Chapter 15 – The Maid and the Knight

In a large mansion situated near the capital of the Yudelia Holy Nation.

It was the residence Yuder had gifted to Maia, but since she spent most of the year at the royal palace, the place was practically empty, save for a caretaker.

But not anymore.

For the past few days, it had been occupied by quite a number of people.

“It’ll probably take a while for the royal palace to be restored, right?”

“I suppose so… but if His Holiness the Pope steps in, won’t it be done in a flash?”

More than half of the maids who worked at the Holy Nation’s royal palace had been given leave and returned to their family homes. However, there were many who hadn’t—or more accurately, many who had nowhere to return to. Most of them were now staying at Maia’s mansion.

“Hmm, you’re right. For some reason, I feel like if His Holiness takes charge, it’ll be resolved in no time.”

At Silvie’s words, Bianca giggled and nodded.

“Right, right. Because it’s His Holiness the Pope.”

The cool, handsome, amazing, incredible, and all-around magnificent Pope. He was devoted only to the Saintess, which somehow made him even cooler—the idol of the Holy Nation.

“By the way, Silvie, don’t tell me you bought another one?”

At Bianca’s question, Silvie flinched for a moment but then nodded with a confident expression. She had bought official merch with her own money; there was nothing to be ashamed of.

But Bianca hadn’t been asking about the authenticity of the merch in the first place.

In Silvie’s hands was the sacred photobook of an angel. The cover featured Maia, the Angel of Beauty, with a faint smile. That smile—no, the entire atmosphere of the cover—was truly enigmatic.

It was hard to describe, but it felt like looking at a piece of glasswork so beautiful that it seemed it would shatter at the slightest touch.

A mix of precariousness, delicateness, and beauty created a strange atmosphere—to put it a bit strongly, it exuded a certain allure that made even a woman’s heart pound. Blushing was only natural.

In any case, it was the sacred photobook of Maia, the Angel of Beauty.

Given that Silvie had long admired the Chamberlain to the point of mimicking her hairstyle and mannerisms, it was only natural for her to buy the photobook. But Bianca had a reason for specifically asking if she had bought another one.

As far as Bianca knew, this was the fifth identical photobook Silvie had purchased.

That thing is pretty expensive, too.

Bianca knew the price because she had bought one herself, but regardless, this was Silvie’s fifth copy.

“…This one is for missionary work.”

“I think I get what you mean, but what about the ones you bought before?”

“One for my collection, a spare for my collection, one for admiring, a spare for admiring, one for display, and a spare for display.”

“Wait, didn’t you say you bought four before? Is this your seventh one?!”

At Bianca’s shock, Silvie flinched again, then gave a timid but firm nod.

She’s pouring her entire salary into this.

Bianca thought she’d also seen Silvie buying the sacred photobook of ‘Dahlia, the Angel of Protection’ to complete the set.

I guess I should respect it as a personal preference.

Bianca looked at Silvie, who was pretending to be confident while sneaking glances at her, then let out a small laugh and slumped her shoulders.

“Anyway, Silvie, isn’t it amazing? That the Chamberlain and the Commander of the Royal Knights became angels.”

“It’s not surprising. The Chamberlain was always a total angel.”

“R-Right.”

If you say so.

Watching Silvie’s eyes sparkle as she spoke, Bianca broke into a slight cold sweat and once again looked at the photobook of Maia in Silvie’s hands.

Like Silvie said, she was always an angelic person, but…

Still, before the incident in the capital, she had definitely been human. Both the Chamberlain and the Commander of the Royal Knights.

If I work hard, could I become an angel someday, too?

Though she couldn’t even begin to imagine what one had to do to become an angel. Maybe if you worked hard and became the Chamberlain, you could take some kind of angel exam.

Chuckling at her own imagination, Bianca smiled gently at the sight of Silvie, who was once again gazing at the photobook’s cover with a rapturous expression.

I suppose the Chamberlain will be back tomorrow, too?

She seemed incredibly busy after becoming an angel, but this was her home, after all.

Will she come back with Lady Dahlia?

Bianca was known among the palace maids for her good intuition, but unfortunately, this time she was completely off the mark.

Because Maia and Dahlia were already in the mansion—to be precise, they were in Maia’s room.

“…I’m exhausted.”

“…Me too…”

In Maia’s room on the top floor of the mansion.

Maia and Dahlia were seated—no, sprawled out—on separate single-person lounge chairs on the balcony, their bodies limp and their faces drained.

From the moment the morning sun began to rise until the sky was filled with starlight. No, for the past few days, the two had been so busy they hadn’t even noticed how time was passing.

“I feel like I’ve signed my name ten thousand times…”

It wasn’t an exaggeration; her hand was genuinely numb.

At Maia’s whining, Dahlia nodded seriously. It was a natural reaction for Maia, who had likely signed three times as many autographs as she had. Besides, even though she was an angel now, wasn’t Maia inherently delicate and frail?

It would have been better if I were a bit more popular.

Then the autographs meant for Maia would have come to me, and Maia would have had to sign less and wouldn’t be so tired.

