## Chapter 17 – Aser. Jealousy # 1
Having returned to his room, Number 25 collapsed onto the rather hard bed without even thinking about tidying up his disheveled and oil-soaked pajamas.
It was a room hastily converted from a warehouse, so there wasn’t a decent piece of furniture, but even this was a luxury for Number 25, who had spent his entire life lying in a hard iron cage.
Covering himself up to his neck with the yellowish-stained blanket, he muttered to himself while looking at the moldy blue-stained walls and ceiling.
“My Lord…”
The sensation of Aser’s luscious breasts and the feeling of burying himself in her buttocks still remained vividly on his palms. The fragrant oil, still glistening with oiliness, was a bonus.
Number 25 felt as if the realities he had heard from his family were being denied one by one.
He had been told that he would hate being held by a woman unless he liked her. His family had repeatedly told Number 25 that breasts felt like touching rotten meat and that a foul odor would rise from the vagina, making him want to vomit.
He had also heard that most women would squeeze out semen until dawn, even on days when he didn’t want to, and if he got tired of sex or didn’t listen, they would sell him back to the slave traders, completely crushing his hope.
But Charlotte and Aser were different.
When their private parts were touched or he touched their bodies, he definitely felt embarrassed, and a slight sense of shame welled up in one corner of his heart. But at the same time, he felt very ecstatic and happy.
After pondering for a while, Number 25 finally came to a conclusion based on his experiences and his family’s testimonies.
Ah, is that so?
‘Is this the feeling of liking someone?’
Number 25, who had lived his entire life in loneliness, was not yet sure what that feeling was called.
It had only been two days since he had met Aser and Charlotte. It was too early to judge people and feelings rashly.
However, if this feeling was truly the feeling of liking someone, he earnestly hoped that it would not change and that no one would take it away from him.
Number 25, who had been praying for a long time to the starry night sky, could not withstand the weight of his increasingly heavy eyelids and finally fell asleep.
●
Number 25, who was a light sleeper, woke up with a start at the sound of footsteps outside. It didn’t seem like he had slept much, but before he knew it, a bleak twilight was setting through the small window, and a faint dawn was rising.
Number 25 quickly got out of bed and headed straight for the closet in the corner of the room. He threw his pajamas into the basket and began to put on the unfamiliar clothes with careful movements.
After getting dressed, Number 25 stood in front of the cracked mirror and checked his appearance again.
It’s not much different from when Charlotte dressed him herself. Satisfied with his own progress, he turned the doorknob and opened the old door that creaked unpleasantly.
Outside, the other maids were already busily cleaning. This was the reason for the noisy footsteps from early in the morning. The maids were sweating as they meticulously wiped the dust from the windows and window frames, or mopped the floor with mops, working so hard from the morning that it seemed excessive.
There was only one reason for this. If they didn’t finish cleaning before Aser woke up, they would be scolded by Charlotte.
Her nagging would last for at least an hour once it started, so it was a terrifying prospect that the maids wanted to avoid at all costs.
Number 25 hesitated and asked the maid who was wiping the window right in front of him.
“Um… is there anything I can help with?”
The maid who was wiping the window stopped her hand and turned around to look at Number 25.
The rumors about Number 25 had already spread among the maids working in the castle. And the rumor of the maid who had been scolded by Aser for letting him clean as she pleased was naturally one of the hot topics among them.
The maid took her eyes off Number 25 and said in a cold tone.
There were already several maids who had decided not to give him any affection from the beginning, as they didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire for touching him without permission, even though he wasn’t their man.
“It’s okay here, so why don’t you go down to the first floor?”
Aser had certainly said that too. That he wasn’t a slave brought in to do chores. Number 25, sensing the mood, went down to the first floor as the maid had told him.
There, Charlotte was already in the main hall, raising her voice and giving instructions to the surrounding maids.
Her serious and scary demeanor, which she had never shown before, made it difficult to open his mouth easily.
Number 25 finally mustered the courage to approach Charlotte, bowed, and greeted her good morning.
“Did you sleep well?”
Charlotte found Number 25 and smiled. It was a completely different person from the expression she had just made at the maid, so much so that you could believe it. Charlotte put her hand on Number 25, who had come to her side, and hugged him slightly, then greeted him in a friendly voice.
“You woke up early? You’re so good.”
Number 25, feeling good about Charlotte’s slender fingers getting tangled in his hair and occasionally touching his horns, wanted to be praised more by her. Number 25, with shining eyes, asked her if there was anything else he could do.
