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Chapter 21
“Eil, I heard you’re going on leave starting tomorrow?”
Judging by the looks being thrown my way, it seemed they had overheard the conversation between the head maid and me through the slightly open door.
All I had done was submit the leave request I had somehow managed to get approved by Ris and receive a simple “have a good trip” in return, but apparently that alone had been enough for them to figure it out.
“I’ll be back in just a day, so calling it a vacation feels a bit exaggerated.”
As I nodded slowly, they exchanged troubled glances as if to say, I knew it.
Wondering what the fuss was about, I tilted my head, and the maids, who had seemed hesitant, finally spoke up.
“While you’re gone, someone has to take over attending to the young master. We’ve been discussing who it’ll be. Since nobody wants to do it…”
“At least it’s only one day! Though even then, I doubt anyone will volunteer.”
What? Was that all?
…But it was hard to dismiss it as nothing when every single one of them looked downright terrified. It was obvious they were reluctant to serve Ris.
‘The target can be a little troublesome sometimes, sure, but everything he asks falls within normal maid duties. It shouldn’t be that difficult…’
Objectively speaking, serving Ris wasn’t particularly challenging.
Granted, he often sent me on errands and constantly asked for one thing or another, but that much was manageable.
Unable to think of any other reason, I tilted my head again.
“No volunteers? Why?”
As soon as I asked, they all sighed deeply in unison and looked at me.
“Why? Because the young master is difficult to serve. We’ve finally been able to relax since you became his personal maid, but…”
“He calls for someone and then doesn’t ask them to do anything. It’s suffocating.”
“I couldn’t tell whether I was a wall or the wall was me. There’s a limit to how much someone can treat you like furniture. I never want to attend him again…!”
“One time he sent back my tea because it was too hot. Lord Demon made me relearn everything from scratch and demoted me to kitchen assistant duty! Just thinking about it makes me want to cry…!”
From there, an endless stream of complaints followed: his picky tastes, how he became sensitive whenever he heard even the slightest footsteps while working, and countless other grievances.
But…
‘What are they talking about?’
As I listened to the maids shudder and declare that serving Ris was one of the most painful jobs imaginable, questions flooded my mind.
‘The target does what? Doesn’t ask anyone to do anything…?’
The claim was so absurd that my tired eyes widened on their own.
And being treated like a wall? There was no way. The target’s specialty was calling people over for the most trivial reasons.
Just today alone, I had completed countless tasks because Ris had told me to. Thanks to him, I had practically become a master of miscellaneous chores. Being a maid was starting to feel like my true calling.
“There’s no way the young master is like that. Aren’t you misunderstanding something?”
I asked, thinking they must have gotten the wrong impression, but their answer only deepened my shock.
“Eil, don’t you find it strange that you’re the first personal maid the young master has ever had at fifteen?”
“He’s probably the only noble in the Empire approaching adulthood who only just got a personal maid.”
Of course, I had been surprised when I learned I was his first personal maid.
Still, I had assumed that while he didn’t have someone constantly by his side, he must have received assistance from ordinary maids, so I hadn’t thought much of it.
A noble couldn’t completely reject being attended by servants, and considering the target’s personality, I had simply assumed he disliked having people around him.
But…
“Then are you saying none of you have ever helped him dress?”
When I brought up one of the most basic maid duties, everyone stared at me in horror and shook their heads vigorously.
“Of course not! The young master has never once let us help him dress!”
“He won’t even let us touch him. Whenever custom clothing is ordered, Lord Demon personally takes his measurements. Even then, the young master hates it…”
“I’ve even heard rumors that the mansion doesn’t have guards because he dislikes people staying close to him under the pretense of protecting him.”
As their words continued, maintaining my composed expression became increasingly difficult. It felt as though everything I knew was being denied.
‘Uh… that’s not what I know.’
Having observed the target more closely than anyone else over the past two weeks, I had never once doubted the reliability or accuracy of the information I’d gathered.
Naturally. What could be more reliable than what I had personally seen and heard?
Yet now, a foul suspicion had begun to take root.
‘Maybe… that’s not actually true.’
“What do you mean about the tea temperature? He never seemed to care about things like that.”
“Huh? You didn’t know, Eil? The young master won’t drink tea unless it’s exactly eighty-two degrees. He’s very particular about things like that.”
“…Really? Since when?”
“Hmm… probably since he was little and receiving his education? You know how they say His Majesty’s cookies always contain a specific number of almonds? It’s that sort of thing.”
Hearing something completely new, I froze.
The maids looked at me with pity, as though imagining how often I must have been scolded.
No, wait a second.
Then what Demon told me before was actually true!?
“The young master does not drink tea below eighty-two degrees.”
I had assumed he was just messing with me because he didn’t like me.
But now it seemed Demon had simply been telling the truth.
‘Then has the target been forcing himself to drink tea he didn’t even enjoy all this time?’
…Why?
There was no reason for him to adjust himself to my service.
What had he been thinking?
‘From now on, I’ll make sure the temperature is correct. If I want to become closer to him, I should at least make a good impression.’
Now that I knew his preferences, I couldn’t pretend otherwise.
I still didn’t know why he had quietly endured the tea I made until now, but if I started getting it right, that should be okay.
“Anyway, the young master tends to reject being attended to in general, so even if it’s only for one day, everyone is reluctant. If someone makes even the slightest mistake…”
“The young master can take care of himself just fine, but the rest of us are going to end up getting fired!”
“If we get fired from Cassio, we’ll never find work anywhere else! At this rate, we’re all doomed…!”
The moment I heard that the target rejected being attended to, a chill ran down my spine, and I desperately searched my memory.
‘Did the head maid ever mention anything like this during my training?’
The realization that the image of the target I knew differed completely from the image everyone else knew began shaking the very foundation of everything I believed.
‘Come to think of it, all I was taught back then was how to clean the places the target frequented, organize his surroundings, serve tea, and extinguish the candlesticks at night. I don’t remember anything about helping him dress or giving massages—anything involving physical contact…’
As I calmly retraced my memories, pieces finally began falling into place.
‘Oh. Come to think of it, on my very first day as a maid…’
The very moment I had naturally headed into Ris’s bedroom, determined to begin my duties as a maid, what had his first words been when he spotted me there?
“…Eil, why are you here?”
Now that I thought about it, wasn’t that a rather strange thing for a master to ask his maid?
A personal maid was supposed to remain by her master’s side all day and attend to him.
There was no way the target had appointed me as his personal maid without knowing something so basic.
‘Then was he surprised because I barged in and started doing things he never asked me to do? At the time I thought it was strange how shocked he looked.’
Only now did I realize that I had been the strange one.
They definitely hadn’t taught me that during training, yet I had suddenly burst into his room and stared openly at my master’s half-naked body…
‘I kept wondering where things had gone wrong.’
Was it from the very beginning…?
‘At this point, I can’t even fix it.’
This is driving me crazy, world…!
