"Young master, your meal will be ready in thirty minutes. If you wish to refresh yourself, the bath has already been prepared."
Nan came to meet Rotsard and informed him while bowing her head.
The aura surrounding her was that of joy, similar to an attention-starved puppy whose owner just returned home from work.
"I'll take a bath after my meal. I'd like to soak for a while and relax. As for the meal, I will have it in the cafeteria."
"The… the cafeteria, young master…?"
Rotsard looked to the side and smiled in a rather malicious way while responding, causing the maid to twitch in confusion.
"That's right. I've been in solitary confinement long enough, I want to…"
The bleached-blond-haired boy looked out the window that just so happened to have a view on the training grounds where a certain future hero had been training since before dawn.
"..."
…and the sight of him wiped the smirk off Rotsard's face, replaced with disgust…
The luckiest human alive, the one to get blessed by Grand Fae itself during his offering ceremony.
The one who is bound to make a contract with a juvenile Great Fae during his second year in the Royal Academy.
The person who will save the world once the Arch deofol ascends to its surface.
Only that for Justin to achieve it all, he, Rotsard, must suffer defeat after defeat, but hard-fought and close enough to always keep the future hero on his toes. To make the future hero always push himself to reach greater heights.
How ironic it was for Rotsard to become nothing more than a fertilizer for the growth of a shit-flinging peasant.
...ironic…?
No.
More like, humiliating beyond his limits!
"Y-young Master…?"
Even Nan, who was assigned to Rotsard's side since birth, couldn't handle the look in his beastly yellow eyes, despite the fact that the glare wasn't directed at her, and yelped fearfully.
Alas.
If he couldn't make a personal sacrifice, what made him any different from those filthy, selfish peasants he despised so much?
"...be around others."
"...u-understood…"
After the long break, the bleached-blond-haired boy finished his sentence, looking away from the window and fixing his expression, while the fidgety maid cowered and bowed her head.
—--
The cafeteria was slowly filling up with students who either didn't have personal servants or whose servants couldn't cook on the level of the cafeteria staff.
And there, in the corner with the best view on the whole area, Rotsard Vallhall has seized the entire table for himself and observed the hustle and bustle.
The food was taking a bit longer than expected, so the bleached-blond-haired boy allowed himself to enjoy a special drink suggested by his butler.
Second glass even.
"You know what? Don't bother with going back and forth, just bring the whole bottle or two."
"Excellent choice, my lord!"
And when he finished it too, and the butler took away the glass to refill it, Rotsard stopped him for a moment and asked, to which the man smiled as he bowed his head.
"Young Master, are you sure it's… healthy… to drink so early in the morning…? And on the first day of the evaluations…?"
Nan stayed faithful to her duty as a maid and pointed out harmful behavior to her master.
Rotsard was about to respond, but one of the kitchen helpers ran up to his table, and after a polite greeting, he notified his maid about the meal being ready.
"..."
As Nan followed the boy that appeared to be barely in his teens, Rotsard watched them go with a particular look in his yellow eyes.
Both the food and the drink ended up being served to him at the same time, and yet the moment that the platter with a generous portion of whole mutton chops, bone and all, was placed in front of him, he sniffed it, and his expression turned as opposite to delighted as it possibly could.
"!!!"
Rotsard didn't let the kitchen helper boy, observing him intensely through the crack in the door leading to the kitchen, know that he noticed him and instead focused on the scene that he had to create.
Even so, before the maid or the butler could say or try to stop him, to ask what was wrong, the bleached-blond-haired boy picked one of the chops, using a napkin to grab the bone, and bit into and through it.
Meat and bone.
As if there was no difference in texture or toughness whatsoever.
And it wasn't as if he bit around the bone, picking only the meat.
He bit through the bone, exposing the marrow.
And while his stunned servants watched, he chewed and swallowed the first bite, and went for the next one.
And again.
And as there was no meat left, he simply crunched on the leftover bone and went for the next chop.
Although at first the rest of the students within the cafeteria had better things to do, when Rotsard was about half-way done with his meal, everyone was staring at him.
"Ahhh~ It was absolutely disgusting."
Then, after he finished, Rotsard leaned back into the cafeteria chair and exclaimed with the most vicious smile, patting his stomach.
"As long as you enjoyed the… Y-young Master…? Did you just say it was…"
"Disgusting. Horrendous. Nauseating. Mutton can be served both raw and well done, but somehow what I got was a failure. The only good part of it was its look, but because of the blandness, I am forced to assume it was painted to achieve the result. I remember throwing up in my mouth once and then swallowing it back up, and somehow, this blasphemy in the face of food still is a worse experience. I honestly cannot comprehend why Grand Fae allowed this to exist and didn't smite down the heretic who tortured this abomination into existence. "
Nan, misled by the satisfied tone of Rotsard's voice, bowed her head and muttered, only to then flinch and gasp right before getting interrupted by the bleached-blond-haired boy's vicious description of the dish he literally devoured, prodding the plate he swiped clean with a piece of bread.
"..."
For a few seconds, the whole cafeteria went silent, and even the noises from the kitchen gradually subsided as Rotsard's words were passed onto the staff…
"...take that back…"
And then, in that silence, someone's quiet voice, brimming with fury, resounded through the area.
When others began to look for the source of it, they all ended up looking at the young boy, the kitchen helper, standing in the kitchen door.
"You take that back…!"
"..."
He said louder, taking a step forward, but Rotsard appeared too busy with having his glass refilled for the fourth time to even spare him a glance.
"HEY! I said, take that back…!"
The boy gritted his teeth and took another step, but was ignored by the one person he addressed.
"G-grab him!"
"I TOLD YOU TO TAKE THAT BACK!"
Finally, some of the kitchen staff rushed out and, at the command of the head chef, seized the boy just in time because a moment of delay would result in the charge and attack on a student, a member of the Vallhall family to boot! And it would not end up being only an attempt!
"YOU FOUL-MOUTHED CARNIVORE WITH DEGRADED TASTE BUDS! HOW DARE SOMEONE LIKE YOU SLANDER MY COOKING!? I COULD HAVE PREPARED AND SERVED YOU YOUR OWN SHI-MPFGJFG…! MMNPGHHH! PHGGHHH! NNNGHGHGG!"
The boy began flailing in the arms of the people holding him down, trying to free himself but with the difference in size and strength being far too much for him, he ended up screaming his lungs off at the indifferent Rotsard, and continued to scream and trash around even after getting a kitchen rag stuffed in his mouth to muffle the obscenities that almost saw the light of day.