An Unexpected Outing (1)
About a week had passed since I returned to the Blackwood territory with Ethan.
Those seven days could best be described as leisurely — day after day of calm, unhurried routine. After all, Ethan's personal maid duties at the estate weren't any heavier than they'd been at the Academy, and I'd actually been doing this kind of work far longer than my Academy service, so I was that much more comfortable with it.
Granted, trailing at Ethan's side all day long to assist him meant my personal time had all but evaporated.
"Lilith...?"
"Ah, yes. If there is any matter in which you require my assistance, please don't hesitate to call upon me."
"No, that's not why I called. I was just wondering — aren't you bored, sitting there like that?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You've been glued to my side every day since we got back to the mansion, and lately I'm stuck in Father's office all day long."
…….
Saying I wasn't bored at all would, of course, be a flat-out lie.
Ethan was buried in deputizing for Harold's duties, burning eight hours a day on work, and though we shared the same room, our conversations amounted to a word or two an hour.
So in that sense, Ethan asking whether I wasn't bored wasn't exactly incomprehensible — though it wasn't as if I was struggling to bear it, either.
Reading the magic tomes stored in the Blackwood mansion's warehouse, or passing the time with a bit of knitting, was more than enough to fill the hours.
"There's no need to worry, Young Master Ethan. As your exclusive maid, where else would I go if not at your side?"
"You could rest for a while on your own, or go on a little holiday stroll with Isabel or Katharina. You're not a debt maid anymore, Lilith — you're free to come and go from the estate as you please."
"I can rest quite sufficiently right here, and I already spend plenty of time with Isabel and Katharina outside working hours. But thank you."
"Well... if you say so."
And yet Ethan kept glancing my way, studying me with a strangely anxious look in his eyes.
The moment I caught that odd, searching gaze, a thought suddenly surfaced in my head — had I been misunderstanding something all this time?
Is my presence in the same room bothering him?
Come to think of it, with the way Ethan had been growing more and more like Harold lately, it was entirely possible.
Harold was famously the sort who wouldn't even keep a personal maid around because he found anyone nearby a nuisance — I should have anticipated that his son might have inherited that temperament.
Great. I'd spent days being a clueless annoyance for nothing.
"I apologize, Young Master Ethan. I failed to grasp the true meaning behind your words."
"Huh? True meaning...?"
"You're the type who finds the presence of others distracting while you work, aren't you? I'll withdraw so as not to disturb you further — please call for me whenever you need me."
"Huh? N-no, that's not it! It's not that having you around bothers me or anything!"
"There's no need to spare my feelings, Young Master Ethan. I'll step out for a while so I won't be in your way. Please summon me again if the need arises."
…….
One moment he was delicately hinting that sharing a room with me was uncomfortable, and the instant I offered to withdraw, he was flustered instead.
I waited a beat, wondering if he had more to say, when he abruptly drained his teacup in one go and thrust it toward me.
"Lilith, I've finished my tea. Could you go to the dining room and fetch a fresh pot?"
"...Yes?"
"Ah, and on your way, deliver these letters to Dietmeier, would you? You're the only one I can trust with them."
"Of course, Young Master."
"Honestly, having you always at my side is such a relief. If I were alone, I'd have worn myself out running in and out of the office for every little errand."
"You flatter me with the obvious, Young Master."
"Come to think of it, I'd rather just have you stay by my side. After you've made your deliveries, wait for me in the office like before... just as you have been."
"...Understood. If my help is truly indispensable to you, Young Master Ethan, then I suppose I have no choice."
"Right. I really do need you, so keep waiting in the office. I'm counting on you."
"Naturally, that is what I shall do, Young Master Ethan."
Good grief. So in the end he was going to say he needed me after all — then why put on that whole act about my presence being a nuisance?
Shaking my head at what a poor excuse for an honest man he was, I left Ethan's office with a teacup in one hand and a stack of letters in the other.
See? He can't do without me after all.
It was that very evening that Harold returned to the Blackwood mansion.
The moment he'd wrapped up his backlog of work at the Academy, he'd ridden home, arriving at the estate on horseback in full regalia.
Unlike Ethan, he was apparently one of those characters with access to personal mounts, so he didn't bother with a carriage for the journey.
Well, the distance from the Isle of Knowledge was such that a carriage took nearly a full day and night of nonstop travel, whereas personal riding could cut the journey by a good sixty to seventy percent.
So it was only last night that Harold — who had ridden half the day from Luminor Academy — arrived back at Blackwood.
And naturally, the workaholic planted himself at his office desk the instant he walked through the door, which meant Ethan's stint as acting head of the house came to a close after exactly one week.
...Which left me, who had been spending my days in the office alongside Ethan, suddenly without any tasks to occupy me — hence waiting in my own room like this.
I really am completely free of duties now.
Truthfully, if I'd put my mind to it, I could have gotten Ethan's permission to go out and hunt monsters in the hills behind the estate — something that would at least contribute a little to my growth.
