A Maid Has Appeared in the Dormitory!
A maid had appeared in the dormitory!
In the past, I had piled up countless stores of knowledge and experience for the sake of working at a maid café.
I mastered innumerable cooking techniques and refined them into a style all my own. I studied pharmacology and earned a pharmacist’s license. I even learned thirty-one languages so I could become a multinational maid.
While studying cuisine for a time in China, I happened to serve a meal to a retired martial master who had reached the realm of the Flower Boundary in the underworld. In gratitude, he told me where to find China’s greatest retired acupuncturist.
After that, various underground organizations came after me simply because I was that acupuncturist’s disciple—but a friend of mine wiped every last one of them out, and the whole conflict ended in a week.
Along the way I also acquired the secret recipe books those organizations had been hoarding, and at one point a secret society that had existed only as an internet urban legend even reached out to me.
None of it really had much to do with maid work, so I won’t bother going into detail—but still, through all those experiences before I ever became a maid, I managed to pick up a great many skills.
And yet, no matter how many talents I accumulated, if anyone asked me what my greatest skill was, my answer would always be the same.
Cooking.
“That’s a lie…!”
The chef in charge of Haas’s dining hall, Taspa von Legon, stared at the beef stew set before her and denied every scrap of reality.
She simply could not believe that her ten years of chef’s experience had been trampled by a little girl who looked as if she had only just turned fifteen.
“If you find it hard to believe, why not taste it for yourself?”
“Kh…! I was going to do that even without you saying so…!”
Unwilling to admit she had lost to this child, Taspa tasted the stew herself.
“Haaah…!”
And a whole new world unfolded inside her mouth.
The flavor of the beef stew exploding across her tongue seemed to race beyond her mouth and flood her entire body. Feeling a richness so intense it was as if even her clothes might burst apart, Taspa sank down where she stood.
“Nnngh… nnh…♡”
It was the first true pleasure of taste she had ever known. Her whole body trembled; her expression, drunk on bliss, refused to obey her at all.
“Do you still refuse to acknowledge my victory?”
Through tear-blurred vision, Taspa watched the girl in the maid uniform approach—tears born of pure rapture still sliding down her cheeks.
Lyceum sat at the heart of the continent, a place where the cultures of the entire world met and blended. Chefs from every nation had gathered there as well, and arguments over which country’s cook was the greatest had inevitably broken out among them.
To settle those conflicts, a unique custom had taken root among Lyceum’s chefs.
The Sacred Culinary War.
The Holy Culinary Duel.
A cooking contest held under equal conditions. That long-standing tradition remained, even now, a sacred form of combat passed down among Lyceum’s first-rate chefs.
And now Taspa had suffered a total defeat in a Holy Culinary Duel against an intruder who had suddenly stormed into her sanctuary.
The beef stew created by that maid-clad invader had shattered every effort and every scrap of pride Taspa had built over ten years.
“I… acknowledge my defeat…”
Were the tears streaming from her eyes born of the stew’s rapture—or of despair and humiliation?
By the rules of the Holy Culinary Duel, the loser had to grant the winner anything they asked, short of their life. The custom had been softened over the ages, but Taspa, overflowing with a chef’s pride, had always insisted on fighting by the original rules, calling them the true form of the duel.
Naturally, this duel too had been fought by those original rules—not the watered-down version of the modern age.
Taspa had never even imagined she might lose. Now, by those same original rules, she would have to grant the invader any demand whatsoever.
Cutting off my fingers… handing over my liver… even that would be fine. But not my kitchen knife—my very soul…!
To a chef, a kitchen knife was the soul itself. There was a famous story of a cook who, after losing a Holy Culinary Duel and having his knife taken, fell into darkness and became a dark chef. A knife was a chef’s companion of the soul, their greatest partner.
So as Taspa prepared to accept the penalty of the duel, she could only pray that the invader would not reach for her precious partner.
“There is only one thing I desire.”
Was this what a criminal felt standing before the guillotine? The pure white girl approaching her looked to Taspa like nothing so much as a black reaper with a scythe.
Ah… so this is how my soul as a chef dies.
Taspa quietly closed her eyes as the girl drew near—and realized the flavor of the beef stew still lingered in her mouth.
Ha… what an absurd dish.
It was the food of the reaper who was about to deliver her death, and yet as a “last supper” for the end of a life, there could be nothing finer anywhere in the world.
Only then could Taspa accept everything that had happened.
Having her chef’s spirit die at the hands of someone who could create food like this was no humiliation at all. It was closer to an honor—and so Taspa could find satisfaction even in her own defeat.
“The authority to use this kitchen freely whenever I wish. That is what I desire.”
What?
What did she just say…?
“Really? Really, that’s all?”
