Acupuncture Is a Maid's Basic Skill
For a maid, acupuncture is a basic skill.
A rural village somewhere in China.
It was one of those ordinary backwater towns you find all over the country — not the sort of place any traveler would ever bother visiting.
Yet into that uneventful, peaceful daily life strode a foreigner who shattered the quiet.
Long white hair. A mysterious face so androgynous it was impossible to tell the gender. At first the villagers regarded the stranger with open wariness — but the almost supernatural charm of that face made it impossible to look away.
“Please take me as your disciple.”
By the third day of the foreigner’s visit, that stranger was kneeling before a half-collapsed shack, motionless.
Nothing to drink. Nothing to eat. For three full days the foreigner held that unmoving posture, waiting only for the owner of the shack to emerge.
Why go this far?
Why has the light in those eyes still not died?
In the end, the shack’s owner yielded to that will and called the stranger inside.
“I won’t bother asking how you found me. But why push yourself this hard for an old man who has already retired from the underworld?”
“It is something my master absolutely requires.”
Ah. A master, is it.
People grow steadiest of all when they act for someone else’s sake. That “master” must have been more precious to this stranger than anything else in the world.
I don’t know who that person is — but they’ve found themselves a fine subordinate.
Won over at last, the old man of the shack smiled and held out a single needle.
“Well then. Are you prepared to receive the teachings of the world’s greatest acupuncturist?”
“Ahh…! Yes!”
From that day on, the foreigner became his disciple and spent roughly a month training under the acupuncturist.
Terrifying talent. Unbreakable will. In a mere thirty days, the disciple absorbed everything the acupuncturist had spent a lifetime researching.
“Leaving already?”
“Yes. Thank you — truly.”
“Hmph. I hope it proves useful to that master of yours.”
With those words, the acupuncturist sent off the first and last disciple of his twilight years.
Truthfully, he had wanted to stop the stranger and hear the whole story. But in their world, one never asked after another’s circumstances. That was the rule.
Go on, then. Fulfill your purpose, my only disciple…
Which is precisely why the acupuncturist never could have imagined the truth.
His disciple had learned acupuncture for nothing more than a part-time job at a maid café.
The empty training grounds gradually filled as people drifted in one by one.
At first they had come simply to train. But under the fierce fighting spirit the two combatants were radiating, no one could concentrate on practice.
“Is your rest finished?”
“Yes. You may begin whenever you like.”
The atmosphere was so charged it would not have been strange if the fight had started that very second. Even so, Meris waited for Nameless to recover. It was a scrap of respect — and of conscience — for someone who possessed conviction.
Two people who could no more coexist than mismatched gears. And yet, as one who held a belief of her own, respecting another who held a belief was as good as a fundamental virtue.
Nameless rose from the chair. The two of them walked to the center of the training grounds. The moment they moved, the other members who had been watching moved with them, and before long an arena had formed with the pair at its heart.
“Come to think of it, I never properly introduced myself. I am Yeoro’s U. Three months ago I began accompanying this journey in pursuit of the martial path.”
“I’m M. A pleasure.”
The brief greetings finished, the two of them settled into stance at the same instant, neither waiting for the other —
— and then they were running.
Strong.
U’s muscles were no mere decoration; every punch carried overwhelming destructive force.
A detonation no fist should have been able to produce.
“Kh—!”
I threw myself back and slipped the blow, but the floor exploded under the impact and a shard of stone grazed my cheek. Still, the flood of debris became an opportunity of my own. Every shadow cast by the flying fragments sharpened into a spear and lanced toward U.
“No matter how many times you try it, it’s useless!”
Shadow spears from every direction. Yet U didn’t even raise a guard — she simply tanked every last one of them.
“No magic in this world can pierce highly trained muscle!”
What kind of absurd claim is that…!
I was so flabbergasted I almost lost my composure — but sure enough, just as U said, none of my magic was punching through those muscles. U hadn’t managed to land a decisive wound on me either, yet if this dragged on, my defeat was only a matter of time.
“Haa… haa…”
U’s weakness was clear enough. A fighting style that relied entirely on muscle. Slow reactions. No real technique to speak of. Against someone who wielded shadows the way I did, it was a pure elemental mismatch. U’s movements were so telegraphed that my shadows never once got caught.
