Pitiful Maid Katarina (1)

Somehow, after force-feeding Ethan an impromptu creative dish and sending him on his way.

After tidying up the messy dining room and even washing the dishes spotlessly with Clean Magic, I immediately began today’s quota of vegetable preparation.

First, using the remaining mana from cleaning the dining room, I neatly peeled a few garlic cloves. Then, with my mana completely depleted, I dumped five large cloves of garlic into my mouth.

To replenish Lillith’s magic reservoir, which was almost at 250, in one go.

“Ugh, urgh…!”

Although the smell and pungency were still agonizingly unfamiliar, it was a training I had no choice but to endure to survive.

The only way to make this agonizing moment even slightly less painful was simply to chew and swallow quickly.

With the feeling of swallowing a potent poison, I somehow chewed the five garlic cloves that filled my mouth a few times, then forced the pungent lumps down my throat.

Immediately after that, the sensation of my depleted mana being refilled enveloped my entire body.

“Ugh…! Urgh, bleh…!!”

A desperate nausea, unbearably difficult to endure with the body of a human high school girl, also enveloped my entire body as a bonus.

Fortunately, thanks to somehow enduring with willpower, the misfortune of vomiting up the contents that had gone inside my body did not occur.

The five garlic cloves that entered my stomach replenished my mana and also increased my maximum mana capacity.

『Current Mana 245 / 245+1』

…With five garlic cloves, a mere 1 point of maximum mana capacity.

“Fuck… This reality check is hitting hard….”

On the first day, at least, the maximum capacity increased even if I swallowed only half a clove of garlic, so there was at least some fun in growing.

The current Lillith had truly entered a period of extremely inefficient growth, where she had to forcibly swallow five cloves just for a mere 1 point increase in maximum mana capacity.

In fact, at this point, raising my level was a much faster way to grow than increasing my maximum mana capacity.

To begin with, a playstyle of only raising maximum mana capacity to triple digits while being only level 2 was something I had never done even in my previous life.

However, the current me was a Debt Maid, unable to even leave the mansion, let alone raise my level.

To maximize level-up efficiency when the time comes, even this kind of growth was essential.

“Haa, haa, haa….”

By the way, those fucking senior maids…. If I ever get the chance, I’ll completely screw them all over….

Of course, it was I who decided to chew garlic and grow my mana, but regardless, if it weren’t for those bitches, I wouldn’t be suffering like this now.

Whatever the outcome, all the pain I was currently experiencing was caused by those bitches.

And if I didn’t think that way, I felt like I absolutely couldn’t endure this pain itself.

I took out three potatoes from the sack and simultaneously cast three Clean Magic spells.

Now completely accustomed to Triple Casting, the three potatoes had their skins peeled off and turned into round, peeled lumps.

“Ha, haha….”

…No way, of all things, I got used to multi-casting by peeling potatoes.

Moreover, Triple Casting was a technique learned only after entering the Academy and becoming a second-year student.

A hollow laugh inadvertently escaped me at my growth, which was becoming extraordinary in many ways.

I also peeled the remaining potatoes three at a time using Triple Casting.

Including curses directed at the damned seniors who threw me into this garlic hell.

-Shk!

“Aeria.”

-Shk-shk!

“Alicia.”

-Shk!

“…Katarina.”

The potato lumps rolled into the pot one after another, like the heads of three bitches.

Looking at that scene, I muttered threats that no one could hear.

“Just you wait, you bitches. Before I leave this mansion someday, I’ll somehow screw you bitches over and then leave….”

-Thud!

“…Ugh!”

“……?”

While I was peeling potatoes and cursing the damned senior maids to myself, the sound of someone suddenly falling came from the kitchen.

Soon after, a high-pitched groan, presumed to be a woman’s, was also heard.

…And what’s more, with a voice that, for some reason, sounded familiar.

“…What?”

Clearly, Ethan should have returned to his own bed.

To begin with, the voice was completely different from Ethan’s, but that didn’t mean I could be relieved about the current situation.

Because I had just been spamming magic in the kitchen, even using Triple Casting.

The sight of me using magic was one that absolutely no one, not just Ethan, should witness.

Rather, hoping the voice I had just heard was Isabel’s, I carefully pushed the half-open door further inwards.

Unfortunately, my earnest wish was once again unfulfilled.

The person who had fallen, sitting on their bottom in front of the kitchen door, was another maid, not Isabel.

“…Katarina-seonbaenim?”

The Junior Maid of Blackwood Mansion, whose short stature and pink hair were distinctive.

And Katarina, one of the senior maids who had dumped work on me, was looking up at me while sitting on the floor.

“H-Hiccup…!”

For some reason, along with tears that looked as if they would burst out any moment.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Katarina Rain.

The Junior Maid who had to start the earliest mornings among the mansion’s maids, until Lillith began her work in the kitchen.

As Lillith moved her workplace to the kitchen, Katarina, like her other colleagues, was able to spend a slightly more relaxed day, but.

“…….”

For some reason, even before 4 AM today, she had left her dormitory room and was loitering in the mansion corridors.

‘Something’s strange….’

The junior maid who had been assigned to the same position as them and started working together two days ago.

Katarina sensed something strange about her, who finished all the work and left even before she and her colleagues came to work.

