3. The Servant, Leo

Spilled water can’t be gathered back into the cup.

What water, exactly, do people keep spilling that they can’t let go of this ancient proverb?

All it means is that what’s done is done, and it’s so famous and so worn out that anyone who hears it will probably groan, Oh, not that one again. It’s trite. It’s stale. But a proverb doesn’t last all the way through human history without a reason, and the reason is simple.

Humans never stop making mistakes.

“You sure tore it up nice and good. No putting it back together now, you know.”
“Th-the head of the house gave that order?”

I kept my face perfectly calm.

“The head of the house sent 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 whole body shook.

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

He’d chosen, I suppose, to believe what he wanted to believe, which was that the head of the house would never trust an important job to someone as worthless as Arden.

Baseless faith is the shortcut to ruin.

Gamers had a saying.

The unprepared shall not challenge the raid.

But I had no intention of sharing it with the servant, so I said something else instead.

“If a mere servant like you is this busy, imagine how busy the head of the house must be. If he could, he’d probably want to grow two more arms just to get the work done.”

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

For a moment, I put myself inside the head of the house’s mind.

“I’ve got so much work piled up that I went looking for a free pair of hands 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 proper night’s sleep. Going by that letter, he was basically saying, here, at least do this much, you parasite!”

The servant’s face went so red you’d think it might burst if you so much as poked it. Then he suddenly flung both arms wide and turned to the other attendants, who’d been watching the whole exchange.

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

When you can’t win the argument, you bring in the numbers. That was clearly the play, and 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 a month!”

The household servants seemed to hate Arden as if he’d personally swindled them out of their stock-market savings. Before I knew it, a bad-mouthing session against me — well, against Arden — was in full swing, and the arrogant smile had crept back onto the face of the servant in front of me.

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

His speech inspired the others, and they raised their voices in chorus.

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

I don’t like stupid people.

Especially the kind who think being loud means being right.

Stupid people are stupid by nature, and they make no effort to fill in their stupidity. They’re the type who spend their whole lives being stupid without ever realizing they’re stupid. So this stupid man yapping happily in front of me? I hated him.

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

“Sure. Without your help, just getting through the day would’ve been brutal.”

That much was true. Without her Possession Stabilization buff, the humiliation would have dragged on indefinitely, and in that kind of agonizing pain, living alone would have been impossible. But I had her, the one in the form of my custom char. So I’d sent away every servant who’d ever looked down on me and ignored me, and now I was getting through life on my own.

“Funny, though — I don’t recall asking for your help recently.”
“Just because you’ve gotten a bit better lately, you’re going to disregard everything we’ve done for you?”

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

“Yes, I’m disregarding it. You’re no longer of any use to me, 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? When I was a child, I was granted permission to sit beside him and listen in on those high-level conversations. Too young to understand them, of course.”

He was past humorless now and 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, and drew a new letter from inside my coat.

It bore a seal that only Kairon, the head of House Arne, could stamp. The moment the servant saw it, his eyes went round as saucers.

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

His eyes had no sooner landed on the head’s seal than his hand shot out to snatch the letter, but I’d seen that coming and stepped back in time to dodge.

Rrrrip.

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

“…W-wait!”

The servant lunged in a panic, reaching for the torn fragments, but I smacked his hand away with a sharp crack! and ground the pieces into the floor under my heel.

“Oh, dear. I tore it up.”

I plugged my 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 batches of torn-up pieces, scattering them and mixing them together until the fragments were drifting everywhere. Then I pointed at them and said,

“Show me — which one’s the letter I tore?”
“Don’t joke around —”
“Joke?”

I let the corners of my mouth fall, dropped my voice low, and sharpened my gaze.

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

The servant fell silent, so I spoke to him the way you’d talk to a small child.

“Let me explain why I clapped earlier. I was applauding your courage — tearing up correspondence from the head of the house himself.”
“That’s because I had no idea it had the head of the house’s seal on it —”
“You planning to go 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 that letter on a whim, Big Brother Valerian’s in quite a bind now 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 do you mean, t-treason?!”
“Look — however it came about, you’ve just openly put Big Brother Valerian’s orders above the head of the house’s. How do you think that’s going to look to the head of the house? Valerian and his retainers are after my position. They’ve finished their preparations — that’s why they’re so openly disregarding me now.”

Horror-stricken, the servant tried to make excuses, but I gave him no opening.

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

The attendants around us had already gone ashen the moment the head’s letter was torn.

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

Every one of them knew the punishment for treason and for those associated with it. It took the criminal himself, of course, but also his parents and siblings on his father’s side and his mother’s bloodline on hers, all of them pulled up by the roots until not a trace of their existence remained.

T-treason…

That one word came down like a thunderbolt and paralyzed every rational thought in the room.

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

Every single one of them abandoned the servant and ran.

So your name is Leo.

I made no effort to hold any of them back. Instead, I spoke to Leo, whose face had drained of every 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 from his forehead.

“I have a sick younger sister at home. If I die, my sister will die too.”

So Leo had chosen 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 when it comes to treason.”

Leo was almost sobbing now.

“H-he’s going hunting later, and that’s why he gave the order. It was a-absolutely not for treason.”

Treason and the armory. I hadn’t intended it, but it had only made Leo more anxious.

“…Hmm.”

I circled the prostrate Leo with a grave expression, rising up onto my toes, going through the motions of being about to say something and then changing my mind.

“Hmm… no, never mind.”

“…”

“Then… you… no, that’s no good either.”

This had to be enough to drive Leo out of his mind, but I had possessed a master of push-and-pull. In the end, he couldn’t take any more of it and surrendered.

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

“…Yes.”

I held up my index and middle fingers.

“You’ve got two paths in front of you right now. Listen carefully and pick one.”

I waited for his nod, then 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 to commit treason.”
“Th-then I’ll definitely die.”
“Aw, but you said you’d do anything.”
“I’ll take the second option.”

Not particularly thrilled, I folded my index finger down.

“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, made a soft shh, and went on.

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

I shrugged. Leo let out a hic! of a hiccup, then another, and another, and then he fainted.

“You sleep here and your face is going to end up twisted, you know.”

That’s what you get for running your mouth.

Damn.

“Leo.”

I murmured it quietly beside the deeply sleeping Leo.

It was she who let me know he’d woken up.

Got to admit, she does come in handy in this sort of situation.

Pleased at having been useful too, she spun in circles around me as if fishing for praise, so I raised a thumb and gave her a nice one.

Anyway, I addressed Leo, who was still pretending to be asleep.

“From the western farming territories. Wanted to be a knight, failed the trials twice for lack of talent. Sick younger sister back in your hometown — which is why you’re working as a servant in House Arne’s household.”

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

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

Leo’s demonification had been caused by his younger sister’s death. His claim that she was sick was no lie, and in the original history, it meant she had eventually died of her illness.

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

It was a sweet offer, and I held it out to him: I could cure his sister.

Leo rose from the bed and spoke to me.

“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 said,

“Become my man.”