Chapter 4
After buying ingredients and returning to the mansion, the head maid led me to the kitchen.
“You’re late.”
“First time.”
Tonight’s dinner was vegetable stew.
While I peeled potatoes, the head maid prepped carrots and onions and adjusted the stew’s seasoning.
When I sat at the table and faced the stew with steam rising invitingly, my heart ached.
‘How long has it been since I last had a meal this warm? And there are even proper dishes.’
But was this just for us?
“By the way, the master handles his own meals, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
Got it.
I scooped up a spoonful of stew, savored it, and swallowed.
Even I, who had lived like a beggar, was astonished by the incredible flavor spreading in my mouth.
“It’s not good.”
“It’s not good?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep that kind of comment to yourself. I’m no good at cooking anyway.”
We silently emptied our plates. For the record, this was my third plate, and the head maid watched the slave-like eating spectacle with weary eyes, never pausing.
“It’s only been a day since we met, but I’ve never seen a maid like Miss Daizy. Not to brag, but a ton of maids have come and gone from Weatherwoods Mansion. Most quit after a short time or just ran away.”
I could guess why they ran. It was awkward to respond, so I just kept moving my spoon.
“How did you end up doing this work?”
How did I end up doing it?
After escaping Queen Island with the soldiers’ help, I had one big problem: no money to survive.
My hometown and home, Queen Island, had burned long ago, and having lost my younger brother’s identity that I’d used for ten years, finding money seemed hopeless.
A woman with no connections or skills had few options.
Factories required recommendation letters to hire, and farms had off-seasons, so they weren’t steady year-round work. Shop clerks didn’t get lodging, so the only way to secure both food, shelter, and money was to become a maid.
That’s why I’d told the bespectacled interviewer that I wanted a ‘harsh employer.’
I was in a position where I had to work somewhere like that.
‘A maid.’
In the end, I thought it wasn’t a bad choice.
To begin with, I only had three years left to live, and to extend that lifespan, there was a ‘certain item’ I needed to find in this city called Midwintree.
I had no intention of saving up money for luxury, so I didn’t need more than enough to get by. I’d never even thought about it.
The head maid’s gaze softened with a hint of pity as she looked at me.
“If it’s hard to answer, you don’t have to. Who in this world doesn’t have a story? We all carry at least one in our hearts, don’t we?”
I was about to say, ‘No home, no money,’ but changed my mind and politely shut my mouth.
‘If I let on that I’m broke here, they might work me even harder like a slave.’
Better to pretend I had some dramatic backstory. They might give me less work out of pity.
Still, the dishes were my job.
The next day.
At the head maid’s command, I cleaned the mansion like a dog.
“Miss Daizy, you have great strength and stamina. Today, we’re wiping dust from the second-floor ceiling. You know that if you don’t maintain it for too long, dust builds up on the ceiling too, right?”
I’d only caught a short nap after dinner, and a new day had dawned. Was this real? It was the first time I’d experienced this since rolling through battlefields.
The day after that.
Today, I worked like an ox instead of a dog.
“A new hire will arrive tomorrow morning. The schedule will be even tighter than today, so we’re finishing up an hour early. Let’s start by cleaning the fireplaces in each room.”
After about three days, the maid work started feeling familiar.
Now it was time to look into the ‘purpose’ for coming to Midwintree, so I asked the head maid and market vendors about that ‘item.’
But the answers were predictable.
“Hmm. You mean the legacy that Dian Ket left before he died? It probably exists. Wouldn’t it be safely stored in some great noble’s treasure vault?”
“Dian Ket’s Legacy? Ah, yeah. They say such an item is hidden in this city… but it’s just a rumor, right? No one but kids believes it, miss.”
<Dian Ket’s Legacy>
Yes. I’d settled in this place, Midwintree, to find the ‘Eyeball,’ one of the five relics left by Dian Ket.
Dian Ket, the great healer who could even bring back the dead.
He’d sealed portions of his power into each relic, and the myth—not quite a myth—that gathering all five could cure any incurable disease had been passed down.
