I hurriedly hugged the creature, shoved it into a room on the second floor, and locked the door. Click— The sound of the lock sliding into place rang out particularly loud.
Thump, thump, suppressing my heartbeat that jumped all the way to my ears, I slowly came down the stairs.
A customer?
They didn’t just see me bringing in a demon beast, did they?
If I’d been caught, it wouldn’t be strange at all to be dragged away as a demon beast follower.
Holding my breath, I carefully opened the door to find Lionel standing there with his hood pulled over. However, the hood was completely useless. His golden hair and flushed red face were already blatantly revealing his identity.
“You…!”
So, if you’re going to be like that, what’s the point of even wearing a hood?
“Do you know who I am and yet commit such an outrage!”
“You’re His Highness the Crown Prince, aren’t you?”
At my retort, Lionel’s golden eyes flashed sharply.
“You dare know who I am and yet attempt to humiliate me like this?”
No. The one who humiliated back then wasn’t me but Lionel. He left without paying, didn’t he?
If Jeffrey had a sinister, weighty feeling, Lionel was just like a petulant young master. So words came out crookedly without my realizing it.
“The one who dined and dashed was you, the customer.”
“…What did you say?”
“All customers at our inn are equally kings. However, only when they pay the price.”
“Ha, equality.”
Lionel’s golden eyes curved narrowly.
Well, it was a ridiculous thing to say. Equality in this Empire where the class system was thoroughly ingrained? Sure enough, he soon burst into breath mixed with ridicule and raised the corners of his mouth.
“Come to think of it, you brought up money back then too. Right, the words are packaged nobly, but in the end, isn’t it just telling me to pay up?”
That’s right. In essence, it’s asking for money.
In a capitalist society, demanding fair compensation for labor was natural, but these words were logic that would only work in the modern world I’d lived in.
To dare discuss equality and rights in front of royalty—isn’t that something I’d lack ten heads for?
Moreover, the opponent was the Crown Prince notorious for his foul temper. Normally, it would be a situation where even banging my forehead on the floor and begging wouldn’t be enough, but I’d just thrown it out on guts because he was slightly shorter than me and seemed easy to deal with.
In the end, having nothing to say, I bit my lips hard and shut my mouth.
As if slipping through that brief silence, Lionel’s voice continued coldly.
“Who knows? If you kissed my foot, I might toss you a gold coin or so.”
“…”
My heart sank with a thud. At the same time, I could feel my face heating up rapidly.
Confirming my reaction, the corners of Lionel’s eyes curved thinly, and his golden eyes leisurely scanned my flushed face.
“What’s wrong? You’re so keen on money, yet you can’t accept such a proposal? Looks like you have some pride left after all.”
My throat went bone dry. Even though I wasn’t hungry, I swallowed—gulp—as if I were starving.
Forcibly moistening my dry lips, clenching and unclenching my trembling hands several times. Only after all those movements could I barely look at him straight.
And very carefully, selecting my breath, I opened my mouth.
“…That proposal.”
“What, did it hurt your pride?”
“Is it 1 Gold per toe?”
My mouth watered completely.
Why, there’s this kind of balance game, isn’t there?
Suck an oil tycoon’s toes and get hundreds of millions VS just live normally.
I was overwhelmingly the former.
“…What?”
Lionel asked back as if questioning whether he’d heard correctly, his eyes widening. However, my head was already full of calculations.
Right, what was starving wasn’t my stomach but my wallet.
What made my mouth water wasn’t ttukbaegi but the price of royal toes.
Calming my wildly trembling chest, I immediately knelt before him.
“Wha, what are you doing…!”
Lionel, who’d been hastily stepping back, sat down with a thud on a chair in his panic. I wasn’t one to miss that opening. I immediately grabbed his ankle and pulled off his shoe.
As the luxurious leather boots came off with a thud, neat and refined socks were revealed inside. And when I pulled those off without hesitation too, what appeared before my eyes was a pale, refined foot.
A royal foot. A foot polished like a luxury item without a speck of dust.
I swallowed my saliva—gulp.
Big toe 1 Gold, index toe 1 Gold… middle toe, ring toe, pinky toe. Both feet combined equals 10 Gold.
How many bowls of gukbap would that be? A vision unfolded of sparkling ttukbaegi marching in a line before my eyes.
And I immediately took his big toe into my mouth.
“…!”
Lionel inhaled sharply all at once. Unlike expected, there was no smell at all. Rather, a faint citrus scent tickled my nose. Each time the foot that had been managed with luxury oils for a lifetime brushed my tongue tip, a subtly oily texture spread in my mouth.
