Standing by the doorway, the man's face was the portrait of offended civility. He had the kind of look servants cultivated after years and years of wiping and kissing aristocrats' arses; equal parts duty and disgust.
This was due to the sight he met in the restroom, wherein was the perfect advertisement for tragicomedy:
The bastard son of his lord stood with powdered hair mussed into a scuffle. His beige tunic and solid surcoat hung open, darkened by the patchwork of crimson blood. His hose that were dampened and soiled, left a foul odor in the air.
It was only the absurd, theatrical grin on his face that was excusable about the scene.
The man, who seemed to be a serving footman to the noble lord of the manor, flared his nostrils. If disgust had a sound, it would have been the tiny hiss that escaped him.
Having the misfortune of catching sight of Kieran in the exact state one should never, in any era civil or uncivil, catch a grown man– A noble at that– the man visibly irked, his heels almost turning away.
Seeing this, Kieran stepped forward with an air of deliberate incompetence. He hit a gentlemanly bow which was, by all standards, magnificently performed with the smug grace of a magician's final act on stage.
" Please? Do not mind my insolence, sire." he said, urging the man with fine words that dressed the whole tableau in decency. With Metis's memory, he was able to speak just fluently in the dialect of this world.
' It requires more than bravery to bow graciously when covered in blood and filth. It requires shamelessness. You wouldn't be too cruel a man to not honor this poor man's dedication, will you?' Kieran thought with a small, self-depreciating smirk.
The footman paused in his step, staring hesitantly.
Because of course, a blood-drenched, soiled nobleman was in a gentleman's bow right in front of him, urging him to come in the servants' restroom and not mind him...?
It felt like a play straight from a horrific satire.
What in the name of weirdness is this!?
' You may hesitate as much as you want, but I know there's certain protocols to pressing matters like this. They have to be maintained...' Kieran mused internally.
He knew the man was pressed, and this was the only restroom available for servants in the manor.
Of course, the footman could leave the manor to go do his business outside, but it would be nothing less a risk– that of either loosening up his hold before he got to a safe spot, or getting caught by passersby.
The footman seemed to have realized this as well. " bastard!" Despite how weirded out he was by Kieran, he shuffled inside, cursing Kieran in a mutter with his bucket in one hand. His face screwed into a permanent expression of offended piety as he hurried to do his business.
He thought Kieran would leave but to his surprise, he just stood to the side and watched with predatory calm.
The footman frowned, feeling his meager right to relieve himself in some semblance of privacy invaded. But a servant like himself could only complain as much. Besides, how was it to be heard that he was scared of another man in the restroom. He would become the jest of every other servant in the estate.
Left with no choice, the footman just pretended he was alone in the restroom, ignoring Kieran.
'Haha! There's no way around the protocols for handling noble causes saturated in calamity.' Kieran lampooned with the air of a scholar; a shitty one literally.
Kieran was only doing this to test himself. To test how far he could take his pranks and mischief in this new world. To see if the footman would take his bait, which he could then make use of to ruin the banquet. And to take the footman's clothes of course if the former didn't work out.
After the System's task was assigned to him, Kieran had planned, originally, to scuttle to his chambers, scrub, change, and saunter into the betrothal banquet to find a way to ruin it. His initial thoughts were dirty pranks and sow some discord between nobles.
The idea sounded like a perfectly staged mediocrity...
However, the moment the footman crossed the threshold into the restroom, Kieran felt the sweet fragrance of opportunity.
Why endure the obscene torture of hygiene when he could manufacture a spectacle?
The footman, with his predictable prissiness and fragile dignity, was just convenient 'tool' at hand to fester a scandal.
With a grin plastered on his face, Kieran moved slowly to block the door, like a gentleman taking a place in a receiving line.
He calmly sized the footman who was now half-turned by the latrine, suspicious of him. Kieran stopped his gaze right at the footman's groin and smiled.
"Quite the package you've got there, little fella" he remarked with a gloat, loud enough for the footman to hear with a face mild as a sunday sermon.
There are insults that sting and insults that provoke. This one was both!
"I've had just enough with you, crazy pervert!" the footman spat, his face spiking into a flare of rage.
