The Maid Is Not Dead

A day after I met Mr Matthias and heard the tale that gave me much to think about on the side of daily dungeon-crawling...

Setting aside the curious story itself, it sounded like the King of Argento was soon ready to raid Baloria again. I had to take care not to get mixed up in the chaos that was sure to follow and avoid going into Arden that day. For that, I needed to know his majesty's schedule in slightly better detail. I had a suitable information source in mind too...No, maybe it was still a little premature to play that card.

Fresh out of the bath in the evening, I made my way to the stairs, drying my hair with a towel, reviewing my plans for the coming day's excursion. I was quite pleased with the progress so far, and confident I could reach the entrance to the next burg tomorrow, or the day after at latest. No problems on that end. Ah, come to think of it, Saturday was laundry day. Norn could use some new clothes. She was fast outgrowing her old shirts, which were worn so thin they were nearly see-through and pushing the limits of decency. Maybe I was poking my nose to where it didn't belong, but Vera seemed not to have noticed. It was good to be ambitious about your work, but not so if it came at the cost of losing sight of the day-to-day things.

I paused at the foot of the staircase, unusually content and a little scared how natural and obvious this routine had started to seem to me in so short a time.

How about making pancakes tomorrow? The pancakes Vera made were quite greasy and hearty, and by no means bad, but lacked the graceful fluff of imperial-style pancakes. The locals had their own take on desserts, or perhaps it was a recipe she had learned from her parents. I felt I could still surprise those two in this field and show them frontiers of delicacy they had yet to see. Sometimes, the mysterious urge to spoil my host family fell on me out of nowhere.

Oh, but that wasn't what I was supposed to think about.

I made an active effort to put my brain back on the right track, and that was when Vera's voice unexpectedly called to me from the kitchen side.

—"Hey, Lu, a word."

The landlady's tone was unusually serious. It stopped me short in my tracks before I could begin the climb upstairs and made me turn back. I appreciated that she had stopped calling me "Maid" and allowed me a shred of human dignity. Although, how she consistently dodged using my full name, like it were a dangerous pitfall of sorts to dance around, was a little odd to me. But what could she have to say now that could not be said at the dinner table? Was it something Norn, who had gone to bed by now, couldn't be allowed to hear? Had the King's company, or the Guildmaster done something atrocious again? Or was it the Jarl this time? I braced myself for a grim twist.

I knew things had been going too well lately.

Vera sat at the dining room table in lamplight, and I spontaneously took my usual seat across from her. Planted face to face in silence like that, just the two of us, was unnervingly formal and made me recall the night I'd first come to the house. My heart was working extra rounds in my chest and I wondered what got it so riled up?

The landlady sat quiet for a time, leaning on her elbows, fingers crossed, brow furrowed, perhaps thinking where to best begin, and I saw it prudent to give her time. As a maid, I was used to that. Waiting quietly. Very large portions of my days were spent solely on that. Then, at last, the furian woman met my gaze and spoke, her tone much the same as in the Guild, aloof and dignified in a way that didn't suit her.

"Hey, I know this comes as kinda sudden, but I'd like to add a new condition to our agreement."

I received the words with a slight frown. I sure had not expected that, of all the possibilities.

"Agreement? You mean, regarding my stay at your residence?"

"What the heck is a residence? This shack?" she replied. "Well, you're half right. That's the thing. Our agreement, I mean."

She nodded solemnly, as if to punctuate the sentence.

"A new condition? You wish to raise the rent, perhaps? Very well. I have no problem with that. I have been able to increase my income quite a bit recently and have enough saved for any surprise expenses. I have no use for money beyond what I need to keep exploring the dungeon. You can have what is left—"

Vera interrupted me there by angrily slamming the table. "—Why does it always come to that with you!? What kind of greedy goblin am I in your eyes? No! That's not it! As far as I'm concerned, you don't have to pay me a dime anymore. I already know you're not the type that needs threats to keep working, and I can manage my own debts by myself, thank you! That's not what I wanted to say!"

I tilted my head, puzzled.

"Then what could it be? We already take turns cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and shopping, retrieving firewood, filling the bath, and Norn's classes. Is there some imbalance in the arrangement I've failed to notice thus far?"

"...Hearing it laid out like that, I'm astonished you ever agreed to such an 'arrangement'. No, I didn't ask you to do half of that in the first place! How did it even come to that!? Why!?"

"It is only natural that I return the kindness you have shown me," I said. "Rest assured, you owe me nothing for doing my part."

"Why are we talking about money again!? Forget it! Just listen! I'm not talking about any of the usual stuff. I'm only saying this now because a prospect like this has never come up before, and I never thought about it until now. Which is also why I think we should clear up things before it turns out that way. Draw some lines, so to say."

Lines? As very foolish as it made me look and feel, I must confess, I had no idea what she was talking about. I could only sit quietly and wait for her to tell me.

Stolen story; please report.

Vera took a creative pause, drew a quiet breath to clear her mind that had become unintendedly distracted, and then resumed, the look in her wolf-like eyes stern.

"It's like this: you can keep living here, as you have, for as long as you like, with no other conditions or terms, except for just this: the day if, or more like when, you find yourself a guy, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"..."

Her words were like foreign language in my ears. Their timbre was vaguely familiar, but the meaning eluded me completely. The clause was so unexpected and out of nowhere, it took me a decent while to get the essential message to sink in.