This place had once been Taspa’s sanctuary—a domain where no human she had not permitted could so much as set foot, a realm over which she reigned absolutely.
But this white girl had loosed an arrow named beef stew into the heavens and brought Taspa, who had ruled absolutely above the clouds, crashing down to earth. From that very moment, the kitchen had already become the girl’s sanctuary.
That was why Taspa did not even think of this as the price of losing a Holy Culinary Duel. Just as the land of a fallen nation passes into the hands of its conqueror, this kitchen was merely a byproduct that came along with the girl’s victory.
And yet the girl was asking only for the right to use it.
“Yes. Simply allowing me to use this kitchen is more than enough.”
The moment the girl finished speaking, the two characters for “hope” began to carve themselves once more into the eyes of Taspa, who had already resigned herself to everything.
Interpreted another way, the girl’s words meant: I will take no further compensation, and I still recognize this kitchen as Taspa’s sanctuary.
A white girl who had suddenly stormed into her sanctuary and stripped her of everything. But in Taspa’s eyes now, she was no longer an invader.
The white girl—no, the white saint—was not a reaper who had invaded this kitchen. She was a gracious benefactor who had peeled away the shell of a chef’s arrogance and allowed Taspa to be reborn, both as a cook and as a human being.
“Then I shall return later during dinner preparations.”
“Yes. Understood, Master.”
She might have been far younger than Taspa, but what did age matter when it came to learning and teaching? This girl, who had granted her enlightenment and raised her one step higher as a human being, was nothing less than a master to Taspa.
Cooking was the specialty I was best at—but the specialty I loved most was something else entirely.
Scrubbing dirty floors, polishing windows until they turned transparent so sunlight could warm a room… cleaning was the skill I loved above all others.
I pulled the broom out of Bokja’s mouth, where I had stowed it earlier.
All right. The dining hall was already in my grasp.
Now it was time to clean.
At Aegis there existed student organizations called clubs.
In the modern world, many people thought of a “club” as a place of desire where bodies pressed together, dancing wildly and venting lust—but originally the word simply meant a social circle or association.
The developers of Destiny had the bizarre conviction that it was perfectly natural for academy students in a near-modern era just beginning to see railroads—an age transitioning from medieval to early modern—to wear contemporary uniforms, and that in a Western setting “club” was more fitting than “circle.”
So at Aegis, “club” did not mean some insane den of sweat and lust. It simply meant a club or society in the ordinary sense.
And here, operating in secret in Aegis’s underbelly, was one such club.
The so-called ghost of Aegis: the Darkthorn Club.
An underground organization created by Did de Sabach, third child of a federal assassin family. To most students their existence was nothing more than a rumor circulating through the halls—but Darkthorn was a real organization, based in a certain secret room in Haas’s basement.
Only a tiny handful knew they existed. And because of their uncanny ability to walk a fine line without ever crossing it, no matter what commissions they accepted, there was never any real pretext for punishing them even if their identities came to light.
A sharp thorn existing in the shadows of the student body.
That was Darkthorn.
“Gyaaaah…!”
And yet—what in the world was this?
Kebes Lucava, a newcomer who had only recently joined Darkthorn, could not help but doubt her own eyes at the absurd scene unfolding before her.
“Uuuugh…”
“Ugh…”
“My, my. You’re still a minor, and you’ve brought an indecent magazine? I’ll be confiscating this.”
A secret corridor in Haas’s basement. Hidden even within that corridor was a room—the Darkthorn Club’s hideout.
The members had been briefing on a commission as usual, locked in an enthusiastic debate over how to handle their target, when a girl in a maid uniform—someone they had never seen before—suddenly appeared.
This was a place no outsider should ever have been able to find. So how had she gotten here?
“Hey. I don’t know how you got in, but don’t even think you’re walking out of here in one piece.”
Darkthorn had several rules. Club leader Did called them the Creed of Thorns and ordered every member to uphold them without fail. One of them was: If anyone discovers the hideout, silence them by any means necessary.
To enforce that creed, the member serving as action leader approached the unknown intruder. The rest of Darkthorn assumed the matter would be settled in moments.
“Oh my. Judging by the way you move, your shoulder muscles are terribly knotted. I’ll place some acupuncture needles to loosen them—though as a side effect, you won’t be able to use your left shoulder for a day. Please bear with that.”
“GYAAAAH!!! My arm…! My aaarm…!”
The intruder appeared behind the action leader in an instant and stabbed something into his shoulder. He clutched the pierced left shoulder and screamed in agony.
Only then did the remaining members grasp the seriousness of the situation and draw their weapons. Every one of them was a fighting prodigy who ranked near the top of the academy. They had already completed multiple commissions together; their teamwork was solid. No matter how strong this person was for dropping their action leader in one hit, they could not possibly lose.
