A Position I Cannot Yield (2)
Thanks to Harold's sudden summons, I hustled up to the third floor of the estate the moment I finished helping Edan get ready for his bath.
It would be my first face-to-face meeting with Harold in quite a while.
Unable to shake off the tension that never seemed to dissipate no matter how many times we met, I knocked quietly on the door of the third-floor office—three soft raps.
—Tap, tap, tap.
"...Come in."
The moment I opened the door and stepped inside, an oppressive atmosphere washed over me.
I moved quietly into the heavy, airless space that always made it hard to breathe, and this time, unusually, Harold didn't drag things out with some other task—he addressed me first, stating his business straightaway.
"I apologize for the trouble of calling you all the way here."
"...Not at all. I am Lord Edan's exclusive maid, so naturally I must answer whenever the head of House Blackwood summons me."
"And yet it seems that exclusive maid duty of yours has only about ten days left on it. Am I wrong?"
"...That is correct."
"Truthfully, even I failed to predict that you would use the reward money from the palace to pay off your father's debts. Isn't that right, Miss Lilith Rosewood?"
"...I suppose that's true."
...As I thought, I've slipped once and he's caught me.
Everything I had done at the palace had been far too flashy, which meant keeping all of it completely hidden had been essentially impossible.
Thanks to Seraphin's creative bookkeeping, the reward for slaying the King Serpent had somehow made its way to me—but because of my affiliation, it had no choice but to pass through the Blackwood family's accounts.
And Harold, who managed the lion's share of the Blackwood territory's operations, was hardly the sort of man who could fail to notice my movements.
In other words, the fact that I had used magic to slay the King Serpent had already reached his ears.
'He's never said anything about it until now, so I'd deliberately avoided bringing it up myself.'
But why on earth would he summon me here and then suddenly bring up the matter of my debt repayment?
Wasn't I summoned because of my recent work attitude? Or was that just an excuse?
"Lilith Rosewood."
"Y-yes!"
"It was thanks to you using magic to slay the King Serpent that Edan was able to pass through a moment when he might otherwise have been in grave danger."
"Oh, no, my lord. It was Her Highness Seraphin, the Third Princess, who saved Lord Edan. I merely followed the Princess's orders—"
"Hm? So you're telling me now that Princess Seraphin lied to me?"
"N-no, my lord! Absolutely not!"
"You used magic, and that is how Edan survived. Is that not so?"
"...It is."
One wrong word and I'd nearly committed the crime of slandering royalty while driving a wedge between nobles. Only barely escaping that minefield, I quietly breathed a sigh of relief inside.
So this bastard Harold won't even grant me the luxury of modesty.
"And that brings me to my point, Lilith Rosewood."
"Y-yes!"
"Might you be interested in continuing as Edan's exclusive maid even after your contract ends?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
...What is this, all of a sudden?
Harold was suddenly raising the subject of contract renewal?
And about the exclusive maid contract with Edan, no less?
"Though I initially hired you as a debt maid, it would feel rather wasteful to let your talents go at the end of this contract. That is why I ask."
"Is... is that so...?"
"Since you became Edan's exclusive maid, so very much about that boy has changed. Without you, Edan might still be going astray, longing for his mother."
"You... you honor me too much..."
"But as his father, I cannot help but worry. All the more so when I think of his enrollment at the Academy next year."
"I... I understand your concern, my lord."
"Edan will be twenty-three next year, it is true—but setting aside the years he spent asleep under the curse, he is barely past his late teens. I find myself wondering whether that boy can truly get along with the other students at the Academy, and I would like you, at least for that period, to continue supporting him. That is what I wished to say."
"......"
"What are your own thoughts on the matter? I would like to hear them."
The eligible age range for admission to Luminor Academy ran from eighteen to twenty-three.
Noble or commoner, everyone had to take a proper entrance examination and pass it, which meant that even high-ranking nobles failed out of consideration in their first or second year more often than one might think.
So in practice, the average age of a newly admitted Academy freshman was a little over nineteen.
If Edan entered the Academy next year, he would be enrolling at twenty-three—but subtracting the years he'd spent asleep under the curse, that was practically the minimum possible entry age.
Knowing the depths of Harold's love for his family, it didn't strike me as at all strange that he would worry over Edan like this.
Which was precisely why he was trying to keep me attached as the exclusive maid for as long as possible.
After all, it was an undeniable fact that I had been the one caring for Edan from childhood up to the present.
...The real question was how far ahead Harold was thinking in dangling this contract in front of me.
If I simply accepted the offer of the exclusive maid position without probing further, there was a chance it could throw my plans into disarray in some other area.
What I wanted, above all else, was to acquire the status of a quasi-baroness, enroll in the Academy's Department of Magic, and keep my position as Edan's exclusive maid all at once.
If he told me to give up the first two in order to devote myself fully to being Edan's maid, I obviously couldn't just meekly agree.
So before the conversation went any further, I needed to pin down those earlier points clearly.
"My lord, you may already be aware of this, but I have already received Lord Edan's grace and—"
"You've been provisionally granted a noble seat in the Blackwood branch family, and you intend to sit for the entrance examination to the Department of Magic at Luminor Academy. Am I wrong?"
"...That is correct."
"Then that changes nothing. So long as you are confident you can fulfill your duty as Edan's exclusive maid even as a fellow student."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Of course, if a noble daughter serves as Edan's exclusive maid, the road to marriage with any young lord other than Edan will be closed to her. That much, I trust, is for you to bear."
...What? Why is he being so cool about this?
