At first, Vincent went out to the village to enjoy the breeze and take a look around. However, he was attacked by a boy who approached him to sell something. Vincent had let his guard down because the boy looked young. A sharp blade was about to pierce his chest, but Vincent quickly dodged, and it only grazed his waist. The guard who was with him caught the boy, but the boy immediately committed suicide upon being caught. It seemed he was trained to do so without hesitation. As a result, they couldn't determine the identity of the attacker.
After that, Vincent became reluctant to go outside. The farthest he would go was to walk around the garden in front of the mansion.
One day, while he was alone in the garden, he was attacked again. A servant who was bringing a light coat to protect against the chilly wind heard a scream and ran over to find a stranger dead with a metal rod stuck in his chest. Vincent, covered in dirt and gasping for breath, had collapsed. The servant quickly gathered people to help.
The attacker was a stranger from outside. Despite investigations, everyone said they had never seen him before. Vincent had managed to escape the attack, hitting the attacker's head with a stone and then stabbing him in the chest with a metal rod nearby. It was a stroke of luck.
However, even with increased security and special vigilance against outsiders, Vincent no longer went outside the mansion.
Another time, he suddenly felt pain and collapsed while eating. Fortunately, he vomited everything he had eaten, so there were no serious consequences. Later, it was discovered that the food had been poisoned.
Not long after, a maid was found dead in the forest. She worked in the kitchen and seemed to have been killed while trying to escape. The identity of the killer was unknown, and it was unclear why she had committed such an act or who had killed her.
Vincent, who had narrowly escaped death, began to feel fear when eating. For a while, he became sensitive during meals, and eventually, he started refusing to eat altogether.
With no outings and no meals, his condition worsened day by day. It would have been better if he could go outside the room, but the mansion received many visitors, and he would be noticed even if he went out for a short time. Indeed, he had been seen once before. Fortunately, nothing serious happened, but it left a strong impression on Vincent, and he moved to a separate wing and stopped leaving his room.
Gradually, he became wary of everything around him, and it is said that he developed severe depression.
The fear that someone was trying to kill him.
The fear of not knowing who it was.
If his blindness were to be known, people would surely question his ability to lead the family. So, he used the excuse of convalescence and stayed in his room, not meeting anyone and gradually withering away.
Hearing this, I felt pity for him for the first time. Physical illness often leads to mental illness. I had experienced how a tired body can become a mental illness, like starving in poverty, stealing bread, and dying.
He was a sick person. Therefore, I tried to understand and accept his sharp temper.
However, I couldn't tolerate his wastefulness of food. I was angry at his behavior. That small bowl of gruel was something I had to beg for, enduring beatings all over my body, just to get a little to eat.
And that man...
"Bad behavior must be punished to be corrected. Whether it's a child or an adult, if they do something wrong, they should be scolded. Haven't you been taught to value food? Or did you learn that because you have so much, you can waste it like this?"
"..."
As I pointed out each fault, my emotions welled up. I, I had to suffer so much to get that little bit of food. I was so upset that I almost cried. But I couldn't cry, even in front of a blind person. It was embarrassing.
I clenched my teeth to prevent my voice from trembling.
Don't do this. Complaining about who is more miserable is something I hate the most. I took a deep breath and picked up the fallen bowl. Fortunately, it didn't break. I roughly wiped the spilled gruel with my apron and stood up.
"I'll bring a new one. If you're worried, I'll eat it first, and then you can eat it. Can't you do that for a coward like you? If you can't eat it all, just eat what you can, and I'll take care of the rest. Will that satisfy you?"
"I won't eat."
"Surely you won't say you won't eat? I'll eat it myself to check if it's poisoned or has rat poison, and I'll sacrifice myself for you. You won't ignore my efforts, will you?"
Surely you wouldn't be so heartless. I dragged out my words and tapped the floor before leaving the room.
I went straight downstairs and asked the cook for a new bowl of gruel. The cook looked at me with pity and gave me a new bowl. I ran back to his room with it.