…Or so the members of Darkthorn thought at the time.
In reality, contrary to all their pride, the Darkthorn Club’s members were reduced to truly pathetic heaps in less than ten seconds. Their conqueror then produced a broom from somewhere and began cleaning the hideout on the spot.
An overwhelming gap. The sheer skill alone was terrifying enough.
But why was this lunatic cleaning the hideout with such a blissful expression on her face?
Don’t tell me… she stormed our hideout and beat us all down just because she wanted to clean?
“Fufu, fufufu…♪”
The incomprehensible eccentricity of a monster. To an ordinary person, it was nothing but pure, unfathomable terror.
“Hmm-hmm~♪ That finishes the cleaning here as well!”
The monster had completely transformed the dilapidated basement hideout. The floors and ceilings were so clean you could almost see the sparkle with your eyes. Furniture and ornaments that had never been there before now filled the space, until the basement looked less like a cellar and more like a room in some grand mansion.
All of that change had taken place in a mere ten minutes.
“Well then, I’ll be going. I’ll be sure to visit again tomorrow, so please take care with cleanliness in the meantime.”
With those words, the unidentified monster strolled calmly out of the hideout. This was an unmaintained basement—and yet through the gap of the door the monster opened on her way out, what showed was not a dusty floor but one polished to a mirror shine, reflecting every candlestick on the walls.
Staring at their own faces mirrored in that floor, the members of Darkthorn all thought the same thing.
If they had to meet that freak again tomorrow, they might as well just quit the club.
“Um… Blanc…?”
Noir had been unpacking and resting in her room when Blanc knocked to announce that dinner was ready. Together they went down to the student dining hall.
Haas’s student cafeteria. Even as a school dining hall, it was famous as one of the five best restaurants in Lyceum—and because meals were free for students, it was extremely popular. Noir remembered reading as much in a book once.
So she had come down with considerable expectations. The moment she sat, Blanc emerged from the kitchen bearing an enormous quantity of dishes.
“Yes, milady.”
“What is all this…?”
“These are dishes I prepared specially for you, milady. I had hoped to serve you a full-course meal, but since you said course dining feels stifling, I have brought out all at once the dishes that would normally arrive in sequence. This one is Alpaz silver-wing salmon, lightly dressed with premium lemons procured from the Lucoda Trading Company…”
“N-no, that’s not what I—!”
Noir averted her eyes from Blanc, who was proudly explaining each dish one by one, and hurriedly glanced at the other students’ plates.
They were eating steak and cream soup. Those dishes, too, were of a quality fully worthy of Lyceum’s finest restaurant—but the food Blanc had set out was on another dimension entirely.
“And this steak is tenderloin from a Besrama red-horn bison that inhabits the Besrama Great Forest…”
Twelve luxurious dishes in total, arrayed upon Noir’s table. Beside them, a maid explaining each one with elegant composure, dish by dish.
Gazes poured in from every direction.
Noir read the emotions in those blatant stares fixed on her and Blanc.
Half of them said, What the hell is that guy’s deal? in sheer disbelief.
The other half said, Holy crap, that looks insanely good, in pure envy.
Noir quietly closed her eyes. The stares flooding in from all sides made her feel somehow embarrassed. On top of that, a few students wore openly sour expressions—she couldn’t even lift her head.
“Uh, Blanc…? I’m really just curious, but where did you even cook all this…? I mean, if you come to the cafeteria, isn’t the proper thing to eat the food the chefs here make…?”
“Ah, please don’t concern yourself on that point. I have already obtained permission to use the kitchen through a Holy Culinary Duel. In fact, the chef here said it was an honor simply to be allowed to watch my cooking process from the side. Now then, continuing the explanation—this salad uses the kingdom’s…”
In the end, Noir began slowly eating the food Blanc had prepared. With Blanc explaining each dish with such sparkling eyes, there was simply no way she could refuse.
“I-it’s delicious, Blanc… Thank you…”
As always, the food Blanc made was the very best.
“Hah. This is exactly why I can’t stand those high-and-mighty noble types.”
Jerry Husson of the first-year Owl Class sat eating a top-grade steak and soup she would normally never have been able to touch, staring across the hall at a classmate.
Some people were losing their minds over their first taste of high-class steak—while that classmate, apparently unsatisfied even with fare like this, was dining on an absolute luxury spread. The sheer wall of disparity made itself felt in that single detail.
On top of that, enrolling a personal maid as a fellow student looked to Jerry like nothing less than a declaration: I am superior, and I am on a different level from the rest of you.
Jerry quietly cut a piece of steak and put it in her mouth.
It was the finest food she had ever tasted in her life—and still, a bitter taste lingered on her tongue.