An apparent peace has washed the entirety of the kingdom with equality, but, that peace is not going to last long with the fact that even man themselves can command the land and receive a noble title. As expected with the history, the monarch of the kingdom was spared and must switch to a capable way to rule equally.
And how many days it took to be like this? A week, one single week for the common to take over the nobility and bring back their free will and freedom to the surface of Earth. Sure enough, some former noble started to go milling around with their respective jobs as a commoner themselves.
On the other hand, I accepted the guard's proposition and their help under the guise of a former servant escaping from the grasp of a noble. I am not an actor, but I think it went pretty well for an undercover mission like that. Right now, I am currently staying in an inn that is quite popular in this town.
Well, I am technically now a staff of this popular inn in the kitchen. I do not pretend to know the arts of cuisine, but I can still help with the other required things such as cleaning and all that.
Luckiness still plays into my hand at this point, as the member of the staff seemed cordial with former nobles and some of them had nobles who would take care of them. They did not regret the freedom despite that, though, they were surprised to find a former noble in charge of cleaning in an inn.
"So, what's your name?" They asked with a kind smile, one that reminds me of the future without nobility. And I answered too with a genuine smile, "Remilia." I excluded my last name for a reason though until I deem that I was ready to use it once more.
"Nice to meet you again, Remilia!" laughed the staff member, the clock ticking in the background as the world starts moving forward in the same path as before. "You too, all!" I beamed happily at their response.
The plate shone under the glimmering light of the lamp hung on the wall as I washed the remains of those who have eaten here, and used glasses drank by men and women that felt down or felt the need to have fun while drunk. I did go the extra mile to clean the dirtied household items though, as I was quite icky when served with an unclean plate in my past life.
Hmm, what was that?
A breeze of something else in my gut flared but it did not feel anything like the dangers I've always felt in the past before. It was different, chilly, and unnatural enough to make it something I have to look into. "Anne, could you finish this for me? I need to check on something."
I entered the dining area where the gut feeling seemed to be the strongest to the point that I was practically feeling subzero temperature in my own body. But suddenly, it disappeared and I merely mulled my thoughts in confusion.
A loud voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I immediately turned my way to the source and felt my eyebrows rising in disbelief at the sight. My old instinct snapped into place and I approached the pair, "What seems to be the problem, noble sir?" I sarcastically said his title.
This man is a former noble, still a noble despite weeks of announcement that the nobility has been banished by the monarchy and the common themselves, and before him is a glaring staff member, one of ours looking insulted. "Hm?" He paused in his shouting and turned to slightly look down and his eyes widened.
I ignored his expression, "You need to leave the premises if you decide that you can still be a noble in this era, sir." A flash of non-immediate danger and I immediately jerked my body back to avoid a slap by this insolent noble that has entered the premise. "The nobility did not lose, Heiress Scarlet! How dare you—!" He shouted.
"Then you're a fool," I interrupted immediately, giving him the famous cold glare given by my deceased mother. Silence descended in the room, the noble seemed to have an aneurysm just by staring at me, it seems. "Come now, surely, you are capable of having a productive job just like I have?"
I continued nonetheless, barging on the silence as if I walked on the freezing ice of a lake. The noble seemed to get red with either rage or embarrassment, but it does not matter to me. "Perhaps we will take this conversation privately then? I do not wish to disturb the men still celebrating the happiness of the nobility gone, and you here will ruin their happiness."
The waiter of the inn stared with a gaping mouth on her face as both former nobles entered a room nearby, and some of the staff seemed to approach the door to eavesdrop on their conversation. Some resting guards seemed to also take interest in the conversation, "If I am not mistaken, the little lass took something from the table."
"Well, she is right though. What was that man even thinking? Maybe he went insane with no money to go off after his land was taken over?"
I pushed the man inside the room while releasing a deathly aura and yet it still did not deter the former noble from shouting once more. "Would you like a tiny little proof that you do not rule anymore, noble?" I drawled unnecessarily, turning around and facing him while unsheathing something from behind.
"I usually educate people through knowledge, not violence. But it seems that you have forgotten something in this land of equal, noble."
"And what is it, little girl? Oh, don't tell me. Are you going to—" The noble was on the verge of laughing when a sharp object immediately punctured his boots and set him almost screaming in pain that gave me the same satisfaction as before.
