After 8 days of travel, the pair had finally arrived at Duke's fief.
"WERE HERE!" Duke made a grandiose gesture as he pointed towards his estate.
"So, what do you think?" Duke asked Vivian who had just woken up from the long journey.
"Well... It's cute I guess" Vivian looked around the state as she inspected it here and there. The estate was a small white mansion with two wings surrounded by a forest.
If one were to describe it, they would say it had this warm feeling to it, unlike most mansions that looked grand yet cold on the outside, this mansion which was humble in its size could be said to have a warm cozy feeling to it.
Although Vivian's reaction was lackluster, she actually quite liked the warm cozy place.
Duke carried the luggage into the estate and gave Vivian a simple tour. Although the mansion was small compared to other mansions, it was still quite large enough that Duke had to show Vivian around.
As Vivian was having the tour she realized something odd.
A tingling feeling welled up in her belly as she asked:
"Duke... Where are the servants?" Vivian asked, hoping her intuition was wrong.
Duke stopped for a minute and froze from Vivian's question. Like a thief getting caught red-handed during an act of crime, the guilty Duke twiddled his fingers as he responded:
"They... they all quit"
"WHAT?!" Vivian almost had a heart attack from the harsh revelation.
"Well, you see... remember when I told you I was kinda bankrupt..." Duke explained the series of unfortunate events that had happened.
Duke's grandfather didn't have the most financially capable mind out there so they both had to sometimes tighten the belt when things got rough. Even the number of servants had to be cut in half making the mansion sometimes dusty due to neglect.
His grandfather would sometimes miss out on paying the servant's salaries but would later make up for it when the money came in.
The servants weren't too keen on being paid late, but since his grandfather always made sure to pay them, maybe out of sheer loyalty or respect for the old man, most of them put up with it.
Until that is when Duke's grandpa died and he was forced to go to the Capital to exchange some of his family's artifacts and jewels for some gold.
Sadly for Duke, he used up most of the money he had to pay for Vivian's dowry, and now he was too poor to even leave a portion of his money left for the servant's salaries.
This was the last straw for the servants as they all quit the day they got Duke's letter telling them that this month's payment would be delayed even further, {Possible never arriving} Duke wrote.
And so, here they are now, Duke and Vivian stuck in this current situation.
"Wha-what?..." Vivian was dumbfounded at the revelation she had just received.
"Ha-ha hahaha... A Princess with no servants? Hahaha" Vivian almost went mad.
"No no, when have I ever been treated like a Princess? I thought this would finally be the time I experienced getting a maid or something…" Vivian cried, trying to rationalize her situation as she focused on those times she had worse happen to her.
Like that time when she was just but a wee little girl because she was too quiet the maids didn't realize she had a fever... Actually, they didn't even know where Vivian's room was, to be honest, so even if she shouted no one would've come. And so, because of that, she had to force herself to go to the Palace's clinic on her own. Worse yet, because the doctors and nurses were on their lunch break, she had to wait a full 2 hours as a severe fever ravaged her consciousness.
Or that time during her 15th Birthday and nobody remembered it. Even worse was the fact that there was actually a ball that was being held that night completely unrelated to her, and because the tailors were unable to procure the appropriate amount of dresses, Vivian and six other Princesses had to wait before getting their dresses fitted and attend the party.
That wasn't even the worse thing about that night, the worse thing was that even though the tailors hurried to get said dresses, they only remembered to procure six additional ones! Completely forgetting Vivian a second time! (Bruh)
The young Vivian couldn't even cry about her situation as it was just simply too comedic for her to consider it a tragedy.
And so she just went back to her room and celebrated her birthday alone, eating some leftover cupcakes she snatched after everyone left... from the trash. (But hey, at least it was Imperial Trash)
[They forgot about me twice... TWICE! ON MY BIRTHDAY!] Vivian thought.
"No, I'm no Princess... I am wind... I am air"
"Do- Do you want to take a walk and have some fresh air, maybe?" Duke misunderstood her ramblings.
Vivian looked at Duke as fiercely as she could and said: "Show me to the study!"
Duke flinched at Vivian's businesswoman like demeanor as he answered back:
"O-ok follow me"
Duke slowly opened the door to the study, only to find a dusty room that looked like it was unkempt for a long time.
Dust covered all of the windows, tables, and chairs, even the bookshelves were not spared from the dust.
"T-tada~! Umm, were here" Duke was embarrassed at the state of the study. But contrary to his expectations Vivian's face gleamed in joy when she saw the number of books that were inside.
Like an excited child, Vivian started to browse around the bookshelves filled with books she found interesting.