As if providing a tongue scaling service, I raised my tongue tip and thoroughly swept between each toe. But no dirt came out. It was a perfectly maintained royal foot.
Moving immediately to the index toe, I licked it lengthily with my tongue tip. A subtly salty taste mixed with luxury fragrance created a strangely addictive flavor.
“St, stop…!”
Suddenly raising my head, Lionel was biting his lips hard, forcibly maintaining his expression. But his reddened face had heated up, betraying that dignity.
Smiling slyly, I sucked all the way to the middle toe, making a slurp sound. When I swept broadly with my tongue—swoosh—Lionel finally smacked my face with the sole of his foot.
Whack—!
After kicking someone, Lionel himself squeezed his eyes shut and covered his face with both hands. In his appearance of tightly grasping even his reddened ear tips with his hands, not even a speck of the dignity of the Crown Prince who’d been shouting authoritatively remained.
And finally, a voice that seemed forcibly squeezed out fell.
“…Vul, vulgar.”
I haven’t finished sucking yet.
Sweeping the corners of my mouth with my tongue tip, I sent a regretful look. Then Lionel hurriedly stood up, threw—smack—the money pouch he’d been wearing at his waist, and just kicked open the door and left.
What remained was the money pouch and the lingering sensation of my ecstatically heated tongue tip.
Still, royalty is royalty after all. Isn’t he generous? At the heavy weight of gold coins conveyed in my grip, I decided to magnanimously dismiss the previous dine-and-dash incident as if it never happened.
And that day too, after busily handling morning business, I took a short break time as ingredients ran out. It was when I stopped by the room before going down to the market.
Hiss, hiss, hiss—
Rough breathing rang in my ears. Did it sense a presence? With difficulty, its eyelids lifted, and red eyes flashed between dark red fur.
Our gazes briefly crossed, and soon the demon beast let out a grrrr growl and bared its teeth. As I approached, it raised its front paw and pushed me away with difficulty.
“…Ah.”
It was clearly a weak gesture. And yet, the moment its claw tips grazed me, a vivid red line appeared on my arm along with beads of blood forming and dripping—drip, drip.
As expected, even injured, a demon beast is a demon beast.
However, the moment I looked at the blood drops dripping from the wound, an inexplicable emotion surged.
The sight of it resisting with all its might until just before death. That looked less like a demon beast’s roar and more like a young animal making its last struggle.
I hesitated for a moment. Even now, if I kicked it out, that would be that. And yet, my feet wouldn’t move.
In the end, after exhaling a sigh, I headed to the kitchen. Picking up a ladle, I poured hot broth into a bowl and gently pushed it beside the creature.
“Want to eat?”
The voice flowing from my lips was softer than expected. Though I’d never raised an animal, I recalled memories of watching a program where they fed porridge to sick beasts in the countryside.
So this one should be fine too. Besides, isn’t it a demon beast? It won’t die from eating broth with a little MSG in it.
The creature still rolled its suspicious eyes, then stuck out its head as if thirsty. Then, gulping down to quench its thirst, it suddenly opened its eyes wide.
Looking startled, it glanced at me, then lowered its head again and emptied the remaining broth. A moment later, when its belly swelled plumply, it collapsed as if laying down its body. But it wasn’t the dying appearance from before. Its breathing continued much more evenly.
I laid the creature down more comfortably and covered it with an old blanket.
After that, I moved my steps to the market to replenish ingredients and buy medicinal herbs as well.
“Aren’t you taking breaks too often these days? Are you not feeling well?”
The butcher ahjussi looked at me and asked worriedly.
“I’m busy. I need to hire someone.”
“That makes sense. These days, customers never stop coming. What are you here to buy today?”
“Head meat and… ah, one chicken too. And please recommend a medicine shop.”
“Are you sick somewhere?”
At those words, I flinched for a moment, but smiled with effort and glossed over it.
“I got burned a little before.”
Jeffrey had already healed me, but there was no need to mention it.
“You need to be careful!”
The owner ahjussi’s scolding echoed warmly. I waved my hand lightly and hastened my steps.
As soon as I returned carrying medicinal herbs from the medicine shop, I set up a medicinal decoction pot in one corner of the kitchen. While the faint herbal scent gradually spread, in the pot beside it, broth with a whole chicken in it bubbled up—bubble bubble.
I washed my hands and entered the room. Carefully wiping away the blood clotted to the demon beast’s fur again, I wrapped each wound hidden deep in the fur with bandages one by one. Blood seeped into my fingertips, but the cotton and bandages no longer became soaked red. Only when the demon beast’s rough breathing became much softer did my tension ease a little.
