The Crown Prince Who Raises a Side Character

Episode 42: Servant Cedric (8) – The Lord of Etched

Episode 42: Servant Cedric (8) – The Lord of Etched

“Don’t you think the young lady has changed since her apology?”

“Indeed. There’s no reckless striking anymore, and even when she scolds, it ends with words.”

“M-me, I was praised for polishing the shoes well the other day. I thought she didn’t care about what we did at all, but it seems she was watching everything.”

“My mother fell ill, and I had to rush home, but the young lady gave me a day off. How deeply considerate she is.”

“Actually, for someone of her station, isn’t she a decent mistress? At least she doesn’t withhold our wages.”

“Is that so? Still, those old tantrums were a bit much…”

“Ahem! Tantrums! Just a temporary period of wandering, wandering! Isn’t that to be expected at that age!”

“Just the other day you were grumbling she was an intolerable mistress, if not for the wages.”

“W-what are you saying! Don’t go fabricating things that never happened!”

Murmur, murmur.

Whisper, whisper.

The Redbell Manor, erected within the Etched Territory.

The servants there were recently preoccupied, day after day, chattering about the changes in their ‘young mistress’.

Initially, the servants observed her with a mixture of suspicion and unease, their eyes darting about. But as Claudia actively displayed a friendly and dignified demeanor, they slowly began to relax their guard.

The sudden shift was undeniably disconcerting, even perplexing.

Yet, if asked whether they disliked the change, the answer would be a resounding no.

Which was more desirable as a superior, a mad dog who might snap and bite at any moment, or a kind and graceful noble lady? There was simply no comparison.

However, Claudia’s perspective, the one at the heart of these hushed whispers, was somewhat different.

“I’m exhausted… this is so tiring…”

Inside Claudia’s room.

She whined, collapsed onto the table.

To always be mindful of everyone’s gaze, to maintain a demeanor and speech that would garner their favour and respect, was an undertaking that consumed an immense amount of mental fortitude and stamina, far beyond imagination.

Especially so for Claudia, who was accustomed to immediately expressing her irritation when displeased and acting upon her desires without delay.

“Cedric, how long do I have to keep this up?”

“Hahaha, My Lady, what a question to ask. Why, for the rest of your life, of course.”

At Cedric’s response, Claudia’s face was painted with an indescribable despair.

“Really? I have to keep up this charade for the rest of my life?”

“That is how most people in society live, my Lady. To live revealing all one’s desires and dissatisfactions is closer to being a beast than a human!”

“Are you implying that your mistress is a beast?”

“Which do you prefer, my Lady, a truth seasoned with personal opinion or a plain, objective truth?”

“…Never mind. I’d rather not hear it.”

“What a pity. I had hoped to offer my Lady yet another invaluable piece of advice.”

Claudia glared petulantly at Cedric, who clicked his tongue as if genuinely regretful, before letting out a heavy sigh.

Even amidst her grumblings and complaints, Claudia couldn’t deny the astonishingly rapid rise in how others perceived her.

Truth be told, the effect was so dramatic, so swift, that she felt almost bewildered.

“While I commend your joy at these achievements, this is merely a beginning. It’s hardly a performance worthy of showing Marquis Redbell just yet.”

Cedric’s words, like a dash of cold water, momentarily furrowed her brow, but she quickly straightened her posture and inquired,

“Then, what should I do next?”

“Allow me to reconfirm, just to be certain, that you are, in fact, the Lady of this Eched territory?”

She nodded.

“In name, yes. The estate manager handles the actual administration. It’s just some backwater; I don’t really care for it.”

“We must correct your perception, then. This is by no means a backwater territory.”

“What?”

Claudia looked perplexed, but Cedric’s conviction remained unchanged.

Indeed, in his eyes, Eched was far from being an undervalued place.

The Adventurer Vern, active primarily in the Eastern Branch of the guild. The population of the city where that Eastern Branch was located numbered in the thousands.

Yet, Eched’s population easily surpassed ten thousand, and its territory was nearly five times larger.

The reason Claudia perceived it as a ‘backwater’ was simple.

