# 58
58. The Maid Left Alone (2)
For the first time in my life, I grew curious about how they were living. I thought I was worse off than others, but I guess family is still family. Or perhaps my heart, stained with hunger and exhaustion, had simply grown weak.
In the end, I returned to Filton. Thinking back now, it was a pointless endeavor. But at the time, it felt like my only hope.
I figured my father and the third child were living well. The amount of gold coins they received for selling me was substantial, after all. They probably forgot about the existence of their first daughter, who had been useful for the first time in funding their luxury. Maybe they had even left Filton.
The house I returned to was actually dilapidated, on the verge of collapse, and there were no signs of people inside. If I hadn't run into someone approaching the house right then, I would have kept that misunderstanding.
I confirmed the tear-stained face in the dirty clothes and was horrified. It was the third child, Alicia, who had been so pretty and beautiful.
'Alicia?'
'Who... Sister?'
Alicia discovered me and froze. But only for a moment; she threw down the basket she was holding in her arms and ran towards me. Then, she grabbed both my shoulders and shook me violently.
'It's because of you! It's all because of you!'
'W-wait, what are you! Let go of me!'
My head bobbed up and down. I was already exhausted and dying, and Alicia turned my stomach inside out. When I finally couldn't take it anymore and pushed her away, Alicia fell backward all too easily. Alicia, who had fallen on her backside, suddenly burst into tears. Looking at that sight, I was dumbfounded. My sister, who had been so haughty and arrogant, was bawling her eyes out with tears and snot streaming down her face.
After calming Alicia down and bringing her inside the house, I asked her about what had happened.
'Someone came looking for me?'
'I don't know. Some strange men came looking for you. Even though Father told them he didn't know and that it had been a long time since they lost contact, they kept coming, and they got into a few scuffles.'
Suddenly, it felt like I couldn't breathe. Was it the butler? Since he took me directly from Filton, he already knew where my house was. Or... was Vincent looking for me? I couldn't be sure. It could be someone else entirely. With things turning out like this, I suspected everything and everyone. Whatever it was, it wasn't a good sign.
'Do you know why they were looking for me?'
'Yeah. They asked where you were, and said they'd reward us if we told them when you came here. But how would we know anything about you?'
'I see... What about Father?'
I looked around, searching for the demon bastard who had been nowhere to be seen since earlier. He should be home by this time, but there wasn't a trace of him.
'He's dead.'
'...What?'
Startled, I stared at Alicia.
'It's been a while.'
Alicia's face as she said that was so calm that for a moment, I thought my sister was joking. It was that hard to believe.
'W-when? Don't tell me it was because of those men?'
'No. He gambled and drank with the gold coins he got from selling you, and apparently fell asleep on the street. He froze to death just like that.'
'...'
It was such a meaningless death, not even worth mentioning.
Alicia said she didn't collect our father's corpse. When I asked why, she said there was nowhere else to put the frozen corpse, so she left it outside for a moment, but overnight, birds of prey pecked it apart. How starving must they have been to leave the corpse without a trace. It was an end all too fitting for a father who had survived by killing his own children.
'Was there no gold left?'
'No. He must have spent it all before he died.'
'How have you been getting by?'
'How have I been getting by. With Father dead and even you gone, what could I do? I had to earn my own wages. But there was nothing I could do. I barely managed to beg and help with farm work at Aunt Benny's house across the street, but I got fired after a day. They said I was too terrible at it.'
Alicia sniffled and shrank back. Then, as if pouring out all the grievances she had endured, she told me about what happened after Father left. It was a tale of hardship that couldn't be heard without tears. With nothing but a pretty face and a slender body, there was nothing Alicia could do. With that haughty personality of hers, she probably couldn't bow her head to anyone either.
Seeing the third child after such a long time, her condition was definitely not like before. Her clothes were rags, her once-glossy hair was completely tangled, and her snow-white skin looked rough. Her once-beautiful hands and feet were covered in scratches and swollen.
'Sister, what do we do now? How are we going to live?'
Tearful Alicia looked so exhausted. I couldn't bear to leave and abandon my sister, who looked so frail she might crumble at any moment. Perhaps because my heart had grown weak, for a moment, I felt pity for the third child. The way she grew up must have been partly my and Father's fault as well.
'How are we going to live? We just have to live like before.'
'But how?'
'We have to find work somehow.'
There was no need to stay here any longer. I immediately left Filton with Alicia. That house was no longer a place fit for human habitation anyway, and we had to flee to avoid the people looking for me. We headed for Nobell, the nation's center and largest city.
I thought there would be plenty of jobs in Nobell. However, even there, there was no work we could do immediately. There was nowhere to live either. I took Alicia and desperately went into any shop to ask for a job. But no place would hire women without verifiable identities. The only places that would accept us were brothels.
'Not you, just that girl over there.'
'I refuse!'
