The End of Spring, The Beginning of Spring (Prologue - Complete)
If you asked most people which season was the finest for living, they would choose spring.
The warm sunlight that thaws those who have endured winter’s chill, and the multicolored vitality blooming across the meadows, grant people the strength to face another year. Nestled in the gentle hours spring brings, they prepare themselves for the year ahead.
Having finished the long preparation of four seasons plus one more spring, I was ready to announce a new beginning before the brilliant colors faded and the deep greenery could fully take root.
“It’s really wonderful…♥”
When I finished preparing and looked into the mirror, a silver-haired girl in the maid uniform of House Leonhart stood reflected there.
Her sharp eyes were so catlike they could seem prim, yet her large, clear pupils left an impression more mysterious than fierce. Skin that looked as if it had never known a single blemish and alluring lips gave the girl in the mirror a bewitching charm that could captivate anyone. A cool, expressionless face suited her better than a bright smile; the rare, faint curve of her lips was lethal. In short, the most perfect maid in the world had been born into this one.
“Haa…♥︎”
I had already looked into this mirror hundreds of times since possessing the body of Mu-myeong—no, of Blanc—yet today her appearance struck me as especially beautiful.
As expected, maids are divine and invincible.
If a camera had existed, I would have taken hundreds, even thousands of pictures of this sight and papered my room with them. But machines like cameras did not yet exist in this world, so for now I had to content myself with my eyes alone.
“Blanc, I’m coming in?”
From beyond the door came the now-familiar voice of a girl. She opened the door and entered without waiting for my permission, yet I greeted her with a faint smile as she stepped into the room.
“Good morning, Young Miss.”
“What? You’re already calling me Young Miss?”
Noir von Leonhart.
Once someone I had hated, she was now the master I served—my Young Miss. She puffed out both cheeks, sulking because I had not used her name and called her Young Miss instead; yet even that form of address was a considerable concession on my part. In truth I had wanted to call her Master, but her fierce opposition had rejected that title. It was a pity, yet calling her Young Miss as a maid was still so intoxicating that I had no real complaint.
“By the way, that maid uniform suits you ridiculously well, doesn’t it?”
“I am grateful for the praise.”
“Hehe, I can give you compliments like that all day, you know?”
Nearly three weeks had already passed since I came to stay with House Leonhart. In that time the Young Miss I observed was an entirely different person from the Noir of the original work. The original Noir was a cool-type character who always maintained lofty dignity out of a sense of noble duty; the Young Miss, while appearing cool on the surface, was actually closer to a child clumsy with expressing her feelings. I did not dislike the change. If anything, it made her more endearing, so I considered it a welcome one.
Our Young Miss will never become trash who insults maids the way that vile sinner did.
Just in case, I still intended to watch her closely so she never laid a hand on the abomination known as a maid bikini—yet I could already place my trust in her. After all, a maid is a being who devotes herself to her master and offers faith in return.
An assassin is trained to do anything for the master’s command. In that process, the emotions and thoughts called a personality are shattered to pieces, and the empty spaces are filled with dependence and loyalty toward the master.
“Blanc, from now on you will live with House Leonhart.”
“Then will you both be my new masters?”
When the word “master” left Blanc’s lips, Noir and Lucius felt a deep anger rise within them. Even after being freed from that organization, this child still could not escape the bonds of a master. A tool that had lost its owner could no longer think or act on its own.
“Blanc, there is no longer any master who will bind y—”
“Ah….”
There is no master.
Noir wanted to say those words. But when she saw Blanc’s eyes lose focus and fill with despair at the mere mention that she had no master, she could not. She had once heard that a hunting dog that loses its owner loses the will to live until a new one appears. Blanc was not a dog, of course, yet she had lived a life not unlike that of a hunting hound. Was it right to tell her, out of the blue, to live freely?
