Collector’s Cage - Chapter 17

Hermie watched him without lowering her guard until Froy turned off the light and lay down in bed. Only after the surroundings darkened and she saw Froy close his eyes did she finally relax.

‘Haa.’

Nothing much had even happened, yet she felt completely drained.

***

The next day, Froy spoke to Hermie as soon as he woke up.

“Hermie, did you sleep well?”

“…….”

Naturally, Hermie just kept her mouth tightly shut and watched Froy with a wary gaze. She didn’t even accept the food he offered by hand.

She was still in Stage 1: a frightened, highly wary fairy.

After a brief morning greeting, Froy left the room again. Hermie was alone once more, but she wasn’t exactly happy about it.

‘Haa. What should I do to pass the time now?’

Because it was dreadfully boring. She clung to the cage bars and observed the clouds drifting past the window.

She took naps until she felt dizzy. She woke up, ate cookie crumbs, did some stretches, and even practiced escaping by hanging from the iron bars.

Even after spending a long time like that, it was still bright outside the window.

It was a boring, tedious, lonely, and stifling time, to the point where she thought, ‘When will Marquis Froy come back?’

Froy had a slightly odd quirk: he didn’t let the mansion’s servants enter his room freely.

When the maids cleaned the room, they covered the cage, the painting hanging by the window, and the small statue on the desk.

It wasn’t as if they would wear out from being seen. And he sat at the desk doing work until the cleaning was finished.

The maids cleaned carefully, avoiding touching the items in Froy’s room.

Every single item in Froy’s room was astonishingly expensive and dear to him, so they had to be extra careful. While most items in the mansion were costly, the ones in Froy’s room were particularly more expensive.

“What’s this?”

A maid emptying the wastebasket cocked her head at a wad of cotton. Hermie, inside the cage, tensed up and listened intently, but the maid, thinking nothing of it, threw the cotton wad away.

‘Phew, I didn’t get caught.’

Hermie was in the middle of using cotton wads to take care of her needs.

Because her body was small, the amount of waste was also small. After doing her business, wrapping it in cotton, and throwing it away, it just looked like a wad of cotton the size of a finger segment to ordinary people.

Fortunately, there was a wastebasket near the cage, allowing her to dispose of it discreetly.

‘Wait, don’t fairies poop or pee? If you eat something, it’s only natural to excrete something, right?!’

Hermie, trying to forget her shame, went as far as defending how ridiculous the fantasy of fairies was.

Anyway, the fairy’s physiological needs went unnoticed. Once the maids finished cleaning and left the room, Froy got up from his seat.

He removed the covers placed over the painting and statue, admired them for a moment, and then removed the cover from the cage as well.

“Hermie.”

There he went again, calling her name like that. At that embarrassingly gentle voice, Hermie’s shoulders gave a slight shiver.

“You’ve been well-behaved, haven’t you?”

He offered a cookie as if giving praise and a reward. Hermie stared intently at his finger poking through the cage bars before cautiously approaching.

Several days had passed since she entered this mansion. She felt it was about time to start getting closer.

Honestly, she was now unbearably stifled. Spending the entire day in silence and boredom was torture.

“Huh?”

As Hermie, wrapped in the handkerchief like clothing, crept closer, it was Froy who seemed surprised instead.

He had extended his hand without much expectation, so the fairy’s unusual reaction caught him off guard. Froy waited for her slow approach, clutching his pounding heart.

“Hup.”

Hermie’s tiny hand rested on Froy’s finger. In a somewhat tense state, she tapped his hand a few times before picking up the cookie.

Hermie pretended to take a bite of the cookie and then looked up. It was to check Froy’s reaction.