The Real Shift Work

As I read through Sena's desperate confession and plea, I stroked my chin thoughtfully.

Oh ho. Would you look at this?

Sena's request aligned perfectly with the survival plan I'd drawn up earlier. Reconciliation between Carla and Lucian, followed by Carla's return as the true mistress of the house. Sena wanted it as atonement for her guilt. I wanted it for the freedom of my soul and liberation from this annoying childcare bullshit. Our motives were completely different, but the destination was the same.

Win-win, baby. Once Carla steals the mom role back, Lucian will quit breastfeeding and crawl into her arms. Then I can finally escape this goddamn ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠milking machine.

The calculations clicked into place, and a smile spread across my lips.

"Alright, alright. I'll accept the request. I was planning to do it anyway."

The moment I readily agreed, I felt the strange tension and hostility that had been constricting my body melt away. The flesh had accepted me—from intruder to collaborator.

"Now that the deal's settled, let's run one experiment."

I stood up, rolling my stiff neck as I spoke. "My soul—my mind, I mean—is so exhausted it feels like it's about to drop dead any second. While I'm out cold like you did when you knocked out the Grand Duke and carried him off like a forklift... you take control of the body and stand guard over Lucian through the night."

I wanted to test whether Sena's ego could independently control the body during the hours when I held no initiative. If it worked, I could switch my consciousness to sleep mode during all the annoying childcare and physical labor, hand the wheel to Sena, and just kick back and enjoy the easy life.

The pen scratched across the paper.

The negotiation with the body had gone smoothly. Clean and simple. I smiled in satisfaction and headed for the sofa. But right before lying down, I whipped my head around and left the most important warning.

"Hey. One condition."

"While I'm sleeping... if that horny Grand Duke bastard bursts in and fucks you, or if you get horny yourself and roll around with him..."

I drew a finger across my throat, eyes flashing wildly. "The second my soul wakes up, I'll bite my tongue and kill this whole body. For real. It'll hurt a hundred times worse than that gut punch you gave me earlier. Understand? Don't you dare misuse someone else's soul while it's sleeping."

The body stayed silent for a moment, then drew a large circle like a nod.

Only then did I throw myself onto the soft sofa. Whether because of our cooperation agreement or because the body itself had relaxed, the moment my back touched the cushions my consciousness was sucked straight down into sleep.

With the possessor's mind cut off, only the lingering instincts of the real Sena remained awake in the nursery, seizing control of the body.

Swish.

Sena's body rose from the sofa and approached the desk with silent, dance-like steps. She thought about the threats the possessor had hurled right before falling asleep. Sena picked up the pen that lay on the desk. Even though the possessor was asleep and wouldn't see this immediately, they shared one body. Sooner or later, the note would be read.

Scratch. Scratch.

In the darkness, Sena poured out the deepest fears she hadn't been able to tell the possessor onto the paper.

Sena recalled her childhood as an orphan taken in by the previous Grand Duke of the North. She remembered the warm days spent as the young Lumikan's exclusive maid and childhood friend. Those memories still held their warmth. They were precious recollections from which not a single spark of heat had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been taken.

Every day, Lumikan had looked at Sena and smiled with gentle affection. But once he became an adult and ascended to the position of Grand Duke... he should have changed. He should have let her go. He should have remained nothing more than the orphan maid who owed an enormous debt to the Grand Duke's house, and he should have loved and respected his legal wife, Lady Carla, even if the marriage had been political.

Yet Lumikan had not changed. Every night he still burrowed into Sena's embrace, looking at her with the exact same smile from their childhood. He shouldn't. As the Grand Duke responsible for the entire North, Lumikan remained unbearably childish. And he didn't even realize that this childish attachment had cruelly destroyed the madam and bound Sena herself in chains.

With trembling hands, Sena placed a period at the end of the sentence, then silently moved to the cradle and began keeping watch over baby Lucian. The long, quiet night of the North grew deeper.

"Ah, I slept like a baby."

The next morning, in the nursery of the Gestein Grand Ducal residence. I stretched on the sofa and opened my eyes. How long had it been since I woke up feeling this refreshed? My body felt lighter than it ever had during my chronic sleep-deprived days in the original world.

It was partly because Sena's body had the insane specs of a knight-captain level who didn't know fatigue, but mostly because my soul had been knocked out cold all night and received proper rest.

Let's see. I wonder if Sena handled things properly while I was out.

Humming cheerfully, I got up from the sofa. Then I casually turned my gaze.

"...Huh?"

My body—Sena's physical form—was cleaning the nursery floor. But the sight was strangely grotesque.

What the hell is this...?

Even though I had clearly opened my eyes and regained consciousness, the initiative over the body hadn't fully transferred to me yet. In other words, I was watching my own body move from a first-person observer perspective.

The problem was the movement itself.

Swoosh-scrape. Swoosh-scrape.

The motion of Sena's arm sweeping the broom across the floor was clean enough. But... the arm would move first, and the neck would follow half a beat late. The leg would step forward, and only after 0.5 seconds would the waist creak along to catch up. It looked exactly like watching a character in an online game with 500ms ping, completely buffered out.

The frames kept dropping between movements, creating an alien, grotesque motion that stuttered and jerked over and over.

Fuck, did I get lag spiked?!

