Chapter Two: Summoning the Marquis
Time passed by at an eerie speed, as if the clock's hands had decided to transcend the boundaries of reality and advance at an accelerated pace, leaving a feeling of amazement and strangeness deep within me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the clock, that exquisitely crafted masterpiece, fixed on the wall of the room, whose murals were meticulously crafted and decorated with dazzling artistic touches. Every element in the room, from the furniture details to the delicate ornaments on the walls, screamed with its sober beauty, as if the room itself was trying to tell the story of an era I had never known.
It was exactly ten o'clock, and I was still immersed in the books stacked on my desk, trying to absorb every piece of information and every idea hidden between the pages. I didn't realize the time had passed until reality hit me: I had spent hours immersed in a sea of letters and words, skimming through each book as if searching for a missing piece of myself or a puzzle that might explain what was happening around me. I felt a strange connection to the moment I had woken up here, when the clock's hands struck six in the morning, and I imagined that Emily had arrived at her usual time, as she was supposed to do every day, or at least that's what I thought at the time.
The information I had wasn't enough to draw precise conclusions, but I knew that conclusions based on little are sometimes more accurate than those based on a wealth of details. My mind is accustomed to clinging to whatever is available, no matter how small. Before I could delve further into my analysis, a faint ringing sound broke the silence in the room.
The sound came from the door, a soft knocking that almost blended with the air itself, as if the person behind the door was trying not to disturb the person inside. And without a doubt, that person was me. I felt fully aware of who I was, Esther, at that moment, as if I was seeing myself from a different angle, one from which I was not accustomed to looking.
Esther here doesn't seem to be a bookworm; the number of books in the plush room was limited to the fictional stories I was browsing. Most characters of this ilk tend toward laziness, and perhaps cruelty in their treatment of servants, which led me to conclude that her relationship with Emily Dokie, the maid, doesn't exceed 20 percent—a shameful number for someone supposed to be a nobleman or a lord in this world. I sighed deeply, realizing that this emotional distance wasn't necessarily a sign of hatred, but rather a estrangement imposed by reality itself.
Then came the voice from behind the door, quiet, respectful in tone, which made me smile coldly, not happily, but sarcasticly. "Sir, may I come in, please?" The voice sounded the same as before, polite and respectful, but I knew the maid didn't like the owner of the body I now controlled. Still, as part of the social order of this world, she was forced to conform and respect, aspiring to achieve her ambition, at least on the surface.
The world isn't rosy, especially in fantasy novels, so it would have been better to respond quickly, but my mind could only think calmly, trying to balance limited knowledge with the required representation. I told myself: Relationships are merely a means to mutual benefit, and only in this way can the situation be controlled. In a calm voice, feigning control and poise, I invited her in, as if I were mastering the role of the character I was now playing, the character of Esther de Fenix.
The maid opened the door with a careful movement, accompanied by a barely audible creak—the sound that told you everything in this palace was made with the utmost care. She was wearing her usual maid's uniform, and her face held the same expression as before, bowed in respect, but I knew that the respect expressed often concealed loyalty or personal ambition.
"Sire," she said in her polite voice. "The Marquis requests to meet you in his room." I paused at those words, drawing my attention to the question ringing in my head: Why is the Marquis calling me at this particular time? Did I do something before I took possession of my current body, or does he have a specific purpose in summoning me? I paused for less than a second, then realized there was no point in overthinking it; perhaps the summons was just part of academic protocol.
I looked at Emily and said in a calm voice, going beyond my usual calm to something cold: "Take me to my father's room immediately." Emily turned at the same moment, and a blue-sky screen with tiny gold letters appeared in front of me, showing her relationship level with me: 19%, a subtle reminder that she was capable of carrying out orders precisely but couldn't care less about me.
We moved through the palace's corridors, every corner a masterpiece beyond the human mind's ability to conceive. As I watched the screen, I wondered why my relationship level had dropped from 20% to 19%, and I began reviewing the events since the maid entered my room. After much analysis, I came to one conclusion: Emily doesn't personally hate me; she simply doesn't like me. Our relationship is affected by my words, and only relatively.
I realized that this girl, who had once been a princess of a count's family, one of the fifty noble families, had lost everything after her family died, and had become a servant to only one marquis's family, one level above her. This loss, and the need to survive, shaped her cold and ambitious personality, one that accepted being a servant for purely practical, not emotional, reasons. She sought to be an agent, not just a pawn on a chessboard.
I watched her movements from behind me, her slow, deliberate steps, each movement carrying meaning, each behavior reflecting the experience of years of social decline and lost nobility. I realized that this girl would not accept being just an ordinary piece of paper, and that her natural behavior was the result of a past filled with dangers and buried ambitions.
When we reached the giant door, ornate in an indescribable elegance, with the golden phoenix symbol about to pounce, Emily stopped, bowed slowly, and announced in her soft voice, "We are here, young master. You may enter now." She stood behind me, as if her presence there was part of protocol, and I couldn't explain why.
I was wearing white gloves, and I knew that anyone who glanced at them would see cold sweat dripping from them, along with the slight tremor I felt in my hands as I stared at the ornate door that seemed to guard a world I only knew through memories of the old novel I had read long ago.
Everything around me hinted at the mystique of the palace, at the complex system governed by the noble families, at the delicate roles everyone was forced to play, and at the hidden conflicts that had yet to be expressed in words. Every step I took toward the Marquis's room reminded me of how little I knew about the world I now lived in, and that every movement and every word could alter the course of relationships, even by a tiny margin, as had happened with Emily.
At that moment, I felt a chill seep into my bones through the white caps, and awe of the unknown beyond the door, but it was awe mixed with awareness: that this world, with its grandeur, beauty, and cruelty, required me to be vigilant, to read every look and movement, to understand every hidden thread that connected people. And all of this was not just a test of the mind, but a test of the soul. I was now on the threshold of confronting a truth greater than any novel I had read, a truth that required me to be more than a concealer of knowledge, but a driver of events, a controller of the complex game of human chess that stretched out before me.
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