But my weaknesses were just as plain. The overwhelming talent carried by Nameless’s body and the power of the shadow arts were certainly formidable — and yet Nameless’s body was far too young. Strength and stamina both lagged hopelessly behind U’s. Speed was the one thing I could still contest, thanks to the shadow arts, and that was about it. I had no single decisive strength that covered those gaps.
U, on the other hand, did. That overwhelming musculature covered every flaw. U’s muscles were both the strongest spear and the strongest shield. No matter how well I dodged the spear, I could not pierce the shield — and the sense of that muscle slowly choking the life out of me was suffocating.
“Hahaha! Overwhelming muscle! Muscle alone is the truth of this world!”
Hoo…
Calm down. The more impatient I get, the narrower my vision becomes. U’s muscles cannot truly be invincible. If that kind of absolute power existed, the original story would never have left it unmentioned. Even if I only played the game for a year before dropping it, I still kept up with the news now and then. I knew that among Yeoro’s executive cadre — the Numbers — U had never been a member.
“Pure muscle is invincible! Now admit your defeat!”
“No. Not yet.”
Damn it.
There has to be a weakness. Some fatal flaw that kept her from becoming an executive even with a body like that…
…Hm?
What did she just say?
Pure muscle?
Wait. Don’t tell me…!
My tunnel vision snapped wide open. The fog that had been clouding my eyes burned away, and a clear light led me straight to the answer.
“Ha. I can’t believe I missed this.”
Even I found the mistake ridiculous. I only figured it out now? The body might still be Nameless’s, but the contents had changed — and even I seemed to have forgotten that.
“U! I have a proposal.”
“Hm? What is it? If you’re trying to call off the match at this point—”
“No. Let’s make a wager. If you win, I’ll train my muscles just like you. But if I win, you will become a maid of this castle.”
U’s face went blank for a moment at the sheer audacity of it — then she snorted and accepted. That overwhelming bulk would be a burden, true enough, but that overwhelming stamina was far too valuable a maid prospect to let slip away.
“Heeh.”
Among the spectators ringing the training grounds, Yeoro’s Number Eight — Eight — watched the spar with interest.
U’s overwhelming musculature was nothing new to her, so U’s performance itself was no surprise. M’s fighting style, however, was interesting enough even if it didn’t quite rise to the level of shock.
Shadow arts. That has real value.
But only interesting. If it still couldn’t pierce U’s muscle, the limit was obvious. Factor in M’s youth and the fact that even inside Yeoro very few people could punch through U’s body, and it still wasn’t enough.
And yet Eight could not take her eyes off M.
The atmosphere changed. Did something click?
“U! I have a proposal.”
“Hm? What is it? If you’re trying to call off the match at this point—”
“No. Let’s make a wager. If you win, I’ll train my muscles just like you. But if I win — you will become a maid of this castle.”
“Fufu.”
At M’s brazen offer, the murmur among the spectators swelled. To throw a wager like that while so clearly on the back foot — and to tell U to become a maid — anyone could see it for what it was: an open humiliation.
But the momentum had definitely shifted. The eyes visible through the white mask, which moments earlier had been heavy with exhaustion, now burned with fighting spirit.
What are you thinking, M?
Do you know this? No matter how tough a human being may be, there is always a limit.
The human body has countless pressure points linking muscle to muscle.
And no matter how strong the person, those points can never be trained.
Bodies differ. Physical traits differ. But acupuncture does not discriminate. Finding the gap between muscles with a slender needle and driving it through — that was the fundamental stance of the acupuncture my master taught me.
But this was a world where the inexplicable force called mana existed. I had never even considered that a thin needle could pierce a body clad in magic.
But U said it herself — pure muscle.
Just as she’d claimed, I had not sensed so much as a trace of mana from her. Because I had only just awakened to this new sense of mana, I had failed to notice the opening until now.
So she really pulled off all of that with nothing but pure muscle?
For an instant I felt an indescribable madness radiating from U. But if it was pure flesh after all — then the gaps in the muscle still had to exist!
“Gahahaha! Come on, then! Join the world of muscle!”
Once again U charged me with a huge, sweeping motion. Anyone could see the openings in that form — but she was trusting those muscles and nothing else.
“Ngh!”
I slipped into the shadows and dodged the attack the way I always had. This time, though, I deliberately refused to open the distance. At that range I could avoid the fist itself, but not the aftershock.
Shrapnel buried itself in my body. Tiny pains stacked and fused into one enormous agony — but I could still endure this much.