A heel went through the noble's boot and punctured his feet with a nail that was stuck below the heel. In the past, I would've cringed at the sight of a nail punctured the roof of a man's feet but she was already quite familiar with sights like these. "Y-you—!" The noble choked on his words, trying to keep down the pain that he felt.
"Keep in mind that there are much worse one out there than myself, sir noble, and most of them are not even nobles," I said coldly with a hint of warning, and I immediately zoomed close to his face and he stepped back with a clear sign of fear. "Arrogance is death, ignorance is death. Did the Academy not tell you that either? How poor of you.."
"I…!" I ignored his stuttering words and barged on, continuing my words, in a sense, my knives are some sort of assault weapon to go against this person and it did clearly work judging by his expression. This man, this noble is out of time from the world's and he needed to clear his own head.
"Please, for your sake and others, noble. Walk away and learn from your mistakes." The noble gulped and threw open the doors to run away from the little devil in apparent disguise of a nine-year-old child. My cold glare morphed into a sigh of resignation as soon as I saw the noble exit the building with a desperate stride, "At this point, I'm just going to turn into the original Remilia Scarlet…"
"Is this original you're speaking of, is someone on the family tree before?" A familiar voice voiced its concern behind me, and I immediately yelped — turning around to be face-to-face with my coworkers. Most of them have an amused face to the runaway noble with earlier, and some with concern. "Ah.. It is kind of complicated.." I sheepishly said.
"Well, I think that you won't be the original of the same name as yours, then! You kind of protected us, you know?" I blushed, even though the context is wrong in the terms of my words beforehand since they do not know the original context I know.
But for the sake of timeline integrity, "Thank you," I smiled happily and the member of the staff giggled and laughed at my sincere thanks to themselves. I wonder how would they react if they knew that the original Remilia Scarlet is a sadomasochistic vampire youkai originating from Europe that now stayed in Gensokyo, a land of fantasy.
As the night descended and the work shift changed, I entered my room tiredly and locked the door behind me for extra protection. Not that I do not trust my coworkers, but it is not the modern ages and there may be some… barbarians… entering the room of a little girl.
I really need to lower my exposure to the public though..
When morning came, I did not get to work immediately and instead walked off to the forest to relax from the hard work that I have to do soon. The chill breezy wind went against my clothes and body, the sound of birds chirping drowned by the sound of the tree leaves rustling.
The forest is nowhere familiar to the forest that I usually visit when the nobility still exists and my family territory still stands proudly above the common. Now, the forests felt more similar to those wandering the forests in the modern era.
Hearing footsteps from behind, I whirled around only to relax at the sight of Anne. Another one of my coworkers in charge of cleaning in the inn too, but with a wider range than me. "So you're here, Remi.." I sheepishly giggled to myself.
"Sorry, I just want some time to relax a bit before going to work."
"Is that so?" Anne seems more suspicious than usual though, what things did I just do wrong back then? She raised her eyebrows as I became silent to think of the things that I just did, starting from last week to today. She sighed, "You left like fifteen dishes unwashed yesterday, you know." I flushed a deep red.
"Wha—!" I squeaked in embarrassment, did I not tell her to clean my plate since I needed to check on my gut feeling that something is severely going wrong down in the dining room, or did I just imagine myself talking to her? "But—!"
"No buts, young lady." I deflated immediately, I should have checked on the dishes last night after the work with the noble was finished. "Yes, I'm sorry, Anne." I pouted as I cast my eyes down, it was quite the fresh air to have this kind of banter and scolding from a non-nobility.
It reminds me of the modern era even more, but there will be a day where I have to leave this inn and travel to the capital of England, London itself which will provide me a lot of opportunity on searching for my unknown fate. Sure, it was quite good having word-play banter with the other noble, but I felt it was quite easier with life like this.
"Now, now. Don't pout just yet, we haven't decided on your punishment yet." My jaw immediately dropped to the ground, and curse my teenage mind from my past life that I just blurted out something unforgiving.
"Are you sadomasochistic?" I blurted out recklessly and her glare immediately transformed with a chiding and cold glare that seemed to rival the glare that I usually give to nobles. Curse my tongue, this is quite embarrassing.
