"Mom? Julia is this lady…"
Nemi asked timidly as she stared at Loriam with instinctive fear. Julia, who was also overcome with fear, nodded nervously. The other two girls were shocked when they realized that Julia wasn’t just some beggar. The woman that Julia just called mom clearly had long silver hair and was dressed in an extremely exaggerated black dress. It was more than obvious that she was a high-ranked noble. The girls could just hope that this woman wasn’t who they thought she was.
Loriam looked at Julia sitting on the ground carefully. She only briefly glanced at Nemi, who was kneeling beside Julia. Before finally, Loriam cast her cold eyes at the trio in front of Julia.
"Do you three have an explanation for what you are doing with my daughter?"
"Well… we were…"
The oldest of the girls began, breathing a sigh of relief that the woman in front of her wasn’t who she thought she was after all. It would be bad if she really was the queen. They would have been executed with no question asked. But when the girl thought that they were safe, a voice crushed that hope into dust.
"Your majesty, is everything okay? I heard yelling."
The voice belonged to their father, Marquis Amir. Who arrived at the side of the silver-haired lady. They were soon joined by two maids, as well as a few other noble men and ladies. This didn’t matter to them though, what they were more worried about was the fact that their father referred to this lady as her majesty.
"Your majesty is something- Your highness!?"
When Mirei got closer to Loriam and saw what exactly was Loriam looking at, she yelled in surprise and ran to Julia’s side. Rie, who was still processing what was happening, was suddenly thrown away by Mirei. A mere maid dared to just throw a marquis’s daughter right in front of him, but he didn’t object, nor did he even could.
"Excuse me, your majesty, but may I ask what happened to her highness?"
It took him a single look at Julia’s silver hair as well as Loriam’s expression to realize who Julia actually was. Stopping the royal maid from performing her duty in this situation would have been equivalent to disrespecting the royal family itself.
"Why don’t you ask your daughters?"
Loriam gave him the most obvious, forced smile in the world. It was clear just how much she was angry. He gulped nervously and turned to face his daughters, while only glancing at Julia before focusing on his daughter. All the while, Loriam’s murderous gaze was burning a hole in him.
"What is the meaning of this? What have the three of you done?"
"Father, y-you see… we…"
The youngest of the girls began talking, though she was visibly scared. Julia wondered why she was like that; it wasn’t like she had reason to be scared. It was Rie that was beating her and the other two were visibly stopping her.
"Your highness, Lady Liora, has already gone to prepare a change of clothes for you. Can you stand?"
Mirei began talking in a worried voice. Change of clothes? Confused Julia looked at the green dress she was wearing. Her clothes were, as expected, covered in mud, as well as any bits of her exposed skin. But what Julia didn’t notice until now was the fact that her clothes were torn beyond recognition, thanks to which her underwear was partially visible. That would explain their reactions...
"So, will somebody finally tell me what is happening here?"
Marquis Amir, unable to get an answer from his daughters, was getting more worried. This is bad; her majesty is angry and her highness’s appearance resembles more of a beggar than a dignified princess of the blood clan.
"Rie was beating her."
"Rie, is that true?"
The nobles started muttering among themselves. At last, Marquis Amir got the answer he was looking for. But it comes from a source he didn’t expect. The one to talk was Nemi, as she was clinging to Julia, telling him what had happened. Rie looked like she wanted to yell at Nemi, but the cold stare of the queen as well as her father’s stopped her.
"I saw that too, so what will you do now?"
Marquis Amir gulped nervously as his queen demanded that he punish his daughter. And based on her expression, she demanded her to be sentenced to death.
"Your highness, I sincerely apologize on behalf of my daughter’s inappropriate behavior. And ask for your grace when judging them."
Marquis Amie got on all four and lowered his head to the ground as low as was physically possible. No matter what his decision would be, it would harm him and his family. My only option is to perform this humiliating act and beg her highness, as long as it’s her decision, her majesty should have no objection.
Julia, meanwhile, didn’t know what to do. She only interfered to help her bullied friend, but now she had a noble man prostrating in front of her. Is it that ‘dogeza’ thing that the vampires are doing when begging? What should I do? Julia looked at Loriam, hoping she would help, but she seemed to be too absorbed in watching Marquis perform "dogeza" in the mud.
"We beg you, your highness, please forgive us!"
Rie and her two sisters began their own dogeza session just like their father did. This view fascinated Julia. She never expected to see nobles lower their heads to someone. But now she had an entire noble family kneeling in the mud begging her for forgiveness. When she first heard about Dogeza from Mirei, she thought that there was no way it was real, but it turned out it was. Julia now also understood that ancient queen who created this custom, it was nice to see nobles prostrating themselves like so.
I still have to punish them somehow, but I don’t care what they did to me so... Julia glanced at Loriam, who seemed to calm down a little, but was still visibly infuriated. Realizing that wanting Loriam to make any sort of judgment would mean bloodshed, Julia glanced at the person most involved, Nemi.
"Well, I don’t think death would be adequate…"
Marquis Amir let out a sigh of relief, as did his daughters. Loriam was visibly unhappy but said nothing. The other nobles present started murmuring about "their princess’s kindness" to which Loriam gave them one of her death stares.
Julia ignored what the nobles were doing and gave Nemi a mischievous smile that only she could see. Then she looked back at the three girls in front of her.
"It also stands to reason that loyalty should be rewarded, so I would like to do just that."
The girls and other nobles, just like Loriam, were confused by Julia’s statement. What loyalty did she plan to reward? They wondered. Julia, of course, paid them no mind. She only focused on Nemi, who was likewise confused.
"As a result, in order to punish these three, I decided that they would now be servants of Nemi, who had come to my aid."