Vivian never hated studying, in truth, much like Duke, one of her favorite past times was also reading. Except of course the books Vivian preferred to read most were the textbook types, the type of books Duke considered to be his Achilles heel... Actually, now that he thought about it, pretty much everything that required skill was his Achilles heel.
Sadly for Vivian however, despite her love for learning, the experience of studying was ruined for her by the extremely hypocritical and strict teachers she had within the Palace.
"Woah~ these are really really rare books! Some of them can't even be found in the Imperial Library! I never knew your grandfather had such an intellectual mind! Well, for someone who wasn't too good at accounting, his taste in books was quite refined!" Vivian praised Duke's grandfather, failing to see the dust that had accumulated within the room as she was too engrossed in skimming over some of the books there. At that moment Vivian thought to herself: [I guess accounting and literature just don't overlap, do they? Yup, not one bit]
Seeing the excitement inside Vivian's eyes, Duke had to be honest with Vivian as he revealed: "Ummm, grandpa didn't use this room..."
"What? Then who used this place? And where did your grandfather keep financial reports? How about the family's assets?" Vivian asked, stopping for a moment as she realized something was wrong again.
"Well... My mom used to use this room when she was alive. As for the financial reports..." Duke once again twiddled his fingers in embarrassment as he led Vivian to another room.
Duke led Vivian to a moderately large room with a king-sized bed right in the middle. It was properly furnished just like any other room a nobleman would use, but this room, however, was particularly messy due to the different papers lying about.
Some papers were on the bed while others were on the floor or sticking out of the drawers.
"Gramps did them in his room" Duke hid his face, unable to bear Vivian's annoyed state as he knew she was just about to explode...
Vivian's eyes twitched like crazy as she looked at the room, and with a serious voice she said: "Go play outside, I'll fix the papers and the study…"
"Eh, play? Are you sure you don't need my help or with somethi-"
"Go!" Vivian grumpily yelled, interrupting Duke as he quickly ran outside, not wanting to annoy Vivian any further.
"O-Ok! I'll go now, good luck~!" Duke swiftly ran before Vivian changed her mind and forced him to stay and help.
"Huh, at least look somewhat regretful…" Vivian said as she folded her dress' sleeves.
And with that, Vivian watched Duke gleefully run away, happily dumping her all the tedious tasks.
Vivian sighed, not letting the stress get to her.
*Boink*
But suddenly, as Duke was running outside he accidentally tripped! But instead of crashing down towards the floor, his stomach bounced and propelled him up again. And as if nothing happened Duke continued to run away, unfazed about what had just happened.
Vivian giggled at Duke's display of cute idiotic clumsiness as the initial stress she felt suddenly turned into excitement at the newfound responsibilities she had.
"Haa~, I guess you really can't rely on a man when you need things done properly… And besides, keeping track of a household's finances is MY job, the one and only lady of the house!" Vivian propped herself up as she smiled in excitement.
Vivian was surprisingly excited to handle the expenses, it was her first time getting a job after all.
[And I still have 900 Gold to pay back!] Vivian joked to herself as she started sifting through the paperwork.
After running outside, Duke went to the estate's shed as he got himself a wooden sword and headed towards a training dummy his grandfather made for him when he was little.
[Yes... Now that I have another person to protect I can't just sit on my ass all day. Alright! This time I'll do 2000 swings!] Duke vowed as he started swinging the sword in vigor!
…For 78 swings, after which Duke's arms simply gave out as he fell into the ground failing his initial goal of 2000 consecutive swings.
"Man, I miss gramps…"
On the cold hard ground, Duke remembered his grandfather's past encouragements and the gleeful cheers he made every time Duke trained his sword.
Every 5 consecutive swings Duke made, his grandpa would cheer as if he had just killed a Dragon! Showering Duke in praises and encouragement.
["Ohhh!!! THAT'S MAH BOY! Not long now! You might just be the one to bring about a new era for our family! Go Duke go! Go Duke go!"] His grandfather would shower him with excessive praise.
That was how much Duke's grandfather supported him.
In truth, Duke was quite the confident young man when he first started out in school at the Imperial Academy. At that time, Duke actually firmly believed that his grandfather was right and that the maids and servants were just blind to his potential…
But that confidence and self-worth quickly eroded after getting laughed at during the very first training session he had with other children.
As the maximum number of swings he could do was only 40, which was even lower than what a boy younger than him could perform.
As every consecutive class and subject from then on that Duke went through proved time and time again that he was dead last, below everyone else in everything.
All Duke could do from that point on was accept the harsh reality that he was fat and talentless.
And... that his grandpa was actually wrong.
Maybe it was because of his grandfather's leniency or maybe even his own obesity was to blame, with Duke's heart and self-confidence mercilessly broken by his experience at school, he started to secretly blame his grandfather for all the weakness he had.
