The Employment Negotiation (2)
The Swordsmanship Department building, second outdoor training ground.
-Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Ethan Richard Blackwood, the only son of the Duke of Blackwood.
The sound of him swinging his sword in earnest, standing in proper form during his second afternoon class, "Fundamentals of Mental Focus," echoed through the training ground alongside the whistle of the wind.
Unlike his usual dual-blade fighting style, Ethan was swinging nothing but a single two-handed sword head-on — yet he harbored no particular complaint about the lesson.
For a swordsman, mental focus was a quality that always had to be cultivated, and whether one swung a greatsword or a pair of blades in the process mattered little.
Only Nathalie, ranked third in the Swordsmanship Department and accustomed to her dual blades, was suffering somewhat through the two-plus hours of swinging and concentration drills.
Dual wielding meant each arm bore its own considerable strain, after all, so for Ethan the weight felt just right — a fine opportunity to steady his mind.
Especially lately, with Lilith's face crowding his thoughts and scrambling his head, even this simple concentration training had become something he genuinely needed.
'I-I do… a little… i-it feels good….'
A month ago, during one of their nights together, Lilith had stammered out that shy confession of her own accord.
It had been a short sentence spoken in a tiny voice, but he had heard it clearly and committed it to memory —
The fact that Lilith had told him his touch felt good.
'Your hand touching me, Young Master Ethan… i-it feels… good….'
"……!!"
-Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Had that been her own awkward way of confessing to him, in that roundabout manner only Lilith had?
Or had she simply been honest about a purely physiological reaction?
One thing was certain: of all the reactions he'd seen from her during their nights together, that one had been by far the most positive answer — and because of it, the frequency with which Lilith popped into Ethan's head had risen noticeably over the past month.
In Ethan's eyes, Lilith had always only tried to hide or conceal what she felt when his hands touched her chest; not once had she ever shown him direct favor on the matter.
She hadn't even gotten angry when his hands went beyond touching and his mouth followed — which meant, perhaps, that she was hoping he'd push further.
If things progressed from this chest-touching stage, then maybe next time….
-Smack!
"Ethan! Your ki is scattering! Focus!"
"Yes! My apologies!"
Jolted back to his senses by the practice sword smacking the back of his head, Ethan hastily shook Lilith's face out of his mind and returned to swinging, concentrating solely on the blade in his hands and the flow of his ki.
At that moment, Ethan had no idea what was unfolding around Lilith.
He didn't know that others already coveting Lilith were plenty numerous even without him, and that they had been approaching her under cover of his oblivious gaze.
A certain café in the central plaza of the Academy.
At a table that had, at some point, lost one of its three occupants, the two remaining young women sat quietly facing each other in conversation.
"Hmmm. So you've been turned down."
"……"
"Honestly, I expected as much to some degree. I merely asked to confirm it — though I never imagined you'd give 'loyalty to Prince Ethan' as your reason."
"……"
"I even left the exclusive maid position vacant just so I could keep her by my side, and in the end all I got was a firm no. It's been a while since a plan slipped out of my hands like this. I'm a little at a loss."
The golden-haired imperial princess sipped at her teacup with a wry, self-deprecating smile.
The sky-blue-haired marquis's daughter seated across from her maintained a quiet silence, merely listening.
While waiting for her escort knight — briefly excused from the table for the sake of this conversation — to return, Seraphin offered her appreciation of the tea in her cup.
"A Nilgiri base with Darjeeling and Assam blended in, is it? Quite a fine mix for something served in the Academy cafeteria…."
"…That's because of Your Highness."
"Pardon?"
"W-With enough time, I could have won her over to our side! If only Your Highness hadn't interfered!"
"Did you? Just now, you clearly said you'd intended to bring it up today."
"……"
"And even without my involvement, I doubt the outcome would have changed much. The only difference would have been whether a hesitating Miss Lizzie lost her chance a few weeks later rather than today."
Against Seraphin's cold appraisal, Lizzie could offer no further rebuttal.
She simply rinsed the bitter taste from her mouth with another quiet sip of the blended tea.
"For me, this was hardly my only chance. Getting her as my exclusive maid while she already belongs to another would have been difficult, I'll admit. …Still, had it worked out, that would have been the best outcome of all."
"…I see."
"And I suspect Miss Lizzie hasn't given up yet, either."
"…Hard to say."
"You needn't look away, you know. I can predict well enough what scheme you'll try next in your approach to Miss Lilith."
Seraphin deliberately wore a composed, graceful smile to mask her disappointment, seizing the upper hand in the conversation over Lizzie — a woman in exactly the same boat as herself.
And Lizzie, unable to fully conceal the emotions rising on her face, could only avert her eyes from the princess.
In the café where only two women freshly rejected by the same person remained, the only thing lingering in the air was the bitter coffee aroma the third had left behind.