‘Whether that healing can fix a shattered soul is unknown, though.’
Dian Ket, along with the great mage Mephisto, was a being called a demigod. It was surely worth expecting. If I could find it.
And so, while searching for Dian Ket’s Legacy and doing maid work, I spent grueling days.
At midnight, as the exhausting day drew to a close.
My mind, wandering the border between reality and sleep, suddenly sharpened.
‘One.’
Someone had sneaked into the bedroom.
The footsteps, breathing, timing—they were excellent infiltration skills all around. I considered striking first to threaten, but held back for now.
Highly trained assassins usually killed themselves if they sensed a crisis where they couldn’t complete their mission. It was a nasty habit.
So, unless I waited for an opening, it would be hard to uncover the intruder’s identity.
“Wake up, maid.”
Soon, a cold blade pressed against my chin.
“Scream, and I’ll slit your throat right here. Get in quietly. If you want to live, obey the orders.”
When I calmly opened my eyes, cold blue ones glared down at me.
“From today, you’re a spy. Monitor Viscount Weatherwoods’s movements and report regularly.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you hear me say shut up? This isn’t a request—it’s an order. Obey if you want to live.”
At my question, the intruder seemed briefly flustered.
“Why?”
“Guess you’re not fully awake,” he muttered, and I flicked his forehead sharply.
At the modest flick, the half-dazed intruder staggered.
Without missing that moment, I shoved my fingers into his mouth and extracted the hidden pill.
A pill blatantly wedged next to his molars, commonly known as <Merciful One Bite>.
A suicide pill favored by assassin guilds.
“Why?”
As the intruder recovered his wits fairly quickly, I stuffed a blanket into his mouth.
I pinned the man to the floor and stripped him of the hidden weapons tucked in various spots on his body, tossing them aside.
“Why?”
Needle-like long blades, sturdy daggers, mystery powder, leaf-shaped darts…
And finally, when I yanked out the emergency <Merciful One Bite> hidden in his sleeve, all fighting spirit drained from the intruder’s eyes.
Now, he had no way left to kill himself.
“Ready to answer.”
The intruder squeezed his eyes shut in despair, then opened them and nodded. I pulled the blanket from his mouth, and rough breaths followed.
With an expression of utter disbelief, he parted his lips.
“You’re no ordinary maid. Who the hell are you?”
“Answer.”
“…I just took a commission from the guild. I don’t know who placed it or why we need to monitor Viscount Weatherwoods.”
“How many times has this happened?”
“From what I heard, at least three.”
That meant at least three other maids had been threatened just like me.
The goal was singular: to monitor Viscount Weatherwoods.
“What about the previous maids?”
“…”
“Answer.”
“I don’t know. My role is just to extract a vow of obedience from the maid. I don’t get involved before or after.”
The assassin held up a small pushpin-shaped earring on his right ear.
Seeing the mystical energy emanating from it, this was clearly a magic tool.
‘It must be a magic tool for extracting vows.’
A vow was a promise backed by one’s soul.
Breaking it destroyed the soul, leading to death, which made it a forbidden magic long banned.
‘To try forcing such a horrific vow on a mere ordinary maid. And more than three times?’
Now that I thought about it, it was definitely suspicious.
Though I’d only worked one day, Weatherwoods Mansion was just a bit demanding—no worse than that. It wasn’t a hellish job that would make maids flee one after another.
We never even saw the master we served, the assigned bedroom was spacious and clean, and the daily routine strictly ran from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.
So, the maids probably hadn’t run away—they’d vanished. Not by choice, but by force.
‘But Viscount Weatherwoods isn’t even in the mansion.’
Having rolled through battlefields for ten years, sensing presences was no hard task for me.
I was certain: Viscount Weatherwoods had vacated the mansion. For quite a long time, too.
‘If they’ve sent assassins more than three times, the client has to know he’s not here.’
A mansion without its owner.
A client persistently monitoring such a place.
This mansion was suspicious in all sorts of ways.