Heat rushed to his cheeks with the fury of a man whose pride had been trodden. He threw the bucket in hand at Kieran in a reflexive gesture, nothing precise about its trajectory. It was only a deterrent action to buy himself the time to finish, so as to deal with Kieran after.
Kieran calmly dodged. Water splashed everywhere but his grin remained as sharp as a blade as he waited.
Having drawn his pants on and buckling his belt, the footman lunged at Kieran. He shortened the distance between himself and Kieran, preparing to swing first in anger.
' Time to pull my ultimate move.' Kieran, still with a grin, thought to himself. And with the absurdity of a crazed being, he collapsed to his knees, grovelled by the man's feet, hugging his legs as he pleaded. " Mercy! Mercy! I only jest, sire. Oh please!, spare me"
The footman, still furious, was left dumbfounded at this. One minute he man was a weird bastard and the next he was begging on his knees.
It was a grotesque maneuver, one that was exquisitely effective in driving the footman insane. However, his pride and dignity as a man needed to be soothed. He raised his hands regardless, swinging down at Kieran. Only for him to stop midway.
Was a noble Lord's son even to be hit, despite being illegitimate?
The question hit him, full on absurd. Although almost everyone else in the manor had no regard for the Lord's illegitimate son, the footman would be the first of the servants to actually hit him if he continued.
What would happen if news got out? A scandal!
One thing nobles loved to hear outside, and hated to hear in their homes.
The footman's fist hovered in mid-swing like a confused clock hand. He just stared down at Kieran, not knowing what to do with his anger, nor his fear.
'So you wouldn't bite the bait, huh?' Kieran was disappointed. But the footman's hesitation was the leverage Kieran had hoped for.
Kieran took the opportunity to cling closer to the footman's leg, wrapping his arms around his legs tightly ,"Please! I beg you" he cried, voice pitiful– mostly shameless as he pleaded with the theatrical excellence of a low-tier loser.
" What are you doing? Get off me!" The man realized Kieran was still stained in blood and filth, and tried to kick him off of himself. He didn't want his uniform stained in Kieran's blood and filth.
However, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the bastard to get off.
Kieran grinned, his prior pitiful countenance overtaken by a sinister expression. ' Got you right where I want...'
He pulled the footman's leg in one smooth, sudden motion, knocking the latter's feet from under him. Then, gracelessly, with the exact theatrical cruelty he'd practiced in his head, Kieran shot forward, headbutting the footman's jaw as he fell.
Bang!
A sharp crack sang through as the footman's body jerked backwards, falling as if a trapdoor had opened beneath him. He collapsed head first on the floor, knocked out cold.
For one brief second, the world flinched in a way that felt almost like reverence.
Kieran balanced himself, feeling a jolting pain resonating from the crown of his head accompanied by a wet stream flowing down his forehead. He frowned, reaching a hand to touch the spot only to find he was bleeding.
" Soft..." he scoffed. He looked over the fallen figure of the footman with the casual condescension one reserves for a pricked balloon.
" Abracadabra. You fell for the trick, mister." he chuckled with the glee of a child who'd finally learned how to hold a lighter and the adult wisdom to use it at the right time.
"But, I hope you're still alive. I don't have a magic trick that resuscitates." He crouched briefly to check the footman's pulse. He was still alive, but he would remain knocked out for at least a while.
Satisfied, Kieran did not linger to enjoy the scenery of a collapsed servant. He quickly took the man's clothes off, donning himself in it. Although it had sustained smears of water and dirt, it was better than his shit-filled hose and blood-stained attire.
Just then, the familiar screen of the system appeared with a new message that had Kieran in surprise for a second, and grinning in the next.
Kieran straightened once he was done. He readjusted his 'dishevelment' with a flourish that was half insult, half salute, wiping the blood off his forehead and sauntered toward the door with the footman's hat in hand– his only hope at disguise.
He paused in the doorway and placed one hand on the knob. He glanced back at the now naked footman, hoping it'd be one of the teas spilled around the manor the next day. He chuckled, turned and with an absurdly gentlemanly motion, adopted a face of melancholic servitude.
" Now to ruin the banquet in one exquisite blow." Destruction required a plan. But Kieran didn't need any. Not after the System's message just now.
He stepped out into the corridor, taking the first sharp breath of a story that had just begun.