Don't Come Near Me!!!
Another vigorous, powerful morning!
A maid's morning must always begin early.
To rise before anyone else, finish the cleaning, and present people with an optimal space—that was a maid's sacred mission.
"Fufu, no matter how many times I clean it, this dormitory always feels delightfully new…♥"
Hahs was the dormitory of Aegis Academy, which prided itself as the finest institution on the continent, and so its sheer scale was enormous. On top of that, as a dormitory steeped in long tradition, hunting down the secret rooms hidden throughout it was a reliable source of fun.
How was it that a new space appeared every single time?
With more rooms to clean day after day, it truly was an entertaining dormitory.
"Oh, a new room."
Today's discovery was a suspicious chamber from which an eerie purple mana leaked past the door.
Jjwing!
Bokja, who had once again splendidly uncovered a secret place, diligently licked my cheek. It was something Bokja often did whenever praise was wanted.
"As expected, our Bokja is so capable!"
Jjuuuung!
So I laid Bokja on the ground and gave a thorough belly rub, and only then did Bokja, satisfied, slip back into my shadow.
So full of affection—Bokja was adorable as ever today.
"Fufu… now this is quite the filthy room…♥"
After playing with Bokja, I opened the firmly shut door, and the sticky, unpleasant mana trapped inside the room washed over me.
This one looked like it would be very rewarding to clean!
"Oh-ho, what a delectable little thing has wandered in."
But the room already had a prior guest.
Purple mist filled the chamber completely, and as I stepped inside, the mist gathered and gathered until it formed the shape of a human face.
"Are you the master of this room?"
"I am. And for the moment, I am about to become your master."
"Hm? I already have an excellent master and young lady—Noir von Leonhart."
Miss Mist pressed her face close and wore a thoroughly sly smile. An unpleasant gaze, as if appraising a person's body.
At that look, I once again realized I had committed a sin.
"Oh dear… this is rather troublesome… fufu…"
Ahh… had I enchanted someone as a maid yet again?
Even to my own eyes, I was a truly perfect maid. And so it was only natural that hopeful candidates for master would appear, wishing to make me theirs.
Haa, even being too perfect was a crime…
"I am sorry. As I am my young lady's maid, I cannot become anyone else's."
Back in the days when I had been Maria, everyone's maid—or before I had become a maid of House Leonhart—I might at least have considered such an offer.
Unfortunately, I was already a maid with a splendid master…
Miss Purple Mist's proposal had to be refused.
"Kahaha! You no longer have any choice! The moment you entered this room, your body became mine…!"
Had she been too thoroughly enchanted by my charm?
Despite my refusal, Miss Mist began to wrap herself around my body. It felt improper to describe another person's touch this way, but it was a very sticky, thoroughly unpleasant sensation.
Lyceum, as a gathering place for every kind of mage, had far more mana flowing through it than anywhere else. And that mana gathered and gathered, occasionally giving rise to bizarre incidents that shattered common sense.
In ordinary streets, the mana-absorption devices installed by the Magic Tower kept such things from happening. But at the Magic Tower itself and at Aegis Academy—Lyceum's most critical facilities, which poured out such torrents of mana that no device could process it all—these strange occurrences were surprisingly easy to find.
Buildings that had stood for a long time, especially, were so steeped in mana that they warped, and all manner of mysterious incidents took place.
Aegis entrusted the handling of such anomalies to its students in the form of commissions.
But the basement of Hahs saw so few visitors that those strange incidents simply piled up day after day.
Out of concern for student privacy, Aegis avoided interfering with Hahs as much as possible, and none of the students went out of their way to come and go through the basement to maintain it. And so the underbelly of Hahs was left neglected for a long time—until, at last, the mana brought about a transformation.
Hahs's basement had no facilities, and the entrances to its secret passages were hidden, so ordinary students would never encounter these anomalies. But there were always odd ones out.
Darkthorn, who had once made a base in a secret corridor of Hahs after it had warped, was one such oddity—and Blanc, who cleaned the academy's underground labyrinth, was an oddity among oddities, beyond all understanding.
