Chapter 0

            Every day, every time, and every hour, what I was doing was just distilling the herb so it could be made for medicine or perfume...The person who only visited my room was the between maid, Noa...She was older than me. When I saw her appearance, I thought she was three years older than me. I didn't know her last name, and I didn't know Noa was her first name or her last name...Yet, she was the only person who went into my room to take the medicine or the perfume. Sometimes, she brought me an order from the housekeeper to make jam.

Her actions lately were strange; she told me to make a jam order from the housekeeper, yet she didn't take the jam. The next week, she did it again, until... The housekeeper came into the room with two footmen. I was shocked by her appearance on the stairs below because she was the supervisor of all the maids in the household. The two footmen immediately dragged me out of the room. Confusion filled my head as the footmen in front of me.

They dragged me out of the basement, and it was my first time to see the house floor and everything inside of it. While being dragged by them, I looked at the maids in the upstairs position who wore nice uniforms with nice garments, and the maids on the stairs below just wore any clothes from their possession. The housekeeper in front of me wore even more extravagant clothes; maybe her position was above stairs, so her seniority and her clothes would be amazing.

After some minutes of being dragged by them, I could see the door with a lot of glass. Behind that door was the garden of the household. Slowly approaching the glass door, I could see Noa kneeling in front of someone at the front of the pavilion's garden. With haste, they dragged me beside Noa, forcing me to kneel in front of them. I tried to peek a little at who was in front of me. It was two people; two of them were female, one of whom was standing in front of me, a little bit younger, and it seemed she was the same as my age. The other was sitting at the table while enjoying her tea; she was quite older than me...Both of them had the same hair colour: red hair, and in their pyjamas, the elegance of royalty could still be seen in how she was standing and in how she was sitting and sipping the tea. Most importantly, how their hairs were...Honestly, I didn't know their name, and this was the first time I faced to face with someone from the royal household...

Out of nowhere, the person who was standing in front of me shouted at me, "TREASON."

Hearing that word, my mind could process anything for what the hell was going on in here.

The person who was sipping her tea said, "My dear little sister, there is one who shows a puzzled expression, and the other shows a desperate expression... With that, you know who is the culprit and who is the one being manipulated."

As I heard the conversation, I assumed both of them were siblings; the person standing in front of me was the little sister, and the person who was sipping her tea was the oldest sister.

The little sister turned her view to her older sister and said, "Yet, my dear sister, both of them were guilty."

"Is that so? How about you tell the person who shows a puzzled expression about how she made 'it'?"

The little sister immediately looked at me, I avoided her gaze and looked down at the grass, I could hear her footsteps closer to me, and slowly I could see her shadow and her foot in my view.

"Raise your head!!"

I immediately raised my head and looked into her eyes.

"Who is your name??"

"I am Eileen. I am just a still room maid, my lady."

"Are you aware of what just happened in this household??"

"This lowly life, don't have any clue, my lady..."

"You and your accomplice have made a great mistake in this household. And it's a treason for this hou-

"My lady, this lo-

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!! LISTEN TO ME IF I AM TALKING. YOU CAN SPEAK IF I TELL YOU TO SPEAK."

"Forgiv-

"I DON'T NEED YOUR FORGIVENESS; JUST SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!"

I was stunned into silence.

"Now, you have made me not in the mood to tell what happened... Cut to the chase; your jam had just killed our food taster."

~~

A month ago...

I was placed in one of the royal households, but still, I didn't know which was the royal household. I had been assigned to work for a noble family, but I was completely clueless about their identity. It was because I was assigned to one of the below-stair maids, and it was the lowest one, Still Room Maid. My duties mainly involved preparing and maintaining the household's herbal remedies and medicinal supplies. I mainly worked in the room called the still room. Why was I in here? Doing all of this just for one of these royal families?

I was Eileen, which was my name in this world. When I said in this world, it meant I was brought into this world. I was born again into a small baron family. First, I thought the baron was from a noble family after reading a lot of mediaeval novels, yet after years of living in this world as the baron's daughter of one of the manors, I felt nothing like a noble. Were all the novels about nobles lying to me?

There was nothing extravagant in the family; even the people of the manor treated us like others. I was the first daughter of the family, yet I was the third child. I had two big brothers. The oldest inherited the manor from my father, and the other went to squire school when he was seven years old to learn how to become a knight. And I was left alone and didn't know where to go. My parents were trying hard to find a partner for me, especially a higher noble, even if it was a count or a viscount.

They saw me as like that—a doll or puppet as a bridge between two families. Even my mother bought an expensive dress for a party at the count's party. Yet, it was not working; there were no boys who tried to get closer to me at that party.

At the age of 14, my parents told me that I would be sent to one of the royal families as a maidservant. First, I rejected it, but my parents said your job as a daughter had been done in this family. I was confused upon hearing that statement. I inquired as to what had been done. They casually told me that my job was to get a partner with higher nobility, and now that I was already 14, they said it was hard for a girl who was already 14 to get a partner and betrothal with someone who had higher nobility. So that was why they sent me into someone's household of the highest nobility as a maidservant.

I couldn't do anything about my parents' decision, so I went into my room. The first thing I did was stand in front of a mirror. which the mirror was a magnificent gift from my mother as a girl. The mirror was so rare in this world that only some households had mirrors because mirrors were seen as status, not just objects. In front of it, I was standing, looking at myself, curly red-haired, with blue eyes and some freckles. When I saw myself for the first time, I was amazed by my appearance and how beautiful I was compared to myself in the previous world. I walked closer to the mirror and started to touch the mirror. Was this beauty of mine really not worth it in this world?

Time passed, and the day I departed from my parent's home into the other household as a maidservant had arrived. First, I asked my parents if they brought clothes or attire for the maidservant. Because, from what I knew about maids in the previous world, they had uniforms for them. My mother, who helped me prepare everything, was so confused. She just told me to wear clothes that a commoner or normal person usually wears. I became more confused, and I asked her the same thing again. She just kept saying to wear those clothes, and I saw there was no dress that I usually wore if there was a party. It was just normal clothes. I was bewildered about it—did they have the uniform or not?

On the way to the household, I was inside a small carriage, which my parents hired to transport me to the household. Inside of it, I was thinking about being a maid. Would I become a maid like every show, book, or story pictured? as a person who stayed closer to the members of the family.