Encountering the First Mini Boss

“Augh! Hot hot hot hot!! Ufff…” The stew was, at least, delicious. Was that pomegranate she could taste (with the parts of her tongue not yet burnt)? Melaenis was a lifesaver for being able to find her this at such an early hour. She’d have to repay her somehow – could a princess give her servant a bonus? The bread was naan-like, flat but buttery and soft with a herby flavour. Hopefully all the food in this world was delicious. It almost made it worth it to have died. Carefully putting down her spoon so that it wouldn’t fall into the stew and get all sticky, Naomi reached for the falafel. At long last, she would be reunited with her one true love, her favourite food in the word.

The crunch of her teeth on the crispy coating, then the hot rush of the filling, was almost orgasmic. Naomi held back a groan. God, this was good food. The moreish, savoury flavour of the chickpeas … it was like the Platonic ideal of a falafel. Then there was the rest of the food: the sticky, treacle-y dried fruit, the cool heat of the mint tea, the cream and spice of the rice porridge – really, more like rice pudding. The sweetness of the milk battled with the warmth of the spices, flavours exploding on her tongue. She could taste cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, maybe others her palate was too unrefined to know, and the chunks of sticky date … honestly, to hell with “fixing the narrative”. The most important thing for her to do here was to eat as much of this delicious food as possible.

After her feeding frenzy (Naomi now felt a little sick), there was some leftover bread and fruit. Feeling bad for how early she’d made Melaenis wake up, Naomi decided to offer her a little snack. It was the least she could do!

“Here, you have some of it too. Sorry for making you get me food so early.” Naomi shakily lifted the tray in Melaenis’ direction. Melaenis looked uncomfortable, but hungry.

USER HAS GAINED 2 R-POINTS FROM CHARACTER <MELAENIS>

Oh, come on.

“It’ll get cold otherwise. Don’t want good food to go to waste, you know?” Appealing to Melaenis’ practical side might work. Honestly, Naomi was mostly guessing here. Melaenis wasn’t an important character in the novel or the game – her name wasn’t in either, as far as she could remember – so Naomi didn’t know her backstory or anything.

Reluctantly, Melaenis grabbed a piece of bread and started nibbling, like a little mouse. It was as if she was afraid Naomi would suddenly fly off the handle. Poor girl, it must be rough to be a servant. Naomi had once – for a disastrous two months – worked as a barista at a chain coffee shop she legally couldn’t name, and although centuries separated it from Melaenis’ life, she felt the kinship that one minimum-wage service worker feels for another. It did feel awkward to be the boss now, but she supposed she’d just have to be a benevolent one.

Once Melaenis finished her bread, it was time for the next stage of preparation in her first journey out of this room: clothes.

Naomi cleared her throat. “Melaenis?”

The poor girl suddenly stood up, ramrod straight. “Yes, my lady?”

What on earth had the original goods done to scare her so much? Naomi had a lot of work to do when it came to building her own faction – which would probably be harder than it was in certain anime plots in the genre of her current situation. As far as she could tell, she didn’t (yet) have a mysterious overpowered ability or a harem of girls with brightly coloured hair to carry her through – but at least she wasn’t a vending machine.

“I’d like to go for a short walk, if that’s alright, but I don’t think I can go out in what I’m wearing right now. It seems cold outside. Could you find me something to wear, please?”

In the blink of an eye, Melaenis was off to go do that. She really was amazing at her job. Naomi felt like she should try to get her a pay rise or a promotion or something. The uniform Melaenis wore suggested she wasn’t a court lady or head lady in waiting, positions she absolutely deserved to have. She may have only known Melaenis for a few hours, but Naomi felt she owed the girl so much already.

When Melaenis walked back in with a pile of clothes large enough that she could barely see over them, Naomi mentally adjusted that little debt abacus. Even the underlayers were made of such nice fabrics – the sort of thick pure silk that cost upwards of £30 per meter. Maybe the poor Owl Princess hadn’t been quite so abandoned, at least in terms of her wardrobe budget. The dress and trousers were a light blue, somehow both warming and breezy. Then there was the jacket – a sleeveless affair, wrapping right over left and fastened with a handy belt, in a vibrant shade of berry pink. There was brown fur for the lining and trim and colourful beadwork. When she thought it couldn’t get any better, she realised there were the most darling little matching boots … Naomi’s costuming nerd brain was melting down.

System, remind me to use my princess budget for new fabrics once I get the chance. Got to become a fashion icon.

Thankfully, she could remember a little about the court dresses worn by background characters in the game. Those would be a few years ahead of the current trends, at least. With Naomi’s ‘help’ – probably more of a hindrance – Melaenis began to plait her hair back into two neat tails down her back, secured with little bronze cuffs and pins. Since she felt like she looked really nice, Naomi decided to do a little twirl but slightly overestimated how steady she was on her feet and nearly fell. Whoops. Melaenis nearly jumped out of her skin.

