Chapter 286: Chapter 285: Kamel and Betty
Mr. Kamel went to Gawain’s study, but he didn’t see Gawain. Only the dazed little maid was waiting for him there.
"Mr. Kamel," Betty said as she saw Kamel float in after pushing the door open. Holding a large teapot, she hurried forward, "The lord has stepped out for a bit. He said he’d be back soon and asked you to wait here for a moment."
After contemplating and collecting himself along the way, Kamel’s mood had already calmed down. Hearing Betty’s words, he felt somewhat relieved—before Gawain returned, he could spend a few more minutes adjusting his mood and organizing his findings.
"Did he say where he was going?" Kamel casually found a spot in a corner of the study to rest and casually asked.
"The lord went to the lab, saying there was a part of the blueprint that was still uncertain and needed to be tested... well..." Betty tried hard to recall what she heard from Gawain, "test the ’data’! That’s the word he used."
"Data? Blueprint?" Kamel was instantly curious, "What’s it about?"
Betty thought carefully and then, with a tilt of her head and a puff of her chest, said, "Forgot!"
Kamel was silent—she forgot it, rather than not knowing, indicating that Gawain definitely told this little maid something else, but she evidently didn’t remember... but this was not surprising either.
Kamel knew Betty. Although this girl was just a maid, it was said that she once followed the leader through life and death, earning the trust and affection of the leader’s family. In the feudal lord’s mansion, she was always seen running around. Sometimes, she would even learn to write with the leader in the study. Such a special girl naturally made a deep impression on Kamel.
So Kamel knew Betty, not just knew her but also knew a few things about her, like knowing she’s a bit dazed, knowing she loves to write, knowing she always forgets things she finds hard to understand... To be honest, Kamel couldn’t quite understand how such an unreliable maid became the maidservant supervisor of the entire feudal lord’s mansion, managing and commanding a few servants well...
It could only be said that the amiable leader was indeed too lenient with the mansion’s servants—but Kamel didn’t plan to comment much on this. He was just a researcher and rarely took interest in anything beyond academic matters.
During the wait, he began studying a map hanging on the study’s wall. It seemed to be a topographical map of a remarkably broad area around the territory. Its precision and detail were astonishing, unlike what people of this technologically broken era could produce. Betty, on the other hand, stood beside him, holding a large teapot and looking at the guest thoughtfully, seemingly caught in a very vexing thought.
After thinking hard for a while, Betty finally spoke up, "Mr. Kamel, would you like some tea?"
Kamel was taken aback for a moment, turned his head to look at the earnest young maid, and awkwardly waved his hand, "Ah, no thanks."
Betty blinked and returned to the table with the teapot, saying, "Oh."
But after a short while, she walked forward again, "Mr. Kamel, would you like some tea?"
Kamel: "...Really, no need, thank you, little girl."
"...Oh."
A little while later, Betty’s voice sounded behind Kamel for the third time, "Mr. Kamel, would you like some tea?"
Kamel finally found himself unable to continue studying the map. He turned around, trying hard to conceal his embarrassment, "Little girl, didn’t you notice I don’t have a mouth?"
It seemed as if Betty finally understood something. She suddenly realized and said, "Oh," then placed the teapot on the desk with a bit of disappointment, "Oh..."
Looking at the dazed young girl, Kamel couldn’t help but want to say something, but after hesitating for a long time, he could only come up with a dry sentence, "But thank you anyway... for the tea."
"The lord said to remember to serve tea to guests," Betty still looked dejected, "but I always feel like I didn’t do it well..."
"You’ve already tried your best... it’s just my circumstances are too special; I think any maid wouldn’t know how to entertain a ’guest’ like me," Kamel didn’t know why he was saying so much to a little maid, but he couldn’t help it, "How long have you been serving the Cecil Clan?"
This time, Betty seriously calculated—she had never been able to figure out the years before, but now she knew how to count, also had understood many things she hadn’t before: "Six years, but the first two years were just helping Madam Hansen wash dishes..."
She was only sixteen now... which means, at ten, she was sold to the castle as a servant, a dishwashing girl?
Kamel knew he had no reason to continue asking, but he couldn’t help but blurt out, "Do you like this kind of life?"
"...Don’t know," Betty evidently hadn’t thought about this question. She paused before answering, "But Miss Rebecca and the old Viscount have always been kind to me, as well as Madam Heidi and the lord; they are all very kind to me. Moreover, when I was little, my family and I were always hungry. Since I came to the castle, we all have enough to eat..."