It was a strange line of logic, but Dahlia was sincere. She also had the excuse that her brain wasn’t functioning properly after the grueling schedule of the past few days.

In any case, though the two were limp with exhaustion, at some point, as if by agreement, small smiles graced their lips. For some reason, they just felt like smiling.

“Maia.”

“Yes, Dahlia.”

“Just wanted to say your name.”

At the silly remark, Maia turned toward Dahlia and offered her unique, small, and gentle smile. Dahlia, for some reason, felt like a child and blushed.

“Anyway, isn’t it strange?”

“What is?”

“Becoming an angel.”

Becoming the commander of the Holy Nation’s knights was something she had never imagined, and now she had gone from human to angel. Of course, she wasn’t the only one around who had become an angel—there was Cordelia, Adelia, and even Count Chase—but how should she put it? It had always felt like a story from another world.

Dahlia had truly never imagined she would become an angel herself.

Though for Maia, it somehow feels natural.

She had always been as beautiful as an angel.

Come to think of it, I was stunned when we first met, too.

The first time she saw Maia. To be more precise, the day she first visited the Bayer estate with Count Chase.

Dahlia giggled as she recalled the mid-teenage Maia. The memory of being so captivated by her beauty that she had stared, dumbfounded, for a moment had surfaced.

“Dahlia?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just thinking about the old days.”

“When?”

“A long, long time ago? When I first went to the Bayer estate.”

In her mid-teens, Maia was already a maid for the Bayer family, and Dahlia was an apprentice knight for the Chase family.

“Come to think of it… I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it.”

“About what?”

When Dahlia asked, Maia smiled a warm smile that almost no one besides Yuder and Dahlia ever saw, and continued.

“About what we did before. How we lived before we each entered the Bayer and Chase households.”

It went without saying, but neither of them had worked for their respective count families since birth.

How did they each end up there?

How did they live before that?

Thinking back, both of them had some rather strange aspects to their pasts.

Maia had been Yuder’s exclusive maid from a very young age—around ten years old. And Dahlia had the unusual history of being an apprentice knight in the Chase household, a family of mages that didn’t typically train apprentices and only employed hired knights.

How did they both end up in those situations?

At Maia’s words, Dahlia’s expression grew thoughtful for a moment before she smiled brightly and nodded. Maia, who knew well that despite Dahlia’s cheerful and energetic demeanor, she was in fact deeply thoughtful, waited for a moment. Dahlia soon looked up at the night sky and spoke lightly, as if in passing.

“I was a pickpocket.”

“Huh?”

As the startled Maia’s eyes went wide, Dahlia let out a small laugh, as if she’d seen something precious. And it was true—that expression on Maia was a rare sight.

“Don’t just laugh, tell me the rest.”

A slightly pleading Maia was also a rarity, so Dahlia willingly continued.

“It’s just an ordinary story. There aren’t many things an orphan girl on the streets can do, right? Especially in a place like Aachen.”

Maia flinched for a moment at the mention of one of the northern cities with particularly poor public safety, but only for a moment. She turned to lie on her side, as if to listen more intently, and Dahlia continued her story while facing the night sky.

“I begged and pickpocketed under some thugs… just lived my life rolling around in the gutter, until a moment came when I had to… have an adventure.”

“An adventure?”

“Yeah, an adventure. The kind where you have to risk your life.”

Dahlia gave a bitter smile, as if the memory still made her break out in a cold sweat, and turned to face Maia.

“I tried to pick Count Chase’s pocket.”

“What?”

“Count Chase’s.”

Maia briefly pictured Count Chase’s imposing figure and immediately understood why Dahlia had spoken of a life-risking adventure.

“Back then, I was a little… crazy, I guess?”

“…So, did you succeed?”

“No, of course I failed. I managed to grab his coin purse, but he grabbed my wrist at the same time.”

Dahlia could laugh about it now, but at that moment, she truly thought she was going to die.

“The way the Count looked down at me… wow… I can say this now, but I honestly peed myself a little.”

“A little?”

“Actually, a lot.”

At the embarrassing confession, Maia giggled. Dahlia laughed along with her before turning back to the night sky.

“But… I think that was my lucky break. The way the Count looked at me changed a little. At the time, I thought he was going to burn me to death for being a filthy kid who peed herself, but… he didn’t. The Count took me with him to the Chase estate.”

To this day, Dahlia didn’t know why he did it. Was it a simple whim, or was there another reason?

“So you grew up in the Chase household from then on?”

“Yeah, from about… ten years old? I don’t know my exact age, but I figure it was around then.”

“Somehow… I can’t picture it.”

“What?”

The image of a young Dahlia working as a pickpocket.

No, it wasn’t just about her being a pickpocket. The back alleys of Aachen, especially when Dahlia was around ten, were a truly dangerous place. The memory of the venomous-eyed children she had seen there was still vivid in Maia’s mind.

“People change.”

Dahlia said with a bright smile, shrugging as if it were nothing, and continued her story.

“I became an apprentice knight under the master who was employed by the Count at the time. That’s when I first met Lady Cordelia, too.”

“So you were close with the young lady from back then?”

