Pig Prince Ethan (2)

Even though I sent Ethan to the dining room with the promise that I’d make him something simple to eat, the truth was, sadly, I wasn’t talented at cooking.

This wasn’t some web novel where the protagonist, transported to another world, captivated the locals’ palates with all sorts of dishes, and for me, who had lived the life of an ordinary man in South Korea, cooking amounted to nothing more than simple bachelor meals.

Even then, most of those couldn’t be made here.

What kind of cooking could I do in a place without ramen, canned goods, or microwaves-all essentials for a bachelor?

From the start, any cooking that used fire would inevitably leave traces, so in this situation, the most I could do was raw food.

Among this ridiculously abundant amount of fruits and vegetables, slicing up a few that were fine to eat raw was the most plausible solution.

The taste would probably be mediocre at best, but that wasn’t my concern.

And honestly, I didn’t even want to make it taste good.

It wasn’t out of some malicious intent like not wanting to see Ethan’s happy face, but rather because if I made it too delicious, that brat might annoyingly cling to me even more.

Let me reiterate, I intended to escape from Ethan and ultimately flee the Blackwood Family.

As Ethan’s exclusive maid, Lilith Rosewood, I had never for a moment harbored ambitions of educating this brat and raising him into a proper, decent man. Unless it was devising ways to avoid getting involved with Ethan as much as possible.

Right now, I was only dealing with him out of necessity, to get him out of the kitchen.

“Among these, what can be eaten raw… I guess only tomatoes and turnips.”

Well, this should be fine. If he was truly hungry, he’d eat whatever I served him. If not, it meant he was full, and I could just send him back upstairs.

Half a turnip, peeled cleanly with Clean Magic, and one tomato, uniformly sliced and placed into a salad plate.

I lightly drizzled something that was presumably honey over it.

Honey was quite an expensive seasoning in this world, but it wasn’t like I was going to eat it anyway.

If I was questioned later, I could just say I fed it to Ethan. Harold wouldn’t say anything about something his own child ate, right?

So, I casually gathered only the available ingredients, made the Tomato Turnip Salad, put it on a plate, and took it to the dining room.

I placed it down, along with a fork, in front of the brat who was sitting in his seat, waiting for me.

“Here is your Tomato Turnip Salad, Master.”

“Tomato Turnip…? Is this all…?”

“I told you, didn’t I? I can’t make troublesome dishes. If you want a proper meal, please come back at 9 AM.”

“…….”

“If you don’t have an appetite, I’ll just clear it away.”

“Ah, no! I’ll eat it! Leave it!”

He hesitated for a moment at the menu laid out before him, but it seemed hunger had won out over his pickiness.

He blocked my hand as I reached for the plate and quickly grabbed the fork.

-Chomp!

“Gulp, gulp.”

“…….”

…Seriously, I’d rather not watch.

Where on earth had he sold off his noble etiquette? Watching Ethan gobble it down, the expression ‘eating like a pig’ fit him perfectly.

His mouth was practically smeared with food, as if he’d deliberately rubbed it on, and watching him constantly dribble food onto the table made me sigh involuntarily.

Even if his wife had died and he was raising his son alone, a thirteen-year-old noble should surely have basic etiquette training, shouldn’t he?

As my anger towards Ethan, and even his father Harold, steadily grew in my mind,

Ethan, who had already emptied his plate, shoved the empty salad plate towards me.

“I finished eating!”

“…If you just leave it there, I’ll clear it away later.”

“Okay!”

-Thump!

“…….”

I told you to leave it on the table, not throw it.

Due to the impact, the remaining liquid in the plate splattered all over the tablecloth, making the already messy tablecloth even dirtier.

In other words, after Ethan left, I would also have to thoroughly clean this spot.

It was a relief that I could clean it up neatly with just one Clean Magic spell; otherwise, I might have unconsciously blurted out profanity.

“Did it suit your taste?”

“No!”

‘This little bastard?’

“But I’m full, so it’s fine!”

“…Ah, yes. I see.”

Would it kill him to say it tasted good, even if it was just a white lie?

Then again, expecting manners and refinement from this brat, who had food smeared all around his mouth, was probably the problem to begin with.

The silver lining was that since he said he was full, I could now send him back to his room.

“Young Master, please turn your face this way.”

“Huh? Mmph…”

“If you go around with food smeared all over your mouth like this, your refinement will be questioned.”

‘And if it’s discovered what you gorged on all night, I’ll be in trouble too.’

“Mmph, mmph…”

“That’s enough.”

After roughly wiping away the dribble around his chin with my maid uniform’s apron, it looked a little better, at least.

The fact that I still didn’t want to look at him was simply due to my personal dislike of his original appearance.

His rumbling stomach had been filled one way or another, so it was time to kick him out of the kitchen.

“It would be best for you to go up to your bedroom and sleep now. Do you need an escort?”

“No!”

“Our brave Young Master can overcome the darkness of the night all by himself, I see. Please go carefully, Young Master.”

“Okay!”

“And what happened today will be a secret between just the two of us. I won’t bother telling the Master or the other maids about the Young Master, so I ask that the Young Master also keep our secret.”

