Maid Luca and the Nightmare Mansion

Luca Altran is the third daughter of the Altran Count family.

The Altran Count family was a hereditary noble family and quite prestigious, but they weren’t very wealthy.

Because the current Count wanted a son, they had to have four children until a son was born, and having four children required considerable expense.

Luca, who was clever and quick to understand situations, grasped the family’s circumstances at a young age, and when she was old enough to work, she left home saying she would earn money.

Thus, the place where Luca successfully found employment was none other than the Ignis Duke’s family.

For a maid, it was truly a place that could be called a “major corporation.”

“I’m Luca Altran! Please take care of me!”

When Luca entered, the Duke’s second daughter, Riel Ignis, was about to enroll in the academy.

For some reason, the Duke and his wife and son were absent, and the eldest daughter was working in the royal capital, so once the second daughter left for the academy, the mansion would be without masters for an extended period.

Of course, even without masters, the mansion needed to be managed and maintained, so the servants in the mansion were very busy with various matters to be reviewed.

Nevertheless, when Luca joined as a newcomer, the senior maids enthusiastically taught her.

While receiving training as a newcomer, Luca was able to see the mansion’s mistress, Riel Ignis, from a distance for the first time.

She was a girl with flame-like red hair that fell below her shoulders.

But her gaze was almost as dark as a dead person’s, and her expression was equally blank, which made Luca feel somewhat eerie.

Beside the young lady was a personal maid who would apparently follow her to the royal capital.

Luca, who had never been to the royal capital, was a bit envious of this.

About two weeks after the second young lady left for the academy.

As she worked and learned in the mansion, there was a name she frequently heard.

That name was Allen Ludwig.

Luca had never heard of the surname Ludwig, but it turned out to be the surname of a knight who served as the captain of knights in this mansion.

Allen Ludwig was the son of that knight and had been living in the mansion, serving as a conversation partner for the second young lady.

He had also gone to the academy as her escort, so Luca had never seen him.

Therefore, Luca found it quite strange.

There was an unusual amount of praise and expectation for Allen in the mansion.

Many maids adored him, and talk about him never ceased.

Luca couldn’t understand.

‘He’s still just a commoner, isn’t he?’

Knight Captain Ludwig is not a noble but has received a knight’s title.

Even if he’s a first-generation noble, his children could be treated as nobles until the titled individual dies or relinquishes the title, but knights are different.

A knight’s children can live comfortably as their parents earn money through their work as knights, and they may have broader educational opportunities, but their treatment is no different from commoners.

No matter how excellent he might be, it’s not easy to receive a noble title, so why such admiration?

And even to the point of disparaging the young lady?

From what she heard, the eldest young lady had been tormenting the second young lady, but the situation was prevented thanks to Allen’s actions.

But Luca didn’t believe it.

A mere commoner boy stopped a noble young lady?

That doesn’t make sense.

She thought it was probably the usual case of a rumor being exaggerated.

A month had passed since Luca started working at the mansion.

Receiving her first salary ever, Luca sent part of it home and went to the city center on a rare day off.

The city of Brimton, as the largest city in the duchy, boasts a large scale that, while not comparable to the royal capital, is still impressive.

Luca spent the day shopping with her salary and enjoying delicious food.

Various stories reached Luca’s ears, including rumors about the Duke’s mansion where she worked.

“Where could the Duke be?”

“He usually doesn’t leave his position vacant for this long…”

While it was common for Duke Ignis to be absent, they say it was the first time he had not shown his face at the mansion for more than three months.

As Luca had only been here for a month, she was shocked to learn it had been more than three months.

After her day off ended, she returned to the mansion and asked her senior roommate about this.

“Huh? It’s a common occurrence, what’s strange about it?”

“B-but no matter what, three months is unusual, isn’t it?”

“Three… months? Has it been that long?”

The senior maid muttered as if trying to recall.

One might lose track of time when busy working, but even so, one shouldn’t lose sense of how long the master has been away from home.

“Well… he’ll return someday! Our job is to manage this mansion until then!”

“Y-yes, that’s true…?”

Luca asked not only her senior maid but also other servants in the mansion, but everyone seemed to think it was no big deal.

Was it really alright?

But Luca was the newest member in this mansion. If her seniors said so, she could only swallow her unease.

A week passed after her first day off.

“Eek!!”

Realizing she had overslept, Luca was startled to the point of her soul nearly leaving her body.

Normally, even if she slightly overslept, her senior would have woken her up, but this time there was no such thing.

Finding it strange, she looked at the bed next to hers, and her senior was also still sprawled out in bed.

“Senior! We’re late! Wake up, Senior!!”

Luca shook her senior vigorously to wake her up.

The senior’s eyes opened, and after staring at Luca with a dazed expression, light returned to her eyes.

“Kyaaah!! This is terrible!!”

“Senior! We need to go quickly!!”

After quickly getting ready with her now-alert senior, Luca was severely scolded by the head maid.

