Chapter 3: Set foot in the Rosel mansion

Esil gazed at the red sunset that adorned the vast wilderness.

Near Rosel’s great estate, there was an expansive grain-producing area, and the carriage was currently running through one of its side roads.

The grain fields, approaching harvest season, were filled with golden rice that bowed as if greeting the return of their lord.

And above them, the red sunset painted the sky.

It was beautiful.

Back when she traveled across the continent with the expeditionary force, this was the kind of scenery she would never have noticed.

But after more than two months of harsh underground dungeon life, even such ordinary scenery became something that moved her deeply.

In the underground dungeon, there was nothing but pitch-black darkness, and when the time came, a torturer would appear with a torch.

She had learned that the dungeon floor was teeming with insects.

And.

To survive, she had eaten them.

Once a sacred hero, she had now become a beast who ate insects in the underground dungeon, all because of the kingdom’s schemes.

By this time, her spirit had already been shattered, so there were no tears left to shed.

Her will to live was slowly fading, and tears seemed like a luxury she could no longer afford.

Rosel, who was ahead, turned his gaze toward Esil, who was staring at the distant estate’s castle gates.

Esil’s emerald-colored eyes, devoid of sorrow, anger, or hope, were emptily vacant.

What was she thinking?

He wanted to ask, but he didn’t.

She had endured two months of hellish days, far worse than hell itself.

The only thing left to do was silently watch as she recovered.

Rosel, who knew her better than anyone, had no doubt that she would recover.

And because she had been betrayed by the same nobles as him, any kindness shown would surely only arouse suspicion.

Viela was the only daughter of a baron family.

Daltan was the first son of a viscount family.

Gleon was also the second son of an earl family.

All of them had shown kindness to Esil until they achieved their goals.

And once their goal, the saving of the continent, was accomplished, they immediately betrayed her.

Esil, who had felt the bitter sting of betrayal from noble heirs, would likely see any kindness from Rosel as nothing more than a series of lies meant to take something from her.

Thus.

Until she opened her heart, maintaining this distance was necessary.

Strictly managing the distance was essential for the safety of both herself and Esil.

Any kindness shown, even a little, would make Esil dependent on him, and it was certain to arouse suspicion from the manor’s residents.

Such unfortunate incidents had to be avoided until “all preparations” were complete.

For that reason, Rosel carefully chose his words with Esil.

The best approach was to act through actions, making her feel safe through his behavior.

– Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is the carriage carrying the lord.

The lord of the estate had arrived.

The royal guards at the castle gates skipped the formalities and immediately opened the southern gates.

Creeeeak, the massive castle gates, tall enough to require six adult men to reach the top, opened with a grand creaking sound.

The gates were high.

This was a clear sign that the estate was vast.

Given that the castle gates in the capital city were about 15 meters tall, one could easily imagine the scale of Rosel’s great estate.

– Good work, everyone.

– Salute!

At the coachman’s greeting, the commander of the sentry, Reshus, shouted orders, and all the guards near the castle gates saluted toward the carriage.

Even at a glance, they were well-trained soldiers.

Rosel had always taken a great interest in soldier training to defend his estate, and he smiled with satisfaction at their disciplined salute.

The carriage began to move again, and Esil looked anxiously out the window.

As her master had said, they would arrive “soon.”

The silence in the carriage had ended, signaling the beginning of a new life as a slave.

Esil bit the back of her lower lip until it bled, the pain sharp enough to clear the fog that clouded her mind.

This had become a habit born out of constant exhaustion.

When she tasted the metallic, iron-like tang of blood, it felt as if her senses began to sharpen a little.

“…Don’t be too anxious. This estate, Rosel’s, is a peaceful place.”

At last, Rosel let out the words he had held back for so long.

He had wanted to say them earlier, but he knew she wouldn’t believe him when he said not to be anxious.

So he had kept silent.

Yet the uneasy, hunted look in Esil’s eyes, as if she saw the estate as a slaughterhouse, made him unable to hold back any longer.

Esil remained silent.

But Rosel didn’t press her.

In fact, he felt a strange sense of gratitude for her lack of response.

If she had reached the point where she could not respond due to imprisonment, his own heart would have been even more torn apart.