At minimum, that would have shown far more visible progress than reading books in my room like this.
But I didn't particularly want to obsess over leveling up at the expense of my actual duties.
For one thing, now that my level had gotten onto a proper track, the monsters in the hills behind Blackwood mansion would yield barely a thimbleful of experience.
Having leveled up recently, I was fated to grind out another thousand-plus experience points before the next level.
Which meant that leveling off the monsters behind the Blackwood estate would require hunting every single day for nearly two weeks straight.
Rather than abandon my maid duties for that, I was far better off simply staying at Ethan's side.
Besides, idling away the hours like this while reading magic tomes from the Blackwood warehouse was its own kind of help. Numbers on a status sheet weren't the only thing that mattered for surviving in this world.
It is nice to have some breathing room for once, though.
It was a mental ease I hadn't felt in ages, finally free of the Luminor Academy grind where every day was a war of competition and deadlines.
After all, the Blackwood territory itself was little more than peaceful backdrop, almost entirely disconnected from the main story except for the "Ethan Subjugation Arc."
By now, that fellow — Gehmajoshigi-gwat, or whatever his name was — was probably off participating in the main storyline with Serista and Silena.
Luminor Academy was packed with events between summer and winter breaks where the protagonist could bond with the various heroines and push the plot forward.
I was just savoring that mental ease, blissfully uninvolved with the main story's tedious events, when —
A knock came at my door, in a rhythm I could have identified by now from the sound alone.
— Tap, tap.
"...Young Master Ethan?"
"I have something to discuss. Is now a good time, Lilith?"
"Of course, Young Master. I am always on standby."
"Then come to my room for a moment. I'll be waiting inside."
"Yes, Young Master Ethan."
It wasn't mealtime yet — was he planning to head out somewhere?
— Tap, tap, tap.
"Coming in, Young Master Ethan."
"Yes, come in."
With a soft creak, the door swung open, and I stepped into Ethan's private room.
I visited every morning and evening to turn down his bed, so in a sense this room was as familiar to me as my own.
And there sat Ethan at the table, waiting for me as if he'd been anticipating my arrival all along.
"You called for me. What may I do for you?"
"First, why don't you come over here and have a seat?"
"...Yes."
What now?
If I remembered right, the conversations Ethan initiated over a table were nearly always of the fairly serious variety.
For a fleeting moment, I wondered if he was about to drag me off to some noble social gathering again, just like last time.
"Lilith, do you have anything on your schedule tomorrow or the day after?"
"No, Young Master. As your exclusive maid, I keep my schedule clear at all times as a matter of principle."
"Good."
"Are you planning to travel outside the territory?"
"Ah, yes. Father's back, so there's no more office work for me to handle, and with you so free lately, now seemed like the best time. I could go alone, but honestly, having you along works out better in every way."
...I'd run the possibility through my head, and sure enough — he was planning to disguise me as his fiancée and parade me before another noble social event.
As for the rumors of Ethan's fiancée circulating here and there, I'd long since given up on correcting them. That matter had slipped entirely out of my hands.
Thanks to Luminor Academy's characteristic closed-loop rumor amplification network, no amount of denial from me would have put a stop to it.
If Ethan — a fellow subject of the rumor and the scion of a ducal house — were to step up publicly, he could certainly stop the gossip from spreading openly. But he showed no intention whatsoever of denying the scandal swirling between us.
Presumably because it was simply too politically convenient to deny. If word ever spread that a ducal heir in his prime had no fiancée, negotiations with the nobility would inevitably become a minefield.
He'd have to face aristocrats who dangled their daughters' hands as bargaining chips in virtually every exchange, risk souring friendships by refusing engagement offers from nobles he was on good terms with, and regard every new overture of connection with double and triple suspicion.
In that sense, with me playing breakwater as his fake fiancée, this was the most freedom of movement Ethan would ever enjoy.
Which made it entirely understandable that he wanted to bring me along to another noble gathering — the point being to show that the rumors weren't mere whispers confined to the Academy.
...Well, if Ethan wanted it, I supposed I had no choice.
It wasn't as if I had any desire to play the fiancée anywhere, but it was a politically meaningful act for him, at least.
And above all, I — a woman with zero intention of ever marrying her future husband — couldn't have cared less whether I carried the label of Ethan's ex-fiancée or not.
So here, there was nothing to do but grant his request readily, as befitting his exclusive maid.
"Where are we headed, Young Master Ethan?"
"Not that far. We're going to Grainstone Village."
"Grainstone Village?"
"Yeah. It's the nearest village, so I'm planning to leave tomorrow. You know the place?"
"I do know where it is, but..."
"Hm? What's wrong, Lilith?"
"...Can one hold a noble social gathering, even in a village that small?"
"...A noble social gathering?"
"...Yes?"
"Grainstone Village has a forge run by a half-dwarf. I'm taking you there to have a new dagger made for you, Lilith?"
"......Ah."
Ah.
Ah. Aaah, aaaaagh!