"And we will have a talk where you have heard that word, either," growled Anne while I merely whimpered at the upcoming talk which will rid myself of ears on my head.
After getting an earful from Anne while the rest of the staff watched on with amusement, I could only whimper at the ringing in my ear seemed to intensify. Nevertheless, I continue to work on the tasks I've been given until the work shifted around to be switched with somebody else.
"Yo, Anne. Done with the cleanup yet?" One of the concerned workers inquired the cleaner with a frown, she nodded firmly and they walked off that way to do something related to their work.
I could only watch as Anne seemed to uneasily wash one of the dishes with me, what was she bothered with? "Are you alright, Anne?" I asked with concern in my voice, she blinked at the inquiry and laughed a bit — but it was obvious that it was rather concealed in my opinion. "It's fine. Just something wrong with one of the rooms."
One of the rooms? "If it's another noble, just point me their way and I'll stab their feet." She laughed cheerfully at my eagerness and ruffled my hair which kind of annoyed me for a bit. Though, why was Anne uneasy is still unknown and it seems I needed to find it out by myself.
As soon as my shift ended, I quickly went up to my room alongside saying good night to my fellow coworkers along with Anne. Despite that, she still looks uneasy and ill enough — this may not even be my job to deal with, but I still want to find out and whether it will harm one of my coworkers.
After an hour of swinging my legs in bed, I immediately unlocked the door and exited my room quietly. Years of experience dealing with stealth exploration in the mansion improved my sense of logic during times like these.
Think back to what she is concerned with, one of the rooms? Then it is something with the one staying in the inn, but who?
I quietly walked towards the back of the inn and unlocked it before running away to find a guard to stealthily steal some information. One of the likely case that somebody had died within the inn, but it would not explain the extreme uneasiness and the hiding as death is extremely normal in history and children often know about it.
Some guards were milling around the town center, and some were paired which made it easier for me to listen to. Guards that are paired are most likely to have a conversation and in any case, they will include something that happened in the inn.
One of the guards stopped at the front of a pawn shop, and I immediately hit behind a bunch of barrels behind the walls. To not cause panic and suspicion to the guards, I try to hide within the shadows and make myself quieter.
Now, let's hear what brutality has occurred within the inn walls..
After ten minutes of meaningless conversation between those two guards, I was kind of logically going through the entire conversation between myself and Anne. Her concern and uneasiness were quite visible, but I hope that she did not think her face is quite hidden.
"Hey, have you heard the inn discovered something?" My face perked up with this new information that I could get, what did they discover? Perhaps my speculation about a dead body or suicide was not quite right after all, after all these times, I really should not jump to conclusion.
"No, really. They found out that one of their patrons was dead in their room with the room locked from outside." My face fell and at the same time, chills went down my spine at the fact that somebody killed one of our patrons while the door is locked unless they were speaking about suicide?
"What? Were the lock even tampered?" The left guard spoke with confusion heard in his tone, and the right guard seemed to shake his head judging by the sound in the air and the sound of the chains. "Not even a scratch! Well, they could've gone through the window, but it was also closed!"
Why is this giving me some strange vibes?
My heartbeat seemed to pick up and my gut seemed to freeze with something unknown, "The body they've found, you see. It was quite strange, you see. It's as if a demon mauled her body!" A demon? A serial killer is possible, and does Jack the Ripper even exist in this parallel timeline?
"Is her body slashed to pieces or something?"
"Not even that! Her limbs are all wrong, bent in different and wrong ways. It gave me shivers when I first looked at the scene, ugh!" My throat's gone dry and I just prepared myself to stand up until they said something more utterly chilling, more terrifying than anything.
"The doctor's even found something more stranger, you see. The body, it doesn't have any blood! Not even a drop, tell me if blood can even evaporate and they said no!"
What?
It can't be. I must be dreaming, and yet the words rang in my ears. Is it too early for this dilemma that must be faced by myself? And yet when I faced the guards a second time, I hear their words. "Maybe it is a demon, mate." and the other answered, "Demon? Nah! Vampire, I'd say."
Vampire. Something that I am not quite ready yet, and I must face sooner or later. Why have you given me this, world?
Author Notes:
Oho! Prepare yourself, Chris, or rather, Remilia for that you have your fate speeding up to the point that you will have to adapt quickly!
It will not be easy, indeed...