IBTPCS 07

Chapter 07

Eugene thought about it for a moment, then shook her head.

‘Well. Whatever.’

After all, it wasn’t something she’d put much thought into anyway. She didn’t want to overcomplicate things anymore.

Splash, splash.

The maids around the bathtub performed their duties with thoroughly businesslike professionalism. Aside from the sounds of water being splashed and bathing tools being dragged over, not a single word was exchanged in the room.

“…….”

In the quiet stillness, the excitement she’d briefly felt—from meeting characters from a game she loved and experiencing a game progression that felt like reality—began to settle down.

Eugene surrendered to her relaxing body and quietly closed her eyes.

In any case, now that she was inside this palace, she would have plenty of time to think ahead.

—

* * *

—

Regarding the disheveled child the Crown Prince had suddenly brought in, the faithful head butler inquired about the girl’s disposition while attending to his master’s clothes after his return. And to relay the instructions, he sought out the head maid.

“What did His Highness say?”

The head butler, with his neatly groomed eyebrows drawing together in the middle of his forehead in a troubled expression, answered the head maid’s question.

Upon hearing his words, the head maid’s eyes widened in surprise before she composed her expression again.

Then she called a nearby errand boy and relayed the message to bring the girl to her once the maids finished bathing her.

‘This child…….’

Looking at the girl who soon came before her, the head maid fell into thought for a moment.

—

-His Highness said nothing special. He simply said, ‘Keep her in the palace.’ That was all.

—

That was an action unlike the Crown Prince Michael they had known.

Crown Prince Michael despised things that existed without purpose. He scorned the incompetent, and never left people he deemed useless in his palace.

Thanks to this, the servants who remained in the Crown Prince’s palace were all twice as capable as those elsewhere.

‘The only distinguishing feature is her white hair, unusual for her age.’

Other than that, she had no idea what she might be capable of. The somewhat thin-looking girl seemed very ordinary. So ordinary that it was impossible to guess why His Highness had personally brought her from outside the palace.

“Sigh.”

The head maid let out a deep sigh and lifted her head.

‘I simply cannot figure this out with my own reasoning alone.’

In the end, the head maid abandoned her meaningless solo speculation and opened her mouth.

“I have inquired about you to His Highness.”

At the words directed at her, the girl met her gaze. In contrast to her incongruous white hair, the girl’s eyes were very, very dark.

Feeling an unsettling chill in the girl’s eyes, which seemed somehow detached from this very place, the head maid continued speaking.

“However, there was no mention of your role.”

Though she was still looking this way, her gaze was strange—as if she was looking past her toward somewhere far away.

The head maid pressed her slightly trembling fingertips onto the desk for no reason and finished what she had to say.

“So tell me yourself. For what purpose did His Highness bring you here?”

What are you? At her question, the girl lowered her eyes with a dreamy expression, as if looking into a reverie.

‘Purpose…….’

Eugene quietly reflected on the current situation.

Originally, the protagonist Canis would have given her name here.

‘And she would ask the head maid to assign her work she could do in the palace.’

In the early part of the story, which served as the prologue to 「Golden Cage」, unlike his initial interest in the protagonist, the Crown Prince left her neglected for several years without any attention.

Probably, this was a setup to trigger romance events after both the protagonist and Crown Prince Michael reached adulthood.

During this period, glossed over as simply ‘a few years later,’ Crown Prince Michael would transform into a cruel ruler without a trace of humanity, while the protagonist—true to her diligent nature—would voluntarily find work and integrate into the palace staff as a worker.

Yes.

Voluntarily! Without anyone telling her to! Finding work!

Eugene had not the slightest intention of doing that.

“Me?”

So she firmly declared her desired position with words.

“I’m my master’s dog.”

For a moment, silence fell over the room.

Eugene declared herself with an air of looking up at the heavens with no trace of shame, and those around her could not hide their bewilderment at her bold words.

‘Your Crown Prince was the one who said something about a stray dog.’

She was completely unashamed.

He brought her as a dog, so she would dutifully act like a dog.

Have you ever seen a dog work?

This was her firm declaration that she intended to laze around endlessly from now on.

And the next moment. Eugene found herself left alone in the Crown Prince’s room.