After a moment, the iron gates of the estate creaked open, and the carriage rolled into the estate’s garden.

The pace slowed gradually, and Rosel began preparing to exit. He adjusted his coat and smoothed his disheveled hair against the backrest.

Then he looked at Esil.

The emerald eyes, which should have been luminous, were empty.

It felt as if she had lost her grip on reality, overwhelmed by fear without bounds.

But Rosel saw the hidden sorrow beneath her vacant eyes.

He understood the feelings she must have experienced on the journey from captivity to this estate.

– Click.

After a moment’s wait, Damien, the steward who had been riding at the rear, opened the carriage door.

Rosel, maintaining his silence, descended the carriage and looked at the stiff figure of Esil.

Fear flickered once again in her empty eyes.

But now he could not afford to wait for that spark of fear to fade.

The estate’s majordomo and house steward ran to greet him with haste upon his arrival.

In a place where eyes met, Esil and he were merely master and slave.

“Welcome back, Lord Rosel. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep, wondering if Damien had attended to you properly.”

“Rest assured, Gellion. Damien did his duty admirably.”

“House steward Gicel here. Did your journey pass without incident? Would you like a meal to be prepared immediately?”

“It was uneventful. Make it a special meal tonight.”

Rosel responded with each exchange of formal pleasantries.

They were mere formalities, but under the surface lay a bond of mutual respect and affection.

Rosel looked back at Esil.

Due to their vantage point, Gellion and Gicel could not see Esil, hidden behind the carriage wall.

Thus, they could not know what the lord of the estate was waiting for.

Rosel had merely claimed he had business in the capital city and returned.

Damien, too, had assumed Rosel was merely attending to matters before bidding at the slave auction.

Rosel, with a firm expression and hands clasped behind his back, spoke softly.

“Come out.”

“Is someone inside?”

House steward Gellion asked, but Rosel simply stared at the carriage in silence.

Rosel, though no saint, was not one to ignore a direct question in front of witnesses.

It conveyed unmistakable discomfort, and Gellion chose not to ask again.

Rosel raised his voice slightly, addressing the carriage once more.

“I said, come out. I won’t repeat myself a third time.”

The rare, fierce energy of his master’s presence caused Gellion to glance at Damien, giving a silent gesture.

It was an unspoken order for someone to hurry out of the carriage, and just as Damien was about to leap out.

The carriage creaked, signaling the arrival of its passenger.

Emilia, the savior of the continent.

Esil, sold as the most expensive sex slave in history, set foot in Rosel’s mansion for the first time.

Gellion, who had worked at the Rosel mansion for nearly two years, had been the house steward since his arrival.

This was only natural, as Gellion was a veteran who had served noble families for over 20 years.

From the Ice Duke Lucilan ruling the North to the Sword Duke Nebron governing the South, his experience was extensive.

Thanks to his stellar career, he had been recommended by the king and had settled in the Rosel estate near the capital.

Though he was a commoner and considerably younger than his years, Gellion had gained Rosel’s deep trust with his cold judgment, broad tolerance, exceptional foresight, and at times, the courage to wield a sword.

It was as though he had been born a nobleman’s son, only to become a commoner due to an unforeseen accident.

“Well, well, for such a lord to buy a traitor as a slave. For five hundred gold coins, no less? Ha ha.”

Thus, Gellion was now deeply puzzled.

And so, his mutterings, as above, echoed, with Esil following behind him.

Despite the sharpness of his words, which seemed to pierce deep into his gut, Esil followed silently, like a living corpse.

“Ha ha, from a hero to a slave. You’ve rewritten history, haven’t you, Esil?”

As they made their way to Esil’s designated quarters, Gellion occasionally muttered profanities.

Discomfort was written all over his face, in the creases of his frown.

As someone recommended by the king, Gellion was a loyal subject with strong ties to the kingdom.

To him, a traitor who had attempted to assassinate the king was like a thorn in his side.

Even if that traitor had once been the continent’s hero.

He had heard rumors that the achievements belonged more to Esil’s companions than to her.

In the end, the title of hero had been nothing more than a facade.

If it were up to him, he would have locked her in the stables and starved her for four days.

But he had never seen his lord, Rosel, act on impulse or waste time on matters without result.

There must be some reason for this.

For now, Gellion chose to believe that.

