3. The Servant, Leo

Spilled water cannot be gathered back into the cup.

Honestly, though, just how much water are people out there spilling that they cling this hard to one ancient line?

The saying means that what’s already been done can’t be undone, and it’s so worn-out and famous that anyone who hears it would probably groan inwardly, Oh, not that one again. Trite. Stale.

But a proverb survives the whole of human history for a reason.

Because humans never stop making mistakes.

“You sure tore it up, nice and thorough. There’s no putting it back together now, you know.”
“Th-the head of the house gave that order?”

I kept my face perfectly calm as I spoke.

“The head of the house sent me a letter telling me to prepare some herbs.”
“…”
“Well, somebody tore it up, so there’s no way to know what was in it now.”

The servant’s body trembled.

“You really think anyone’s going to believe that?!”
“And if I do?”
“Hah — if you’re going to lie, at least lie convincingly!”

The servant, it seemed, had decided to believe what he wanted to believe: that the head of the house would never entrust an important task to someone as worthless as Arden.

Baseless faith is the shortcut to ruin.

There was a saying among gamers.

The unprepared shall not challenge the raid.

Not that I had any intention of sharing it with the servant. Instead, I said something else aloud.

“If even a lowly servant like you is run this ragged, imagine how busy the head of the house must be. If he could, he’d want to sprout two extra arms just to get through the work.”

Come to think of it, back in the modern world, “head of a noble house” probably wouldn’t be a popular career path. The workload’s an absolute nightmare, and you’d barely get any sleep.

For a moment, I put myself in the head of the house’s shoes.

“I’ve got so much work piled up that I went looking for a free pair of hands somewhere in the family, and what do I find? My fifth son, lazing around all day doing absolutely nothing, while I can’t even get a decent night’s sleep. Going by what was in that letter, his message was basically: here, at least do this much, you parasite!”

The servant’s face flushed a red so deep you’d think it might burst at the lightest poke.

Then he suddenly flung both arms wide and turned to the other attendants who’d been watching the exchange.

“Not one of us here has seen the head of the house and the runt young master so much as meet face-to-face in the last several months. Isn’t that right, everyone?”

When you can’t win the argument, you bring in the numbers. That was clearly his play. I was curious how the others would respond, so I decided to just watch.

“That’s right! Not one of us has seen it!”
“I think this is the first time I’ve seen the young master’s face in over a month!”

The household servants seemed to hate Arden like he’d personally swindled them out of their life savings on the stock market. Before long, a full-blown bad-mouthing session about me (well, about Arden) was in full swing, and the smug smile crept back onto the servant’s face.

“You see, Young Master? Not one of us, myself included, has ever seen you so much as leave your room! And it’s not just that, is it? You can’t even feed yourself properly, can’t even keep yourself clean, so how could you possibly have received an order from the head of the house?”

Emboldened by the servant’s speech, the other attendants raised their voices in chorus.

“How could you have an order from the head of the house when you can’t even get by without us?”
“We all heard it. It’s such an obvious lie!”

I don’t like stupid people.

Especially the kind who think being loud makes them right.

Stupid people are stupid by nature, and they make no effort to fill in the gaps. They’re the type who spend their whole lives being stupid without ever once realizing it.

So this stupid man, yapping away so happily in front of me? Yeah, I hated him.

I’d handed him an opening, and he’d run his mouth all on his own, and now he stood there looking pleased with himself. I didn’t like that face one bit.

“Sure. Without your help, day-to-day life would’ve been brutally hard.”

True enough. Without her Possession Stabilization buff, the humiliation would have dragged on with no end in sight, and living alone through that kind of agonizing pain would have been impossible. But I had her, the one wearing the face of my custom char. That was why I’d been able to send away every servant who’d ever looked down on me and ignored me, and get through life on my own.

“Funny thing, though. I don’t recall asking for your help recently.”
“Just because you’ve gotten a little better lately, you’re going to throw out everything we’ve done for you up to now?”

Self-respect is a fine weapon, but a weakling brandishing it in front of a tiger doesn’t change his situation much. The only difference is which part of him gets eaten first.

