Chapter 4

Shiver, shiver—

I coldly looked down at the maid, who was trembling not from the cold, but from sheer terror.

“I said, say it one more time.”

“I-it’s so, sorry…….”

“Hah—you take me for a fool. I clearly asked you to repeat what you said the moment you crashed into me. Do you take me lightly, by any chance?”

“………….”

Struck dumb, the maid couldn’t say a word to my remarks.

Of course, from the maid’s perspective, it was already a rainy day. She had been running around until she was sweaty and covered in dust, barely managing to pull in the laundry just moments before she could finally taste some sweet rest. And then she had run straight into me—the absolute last entity in this mansion you ever wanted to cross paths with. Just how aggrieved and terrified must she have felt?

That was one thing, but my anger was my anger. I had no intention of letting it slide just because the maid looked pitiful.

I was already feeling somewhat annoyed to begin with, and this maid had just thrown a match onto the fuse.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“H-hic, snif-s-sorry. I’m truly sorry.”

Watching the maid, who now even had tears welling up in her eyes as I pressed her with a slow, threatening voice, the emotion I felt was, well, slight bewilderment. I hadn’t expected her to burst into tears over just this much. As a girl around my younger sister’s age suddenly broke down crying, I could feel the anger that had surged up just moments ago rapidly subsiding.

‘Hah—how strange….’

Feeling my anger dissipate to the point where even I found it baffling, I let out a small sigh and patted the maid’s shoulder. Now I was actually starting to feel a bit bad.

“There, there. My bad. I went a bit too far.”

“………!”

I could tell that Yul and the people around us were startled by my words, but soothing the girl who had burst into tears right in front of me took priority. I wasn’t some master of stopping tears, and having never dated a girlfriend before, I had no idea what to do when women cried. The only method I knew was the one I used on my younger sibling. However, doing that in front of other people felt a bit embarrassing.

That was why I had settled for just apologizing and patting her shoulder instead, but the maid didn’t seem to take that as comfort.

Perhaps thinking that my patting her shoulder and apologizing were merely prelude words to taking her life, the maid turned pale as a sheet and burst into even louder sobs.

“W-waaaah. No, it was my fault. Please spare me. I don’t want to die, my lady.”

Seeing the maid burst into an even louder cry when I had clearly tried to comfort her, I panicked and gently pulled her into a hug. It was the exact action I used to take whenever my younger sister cried. Hugging her tightly so that her face was completely buried in my chest and gently stroking her hair.

I hadn’t done it since high school because I hadn’t fought much with my sister after that, but it was a habit I always practiced whenever she burst into tears prior to then. She would usually stop crying fairly quickly even while bawling her eyes out, but I had no idea if the maid would react the same way.

“Sob, sob.”

Watching the maid quietly sobbing in my arms, I habitually stroked her hair softly and whispered to her.

Come to think of it, this era was one where the power of the nobility ran strong; it was a world where a slip of the tongue could easily cost you your head. For me, still unaccustomed to that, to scold her without a second thought—it was obvious the maid must have been trembling from head to toe.

Soon calming down a bit, the maid stopped crying and looked up at me. Somehow, the maid looked slightly cute.

“Sob, I don’t want to die.”

“Right, why would I kill you?”

“R-really?”

I gave a small nod. Only then, seemingly relieved and finally grasping the situation, did the maid quickly step back from me. I roughly picked up the laundry that had fallen to the ground and handed it back to the maid.

Watching the maid take it back in utter shock, as if she hadn’t even dreamed I would pick up the laundry for her, I lightly dusted the dirt off my hands.

“Sorry about ruining the laundry. The weather’s hot and it’s raining, so it must have been tough with all the dampness and humidity, and you must have been annoyed, too. My bad.”

“…………!”

At my words, everyone—including the maid right in front of me—was startled once more.

“H.o.w.e.v.e.r!”

As I spoke and raised my hand, seeing the maids flinch in anticipation of the inevitable, I chuckled and lightly gave the maid a flick on the forehead.

Tap!

Catching her forehead in confusion at my unexpected action, the maid looked up at me.

“Ouch!”

“You’re not entirely without fault, either. No matter how rushed you were, you should have checked properly around narrow pathways or corners. Besides that, if you snap at someone the second you crash into them, anyone would get mad, not just me. Understand?”

“………….”

Watching the maid unable to say a single word despite my gentle tone, I clicked my tongue lightly. Even at this moment, the rain refused to stop, doing its best to give the maids a cold.