He stopped in front of a door.

When he halted, Esil, who had been following with her head lowered, abruptly stopped in surprise.

“This will be the room you will use. A room more than a traitor like you deserves, but perhaps the Duke of Rosel has chosen to honor your contributions.”

“I am also the Duke of Rosel’s representative in this household. I can at least deliver a word of thanks on your behalf.”

Being treated like a traitor to his face had become familiar to Esil. She shrank back, bowing her head.

“… T-thank you…”

Esil managed to convey her thanks, but Gellion’s expression remained cold.

He was trying to understand the lord’s intentions, but the deeper meaning was elusive.

“I don’t know why you ended up here, but it would be helpful for you to behave like the slave you are. You can forget about the title of hero. Well… I suppose there’s no title left to fold up.”

Gellion narrowed his eyes and spoke as if testing her. After all, now that they would be living under the same roof, he needed to confirm whether she fully understood her position.

Esil bowed her head with an indifferent expression.

“I am a worthless traitor who committed treason… a pitiful slave.”

Even as she spoke, Esil felt as though she might vomit.

But at this point, her sense of injustice no longer mattered.

Her frustration and lament were buried deep in the dungeon, where she had left them behind.

Gellion nodded approvingly.

“Ha ha, you’re a slave with some dignity, at least. But it seems you haven’t thought things through.

To have been treated like a hero, and then to dare dream of rebellion…”

Esil fell silent, her expression filled with shame, and Gellion opened the door.

The room was simple, furnished with just a cot, a wooden clothes rack, a round table, and two chairs.

Located on the third floor, in what was called the “lord’s floor,” it was at the very end of the corridor, far from any other rooms, and not in the path of any of the household staff.

Unless given specific orders, she would not be seen by anyone outside this space.

“Don’t think about stepping outside, not even for a moment,” he said. “Go in.”

“…Thank you.”

Esil entered the room.

And, just as she had done in the underground dungeon.

She crouched against the wall and sat down.

For a slave, for a traitor, sitting on a chair or perched on a cot would be an act of shamelessness.

Thus, she sat motionlessly on the floor, waiting for the moonlight to fill the window.

That night, at the hour when everyone had fallen asleep.

Esil sat, like a statue, leaning against the wall, bathing in the moonlight streaming from the window.

She had been sitting still for over six hours, and with her experience of sitting for two days straight in the underground dungeon, it was still bearable.

For a slave, for a traitor, ‘rest’ was a luxury only available in death. This kind of hardship was something she deserved.

It was a form of punishment she imposed on herself.

And this small room, too, was not a room—it was merely a prison above ground.

It had only changed from an underground dungeon to an above-ground one, and even without iron bars, nothing about her situation had changed.

She had to get used to her life as a slave.

There was no history of a slave ever becoming a human again, not in hundreds of years.

In other words, from this point on, she would be treated as a sex slave until her death.

If she couldn’t adapt to it, she would only hasten her own demise.

At that moment, Esil heard the sound of small footsteps.

The life in the dark, silent dungeon had made her senses extremely sharp, and the footsteps from afar caused fear to return to her pale green eyes.

It was time.

Time to prove herself as a slave.

-Tap, tap.

A moment later, there was a knock, and Esil immediately opened the door.

It was going to happen anyway, and it was something she had to endure.

She had no reason or right to delay it.

As expected, the one who entered through the open door was her master, Rosel.

“Ah, there was some food left over, so I brought it. It seemed wasteful to throw it away.”

In his hand was a dish that seemed too delicious to have been left over.

Esil immediately recognized what the dish was.

Since her transfer to this world, this dish had never once lost its place at the top of her heart.

Living in a medieval world with poor hygiene facilities for meat, she had always liked fish dishes, but of all, she adored freshly caught salmon.

It was her favorite, grilled in an oven after being marinated in a special sauce.

“From tomorrow, your life as a slave will begin. You can’t be too weak to be useful as a slave. A feeble slave is as good as useless. So eat this.”

It was a high-class dish that a slave was not even allowed to smell, but the aroma of the grilled salmon cut through her and made Esil swallow her saliva reflexively.

“It’s a bit cold, but it should still be good.”

Author’s Note
Rosel, unintentionally becoming a tsundere…