I'd fully expected him to deflect with something like, 'Do you really think you'll have spare attention for your studies while serving as my son's exclusive maid?'
But favorable condition after favorable condition kept piling up, and instead of rejoicing, I grew suspicious.
There was no reason for Harold to show me this much goodwill for nothing.
His character was one of boundless softness toward his 'family'—his wife and children—and utter indifference and coldness toward everyone else. That was simply how he was.
Even Lilith, who had spent so long as Edan's exclusive maid, shouldn't have counted as 'family' to him.
"And as for your compensation, we'll set it at this much per month."
—Jingle.
With Harold's words, several coins dropped onto the office desk.
For an instant, the thought flashed through my mind—of course, a maid who studies on the side would get paid a few silver coins—but the moment I saw the three gold coins sitting on the desk, my brain began spinning at full speed.
"Three gold coins per month. And should you serve as Edan's exclusive maid for the full four years, I will add four more gold coins for each year of service."
...Huh?
Wait. Three gold coins a month?
Three gold coins a month—how much was that in this world?
One gold coin roughly covered a month's living expenses for a family of four, putting its value at around three million won, give or take.
Three of those a month came to nearly ten million won a month by my old world's standards.
And on top of that, a bonus of four gold coins every single year.
In other words, an annual salary of effectively forty gold coins, over four years totaling one hundred and sixty.
Even after deducting Luminor Academy's tuition, living expenses, and every other miscellaneous cost, nearly one hundred gold coins would end up in my hands. The math finished itself.
Just attending the Academy while looking after Edan meant graduating with a hundred gold coins.
Turning down this offer would be pure, unmitigated loss. What kind of idiot refuses a hundred gold coins sitting right in front of them?
It was seed capital—enough to start anything I wanted the moment I graduated!
'...Still. Calm down first.'
Think rationally, Lilith. There was no way Harold would hand me an offer this one-sided with nothing in it for himself.
This was, without a doubt, an offer with a trap hidden somewhere in it.
Maybe I'd accept obediently only to find myself bound by a lopsided contract, back to a forced debt-maid existence in all but name—or maybe he'd invoke breach of contract to hire me at a far lower rate than the one he'd just named.
Was there anything in what Harold had just said that could be reinterpreted in some other way?
Enroll at the Academy alongside Edan, serve as his exclusive maid, salary of thirty-six gold coins a year.
If I served that term well, sixteen more would be added, and judging by his invitation to enroll together, Harold would presumably guarantee my quasi-baroness status as well.
...No matter how I look at it, isn't this an absurdly sweet deal for me alone?
Being Edan's exclusive maid was something I'd wanted from the start, and here came an unexpected bonus on top of it—what reason did I even have to refuse?
'...Oh.'
Oh, right.
I'd almost let it slip my mind entirely.
My becoming Edan's exclusive maid couldn't be settled by Harold's approval alone.
No matter how much I wanted the position, if Edan himself refused, the contract—this whole conversation—would be reduced to nothing.
And Harold was the kind of man who caved the instant Edan spoke, which meant the one I had to persuade wasn't him but Edan.
For that, I had no time to spare lingering here trading words with Harold.
I needed to get back to Edan as quickly as possible and talk him into taking me on as his exclusive maid again.
If I wrapped things up here with Harold and sat back in relief, only for Edan to dissolve the contract overnight—that was a scenario I couldn't rule out.
So I first bowed my head before Harold, then gave an answer that circled around a direct commitment to persuading Edan.
"I am truly grateful for your words, my lord, but—"
"You're not about to tell me you're refusing my offer?"
"...I believe the choice of Lord Edan's exclusive maid should belong to Lord Edan himself—not to you, my lord."
"...Hm?"
"I, too, wish to continue in my role as his exclusive maid. But it seems his heart is not yet decided, so I humbly ask that you wait for Lord Edan to choose his exclusive maid of his own accord."
"...Well now, come to think of it, you're quite right."
'...Phew.'
With this, one thing had become absolutely certain: all that remained was to win Edan over.
From here on out, my only task was to thoroughly advertise my excellence as an exclusive maid—the excellence I'd shown all this time—to Edan himself.
"Edan is old enough to have some backbone now, so as you say, I cannot simply decide his exclusive maid without consulting him."
"That is so, my lord."
"Very well. I'll ask Edan about it myself later. Kindly wait until a decision is reached."
"Thank you for your consideration, my lord."
"Then you may go."
"I shall take my leave, my lord."
After bowing in farewell to Harold, I hurried out of his private office.
The moment I was out of that office, my first priority was tracking down Edan, who would presumably be finishing up his bath preparations around now.
I needed to cement his resolve as quickly as possible—before Harold called him in separately to ask about the exclusive maid position.
'Ah.'
Fortunately, I found him in the servants' waiting area on the same third floor as Harold's office, deep in conversation with someone, and I set off toward him at a brisk pace to get a firm answer about the exclusive maid position.
...Until the unidentified silhouette talking with Edan turned around and revealed the face of the person I knew best in this world.
"...my lord, Edan."
"...Yes. And so I wanted to ask you—"
'Isabel...? Why is Isabel with Edan...?'
Isabel didn't usually chat with Edan that often. What was going on?
Though I couldn't have said why, an uneasy feeling began to creep over me, and I quietly hid myself near Edan and Isabel, eavesdropping on their conversation.
And then Isabel's lips parted, and the words that came out were so unbelievable that my heart plummeted in an instant, swallowed by a shock I could barely process.
"...me, as your exclusive maid?"
'......Huh?'
...Isabel?
Why are you the one being offered that?