episode_0007

The maid’s mornings come early.

Waking up before the master was considered a basic etiquette for a maid.

“Good morning, Alicia.”

“Good morning to you too, Eiria.”

Katarina, who woke up slightly later than usual, cautiously made her way out of bed upon hearing the voices of her fellow maids. Sensing the gazes of her colleagues as if they were waiting for her at the door, she carefully took steps towards work.

“Oh, Katarina is heading to work now?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“You must have enjoyed sleeping in after a long time.”

“Uh, well…”

In truth, she couldn’t sleep properly. Due to an incident from the previous evening, she felt a strange sense of guilt in her chest.

Starting today, a new junior maid, Lillis, had been relocated to work in the kitchen with them. Although it wasn’t her decision, Katarina found herself participating in trapping her, leading to a night of uncomfortable sleep. Despite arriving two hours later than usual, instead of the satisfaction of a good rest, she felt a peculiar fatigue in her eyes.

“Katarina is so kind, maybe she’s early to work again due to ‘guilt’?”

“Oh, no… that’s not it…”

“Yeah, that’s right. Don’t want to go back to the old days for no reason.”

The maid’s mornings are swift.

However, among the fast-paced maids, there was one who was even faster – Katarina Laine, the maid who was ‘bullied among peers.’

A year ago, she failed to expose Eiria’s misconduct, her fellow maid. Trying to report Eiria, who was caught stealing valuables in Lord Ethan’s room while under a curse, Katarina ended up covering for her crime due to Eiria’s manipulation. Losing the trust of the master and the head maid within the mansion, she had to live as Eiria’s accomplice for the past year.

Always burdened with more tasks than her peers, including Eiria and Alicia, she lived through almost hellish days over the past year.

“Don’t do anything foolish and behave yourself. If you listen well, I’ll at least treat you like my dog.”

“Uh, okay.”

“Yeah, don’t act up and return to your old ways. We have juniors now, no need to embarrass each other among peers, right?”

“…Okay.”

Katarina could easily infer who the juniors they mentioned were.

The junior maids who joined them a year ago.

Referring to Isabelle and Lillis, who recently became official junior maids after completing their probation period, it also meant that Eiria’s attention would shift to those two rather than herself.

“Isabelle seems efficient; we can use her in various ways. What do you think, Katarina?”

“Uh… I agree with what Eiria said…”

“Lillis seems a bit dim-witted, doesn’t she? She actually believed the 4 a.m. shift story without question.”

“Well, being dim-witted makes her easy to manipulate, so it works out.”

Although she wanted to protect the two, she knew that if she did, she would become the target of her peers’ arrows once again. She couldn’t help but feel guilty while conforming to this irrationality.

A year ago, due to a theft incident at the mansion that led to a loss of trust and substantial debt, Katarina found herself bound by a dependency contract with the Blackwood family. She was ordered to accompany Aeria in any work as a surveillance officer.

She had neither the strength nor the will to help anyone else.

“Since you’ve been preparing alone for two hours, you must have finished peeling at least one or two potatoes, right?”

“Well, so what? If the work is a bit slow, Katarina can help us. Right?”

“That’s right, Katarina is the most skilled among us when it comes to working.”

“Yeah… If we couldn’t finish everything, I could help…”

In the end, Katarina realized that even if other sacrificial lambs were brought in, her position wouldn’t change significantly. However, she already knew she had no means to resist Aeria.

Being of relatively small stature compared to the other two, she moved forward under the pressure from both sides, entering the kitchen with them to prepare for the morning meal that would start in three hours.

“Lilith, are you inside?”

“Sorry~. I overslept a bit. It must have been tough working alone without us, right?”

“…”

The two entered the dining area nonchalantly, telling blatant lies.

Katarina quietly followed behind them, her shoulders slumped, feeling the pressure from both sides, and they all entered the kitchen together to prepare for breakfast.

“Why didn’t you answer?”

“Did you realize it was a lie and decided not to come to work?”

“The girl who seemed stubborn?”

“…”

Amidst the slightly tense atmosphere, the three of them walked into the preparation room together. Upon confirming that the magical lights in the inner kitchen were on, the serious mood dissipated.

“Oh, you came to work.”

-Zzzeek.

“Lilith, you should answer when the senior calls you. What were you doing that you didn’t respond…”

“Huh…?”

“…”

As they entered the kitchen, they were met with a sight of numerous vegetables. Hundreds of potatoes, onions, carrots, all perfectly peeled, left them momentarily stunned.

This caused them to notice Lilith sitting on the kitchen floor with a vacant expression a beat later.

“Lilith?”

“…Ah.”

Upon hearing Katarina’s voice, Lilith seemed to snap out of it belatedly, managing her expression as she stood up from her spot.

Seeing her composed demeanor, the three of them could only stare blankly, unsure of what to say. Lilith seemed indifferent to their reactions, calmly indicating that she had processed all the vegetables in the kitchen.

“All the vegetables in the kitchen have been prepared, seniors.”

“All…?”

“If it’s all, surely…”

“I’ve processed all the potatoes, onions, carrots, garlic, and other vegetables that will be used for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Seniors just need to inform the mansion’s chefs that the ingredients have been prepared.”