USER <NAOMI> HAS EARNED 2 R-POINTS FROM CHARACTER <MELAENIS>.

The System really ought to not count accidents. Unfair.

Still holding a substantial bundle, Melaenis looked thoroughly sheepish.

“I – uh – had to borrow the jacket from another maid. It’s scruffy – a cast-off from her lady – but it should still be warm enough, if you wear your old cloak on top.”

Scruffy? Maybe to a real princess. Naomi, being used to polyester satins and whatever was in the discount bin at the fabric market, had much lower standards. She supposed that there were a few worn patches and traces of visible mending, but the jacket still kept her warm – and looked cute doing it. Fashion and function.

The ‘old cloak’ was similarly amazing; made of soft hide, dyed a deep pinkish-purple and seemingly backed with thick wool, it was lined with the same expensive sort of heavy silk as the underlayers were made of. It was even quilted, which would have taken forever in a world without sewing machines, and the shoulders were capped with epaulettes of silverwork embroidery feathers. The poor seamstresses must have spent hundreds of hours on this. As if all this wasn’t enough of an outfit, Melaenis produced from nowhere a little hat, midway between a fez and a hennin, tied on with a ribbon at the back of her neck, then pinned a sheer veil to it. Naomi was finally beginning to feel like a real princess. Plus, the outfit was warm and comfortable, and she’d eaten now. A full belly and warm feet did a lot to improve a person’s outlook.

She then began to worry that Melaenis would get cold outside. It had seemed pretty warm yesterday but today was blustery and threatening snow – maybe some strange weather phenomenon that hadn’t been mentioned in the novel. The servant’s uniform seemed to be made of wool, but the poor girl didn’t even have a shawl or anything. Wandering, still shakily, towards the cavern of the wardrobe, Naomi rootled around until she found some sort of large pashmina-type scarf – bingo! – and, behind it, a smaller and seemingly older cloak bundled up in a corner. When she offered these to Melaenis, the girl looked at her like she’d grown a second head – no, a third, even.

“I worried you might get cold.” That was a normal thing to say.

ACHIEVEMENT: EPIC BLUNDER! EARN 20 R-POINTS FROM ONE CHARACTER IN A SINGLE HOUR.

What the hell??

System, why? What did I do wrong?

“Let’s just go on that walk, okay?”

Albeit reluctantly, Melaenis put on the clothes Naomi had found and the two of them headed out through the dim corridors into the cold morning light – Naomi leaning on the other girl’s arm, as she was still somewhat unsteady on her feet. The part of the palace they were in was beautiful, if faded, the walls covered in peeling paintings of hunting scenes. There were cracks in the fine marble flagstone floor and an unpleasant draft was blowing in. It was clear that, while perhaps once favoured, the Owl Princess had fallen out of grace some years before her premature demise – in the original plot. Naomi, obviously, wasn’t going to let that whole dying thing happen. Not on her watch.

The gardens, too, were decaying – although some attempt seemed to have been made to maintain them. Perhaps the princess had been a keen gardener. There was little colour, since it seemed to be winter, but life still clung on in the soil. With each step, Naomi felt the crunch of frost beneath her feet. The smell of snow laid crisp in the air, prickling on her skin. It was certainly a change from the feverish warmth of last night, but she was beginning to think that she, and not the room, had been the source of the heat. She had certainly felt quite ill, after all.

Eventually, they passed from the Owl Palace’s personal grounds into the main Rear Palace – although, despite ancient Persian harems not being cloistered as the Chinese ones were, this was not unlike the palaces typically known by that name. It contained not only consorts and concubines, but also the princesses, various imperial relatives, the Empress Dowager and the Imperial Grandmother, plus the reams of female officials whose offices were contained here. The primary difference was the freedoms permitted to the women contained within this ‘Nightingale Court’. While not necessarily ‘free’ by modern definitions, they could leave the palace with minimal difficulty and were permitted most visitors. The Raven Consort spent an entire chapter the game’s plot on a long hunting trip – without a male chaperone in sight! Naomi was rather jealous of such an epic ‘girls’ holiday’.

Perhaps the Nightingale Court was closer to the ancient Greek concept of the ‘gynaeceum’, acting as a space for the traditionally feminine chores of the Imperial Court (bearing and raising children of the Imperial line, producing cloth and handicrafts for the court, supervising domestic matters, general plotting). The old translation had called it the “Women’s Courtyard”, which Naomi preferred as a title. Besides, according to the official in-game map, it was in the centre of the Imperial palace complex – not to the rear at all.