It hadn't been as noticeable when moving with the delicate, slow precision required for taking care of baby Lucian. But the moment it switched to everyday tasks like cleaning or carrying things that required big, fast movements, the side effects of the soul and body failing to synchronize properly began to show blatantly.

While I was panicking and trying to assess the situation, the nursery door opened and two maids entered carrying breakfast.

"Sena, we've brought breakfast... ugh!"

The maids froze the moment they saw me sweeping the floor. Twitch. Twitch. Creeeak. Sena's body twisted its neck ninety degrees, then raised its arms like a ball-jointed doll and greeted the maids in the most grotesque way imaginable.

"...!!"

"Oh my, oh my god! What's wrong with Sena?!"

"Don't tell me His Excellency tormented her all night again... Has she lost her mind?!"

"No, her movements look straight-up undead!"

The maids trembled while holding their trays and began whispering among themselves. It was fucking mortifying. The exclusive guard of the Grand Duke of the North, a knight-captain level nanny, was jerking around like a zombie and sweeping the floor first thing in the morning. If this continued, rumors about Nanny Sena being on drugs or possessed by an evil spirit were guaranteed to spread throughout the ducal residence.

Hey! Hey! Stop that! Stop!! Give me back the controls!!

I screamed internally in desperation and poured all my will into forcibly seizing control of the body. Flash! My vision blinked once, and the horrible lagging sensation vanished completely. Soul and body fused, and I became the complete master of the flesh once more.

Haa, haa! Shit, that scared the hell out of me.

I threw the broom aside and breathed roughly. Only then did the maids standing by the door let out sighs of relief and approach.

"Sena! Are you okay? That was seriously scary just now."

"Are you sick? Your complexion looks fine, but..."

"Ah, ahaha... I just pulled something. My back's been acting up lately, so you never know when it'll suddenly hurt..."

I laughed awkwardly, trying to smooth things over. Naturally, I reached out to take the tray the maids were holding.

"Here, just give it to m—"

Crash! Clatter!

"Ah...!"

My hand missed the edge of the tray completely. The tray clattered to the floor, and the warm soup and bread spilled everywhere in a tragic mess.

"...Oh my god! Sena!!"

"Girl, what is wrong with you today? You usually move like you're flying!"

The maids cried out in shock and frantically tried to clean up the spilled food. I stared blankly down at my two hands.

I'm fucked.

The lag-like movements had disappeared and I was human again, but a much more serious problem had emerged. The hardware was Ferrari-level sports car, but the software was a complete beginner driver with a license that had been sitting in a drawer for years. The nimble, elegant movements the old Sena used to make were gone. Instead, I had become a stiff, clumsy oaf whose brain couldn't keep up with the elastic muscles.

"Ah, I'll clean it! Sorry, sorry!"

I hurriedly bent down to pick up the plates from the floor. Or rather, I tried to bend down.

Crash! Bang!

"Whoa?!"

My legs tangled. In my head the timing for a normal crouch had been perfect, but Sena's high-elasticity thigh muscles reacted before my will could, shooting forward. Instead of picking up the plate, I tripped over my own feet, slid grotesquely across the spilled soup, and ended up on the floor. With both legs spread wide. Both arms flailing in the air in a ridiculous frog position.

"......."

"......."

The maids and I stared at my pathetic state on the floor and maintained a suffocating ten-second silence. The only sound filling the nursery was the distant clatter of a silver plate that had slammed into the wall and was still spinning.

My stomach began to ache again. At that moment, the assistant nanny Meriji hurried in through the open nursery door.

"Oh dear, Sena! Look at the state of you. You've got soup all over yourself!"

"Ah, haha... my feet got tangled."

"Go wash up quickly. I'll watch the young master for a while."

At Meriji's urging, I pretended to reluctantly stand up. The soup-smelling clothes felt gross, and I also needed some alone time to get used to this glitchy body.

I left Lucian in his cradle to Meriji and quickly left the nursery. I entered Sena's private bathroom, locked the door, and stripped off the ruined maid uniform. Then I stood in front of the large steam-covered mirror.

"......."

It was the first time I faced Sena's naked body. Even just looking at her breasts had left me speechless, but the proportions of her entire figure were pure art. A smooth waistline without an ounce of fat, firm abs, and thighs like sculpted muscle compressed into perfect shape. A flawless physique.

But my shallow admiration ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lasted only a moment. My gaze locked not on the seductive figure but on the countless scars etched across her white, firm skin. Shoulders, sides, waist. Large and small sword wounds and abrasions were plastered across her like medals.

Proof that she wasn't just a nanny who warmed the Grand Duke's bed. Proof that the setting of knight-captain level physical ability wasn't just for show. It was a bloody record storing all the countless times she had crossed the line between life and death.

Among them, the scar clearly positioned below her navel carved itself deeply into my eyes.

This is...

I carefully traced the scar with my fingertips. It was deep. Horrific. It looked like it had been completely pierced by a wide blade or spear tip, rupturing internal organs. A fatal wound that would have meant instant death for an ordinary human.

She survived an injury like this?

No, who the hell had given her a wound like this? Just what exactly had Sena done for Grand Duke Lumikan? Or for the Gestein family?

The tension from these unknown settings made me swallow quietly as I stared into the eyes of the scarred woman in the mirror.