‘Huh?’

“……If you’re a dog, you should be by your master’s side.”

In the heavy silence that filled the room, the head maid, who had been silent for a moment, said that to Eugene.

Then, as if that had been the plan all along, she calmly directed the maids to tidy the Crown Prince’s room as usual, and instructed them to take her to His Highness’s bedchamber.

As a result. Eugene was carried to Michael’s room by the Crown Prince’s palace maids, along with pristine white bedding.

“…….”

Standing by the door where the maids had set her down, Eugene idly rolled her eyes while doing nothing. The capable maids of the Crown Prince’s palace swiftly replaced the bedding, changed the water in the vases, and tidied the room.

Having finished cleaning in an instant, they left Eugene in the room and exited, carrying only their cleaning tools.

Click.

The door closed softly, and Eugene was left alone in the room.

“Ha.”

Whether she had been unconsciously tense, a refreshing breath escaped her. And Eugene began looking around here and there, as if she’d just checked into a luxury hotel room.

‘Ooh.’

Everything covering the furniture in the room was pure gold and real jewels. Every surface of the furniture was decorated with beautiful reliefs and paintings, making it never boring to look at.

The chest of drawers against the wall, the fireplace to one side, the armchair on the carpet, the table in the corner.

After thoroughly examining every single item without missing a single one, she raised her gaze along a pillar carved with vine patterns.

“Wow.”

She noticed a magnificent ceiling painting covering the entire ceiling. Eugene leaned her head far back to admire the painting, following the direction indicated by an angel at the edge to appreciate the figures.

Thump.

Feeling her leg catch on something, she lowered her head. She had arrived at a massive bed, as large as her old room used to be.

“He sure uses a nice bed.”

Spitting out a word of envy, Eugene pressed down on the fluffy bed with her hands.

Then after a moment’s thought, she promptly climbed onto it and lay down as if it were her own home.

Feeling the thick bedding comfortably support her entire body, she folded her hands over her chest and ended her room exploration, sinking into thought.

Too many things had happened in just one day.

‘May the world end.’

She thought that with a sense of resignation.

The life on Earth, where no matter how hard she tried, she had achieved nothing—that futile end had changed Eugene’s way of thinking.

‘I must never exert myself.’

No matter how much she struggled, the rewards she gained were paltry, and even those slipped through her fingers like a mirage.

‘Here…….’

Rather than that, she would do nothing from the start. As if compensating herself for all the days she had run without a single break, she resolved.

‘From now on, I won’t do anything.’

She would live as lazily and wholeheartedly idle as possible.

‘Truly, like a dog.’

She wouldn’t bother with troublesome rationality. All the effort of using her human brain to solve difficult problems, practicing responsibility and consideration as an educated citizen—in the end, it only got her back stabbed by those who took advantage of her.

She would never become a useful human being again. She would become a pet with not even a speck of usefulness, no more valuable than dog droppings.

Before being human, humans are also animals.

Like an animal, she would entrust herself entirely to instinct and live as the current carried her.

‘They say you make your own fate.’

Then isn’t avoiding things also up to you?

Eugene resolved to thoroughly practice the life of a dog’s blessed fortune from now on, and closed her eyes.

“…….”

After lying still for a while, her thoughts circled back to the current situation.

‘The head maid left me here because…….’

Did the head maid, who knew nothing about her, trust Eugene’s words and bring her to the master’s room?

‘No.’

Eugene thought she understood the head maid’s reasoning.

‘She realized this girl is crazy, and left me here on purpose, didn’t she?’

Crown Prince Michael’s merciless nature was said to be famous even from a young age. Having served the Crown Prince for so long, the head maid would naturally understand his patterns of behavior.

How the Crown Prince would react upon seeing a slave in his room without permission.

Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been strange for Crown Prince Michael to immediately have the impertinent slave taken outside the palace and beheaded.

‘How harsh.’

That head maid—she remembered her being a fairly kind superior to Canis in the game.

Of course, it was only natural that treating a diligent worker differed from treating a sudden aspiring pet that had rolled in.

Having nothing particularly to do, Eugene grumbled about the head maid’s merciless treatment and rolled around on the soft blanket.