Chapter 27 – Hiring a Housekeeper

Hiring a Housekeeper

“Pl-please spare my life!!!!”
I haven’t done anything yet…
The demon race begging for her life while taking the so-called dogeza posture, kneeling on the ground with her head bowed as if praying.
As is often the case with demon races, the surface area of her clothing is small, making it a bit difficult to know where to look.

‘Is she planning to catch me off guard and then ambush me?’
I can’t rule out that possibility. Demon races are fundamentally underhanded creatures after all.

“Hueeeek!!! Pl-please spare meee… My body!! It’s being flattened!!!”
Thinking I should subdue her first, I applied gravity magic, turning her into something like a flattened frog.
‘She looks somewhat familiar…’
“Hey. Just answer the questions I ask. Who are you?”

She struggles to answer my question.
“I-I am.. Cherny… I’m a demon race.. and.. I-it’s hard to breathe.. Please spare me…”
“Cherny? Hey. Look at me.”
“You.. need to release the gravity magic….”

Oh right. I adjusted the intensity of the gravity magic pressing down on her. Just enough for her to move her head.
“Y-you are….”
As my image reflected in her red eyes, the demon race’s expression turned to one of terror as if she had seen a ghost.
“That monster from the hero party!”
“Monster?”
“I-I misspoke!! Great Magician! Angel! God! Magic God!”

…Now I remember. The demon race in front of me is someone I’ve encountered before.
She was a demon race who made a great contribution when we were subjugating Lilith, one of the highest-ranking demon races who was a pillar of the Demon King’s army’s strength.
Why did she contribute, you ask? This one. She betrayed them.

Lilith was skilled at concealment and disguise, so we were quite troubled, but one day this one came to our party and told us Lilith’s location.
Of course, we didn’t believe her at first. A demon race surrendering to the hero party? Anyone would find it suspicious.
‘…But all the information she brought turned out to be true.’

The demon race in front of me─Cherny, besides Lilith’s location, also brought information about the strength and movement of her own corps, and it all turned out to be true.
Then the empire’s intelligence department interrogated her, and based on the information she provided, we were able to successfully subjugate Lilith.
She made quite a significant contribution.

“Pl-please spare me… I-I don’t want to die… Sniff..”
After the subjugation was over, when I went back to the prison where Cherny was confined, she had already disappeared without a trace.
I heard she was scheduled to be disposed of once she became useless, so it seemed Cherny noticed this and attempted to escape… but why is she here?

“How did you end up here? Answer.”
“Ye-yes… A-after the war ended.. I had nowhere to go… As I wandered here and there… This place seemed suitable…”
Well, Cherny, who betrayed her own kind, couldn’t possibly go back to them.
And it would have been burdensome to mix in with humans. So she came to this deep mountain valley?

She doesn’t seem to be lying… It seems it really was a coincidence that she came here.
Cherny, still pressed to the floor like a flattened frog.
Her face was soaked with tears. She must really not want to die.
‘Well, who would want to die…’

While I was contemplating what to do with her, one thing I wanted to ask her came to mind.
“…There’s something I wanted to ask, why did you betray Lilith back then?”
“Ye-yes?”
As it seemed difficult for her to answer, I released the gravity magic pressing her down. It’s impossible for someone of her level to escape from me anyway.

“My-my body feels light…”
Glance. Cherny checking my reaction.
Seeing her alternately looking at the door behind her and me, it was clear as day that she was thinking of running away.
“By the way, if you run away, you die.”
“N-no way! I never thought of running away….”

She says this with eyes dripping with disappointment, lying so boldly.
“The reason I ran away from that brutal woman is..”
Finally giving up on the idea of running away, she sat down and began her story.
“First of all. In Lilith’s corps, I was.. in charge of barriers. Things like concealment barriers or space distortion barriers like the one here..”
“I see.”

I thought there was quite a troublesome one back then, so it was Cherny. No wonder the barrier level became shoddy after Cherny defected.
“But then.. that stupid Lilith… saying there had never been a problem with the barriers.. she was trying to use me as a suicide bomber!”
“Suicide bomber?”
“That’s right.. I mean.. If there had been no problems with the barriers.. instead of giving a reward, to tell me to wear suicide magic and self-destruct in enemy territory.. Does this make any sense?!”

Cherny raised her voice as if overcome with emotion. I could guess how dumbfounded she must have been. Even I’m dumbfounded hearing it.
“So.. Before inevitably becoming a suicide bomber.. I ran away.. Since desertion from the Demon King’s army is punishable by death.. I had no choice but to go to your side..”

‘Hmm…’
“After I went through the trouble of revealing all that information… Those humans… tortured me and.. sniff… said they would kill me because I was no longer useful… I desperately ran away…”
Cherny’s face was soaked with tears again.