The main gardens were shockingly well-maintained when compared to the Owl Palace gardens. Naomi could have sworn that there was a straight line above the property boundary showing where the palace gardeners began watering and trimming. As she walked, absorbed by the beauty of the topiary and such things, Naomi became aware of a dreadful commotion coming from another part of the gardens. As she drew closer, she saw a fancily dressed woman – was that the Senior Maid uniform? – berating a familiar looking child, a tray of crushed pastries on the path near where the child had evidently fallen. The woman was twisting the crying child’s wrist in a way that looked cruel and painful. A strange noble in green was attempting to defuse the situation, but he seemed to be failing. It would hardly help her popularity with whoever this lady worked for, yet Naomi couldn’t stop herself from intervening.

“Hey, what’s going on here?”

The woman seemed startled to be called out for what she was doing. Her mouth was drawn tight, even while she spoke in an annoying, simpering tone.

“Ah, just reprimanding a foolish servant. She dropped a tray of pastries meant for a consort, after all.”

She seemed to think the Owl Princess was rather stupid. Naomi took several deep breaths and, voice still shaking with anger despite her efforts to control it, replied.

“Pastries can be remade, can they not – and a lady virtuous enough to be chosen as consort can surely forgive a child for slipping on such an icy morning. Even the humblest child in the palace is a part of the nation’s future and should be treated with grace. Are you aware, madam, of the Western concept of ‘noblesse oblige’?”

The maid began to stumble on her words.

“Ah, but – um – you see, the pastries – my lady is very particular.”

Naomi opened her mouth to speak, anticipating a swift victory (all that practise in online arguments had paid off!) but was cut off by the arrival of an even snobbier woman in the Head Lady uniform. Her fixed sneer seemed familiar, but her face didn’t ring a bell. Seeing the look of confusion, Melaenis quickly whispered in Naomi’s ear.

“That’s Lady Arsinoe – she basically runs the Peacock Palace. The consort brought her along from their homeland when she arrived.”

It was then that it finally clicked in Naomi’s head who this snooty woman was. This was the unnamed chief lady-in-waiting that the player had to defeat in order for the Peacock Consort to fall from grace – the miniboss before the villainess. It had been a prerequisite for the General romancing the Emperor’s younger brother – although why the young man had been so caught up in the Peacock faction was never really elaborated on. There had been a good many theories, most of them wildly extrapolatory – some would say hallucinatory – in their conclusions. Naomi felt wildly underlevelled for this clash, but then the fellow in green chimed in.

“Lady Arsinoe. It’s been a while since we’ve spoken.”

He spoke politely, although there was an undercurrent of annoyance. Lady Arsinoe, however, was more open with her venom.

“Ah, Young Master Argus. You may be a renowned skirt chaser, but surely you can aim higher than … this – although she is a princess, I suppose.”

The absolute nerve! Naomi summoned the steeliest expression that the Owl Princess’ rather mournful features were capable of.

“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced, Lady … Arsinoe, was it?” She feigned disinterest, checking in on her fingernails - shredded. Evidently the Princess had a habit of chewing on them.

Ha! She could be rude too. As Lady Arsinoe’s eyes narrowed and steam began to come out of her ears, that remark began to seem like a mistake. In the commotion, the servant girl had escaped the senior maid’s death grip and fled behind Naomi.

“Ah, Owl Princess. What a surprise to see you out and about – I thought you were still … ill. That jacket is a cut above your usual shabby dress, although it seems frightfully similar to one of my Lady’s cast-offs … but you wouldn’t be so rude, would you?”

Naomi felt a looming sense of panic. C’mon, pull something out of your ass!

“Um.”

Drat! Double drat! Goddamn it…

SYSTEM CAN OFFER USER <NAOMI> A ONE-TIME USE OF THE <SILVERTONGUE> ABILITY, FREE OF CHARGE.

Yes! Yes please!

Naomi could have wept with joy.

<SILVERTONGUE> ABILITY ACTIVATED.

She could feel the lines buzzing under her tongue – a strange feeling, sort of like sherbet.

“Is it wrong for family to share clothing? Unless, of course, you are insinuating … but you wouldn’t be so rude, Lady Arsinoe?” She fixed the poor woman with a pointed look, covering her mouth coquettishly. This was a technique borrowed from the pulp harem dramas her old roommate had always been watching.

“I – er – well, I meant –”

Lady Arsinoe looked desperate. Naomi was on a roll now.

“I may not be the most exceptional among my sisters, but my blood is still royal. Besides, one of your subordinates was mistreating this poor servant, merely for dropping some pastries. Is this the virtuous behaviour that is expected from a Consort’s ladies? After all, a subordinate’s misdeeds could tarnish their Lady’s reputation, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?