"Kehehe, just like this, I shall invade your mind…"
Blanc had wandered this basement and discovered countless anomalies, and this room and its bizarre violet mist were one more of that kind.
The mist's name was Bros.
A strange being formed when the grudges of pitiful graduate students—trapped in the academy, unable to graduate for long years—gathered until they gained a personality of their own.
"Excuse me, there's rather a lot of dust piled up in the room—could you step out for a moment? I'll clean it right away."
Bros licked her lips as she watched Blanc take out a broom and start sweeping the floor. That pitiful yet noble-looking face, and the uncommon mana flowing through her body…
At last, the chance had come for Bros to accomplish the thing she had longed for over so many years.
Sealed in this room for a full forty years.
Dreaming of slaughtering every teacher in the academy and of a grand graduate-student rebellion, Bros had spent those forty years watching for any chance to escape.
To leave this room, a body was required. And to obtain a body, she needed a human who would become Bros's flesh.
And at last, a foolish sacrifice who knew nothing had walked right into the room!
Seize that girl's body. Escape this chamber. And succeed at the great and majestic plan—the so-called Great Escape!
Bros immediately converted her form into particles and invaded the body of Blanc, who was happily cleaning.
Where Bros raced was none other than Blanc's mental world.
Only by shattering Blanc's mental world could Bros occupy the gap and claim Blanc's body.
"Kahaha! You idiot! To calmly clean right in front of me!"
Perhaps because it was a chance gained after forty years, Bros poured everything into the charge and in an instant slipped into Blanc's mental world.
Once inside, Bros immediately fashioned a new body to act within that world—a woman with purple skin, dressed in highly revealing black leather. A temporary body usable only within the mental world.
Now all that remained was to find this world's weakness and tear it down, and Blanc's body would be hers.
"Come! Show me your mind!"
And then Bros experienced hell.
Bros was currently sitting in the palm of someone's hand.
Upon that person's palm there was an ocean and land, and there were maids.
Upon the palm, trees clad in maid uniforms grew. Upon the maid-uniformed trees, fruit named "Maid" ripened. Fully grown maids fell to the ground and wandered this world, and upon the palms of the maids thus born, new worlds were being born.
What.
What in the world was this place…!
Bros's pupils shook violently. She could never have imagined that the pitiful-looking girl's mental world would look like this.
"Ah, aah… aaaah…!"
Feeling something strange, she unthinkingly looked up at the sky—and beheld a maid in the form of the cosmos itself, wrapping around this world.
What was this supposed to be! This hellish world…!
Fufufufufu!
Fufufufufu!
Fufufufufu!
Maids glowing with sparkling light drifted through the cosmos, laughing in ways that raised every hair on her body.
Beyond the horizon where the sun should rise, it was not a sun that appeared, but a scorching-hot kachusha radiating heat.
Impossible.
That a mental world like this could exist—this was impossible…!
Bros hastily averted her eyes from this ghastly hell and decided to focus on the girl's heart-voice.
She would grasp the weakness through the heart-voice and bring this mad world down.
No matter how monstrous the shape of the mental world, there was no way the heart-voice lying deep within a human would be the same sort of thing.
A maid is the most beautiful existence in this world. Even if not of one's own blood, a maid who bestows unconditional love is the noblest of heart in all the world. A maid must be a pure being who swears absolute loyalty to their master, and a maid must give their master love without expecting anything in return. This is a fundamental principle of maidhood, and should anyone violate it, that person must be stripped of their qualifications as a maid. An apprentice maid may be clumsy, but the passion of one who never gives up and keeps striving is truly noble, and a head maid who looks upon her subordinate maids as daughters has eyes of true nobility. There is no maid in this world who is not noble. A true maid of this world must always hold the maid's creed in their heart. The first of the maid's creed is that one must always be a beautiful existence devoted to their master, and the second of the maid's creed is that one must be a maid who guides their master onto the right path. There are countless other articles of the maid's creed, but the first thing one who has become a maid must engrave upon their heart is that first creed: a maid must devote themselves to their master. As a noble being, a maid must never lower their own worth. A maid must always maintain neatness and become a proud maid who does not embarrass their master. This too is among the articles of the maid's creed. There are no restrictions of gender or age upon maids, nor should there be restrictions of race. Even if one takes a pine tree on the roadside and dresses it in a kachusha and maid uniform, it becomes a proper maid. That maid-tree then holds the duty of giving everything unstintingly for its master. And beyond that…
"Ah, aah… aaaah……!"
