Maid Education! (Not Brainwashing)
Succeed, and it is a revolution. Fail, and it is a rebellion.
Eight years ago, a rebellion plunged the Alphas Kingdom into war.
It did not begin as a rebellion.
It began as nothing more than a protest—commoners gathering to resist a handful of corrupt nobles.
They stood at the vanguard of a new age, raising the banner of justice: that commoners, too, deserved to be treated as human beings.
The Alphas Kingdom did its best to hear them out.
This was never merely a commoners’ demonstration. The three great nations of the continent had already begun to sense, however faintly, that the sudden rise of magic engineering was drawing an era to its close.
Which nation would bid farewell to the age that was setting and take the lead into the one that was rising?
It was amid that fierce contest of nerves that the incident erupted within the kingdom. Naturally, the eyes of the continent’s entire upper crust fixed upon it, and the Alphas Kingdom moved to align itself as closely as possible with their expectations—eager to step into the new age.
Events, however, refused to follow their will.
On the day the Second Prince, under the king’s command, was to meet with the protesters’ representatives and speak with them, the First Prince—eldest son though he was, and already losing the struggle for the throne—incited a portion of the commoners who had thrown themselves into the demonstration. He inflamed their passions and sparked a full-blown riot.
The First Prince, who had been quietly building his own faction, raised the banner of the Commoner Party and declared himself the people’s champion. Drive out the current royal authority, he promised, and the moment he became king every noble would fall and the age of the commoners would begin—foolish, honeyed lies.
But in a medieval kingdom whose national education system was still woefully incomplete, how could the common folk possibly tell whether the First Prince’s words were true or false?
Mass uprisings of commoners erupted on every side, ignited by the First Prince’s agitation. Meanwhile he set his own forces in motion and dragged the chaos all the way into civil war.
Thanks to the Second Prince’s efforts, the civil war was resolved in a single year—brief by the standards of war—yet that year left the kingdom with a mortal wound. It was inevitable that Alphas would be completely eliminated from the continental race to greet the new age, and the class conflict between nobles and commoners only deepened into something that could no longer heal.
Not every commoner had been swept up in the civil war. Those who rose in rebellion were a radical minority; the great majority simply trembled in fear of a wave of madness they could not stop. The wise and the brave, moreover, stood with the Second Prince and fought to defend the kingdom as it was.
Yet the incident left certain nobles with a loathing conviction that the commoners might run wild again at any moment—and among the commoners, resentment at those noble stares only grew sharper.
“This is the current state of the kingdom you will visit next week for your practical training.”
Field training.
Each class traveled to an assigned region, learned its culture, completed designated missions, and felt the currents of the world with their own bodies. That was the field training conducted at Aegis.
Even if this year’s first-years were more dangerous than any class in living memory, so long as they were the ones who would shoulder this continent, the headmaster judged that a practical exercise in mutual understanding and the flow of the age was more important than any other lesson.
And so, despite the teachers’ protests, the headmaster forced the field training through. The faculty screamed and tried to restrain his tyranny—but what could they do? Their salaries were paid from the pockets of the headmaster and the Magic Tower.
In the end, as always, the field training proceeded exactly as the headmaster wished.
“Your training site this time is the royal capital, Prache. There you will operate in two teams of five.”
The Owl Class’s destination was the royal capital of Prache—the heart of the kingdom, and the hometown of both Jerry and Desang.
“Team assignments. Team A: Leonhart, Blanc, Oblia, Herson, Hari. Team B: Ria, Gross, Arca, Lucoda, Macadia. Team leaders will be Leonhart and Macadia. That is all.”
“Tch…”
“Hmph…”
Jerry and Desang turned to look at each other, clicked their tongues, and turned away again. They were going home as part of a class exercise, yet they seemed more irritated at the thought of touring the capital together than happy at the return.
Both of them wanted to stand up at once and demand an explanation for the grouping—but they knew Willy’s personality well enough to give it up. He had almost certainly slapped the teams together out of pure laziness. And no matter what they said, that man would only claim rearranging was too much trouble and refuse even to pretend to listen.
Barely a month had passed since enrollment. A month was more than enough time for the students of Owl Class to understand exactly what kind of man Willy was.