“Yes, I’m disregarding it. You’re no use to me anymore, so why should I be the one walking on eggshells around you?”

A flicker of panic crossed the faces of the servant and the attendants.

But I had no intention of stopping at panic. I was going to drive this all the way to the bitter end.

“By the way. Have any of you ever seen the head of the house reading correspondence from the Imperial Palace in the dead of night?”
“…Pardon?”
“Of course you haven’t. How could lowly servants like you ever hope to lay eyes on such a noble sight?”

The humor drained from the servant’s face.

“Then — have you ever seen the head of the house in private audience with the lord of the northern territories, debating trade routes? As a child, I was granted permission to sit at his side and listen in on those lofty conversations. Too young to understand them, of course.”

Past humorless now, he was sliding into outright distress.

“Th-that’s — how could we possibly…”
“That’s right. You haven’t.”

I cut him off, exactly the way he’d cut me off earlier.

I drew a fresh letter from inside my coat. It bore a seal that only Kairon, the head of House Arne, could stamp.

The instant the servant saw that seal, his eyes went round as saucers.

“Still want to insist this isn’t an important task?”

The moment his eyes landed on the head’s seal, the servant’s hand shot out to snatch the letter. But I’d anticipated him and stepped back in time to dodge.

Rrrrip.

And then I tore the letter to shreds with my own hands.

“…W-wait!”

In a panic, the servant lunged for the torn fragments. But I knocked his outstretched hand away with a sharp crack! and ground the pieces into the floor under my heel.

“Oh, dear. I tore it up.”

I plugged one ear with my index finger.

One, two, three.

Pop!

“What in the world are you DOIIIIIIING?!”

Right on cue, the servant let out a shriek loud enough to rattle the walls. Lucky for me, I’d plugged my ears in time and saved my eardrums.

“What?”
“What do you mean, what?! You just tore up a letter bearing the head of the house’s seal!”
“You tore it, didn’t you?”
“When did I—”

I kicked at the two piles of torn paper, scattering and mixing them together until the fragments drifted everywhere, then pointed at the lot of them and asked:

“Show me. Which letter is the one I tore?”
“Don’t joke around—”
“Joke?”

I let the corners of my mouth fall. I lowered my voice and sharpened my gaze.

“Does this still look like a joke to you?”

When the servant fell silent, I spoke to him the way you’d speak to a small child.

“Let me explain why I clapped earlier. I was applauding your courage. Tearing up a letter from the head of the house himself.”
“That’s because I had no idea the head of the house’s seal was—”
“And you’re planning to march up to the head of the house and tell him that? I didn’t know, so I tore it up. Like that?”
“…”
“Thanks to me tearing up the letter on a whim, Big Brother Valerian’s been put in quite a bind too.”
“Why are you suddenly dragging Young Master Valerian into this?”
“Because thanks to you, he’s about to be suspected of treason.”

At the word treason, the servant nearly leapt out of his skin.

“Wh-what are you saying, t-treason?!”
“Look — process aside, you’ve just openly placed Big Brother Valerian’s orders above the head of the house’s. How do you think that’s going to look from the head’s perspective? Valerian and his retainers are after my position. They’ve finished their preparations — that’s why they’re flouting me so openly now.”

The servant tried, horror-stricken, to stammer out excuses, but I gave him no opening.

“Shh — come to think of it, there are far too many ears in here.”

The surrounding attendants had gone ashen the moment the head’s letter was torn.

“I-it’s nothing but absurd sophistry.”
“Is it, though? Will you still call it sophistry after I carry these torn scraps to the head of the house and explain everything from the beginning?”

Every one of them knew the punishment for treason, and for anyone tied to it. The criminal himself, of course, but also his parents and siblings on his father’s side, and his mother’s bloodline on the maternal side. Pulled up by the roots, until not a single trace of their existence remained.

T-treason…

That one word came down like a thunderbolt, paralyzing every rational thought in the room.

“I-I had nothing to do with any of this!”
“This was all Leo’s scheme!”

