Grace thought about it. About why she had become Rivanu’s maid.
“Grace.”
Rivanu, the young master of the ducal house, was covered in severe pockmarks and a skin disease. No one wanted to stay by his side.
“Where did you go?”
“I just went to do some cleaning.”
“…Without saying anything?”
“I’m sorry. I thought it was obvious since it was work hours. From now on, should I tell you whenever I go somewhere?”
“…Yeah. I’d like that.”
He smelled awful, and his appearance was horrifying. But Grace didn’t dislike him.
If anything, he looked like a winning lottery ticket.
“I understand.”
“…Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. What you want is what I’m here to do. If you ever need anything or feel uncomfortable, please tell me anytime.”
“I do have something…”
“Yes? What is it?”
That was why Grace wanted to grant most of Rivanu’s requests.
She wanted to keep a good relationship with him.
“…Um, Grace, uh.”
“Please, go ahead.”
“Do you… have any friends?”
“Huh? Friends?”
“The other day… I don’t think it was cleaning time, but you weren’t… here…”
“Oh! I’m sorry!”
“No, I’m not saying you should apologize. I was just curious.”
“But that wasn’t work hours. It was my break. Lunch break… Anyway, yes, I have friends, and I went to see one.”
“Ah…”
It wasn’t as if he was asking for something unreasonable. Telling him where she went, what she did, or who she met outside of work was nothing.
After all, Grace was probably the first person who had ever stayed by his side. It seemed he was curious about every little thing.
“U-Um, do you like me… or your friend more…?”
“Huh?”
“…I was just curious. Would a question like this make you uncomfortable?”
“No.”
It seemed Rivanu had been much lonelier than she had thought.
Even better.
If she slipped into that opening now, he would probably be even more grateful to her later.
“Of course I like you better, Young Master.”
“Really?”
Rivanu opened his eyes wide in surprise and asked again.
Every time his mouth moved, pus dripped from his diseased skin, but Grace kept smiling as if nothing about him disgusted her.
“Of course. I think you’re a truly good person, Young Master.”
There wasn’t even the tiniest bit of sincerity in her empty eyes.
Still, out of all the young masters Grace had served, he was the easiest.
At least for now, he was gentle.
“I like you, Young Master.”
…Though he would become a once-in-a-generation villain in the future, so she would have to raise him well enough to keep him from going down that path.
Would this really become a winning lottery ticket?
Or would it turn out to be a losing one?
Or perhaps it would become something else entirely.
Something she had never even imagined.
***
When Grace died, she began her tenth life.
Most people only lived once.
Grace was living her life for the tenth time.
She didn’t know exactly why.
But there was one thing that made her different from everyone else.
She had once been a test subject for a mad mage.
That was why she believed she must have undergone some special experiment back then, and that it had given her the ability to return after death.
And today, Grace chose a new path for her tenth life.
“Young Master Rivanu, my name is Grace Bullet. I’ve been assigned as your new personal maid.”
“…”
“I look forward to serving you.”
No matter how hard she tried, she had never found a way to stop returning.
Her lives had never been ordinary, but she had lived enough ordinary lives to be sick of them.
So this time, instead of living another plain life, she wanted to enjoy wealth and luxury at least once.
“Um… Young Master?”
“…”
“Is there anything you’d like me to do?”
There was a reason Grace had chosen not just the Foret Ducal House, but specifically its eldest son, Rivanu Foret.
First, she knew his future.
One advantage of returning was that she knew what would happen to people later in life.
He would become a villain, yes, but he would also earn fame as the youngest Swordmaster ever.
Second, he was easy to approach.
Although he was the eldest son of a high-ranking noble family, Rivanu suffered from a severe skin disease during this period, leaving him with a horrifying appearance.
It was Grace’s first time seeing him at this age, and beneath his slightly lowered head, what she saw was not a jaw any ordinary human should have.
“Young Master…”
When she called softly again, he finally raised his head a little.
His face was too horrifying to describe.
His skin looked like large clumps of pus, so terrible that it was hard to even look at him. The smell was just as unbearable.
Because of that, no one wanted to become his personal maid.
To Grace, that meant he was a gold mine.
His appearance was frightening enough to haunt someone’s dreams, but Grace looked straight at him without flinching and smiled kindly.
Rivanu, however, said nothing.
“Can’t you speak?”
“…Don’t mind me. Just stay here quietly until you leave.”
So he could speak.
“What?”
She had heard him clearly, but the question slipped out by reflex.
After that, Rivanushut his mouth tightly again.
Grace had never expected this to be easy in the first place.
She silently repeated her goal for this life.
Well, she had expected him to be this difficult.
Believing that the one who endured would win, Grace recalled the third—and most important—reason.
Baron Grino Eggpara, the man who had made Grace suffer a fate worse than death in her first life.
She wanted to stand in his way.
With his brilliant mind, overwhelming strength, and rising reputation as a new noble, Rivanuwould become a hero by leading the fight against the Monster Wave.
After that, all kinds of incidents would happen, and eventually not just monsters, but “Mutant Monsters” would appear.
Those “Mutant Monsters” were the victims of the human experiments Grace herself had endured.
In ancient magical terms, they were called Chimeras.
It was something only Grace, who had been experimented on, knew.
There had been timelines where they never appeared.
But in her last two lives, the Mutant Monsters had always appeared.
During the chaos of war, people with nowhere to go were secretly kidnapped, imprisoned, trafficked, and used for every kind of cruel human experiment imaginable.
In short, Grino had become a villain among villains.
Grace didn’t care if her own image suffered.
So what would happen if, this time, she awakened Rivanu’s talent first and treated him like a human being?
Even if I can’t destroy the experiments, without Rivanu, they won’t progress as quickly as they did before.
She might not be able to interfere directly, but she wanted to slow things down at least that much.
More importantly, if those experiments were completed too quickly and their grotesque results revealed themselves, the Empire’s destruction would come sooner—and her own plans to live comfortably would be ruined as well.
She had considered many things before making this choice.
That was why she had volunteered to become the maid of Rivanu, whom everyone else avoided.
“I’m sorry, but… may I care about you anyway?”
“…Ugh.”
“I have no intention of just getting by.”
Grace spoke as if she were making a declaration and stared straight at Rivanu.
“…Ha.”
Rivanu let out a disbelieving laugh.
“Ugh… hnng…”
But soon he groaned in pain.
Writhing from agony and unbearable itching, Rivanu was only fifteen years old.
Still just a young boy.
No one yet knew that the cause of his illness was mana, so no matter what treatments they tried, his condition only grew worse.
Because of that, the ducal family had shut him away in a separate residence under one excuse or another and barely even checked on him.
They couldn’t abandon him, so they did only the bare minimum.
The worse the duke treated him, the better it was for Grace.
“I’ll do my very best to serve you.”
She was full of determination.
No matter how Rivanu reacted right now, Grace didn’t care.
After saying that, she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.
But nothing came flying at her.
“Hmm…”
Most nobles threw things when they were sick or angry, but everything stayed quiet, so she cautiously opened one eye.
“Ugh.”
Apparently, it wasn’t that Rivanu chose not to throw things.
He simply couldn’t.
The pain was so unbearable that he couldn’t even pay proper attention to Grace. All he could do was groan in misery.
Then a thought suddenly crossed her mind.
What would Rivanu become if she stayed by his side, guided him well, and completely cured his skin disease?
The thought filled her with anticipation.
Comments (0)