The next day, the sun was already high in the sky.
Vieya slept straight through until ten-thirty in the morning without getting up. Jasmine went in and out several times, and every single time she saw that Mom still hadn’t woken up.
This time, after returning from practice at the elven magic testing grounds, she finally couldn’t hold back anymore.
‘What exactly did Mom do yesterday? Why did the elf big sisters tell me and Elliti not to leave the palace at all? And why did that blue-haired woman suddenly get better?’
‘Almost forgot—most importantly, are all those rumors about Mom that I heard at the training grounds real or fake?’
Jasmine was full of worries, restless day and night.
But then she remembered the little pills Mom had brought back for her last night. They were like candy—sweet and tasty.
She decided to forgive Mom.
“Mom, it’s already noon.”
Jasmine walked to the bedside and reached out to push the slime rolled up in blankets like a spring roll.
“Not eating breakfast, not eating lunch—this is bad for your health. Get up and eat!”
“......”
After a long while, Vieya poked her head out from the bedding, turned her face toward her daughter, and sighed helplessly.
“Stop pushing me, little Jasmine. Remember to take your medicine on time today—that’s something I specially had an elven physician prepare. All-natural, green, just like candy. Let Mom sleep ten more minutes...”
“When I went out this morning, Mom said the same thing. But now it’s been almost three hours.” Jasmine counted on her fingers.
“Five more minutes.”
“Then... okay.”
Unable to wake her mom, Jasmine walked out with a bit of disappointment.
She suddenly felt that this trip wasn’t as fun as she had imagined. These past few days, Mom hadn’t been playing with her at all—she barely even saw her...
Last night, Mom had come back and fallen straight asleep, only saying one sentence to her the whole time: “Take your medicine on time.”
‘It’s fine. I’ll go prepare lunch for Mom first.’
Jasmine encouraged herself. When she left the room for the kitchen, to keep Mom from running around, she even locked the door.
Mm. Lock Mom up.
Just locking her up should be fine. If there really was some emergency, Mom would go out through the window anyway...
After all, Mom was very good at that. One moment of inattention, and she’d already run off without a trace—no way to catch her.
‘I really am useless... I can’t protect Mom, and I can’t keep Mom with me...’
A little downhearted.
Near the kitchen, there were still no elves working today—everyone was on holiday. But Jasmine heard some strange noises.
Clink-clank, like something being chopped.
With curiosity, she carefully approached the kitchen door and peeked inside.
It was that sea-blue-haired girl. She was at the chopping board, washing vegetables and cutting carrots into cubes, even humming a very nice tune, looking happy and relaxed.
‘Mom’s number-four maid—the super luxury item worth two hundred million gold coins. Enough to buy ten thousand worthless Jasmines...!’
Thinking this, Jasmine nervously clung to the kitchen doorway, peeking inside, inexplicably intimidated.
The kitchen has been taken over...
The blue-haired girl chopping vegetables also noticed the little one at the door. She immediately turned her head, smiling warmly as she greeted her, even inviting Jasmine over to taste the carrot cubes she had just cut.
Jasmine hesitated and shuffled over, extremely restrained at the blue-haired girl’s side. The pressure of two hundred million gold coins felt like an invisible mountain, heavily weighing on her small body, making her at a loss and wanting to flee immediately.
“Little mistress? What’s wrong?”
Isabelle bent down. In her ocean-blue eyes flashed confusion. How did Master raise the child to be this insecure?
Clearly she had power, status, and money, and although Master looked calm and cute on the surface, her actual personality was quite arrogant. By rights, it shouldn’t be like this...
“N-no, um... just call me Jasmine!”
Hearing the words “little mistress,” Jasmine waved her hands frantically, then lowered her voice.
“Everyone calls me that...”
“Everyone?” Isabelle raised a brow.
“Mom’s place also has cat maids, bat maids, spider maids,” Jasmine recalled. “Everyone just calls me by my name.”
Isabelle blinked her lively eyes. So Master was actually a monster-maid collector?
No wonder she had been willing to spend a huge sum at the auction to buy Isabelle’s ownership.
But even though these monster maids had humanoid forms, their intelligence usually wasn’t very high. They liked to live freely and without restraint...
As she thought about it, a whole drama had already played out in Isabelle’s mind: an evil maid viciously bullying and oppressing Master’s daughter while Master wasn’t home.
Such a maid would be suspiciously disloyal to Master. Just wait and see.
With that in mind, Isabelle began smiling as she gently corrected Jasmine’s thinking, feeding her two carrot cubes in the process.
After a bit of back-and-forth, Jasmine relaxed quite a bit.
‘Master should be waking up soon.’