Julia bowed theatrically to Nemi before continuing her judgment. Nemi, on her part, wasn’t able to comprehend what was happening.
"Thank you, Miss Nemi. If it weren’t for you, who knows what they would have done to me. Please accept them as a token of my gratitude; do as you please with them."
Julia was satisfied with the "reward" she gave Nemi after all those girls were bullying Nemi for who knows how long, so punishing them, noble ladies, by making them slaves of a commoner would be more than adequate in Julia’s eyes.
"Nemi? Did her royal highness really say Nemi?"
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"I believe so. Lady Nemi seems really humble, doesn’t she?"
Contrary to what Julia expected, however, the other present nobles didn’t seem at all worried by the fact that three noble daughters were reduced to slaves by Julia. Instead, Nemi’s name seemed to pique their interest.
"Yes, compared to these adopted ones who stir trouble for her highness. She truly is worthy of the name Amir."
It was Julia’s turn to be dumbfounded as she overheard what the nobles were talking about. Were they saying that Nemi was a noble and that the other three were adopted? She wondered while ignoring the Amir family.
My family disowned me. Nemi’s words echoed in Julia’s mind as she glanced at the marquise Amir. I see, so this trash of a father disowned his actual daughter and adopted and spoiled some other girls. Julia was disgusted by him, but she seemed to be the only one.
"What can you expect from peasants? They are obviously not worthy of the privilege they were given."
"Indeed, but to think that her highness would only order them servitude, she is too kind."
"I don’t believe so, Lady Nemi seems to be close to her highness. So, this may even be worse for them."
Other guests were more focused on the supposedly adopted girls, mocking them while praising Nemi, as well as questioning Julia’s decision. That didn’t last long though; one look from Loriam made them fall to silence.
"If that is your decision, your highness."
"Father…"
"No, stop it."
Marquis Amir got back on his feet and bowed lightly to Julia, and with the escort of one maid, he went to presumably change his dirty clothes. Rie attempted to speak to Marquis Amir as she started to follow him, but he stopped her.
"The three of you have caused more than enough troubles. Plus, you dirtied Nemi’s dress."
Julia wasn’t sure what exactly was happening, but it appeared that Nemi’s father had changed his mind about her disownment. Nemi herself didn’t seem to grasp this, as she looked rather scared at the young maid that approached her.
At that time, Liora also returned with a suitcase in her hand. Noticing her, Loriam whispered something to Marquis Amir, who nodded in response before looking in Nemi’s direction.
"The room of her majesty and her highness is rather far from here. Nemi be so kind and be sure to let her highness change in your room."
"Huh? My room?"
Nemi asked, surprised by Marquis’s request. He only nodded and left with one maid in tow. In the meantime, Liora joined Loriam, while Mirei was silently standing by Julia’s side.
"Shall we go, my lady? You shouldn’t let her highness wait like this."
The unknown maid that came to Nemi began urging her to go into the mansion. Nemi, who was still rather confused, was walking slowly due to it. Julia, likewise confused, followed behind, joined by Loriam, who still looked like she wanted to kill somebody.
"I believe you should go too."
Rie and the other two were forcibly dragged by Liora behind the others. The girls protested, saying that their father will punish her. Liora did her best to keep a straight face as she listened to them. You can try it. She thought and dutifully followed her mistress.
…
After a bit of walking, they were passing through the corridor inside the mansion. No one had said a word, even the girls had stopped complaining. Now they were only sulking under Liora’s iron grip.
"Here we are, my lady, your highness."
The silence lasted until they arrived at one of the doors. The maid gave a polite bow to Nemi and Julia as she opened the door. Behind it lay a luxurious bedroom. From her position, Julia could see a body-length mirror by one of the walls, as well as a rack full of clothes.
"Wait, this is my room!"
Rie suddenly yelled out, visibly frustrated that her room was referred to as Nemi’s. The maid, who was starting to look through the clothes in the room, stopped and walked back to Rie. She slapped Rie on the cheeks without any change in her expression.
"A slave doesn’t have a room."
The maid said coldly before returning back to the clothes she was previously looking through. Julia observed the spectacle with slight amusement, while Nemi was straight-up shocked by it.
"Miss Nemi, thank you for helping my daughter."
As if Nemi hadn’t received enough shock within the last ten minutes, Loriam bowed slightly to her while thanking her. Nemi’s mind went blank for a bit, and when she came back to her senses, the maid was in the middle of changing her clothes.
"Can’t I just wear the black one?"
"Actually, that is a nice idea, we will match."
Nemi turned her head slightly to the side from where she heard the voices. There she saw Julia standing in front of a mirror wearing nothing but her underwear. Next to her stood the rather cheery Loriam, while Mirei and Liora were each presenting a dress to Julia.
"It’s all your fault, Rie, if you didn’t hit her…."
Nemi noticed in the corner of the room were Rie and the other two. But unlike before, they were now dressed in rather ragged clothes. Seeing them like this made Nemi happy, but she didn’t want to look at them for much longer.
Instead, she sneakily looked towards the mirror where Julia was getting dressed. She didn’t really know why she wanted to look again; it was just another girl, her friend getting changed there. But Julia’s slim figure was strangely entrancing to her.
Julia’s long silver-blond hair that was shining in the moonlight, and her beautiful doll-like face adorned by her ruby-like eyes were hypnotizing Nemi. She was unable to look elsewhere. Not like she wanted to. As she watched Julia getting dressed, she utterly failed to notice that she herself was being dressed.
The maid that was dressing Nemi only glanced at her face. Seeing the light blush and the direction Nemi was looking in, she smiled and said nothing as she refocused on her job. Good luck, my lady.