“What should I do now? Should I clean with them too…?”
Charlotte immediately cut him off when Number 25 said something unnecessary.
“You don’t have to go out of your way to do such hard work. Oh, right! Shall we go have a simple coffee before breakfast?”
Charlotte put her hand on Number 25’s back and led him to the dining room, looking like a kidnapper. Number 25 occasionally glanced at the maids who were cleaning from the morning with a guilty look.
The maids watched the two disappear down the hallway, receiving Charlotte’s affection, and clicked their tongues at each other without anyone saying anything.
The brown-haired maid put both hands on the mop she was using to clean the floor, rested her chin on it, and complained first.
“She’s trying so hard to sleep with a man once. Does she want to be like that when she’s old?”
Once a negative voice came out, it easily spread, causing the accumulated complaints to burst out from here and there.
“Isn’t she already sleeping with him, so they’re sticking together like that?”
“Ah, that could be it.”
The brown-haired girl raised a question in a dubious voice.
“But didn’t the Demon Lord bring him as his slave? Is it okay for the head maid to take him around like that in secret?”
“Well, what does it matter? Honestly, how many girls here wouldn’t have hit on him if it weren’t for the Demon Lord?”
“That’s true.”
The brown-haired girl sighed and then opened her mouth, imagining Number 25’s naked body in her head. After gossiping, imagining a favorite person and teasing them as they pleased in their imagination was something that women usually did when they gathered.
“I wish I could have sex with someone like that all night. Why is she so hung up on that old woman? To be honest, wouldn’t my young pussy feel better?”
Behind the maids who were giggling and uttering obscene words, Aser appeared. Aser tilted her head behind the maids and asked them.
“What did you just say?”
It wasn’t that she was trying to ask the maids about their mistakes, but she was genuinely curious about what was going on because they were laughing out loud in a rare, cheerful voice from the morning.
However, the maids thought that they had been caught gossiping and sexually harassing Number 25, and they all lowered their heads and began to apologize to Aser as if a thief was betraying himself.
“We, we’re sorry!!”
“We have committed a sin worthy of death!”
“We won’t do it again, so please…!”
Aser seemed even more confused by the sudden parade of apologies, even though she had only said one word.
“What’s wrong? Did you do something wrong?”
The maids, seeing Aser’s reaction, looked at each other and then raised their heads. The maids were convinced that they hadn’t been caught talking about themselves, and quickly changed their expressions and made up other excuses.
“I accidentally spilled the water bucket while cleaning the hallway earlier. I’m sorry…”
Aser chuckled at the trivial content and patted the maid’s shoulder lightly as if to encourage her. Aser was not a king with a small vessel enough to get angry at such a minor matter.
“Hey, it’s nothing like that… Good work.”
After finishing her words, Aser headed to the dining room to find Number 25.
When she stepped into the dining room, she saw a familiar face at a corner table.
Aser tried to approach them, hiding her joyful heart, but she paused for a moment at the unusual atmosphere.
Charlotte was feeding Number 25 finely cut bread directly into his mouth with a mature smile full of maternal love.
As she got closer, their conversation was clearly heard in Aser’s ears.
“Here, say ‘ah ~’. You’ve never eaten something like this before, have you?”
Number 25 was readily accepting the bread that Charlotte was giving him without refusing.
Charlotte occasionally played pranks by mischievously putting her fingers in Number 25’s mouth along with the bread, but Number 25 didn’t show any particularly unpleasant reaction.
Rather, he blushed and avoided eye contact with her.
Charlotte looked at Number 25, who was chewing on the bread, with a pleased expression and brought a mug to him.
“You’ll get indigestion if you keep eating like that. Drink this too.”
Charlotte looked pleased as she watched Number 25 hold the coffee in the mug she had given him with both hands and sip it.
“Is it delicious?”
“Yes, it’s delicious.”
However, Aser’s heart was somehow not at ease as she watched the two of them.
If she thought about it calmly, it was just the head maid taking care of a slave who had only been in the castle for two days. It was definitely normal to think that way.
But as she continued to watch them getting along well, Aser’s chest felt as if it had been stabbed by a dagger.
Clearly, she should be seen as the head maid taking care of Number 25 with all her heart, as he was not familiar with life in the castle… What on earth was this uncomfortable feeling?
It didn’t take Aser long to realize that it was the feeling of jealousy.