Field training.
An educational program of Aegis that made full use of Lyceum’s greatest advantage—its position at the center of the three kingdoms and the patronage those kingdoms extended to it. Surely no other academy on the entire continent sent its students across the world to broaden their learning the way Aegis did.
City of Gastronomy! Date Courses in the Royal Capital of Prache!
But to Noir, field training had nothing to do with Aegis’s curriculum.
It was a perfect chance to travel abroad with Blanc. Education? She could not have cared less.
The royal capital of Prache. Eight years ago the commoners’ protests had flared here and there and thrown the city into chaos, yet it was still counted among the most beautiful cities in the world.
Of course they were not going there simply to play. Still—if they finished their assignments quickly, they could surely carve out a little free time, couldn’t they?
Prache, City of Beauty.
The word “beauty” was not used for loveliness alone. Prache was one of the three great holy sites of gourmets, famous for its endless variety of food.
Strolling Prache’s evening streets with Blanc, sitting together before the city’s great fountain, sharing the ice cream that was Prache’s specialty…
If she deliberately smeared a little cream at the corner of her mouth, Blanc would surely reach out with pure, gentle fingers and wipe it away for her…
“Hehe…”
Noir loved Blanc.
Plenty of noble young ladies were close with their exclusive maids, yet the bond between Noir and Blanc could not be defined by the simple titles of mistress and maid.
They could converse with nothing but a glance. They thought of each other constantly and put each other first. How could that be nothing more than a maid and her lady?
Noir herself knew their relationship was far from ordinary. What she did not yet know was the true nature of the feeling she held for Blanc.
What should I even call what we are?
What is this feeling I have for Blanc?
Before she entered the academy, Noir had thought of Blanc as her dearest friend and family. Of course she felt this way—they understood each other as family, not merely as lady and maid.
But after enrolling, after living in the new world of the academy, Noir had begun, little by little, to recognize what her heart actually was. She still did not realize that what she felt for Blanc was romantic love rather than simple affection—but she now knew, at least, that it was no longer the feeling one held for a friend or a sister.
“Hehe… Blanc…”
The people of House Leonhart who had watched the two of them for years, and Pel as well, had a vague sense of Noir’s feelings. Noir herself, however, still needed more time before she would understand her own heart.
“Achoo.”
Hmm. Strange.
While I was cleaning the dormitory with Bokja, a sneeze suddenly escaped me.
A cold? Impossible. Someone who manages her body as perfectly as I do does not catch colds.
“A maid is the most beautiful being in this world. Even if they are not of her own blood, a maid who bestows boundless love is the most noble-hearted existence upon the earth. A maid must be a pure and lofty being who swears absolute loyalty to the one who is her master…”
“E-eeek…! A g-ghost…!”
Today I had arranged to clean the basement of Haas together with Miss Deed, who had recently become a new maid.
With the first-years’ field training about to begin, I would have to leave my post. In my absence, my precious junior Miss Deed would be responsible for the dormitory. But Haas’s basement was far too vast; anyone who did not perfectly understand its layout could easily lose their way.
So I introduced her to Miss Mist, the maid who lived in the dormitory basement.
Even now Miss Mist was earnestly reciting the magnificent and beautiful mindset of a maid. Ever since she had become a maid, proper conversation had been impossible—yet as a maid she cleaned the basement with unflagging diligence, and next to me she was the person who knew Haas’s underground best.
Surely Miss Mist would help Miss Deed clean this sprawling basement without getting lost. That was why I had introduced them.
And then Miss Deed looked at that very Miss Mist and blurted out the outrageous word “ghost”!
Yes, her appearance was rather unique—a drifting fog that wore a human face—but Miss Mist was a proper maid! Calling a fellow maid a ghost? What kind of blasphemy was that?
It seemed Miss Deed was in urgent need of education on the proper mindset of a maid.
“Bokja. Lock the door.”
Jjung!
“Wh-what? Master? What do you mean by— Wait, wait a moment, Master…! Wh-why are you coming closer… Hiiik…!”
Fufu… ♥
Nothing in the world is more delightful than teaching a brand-new maid… ♥