“Gonna stand there staring blankly? The laundry’s all going to get soaked. Get inside, quickly!”

“Y-yes! Understood, my lady!”

Feeling a renewed sense of amusement as she hurriedly gathered the laundry back into her arms and cautiously scampered out of the pathway, I spoke to Yul, who was patiently waiting for me.

“Let’s head back.”

“Yes.”

Seeing her wearing what looked like an even brighter smile than before, I chuckled. From the perspective of an adult rather than a child, this kind of situation felt complex—both somewhat funny and strangely rewarding. At the same time, it made me realize once again just how terrible my reputation was.

‘I’m going to have to work myself to the bone to fix my image from now on.’

After roughly finishing my shower and before lying down in bed, I asked Yul. It was still early evening, but since it had been an exhausting day, I figured I could get to sleep early.

“Yul, do you happen to have any warm tea or something?”

“Yes, we have citron tea and herbal tea. Which one would you like brought up? Though citron tea seems best before going to bed.”

Seeing Yul’s attitude, as if she was ready to immediately serve up the most delicious tea in existence, I shook my head.

“No, it’s not for me to drink. Everyone worked hard today because of the rain, so go hand out a cup of citron tea to the household servants and tell them to take a short break.”

“…Really?”

I spoke as I watched Yul, whose poker face had shattered once more. Well, this wasn’t just for Yul; it was also a resolution I was making to myself.

“Yul, I’m going to change now. I might not become a saint, but at the very least, I’m not going to be a villainess.”

“………….”

With those words, I let my body sink straight into bed. I heard the sound of Yul quietly exiting, and the sound of raindrops pattering outside felt like an orchestral performance, quickly pulling me into a deep sleep.

‘I wonder how my sister is doing.’

Early in the evening, around the time Lady Armienne fell asleep, the maids who had each been assigned their respective duties gathered one by one in their living quarters. When women huddled together on their beds while lighting oil lamps, gossip was bound to start.

Unquestionably, the hot topic of the day was Lady Armienne. The maids, having finished various tasks like cleaning, errands, and chores, opened their eyes wide as they listened to the maids who had struggled to pull in the laundry on a rainy day.

“What? You bumped into Lady Armienne?”

“And you got mud on the young lady’s face?”

“On top of that, you even snapped at the young lady?”

Several maids chattered away, each adding a word. When it threatened to become outright noise, the senior maid with the longest experience in service quickly spoke up to stop them.

“Quiet! If we keep this up, we’ll get yelled at again. Maya, it’s your story, so tell it in your own words.”

Maya, the person at the center of today’s story and the very one who had bumped into Lady Armienne, tightly clasped her trembling hands together and slowly began to unravel her tale.

“Right, I’ll tell you then. Because of the rain, I was rushing to pull in the laundry and head back when I failed to check ahead and bumped into someone, so I snapped at them. And that person turned out to be the young lady.”

“Gasp!”

At that part, everyone sucked in a sharp breath. They could picture the scene without even seeing it. Normally, if someone dared do such a thing to her, thinking they could get off scot-free was out of the question; getting slapped right in front of her eyes was a given, and if things went wrong, getting beaten half to death by a knight or having your head chopped off was entirely possible.

“W-what kind of punishment did you get? Are you okay?”

One of the maids asked. Maya chuckled at her question, which seemed to assume that suffering some sort of punishment was a given, even if she hadn’t suffered anything yet.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Truly, nothing happened to me at all.”

At her words, the maids’ quarters erupted into a commotion once more.

“No way.”

“That ‘Lady Armienne,’ you know.”

“It’s a miracle you aren’t dead!”

At that, the senior maid clutched her forehead and shouted once more.

“Quiet!”

At the voice carrying even more annoyance than before, the maids pressed their fingers to their lips.

“Shh.”

“Let’s be quiet.”

“Right, we need to listen quietly.”

Once silence settled over the room again, Maya opened her mouth once more.

“She was angry, though. You have no idea how terrifying it was. When she said, ‘I said, say it one more time,’ how on earth could I possibly say those words to the young lady again?”

“True, true.”

“That’s out of the question.”

The maids all nodded in agreement. Even doing something by accident was enough to get your head chopped off, so talking back right to the young lady’s face? The outcome was unimaginable.

