Sometime Before

  Veronique headed towards dinner with a spring in her step, the meals she had in the Main wing had left her famished and she couldn’t wait to go back to her usual filling meal, Little drag couldn’t move fast enough to circle around her so it was just following her, joined by Handstand who wasn’t always around.

  Mos and Bos were still asleep in her room, while Lucia and Kain were following after her, when suddenly a thought came to her

  “Wait if you two are always with me, and the others are just watching to the side will my family has a meal, when does the staff get to eat?” Veronique asked out of the blue, slowing down on her walk

  “Oh w-we have b-breakfast before we start our duties and a dinner after they e-ended” Lucia answered

  “Wait you are missing out on lunch?!” the red head was surprised to hear that

  “Big…dinner” Kain said his own two cents

  “Y-yes both dinner and breakfast are q-quite substantial” Lucia added to it, since the guard didn’t elaborate.

  “I guess that makes up for it, still I can’t imagine missing lunch” Veronique reasoned then had a terrible doubt “I hope you are all payed well at the least”

  “W-working for the Aurelia is a g-great h-honor” that was the last thing the red head wanted to hear, it reminded her of workers being payed basically peanuts just for the privilege of getting the work experience on their resume.

  Only this sounded worse, what if the staff was all working for free and they weren’t allowed to leave?

  “And is such honor paying you well?” Veronique dug at it out of concern and fear

  “I-It’s a r-respectable salary m-more then a-average of a commoner” Lucia would say easing her worries.

  “That’s good to hear” Veronique let out a sigh of relief glad on the fact this world wasn’t as behind as she was fearing on such matters, last thing she wanted was to be part of a group of ruthless selfish sack of shits that felt so self important they would ask a commoner to thank them after running them over with a carriage.

  ‘wait do they have coins or notes there?’ she thought but didn’t dare to ask that out aloud to not raise suspicion as on why she didn’t know such a basic thing…even if thinking about it, it should be plausible for a noble such as herself to not know.

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  She did remember many rich adults in her world being completely clueless on the most basic things, she half wondered if Hanging Jaw looked the same to the original Veronique or its appearance was influenced from her memory of her past life.

  “Lady V-Veronique we a-arrived” Lucia informed her as the redhead was distracted and nearly walked into the closed door, which the maid opened for her

  “Oh right!” Veronique would say, then headed towards her seat and began cutting into the fuming meat without even worrying if she was using the right utensils

  “Uhm Lady Veronique?” the maid suddenly called her attention before she could eat a bite

  “Yes Lucia?” the redhead asked, implicitly giving her permission to elaborate on the matter

  “Wouldn’t it be b-best if you tried to use the correct fork? T-to p-practice” Lucia suggested “i-it’s just a s-suggestion” then added feeling insecure and probably intimidated

  “…you are right it will be easier on me in the future if I just internalize the correct one to use” Veronique wanted to agree even if she would prefer to simply eat without worrying of such thing “but there is no one here to correct me if I get it wrong” and pointed out to the big issue with Lucia’s suggestion.

  “Try” Kain would simply say, thinking about it if she did get it wrong there was no Miss Hawking to reprimand her and nobody would ever know.

  She really had nothing to lose from just trying.

  “Alright” Veronique looked at the table in concentration before she discarded the fork she had been using and went for another one slightly different, then she resumed her meal eating with gusto despite it being a very simple dish.

  The taste wasn’t overwhelming, it was just right and her plate wasn’t empty after just a few bites.

  No wonder both the Duchess and the Duke were so skinny.

  When the dish was done and she was just left with an abundant sauce on her plate, Veronique was so famished she just couldn’t just help herself and grabbed some bread, not really giving a shit that it would be considered barbaric of her to do this she broke the bread with her bare hands so she could soak a piece in the sauce and little by little, piece by piece she cleaned the plate.

  She went on to the side dishes, which were some smashed potatoes and peas along with a side of simple cherry tomatoes.

  Veronique attacked the tomatoes first, wanting to keep the potatoes for last as those would be the most filling and she had no intention of leaving a crumb behind.

  She methodical tasted each of them one by one to make them last longer then once that was gone too it was time for her anticipated meal.

  Veronique surgically eat the peas first then slowly decimate the potatoes, when most of it had been devoured she repeated the process she did with the sauce to make sure to get every molecule left of the dish then finished the broken bread as it was to not leave a crumb behind.

  It was truly a delicious and filling meal and the redhead felt a deep sense of gratitude for it, one that she had the impulse to express towards the cook, but no maid from the kitchen had ever attended her and she had no idea who the cook was or where the kitchen was supposed to be, Veronique doubted it was even proper for her to set foot there, but even only sending Lucia could disrupt their work and she didn’t want to be a bother…then she had a stoke of genius

  “Lucia” Veronique called out, at the same time she noticed Kain’s sight was fixed on towards a side door ‘is someone listening to us?’ she wondered since it would make more sense for Kain to be keeping an eye on the front door.

  “Yes Lady Veronique?” the maid responded as expected

  “Could you do me a favor for when you head to dinner?” she asked and gestured for Lucia to lower herself so that she could whisper it in her ear ‘this way I can keep it a surprise for the cook if someone is listening to us’ she thought cleverly completely unaware of what such innocent action would cause.

  During the making of this chapter the Author was very hungry and would have killed for large serving of smashed potatoes.

  Fun fact this was actually supposed to be chapter 22, but I felt like the story flowed better this way, after all already knowing Veronique enjoyed her meal would have killed all suspension for the other two following chapters and made them feel as useless fillers.

  Even if it did put me in the weird situation where chapter 22 and 24 were done before 23.Yea yea, I am still working on writing more chapters in advance…which is the main reason why I choose to publish this lighter story first over the more complex one I had in mind.

  Hanging Jaw - the Dead with the jaw just barely attached

  Little Drag - the Dead with just the top half that keeps dragging itself around Veronique in circles

  Handstand - another Dead with just the top half, but instead of dragging its body it walks on its hands.

  Clashing eyes - the Dead with the eyes danging from its orbits.

  The Decapitated Friends - two Dead that seem to be talking while holding on their own heads

  Disarmed - Dead who uses its own severed arm as a club, another of the same appeared.They started a mock sword battle using their own arms.