I feel a bit of sympathy, but first, there was something I needed to confirm with her.
“Then, is it true that you’re responsible for the disappearance of livestock from the village?”
“I’m sorry about that… I was so hungry…”
Cherny bowed her head deeply as if apologizing. As expected, she was the culprit behind the strange occurrences in the village.

“What’s this house? Was it originally here?”
“I-I built it… Gathering abandoned lumber and… furniture… bit by bit.. It was my dream to have my own house…”
Cherny says this with a sheepish laugh.
So that’s why the furniture was a bit old and inconsistent.
I didn’t expect a demon race to have dreams of owning their own home. It’s a bit unexpected.

“S-so… Are you… going to spare me…? I’ll really live quietly without doing anything!”
Cherny started begging me on her knees again.
I fell into deep thought facing her.
‘Even if she lives quietly, a demon is still a demon. You never know when they might suddenly change.’

Although the war between the Demon King and humanity has ended with humanity’s victory, there are still remnants of the Demon King’s army.
In such a situation, leaving a demon race hiding in human territory carries a big risk.
Even if Cherny doesn’t intend to, she might be forced to cooperate with other demon races.

‘I’m sorry, but. It’s right to kill her.’
Having made up my mind to kill Cherny, I slowly approached her as she was kneeling.
“I’m sorry. It won’t hurt.”

Cherny, terrified by my words sentencing her to death, started begging for her life.
“Hiiiieek!!!! Pl-please spare me!! I’ll do anything!! Whether it’s being a subordinate, a servant, a watchdog, a housekeeper, or a slave, I’ll do it all so please just spare my life!!!!”
As I slowly closed the distance, Cherny, in her desperation, started blurting out anything.

Ignoring this, just as I was about to cast a spell to send her off painlessly, one thought crossed my mind.
‘Wait a minute… A watchdog? That’s not bad.’
She probably said it out of fear, but I seriously considered that possibility.
‘I’ll be leaving the house empty often in the future……’

It doesn’t feel right to leave Saya and Puel at home every time. Rather, it would be nice to have a housekeeper to look after the house when I’m not there…
Coincidentally, there’s a housekeeper applicant right in front of me.

“You. Do you want to live?”
After finishing my thoughts, I canceled the spell I was about to cast and gently asked her.
“Ye-yes!!!! Please spare me!!”
She nodded her head vigorously.

Red eyes and neatly arranged short hair. And protruding canine teeth.
Unlike most demon races who have bluish skin, her apricot-colored skin looked even more lively than mine.
If you cover the horns on her head, she looked exactly like a human. And quite a beautiful one at that.
“Your horns. Can you hide them?”
“Ye-yes! I can hide them! No, if you tell me to.. I’ll break these measly horns!!”

Cherny, who was pretending to break her horns, suddenly looked a bit cute.
“…Don’t break them. Cherny. Do you want to come to our house?”
“The-the Magician’s house?”
“Yes. Otherwise, I’ll have no choice but to kill you… What will you do? I’ll leave the choice to you…”
“House!! Please let me go!! I’ll go to the house!!”

Cherny hastily said she would come to our house before I could even finish speaking.
“…Alright. Stay still for a moment.”
I slowly knelt down to meet Cherny’s gaze, then cast a simple suggestion magic on her.
Then, as if sensing something strange in her body, she carefully asked me.
“Um… It feels like… some kind of magic has been cast… near my heart…?”
“It’s a simple suggestion magic. In exchange for sparing your life, I thought there should be a safety measure.”

Cherny’s expression noticeably brightened at my words of sparing her life, but then her expression quickly hardened.
“By any chance.. what’s the safety measure…?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like, a safety measure. If you ever attempt to harm me or the two children you’ll meet from now on…”

“If I do…?”

I pointed my finger near her heart.

“Boom!”
“Hiiiek!!!”
This child, her reactions are quite amusing.
“Um.. Why am I being taken to the Magician’s house… Surely.. I won’t be an experimental subject…?”

Cherny, who was trembling in fear, asked me in a shaky voice.
“It’s not that. You just said you’d do anything, right? Like being a watchdog. Or a housekeeper.”
“Th-that’s right.. Do-does that mean I’ll become a watchdog…?”
I was thinking of assigning her such roles as well… but looking at her now, Cherny looked like a scared puppy.

“That was a joke. You’ll need to play the role of a housekeeper. There are two angelic children at our house. …Do you dislike that? If you do…”
I pretended to cast a spell again.
“Hiiiiek!!!!”
Then Cherny hastily nodded and said she liked it.
“I-I like it!!! I love it!!! The Magician’s children… They must be angels, no, archangels!!!”

Hmm. Strictly speaking, they’re not my children. The nuance is a bit strange.
“Alright. I’ll be counting on you from now on, Cherny.”
“I-I’ll do my best…”
…Today, a demon race housekeeper came to join our household.