Ah, Right — This Is an Academy Story
Ah, God of Maids.
Once again, I offer this prayer today.
This humble girl, Blanc.
Today as well, graced by the Maid God’s blessings and mercy, I am living a peaceful life as a maid.
Recently, at long last, I have gained juniors of my own.
Watching the new apprentice maids strive so earnestly, I saw the image of Dorothy-nim from her apprentice days overlapping with theirs.
These little angels must surely be the angels the Maid God sent for my sake.
Today as well, I offer my thanks for the Maid God’s grace.
Lately, thoughts of U, whom I left behind at the old castle, often come to mind.
Surely my proud junior is walking her own path of the maid… and yet I still worry whether U is growing well.
I pray that the Maid God watch over her, and that the God’s blessing rest upon U.
And always, I pray that infinite glory be upon the Young Miss… no, upon my Master.
In the name of the Ladies, the Nursery, and the Chamber, I pray. Amen.
One day in March of the year 1815 of the Theus Calendar.
It was yet another truly bright spring day.
“Blanc! Good morning!”
“Yes, good morning, Dorothy-nim.”
“Really, I told you to drop the ‘nim’ already.”
As I left the annex and headed toward the main estate for work, Dorothy-nim came running up from behind.
Ahh.
Running into Dorothy-nim first thing in the morning… what a wonderful day this already is.
Her youthful face had barely changed from three years ago, still dotted with faint freckles. Her brown hair fell to her shoulders. Among the many beauties who served as maids of Leonhart, Dorothy-nim’s looks were certainly on the plain side.
But the maid aesthetic Dorothy-nim possessed lay precisely in that liveliness and ordinariness, and so that plain face of hers was actually one of the elements that showcased her charm.
“Hehe, so noble first thing in the morning.”
Anjel-nim approached after Dorothy-nim, who was already clinging to me. She often muttered that Dorothy-nim and I looked “noble” together; I suspected Anjel-nim, too, had opened her eyes to the same school of maidology as myself.
Every time I gazed upon the maids, I drew the strength to live another day from that nobility and greatness. Surely Anjel-nim shared the same conviction. Yes. Absolutely certain of it.
There was no need to say it aloud. It was already clear.
“Hello, seniors!”
“H-hello…”
“Hellooo.”
The three new apprentice maids who had just joined us also came running over. Their lively energy first thing in the morning was so adorable it felt like looking at little Dorothys.
“Good morning, Asabella-nim.”
“Yes, good morning, Blanc.”
Having successfully completed our morning commute, the entire maid corps offered our greetings to Asabella-nim waiting in front of the estate, then each departed for our assigned areas.
Mmm…
To see so many maids first thing in the morning again today. Truly wonderful…♥︎
Ahh, may such wonderful days always continue…♥︎
“Blanc, starting next month you will attend Aegis together with Noir.”
…Huh?
Aegis Academy.
Located in the inviolable magic city of Lyceum, this vast academy was considered the continent’s most prestigious institution and a place where countless talents from every nation gathered.
In the original work it was the school attended by the protagonist and her companions, and the primary stage of Destiny.
“Blanc, this is the academy uniform that just arrived. What do you think?”
“Young Miss looks truly beautiful in anything she wears.”
“R-really? Haha…”
And beginning next month, it would also be the place Young Miss Noir would attend.
—“Blanc! Starting this year I’m going to Aegis!”
A few months earlier, when Young Miss had been so delighted about her acceptance into Aegis Academy, I had finally realized one fact I had completely forgotten.
Ah, right. This is an academy story, isn’t it?
It was rather embarrassing, but I had forgotten both that this world was the world of a game and that the game itself was an SRPG set at an academy.
Once I had become a maid, was any of that still my concern?
Rather than fretting over the original story, it was far more useful to ponder how to make the noble maids of House Leonhart shine even more beautifully.
Yet no matter how thoroughly I severed my ties with the original plot, as long as my Young Miss was Noir von Leonhart, I was inevitably going to become entangled with the academy. I simply had not realized it until now.
I was Young Miss’s exclusive maid.
Wherever Young Miss went, I had to go with her. Therefore, following her to the academy was only natural.