Redbell’s other territories were even more lucrative.

‘I see now why the Adventurer’s Guild, with its anti-noble leanings and reach across the kingdom, doesn’t simply draw their swords on incompetent rural nobles. The power of the nobles near the capital is far too strong.’

The territories of the Royal Family, the Marquisates, and the Earldoms, the so-called three pillars of the kingdom, together barely accounted for more than 30% of the national land.

Yet, in terms of population, that 30% held roughly the same number of people as the remaining 70%, or perhaps even more.

With a large population concentrated in a relatively small area, talent and capital were abundant, and the development of each territory was far more advanced.

For Cedric, it was an unbalanced structure that could lead to numerous problems, but for now, it was a structure that benefited him.

Otherwise, the Marquis Redvel wouldn’t have handed over an estate of this size to his outcast daughter, calling it “the backwoods.”

“Listen carefully. From now on, the things the young lady must do are—”

*

“From today on, I’ll be managing things here directly, so you can take a rest.”

When Claudia stormed into the residence like that, demanding such a thing, the Etched estate’s steward felt emotions that were rather complex.

But after cutting away all the trivialities, if it were to be compressed into a single word, it could be expressed like this:

‘Presumptuous.’

With a benevolent smile plastered on his face like a mask, the steward spoke to Claudia.

“Lady Claudia, your words are so abrupt they are difficult to understand. You’re suddenly telling me to step down?”

“Isn’t Etched my estate? What’s the problem with the estate lord managing their own domain directly?”

There is.

A great deal of them.

From the start, Claudia’s position as estate lord was not granted in the proper sense.

Due to her wretched personality making activities like social gatherings or temple service – things expected of a proper noble lady – impossible, they forcefully bestowed the title upon Claudia in order to feign that she was simply to busy with her estate and therefore, excuse her absence from normal activities.

It was nothing more than a paper-thin credential to artificially inflate her worth for a future political marriage using Claudia.

Beneath his smiling façade, the estate steward clicked his tongue inwardly.

From his perspective, having been entrusted with the management of this place by the Marquis, every second wasted talking to this immature girl felt like a pure waste.

“Heh heh heh, Lady Claudia. Managing an entire estate is an undertaking requiring immense responsibility and a great deal of effort. If you jump in with a light heart and cause chaos in the estate, the Marquis would be most distressed.”

A flinch, and—

The Landlord’s proxy didn’t miss the way Claudia stiffened.

He felt a smug satisfaction bloom within him.

‘Hmph. If they were mere, rootless servants, perhaps. But do you think your tantrums will work on me, who received direct orders from the Marquis?’

Had it been one of Claudia’s other siblings who arrived, the Landlord’s proxy might not have been so blatantly dismissive.

But Claudia was an exception.

Claudia’s mother had been of the Birkan royal line, but the support her mother received from her maternal family was less than that given to a middling country noble.

The Birkan royal family of that era lacked anyone with outstanding legitimacy or ability among its members, leading to an endless cycle of political infighting, and they were unwilling to expend the royal family’s power and resources to support a former royal who had become an ‘outsider.’

While her other siblings, who had also lost their mother, inherited and absorbed the various tangible and intangible assets their first mother possessed, Claudia was wholly reliant on her father, the Marquis, and even that relationship could hardly be called amicable.

All outward appearances, but in truth, a young lady with no real power.

There was no reason whatsoever for him, a vassal entrusted with an entire territory, to be intimidated or shrink away from someone like Claudia.

That is.

‘Logically,’ that was the case.

“I shall pretend I didn’t hear today’s words. So, you should leave at once─”

“─Now.”

Claudia’s voice, chillingly low.

By the time the Landlord’s proxy regained his senses, a crimson, two-headed wolf had materialized and pinned him to the floor.

Grrrrrrr!

Grrrrrrr!

A physique forged as if from congealed blood. The monstrous wolf with two heads emitted growls from each of its snouts.

The Landlord’s proxy could only gape, unable even to scream, overwhelmed by the demonic beast’s presence that looked as if it would tear his throat out and devour his head at any moment.

