To the Academy (2)
Carrying one coachman and three passengers, the carriage pressed on toward the Academy, wrapped in a rather warm and cheerful atmosphere.
Perhaps because we had already made this round trip once a week ago, the scenery felt reasonably familiar by now.
Come to think of it, the road itself might have grown familiar to me long before that. After all, whenever I returned to the Academy while playing Luminor Academy, this was a route I traveled often.
…Though even that memory was already several years old now, slowly blurring at the edges.
Well, the fact that I had grown this used to the atmosphere of the world wasn't a bad thing at all. The world I would have to live in for far longer to come wasn't the Korea of my past—it was the present-day Argentia Empire.
The carriage rolled forward, brushing past scenery thick with the fresh air of early spring, while Isabel, unable to hide an excitement unlike her usual self, kept chattering at me in high spirits.
"Lilith, Lilith! This is the first time I've ever ridden a carriage this far!"
"Really?"
"Yeah! I've come and gone to the villages in the Blackwood Territory plenty of times for work, but this is the first time I've ever traveled this far in a carriage."
Well, with a life lived entirely within the Blackwood Territory, it was no wonder Isabel was so worked up.
I deliberately didn't ask about her hometown or the parents she'd presumably once lived with. That was common courtesy among maids, after all.
In this world, room-and-board maids serving in a noble's house had, in most cases, been cut off from their hometowns and families for one reason or another.
There was no need to pry into facts that would more likely than not leave a sour taste in the mouth. Isabel probably had no desire to hear that my own father had sold me off as a debt maid over gambling losses, either.
Lifting the mood with pleasant talk about what lay right before our eyes was, all things considered, the far better choice.
"You'll probably be even more amazed when we actually arrive. The Isle of Knowledge, where the Academy sits, is a stretch of land in the middle of an enormous lake, connected to the mainland by a fantastically long bridge."
"An island in the middle of a lake… It must be so pretty…"
"It is pretty. On a clear day, the sky reflects on the lake so perfectly that the island looks like it's floating in the sky itself."
"Woooow…"
The moment I finished my brief explanation of our destination, Isabel's eyes began to sparkle with pure curiosity.
There had been a fair bit of back-and-forth at first over whether she would accompany me to the Academy as my personal maid, but looking back now, bringing her along had absolutely been the right call.
After all, as long as I had Isabel with me, I doubted I'd be bored or glum at any point during my time at the Academy.
Isabel's positive energy really did have a peculiar charm that radiated outward to everyone around her.
"So even a maid who's usually stone-faced laughs quite a lot when she's with a friend."
"…Was I being noisy, Young Master Ethan?"
"No, not at all. It's just nice to see a maid enjoying herself. You don't usually show a smile like that."
"…Do you think so?"
"Yeah. I do."
Though, lately, with all the good news piling up, I suppose I had been smiling more often than not.
Now that I thought about it, most of my laughter in this world had come from talking with Isabel or Katharina.
Otherwise, it had been nothing more than the occasional evil little cackle alone in my room on special days—like the day I leveled up, or the day I was granted the noble rank of a baronet.
Aside from the fake smile I'd worn at our very first meeting, this was probably the first time I'd ever shown Ethan a genuinely happy expression.
…Though I'd certainly shown him far more embarrassing expressions than smiling ones by now.
"Would it be better if I smiled more often?"
"Huh?"
"You said it's nice to see me enjoying myself. If it's necessary, then from now on I'll make a point of carrying out my duties with a smiling expression as much as possible."
"N-No, there's no need to go that far…! You're perfect as you are, so just stay the way you are."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. So don't force yourself to manage your expressions on my account. …I want to be the one who puts that smile on my maid's face myself."
"I beg your pardon?"
"…Never mind. Nothing."
…Lame.
Should I just be grateful that he'd never once made demands about my expression management the way someone else once had?
Come to think of it, Hydam, in the game Luminor Academy, had constantly forced his personal maid Lilith to wear a smile. All so that she would look fine on the surface, letting him hide the fact that he was abusing her.
Even in this trivial little exchange of everyday conversation, this was the moment the stark difference between Hydam and Ethan became unmistakable.
Well, spending four years at the same Academy as an Ethan like this might not be so bad at all.
…No, honestly, thinking about it seriously, it might actually be rather fun.
"Mm-hmm~."
"Isabel?"
"Yes?"