Every one of them but the servant himself abandoned him and bolted.

So your name is Leo.

I made no effort to hold any of them back. Instead, I turned to Leo, whose face had drained of every last drop of color.

“Your accomplices say you should take the fall alone. What do you think?”

That line was the starting gun.

Thud.

“I have committed a crime worthy of death!”

Thud!

“Please, forgive me just this once.”

Bright red blood streamed down his forehead.

“I have a sick younger sister at home. If I die, she dies too.”

Leo, it seemed, had decided to appeal to pity. Unfortunately, I’m a man with a notoriously strong resistance to sentiment.

“So. What exactly did Big Brother Valerian order you to do?”
“He told me to go to the armory and check the inventory…”

The armory is the single most important place there is, when it comes to treason.

Leo spoke almost through sobs.

“H-he was planning to go hunting later, and that’s what the order was for. He absolutely did not give it for treason.”

Treason and the armory. I hadn’t meant to connect them, but the pairing had only made Leo more anxious.

“…Hmm.”

I circled the prostrate Leo with a grave expression, rising onto the balls of my feet, making a show of being about to say something and then thinking better of it.

“Hmm… no, never mind.”
“…”
“Then… you… no, that’s no good either.”

For Leo, this had to be maddening. But the body I’d possessed belonged to a master of push-and-pull, and Leo couldn’t hold out against it for long. In the end, he surrendered.

“If you’ll forgive me, I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?”
“Yes.”
“Truly?”
“…Yes.”

I held up my index and middle fingers.

“You have two paths in front of you now. Listen carefully, and choose one.”

Once I’d confirmed his nod, I extended my index finger.

“Path one. You go straight to the Knights, right now, and confess everything you just told me. That Young Master Valerian is planning treason.”
“Th-then I’ll die for certain.”
“Aw, but you said you’d do anything.”
“I’ll take the second option.”

I folded my index finger back down, not especially thrilled.

“The second option is—”

And I extended my middle finger.

“—you go to the head of the house, and you tell him: I tore up the letter that bore your seal.”
“…Pardon?”

I brought that middle finger to my lips, gave a soft shh, and went on.

“Hear me out to the end. Then the head of the house will ask, why on earth would you do such a thing? And then you tell him honestly, everything that happened today.”
“…Then what happens to me?”
“Well, there’ll be quite a commotion. It’ll reach Big Brother Valerian’s ears eventually, too. Honestly, whichever way it goes, it’s going to be hard for you to come out of this alive.”

When I shrugged, Leo let out a hic! of a hiccup, then another, and another, until he keeled over in a dead faint.

“Fall asleep here and your face is going to end up all twisted, you know.”

That’s what you get for running your mouth.

Damn.

“Leo.”

I murmured it quietly, beside the deeply sleeping Leo.

She was the one who let me know Leo had woken up.

Got to admit, she really does come in handy in situations like this.

Pleased at the thought that she’d been useful too, she spun in circles around me as if fishing for praise. I raised a thumb and gave her a nice one.

In any case, I addressed Leo, who was still pretending to be asleep.

“From the western farming territories. Aspired to be a knight, but failed the trials twice for lack of talent. Has a sick younger sister back in your hometown, which is exactly why you’re working as a servant in House Arne.”

I knew this NPC named Leo. He was one of countless minor mobs I’d run into while running the Demon Knights quest.

“You think spending your whole life serving under Big Brother Valerian is going to cure your little sister’s illness?”

The cause of Leo’s demonification had been his younger sister’s death. His claim that she was sick was no lie, and in the original history, that illness eventually took her life.

“I know a way to cure your sister’s disease. Granted, coming from a man who can’t even control his own illness, it won’t sound very convincing.”

I held out a tempting offer to Leo, the promise of a cure for his sister.

Leo pushed himself up from the bed and spoke.

“Can you truly cure my sister’s illness, Young Master?”
“Let me tell you about the third path. The one I didn’t mention earlier.”

I smiled.

And then I said:

“Become my man.”