“… ”

“I’m tired, so I’ll go in first. Good work, seniors.”

Even as she confidently left her duties to exit the workplace, the overwhelming sight of meticulously processed vegetables left the others speechless. Amidst this scene, only Katarina noticed a subtle, familiar scent passing by her side.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

On the second day after my job transitioned from reception to the kitchen.

Arriving at the kitchen at 4 a.m., I absentmindedly muttered while looking at the piled-up workload.

“Ugh, I want to die….”

The workload stacked up before me, almost as much as the vegetables I had processed yesterday, made me exclaim in exhaustion.

This much vegetable preparation was essentially a way of saying that I had to stuff almost the same amount of garlic I ate yesterday into my mouth.

Yesterday morning, memories of enduring nausea for almost an hour while eating garlic naturally came to mind.

I still felt like the garlic smell lingered in my mouth, even after thoroughly rinsing with Clean Magic several times.

The only hopeful thing was the significantly increased maximum magical power compared to yesterday.

『Current Magical Power: 202 / 202』

Having grown from a magical power maximum of 21 to nearly ten times that amount, it was practically an unbelievable level of growth just considering the growth itself.

Although I was only at Level 2, my magical power maximum was already in the three digits.

Not even in my past life playing “Luminor Academy” had I experienced such insane growth.

In other words, it meant that I had achieved growth along with the pain of my insides twisting throughout yesterday.

I don’t even know how many cloves of garlic I ate. After roughly passing a hundred cloves, I stopped counting.

Eventually, I had to stop because there was no unprepared vegetable left as I had been using magic so extensively.

Considering various factors, this level of growth was indeed expected.

And probably today, I will end up doing the same thing I did yesterday.

“Sigh….”

The issue was that with the increase in maximum magical power, it would be difficult to expect the same growth as yesterday.

To fill 202 magical power once, it meant I had to eat more than four cloves of garlic, making the starting point different from yesterday when my magical power tank was full with half a clove of garlic.

Of course, even if the growth efficiency had decreased, it was unavoidable to not do what I did yesterday.

The problem was that I had prepped all the vegetables to be used for meals tonight in advance.

Seeing that I had prepared over a thousand vegetables in just two hours for today’s three meals, the senior maids seemed to expect me to naturally prepare all the vegetables again today. If I didn’t prepare everything perfectly today, they would undoubtedly suspect even the vegetables I prepped on the first day.

If I made a mistake, the suspicion might even extend to me using magic to prep the vegetables.

At my current Level 2 status, getting caught using magic would be disastrous. Since I could barely use one Clean Magic spell right now, no matter how much magical power I had, I couldn’t properly utilize it anywhere at the moment, so I had to hide the fact that I could use magic at all costs.

Fortunately, the senior maids seemed to think that I was quick with my hands and had finished the work, never imagining that I had used magic to prep the vegetables.

…Among those three, the senior maid who was particularly short did give me a meaningful look, but still, I probably didn’t get caught. It was almost impossible to imagine that they would think I spent over an hour in the kitchen prepping vegetables using magic just because they speculated that I could use magic.

Even while forcibly chewing on pungent garlic every time my magical power depleted.

Since I was engaging in completely irrational behavior, I wasn’t worried about being caught. As long as I didn’t raise suspicions with the maids and instead with the Blackwood family.

“By the way, to do this again, sigh….”

Since I had also grasped the technique of simultaneous casting during yesterday’s early morning magic training, the time it took to work wasn’t a significant issue.

It was just the fact that I had to stuff almost the same amount of garlic into my mouth as I did yesterday that tormented me.

With that said, I couldn’t leave these vegetables untouched. I took out a bunch of garlic from the garlic pouch and replenished my mana with clean magic first…

*Rustle.*

“Huh?”

Just now, it seemed like I heard something.

In a situation where using magic could expose me to others, I paused my actions and quietly listened in the direction of the sound.

After a while, a more distinct sound followed from inside the kitchen’s pantry.

*Thud!*

…

The sound of a heavy object hitting the floor.

It was a sound coming from the pantry inside the kitchen, meaning someone was inside. In a situation where there might be someone else present, I had to check, even if it meant interrupting my mana enhancement training.

I couldn’t continue handling vegetables with the possibility of someone else being there.

“Damn it… What now…”

Carefully holding the mana lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, I entered the pantry.

Just in case thieves or intruders had broken into the food storage area.

As soon as I opened the pantry door, I pushed the knife inside while shining the lamp, aiming it at the round silhouette illuminated by the light, shouting as a warning.

“Hands up! Move and I’ll shoot… stab!”

Upon hearing my voice, something with a round shape resembling a ball tensed up in the darkness and two short sticks rose above the large spherical silhouette.

“N-No! I-I didn’t do anything!”

Ah, damn it.

Why is this guy here?

“Drop what you’re holding! Are you our maid?! I’ll tell my dad?!”

Seeing the chubby face illuminated by the mana lamp in the darkness, curses involuntarily filled my mind.

Edan Richard Blackwood. Also known as ‘Pig Sage Edan.’

It was my first proper encounter with this damn bastard.