"…Why are you suddenly looking at me with that weird smile?"
"Hm? When have I ever~?"
"…You're doing it right now."
"It's nothing at all, heehee."
…Why on earth is Isabel suddenly trading that strange look back and forth between me and Ethan?
Come to think of it, Isabel too had changed a little compared to her in-game counterpart.
The simplest example: the Isabel of the game always wore a troubled, brooding expression, as if her head were perpetually full of worries.
And every so often, in cutscenes, after Ethan and Lilith passed by in front of her, she would stare after their backs with eyes that were genuinely, chillingly cold.
Nothing like the oddly dreamy little smile she wore now.
Well, no matter how much Isabel's personality might have shifted, there was no way she'd changed as much as Ethan had.
I was mulling over that thought and picking our Academy conversation back up where we'd left off when, from across the carriage, Ethan's voice quietly called out to me.
"Excuse me, maid."
""Yes?"
"Ah—no. I was calling the maid."
"Oh, my apologies."
"No, it's fine. These things happen. Just try not to mix it up next time."
Ethan offered a brief word of apology to Isabel, who had answered almost in unison with me.
Given every conversation I'd had with Ethan so far, this much was easy to infer: whenever he used the word maid, he was almost always calling for me, his personal maid.
And when he called for the other maids—Isabel or Katharina—he usually used their given names or surnames instead.
It didn't particularly bother me. After all, I was the only person Ethan ever called maid, and most of the staff at the mansion knew that full well.
I was just starting to wonder if Isabel, too worked up over the trip to the Academy, had simply made a mistake—when, for some reason, today's Isabel went ahead and added something after her apology.
"But, Young Master—do you perhaps intend to keep using that title, 'maid,' for Lilith even once we're inside the Academy?"
"…I hate to say it, but I do."
"But the Academy is an educational institution where countless nobles gather besides you and Lilith, isn't it? I'd imagine there will be plenty of other noble children there with their own personal maids…"
"…What exactly are you trying to say?"
"I'm merely offering my humble personal opinion that, within the Academy at least, it might cause fewer problems to call her by her name—Lilith—rather than 'maid.'"
"……"
"……"
Ethan fell silent for a moment under Isabel's rather bold piece of straight talk.
Apparently it was a point he had never once considered until now, because he seemed to be mulling it over with unexpected seriousness.
And the moment I heard Isabel out, I had to admit it really was an important issue.
Once inside the Academy, personal maids belonging to other nobles—and maids hired directly by the Academy itself—would be swarming the halls by the dozens.
If I kept being called nothing but maid in the middle of all that, misunderstandings were bound to crop up several times a day.
Inside the mansion, Ethan's use of maid referred to exactly one person—me—so aside from the newest hires, nobody ever got confused. But the Academy was outside the mansion walls.
It seemed we really did need to sort out what he would call me before we set foot inside.
"I must admit, Isabel's point does carry some weight."
"…Maid?"
"If only to avoid any confusion in awkward moments, you will need to call me by my name from now on, Young Master Ethan."
"……"
"Young Master?"
Ethan, told to call me by name, squirmed oddly and averted his gaze from mine.
He called every other maid by name without the slightest hesitation, so why was it only my name that reduced him to this?
His bafflingly ridiculous attitude, so utterly beyond comprehension, stirred a flicker of genuine irritation in me for some reason, and I leaned my head slyly into his averted line of sight and asked again.
"Young Master Ethan."
"Ah—um. Maid…"
"Not maid. Lilith."
"……"
"Young Master Ethan?"
"…Fine. Lilith."
I couldn't understand why simply calling someone by their first name made him react so stiff and fidgety about it.
Typical of a man to get all strangely bashful over exactly the wrong things.
"……"
"……"
Ugh, now that I was aware of it, it felt awkward on my end too.
Come to think of it, Ethan hadn't actually called me by name all that often, had he?
Aside from our little engaged-couple act during the palace attack incident a year ago, this was practically the first time.
His over-the-top reaction had needlessly made me self-conscious, and now I was trapped in this ridiculous feeling that I was the one blushing.
Deliberately avoiding eye contact with Ethan across from me, I quietly turned my gaze to the window.
"Mm-hmm~."
"…What is it now, Isabel?"
"Oh, nothing~. It's nothing at all, ooh-heehee."
What do you mean, nothing.
What is with that look, seriously.