Luke, Seraphin's escort knight, returning late from her 'walk,' tilted her head at the oddly gloomy atmosphere as she approached her mistress.
"Did something happen, Your Highness?"
"No, nothing out of the ordinary."
"I see. Only, the mood seemed somewhat gloomy, so I wondered if Your Highness had…."
"I'm merely regretful that the 'nothing out of the ordinary' is precisely what I had hoped would not happen."
"……"
"Well, meeting her today was just a probe — a rare opportunity I couldn't pass up. Since recruiting her within this semester seems difficult, I'll simply set my sights on the student council election next semester."
"…Understood."
Having confirmed that things hadn't gone well, Luke made to smooth over her mistress's mood and head back out of the café with her.
But Seraphin was already looking at her escort knight with entirely different thoughts forming in her head.
And the moment Luke registered that peculiar gaze, a quiet sense of foreboding began to kindle in her chest.
"The biggest problem now is that the exclusive maid position has fallen completely vacant and needs refilling, doesn't it."
"…Is that so, Your Highness."
"The trouble is that an exclusive maid hired from outside requires the Academy's advance approval. If we wait until next semester it's possible, but I never registered an exclusive maid position for this semester."
"……"
"There's still half a semester left, you see. What do you suppose we should do, Luke?"
"…I really couldn't say."
No — in truth, Luke knew perfectly well.
She knew exactly what order would soon issue from her mistress's opening lips.
"Luke."
"…Yes, Your Highness."
"We'll be heading into town today to have a formal Academy uniform tailored. One for a woman, fitted precisely to Luke's measurements."
"…Understood."
"Shall I request maid frills on the sleeves, like Miss Lilith's uniform? And a head-dress and lace cuffs as well…."
"……As-as yo-ou wi-ish…."
Thanks to the incident Lilith had inadvertently set in motion, Luke had found her title abruptly changed from escort knight to exclusive maid.
And without Lilith ever knowing, Luke nurtured the hostility toward her in her heart yet one notch further.
Swordsmanship Department building. The men's changing room.
Among the male students drenched in sweat after finishing their second afternoon class, Ethan — already changed from training gear back into his uniform — left the changing room a little ahead of the others.
"I'll head off first, then. See you all tomorrow."
"Ah, good work today, Prince Blackwood."
"Haha, get home safe, Prince Ethan!"
After exchanging words with the other students of the Swordsmanship Department, he strode out of the training grounds at a brisk pace.
The thought of her — who would be waiting for him right on schedule as she always did — made his steps light as feathers even after the grueling class.
The moment he passed through the men's changing room and emerged into the main hall of the Swordsmanship building, he found his exclusive maid, Lilith, waiting for him.
"Lilith."
"…Have you finished your classes, Young Master Ethan?"
"Yes, all done."
"…As I mentioned yesterday, today is the dormitory cafeteria's scheduled day off. We'll need to pick up a meal from a nearby shop on the way back. Isabel will likely be waiting for us, too."
"Right, better hurry home, then."
"……Yes."
"……?"
Unlike usual — for some reason, today her reply came a beat late.
Having watched Lilith at his side for so long, Ethan could tell at a glance that her manner was just a touch different from how she normally treated him.
A faint, uneasy feeling stirring in him, Ethan posed a careful question to his exclusive maid.
"Uh, Lilith."
"…Yes, Young Master Ethan."
"Is something troubling you? For some reason, your face seems a little clouded with worry today."
"…No, it's nothing of the sort."
"If it's not a worry, then… do you perhaps have something you want to say to me?"
"……"
"…Lilith?"
"……There is, a little, something I wish to tell you, Young Master Ethan."
At her answer, the young master of House Blackwood felt a sudden, crushing dread well up in his chest.
Something about the grave air she carried made him a little afraid — but he had no wish to avoid whatever it was Lilith wanted to tell him.
So he asked her once more, watching her hesitate.
"So, Lilith."
"…Yes, Young Master Ethan."
"This thing you want to tell me — what is it, exactly…?"
Was she, perhaps, about to say she wanted to quit as his exclusive maid?
Or that dormitory life as it was had grown inconvenient, and she meant to move to the Magic Department dormitory?
Neither possibility promised anything pleasant, and Ethan hesitated over how he ought to react if either answer came back —
But what left Lilith's lips was, instead, a reply that set his mind at ease all over again.
"Young Master Ethan."
"……Yes?"
"Please continue to favor me, going forward, as your exclusive maid."
"……Huh?"
"That was all I wished to say."
"…Ah, right. Yes. I-I look forward to working with you too, Lilith."
"Yes, Young Master Ethan."
It was not the answer he had braced himself for — and precisely because of that, the young master of House Blackwood felt relief wash over him instead.
Quietly taking in the sight of him like that, Lilith steeled her heart once more within her chest.
As she'd thought — for her, this place beside him was the one where her heart rested easiest, more than anywhere else, more than at anyone else's side.