“So I couldn’t say anything and just apologized. But oddly enough, that actually made her even angrier. She said, ‘Hah—you take me for a fool. I clearly asked you to repeat what you said the moment you crashed into me. Do you take me lightly, by any chance?’ You have no idea how terrifying that was.”

As soon as her story ended, the maids who imagined that scene grabbed each other’s hands and shivered.

Brrr.

“Scary. We wouldn’t have been able to say a single word.”

“As expected, the young lady is a terrifying person.”

“Those words are like a pit of hell you can never climb out of. If it were me, I would’ve fainted from terror.”

That aside, from the perspective of the listeners, there was no story more interesting than this. Goosebumps broke out all over their bodies from fright, but at the same time, it was almost thrilling.

“I honestly had no idea what to do, so I ended up bursting into tears.”

“Gasp! Tears?!”

“No way!”

Simultaneously with Maya’s words, screams erupted once more. Lady Armienne was never the type of person to forgive anyone bursting into tears right in front of her. Yet the strange thing was that the person right before her bore not a single scratch.

“So what happened?”

“You didn’t die, right, Maya?”

“Are you a ghost by any chance?”

Maya gently shook her head. She was no ghost; she was simply the first maid ever to experience a whole new world today.

“No, honestly, even as I burst into tears, I thought it was all over for me. Even though I never saw it myself, I’d heard stories about how some of the older girls burst into tears in the past and met a gruesome fate. But my tears just wouldn’t stop. Getting soaked in the sudden rain while sweating away to pull in the laundry, only to crash into the young lady right after… I even cursed in my heart, asking if the heavens really had it out for me.”

Everyone nodded at words that were so thoroughly saturated with her genuine feelings.

“Well, that’s true.”

“If it were me, I’d feel hard done by, too.”

“Right, our job feels way too exhausting compared to our meager pay sometimes.”

It seemed like the time spent by the maids chatting was dragging on longer than Maya’s actual story, so the senior maid gave a warning once more.

“Quiet for real now!”

“Yeees.”

However, even without the senior maid’s warning, when Maya opened her mouth, everyone perked up their ears and waited for the words to come out. Today’s story was just that entertaining.

“But you know what? When I burst into tears and thought I was a goner, guess how the young lady acted?”

Gulp—

Just as everyone swallowed hard and waited for Maya’s next words, it happened.

Knock, knock.

At the sudden sound of knocking on the door, the maids scattered in an instant like mice caught in the act of stealing, each perching on her own individual bed and neatly smoothing down the hems of her clothes.

It was a shame they couldn’t hear the rest of the story from Maya’s mouth, but if they happened to cross the head maid who occasionally made unannounced inspections, they might find themselves packing their bags and heading home in the middle of a rainy day.

The pay wasn’t all that high, but not a single maid wanted to quit her position at the ducal household, which still paid significantly better than other lines of work.

Confirming that everyone had roughly tidied up, the senior maid got up from her seat and spoke quietly.

“Yes, you may come in.”

Creeeak—

At her words, Yul opened the door and walked inside. Behind Yul was a cart, and stacked upon that cart was a massive quantity of citron tea cups, waiting to be served.

“Oh my! Did I interrupt?”

At Yul’s words, the senior maid shook her head.

“No.”

Inwardly, however, the senior maid was seriously pondering why the young lady’s personal maid had come to such a lowly place.

“Hee, I used to be a maid too, you know, so I understand everything. I don’t have any other business; the young lady instructed me to bring some tea to the servants who worked hard today and tell them to take a break. So make sure you feel grateful to the young lady.”

“…Tea, you say?”

“Yes.”

In a daze, the maids nodded and accepted a cup of tea each. With a gentle smile, Yul turned the cart around and walked back out. The moment the sound of Yul’s footsteps faded away, the maids immediately gathered together once more like mice. With warm, fragrant citron tea in hand and a break period granted to boot, they were desperate to hear the next part of Lady Armienne’s story straight from Maya’s mouth.

“S-so what happened?”

“Well, you see.”

Maya dragged it out for a moment, then chuckled softly.

“I’ll tell you next time.”

At her words, the maids shot her fierce glares.

“No way!”

“Tell us right now!”

“We’re dying to know!”

Unable to withstand their pressure, Maya smiled and continued her story once more.

“Alright, alright. So basically….”

Sipping their warm citron tea, the maids immersed themselves once again in their own little world. Meanwhile, Armienne was fast asleep, utterly unaware that her own story was being shared in places where she couldn’t see.