No.
A heart-voice was supposed to be a human's origin—the secret thoughts they wished to hide. And yet…
And yet what was this whisper that felt as if merely hearing it would contaminate the mind…!
This couldn't be a heart-voice!
Bros covered her ears and tried to flee from the devil's whisper, but no matter how she thrashed and tried not to hear, she could not escape the terrible murmur flowing past her ears.
This was bad.
If she stayed in a world like this, she would be the one who got eaten.
Bros frantically tried to escape Blanc's mental world.
But a maid born beneath her feet seized Bros by the ankle.
Maidmaidmaidmaidmaidmaidmaidmaidmaid
Maidmaidmaidmaidmaidmaidmaidmaid
Maidmaidmaidmaid
"Haa… haa… please… please…!"
Around the ankle-bound Bros, countless maids carrying maid uniforms began to approach.
Eyes filled with a single question—why have you not put on a maid uniform…
Eyes clearer than anyone's, and before them Bros felt an instinctive terror so strong she thought she might be sick.
"Stay away! Don't come near me! You monsters…!"
Seized by overwhelming fear, Bros screamed at the maids as if shrieking for her life.
Perhaps her desperate cry had worked. The countless maids closing in on Bros all stopped at once and dropped to their knees upon the ground.
"Wh-what…?"
What was this situation supposed to be now.
Young lady
Young lady
Young lady
The kneeling maids looked toward the far side of the sky and began to pray in unison.
With trembling eyes, Bros followed their gazes—and beheld it.
"Hehe, hehehe, hehehehehe…."
A black-haired giant floating beyond that sky, smiling radiantly.
Behind the black-haired girl, countless white-haired maids followed in her wake, and every maid in the places they passed dropped to their knees and raised prayers and hymns toward that girl.
"Ahh, it's hell. This place is hell…"
The black-haired girl passed by, and the kneeling maids rose again and began walking toward Bros once more.
But this time, unlike before, Bros calmly accepted the approaching maids.
In this hell where neither resistance nor escape was possible, she had simply given up on everything.
"Huh? Miss Mist?"
Strange?
She had been right beside me until a moment ago, but somewhere between finishing the cleaning, Miss Mist had vanished.
"Bokja. Do you happen to know where Miss Mist went?"
Jjung!
I asked Bokja, who had been happily cleaning alongside me, about Miss Mist's whereabouts, but Bokja only shook its head side to side.
Mm, I had wanted to show Miss Mist the room now that it was so clean…
Truly a shame.
"Well then, Bokja? Shall we go clean another place as well… huh?"
Maidmaidmaidmaidmaidmaid…
The moment I tried to leave the room, purple mana suddenly poured from my body, and the vanished Miss Mist reappeared.
Her face looked very different from the Miss Mist I had seen before cleaning.
"Miss Mist?"
Maidmaidmaid… a maid is the most beautiful existence in the world, and…
Hm? Why was Miss Mist suddenly like this?
It was true that a maid was the most beautiful existence in the world, but…
Mm? Oh…! Could it be!
"Might Miss Mist also wish to become a maid? Fufu, you should have said so sooner. I'll make you into a maid right this moment♥"
Hic, hiiiik…! Hiiiiik…!
Bokja and I closed the door we had opened to leave, and approached Miss Mist, who was trembling in the corner of the room.
Mm… she may not have a body, but I was certain Miss Mist could become a splendid maid as well.
After all, when it came to becoming a maid, a body was only a minor detail.
Fufu… wonderful…♥