Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty-Three: Being Spoiled by Trust 2
“Teacher Lily’s food is yummy!”
“Mrs. Lily, can I have another helping?”
“Of course! That’s why I made so much!”
“The food from the earl’s house was tastier…”
“Well, obviously! But from now on you’ll be eating what I make! Prepare yourselves!”
“Awww.”
After quietly checking on the meal from outside the room without letting the children notice, Karen looked at Sepl.
“See?”
“See what, exactly?”
Sepl looked puzzled at Karen’s breezy request for agreement.
“Don’t you notice anything? Something different from usual?”
“Just as I expected, those brats have gotten spoiled by good food! Lily’s cooking is damn tasty.”
As if responding to Sepl’s disgruntled words, one of the children frowned slightly.
“Mmm… It’s kind of salty…”
“Oh no, I’m sorry! At home I always made salty things to go with drinks…!”
Sepl looked dissatisfied but seemed convinced as he muttered, "Well… Lily’s dishes are certainly good accompaniments for alcohol…" He didn’t seem to have noticed anything else, and just as Karen was about to give the answer, Harald appeared from behind.
“I know what it is, Lady Karen.”
“Do you? Yes, I suppose you would.”
“Then allow me to offer Mr. Sepl a hint… first, it’s very lively in there, wouldn’t you say?”
“So what? Kids are always noisy. That’s just how they are.”
“Hmm. Not enough of a hint, then. Let me try another approach—if you had the opportunity to dine with His Majesty the King and were served a mud ball, would you eat it, Mr. Sepl?”
“What?”
Sepl looked puzzled. Harald offered a dark smile.
“I would eat it. I would eat it with a smile, and finish every last bite. Not only would I say nothing critical—I would say it was delicious, and I would make myself mean it. After all, a mud ball served in the royal palace might actually taste better than one eaten in some lowly back alley.”
“No, that’s not—”
“That would be the only way to think about it, wouldn’t it?—At least, that’s what I would have thought back when I had no power whatsoever.”
Harald spoke while listening to the cheerful voices of the children spilling from the room.
“They are the same. Though what they are eating is more than adequate food, provided through the generosity of the Ehlertt Earldom.”
“Harald’s example is extreme, but I get it too. If you’re a child with no parents, stomach empty, and an adult who has nothing to do with you gives you food out of the goodness of their heart—you can’t exactly say it doesn’t taste good, can you?”
Unlike Thor, who had been fairly honest about his opinions on food, Karen had been a polite child even when she was young.
“Those children are the same. Sure, even the staff meals at the estate are delicious—but each of them is probably swallowing things they want to say. Because they can’t say them. There’s no way they could, right?”
“Quite so. It is food prepared by a noble household’s cook, and provided by the people who hold power over their very lives.”
“Most of them would never say they want to go home, not in a million years, not like Lena did. They wouldn’t try to escape, either, and they wouldn’t chase after someone who did. They read the room, accept the environment I’ve given them with gratitude, show appreciation, try to show respect. Because actually, this place is better than most anywhere else they could be—but there must be so many words they’re swallowing.”
“…And they can say those things to Lily?”
“Exactly.”
Sepl showed a flash of deep sympathy and understanding for the children—then scrunched his brow tightly again.
“…Doesn’t that just mean the brats are taking Lily lightly?”
“That’s very much part of it, yes.”
“To be honest, I took Mrs. Lily lightly myself when I was a child.”
“Hey!”
Sepl raised his voice at Harald’s emphatic nod and Karen’s casual admission. Karen laughed and glanced back at the room.
She came to peek at the children’s situation from time to time. When they realized she was there, they grew quiet and subdued, so she made sure not to be noticed—but the room was livelier than it usually was at mealtimes.
Word that Lily would be taking over the cooking going forward had gotten out, and more and more children were placing requests—they wanted this, they wanted that—until it was getting out of hand. Lily would probably snap soon, scold them, and restore order. And even when scolded, the children would never be as afraid as they were of Karen.
“It’s not that they’re treating Mrs. Lily like a fool, Uncle Sepl. Sure, they’re taking advantage of her kindness, and they probably do take her a little lightly… but it’s because she makes them feel like they can trust her. That even if she gets angry, she’ll forgive them. That if they apologize, she’ll accept it. And unlike Harald, she makes them feel that she won’t abandon them depending on whether they meet certain conditions.”
“Indeed. If a child is not of benefit to Lady Karen, I have no intention of showing them mercy.”
Harald would undoubtedly cast aside any child who did not meet the conditions under which he had said he would never abandon them. Most of the children had found hope in those words, but a handful had gone pale.
Children who couldn’t keep up with Harald’s expectations would inevitably emerge. And even those children—they might feel that Lily, at least, wouldn’t abandon them. Because she had been the one to shield even Lena, at her most defiant, when Lena was clearly not suited to this place.
“In other words, that’s one of the things that makes Mrs. Lily so amazing.”
“…I see.”
Sepl nodded after thinking it through thoroughly, and Karen gave him a suspicious look.
“Do you actually understand? I feel like people who become adventurers often can’t really grasp the emotional nuances of how the weak suppress their feelings to survive.”
“As Lady Karen says—if one understood the behavior of the weak, one would not be an adventurer foolishly challenging floors beyond one’s means.”
“Right, like my father, for instance.”
“Ack—”
While Harald let out a yelp and turned white with horror after the “knife” he had been brandishing in an overconfident display hit Karen, Sepl said:
“Of course I understand it.”
He then put on a smug expression.
“It just means my woman is an absolutely wonderful woman!”
“Yes, yes, good for you.”
“Hey, don’t brush me off like that.”
Karen brushed Sepl off and looked back at the dining room once more.
Scolded by Lily to sit down, the children complied while laughing—they had a moment to simply be children. Confirming that, Karen, with Sepl and Harald, quietly left the area.
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