The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 204 The Demon Kron (2) - The First Step of Control When he first examined the breakfast table, if Kron's impression could be summarized in one word, it would be as follows. 'At this point, it's actually amusing in a way.' Dark, hard rye bread with a sour taste. Thin soup where the only ingredients were a few vegetable scraps. A drink that wasn't so much water mixed with wine, but rather water with just a few drops of wine mixed in. Even as empty words, this was not a suitable meal for a young lady of a high-ranking family like a Count's household. Despite being the eldest daughter of a Count's family, she had to eat alone in an annex separated from her family, and the wooden table had no tablecloth covering it, leaving the wood grain completely exposed. Most decisive of all was the servants' attitude. There was no feeling whatsoever of emotions like being sorry for serving such things, or finding this situation uncomfortable. In the servants' minds, the person called Kuella Ospin was someone who 'could be treated like this without any problem.' Kron, who thought this first needed to be torn down and rebuilt, immediately began taking action. *** The maid who had been slapped by 'Kuella Ospin' writhed on the floor where she had fallen. Everyone froze at that sudden situation, but only for a moment. Soon the other servants began clamoring with panicked faces. "La-Lady Kuella! What is the meaning of this!!" "Even if you didn't like the meal, how could you treat a person like this...!" "If she knew you did such undignified things as the young lady of a Count's family, the mistress would be angry too!!" Each time someone added another word, their voices and momentum grew stronger. The fact that they were a group rather than alone gave them courage. At their resentful voices and gazes that seemed to say they wouldn't let this go unless she apologized immediately, Kuella unconsciously swallowed her breath. Even though she was just a floating spirit drifting beside Kron now, she felt like she would panic from the pressure. 'Wh-what are you planning to do...!' Whether or not he knew of Kuella's anxiety, Kron looked over the servants' faces one by one with a calm expression, then soon pointed out one of them. "Charlie. Did you just ask me what I think I'm doing?" "Yes?" Perhaps not expecting his name to be called, Charlie's body noticeably stiffened. The other servants also closed their mouths, unable to join the conversation since he had pointed out Charlie specifically rather than themselves. That was precisely Kron's aim. Drawing the opponent down not as a group, but as a single individual. "Charlie, Charlie. Do you understand what you've just done?" "Wh-what do you mean, miss?" "A mere servant dared to intimidate a noble, me Kuella Ospin the eldest daughter of Count Ospin's family, and questioned my actions. It's an attitude that could only come from looking down on nobles quite considerably." "That was, well, solely to assist so that the miss wouldn't go down the wrong path─" "Who are you to do that?" Snort. A smile caught at the corner of Kron's mouth. It was a sneer that anyone could see was mocking. "Are you a tutor who teaches me? Or a nanny who nursed and raised me? Or perhaps the Head Butler who manages the household's affairs? Or did father specifically mention to you 'it's fine to scold my daughter'?" "It's nothing like that, but..." "Ah, so in other words, you have no particular position and no assigned duties, but you just tried to teach your lord's blood relative because it bothered you? To suit the tastes of a mere servant like you? How amusing. Put in a little more effort and you'd probably try to crush me in bed." "Ah, miss." After turning his gaze away from Charlie who was stammering without being able to properly refute anything, Kron spoke to the maid who had been babbling about how 'the meal wasn't to her liking.' "Nina. You seem to think I'm complaining about the food, but I'm not angry because of the menu itself. I'm angry at your lies and insults." "Lies? Miss, what lies did we supposedly tell?" "Then shall I go straight to the kitchen?" "What?" The maid's eyes widened. "I'll go look at the pots. See if there's any warmth left. If food served immediately has no warmth, naturally there wouldn't be any heat in the pots and hearth either, right?" At Kron's appearance as if he might step out immediately, the maid showed signs of restlessness. Of course she had to be. While it might be different if enough time had passed after mealtime, there was no way the kitchen's heat could have completely disappeared now when the food had just been brought out. She glanced sideways at the maid who had been slapped and fallen, then soon changed her words. "Th-the thing about no firewood was probably said wrongly due to some mistake." "A mistake. So you're saying there was firewood but my soup still came out cold? Why was that? The head chef's mistake? Then should I tell the head chef that 'Maid Nina says you're a chef with garbage-level skills who can't even control temperature, which is the most basic of cooking basics'?" "I didn't say that!" "Then why was it like that?" "That's, well..." Of course it was because her stepmother or younger sister had instigated it. But she couldn't say that outright. Because they had only given 'subtle pressure' after all, not specific pointed instructions. "Stop this, miss. Constantly nitpicking words like this is not good behavior! The mistress will be angry too!" Whether she thought Nina would misspeak if this continued, or thought she would be next, the last of the three who had initially raised their voices - a middle-aged woman - stepped forward. Repeatedly mentioning the mistress over and over again was clearly the appearance of intimidating and threatening Kron. Therefore, Kron answered simply. "Then go and tell her." "So even now, yes?" "Go and tattle on me? That Miss Kuella has lost her mind. Instead of being unable to say anything and just quietly enduring it when we torment her like before, she 'dares' to try to discipline the servants. You should come quickly and scold her instead." "...You'll regret this, miss." "But you know what? You. How much is your salary?" At Kron's sudden words, not only the woman who had been talking but also the other servants showed bewilderment and confusion in their eyes, not knowing what he meant. "I have the name value of being the Count's