“An opening.”
Weathering the storm of debris, I dove into U’s shadow before she could reset her stance. Shadow gathered in my hand.
The gaps in muscle are extremely narrow; an ordinary blade cannot force them. What I needed was not a sharp sword — only a single thin needle.
“What is that needle supposed to be?! You think that scrap can pierce my muscle?!”
“Oh dear. It’s already through.”
Once I closed to needle range, nothing in the world could stop my acupuncture.
One who has become a maid must never keep a master waiting. Swift. Precise. Perfect. How hard had I worked to complete an acupuncture that possessed all three?
I had once deliberately released a hundred mosquitoes into a room and pierced every last flying insect with a needle. Even U would not be able to dodge the needles that had survived that training.
Before U could even react to my approach, I drove shadow-needles into three points on her left arm.
For a while, that arm would not be moving.
“Kh…!”
But she was a member of Yeoro after all. Even with her left arm suddenly dead, U did not panic; she answered with cold composure. A powerful stomp drove into the earth — a mere footwork technique, and yet the shockwave that followed was anything but simple!
Too late to dodge…!
“Nngh…!”
A mad storm of pain tore through my entire body. But in that same instant I managed to plant a needle in U’s left leg as well.
“Haa… haa…”
“Urgh…”
I was deeply wounded all over. Yesterday’s injuries had reopened; blood ran freely down my body. To anyone watching, I must have looked utterly wrecked.
And yet the giant of overwhelming muscle lost her balance and toppled to the floor. U tried desperately to stand on one leg — but before she could, I drove a needle into the remaining one as well.
“My… victory…”
“D… damn…!”
A fair amount of time had passed since the duel ended.
I had staggered through the cheering crowd, collapsed, and eventually opened my eyes in the emergency ward.
“I acknowledge my defeat. Your conviction proved firmer than mine.”
The moment U could move again, she came straight to me and bowed her head. I had fretted a little that she might refuse to admit it even after all that — but apparently she was not quite that shameless.
“So. Do you understand M’s meaning now?”
“Yes. This world is survival of the fittest. The loser must follow the winner’s theory. My Muscle Soul has been defeated by your Maid Soul. From now on, M stands for Maid.”
“Yes. That is all I needed. If you have grasped the greatness of maids, I have nothing more to say.”
And so U came to acknowledge my Maid Soul. The next day, to see the wager through, I went personally to U’s room.
“There. As promised, from this moment on you are a maid of this castle.”
“Hold on, M. I lost the wager, that’s certain. But a maid uniform on me is never going to—”
“No. For a maid, petty walls like gender or age are irrelevant. Body size is the same.”
“Still, a man is obviously a prob—”
“It. Is. Not.”
“R-right. Not a problem, then.”
Hmm. Even so, finding a maid uniform that fit that size would be difficult. And for cleaning work, that bulk would only get in the way.
“U. You agree now that my maid ideals stand above your muscle, yes?”
“Yes. As of yesterday, I have acknowledged that maids are greater than my muscles.”
“Then accept this as well.”
“W-wait…!”
Just as I had the day before, I formed a needle in my hand and stepped toward U. Perhaps she was remembering the duel; her voice rose in fear — but as the loser she had no right of refusal, and she did not actually try to stop my needle.
Th-that place…!
Nngh…!
N-no…!
An hour passed.
It had been a grueling operation, but looking at the result standing in front of me, I felt deeply satisfied.
“W-what is this…?”
The muscle monster over two meters tall was gone. What stood before my eyes was a glamorous woman of about one hundred seventy centimeters.
“How did you even—?!”
“I pressed the pressure points for Muscle Compression. For a maid, it’s a basic technique.”
Our café had often welcomed customers involved in athletics. And the female masters who worked in that world would sometimes confide their worries about looking unattractive because of the excess muscle on their bodies. The unique acupuncture I developed for those masters’ sake. For a time our café had been packed with customers who wanted the treatment — until the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons sued us for illegal procedures, and we had been forced to stop.
“There. Now all that remains is for you to become an excellent maid.”
Ahh, Maid Goddess…
I have made one more into a maid…
Truly, truly magnificent…♥︎
But was it just my imagination?
For some reason, U’s eyes were trembling as if she were staring at some terrifying monster.
Ah — not fear. She must have been trembling with joy at the chance to become a maid, right?
Mmm… yes. Almost certainly the latter.
And so a year passed.