RAMBYM - Chapter 11

11. A Prince in name only


Were you annoyed by what was next to you? Should you have quietly avoided it?

Diarin looked down at Ceres' sleeping face, unable to breathe.

But that was all there was to it, a brief frown.

It seems like he just felt a little uncomfortable while sleeping.

As Diarin pretended to be dead and remained still, his expression returned to a blank expression.

'Phew.'

Diarin sighed inwardly, her shoulders slumping.

Of course, her mouth didn't move.

In this situation, moving was out of the question, so Diarin just stared at Ceres's sleeping face.

Ceres' sleeping face was now completely still.

When she knocked him out with the whistle, she was so shocked that she couldn't even think about looking at his face properly.

This was the first time she had properly and thoroughly examined Ceres' face.

Even though he closed his eyes, his face was like that of a nobleman.

'His face is already the perfect form of a young master.'

Even after so many years of rolling around in the rough battlefield, he still has such a grim face.

His hair was roughly cut and sticking out, but his good looks, which cannot be hidden by his messy hair, must be true good looks.

A tall forehead, a sharp nose, and neat lips.

Although his eyes were closed, they were deep-set.

When he opened his eyes, the pupils she saw were black, just like his hair, but they were strangely different.

If only those eyes were filled with life, if they were filled with leisure like a real gentleman, they would be much more beautiful.

It was a pity that he had lived only seeing the harsh world with this handsome face.

'Let's try our best.'

I'll give you more strength, but you give me some too.

Diarin sighed deeply and rested her chin on her knees.

There was a long way to go.

He was a dog who wasn't even human yet.

***

Ceres opened his eyes to the loud rumbling of Diarin's stomach.

Grumble..

This time, it was relatively short and light, and Ceres's eyes opened like a ghost.

“This is out of control.”

Diarin took the initiative.

With a glimmer of hope that if there was even a convincing explanation, it would be a little less confusing.

Thanks to that, Ceres didn't cry or rush to rip Diarin's stomach apart.

“Are you feeling calmer now?”

“...?”

“You don’t seem excited.”

She thinks he's at least ready to answer.

Ceres had a blank expression, as if he had no idea.

Well, she saw him rolling his eyes at the people talking earlier.

“Always in top condition, fit for battle.”

“Wow, that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.”

Diarin was purely impressed.

He even knows how to use such long sentences.

But soon she realized.

He just said it again and again because he had heard it so many times that he could recite it by heart.

Always in top condition for battle.

The 8th unit members were absent day and night.

When the enemy attacked, they were the first to run and fight them, and when we attacked, they were the first to run and fight.

'Don't they even sleep?'

'Aren't you human?'

'Fighting ghost.'

'They might live off blood.'

People have always been amazed by it, but also disdainful of it.

Diarin felt like he wasn't even human, but rather another race entirely, so she couldn't even bring herself to feel sorry for him.

But now she sees that they were just raised and trained by being tormented and bullied.

They were just trained humans who ate and slept like any other human.

“I’ll go and see if there’s anything to eat.”

Diarin got up before another creaking sound was heard.

If the people who left the food there earlier hadn't been scared and run away with their stuff, there would have been something to eat.

But she didn't feel like walking to the kitchen. She had to cook anyway.

It was the same whether she ate poison or something close to poison, but she even thought that it would be better to just eat the delicious poison.

"Hmm? But can we really say that the new ingredients are completely safe?"

Those who distributed it may not be guilty.

But there were plenty of opportunities to mix poison.

They can swap items mid-game, sneak in and poison them, and so on.

Only Ceres could distinguish the poison.

“Come with me to the kitchen.”

Usually, the master doesn't go into the kitchen, but not yet.

Whether you're a mad dog or a master, you have to eat to survive.

You have to live to become a master.

It was a pretty good excuse.

***

"No."

“Carrot passed.”

“This too.”

“Onions also pass.”

Her conscience was slightly pricked by the reality that she was being used as a detection dog to make a young master.

Still, a living detection dog is better than a dead master.

Ceres also seemed undisturbed by his new mission.

Diarin tried to give reality some validity.

“Yee, then. Phew...”

It was time to cook.

Robben was quite a sensitive person.

This time, all kinds of cookbooks were delivered along with the ingredients.

Diarin opened the book with the intention of reading it first.

“...”

She is clearly a person who can read.