“No, not at first. I really hated her.”

“Huh?”

It was another unexpected story, so Maia’s eyes widened again. Dahlia laughed once more before composing her expression and speaking.

“It’s just… a childish story. I was so jealous of Lady Cordelia.”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah. I had gone through every hardship imaginable, struggling to survive in the back alleys of Aachen, while she had been showered with love and lived happily since birth.”

It was a feeling closer to pure jealousy than a sense of unfairness.

“Lady Adelia and Young Master Edward were both busy with their magic studies, so I rarely saw them… but I saw Lady Cordelia a lot.”

In hindsight, her life had been changed by Count Chase’s kindness, so feeling jealous was truly ungrateful of her, but for the Dahlia of that time, who had wandered the back alleys of Aachen, it was unavoidable.

“But… even though I was a kid with a mean look in my eyes, for some reason, the young lady really liked me.”

Every time they met in the flower garden that the Countess had cherished, she would run up, lisping “Dawia, Dawia,” and hug her.

“Honestly, at first, it was annoying and irritating.”

But it didn’t take long for her heart to change.

“Because Lady Cordelia was so lovely?”

“That’s part of it, but… one day, she was sleeping in my arms and started talking in her sleep.”

Mama.

Mama.

A small, tearful voice.

Countess Chase had died of illness shortly after giving birth to Cordelia. Because of that, Cordelia never truly knew a mother’s embrace. She hadn’t even had the time to build memories with her mother like Adelia and Edward had.

“It was… from that moment, I think.”

She had never said it out loud, but that was when she began to think of Cordelia as her own little sister. As another version of herself.

“So that’s why.”

Dahlia wasn’t just a guard knight. She was someone who shared everything with Cordelia, truly like an older sister.

“Anyway, that was my story. What about you, Maia?”

“I’m actually a noble.”

“What?!”

Dahlia shot up from her seat in shock. Maia, with her characteristic gentle smile, repeated herself.

“The Viscount Keller family. Tantalot is my mother’s family name. I’m probably the only one who still uses it, though.”

Maia’s calm tone helped soothe Dahlia’s startled heart, but she still couldn’t easily sit back down and regain her composure. It was just too shocking a story—

Or is it?

Maia was actually a noble.

Come to think of it, the story suited her quite well. No, it was more like it made sense.

“Wait, the Viscount Keller family?”

“Yes, the family from Aachen. They’re gone now, though.”

The main reason Aachen’s public safety had collapsed was that the ruling Viscount Keller family had been crushed overnight, accused of demon worship.

“I don’t know the exact details either. Whether it was political strife, or if my father truly did worship demons.”

In any case, the important fact was that the Keller family had been utterly annihilated.

“My parents were executed… and the people of our house were scattered. Many became slaves.”

She was speaking calmly, but Dahlia could see it. Maia’s hands were trembling slightly.

“I was lucky. Someone connected to my mother’s family pulled some strings so I could go to a good place. If not for that… I probably would have been sold off as a slave somewhere.”

The place Maia was sent to was the Bayer estate. She didn’t know if Count Bayer was aware of her origins or circumstances.

“It was really hard at first. I couldn’t adjust well.”

Going from the daughter of the wealthy Viscount Keller family to a maid doing menial chores overnight—it would have been stranger if she had adjusted well. Moreover, Maia at the time was just a child of about ten who had suddenly become an orphan.

She remembered hiding somewhere and sobbing every day for the first couple of months. The person who had sent her to the Bayer estate had strictly warned her not to tell anyone she had been a noble, so besides crying, she had no way to relieve her grief and anguish.

“That must have been… so hard.”

At Dahlia’s somewhat strained words, Maia let her shoulders slump slightly and said.

“Still… I think I was quite fortunate. I met Young Master Yuder.”

As if just saying Yuder’s name brought her joy, Maia smiled faintly. Dahlia lay back down on her chair and asked.

“How did you become his exclusive maid?”

“It was similar to your story.”

“Mine?”

“Yes, yours. Young Master Yuder liked me very, very, very much.”

At Maia’s slightly boastful tone and expression, so unlike her, Dahlia gave a wry smile. Maia continued.

“He was always following me around, calling ‘Maia, Maia,’ so the Count made me the young master’s exclusive maid. I was very fond of the young master, too.”

Perhaps it was a sense of kinship. Maia’s heart went out to Yuder, who was frail and also without a mother.

“Besides, the young master was very cute, even back then.”

“Don’t tell me you still think he’s cute now?”

His Holiness the Pope?

At Dahlia’s question, Maia smiled like a cat. Seeing so many of Maia’s rare expressions today, Dahlia finally burst out laughing again.

“But… talking about the old days like this suddenly reminds me of something.”

“What’s that?”

“The first time the young master and the young lady had their weekend elopement.”

“Ah.”

That incident. The one where they suddenly jumped off a cliff, saying they wanted to spend some time alone.

As they both recalled that day from the past, they wore dazed expressions, as if by agreement. Then, they began to share their stories, recounting the events that had transpired in their respective households at the time.

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Translated By: Meher (RaidenTL)

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