Chapter 6
“You mean I’m supposed to attend to the young lady’s medicine?”
Aso nodded gloomily. I let out a sigh.
Being told to attend to the young lady’s medicine was practically the same as being told to go die.
The reason was simple.
‘Xiao Yanli’s personality was downright vicious…’
When I first started working here, I was looking for a way to approach Xiao Yanli.
No matter how much information I knew about her illness, it would be useless if I couldn’t pass it on to her. And if some complete stranger suddenly appeared and told her something like that, she’d only become suspicious or cause trouble.
So I figured I should slowly build up her trust first. Even though I was only a shit carrier for now, I thought that if I kept working, an opportunity to approach her would naturally arise… But then.
“Waaaaah!”
“My arm, my aaarm!”
“I can’t do it. I really can’t do it!”
How was I supposed to approach her?
The more I watched, the stranger the situation became.
I already knew that Xiao Yanli had a bad personality. The novel had said that her illness had worn her down, making her exceptionally sensitive and prickly.
But I hadn’t expected it to be this bad.
In reality, Xiao Yanli’s hobby was basically ‘going through maids like disposable items.’
“How many has it been now?”
“Who knows, twenty? Twenty-five?”
Whenever she got bored, Xiao Yanli would get rid of another maid. And she didn’t simply dismiss them quietly. She would swear at them, hit them, and commit all sorts of outrageous acts before driving them away.
All kinds of things happened.
She’d slap a maid across both cheeks, insult her parents, grab her by the hair, punch her, kick her, bite her arm, and so on. And then there was the grand finale…
“Aaaah! Blood, there’s blood…”
“Quickly, take her to the apothecary!”
“Someone get the steward… No, go get the physician!”
It had happened recently. A maid attending Xiao Yanli had been struck in the head with a vase and ended up unconscious.
The Xiao Family Manor was thrown into complete chaos. Some people rushed off carrying the injured maid on a stretcher, while other maids stood nearby sobbing; someone went to call the steward, someone else brought a physician, and there were people like me who could only stand there dumbfounded and watch… It was complete and utter chaos.
I stared blankly at the scene, unable to get my head around it.
‘Is this… is this really okay?’
Was I really supposed to pursue a connection with Xiao Yanli?
Shouldn’t I switch to some other character’s route instead, someone rich and with a normal personality?
Fortunately, the maid didn’t die, but the incident still left many people traumatized. Not only the maids, but even the servants would run away whenever the young lady was mentioned.
I was also seriously considering giving up on my path to turning my life around.
And then I happened to meet Aso here.
“I argued that it wasn’t even my assigned duty, so why should I have to do it? But they said I’m the only maid who hasn’t attended to the young lady yet. They said they’d been letting me off because I was young, but that wasn’t fair…”
“…….”
“Ha, the only person who ever showed me consideration was Madam Ma. When did they ever do me any favors? They only volunteered because they got greedy when the steward said he’d double the salary. But they’re scared to actually go, so they think they can secretly dump it on me. Do they really think I don’t know?”
“…….”
“And then they even threatened me, saying I shouldn’t expect to work comfortably from now on if I told Madam Ma… I have to go give her the medicine right now; what am I supposed to do…?”
After saying that much, Aso began sniffing again.
It seemed that as she talked, her sense of injustice overwhelmed her and brought tears to her eyes.
I could only look at Aso bitterly.
‘What should I do?’
I felt sorry for her, but… there was honestly nothing I could do here.
What could a mere shit carrier do?
Go with Aso and report the matter to Madam Ma? Of course I could take her side, but then what about attending to the young lady’s medicine right now?
Unless someone went in her place…
‘Someone else?’
I spoke without thinking.
“Should I go instead?”
***
In front of the entrance to the Xiao Lady’s Residence.
I stood there blankly, holding a tray with a bowl of medicine on it.
‘…Can I actually do this?’
I regretted it belatedly, but it was too late.
I’d already said the words, and I’d even taken the medicine from Aso and come all the way here.
So why had I said such a thing?
‘Isn’t this an opportunity?’
The thought suddenly occurred to me.
I’d been looking for a chance to encounter Xiao Yanli all this time, but I’d never once succeeded. Part of that was because of Xiao Yanli’s personality… But the real problem was her residence.
The Xiao Lady’s Residence, located in the deepest part of the Xiao Family Manor, wasn’t a place just anyone could enter. Only the Manor Lord and a few people with permission were allowed inside. Even I, who cleaned up all the shit in the manor, wasn’t permitted to enter.
But now I’d suddenly gotten a chance to go in?
