From the Tip of the Tongue of the Lowliest Maid - Chapter 75

This work contains scenes of sadistic coercion and hardcore depictions of BDSM. Reader discretion is advised.

Arzeletta shook her head.

“It’s all right, Yoseph.”

“Arzeletta.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Everything had been entirely predictable. When she walked into Yoseph’s slaughterhouse on her own feet, when she was cast down from being the lowest of the laundry maids in the castle to the realm of livestock and beasts, Arzeletta had foreseen it all.

Yoseph had not tried to protect Arzeletta. She knew. Perhaps Yoseph had even tried to make her his own, using his helplessness as an excuse.

Even as she saw straight through Yoseph’s weakness and cowardice, Arzeletta smiled.

Yoseph’s weakness wasn’t his alone.

“You’re a diligent and good man, Yoseph.”

At Arzeletta’s calm words, Yoseph’s hunched shoulders flinched. Though his hair had grown ragged and long, he was still young, and his handsome face often became a subject of mockery in and of itself.

“You should marry a good woman. Not like this, not while being ridiculed.”

“…To me, you’re the best woman, Arzeletta.”

“If you marry me, your marriage will become a lifelong joke.”

Arzeletta knew. If Yoseph were to marry someone else—someone ordinary and simple—he wouldn’t be subjected to such ridicule.

Perhaps the villagers might even show him a little kindness. A few gifts, some grain, and perhaps they would become lenient townsfolk who wouldn’t harass the good wife who had chosen to become the wife of a man “like Yoseph.”

“Arzeletta. Let’s get married, just the two of us.”

“……”

“Then at least… you wouldn’t have to spend your first night like that, right?”

Arzeletta lowered her green eyes.

Yoseph was panicking. His desperation, the fear that he might lose her, and the urgency to somehow persuade Arzeletta, were shrinking him more and more.

“…I cannot marry.”

“What kind of talk is that? Don’t make excuses.”

“Yoseph, I already…”

“Already…?”

At Arzeletta’s vaguely significant words, Yoseph’s face suddenly hardened.

“Is it the Lord?”

Arzeletta flinched, her shoulders trembling.

I’ve already given my heart to someone. It was something she couldn’t explain. And in that moment, as Ragnar’s name was suddenly brought up, Arzeletta’s heart shrank with guilt.

“What do you mean—”

“Ragnar took you, didn’t he? Last night. So—!”

“No. No, Yoseph.”

“The noble lord who pretends to be great, pretends to be highborn—he, now that I think about it, you, you told me you were going to meet the Lord—!”

Yoseph’s words, rough with a sudden surge of jealousy, trailed off as if something had just come to mind.

“You, you said you were going to meet the Lord—!”

Bang.

“What about that lord?”

Yoseph never got to finish his sentence.

With the door flung open, a loud, dull thud sounded as something hit the ground.

Startled, Arzeletta flinched, and a familiar figure appeared in her eyes. A body three heads taller than hers, an aggressive physique, a luxuriously made reddish-brown uniform worn sloppily with the buttons undone, and hair redder than the sunset light streaming in…

“S**t.”

Burning red eyes looked straight at her. As she recognized him, Arzeletta swallowed her breath.

Standing in the doorway, glaring as though to pierce right through her, was Exion.

When Exion confirmed that Arzeletta was inside the slaughterhouse, his expression turned instantly fierce. As she flailed in surprise at his abrupt appearance, he moved first.

Step. Step.

“……!”

Exion’s reddish-brown boots strode unhesitatingly across the stone floor still stained with beasts’ blood. With his long legs, it took only a few strides to reach her in an instant.

“Hhk.”

At the sight of the large, threatening man now right before her, Arzeletta held her breath.

Exion’s red eyes glared fiercely at her. He always looked angry, but today he was especially so. Arzeletta looked up at the suddenly appearing Exion with uneasy eyes.

Within the damp darkness of the slaughterhouse, Arzeletta’s pale green eyes wavered.

Watching them, the muscles along Exion’s neck twitched violently.

He stared at her as though momentarily forgetting what he wanted to say, then suddenly seized Arzeletta’s wrist with a ferocious grip. The bare arm revealed scratches still fresh.

“Come with me.”