The Maid of the Cursed Princess

“Hmm…”

Only one coachman was tasked with commuting between the High Tower and Hyperion.

There was no particular reason for this, it simply happened naturally as most coachmen avoided going near the Princess, who was openly rumored to be cursed.

The reason this sole coachman took on the job others refused was exceedingly simple – he urgently needed money.

He was offered quadruple his usual coachman’s wages as daily pay, how could he refuse? For someone already struggling financially, it was an offer he could not turn down, no matter how fearful of the curse.

Was there any curse more dreadful than poverty? Thus, the coachman always drove the carriage gladly, scoffing at the other coachmen avoiding such a simple task of merely transporting cargo once a week.

And that cargo weighing down the carriage only needed to be unloaded at the High Tower before his job was done – what could be simpler than that?

“Come to think of it… what is this?”

However, this time he could not return empty-handed, though strictly speaking, he had never returned completely empty-handed before either.

The maids attending the Princess would write down necessary supplies on a note each week to be delivered to the palace via the coachman.

“There’s something inside…”

But this was the first time he had been asked to deliver physical items to the palace. Thus, he had wondered if it was truly permissible.

Of course, there were no instructions prohibiting item deliveries, so the coachman simply followed the maid’s request. Ultimately, it was the chamberlain’s duty to make judgments and decisions – he was merely an errand boy following the chamberlain’s orders.

Whatever this item was, the final decision rested with the chamberlain. A lowly coachman’s role was simply to pass it along for the chamberlain’s judgment.

“…Didn’t she say not to look inside?”

However, separate from that, the coachman was curious about the item inside the box.

Despite the maid’s repeated stern warnings not to look at the contents, or rather, because of those very warnings, he became even more curious about the reason for such insistence.

Was it a valuable treasure? Or some secret of the royal family?

To be so adamantly warned against opening it, it could not be an ordinary item.

Moreover, out here in the middle of the forest path, there was no one to monitor him. As long as he did not tamper with the item, he could feign ignorance without any consequences.

“…Ah, whatever!!”

Unable to resist his curiosity any longer, the coachman opened Pandora’s box.

“What is this… Guheck!!!!”

There is an old saying – curiosity killed the cat.

“Uwuweghheck-!!!”

As punishment for recklessly prying into secrets, he ended up vomiting everything he had eaten that morning.

* * *

“Why isn’t that bastard coming down?”

The assassin who had come to kill the Princess after receiving a request from the mysterious client was not alone – there were four of them in total, not individually hired but originally a quartet.

Though their rapport could not be called particularly good, these four always carried out requests together whenever one came in. Each had different specialties, and they knew their efficiency and success rate were highest when working as a group.

“Is he messing around with her before the kill again?”

“Are you insane? Transfer the curse? Looking at that rotting body, who would get turned on unless they’re a real psycho?”

“That bastard might. He’s obsessed with women, isn’t he? Mark my words, he’ll get himself killed one of these days for screwing around too much.”

Thus, after sending up the most agile and proficient assassin of the quartet, the other three waited for him.

“It’s freezing out here. Why is the weather like this?”

“We’re in the North, dumbass. Don’t you know it’s Lombardy bumpkin territory just over those mountains?”

“Even for the North, this is way too cold considering how close we are to the capital… By the way, why isn’t that bastard coming down yet? I’ll go check…”

Clack, clack.

The sound of footsteps reached the ears of the trio grumbling complaints.

“What took him so lo-“

The man about to berate the reason for making them wait in the cold abruptly fell silent.

For the footsteps did not belong to the comrade he knew.

Assassins normally wear soft-soled shoes to minimize noise. Not clacking bootheels like those gradually approaching – something they would never even own, let alone wear on an operation.

The other comrades froze with grim expressions, all sensing an ominous feeling from the nearing bootsteps.

Clack, clack, clack.

The footsteps stopped beyond the closed door.

Creak-

And through the door that opened with a deeply unsettling sound.

“…?”

There was a maid.

A maid staring blankly at the uninvited guests, unbothered by the deep gash in her chest.

Of course, even if cursed, the Princess was still royalty and would naturally have servants in attendance.

But why was it an unfamiliar maid at the door instead of their comrade who had gone up?

Had she done something to him? No, that was unlikely.

They knew their comrade’s skill. While admittedly reckless and overly honest about his desires, his skill was top-notch, unmatched by anyone.

“…Ah, could it be…”

But their denial of reality could proceed no further.

“You are comrades of that assassin?”

For the undeniable proof that something had happened to their comrade was clenched in the maid’s hands.

In her left hand she held a head, in her right a leg, dragging the torso along the ground.

To think that severed head and body had once been a single person – it was a grotesquely unsettling sight.

“…Ah.”

The maid, who had been dazed for a long time in front of the people who had just witnessed the terrible end of her colleague, turned her gaze to them with an exclamation as if she had come up with a good idea.

“How fortunate.”

Those bloodred eyes filled with an eerie glow like fresh blood turned toward them – the eyes of a monster.

“I just needed fertilizer.”

The spider’s web of death ensnared the pitiful prey.

* * *

In the past, there was an incident where the beloved daughter of the Kingdom’s prime minister, Nicolas Colbert, was kidnapped by those hired by a noble politically opposed to him.

Behind it was one particular noble, greatly displeased by the populist policies of the upstart bourgeois prime minister, who plotted to take his most cherished daughter hostage to control him.

The noble’s plot proceeded smoothly. Colbert’s daughter, who happened to be passing through the Duchy of Königsberg in the Lombardy Confederation, was easily taken into his custody, leaving only the prime minister himself to be pressured using her as leverage.

But instead of submitting to the noble’s threats, Colbert devised another solution – to hire someone to retrieve his daughter.

A discreet hiring process conducted in utmost secrecy to avoid the noble’s notice.

At the end of it, the one Colbert hired was a nameless, faceless fixer from the slums.

And the next day, half of Königsberg’s criminal organizations had vanished.

As a bonus, the noble who had ordered the kidnapping was found stripped naked in the central fountain of Hyperion’s plaza, with a placard reading ‘I am a deviant who enjoys public nudity’ hung around his neck.

Observing the politician’s humiliation with relish, Colbert asked his returned daughter if anything had happened.

Trembling with fear, his daughter replied that it was all thanks to the person her father had sent that she could return unharmed, not a single hair out of place.

‘Then why are you trembling?’ Colbert asked.

‘That person was too frightening,’ his daughter answered.

“Phew…”

The savior who had approached, drenched in blood after tearing people to shreds beyond recognition.

“…I probably should have left one alive, to hand over to the chamberlain…”

It was an appearance too terrifying for a cherished daughter raised with her parents’ devoted love to bear witnessing.

“…At this rate, there’s no way to tell who’s who… Ah, there was one intact part – the neck.”

As his daughter’s eyewitness account spread from mouth to mouth, becoming more embellished, it eventually found its way into the social circles of Orléans nobility.

“I can just package and send it.”

By then, the rumors had evolved to the point of being akin to an urban legend.

There was someone who could tear people to shreds beyond recognition with sharp wires, it was said, accomplishing any task for money.

A fiend with an obsession for human blood and flesh, they said, a madman reveling in slaughter.

Perhaps not human at all, but a spider hybrid? The blood of spiders and humans intermingled? Awakened to power after a spider’s bite? Always wearing red?

“It’s a complete bloodbath…”

The rumor had become so distorted beyond retrieval that it was nearly impossible to discern truth from falsehood.

“…Come to think of it, I’ll have to clean this up myself.”

This was the name the nobility gave to the subject of those rumors.

“Ah… what a hassle.”

Arachne.