‘Especially the part where I pointed a knife at you in the storage room.’

“Okay! Got it!”

His face was utterly untrustworthy, but there was nothing more I could do now.

All I could do was hope that Pig Prince Ethan would keep his promise to me.

He probably wouldn’t want to blab to everyone in the neighborhood that he’d left his bedroom in the middle of the night because he was hungry, anyway.

…That’s assuming he had even a shred of shame, though.

“I ate well!”

“…Good night, Young Master.”

Ethan, who at least gave a somewhat human-like answer in the end, closed the kitchen door and returned to his bedroom.

I used Clean Magic to tidy up the messy dining room and the dishes Ethan had used, one by one.

The fact that I didn’t have to chew a clove of garlic every time I used magic was at least a good thing in this regard. If it had been yesterday, I would have had to chew one or two cloves of garlic even while clearing the dishes like this.

While it might be much less efficient in terms of growth, it also meant that I had grown significantly through my magic training yesterday.

Even so, I didn’t seem to have the luxury of feeling impressed by the increased maximum mana capacity.

Since I had wasted unnecessary time because of Ethan today, I had to quickly get started on today’s portion of work, and after quickly finishing the dish cleanup, I began peeling today’s portion of garlic with Clean Magic.

For my own growth, and to avoid being suspected by my other colleagues.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Ethan Richard Blackwood’s childhood was unhappy.

To some, it might sound strange to attach the descriptor ‘unhappy’ to someone who grew up without want in the great Blackwood Ducal Family, but at least Ethan himself didn’t think his life was particularly enjoyable.

Because of his father, who had achieved such great feats, and his mother, who had left his side when he was young.

Born to the heir of the Blackwood Family and the Archmage, a treasure of the Empire, Ethan Richard Blackwood came into the world with the expectations of the entire Empire resting upon him.

Since he was a child born from the two most esteemed bloodlines under the heavens, they believed that their offspring must also have been born with brilliant magical talent.

His father, at merely ten years old, had split the Empire’s city walls in half with Magic Swordsmanship, and his mother was a prodigy who read advanced major textbooks from the Academy starting at age eight.

Naturally, it was only to be expected that young Ethan would also grow up receiving everyone’s expectations.

‘Since he is the son born between Harold-nim and Tanasia-nim, he might even show prominence from an earlier age than both of them.’

The expectations from those around him, which he had received even before he could walk, gradually accumulated as a burden in young Ethan’s heart.

As he grew older year by year, the excessive expectations placed on young Ethan only grew larger.

‘Since he is the son of two individuals who were brilliant from a young age, he might show something even from the age of six.’

‘If he was born with both of their talents, he would surely show prominence around age seven.’

‘Tanasia-nim began reading advanced magicology texts from the age of eight, so perhaps Ethan-nim also….’

‘If the Young Master inherited the talents of both, then starting this year, he would probably show something….’

‘Harold-nim reached the Sword Expert realm at ten years old, so perhaps Ethan-nim also….’

‘Around this time, he should be manifesting his talent….’

‘Why is he the child of Tanasia-nim and Harold-nim, yet he still can’t do anything?’

Too many expectations for a child not even ten years old to bear.

Although no one directly told Ethan himself to achieve something, he wasn’t so foolish as to be unable to read such an atmosphere, even as a child.

Every time he heard the blind expectations directed at him, Ethan would constantly agonize over his own talent.

He hadn’t been born with an aptitude for swordsmanship imbued with mana, like his father, nor did he have the mind to comprehend specialized magic knowledge, like his mother.

The first talent a ten-year-old child realized he possessed was not an aptitude for handling mana or understanding magic knowledge, but the fact that his own talent was endlessly lacking compared to his parents’.

Despite all this, the reason Ethan was able to grow up without going astray until the age of ten was thanks to his mother, Tanasia.

No matter how lacking he was or how much he failed to meet expectations, only his mother was always there to comfort and embrace him.

Unlike others, she didn’t send him gazes filled with expectation; instead, she simply loved him for who he was.

One day, when he was ten years old, from the moment his mother passed away from illness, Ethan’s mind slowly began to break.

It was the moment when the last person who understood him, who had been supporting his already precarious mind, disappeared.

Of course, his father Harold’s affection for Ethan was by no means less than Tanasia’s.

It was simply that Ethan was too young to discern the gruff emotions that were rarely expressed.

Having lost his mother, his sole emotional support, and in a desolate mansion where his gruff father didn’t look at him,

and with countless gazes still fixed on him, as if watching to see when he would finally awaken his talent.

In the vast space where he felt like the only alien presence, Ethan frequently lost himself, wandering aimlessly through the mansion.

…The change in that child’s personality began with a single, trivial incident.

-Crash!

‘Kyaaaah!’

‘Y-Young Master!’

‘Young Master Ethan fell down the stairs! Get a doctor, quick!’

In a world turned upside down, at the moment servants gathered around him one by one.

For some reason, Ethan felt an unprecedented sense of comfort in that atmosphere.

Despite far more eyes than usual being fixed entirely on him, it was the only moment when he felt absolutely no expectations directed at him.