Noir recalled the way Blanc’s eyes had sparkled the moment the word “master” was spoken. They had looked like the eyes of someone who had regained the will to live and hope—someone who had been saved. If they thrust freedom upon Blanc as she was now, could she lead a normal life? No. If they simply handed her freedom from the start, Blanc—who did not even understand what freedom meant—would spend her entire life in emptiness.
“Kh….”
In the end the two of them realized that what Blanc needed right now was not liberation as a tool, but a new master.
“Blanc, do you wish for us to become your masters?”
“Yes. I would be grateful if you would both become my masters.”
“Is that so.”
A life already broken beyond repair at so young an age. A girl who could not live without someone’s orders had left the organization of her own will and protected the future of House Leonhart. Then House Leonhart had to respect Blanc’s will.
“Grandfather. May I take her as my exclusive maid?”
If this child needs a master, then let us be that master. As Blanc’s masters, let us restore her broken life and help her come to understand freedom.
Noir’s gaze toward Lucius was filled with resolve. He had already noticed how dearly she held Blanc. Under a master who cherished her, Blanc would reclaim her shattered personality, and Noir would grow under Blanc’s influence.
“Very well. Do so.”
In truth, Lucius had initially considered accepting Blanc as a knight candidate. Her talent made it certain she would flourish as a knight and, in the distant future, spread her renown across the continent. Yet he could not place another sword in the hands of a girl who had already stained them with blood. If they were to establish the relationship of master and servant, they had to accept Blanc solely as a maid. In the end, praying that this choice was the right one, Lucius granted Noir’s request.
“I’m glad it seems we made the right choice.”
From the family head’s study, Lucius watched the two of them through the window. Blanc serving Noir with a faint smile, and Noir smiling brightly as she drank the tea Blanc had prepared—those sights were proof that the two of them were forming a good relationship. Who would have thought he would see Noir’s smile again like this after she had lived by killing her emotions following her father’s death? To Lucius, Blanc was no longer merely a pitiful child; she was nothing less than the benefactor who had saved his granddaughter.
Beautiful flowers blooming across the fields painted the world in loveliness, while sheep like clouds wandered the rainbow-hued meadows. Blossoms on the trees danced through the sky on the crisp breeze, and birds fluttered between the petals—the time of spring that announced a new beginning had returned.
“Blanc, I tried on the clothes you made a little while ago. How do they look?”
“Yes. They are truly beautiful.”
The third spring I welcomed with House Leonhart, and the third beginning. Over the three springs that had come and gone, the Young Miss’s immature air had vanished; she now displayed the dignified bearing and cool demeanor of a proper noble, showing aspects that closely resembled the Noir of the original work.
“Really?”
The Young Miss who used to giggle and beam at my compliments was nowhere to be seen these days. Yet I knew. Ever since we first met, her habit of hiding her true feelings and always putting on airs of lofty pride had only grown stronger. Other people called her the “Noble Lion of Leonhart,” and even the Duke himself remained unaware of her true self—yet that true self still had not changed much from the beaming, giggling little princess she had always been.
“Huhu. Of course the clothes Blanc made are very pretty, but I doubt there’s anyone else who can pull them off as well as I do.”
I knew. That arrogant little smile she wore right now was the expression she was forcing with all her might to keep her beaming face from showing. Yet as a maid, I could not simply say so. I pretended not to notice the Young Miss’s pretensions.
“Come to think of it, the Lucoda Trading Company recently obtained some excellent strawberries. Tomorrow I will prepare the strawberry parfait the Young Miss enjoys together with the chefs.”
“R-really!? If even Blanc approves, they must be delicious strawberries, right? Hehe, just thinking about it is already making my mouth—”
“Young Miss?”
“—making my mouth water thinking about how happy the other maids will be! Dorothy absolutely loves the desserts you make, after all.”
Yet watching her pretenses peel away so quickly and her true self emerge was both heartwarming and a little bittersweet.
12-year-old Blanc (AI Illustration)