I knelt in front of the bed again. His face turned to follow my voice. His eyes still couldn't focus and wandered aimlessly.
I made a clinking sound with the gruel to let him hear, took a mouthful, and made chewing sounds before taking another mouthful and offering it to him.
"Ahβ, open up."
But the bowl fell to the floor again.
"Disgusting."
Thud, thud, thud, the sound of the bowl rolling and my rationality snapped.
The gruel was half spilled. I picked it up and returned to the bed. He was looking down at the floor, seemingly aware of my presence.
I took another mouthful of gruel with a spoon and calmly placed the bowl on one side of the bed. Then, I pushed Vincent's shoulder to make him lie down.
Vincent, unable to resist, was laid on the bed. I quickly climbed on top of him, grabbed his stiff neck, and used my weight to keep him from escaping. I forced my thumb into his open mouth and then quickly inserted a spoonful of gruel.
"Choke, choke!"
Vincent struggled. I pressed down on his resisting body with all my strength, feeding him the gruel. I lost my balance a few times, and one of his hands, which had escaped, grabbed my hair, pulling my head back. The pain made my eyes water, but I gritted my teeth and held on.
He tried to dodge the spoon. But with my finger still in his mouth, he couldn't close it.
I looked down, quickly following his face's movements and inserting the spoon. After the spoon was empty, I took another mouthful and repeated the process. I did this quickly and accurately. Eventually, I held the bowl in my hand and fed him directly. My hand holding the spoon was trembling so much that I was almost losing my mind.
"Master, I'm so happy you're eating well!"
"Choke, you, choke!"
"Yes, you're eating well!"
One spoonful, two spoonfuls, three spoonfuls, I kept feeding him until the gruel was half gone. In reality, half of it was going in and half was spilling out, but I didn't care.
When the bowl was empty, my body fell backward. The sense of accomplishment made me relax, and he pushed me away.
I obediently got off the bed with the empty bowl and spoon. I thought my hair was falling out. When I touched my sore scalp, a handful of hair came out. I let out a hollow laugh and turned around. Vincent, with a red face, clutched his throat and shouted.
"You're fired!"
"I was just serving your meal, Master."
"Ha! You're really crazy! Don't you know what you did? How dare you touch someone's body! Are you out of your mind and want to die?"
"Who saw?"
"What?"
I calmly answered his question.
"It was just you and me here. How could anyone else know? How could they know that I put my finger in your mouth and fed you gruel?"
Of course, what I did was worthy of death. If someone had seen, I would have been killed immediately, but now it was just the two of us. The same was true outside the room. Because he couldn't see, he was sensitive to even the slightest sound, so no one passed by this floor.
Moreover, everyone already knew about his terrible temper, which had become even sharper since I arrived. He had the right to fire me, but his word alone wasn't enough to fire a servant.
"Oh, you have a gun. You could have killed me with that. But, Master, does the gun have bullets?"
"..."
He tightly closed his mouth. For a moment, a look of panic crossed his face. I had a hunch. He should have plenty of bullets, so why didn't he shoot? I suppressed a snicker and continued.
"By the way, I hear that it's hard to find people because Master has become very picky. Even the current servants shake their heads at the thought of serving you. If you fire me, there won't be anyone to replace me, so you'll have to stay with me until a new servant is found. For a long time, or forever if no one is found!"
I took a deep breath. My messy bangs fluttered in the wind and fell back down. In that moment, I saw Vincent grinding his teeth. He looked furious.
I smiled at him.
"Please take good care of me in the future, Master."
After that day, our power struggle continued.
I had to force-feed him, and every time I changed his clothes or the sheets and bedcovers, we had a long argument. One day, I tried to persuade him to take a bath because he smelled, but when that didn't work, I tried to drag him to the bathroom and ended up with a bloody nose from hitting his arm.
I held my bleeding nose with my apron and ran into Isabella. My body tensed, and she coldly glanced at me, then turned away without a word. How long had she been standing there? Had she heard the sounds from the room? No, I realized she had already noticed my actions from her expression.