Her colleagues, Aeria and Alicia, merely said that a competent junior had joined and showed a relaxed attitude, but.

To Katarina, who had taken on all her colleagues’ work and performed the actual duties for the past year, this situation did not feel relaxed at all.

‘Peeling that large amount of vegetables in just one or two hours… no matter how I think about it, it doesn’t make sense….’

Even she herself, when she did the same work as Lillith, couldn’t rest all day and had to keep her arms moving.

No matter how fast her hands were, finishing all that work in just two hours was illogical no matter how many times she thought about it.

Moreover, her stamina didn’t collapse even after handling that large amount of work for two consecutive days.

Even she herself, with two years of experience as a maid, would normally collapse as if fainting after taking on that much work alone.

The junior Lillith showed absolutely no sign of physical exhaustion.

Although she had a somewhat dazed expression just before leaving work in the morning, after resting and returning, she seemed to regain her original condition before the afternoon.

From Katarina’s perspective, as someone with practical work experience, there was more than one strange thing about Lillith.

‘No way, is she calling someone else to the kitchen and working together without our knowledge…?’

It was hard to imagine Lillith, a Junior Maid, having such authority, but for now, that hypothesis was the most rational.

Any other possibilities were utterly unimaginable for the mind of a mere maid.

Therefore, Katarina hid in front of the Junior Maid’s room where Lillith and Isabel stayed from 3 AM, and waited for her.

-Creeeak.

Around 4 AM, she quietly followed behind Lillith, who walked out of the door.

-Rustle.

“Huh?”

“…….”

There was one moment in the middle when she almost got caught, but fortunately, the darkness of the mansion at dawn sufficiently enveloped her small figure.

And so, the place she followed Lillith into was the dining room of Blackwood Mansion.

‘It doesn’t seem like she called someone else to the kitchen….’

Perhaps they had decided to meet in the dining room with the person she would work with, to begin with.

To confirm if her guess was correct, Katarina waited a little longer for other people to arrive at the dining room entrance.

After confirming that no one else came, she carefully infiltrated further into the dining room, following Lillith.

“…ing… it…!”

“……sit and wait….”

“No! …I want to watch you do it…!”

As soon as she entered the dining room, the sound of two people conversing leaked from the kitchen.

Realizing it was Lillith’s voice and someone else’s, Katarina quietly put her ear to the inner door of the preparation room.

Soon after, she could easily figure out who was conversing with Lillith.

Because it was the voice of Young Master Ethan, who had made the entire mansion abuzz after waking up from his curse a while ago.

‘E-Ethan Young Master, why here?!’

Realizing it was the voice of one of the people any servant of the Blackwood Family absolutely had to know, Katarina felt a sudden chill run down her spine.

She didn’t know why the Young Master was in the mansion kitchen at this hour, but.

From the conversation of the two people she had just overheard, she could grasp the truth of what had happened so far.

Ethan Richard Blackwood is a Young Master of a noble family.

In this world, it was common knowledge that nobles were naturally born with blood that could use magic, so naturally, Young Master Ethan would also be able to use magic.

She didn’t know why, but if she assumed that he had been helping Lillith prepare vegetables in the kitchen since two days ago, everything made sense.

If he used magic instead of his hands, that abnormally fast work processing speed would naturally be understandable.

…And the problem arose there.

Although it wasn’t Katarina’s intention, their actions, as a result, were tantamount to making Young Master Ethan, a noble, do kitchen work.

For now, since there were guests in the mansion, public punishment wouldn’t be meted out, but once the guests left and their kitchen duty ended, punishment would naturally follow.

Forgetting their duties as servants, dumping all their work on a junior maid, and because of that, daring to dirty a noble’s hands with something like meal preparation.

While it might be different for her other two colleagues, Katarina, who had already been accused of stealing valuables from the mansion, would surely not escape severe punishment.

All sorts of complex thoughts that would arise from that stirred up the fragile girl’s mind in confusion.

‘W-What do I do?! What should I do about this?!’

I didn’t intend for it to go this far from the beginning!

Not only did I originally take on my colleagues’ work, but I didn’t particularly intend to dump work on the junior maid either!

To begin with, I wasn’t the one who stole Young Master Ethan’s valuables and hid them either!

However, the Blackwood Ducal Family was not a generous family to the extent of individually resolving her grievances.

While Katarina was clutching her head and agonizing in front of the kitchen door, Young Master Ethan’s voice began to approach the door.

“…What’s wrong with just showing me? I wanted to see you cook.”

Young Master Ethan’s voice, muttering words that sounded like talking to himself, passed through the kitchen preparation room and approached the dining room.

For Katarina, who was already so desperate that her heart was pounding, the mental fortitude to face a noble Young Master no longer remained.

In the midst of the crisis, desperately looking for a place to hide, Katarina hurriedly crawled under the tablecloth beneath the dining table, which was the first thing she saw.

‘What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do….’

Until Ethan, who had eaten Lillith’s cooking, returned to his bedroom, and Lillith tidied up the dining room with magic and then returned to the kitchen.

Katarina thought of a way to overcome this situation for a full 30 minutes, hidden under the tablecloth.

Perhaps, in this current situation where her life might already be hanging by a thread.

Somehow, to wash away the sin she had committed and find a way to survive.