eldest daughter. When I'm sold off in a political marriage, a quite decent amount of dowry will come into this family. Conversely, if something goes wrong with me, that same amount of money evaporates. For example, if I threaten to slash my face with a knife right now unless those damned servants are fired. Wouldn't that be quite unfortunate from the 'mistress's' perspective? Hm?" Kron brought his face right up close to the woman's nose. The woman who met Kron's glaring eyes head-on couldn't even turn her face away and trembled violently. "Imagine you're the mistress. Apart from the disobedient eldest daughter being infuriating, wouldn't the servants who failed to manage the product properly and thus prevented her from getting money also be quite infuriating? Since it's not her loss anyway, wouldn't it be more efficient to just get rid of a few servants and make the product stay quiet for a while?" "......" No answer came back. Kron snorted and then pushed the woman with a light shove. It was a gesture with no real force behind it, but even so the woman sat down on the spot as if her legs had given out. Until Kron returned to his seat and sat down in the chair, not one of the servants could open their mouth or move their body. Toward such servants, Kron smiled slyly. "I'll tolerate it and eat it this time, so bring proper food from next time. If you understand, all of you get lost. Oh, and take that girl collapsed on the floor with you." *** The table left alone after people departed. Kuella in spirit form watched with a dazed expression as Kron moved the utensils with a calm demeanor. She had plenty of things she wanted to say, but none of them could properly become words and seemed to just hover around on her tongue. "Staring at someone else's face while they eat can hardly be called good manners." Suddenly, words flowed from Kron's mouth. It took about ten seconds for Kuella to realize those words were directed at her. 'What? Oh, ah. I'm sorry!' "Well, it's nothing to apologize for. When you think about it, it's your body and your face." Saying that, Kron shrugged his shoulders, and his tone, expression, and behavior were quite masculine. In an atmosphere quite different from the picky and haughty noble young lady when driving away the servants earlier, Kuella carefully asked a question. 'Is... Lord Kron... a male?' "Why do you ask that? Ah, because of the way of speaking? If that's the case, I can change it as much as I want. Now, how about this?" The somewhat provocative attitude and expression flowed naturally like water into another form. With gestures exuding the dignity of a noble young lady, Kron continued speaking. "Well, if we're talking about individual, no, individual demon convenience, it's true that masculine speech patterns are more comfortable. But there's meaning in the process of adapting to unfamiliar things too. Especially this body is so thin and light that it feels quite different. In the sense that one wrong hit might send me straight to the next world, it feels like being required to play a no-hit run with 1 HP?" Whether it was because he was indeed a demon, it was a metaphor that Kuella couldn't understand at all. "So, Kuella. How do you feel about it?" 'Yes?' "I'm asking about your impression of watching the servants who had been subtly tormenting you get their comeuppance." 'Uh...' Kuella fell into thought for a moment. How was her impression? Of course it was already decided. '...It was exhilarating.' The four people who either got slapped by Kron or were verbally destroyed this time were particularly the group with the worst attitude toward Kuella within the Count's household. It was the result of her stepmother deliberately pushing such people to be assigned exclusively to Kuella. They blamed and pressured her as if the reason they were pushed to the annex was because of Kuella, and while Kuella's heart burned with frustration at such servants' attitudes, she didn't dare think of resisting. It wasn't that she had never tried to rebel, but it was because she had repeatedly experienced greater pressure coming in each time she tried. That's why Kuella was happy about the current situation, but also anxious on the other hand. 'Will they give up easily because of this?' "Not a chance." Kron snorted. People are not beings who reflect so easily. Especially when someone they perceive as 'below' them rebels, they almost unconditionally react with hostility, regardless of whether the content is right or wrong. This time they would have cowered at an attack much more fierce than they had imagined, but later they would try to pressure Kuella and Kron even more violently, if only out of shame at that fact. And there would be those behind the scenes encouraging it. Sure enough, the reaction was immediate. "As punishment for your violent behavior, the mistress has ordered meal restrictions for the miss for a while. Please reflect on your actions." The next morning. The maid with one side of her face conspicuously bound with cloth spat out those words, then immediately turned around and left the annex. Left behind, Kron burst into hollow laughter. "I made a big show of hitting her, but I dispersed the actual impact so there shouldn't be any injury." 'Th-this is no time to laugh! At this rate I'll starve to death!' Eisern Academy has a dining hall that distributes meals with high nutritional value at low prices, but rather than paying for each menu item like an ordinary restaurant, it has a structure where you pay in advance for one semester's worth of meal costs at the beginning of the term. It's a method that came about because many noble families with picky tastes don't use the academy dining hall, and Kuella also hadn't paid for this semester's meal costs. Of course, it wasn't because her tastes were picky, but because the Count's family hadn't paid the money. Since Kuella didn't receive separate pocket money from the family either, if they didn't give her food at home, she had no choice but to starve since she couldn't buy food anywhere. At least that was the case according to Kuella's common sense. "Well, I was just thinking this frail body wouldn't do anyway, so this works out perfectly. Shall we do some diet management?" '...What's diet management?' "Meat and vegetables. Conveniently, there are many good forests nearby." Saying that, Kron took out several metal utensils that had been used during meal times. Kuella felt a chill for some unknown reason.