Chapter 47
└ [Wait… The assassin overkill was a setup all along??]
└ [Maybe Rose is just getting influenced by everyone here??]
└ [If she really were an assassin… she wouldn’t be working such a noticeable job like head maid, would she?]
While the commenters argued among themselves, the chaos in my head began to settle down a bit.
Right… I’d gotten too caught up in the “Suspicious person = Assassin” logic of this ducal household.
As I pushed the idea of “assassin” out of my head, the head maid, exuding her usual gentle atmosphere, introduced the new woman beside her.
“You remember I mentioned someone new would be in charge of your training, right? Please say hello. This is Miss Hinde Cassier.”
“Nice to meet you. Just call me Hinde.”
Different name. The woman I knew was named Tara Ort.
└ [Wait… maybe she’s a twin?]
But then the surname would be the same too.
She looked a bit younger than I remembered, but those drooping green eyes under her lashes—
And the habit of scanning the room quickly even while smiling—
She could only be the same person as Tara, the head maid I knew.
“So ‘Hinde’ must be the fake name.”
In the future I remembered, she had settled down with the Torto Count’s family, so that name must’ve been the real one.
And if she’s lying about her name just to enter the ducal estate, then maybe…
“A spy?”
└ [Lol Rose kept joking about assassins and spies, now one’s actually here and she’s shook]
└ [Torto is seriously sketchy lol]
└ [Can’t believe they sent a spy right after the house settled down lmao]
Honestly, it made sense for Count Torto to try and keep tabs on Duke Valent.
At this point in time, no one could tell what kind of moves the Emperor’s right-hand man would make.
Later on, he kept a low profile, so everyone eventually lost interest.
But not yet. Right now, the aristocratic faction was surely monitoring the Duke’s every move.
As I was piecing together Hinde’s identity, her soft green eyes landed on me, half-hidden behind Nella.
“Oh? There’s a child here too? Does she live here?”
Our eyes met.
But her gaze was different from what I remembered—at least she was pretending to look harmless.
“Right. Hinde doesn’t know who I am yet.”
That meant I had to act as naturally as possible.
“H-Hello, pretty lady…”
“Oh my?”
“Would you look at her? A little thing like you already knows how to act shy?”
Sage jumped in teasingly, and the maids all chuckled cheerfully.
The mood grew light, and with a clap of her hands, the head maid wrapped things up.
“I’ll show Miss Hinde around the estate now. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later, so let’s all get back to our tasks.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The head maid left with Hinde, and the gathered maids returned to their places.
I went back to a quiet room, my head spinning with thoughts.
“If she’s a spy… how do I expose her?”
And how could I use my memories to my advantage?
I sank into the memories I’d rather not revisit—my time at Count Torto’s estate.
* * *
Count Torto was a deeply suspicious man. Without his trust, you had no chance of getting close to him.
Yet Tara had managed to become the new head maid of his household.
That was when I was sixteen. Even though I’d been there for ten years, I’d never seen her before. They said she’d been assisting the Count from outside all this time.
I remembered her so clearly—not just because she was close to the Count’s daughter—but because…
—”Miss Belleta. Your posture is terrible. So unfocused. No wonder the Count favors Miss Railly over you.”
Tara hated me.
After Railly showed up and the Count began ignoring me, the staff began to look down on me too.
And Tara looked down the most.
└ [But weren’t you still a Count’s daughter?]
└ [Yeah but it’s rofan logic. The maids always go wild.]
To them, I was a cuckoo in the nest.
Maybe Tara even knew I wasn’t a legitimate daughter—she was that deeply involved in the Count’s business.
She was a trusted servant, and I was the daughter who never earned trust. Our conversations always went like this:
—“Is there any reason you need to investigate this matter, Miss Belleta? The Count has plenty of people besides you to help him.”
—“But Father assigned this task to me…”
—“And now you want to throw your status around like, ‘I’m the Count’s daughter, so hand over the intel’? How amusing.”
Tara hated people who didn’t know their place.
And in her eyes, that was me.
—“If you were lucky enough to be born into nobility, then stay pretty and quiet, will you? We’ll handle the real work—us who’ve actually earned the Count’s trust.”
But what she failed to consider…
Was that I was actually good at the work.
Whenever the Count gave me a task, she’d glare. Whenever she got a task, I’d get anxious, scared I’d look worse than a mere head maid.
We were rivals. I guess that’s the best way to describe it.
“Hah… and what was all that for?”
└ [Torto probably encouraged that rivalry on purpose ♪~♩♩]
└ [Why’s everyone so desperate for that man’s approval?]
└ [He was rich, maybe he paid well?]
└ [But Rose never seemed to get any of that money 😭]
└ [She was the ultimate cost-efficient servant daughter]
Maybe I was the real fool, the real pushover.
Maybe that’s why I was punished like some divine judgment—burned to death.
└ [Us?? Are you blaming us for that??]
└ [Don’t blame us for Torto’s mess lol]
No no, I wasn’t blaming the commenters.
The comment fairies only mess with my brain—they don’t affect the real world.
└ [Then it must’ve been that emotionally fragile god or something]
└ [Yeah, whoever that was, definitely their fault]
They began blaming some mysterious deity now.
Digging through painful memories had me feeling down, but the silly banter helped me bounce back a little.
I wasn’t going to stay trapped in the past.
“The important thing is what happens next.”
The fact that Torto already sent a spy meant he wanted to know—from the start—which direction the new Duke would go.
Would he serve the imperial family blindly, or carve out power of his own as a noble?
In my past life, Duke Valent chose the former. But this time, it could be different.
Hestina wants to start a business—and I’m here, too!
“The more money Duke Valent makes, the more Torto will get wary. And that’ll make Hinde’s role even more important.”
Which meant…
I had to make sure Hinde couldn’t do her job properly.
Luckily for me, I knew quite a lot about her true nature.
* * *
The kitchen of Duke Valent’s estate.
Hinde was giving a tea-tasting lesson to a group of kitchen maids.
“Try these three teas and guess which one is the highest grade.”
She poured each tea with skilled hands, and the maids began sipping carefully.
I peeked between the group around the table, and Sage spotted me.
“Rose? This isn’t snack time.”
“The aroma was nice. Can I have a taste too?”
“It’ll probably taste bitter to you.”
Sage glanced at Hinde, who smiled and brought over another cup.
“If you drink too much, you won’t sleep well. I’ll just dilute it with warm water and pour a little.”
She handed me a cup mixed with lukewarm water and tea.
“Ugh… it’s bitter. Smelled good, though.”
“Kids taste bitterness more than adults. See? That’s why we always serve milk and sugar when noble children visit.”
Blending in successfully with the maids, I pretended to examine the tea set while listening closely to Hinde’s instructions.
“She’s not giving wrong info.”
I had wondered if she’d give false instructions to sabotage things, but no—she was focusing on building credibility.
The session didn’t last long since too much tasting dulls the tongue.
As the maids began clearing the table, Hinde looked down at me, still lingering by her side.
“Rose, do you want to become a kitchen maid when you grow up?”
“Hmm. No. I’m already the assistant here.”
“…Assistant?”
Her eyes briefly flicked up with that “you?” expression.
This was the plan I’d chosen to reveal her true identity—
Operation: Provocation.