However, since there were many servants who were late today like Luca and her senior, the scolding ended quickly.

I can understand myself, but… have the other servants become lax because the masters are absent?

Luca thought this and moved on, but a corner of her heart still felt uneasy.

After that day, the uneasiness in Luca’s heart only grew.

This was because servants oversleeping or being dazed and getting scolded wasn’t a one-time occurrence.

Even the head maid and head butler, who were doing the scolding, started making the same mistakes several times.

No matter how many mistakes humans make, they tend to correct them at least temporarily after being scolded repeatedly.

But when the same thing is repeated day after day to this extent, it was simply frightening.

And the situation was getting worse.

“Senior! Wake up! Senior!”

“Mmm… Lu…ca?”

“Yes! Senior! We need to go to work!!”

“Umm… yes… need to go… need to work…”

It wasn’t just the senior that Luca was waking up now.

As time passed, the entire household staff was becoming like this.

They couldn’t get up well in the morning, and just when they seemed to have come to their senses, they would stand blankly with their minds elsewhere.

Objects breaking because someone lost focus while moving things was an everyday occurrence.

What is this… what’s happening?

Could it be an outbreak of some unidentified rare disease?

What if it’s contagious and I get infected too?

Luca trembled with fear.

And as time passed, by the time two months had passed since Luca came to the Duke’s mansion.

Luca was the only person left in the mansion who was functioning normally.

“Senior! Senior!!”

Despite calling desperately and shaking her roommate, the senior just stared into space with unfocused eyes, showing no reaction.

Only when hit hard or pressed would she make a sound like “Ugh…” as if feeling pain.

“I’m scared… so scared…!”

Luca was falling into terror and panic.

Luca finally tried to escape the mansion.

Escaping the mansion, what Luca saw in front of her after running out in a panic was a firmly locked main gate.

The keys to the main gate were with the head butler.

She went back to the mansion to find the head butler, but he too was not in his right mind.

She secretly searched his belongings as he showed no reaction, but no keys were to be found.

She did find a small safe, but it was locked with magic.

It could only be opened with the owner’s magical energy.

For Luca, who had neither strength nor magical ability, breaking it by force was impossible, so she had to give up on the key method.

Neither the main gate locking the mansion nor the high walls surrounding it were at a height Luca could climb.

Even if she shouted for help, there were rarely any residents who would come to this area, let alone soldiers.

Luca realized. She was trapped in this mansion.

How much time had passed? Luca was living alone in the mansion.

She took care of herself. After all, what she had learned here was cleaning and laundry.

She took food from the pantry as needed. She didn’t know how to cook, but there was plenty of food that could be eaten raw.

“Senior…”

“……”

Starting with her unresponsive senior, Luca was taking care of the servants.

One day, while looking around the mansion for a way out, Luca discovered that one of the servants had died.

The cause of death was starvation. The deceased was the gardener Red, who was already busy and only ate minimally.

Seeing a person die for the first time, Luca fell into panic.

Could it be that they died because I neglected them…?

But Luca had no way to handle the situation.

However, Luca discovered one fact while resting in her room.

Although the people were dazed and seemingly out of their minds, if food or water was placed in front of them, they would eat on their own.

As if it were natural, they would touch the food and water without a word, just as they would eat normally.

After that day, Luca moved all the servants to rooms and distributed food and water.

They were clearly humans, but she had to feed them as if they were livestock.

She even had to handle their excretion.

It was an enormous burden, but she didn’t want to see anyone else die.

Then one day, Luca realized something.

‘Ah… the barracks!!’

Soldiers were stationed in the barracks.

Could the same thing have happened in the barracks as well?

Were the soldiers alright?

She remembered the soldiers who had treated her kindly when she first arrived at this mansion.

But there was nothing Luca could do.

She couldn’t even leave this mansion in the first place.

Luca had no choice but to swallow her worry.

After about a week or two weeks had passed like this, she heard the main gate of the mansion opening with a sound.

Luca, who was taking care of her senior, slightly looked out the window toward the main gate.

Who could it be?

Had someone finally come to help?

Thinking this, Luca looked at the people entering and her expression hardened significantly.

Knights in armor and people who looked like magicians.

As long as she didn’t know who they were, armed soldiers were objects of caution to Luca.

What if this really is an unknown contagious disease… and they’ve come to clean up?

Luca, falling into panic, left that place.

The place Luca headed was the pantry.

She hid there, locked the door, and held her breath.

How much time had passed? Just as she heard sounds of someone trying to open the door, there came the sound of someone forcefully knocking on the door.

Though she needed to be quiet, to hold her breath, Luca, consumed by fear, screamed.

“Is anyone there?”

A man’s voice. But Luca continued to scream.

“Hey! There’s someone here! Hey, calm down!”

“Kyaaaaaah!! Kyaaaah!!”

“Tell Lady Eve! I’ve found someone who can communicate! Help me open this door!”

Luca’s nightmare was about to end.