As I sat there stunned to silence, Vera swung her hand and continued with very artificial nonchalance,

"Well, by that point you'll probably want to move out of your own will. But I thought I should still say this now, so it won't come as a nasty surprise later. Ah, I bet I sound like a right despot to you, but I want to see no dudes loitering in these corners. No funny stuff under my roof, okay? In the bed of my dead parents, god! I'm sorry, but I simply can't budge on this, with Nornie's situation in mind, and all that. It simply is what it is. Hope you understand, eh."

"But…why?" I now uttered, my tongue strangely stiff in my mouth. "What brought this about, so suddenly…?"

"Look, it's not like I'm spying on you, or what you do in your spare time," Vera told me, her cheeks taking on a bit of an ashamed color. "None of my business. I do try to respect your privacy and all that yadda-yadda. But it's a small town and people love to talk, you know? Nothing keeps a secret for very long."

"Which is to say...?"

"Well. You know. Aunt Mim saw you leave the Guild the other day with a B-ranker in tow. Said you were getting along like a house on fire too. Nothing criminal about that, of course! It happens. That's life for you. The most natural thing in the world, you could say. I'm not angry or anything—Why would I be? But these are the terms. As long as it stays out of the house, that's fine by me. But if it gets more serious than that, I'm going to have blow the whistle. So, yeah. Sorry about this, Lu."

Of course.

I understand.

I'll be careful.

I'll see it won't come to that.

Had it been the me from this spring, I might perhaps have answered thus, and the subject would have been done and over with.

Something to joke about in another week. I might even have shared Mr Matthias's tale and asked for Vera's opinion on it. So I should've done now.

Had I been my usual self. Had I been simply an imperial maid. Had I been a committed D-rank adventurer.

I made an effort to say so too, but, mysteriously, found that I couldn't. No sound would come out. My cords refused to cooperate. Vocabulary declined sales.

Blood hummed loudly in my ears. Swelling. The kitchen swayed in my vision, like I'd had one too many of Master Vivian's experimental potions. Why?

Before I knew it, a most mystifying change had taken place since spring—not in the world around me, but within my very own self.

In the next moment, I'd sprung up to stand, staggered, knocking my chair back with an awful clatter. So very dramatic of me.

"You...You…!" I stammered with labored breath, staring at the furian's oblivious, startled face, and struggled for words. There was of course no sensible sentence I could construct with only the pronoun "you". I was going to need something more. But what could I say? What?

Give me at least something! Anything!

"You——nincompoop!" I finally managed to deliver in a shrill, wavering cry.

I spun around in my tracks and dashed off upstairs, unable to endure the sight of her for another heartbeat, and left my landlady to sit dumbfounded in the kitchen.

"The what now…?"

I slipped into my room, slammed the door shut, and fell to sit on the floor with my back against the door, startled by my own uncontrollable reaction.

Oh, dear. This was no good. No good at all.

How could I recover from such shameful display? My dignified maid's reputation was in tatters. Ruined for all time.

What was wrong with me? It was nothing. It was nothing. But why? How...? How could she so naturally assume that I would—? Why did she think I had stayed in this house for as long as I had, this whole time, even though I could have afforded a room in the blasted Tribunal, or anywhere by now? Why did she think I did all those needless things, unasked, as if it weren't only someone else's business? Why did it frustrate me so much, above all else, when she had said it was fine? Why wasn't she angry? As if that were how things were supposed to be, like it was completely natural and expected, like we were indeed only a landlady and her occasional tenant, only disconnected strangers from different countries, who lived their own separate lives in their separate worlds, and so we would continue to be for all the remaining days of creation, despite everything that was said and done, despite every effort that was made to shake it and change it, and none of what I did was of use or meant nothing, and my thoughts and feelings never factored in anywhere. And why was it so entirely reprehensible for me to admit that this was precisely the case? I was irrational and greedy and juvenile to expect anything better when I was the one keeping secrets from this family, holding them ever at arm's length, and refusing to share myself or my past or any piece of myself with them. Though I thought I had good reasons for doing that, but they were good reasons for me and not reasons at all for them, and I was being stupid and distracted and pulled a million ways.

Give me a break.

I hardly slept at night. My thoughts ran circles around this personal disaster I'd wrought out of a fit of human weakness, and how it might be best mended. Before I knew it, the short summer night was already at an end, the sun staged its comeback among the deep highland valleys, and I was nowhere closer to a sound answer.

Thankfully, Vera didn't come to demand an explanation for my weirdness that night, but let me be. I wouldn't have known what to tell her. On the other hand, I was also a little miffed how she showed no apparent interest or initiative towards clearing the issue—but mainly only relieved. But by the time it grew lighter, the dreadful moment of having to face my landlady again at the breakfast table neared, and this began to seem extremely difficult for me. Outright unbearable. I would rather have faced ten trolls than this. I was going to have to offer an excuse of sorts, an attempt at an explanation, and feared I would again only utter more irreversible foolishness unintended and make the damage even worse.

Anything but that.

It was ill-advised to enter battle with no assurance of success, and I knew I couldn't confront this trial until I had my inner workings fully sorted out. This left only one way. I packed up my dungeon gear in silence and climbed out through the window in my room. This was not, needless to say, conduct fit for an imperial maid, but no one was there to see at this hour. And then I stood in the strip of parched grass between the wall and the fence separating the neighbor's yard and bid a brief farewell to the residence I'd come to call home.