Chapter 34
🏚️ A Corner of the Poorhouse Building
In a shaded corner of the poorhouse building, a seven-year-old boy, dressed in tattered clothes, was seen sitting his younger brother, who looked about five, down on the steps.
As the cold wind blew, the children shrank their small bodies from the chill.
“Brother… cough cough…”
“Just hold on a little longer. If you take this, you’ll feel better.”
The older brother handed his little sibling a medicine he had just received.
It was a half-sized pill, adjusted for the child’s small body, placed in his tiny hand.
“But… how do I take this…?”
“Ah, wait a second.”
The brother looked around, trying to find some water.
Sipping my fine black tea while observing this, I let out a small sigh.
I was too busy to care for others’ pain beyond Etias, but turning away from children was difficult.
“Hey, you. Come here.”
At my call, the boy flinched and turned his gaze to me.
I beckoned him over again.
Hesitantly, he whispered to his brother to wait and then, lowering his body, approached me cautiously.
“Bring me a teacup and a small bag.”
I ordered one of the servants behind me. He quickly brought a new teacup, and I poured hot water from the teapot into it.
I held out the teacup, still steaming slightly, to the boy.
He stared at it blankly.
“You need water to give him the medicine, right? Here, take it.”
“Ah…”
He hesitated, unable to reach out right away.
Given his ragged appearance, it was natural for him to feel burdened even touching such a fine teacup.
Raising my eyebrows slightly in a “what are you doing” expression, I pushed the teacup toward his hand. He finally accepted it with both hands and bowed deeply.
“Th-thank you very much.”
He ran back to his brother.
Watching him give the pneumonia medicine to the younger child, I packed fresh cookies from the table into the bag the servant brought.
Their thin frames suggested they hadn’t been eating properly.
‘Etias must have been like that once too.’
Thinking of Etias, who became an orphan at five and endured harsh conditions, made my chest tighten.
At that moment, the boy came back holding the teacup with both hands.
“H-here, thank you so much, my lady.”
He carefully handed me back the cup and bowed again.
I smirked and handed him the bag of cookies I had just packed.
“Take this too, and eat it.”
“Ah…!”
“And…”
I tilted my chin slightly toward Sistina Poorhouse.
“If you don’t have parents or your life is hard, apply to enter the poorhouse. At Sistina, siblings can stay together in the same room.”
The boy’s eyes trembled.
I knew why kids like them didn’t come to poorhouses.
They feared being separated from their siblings.
Most poorhouses prioritized administrative efficiency, never caring about such circumstances.
But when I built Sistina, I established a rational system – just like when I reformed the hiring system for maids and servants – thinking like a modern person.
“Is that really true, miss?”
“I swear on the Elemoer name. It will be far better than now.”
Even lower nobles were beings to fear for commoner children – and here I was, the heiress of House Elemoer herself. The boy flinched at first but then bowed repeatedly with teary eyes.
“Th-thank you! Really, thank you so much.”
Handing him the cookie bag, I gestured for him to go.
His eyes shimmered as he turned around and ran back to his brother with stronger steps than before.
He even looked slightly brighter.
Just as I lowered my gaze to pick up my teacup again, a long shadow fell over me.
Startled, I looked up and my eyes shook slightly.
“Katrin.”
The one who quietly called my name was none other than Etias.
With broad shoulders and tall stature, wearing clean though not new clothes, he looked breathtakingly handsome as always.
He wore an official’s uniform, holding a fresh medicine package in his hand, and his sharp blue eyes were locked on me, as if he had something to say.
I slowly rose and gave him a simple greeting fit for royalty.
“Ah, to see you here.”
I had expected him to come, but actually seeing him in front of me made my heart pound loudly.
“Did Your Highness come to get medicine too? You don’t look sick – is it for someone else?”
“…Yeah.”
Most likely, for a member of the revolutionary army.
‘Thank goodness Etias isn’t sick.’
As I thought that, his voice flowed into my ear.
“I think… I understand a little.”
“…?”
“What kind of person you are.”
His gaze shifted briefly to the orphaned children in the distance.
I felt panic rising. Not only was I caught doing something good, but it threatened Katrin’s villainess persona.
As his deep gaze returned to me, I hurried to explain.
“Well, you know how it is.”
I curved my lips slightly into a villainess’s smile.
“That feeling when someone who has everything helps the poor – the sense of superiority. Seeing those helpless people depend on my charity makes the world feel so small.”
Yes, that sounded like Katrin.
Satisfied with my performance, I heard his slightly husky voice.
“Then… how far would you go for that superiority?”
The breeze swayed his hair.
I couldn’t see his face clearly because of the backlight from the sun, but I could feel his heavy gaze.
“Would you risk your life for it?”
His sudden question caught me off guard. But I twisted my lips again.
“Risking your life to bestow charity on others? If someone does that, it’s no longer superiority – it’s sincerity.”
Shrugging, I continued sarcastically.
“…Sincerity, huh.”
“I’m not that serious. It’s just experimental medicine, after all.”
I emphasized again that Sistina and the medicine were merely luxurious hobbies.
“It’s like roulette. If it works, they live; if not, well, they were dying anyway.”
In truth, it had an 80% cure rate within three days – a pinnacle of pharmaceutical technology.
“If the life at risk isn’t mine but someone else’s, then yes. It’s not my life anyway.”
That should be enough to keep my mask.
Hearing my cold words, his lips parted.
Then his low voice flowed out.
“I see.”
He looked at me with those unreadable, chilling eyes for a few more seconds before turning away.
“Haa…”
I let out a small sigh and placed my hand over my chest.
As Etias walked out of Sistina’s entrance, his face carried a cool light.
She spoke of lives as if they were nothing, yet her hands clenched and unclenched anxiously. There was no way he hadn’t noticed.
Her round handwriting swirled through his mind.
‘Will I see her true face… thanks to this medicine?’
As he moved through the crowd to leave,
“Let go! I told you I have something to say to my fiancée… wait, Your Highness?”
Philios, arguing with the guards at Sistina’s entrance because he couldn’t enter, spotted Etias.
Philios, slightly drunk with a flushed face, looked at the medicine package in Etias’s hand and twitched his eyebrows.
Having almost been killed by Etias the last time they met, he didn’t dare confront him directly. But an aggrieved voice spilled from his lips.
“She’s putting poorhouse flyers in your carriage again, isn’t she? Just like on that party day.”