He even started to hate sword training when before he used to love it despite not being able to do more than 10 or 20 swings.
And even when his grandfather begged or pleaded for him to train, Duke continued to spout the same reason over and over again:
"It's useless anyway…"
I mean, to Duke, training really was pointless. It's not like Duke ever lacked the hard work needed.
As what his classmates pointed out, he was so weak that no matter what he did, his efforts would never amount to anything...
And no matter how many times Duke tried, no matter how many times he attempted to swing his sword whilst no one was looking, he could never get above those cursed 80 swings.
While his classmates were already doing 400 swings in one go or were at the stage where they were already sparring against other kids... Duke still couldn't go over 80 no matter how hard he tried.
Remembering all this, just before the self-doubt could kick in, Duke once again recollected the countless times his grandfather had encouraged him.
Now that his grandpa was gone, Duke realized that never once was his grandfather absent during the times he encouraged Duke to train.
Remembering this fact, Duke felt immense regret and sadness for letting his grandfather down and giving up too quickly.
After Duke's grandfather died, Duke began to start training on his own... He already failed his grandpa the first time, after all, he'd rather die than let it happen a second time!
Even if it kills him! Duke will become a great knight! Duke vowed to himself as he clenched his teeth.
Even though his body was already sore to the point that it felt like it was breaking apart, Duke continued to swing again and again and again!
And whenever the thought of quitting appeared in his mind, Duke would SWING!
AGAIN! And AGAIN! And AGAIN! And AGAIN! And AGAIN!
And after that, he would swing one last time!
And after that ANOTHER last time until...
Today, for the first time in Duke's life, he actually managed to pull off 81 swings…
Tears started dripping from his eyes as he realized he's finally done it.
"Ei-Eighty ONE!" Duke roared as the tears of joy kept pouring from his eyes.
As if an unbearably heavy shackle that bounded him to the Earth had finally snapped from his constant struggle against it!
[10 more] Duke thought... 10 more and he'd finally be on the level of a weak teenager!
Duke's mind was filled with excitement as he started to continue from 81 as if the barrier of 80 never existed in the first place!
After he reached 90, Duke continued for another 10 swings, and another, and then another.
At this moment right here, Duke felt as if he could fly as if the limitations of his weak body were never there, to begin with…
And after a hundred and ten (110) swings Duke finally stopped as he maniacally laughed.
Whilst in the middle of glee, Duke suddenly remembered the advice the pretty boy he met at the Imperial Palace gave him.
"1, 2, 1, 2" Duke tried to train according to the actions that the pretty boy did. But sadly it didn't look quite right…
If the pretty boy was a crane stretching its elegant wings and legs, then Duke would be a pig getting roasted on a hot blazing fire.
"What... Are you doing?" Vivian stared at Duke who kept doing the weird motions the pretty boy had taught him.
"V-Vivian?!" Duke fell to the ground as he realized someone was actually watching him!
*Sigh* "Let's go... It's time to eat" Vivian sarcastically smiled at Duke as she called him for dinner.
Duke stared at Vivian who wore a ponytail as she smiled at him back while saying the word 'dinner'.
At that moment Duke thought: [An angel...] had suddenly fallen from the sky.
(Duke's logic was pretty girl + food = Angel)
Duke went inside the dining area which was both empty and silent, but even though there were no candles nor torches to light up the room, it was still quite bright enough to see everything thanks to the ethereal moonlight that illuminated the room from the large oval windows that the dining room had.
"Woah~! Where did you get all this food?! Did the servants come back?!" Duke gasped in excitement.
With a proud look on her face, Vivian said: "I cooked it myself!"
Vivian was mostly ignored and forgotten back in the Imperial Palace. Her room, which was supposed to be in the Princesses' wing of the Imperial Family's Housing, was secretly taken away by an awful maid who tricked Vivian with the help of the other Princesses who wanted her out of their sights.
And so, little Vivian had no other choice but to live in that maid's room instead. And since nobody delivered food to the servants, Vivian as the lowest of the Imperial bunch was forgotten and her food which was supposed to be hers was delivered to that maid instead, forcing the young little Vivian to go to the kitchen herself and beg for meals.
But maybe because of this, Vivian became quite well-acquainted with the Imperial Kitchen's staff, and sometimes they would even teach her how to cook whenever they had free time.
And since the cooks of the Imperial Palace were the best of the best professional Chefs that came from every part of Brune's diverse culture, Vivian herself, as the fast learner she was, became a magnificent Professional-Grade Chef in her own right.
Although quite ironic for the strong independent woman that Vivian was, the Kitchen was one of the few rare fragments of joy Vivian had within the Palace.
No matter whether you're a man or a woman, the place you'll feel most comfortable with after all is the place where you're both loved and respected.