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Side Story 1-3

Side Story 1-3: Jealousy

After coming to Ryzen, we started developing the estate with great enthusiasm.

The tapestries woven by the local women in the winter were hung in the castle's main hall and corridors, making the castle more beautiful, and the workers' expressions improved with the greatly improved working conditions.

Many times, they would come up to me and talk to me or give me something.

"Ma'am! T- this is......"

"Good morning, Theodore. What is that?"

Anna, who was at my side, took what Theo, a servant, handed me.

"T- this morning, I- I went to the mountains this morning, t- to get some wood, b- but the dog started digging, and......"

Theo is a wood-chopping and firewood-hauling servant, someone who is shy and stutters, but who often talks in front of me.

I couldn't really make out much of what he was saying, but I did my best to smile.

"Oh, look at this!"

Anna opened the thing wrapped in a cotton towel and looked into it with a little admiration, and there were two small clay-like objects lying there.

"What are these?"

"Truffles, ma'am. They're hard to find, so they're precious......"

"Huh? These are truffles?"

I was amazed.

In my previous life, I had eaten "truffle chips" that contained about 0.00001% truffle oil, but I had never seen a real truffle.

"You can't just give me something so precious, I'll buy it from you."

"Oh, n- no, no! I just wanted to give them to you as a gift....." Theo stammered and ran away.

'To be able to actually eat something that I've never even smelled in my entire life is worth the price of reincarnation.'

As I smelled the unusual aroma of the truffle wafting upward, I took it back to the kitchen and told them to prepare it for dinner.

That evening, it was Killian who first noticed the truffle on top of the veal.

"Truffles," he said, "has there been a mushroom monger in the castle?"

"No. These were picked by Theo. He went to the mountains to do some wood chopping, and the dog he took with him suddenly dug up the roots of a tree, so he picked two of them, and he gave them to me to eat."

Killian's eyes narrowed. "......Theo?"

"Yep. Theodore, the servant who chops wood for the fire in the castle."

"Is he a young man?"

"Uh...... late twenties, maybe?"

Killian's hand tightened around his fork.

"Killian, what's wrong? Does this not suit your taste?"

"No...... it's nothing. Ahem." Killian continued to eat, looking uncomfortable, then suddenly asked, "Does this kind of thing happen often?"

"This kind of thing? What kind of thing?"

"I mean, well...... the workers give you gifts......"

At that, I nod with a smile on my face. "Yeah, this is all the result of my hard work!"

"Your hard work......?"

Killian's expression got even weirder.

I lifted my chin with pride and said, "I didn't tell you, but when I first came to the castle, the workers of the castle had an antipathy towards me."