“L-Lady Claudia!!”

The escort knights, who’d entered the reception room with the Lord Deputy, reacted with alarm, hands flying to the hilts of their swords, but their response was far too slow.

Already, fearsome Bloodfiends, radiating palpable malice and power, had materialized before them, their forms a stark warning.

At the sight of the Bloodfiends, poised as if ready to pounce at a moment’s notice, the knights swallowed hard.

As retainers loyal to House Redbell, they knew well the nature of these creatures.

Their raw power alone was formidable, but coupled with their relentless ferocity, completely unconcerned with any injury…

They were enemies best avoided even with a properly formed battle line and coordinated assault, let alone in a confined space, caught half-ambushed.

In the end, all they could manage was to raise their voices in desperate appeal.

“Lady Claudia!! Have you lost your mind?!”

“Speaking of which, it seems to me it’s *you* who have lost yours?”

Claudia’s gaze, filled with a mixture of exasperation and loathing, pierced the Lord Deputy and his men.

It felt like being grasped by the torso in a giant fist and slowly, meticulously, stabbed with shards of ice, and they found themselves involuntarily overwhelmed.

“A mere deputy dares to intimidate the Lord? And you, over there. Just now, you called this cur ‘Lord’, not ‘Lord Deputy’. While you call *me*, the true Lord, ‘Lady Claudia’, and call the *Deputy* ‘Lord’? Amusing, isn’t it? Hmm?”

As if echoing Claudia’s fury, the Bloodfiends intensified the aura of menace emanating from them.

Emotions are, in many ways, akin to consumables.

Emotions expressed too often, become frivolous.

But those emotions long suppressed, held in check, become overwhelming when finally released.

Claudia, forced to maintain a façade of composure for the sake of the servants, unleashed the savage temperament she had been struggling to contain. The Lord Deputy and his cohorts were rendered breathless.

Claudia, fixing her gaze on the Deputy pinned to the floor, declared each syllable with deliberate weight.

“Go and tell my father. That I will change Etched. That the decision regarding my purpose can wait until he sees the results.”

“Uh, well.”

“Know this: should you twist my words, I’ll remember every single one of your faces here. Even if I’m sold off to some godforsaken place, I still have the means to hunt you down and turn you into wolf fodder. So mind your manners.”

“……”

“No reply?”

“A-aye, understood! We’ll deliver the message! So, please, just, take this demonic beast away!”

Claudia scoffed. The blood-mana beast, which had been pinning the acting lord with its forepaw, stepped back and settled by Claudia’s side.

Even after the blood-mana beast had retreated, the acting lord gasped for air several times.

The look on his face, as he glanced repeatedly at Claudia, suggested he had much to say, yet in the end, he left the residence quietly, without uttering a single complaint. His guards followed suit.

Claudia then issued orders to Bestien, the head butler she’d brought from her villa, and a few of the servants.

“Inform the servants in this residence that I am now in charge. Those who accept it readily, absorb them into our ranks. Those who don’t, cast them aside, and you will take their places. But remember, even when you cast them aside, you must ensure they reveal all their knowledge regarding their duties.”

“Understood, Mademoiselle.”

Perhaps it was because she had specifically chosen those who were especially amicable to her and displayed fervent loyalty, but no one voiced any discontent or worry.

With all the other servants gone from the room, Claudia sat in the chair the acting lord had occupied just moments before. She turned to Cedric, the only servant remaining in the room, and asked,

“…Can I do this?”

Cedric replied,

“Regrettably, I possess no gift for seeing the future, and therefore cannot provide you with a definitive answer to that question.”

“Haa, yes. I suppose not.”

“However.”

“?”

Cedric chuckled, a soft sound.

“Truth be told, I do believe the current young lady suits the role of my mistress far better than one who spends her days venting frustration and wasting time. “

Not a trace of the manic edge he often possessed, but a gentle smile and words spoken with surprising tenderness.

“Ugh.”

Claudia, caught off guard by the remark, blushed crimson. Quickly regaining her composure, she scoffed and straightened her posture.

“Insolent, coming from a servant.”