across the ground, leaving behind a thin, ephemeral layer of frost flowers.

“Oh, I also need to get... that shield... from the carriage.”

“Because, if he sees that I didn’t bring the gift he gave Eir...”

“He would be sad, right?”

“Eir doesn’t want Young Master to cry.”

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