It took Kamel a few seconds to understand the reasoning behind this—nothing but the fact that Betty earned the lowest servant’s ration in the castle, while her family not only got money from selling her but also had one less mouth to feed.
Such was the survival strategy for commoners at the bottom of this era when they reached a dead end, and even that required some luck—because the leader didn’t always need to buy servants.
This was common knowledge for people of this era, but for Kamel, who came from the heyday of the Gondor Empire, there was too much unimaginable about this.
However, he couldn’t change the reality of the entire era, and all his words ultimately converged into a single sigh: "What a cruel era this is."
"The master also said that," Betty suddenly spoke after hearing this phrase, "but I don’t understand what he meant."
"The leader said this too?"
"Yes, the master said this era is cruel and talked about building a new order or something..." Betty tried hard to recall, "Anyway, it was very complicated stuff, I heard him say it to Miss Rebecca and Madam Heidi."
"I see..." Kamel listened silently, sighing softly, "It’s understandable too, he’s someone who experienced that glorious era, he surely can’t bear the current ignorance and darkness."
Betty stared blankly at Kamel; she didn’t quite understand the meaning of his murmurs. Kamel glanced down at Betty and suddenly realized why he couldn’t help talking so much to this little girl.
"I once had a sister... ah, she didn’t look much like you, but when I last saw her, she was about your age," the ancient Master Mage said quietly, "Back then... she loved to brew tea for me."
Betty blinked: "Was your sister also a Master Mage?"
"...No, she didn’t have magical talent, she was just an ordinary person, and she died of illness before reaching adulthood," Kamel said in a very calm tone, "If it wasn’t for that, I might not have left the imperial capital to become part of the defied Plan."
Betty lowered her head: "Hmm..."
"It’s all in the past," Kamel bowed his head, wanting to pat Betty’s hair, but before his hand, filled with arcane energy, could touch her, sparks of Arcane Sparks were already jumping near her hair. Seeing this, the ancient Master Mage slowly withdrew his hand, emitting a light sigh, "Alas..."
Betty felt her scalp itch a little and couldn’t help scratching her hair, but when she looked up, she found Kamel had drifted to another place; this conversation was over.
The little maid didn’t know what had happened, so she returned to the desk and continued to daze.
Soon after, the door to the study was pushed open, and Gawain returned to the room with a roll of blueprints. He saw Kamel seemingly studying the bookshelf and Betty standing by the desk, lost in thought, making him smile: "Already grown impatient waiting?"
Kamel turned around and floated toward Gawain: "No, I was just chatting with the little girl, not bored at all."
Betty then ran up to Gawain with a large teapot in hand: "Master, Mr. Kamel doesn’t drink tea! He says he doesn’t have a mouth..."
"Ahem, got it, got it," Gawain awkwardly patted Betty’s head, letting the little girl step back, "Go rest, I won’t need you here for now."
"Okay!"
Betty trotted out, leaving Gawain looking somewhat embarrassed at Kamel: "This kid sometimes speaks rather bluntly..."
"It’s alright, I wasn’t bothered, she’s a very lovely girl," Kamel said calmly, "Leader, there’s something I wish to report to you."
Gawain had been ready to show Kamel his ideas on cannon designs, but at these words, he paused: "Oh? What is it?"
"It’s about those aberrations," Kamel’s expression was unreadable, but his tone carried a weighty seriousness, "I think... I know where they come from."
"You figured out the origin of the aberrations?" Gawain’s expression instantly became serious; he quickly walked toward the desk, placing the blueprints in his hand aside, "Where are they from?"
"We created them," Kamel said slowly, "products of the defied Plan."
"..."
Gawain fell into silence, not speaking for almost ten seconds, and until even Kamel felt a bit uneasy, he finally smiled silently, shaking his head: "It actually is such an answer..."
"You anticipated this?"
"Just a hunch," Gawain exhaled, "After knowing about your defied Plan, I had a guess based on the intelligence I gathered when I broke out of the Gondor wasteland, but I didn’t expect... the situation was exactly as I thought. Tell me, how did you discover it?"
"Miss Tiel gave me a sample of the aberration, a clean sample that could be analyzed with magic after chaotic energy had been eliminated, and in the sample, I found signs of genetic mutations of Type II, and this mutation... is precisely the characteristic of the ’divine evils’ we created back then."
"Sit down," Gawain sighed, sitting behind the desk and gesturing to a chair beside him, "We might need to have a good talk about this."