“I can’t believe there’s only a week left until academy enrollment. Time really flies.”
“Young Miss, not long ago you were saying time wasn’t passing quickly enough.”
“That was then. Everyone says time is relative, right? So the time I feel today and the time I felt back then are naturally different… aren’t they…?”
For some time now, Young Miss had been looking forward to enrolling with great anticipation. Of course she tried her best to hide how excited she was on the surface, but she could never fool my eyes.
Once she returned to her room she would no doubt bury her face in a pillow and squeal “Kyaaaah!”
“You’re looking forward to it too, right, Blanc?”
“Ah… yes…”
And though it was truly lamentable and sorrowful, I too would be enrolling in the academy.
I had only wanted to accompany her as a servant, yet both Young Miss and the Duke forcibly pushed for my admission.
Why such tyranny…?
Ugh. A maid from a secret organization, and now I had to put on a uniform and go to school?
The setting was getting way too over the top.
On top of that, attending the academy meant wearing a school uniform instead of a maid outfit. A maid who could not wear a maid uniform—was this some kind of test of my identity…?
After how hard I had fought to wear that maid uniform, now I had to take it off…!
But as a maid, I could not refuse my master’s request.
As a maid, Blanc’s maidology was perfection.
Rejecting Young Miss’s wish to attend the academy together would have been imperfect.
So, forcibly suppressing the urge to cry, I had no choice but to accept enrollment.
“By the way, Young Miss, if it is not too rude of me to ask… what are all those numerous bags behind you?”
“Hmm? Those? Survival camping gear, monster-repelling traps, and medicinal supplies for emergencies.”
The academy did teach real combat, so those items would eventually be useful to Young Miss. But why was she packing them for the entrance ceremony itself?
Surely the entrance ceremony consisted of nothing more than a simple academy orientation and freshman OT?
Fortunately, no matter how much luggage there was, I could store it all inside Bokja, so it was not a practical problem. Still, I was curious why she was bringing them from day one.
“Um, Young Miss. Why are you taking those things to the entrance ceremony?”
“Huh? Don’t you need that kind of stuff for an entrance ceremony?”
“Pardon?”
“According to novels… I mean, according to rumors, all sorts of incidents happen at academy entrance ceremonies.”
Hmm… was there something like that?
I did not recall anything of the sort from the entrance ceremony in the original…
“This is just common sense, isn’t it?”
Hrm. Is that so.
Is this the common sense of this world?
I had grown somewhat accustomed to this world, yet it seemed I was still an outsider from another place after all.
Logically speaking, there was no reason to need those items at an entrance ceremony right off the bat… but since Young Miss said so, my common sense must simply be wrong.
I would need to study the common sense of this world a little more carefully.
“Hmm, the academy, huh…”
Late at night.
I sat at my desk and wrote down the plot points of the original work that I could still remember in a notebook.
I had quit the game after only a year, but I still needed to review the story up to the point I had played.
The problem was that I had forgotten most of even that one year’s worth of story.
No, seriously, I cannot remember any of it—what am I supposed to do?
I could recall the rough flow and a few characters, but the finer details refused to come back!
There’s no way my memory is this bad…
In my previous life, while working at a maid café, I had remembered the names and faces of every master who visited as well as every dish they ordered. There was no way someone like me could be such an idiot that I could not remember something this simple!
Yet no matter how hard I tried, nothing surfaced.
“Ugh, an academy now of all times…”
To think I would end up entering the academy…
To think I would get involved with the original stage this late in the game…!
If I had known, I would have written everything down somewhere beforehand!
No matter how I looked at it, I had been far too careless.
From the very beginning, the fact that Young Miss was the title heroine of Destiny meant she was fated to become entangled with the academy.
And as long as Young Miss was a heroine, she would inevitably get swept up in dangerous affairs.
Once I thought of it that way, I was finally able to accept my own enrollment.
If it was for the sake of protecting Young Miss, then whether I wore a maid uniform or a school uniform no longer mattered.
“Haa… if you’re going to suddenly drift into an academy route this late, you could at least give me a status window.”
Hm? A status window?
Come to think of it, there was something like that…
Hmm… I can’t remember!