Well, it really wasn't any of my business, so I didn't inquire anything more about it.

  If I had to guess, it was possible that Yuko was a hermaphrodite — intersex — a condition that was retively more common in this isekai universe than on Earth, although it was still rare enough that I had only met one or two before. The Kingdom of Galuterica was a retively conservative pce, and likewise, there was a lot of discrimination. Very few intersex people lived openly, and most lived in stealth as one particur gender or the other.

  The kuma (bearkin) looked up and down from the floor nervously.

  Something was on his mind, but he seemed too afraid to ask.

  “What is it?” I prompted him.

  He shrunk like a vulnerable mouse.

  It seemed like my style of speech was not connecting with him.

  “A-Are you… a royal maid… miss?” Yuko spoke submissively with his eyes cast to the floor, as if he were speaking to a person of superior rank.

  The question stabbed my heart and struck an open wound.

  The kuma seemed to have the impression that I was a free person.

  To be fair, there was nothing to suggest that wasn’t a maid. I was wearing my own clothes and I looked every bit like every other generic maid in the royal pace. The only inconsistency was the fact that we were both sitting in a room that was only used by sves, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

  “…It’s complicated,” I responded evasively. “I was working as a maid up until yesterday.”

  I wasn’t mentally prepared to admit outright that I had lost my freedom.

  “…Oh... I’m really sorry about that,” Yuko said softly.

  He seemed to catch on with the vague details that I left unsaid.

  + + +

  Yuko’s stomach growled.

  I looked over at him, and I noticed that he was staring at the heap of personal belongings that I had stacked on my side of the room. There were several containers of cookies, chocotes, ration bars, and other snacks — a miscelneous assortment of treats that I had accumuted over many months as a maid. Simir to many university students on Earth, I kept a fair amount of imperishable food in my room since the staff cafeteria was only open during a few specific hours during the day. If I ever missed breakfast, lunch, or dinner, it was easiest to grab a bite from my own personal stash. I had bought nearly everything with my own money.

  I even had a few fresh fruits and the leftover bread that Lilian had saved for me the night before.

  Overall, it was much more luxurious than anything a typical sve would have access to.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked him.

  However, he shook his head and waved his hands in front of him.

  “I shouldn’t,” he said reluctantly.

  “Why not? You can bme it on me if anyone has a problem with it. I’m telling you it’s okay.”

  “If I eat anything, I’ll need to go the bathroom ter,” Yuko expined.

  I blinked vacantly in confusion.

  That didn’t make any sense.

  It wasn’t like I was telling him to drink coffee, tea, or a diuretic. Moreover, what was wrong with needing to go to the bathroom? This was a normal human biological function, and it was a basic part about being alive. Anyone who ate and drank needed to urinate and defecate at some point, and you couldn’t avoid it.

  The bearkin sve seemed to notice my bewilderment.

  “If I put things in my stomach, I’ll need to go to the bathroom ter,” he repeated.

  “??”

  “Do you have an Obedience Crest? Most of the ones pced by the Royal Mages of this kingdom make it so that you don’t need to eat or drink. Most of the sves in the pace will be perfectly fine even if they’re never fed any food.”

  “I… I… It can do that?”

  This was my first time hearing anything like this. There was a wide variation of different magical tattoos that were used all throughout the continent, and it was common for sve owners to customize the patterns that were etched onto their property in order to suit their personal preferences. It was not particurly surprising that there were a variety of specialized spells that were used on royal sves that I didn’t know about.

  Still, I didn’t quite draw the connection why this meant Yuko shouldn’t eat.

  “If it would help, I can take a look at your Crest and double check if you have a simir effect,” the bearkin offered.

  However, I immediately covered my stomach with sudden feelings of insecurity.

  I felt deeply uneasy.

  …I really didn’t want anyone to look at it.

  The expression on Yuko’s face was deeply sympathetic.

  “In the royal capital, sves are not allowed to use the same bathrooms as everyone else,” he expined. “I don’t know if you noticed, but there aren’t any special toilets designated for sves to use in the royal pace. If you really need to go, you might find an opportunity to slip away to the stables with the horses or find a spot outdoors, but mainly we’re not given anything to eat so we generally don’t need to use the bathroom.”

  + + +

  My face paled.

  Frankly, I was horrified to hear this.

  It was bizarrely cruel in a weird, extremely twisted way.

  For that matter, I couldn’t even believe that this kind of outright mistreatment was happening all around me for years, and I didn’t even notice it. On Earth, there was an Internet meme that ‘idols don’t go to the bathroom’, but I would have never imagined that I would discover a distorted version of that saying in real life.

  I had seen many sves working in the royal pace during my time as a maid, but it hadn’t crossed my mind that I never witnessed a single one of them go to the bathroom.

  I stood up immediately.

  As far as things went, this was definitely crossing my red line.

  It didn’t matter how I managed to achieve it, but I absolutely needed Kang Jiesu to eliminate these types of restrictions. While I didn’t know if it was feasible for us to eliminate svery as a whole, there were a certain number of things that I absolutely wouldn’t be able to tolerate. I simply couldn’t imagine living the life that Yuko had experienced, and I would do everything under my power in order to avoid those chilling circumstances.

  To be honest, nobody else ought to suffer through an experience like that either.

  There was only one trump card that I still had avaible to py.

  If I needed to tell Kang Jiesu that my true identity was Zhang Guiyu… then so be it.

  ?