The Abandoned White Magician’s Tea Life - Chapter 62 : The Palace Maids

Translator: Sunnyshies

[unedited]

Chapter 62 : The Palace Maids

After that, Amalia had to move rooms.

By the way, the tea that Amalia brewed, not to mention the two cups that Braulio stuck his hand into, and the remaining ones were ordered by Alphonse to be thrown away because ravi smelled bad, so in the end, not a single sip was drunk by anyone, and they were discarded.

‘I didn’t brew it for this…!’

It was such a waste of moreh and ravi, which had just ripped fresh, and as a tea lover, there was no greater humiliation than that. Alphonse just said, “Next time, prepare something that suits my palate,” and left.

It was the maid from earlier who led Amalia to her room. She bowed with the same stern demeanor as before and walked down the corridor, saying, “Amalia-sama’s room is this way.”

‘Even so…I wonder if this is a castle’

As she followed the maid down the corridor, Amalia scanned her surroundings.

The ceilings were high, and outside the window she could see the garden, which was completely submerged in the colors of the night. Perhaps Kyros is further south than Polk, or perhaps the nights are just a little milder.

The guards they passed in the corridor remained upright and unmoving. But they were not friendly at all, and while they greeted the maid leading Amalia, they did not even give her a glance. Some of them even stared at her blatantly.

‘…do they hate me unconditionally because I’m the person Alphonse and Braulio brought in, rather than because I have problems?’

According to what she heard at the festival in Astera, Alphonse and Esmeralda have been on bad terms for a long time, and Alphonse has been disliked by his father-in-law, the king, and the people.

If these soldiers are loyal to the king, it’s no wonder that their attitude towards Amalia, who is supposed to be from Alphonse’s side, is so cold.

“This way.”

The maid opened the door to the room they had reached. She thought that Alphonse was going to give her a room like a prison, without any furniture or luxury items, but――

“…ara?”

She couldn’t help but exclaim.

The room she was shown into was so small that she thought it was a prison. However, it was clean and smelled sweet, like perfumed. Looking closely, she saw that there are flowers on the windowsill despite the bleakness of the place, and the room shoes that the other maids quickly offered her look fluffy and comfortable.

“This is the only room we can offer, but if you have any requests, please let us know.”

The maid from earlier said with a blank expression and was about to leave, but Amalia hurriedly stopped her.

“Ah, that!…it’s more than enough. Thank you for preparing a very beautiful room for me.”

The maid turned around and softened her expression just a little when she thanked her for preparing a space that would be relaxing enough for her to sleep and rest, rather than ordering her to do so.

“…at first, there were no flowers or perfume. I was told by His Highness Alphonse not to even dare to clean it.”

“What?”

“But…you have been courteous to us as well, despite your captivity…thank you for caring about Juana!”

The maid said in a casual tone, she then bowed, and left.

‘Juana? Oh, by any chance, the girl that Alphonse was complaining about earlier…?’

Amalia closed her eyes, remembering the girl shaking sadly as tea was poured over her.

…

The next day, she started living under house arrest.

Basically, she was not allowed to leave her room, and the only time she could go out was to wash her hands or take a bath. The room Alphonse assigned to Amalia seemed to be the lowest rank, and there was no running water in the room.

However, the maids took good care of Amalia, and sometimes even chatted with her. The one who mainly took care of Amalia was the young maid named Juana, who seemed to be very impressed by Amalia’s outburst to Alphonse when they first met, and immediately took a liking to Amalia.

“I’m still good at making tea. However, after I became a personal member of His Highness Alphonse’s household, he didn’t like me very much…he always said that I was no better than Amalia, so when I heard that she was here, I was very nervous at first.”

With her fluffy red hair and lovely blue eyes, Juana seems to have just turned 17 this year, and her family is a Baron in the Kingdom of Kyros.

She came to the castle for an apprenticeship and was determined to show off her tea-making skills, but she was assigned to Alphonse, who was already a hated man at the time. The day she received the notice, Juana was so shocked that she was unable to sleep.

“However, Amalia-sama was bold enough to speak up to His Highness Alphonse, and she also cared for me. Lorenza-sama also noticed that you were very kind when you thanked her.”

The king gave Esmeralda and Alphonse this palace as a place where they could live together as a family, but everyone is well aware that their marriage has gone cold. Esmeralda stays in the main castle with her father and son and seldom returns to the palace, so this place has become a kind of detention center for his highness, who is not well liked.

Of course, most of the people working at the palace, including Lorenza and Juana, disliked Alphonse, and Braulio, who followed him around like a goldfish doing all sorts of dubious experiments, was also a nuisance. Juana told her that the reason the soldiers stared at her as she walked down the hallway was not because they held a grudge against Amalia personally, but because Braulio was the one who had abducted her out of nowhere.

So far, she had only heard about the situation of the royal family of Kyros through rumors, but now she was familiar with the situation from the real place. Juana, too, is willing to share information with us, saying, “Just between you and me,” which is a great help to Amalia.

Alphonse hasn’t been able to accomplish any demon defeating missions, and he doesn’t have any political skills or exceptional social skills. It seems that King Kyros, although capable, is very vain and cares about the world, and he chose Alphonse, a commoner, as his son-in-law because he thought that having a dragon-slaying hero as a member of the royal family would give him prestige.

So when he married Esmeralda about eight years ago, it was hailed as “the marriage of an immensely beautiful princess and a dragon slaying hero,” but when his incompetence was revealed, his popularity quickly declined.

If Alphonse’s group’s achievements were mostly due to Amalia’s tea, it was only natural that they would fail in defeating demons. In addition, he was originally from a commoner background and wasn’t a wise man, so if his fighting ability was mediocre, he had no other charm to give him an edge.

That’s why Alphonse decided to listen for a moment to Braulio’s report that Amalia might be alive. And when Amalia’s kidnapping was successful and he found out that she was really capable of making tea with magical power, he was ready to take on the task of defeating the demon, which he had been reluctant to do until then.

“Does Esmeralda-sama know that I exist?”

“I’m sure they’re letting it pass. As for Esmeralda-sama, if she wants to damage His Highness Alphonse’s reputation any further, she has no choice but to divorce him. However, she is concerned about His Royal Highness the Prince, whom she gave birth to with pain in her belly, so it seems that she wants to hold out as long as possible against his father, Prince Alphonse, and avoid the disgrace of divorce.” 

As expected of a maid living in a female society. Very well informed. 

And, as expected, His Highness is a hated man. To have information leaked to her by a maid in the service of the detached palace is a clear indication of his virtue.

‘I see…the only reason they don’t divorce quickly is because the prince is born. It’s true, considering the prince is about to grow up, it wouldn’t be good for his reputation if he had a divorced father…’

She would like to say that he should wipe his own butt since he made his own choice, but she feels sorry for the prince who was born to such a couple.

She has no intention of ingratiating herself with Alphonse and Esmeralda, but she does want to see the prince grow up to be a man of integrity.

☼☼☼