Even they only wanted my pretty sister, once you stripped away her filth and polished her up. Alicia was terrified and firmly refused, saying she would absolutely not do it. She threw a fit saying she'd rather die, and I exhausted myself trying to calm her down.
We went back to sleeping on the streets and rummaging through trash cans to survive day by day. Alicia, who had been whining at first, kept her mouth shut once she realized the gravity of the situation.
One day was exhausting, and the next was grueling. Eventually, Alicia suffered from a high fever, making the situation even worse. Seeing my sister looking like she would breathe her last at any moment, I knocked on every door I could find, screaming for someone to save us. But everyone turned their backs on us.
No one saves beggars. Being ignored was expected. That made it even more sorrowful and anxious. I was miserable, unable to do anything but watch Alicia gasping for breath.
What should I do if even Alicia leaves me?
Left all alone, what should I do?
During the time I lived alone after leaving that mansion, I was so scared. If I died, would there be anyone who would remember me? Who would know of my death? That terrified me so much. The thought that no one would know of my death if I died like this... That's just too sad.
So I went to see my family. But my father was dead, and the only one left was the third child, whom I had hated so much. Still, it was okay. I didn't keep Alicia by my side out of loneliness. It was out of fear. If even my only blood relative left, I would truly be all alone, and I didn't have the confidence to endure such a life. I had grown that weak.
Once again, I knocked on every single door like a crazy person. After knocking until the backs of my hands swelled, a door miraculously opened. An elderly couple found me and stared with wide eyes.
Thanks to the kind elderly couple's goodwill, my sister was able to lie in bed and receive treatment. The elderly couple was kind to us dirty, smelly young girls.
I thought that something like someone's kindness would never come to me, no matter how desperately I wished for it. But I received someone's help and survived like that.
'It'll be easier to find work in the next village over than here.'
Following the elderly couple's advice, we headed to a small village next to Nobell. It was located in such a remote corner that I wondered if a village could even exist there, but it was larger than I expected. Going a bit further into the forest from there, we discovered abandoned empty houses. It was a slum where people with nowhere to go, like us, drifted in and lived.
And so, our life there began. I found work by reading the room and sneaking in among the women. Most of the people in this village made a living doing manual labor in Nobell. The only jobs available to people without certain identities were physical labor. Plus, they could be hired cheaply.
It was hard to find a job at first, but once you secured a spot, it was a structure where work continued through connections.
It was no different from Filton, so it was easy to adapt. I was used to living a hard life. Manual labor wasn't difficult either.
However, Alicia complained about the even poorer lifestyle compared to before. But no matter how much she grumbled, it was a situation where we couldn't do anything about it. To survive, we had to earn money, and to earn money, we had to suffer. Having never experienced hardship in her entire life, Alicia frequently fell ill, and I had to work even harder to cover Alicia's share.
Three years passed like that, and one day, while walking down the street, I coincidentally learned news of them. Sprouts sprouted vividly, and flowers bloomed and withered many times over; enough time had passed that life there now felt distant.
I was occasionally curious. Were they living well? How were they living? He... how was Vincent...
I thought I might be able to see them, even if by chance. Passing by their faces while walking down the street, or maybe accidentally reuniting at a workplace I was introduced to through connections—things like that. But after leaving the Bellunita mansion, I never met them even once. Instead, I was able to occasionally catch news of them through the newspaper.
That was all.
Five years had passed since I left the Bellunita mansion. During those years, I was too busy living my own life. The memories of that place gradually remained as nostalgia. Don't they say memories become more beautiful as they fade?
It's already been five years.
'I will bring you to my side. Definitely.'
No, five years have already passed since then.
"By now, he probably doesn't even remember me."
The muttered words were swept away by the wind. The time I spend immersed in memories is now short. The reality right in front of me came first.
Living hand to mouth came to a sudden stop. There was nothing to eat right away. We could skip one meal, but the problem was what came after. As the starvation dragged on, Alicia whined that she was hungry.
In the end, I scraped together all the remaining money and headed to the street bread vendor. Street bread was hard and tasteless, but it was cheap, so we often bought it.
But even buying one was a stretch with the amount I had now.
"Don't you have anything cheaper?"
"This is the cheapest."
A sigh escaped me at those words. To think I couldn't even afford this tasteless bread. Sighs of poverty flowed out naturally.
Seeing me hesitate without buying the bread readily, the owner scanned me up and down. Then, he abruptly pointed to one spot.
"If you give me that, I'll give you three of the best breads."
What he pointed at was the hair tie binding my hair. I don't know how he recognized it, but he pinpointed the most valuable thing I had.
I hesitated. This was an item that held precious memories. It was old and faded now, but the emotions I felt when I received it still remained in my heart. That was why I had never taken it off my body even for a moment.
But right now, starvation came first.
After hesitating, I finally untied the string and handed it to the owner.