Despite being an intellectual capable of writing a well-written essay, she couldn't understand the cookbook.

Writing is writing, and content is content.

The writing was merely a transcription of the sound at that moment.

The cookbook was full of expressions that were too profound and difficult to understand.

Diarin felt Ceres' gaze staring at her from the side.

“...Would you like to take a look?”

Ceres accepted the book that Diarin had given her and... instead of reading it, he opened it.

'... Huh?'

Was the book originally meant to explode?

Diarin watched with a feeling that her mind was disintegrating in real time.

Ceres turned the book upside down, shook it out, sniffed it, and then raised his head.

"No."

“...What’s missing? What’s wrong?”

Ceres looked at Diarin as if asking what was strange.

"Poison."

"...Ah."

She guessed he misunderstood what she said about looking at books as if she was saying to see if there was poison in the books.

...Do people usually misunderstand things like that?

“I was told to look at the contents of the book.”

At those words, Ceres picked up the book again and looked closely at the writing, but only held it upside down.

It was an attitude that represented illiteracy.

“By any chance... can’t you read?”

"Yes."

“They give you so much training, but they don’t teach you how to write.”

“It is unnecessary for combat.”

"...Ah."

Diarin was dumbfounded and let out a gasp.

They really didn't treat him like a human being.

She wondered who on earth planned the 8th Unit.

She doesn't understand how anyone could come up with such a ruthless and cruel plan.

She felt that way even more because she had to clean up the mess that person had made.

“I guess I should teach you how to write, too.”

"Writing?"

Ceres looked at Diarin as if he had heard something unexpected.

"No, I do not want?"

“...”

There's nothing to say.

She could see the pupils looking at Diarin, shaking slightly.

It looked confusing.

It seems like he doesn't know what to say.

What's so difficult about this question? Is it really that hard to say yes or no?

Diarin sighed again.

Even dogs have likes and dislikes.

You have to teach them about writing, likes and dislikes, and even how to sleep in bed.

The workload became increasingly overwhelming.

Still, she has no choice but to do them one by one.

“There can’t be a young master who can’t read, so you have to learn.”

It seemed as if the period of confinement in this mansion was steadily increasing.

“I need to learn how to cook first so I can survive until then.”

Diarin took the cookbook back from Ceres's hands.

Even though she looked into it seriously, the content just wouldn't come into her head.

She read it carefully and understood the words, but the series of events did not lead to action.

Diarin wrinkled her nose and reread each line.

“Chop the onions and carrots finely...”

Diarin looked back at the sentence she had read for a long time.

“...What does it mean to write finely?”

Since she had no concept of cooking, she couldn't understand even the simplest words.

Diarin tilted her head while holding the onion and carrot, then looked back at Ceres.

“Do you know what finely chopped is?”

“I know.”

“...! Oh? Would you like to try it?”

Wasn't Ceres also incapable of doing anything other than cutting meat?

Without a moment to doubt, Diarin placed the onion and carrot in Ceres's hands.

The onions and carrots were covered in dirt, probably because they were delivered right after they were picked this morning.

Ceres looked at it carefully and then drew his sword.

“Hic!”

It was just a kitchen knife, but the whole house felt like it was going to be torn apart, and it spread all around.

Diarin held her breath and ran away into the distance.

Ceres, holding the sword, paid no attention to anything else.

He was only conscious of the carrot as if it were the enemy general, and was careful with every movement of the tip of his sword.

“Wow...!”

The sword danced dazzlingly.

Diarin forgot that she had been scared and ran away and watched Ceres swing his sword.

When Ceres's sword stopped, only the remains of what had once been a carrot remained on the chopping board.

"Ah...?"

It was only later that Diarin realized that something was wrong.

The carrots turned into juice.

That too, mixed with some dirt.

Looking at the dead carrot, Diarin tilted her head with a distraught expression.

“Is this... chopped up... it seems long, right... Am I right?”

“...?”

Ceres looked back at Diarin with a look of complete ignorance.

He cut it because she told him to cut it into small pieces.

Ceres knew what it meant to cut it finely.

When torturing prisoners or cutting up the corpse of an enemy general to make an example of him, the cutting method was used.

The carrot was finished in a similar shape to that time.

It was definitely right. But why is this priest reacting as if he was wrong?

“...That’s right. It will be right.”

Diarin, who saw their mutual ignorance in Ceres's eyes, decided not to expect much, and decided again and again.

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