‘Can’t I try it once and give up afterward if it doesn’t work?’
Of course, Aso practically jumped at my crazy suggestion.
“Are you crazy? Have you ever attended to someone above you? Do you think this is some kind of joke? Do you know what will happen if you make even the slightest mistake…!”
“I’m not saying I’ll keep doing it. She needs to be given her medicine right now, doesn’t she? So I’ll go first, and afterward we’ll go together to Madam Ma. We can tell her about it then, right?”
“But still……”
Aso hesitated for quite some time. But in the end, she accepted.
Her fear of the young lady was greater than her guilt over dumping the task on me.
“Fine. Then let’s go warm the medicine up again first. I’ll explain everything in detail on the way…”
Fortunately, the task itself wasn’t particularly difficult. All I had to do was take the medicine and hand it to the young lady.
Normally, there were plenty of other little things to do as well, but apparently even this one task was already overwhelming because the young lady was refusing the medicine itself.
“She ended up like that because most of them tried to force the medicine on her. So just tell her from outside that you brought her medicine. Never take the initiative. And don’t raise your voice either! Got it?”
Aso even handed me the cotton shoes she had tucked inside her clothes so that I could move without making a sound, emphasizing her instructions again and again.
I took the cotton shoes and put them on as I thought,
‘Do we really have to go this far?’
Then I saw the grim-faced martial artists standing guard at the gate and understood within three seconds.
‘Yeah. We really do.’
Just how sensitive was she that even those martial artists stood there completely motionless like stone statues?
The scene was even more terrifying than I’d imagined, and I swallowed nervously.
I did my best to act calm as I approached the gate and showed them my pass.
The martial artist who had been standing there like a statue slowly turned his head.
One of them spoke.
“A boy? Did they hire a page this time?”
“He’s carrying a pass, so I suppose so.”
“Still, considering what happened last time, he’d better have more than the average endurance…”
At the muttered words of one martial artist, the other quietly snapped at him.
“Don’t say unnecessary things! Go on, get inside.”
For a moment, I wanted to ask,
‘What do you mean by “more than average endurance”?’
They were obviously talking about the previous incident when a maid had been carried away with her head split open.
So did that mean something even worse might happen this time…?
I shook my head vigorously at my growing fear.
Then I gathered every last bit of courage I had and finally crossed the threshold.
And the sight of the Xiao Lady’s Residence that greeted me was…
‘…Huh?’
Desolate.
So desolate that I wondered whether this was really a place where people lived.
The house was dark and gloomy, as though not a single ray of sunlight reached it, while every blade of grass in the garden out front had withered and died.
It looked like an abandoned house that had been swept through by an epidemic…
I shuddered at the eerie atmosphere and thought,
‘Th-this is where Xiao Yanli lives?’
Xiao Yanli was supposed to be the Manor Lord’s beloved jewel, so why was she staying in a place like this?
Feeling both puzzled and strangely uneasy, I cautiously approached the house. Following the warning to ‘never make a loud noise,’ I didn’t forget to tiptoe along as quietly as possible.
When I finally climbed the stairs and reached the door, I was only then able to take a proper breath. My back was already drenched in cold sweat.
After catching my breath, I opened my mouth.
“Young lady, I’ve brought your medicine.”
But there was no response from inside.
“Young lady, I’ve brought your medicine…!”
Still, nothing.
“Young lady? Young lady?”
It was the same no matter how many times I called.
I gradually began to grow frightened.
I’d already been on edge because of the dark and ominous atmosphere, but the quieter the surroundings became, the more my heart trembled.
…Wait, was it really quiet?
I’d been hearing a strange little sound for a while now.
Somehow, it seemed to be coming from very close to me…
At that moment.
Swish.
Something brushed against the back of my neck. Goosebumps spread across my entire body. My mind went blank, leaving me with only one thought: I had to get away somewhere.
I hurriedly grabbed the doorknob.
“M-miss, I’m sorry for intruding, but I’ll come in for a moment!”
Then I firmly pulled on the doorknob, and…
Whoosh!
“Huh?”
I blinked.
Something seemed to brush past me from the side, and then I felt a warm sensation around my neck.
I raised a hand and touched it. Blood came away on my fingers.
Blood…?
“Wh-what?”
I instinctively turned around.
Something was embedded in the floor in the distance.
A dagger, its razor-sharp blade gleaming blue…
I looked forward again.
And finally, I saw her.
In the silent darkness, a pair of eyes gleamed as they stared directly at me.
They were the eyes of a beast that had just discovered its prey, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
The beast slowly opened her mouth.
“Get lost.”
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