Isabelle turned and left the kitchen. When she returned to Jasmine again, one hand was holding a rabbit, and the other °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° pointed at herself.
“Isabelle.”
“Isabelle?” Jasmine slowly repeated the blue-haired girl’s name.
Hearing that, the girl nodded slightly. Under Jasmine’s gaze, she put on an apron and skillfully began processing the rabbit on the chopping board.
Her hands were nimble and strong. With a single strike, she precisely chopped off the rabbit’s head, then skinned it, removed the entrails, and cut it into suitable sizes and shapes for cooking. Hot oil into the pan...
In just a short while, the rabbit was in the pot together with the diced carrots and some vegetables Jasmine didn’t recognize.
A faint aroma of meat began to fill the kitchen.
Jasmine hurriedly brought over plates, preparing to help serve the food and rice.
After that, the two of them returned to the room. Fortunately, Vieya was already up this time, though she was bent over the desk, writing and drawing something on paper.
“Mom, come eat. It’s two hundred mi—cough, Isabelle-big-sis’s spicy fat rabbit!”
Seeing that Mom was really up, Jasmine couldn’t hide her happiness at all.
“Hehehe, I’ll help Mom serve the rice first! In a big bowl...”
The three of them quietly finished the meal together in the room. Strangely enough, the two plumpest rabbit hind legs were both eaten entirely by the slime girl.
It really tasted great. Vieya felt a bit relieved—this fourth maid she had drawn at random finally knew some maid skills.
After finishing the rabbit feast, Vieya planned to rest in the room for the entire day.
Upon hearing this news, Jasmine immediately announced that she wasn’t going to afternoon magic practice. Overjoyed, she used newly mastered magic to weave a vivid little green bird, sending it to deliver the afternoon-off message to Elliti in the palace.
On the other side, after listening to Isabelle recount her own experiences, Vieya also started musing inwardly.
She more or less understood how Isabelle had ended up in such a state. It all began years ago, with the chief Hero who had gifted her two sword strikes.
Those two strikes left Isabelle with indelible psychological trauma and physical wounds, causing her to degenerate into a salted fish drifting with the currents of the ocean.
She stopped managing her clan, letting it grow wild. On top of that, a certain “good sister” would often come visit her, persistently bringing fruits from Isabelle’s homeland in the Eastern Sea, comforting her and helping her heal emotionally.
Deeply moved, Isabelle immediately treated this “good sister” as her best friend. Every time, she would happily eat all the fruit her “good sister” brought, and in return, she would look for jade coral from the seabed as gifts.
Those good days lasted less than a year. freewebnoveℓ.com
One day, the “good sister” suddenly told her that the fruit was poisonous, and that after eating it for eighty-one days, she was already doomed beyond salvation.
Beyond that, her own followers could no longer tolerate such a Demon King. They began protesting and defecting, saying she was unfit to be a Demon King, wanting to seize her position and take her life.
Internal and external crises, old wounds not yet healed and new scars added—Isabelle fled while heavily injured. But as soon as she reached the shore, she ran into a human slaving party led by powerful figures.
Unlucky beyond measure, Isabelle fell into captivity. She could only rely on her weak Sloth Domain to make those humans wary, turning her into a hot potato to be auctioned off at a high price. frёewebnoѵēl.com
A once peerless Demon King thus fell.
“More or less... that’s how it was.”
Isabelle scratched her cheek, looking at her Master uneasily. But Master’s expression was much calmer than she had expected.
Of course. At a glance, Master was someone who had weathered great storms—an outstanding figure even more monster-like than monster girls themselves.
After hearing Isabelle’s story, Vieya wasn’t surprised. She had already guessed as much.
Now that Isabelle was under her command as a maid, once they left the Elven Forest, that “good sister” who had plotted against Isabelle might very well come sniffing around for trouble.
But Vieya wasn’t afraid.
As for why—any enemy who needed to rely on sneak attacks, poisoning, and emotional manipulation just to deal with a Demon King wasn’t worth her spending extra effort on.
What mattered most right now was Aislin passing the subsequent trials and becoming the Elven Queen, and then the current Elven Queen fulfilling her promise—using the blood of the four great elven families to open the gate and take her into the World Tree.
Just thinking about that made Vieya unable to sleep.
So annoying, so annoying, so annoying. She really wanted to chain that big Demon King up tightly, so she wouldn’t keep stirring up trouble for her.
‘Sigh...’
Vieya let out a long sigh, secretly giving herself a thumbs-up for the darkness in her heart.
“Esteemed Lady Vieya, Her Majesty the Queen wishes to see you. She’s temporarily tied up with affairs, so she would like to invite you to come to the palace.”
At that moment, there was a gentle knock on the door, and Lano’s soft voice came from outside.