Aijira stared at the servants who was too scared to enter the room and wake the Emperor up. Letting out a sigh, she took a glance at the head butler, who was equally reluctant to take charge of the situation and walked towards the door.
"Go on with your duties. I will take over." She softly spoke to reassure the servants.
"WE CAN'T LET YOU!"
Just when she was about to open the door, the servants, especially the maids hurriedly blocked her from even touching the doorknob of the door and furiously shaked their heads. She had thought that the servants wanted someone, anyone to wake the Emperor up but this was their reaction.
She was pleasantly surprised. Thinking that maybe they do have some pride in their duty when one of the maids knelt down and begged her.
"Please, dear consort. Don't! If the Emperor were ever to find out, which would most likely, no, definitely find out that we made you do our duties-"
"He would cut off your heads?" Aijira's eyes narrowed into a slit as she completed the maid's sentence.
Clicking, her tongue, she inwardly promised to take care of the servants upon her ascension to becoming the empress when all of the sudden, all servants furiously shook their heads.
"No, Empress. The Emperor dislikes killing someone over petty reasons. Rather, we would like him to kill us and be done with it but he instead does something far more worse than that!"
Aijira stared at them in shock.
What will the Emperor do to them that is something far worse than killing them?
Torture.
Aijira's fist tightened as she realized what the servants have been experiencing. Aijira was wholeheartedly convinced that the Emperor would be willing to kill off servants on the whim, as per his reputation of being a tyrant, but she never expected anyone to torture them, even the Emperor.
Just as she was about to speak up, the maid that was kneeling spoke outloud.
"The Emperor will send us back to training again! His Majesty will make us train again and again until we have perfect proficiency in our duties!"
Aijira was about to get mad for them when she stopped herself and what the maid had told her finally clicked in her head.
"..."
Aijira stared at the maid, then to the servants in bafflement.
She opened her mouth to say something, then closed them again in shock at what she had just heard.
A few moments passed before Aijira spoke a tiny, "...What?" underneath her breath.
"His Imperial Majesty has done it before, when a long time maid accidentally bumped into the Imperial Princess in the halls, her hands slipped and the tea that she was about to bring to the Emperor was spilled on the ground. The Imperial Princess told her how unprofessional she was and then told the Emperor who then ordered the maid to go back into training 10 times!"
The maid let out a small tear from her eyes as she continued.
"Elder Mari is still stuck retraining all of her skills as a maid back at the training facility even now..."
Aijira stared at them as if they were speaking alien language.
"And it's not even just the servants, dear consort! Even the knights were forced to undergo another round of training after the Emperor thought that their skills were lacking compared to real knights and forced them to march to the Frozen Isles and never come back if they couldn't cut down a mountain or two."
The maid continued on, "That is why the entire military within the Capital is so scarce right now, most of the knights were still in the Frozen Isles training to become an Expert Level Ari masters!"
Aijira looked over to the maid, then to the servants who nodded along her before looking back at the door.
"..."
This time, in pure surprise, Aijira let out an aghast, "..What."
What?
????????
????????
????????
Question marks filled Aijira's thoughts, even her brain froze, unable to comprehend what she had just heard.
The servants were all hugging each other, helping each other calm down.
"...So why are you all still here? If you were afraid of that happening to you, then why aren't all of you doing your duties right now?"
Everyone went silent for a moment, then panic started rising as a butler pulled out a pocket watch from his chest, looked at the time, then promptly fainted. Seeing that, the other servants faces paled, some fainted alongside the butler as the Head Butler grabbed his own pocket watch and his face simultaneously changed expression.
From a shocked one, to panic, then denial. It finally ended with acceptance as he pulled out a letter from his breast-pocket and gave it to a nearby maid.
"Give this to the Human Resources Manager, tell them that I'm going to resign from my position."
The other maids gasped and clung to the butler, "Nooooo!! Please Head Butler, don't leave us!!!"
Aijira stared at the chaos in shock. Still unable to move one from what she was seeing.
As the chaos grew, hearing even more of what suffering they had to go through, Aijira stood alone in shock.
The chaos abruptly stopped when a voice, a cold voice sounded out from behind all of them.
"What is this insolence?"
All of them turned around at the same time, their faces drained of color and blood as cold sweat started forming in all parts of their body.
Aijira too turned to the voice and saw the door to the Emperor's room was open, and between the doors was a golden haired man, Malik.
His hair was like that of a bird's nest as he let out a grumpy yawn and glared at the servants behind Aijira, who stared at the bird's nest on his head.
"Head Butler."
The butler flinched and hurriedly appeared infront of the Emperor, bowing down infront of him.
"List all of the servants that is in this hall. Make sure to put them back to the training facility and have them retrain everything for 10 times."
The servant's faces paled and soon, all of them lost their will to live and knelt down on the floor, regretting their life choices.
The Head Butler's face too paled as he flinched, then he bowed then and spoke, "As you wish."
He then turned to the servants with a crying expression on his face.
Malik let out a grumble from underneath his breath and looked at the servant's one by one. Each of the servants that made eye contact with the Emperor promptly flinched, then started shivering in fear and despair.
Just as he was about to shoo them away, Aijira came forward infront of them and let out a loud cough.
"Ahem. I greet the Imperial Majesty."
Malik finally saw Aijira amongst the servant.
"If i may speak my concerns your Royal Highness...."
Malik stared at her for a moment, then nodded his head coldly.
"You may."
Aijira smiled and bent down to bow down to him. Holding the hems of her dress, she smiled at him.
"I am at fault for them being unable to properly do their duties. I was talking to them to socialize with the servants and to familiarize myself with my new home."
Aijira spoke softly as she stood straight, looking at Malik's cold crimson eyes.
Malik stared at her for a moment, as the servant's faces cheered up a little, they sneakily stared at the Emperor in anticipation.
Malik's eyes turned to the servant, before looking back at Aijira's purple eyes before saying, "It doesn't matter."
The servants was once again plunged into despair.