A Seat I Cannot Yield (3)
“…Me? An exclusive personal maid?”
The instant those words left Isabel's mouth as she answered Ethan, I was struck by a shock so visceral I nearly collapsed right there on the floor.
Isabel… Ethan's exclusive personal maid…?
Anxious possibilities came flashing through my mind all at once. The mere thought of her taking that position sent my head spinning into such a tangle of emotions that I could barely think straight.
And it wasn't just the shock of losing my place to Isabel if she became his personal maid.
It was the humiliating realization that I had never once predicted this simplest, most logical possibility in all this time — which made me feel like an absolute idiot.
Think about it. It was always the obvious outcome.
Nearly three years had passed since I became Ethan's exclusive personal maid, yet how many times had I actually behaved like one in my capacity as his private servant?
Making his bed, tidying his room? Any maid in the manor could do that — you didn't need an exclusive personal maid for it.
Accompanying him to meals and outside engagements? That was already a personal maid's duty to begin with; it wasn't something I'd done of my own initiative.
But the moment I grasped just how many reasons Ethan might have for not wanting me as his personal maid, my heart started pounding like a lunatic.
What kind of young nobleman would want as his personal maid a woman who tried to strangle him to death, who hurled curses in his ear at every opportunity?
I'd even ignored his words and acted on impulse a few times, so it wouldn't have been the least bit strange if the mere existence of Lilith had already become repulsive to him.
Don't tell me the reason he kept dodging every request to be his exclusive maid at the Academy….
If it had all been because he simply didn't want me by his side — because this was his chance to be rid of me for good — then suddenly everything made sense.
Obviously, showing up now with a suddenly diligent attitude and shamelessly shoving my face in wouldn't get me anywhere.
Ethan had apparently been grooming Isabel as his next personal maid since around the time my contract was due to end.
And you know what's even funnier?
If our positions were reversed — if I were Ethan — I'd have chosen Isabel over Lilith for the job without a second thought.
Household labor? When it came to pure competence, Isabel was probably a hundred times better at it than me.
And her personality, don't get me started. Kind and warm to everyone, compared to a selfish wretch like me who only ever looked out for herself — hers was better by a mile, work ethic aside.
Oh, but Lilith wins on looks, right? …That's even part of the official game settings, so I couldn't flatly deny it, but Isabel is cute too, so let's just call that one a draw.
And even if I did edge her out slightly in looks, that was never a qualification an exclusive personal maid needed in the first place.
In a word: the moment Isabel and I competed for the position of Ethan's exclusive personal maid, my loss was effectively one hundred percent guaranteed.
Which meant that if it came to that, I'd have to enter the Academy having handed the position over to her.
…Entering as nothing more than a minor baron's daughter, that most awkward of statuses, in the Magic Department of Luminor Academy — a place teeming with scheming and political maneuvering.
“…Could you give me a little time to think it over, Young Master Ethan?”
“Of course. Still, I'd like your answer as soon as possible.”
“Yes…”
Hidden behind the wall, my head churning with every gloomy thought imaginable, I listened as Ethan and Isabel's conversation drew to a close. Only after I was completely certain that Ethan had gone upstairs did I quietly approach Isabel, now left alone.
To beg her, somehow, to yield Ethan's personal maid position to me.
“Honestly, Young Master Ethan. No matter how you look at it, asking something like that out of nowhere without even consulting Lilith…”
“…What were you just talking about with the Young Master, Isabel?”
“GWAAAAH?! Li–Lilith?!”
My voice bursting out from behind the wall startled Isabel so badly she toppled backward.
I lunged and caught her by the arm and waist before she could land flat on her rear, and thanks to that she avoided tumbling into a half-embrace against me — barely.
“Ah, th-thank you, Lilith…”
“I asked what you talked about with the Young Master, Isabel.”
“Li–Lilith? What's gotten into you all of a sudden…?”
“Answer the question, Isabel.”
“Li–Lilith… your eyes are kind of terrifying today…”
Faced with my pointed interrogation, Isabel averted her gaze, clearly scrambling for a way to dodge.
Come to think of it, asking her this way put her in a genuinely impossible position.
A veteran maid of Isabel's caliber would never flap her heavy mouth about manor business. Keeping silent about what happened inside the household was a servant's first and foremost virtue, after all.
Which meant the only option was to corner her with questions she couldn't dodge. I could already piece together the gist of their discussion from that final exchange anyway.
“It was about the personal maid position, wasn't it, Isabel?”
“Y-you heard, Lilith…?”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Oh… I see…”
The moment I let on that I already knew, her guarded demeanor softened somewhat.
Meeting Isabel's eyes, I asked her point-blank about the proposal Ethan had just made her.
Beating around the bush wasn't really my style, and more importantly, I no longer had the mental composure for it.
“The offer the Young Master made — are you going to accept it?”
“Wh-what do you think, Lilith?”
“…Why are you asking me, Isabel?”
“W-well, because your opinion matters too, not just mine! I was planning to ask you at some point anyway…”
…Good on her, honestly. Isabel had her own sense of loyalty — instead of snapping up Ethan's personal maid offer on the spot, she'd wanted to hear out the current maid first.
If I were still the Lilith of the original game, I'd probably have brushed aside my own feelings and told her to do whatever made her happy. But sadly, this wasn't exactly a situation where I could afford to play “Good Girl Lilith.”
I laid my honest feelings bare for Isabel, who waited for my answer with a tense expression.
“Tell me honestly? No sugarcoating?”
“O-okay, honestly…”
“I want you to refuse Ethan's offer, Isabel.”
“…Huh?”
“The exclusive personal maid position the Young Master mentioned — I want you to turn it down.”
“………”
“…You asked for it straight, so I gave it to you straight.”
Apparently my request that she refuse the position came as quite a shock, because her face froze in an instant.
It wasn't exactly pleasant to watch her expression fall, but there was simply no way around it. However much I cared for Isabel, I had a place I couldn't yield to anyone either.
“I… I see… So you'd be un–uncomfortable if I became his personal maid…”
“…That's not why I'm asking you to refuse.”
“Th-then what…? Can you at least tell me why I shouldn't do it…?”
“…I'm sorry, Isabel.”
“………”
“Ethan's exclusive personal maid position is something I need. Desperately.”
“…Huh?”
Once I explained my reasons for asking her to give up the position, Isabel reacted in a strangely different way.
I couldn't tell why, but her expression — which had looked ready to burst into tears — shifted into something that read more like bewilderment.
Still, I didn't want Isabel to hate me over this, separate from keeping my place at Ethan's side, so I explained my reasons for asking her to yield as thoroughly as I could.
“I'm entering the Academy next year, Isabel.”
“Ah, yes… I heard you tell the Young Master just now…”
“Thanks to the Young Master's consideration, I'll be enrolling with noble status. Minor nobility, admittedly, but still.”
“That was also the Young Master…?”
“Do you really think the noble students at the Academy would just leave some unconnected minor baron's daughter in peace?”
“Ah… probably not…?”
“That's why I need it. The position of Ethan's exclusive personal maid. And this is something I'm confessing to you alone, Isabel — I haven't said a word of it to the Young Master.”
“Ah, uhm… but Lilith, the personal maid thing the Young Master told me—”
“Please refuse, Isabel. I know it's shameless and selfish of me to ask this, but while I'm at the Academy, I have to be Ethan's exclusive personal maid.”
“………”
Isabel rolled her eyes in obvious confusion, at a complete loss for what to say.
Going by her reaction, she was agonizing over what answer she could possibly give.
But when her reply finally came after a brief silence, it was, thank the heavens, the best news I could have asked for.
“Ethan's exclusive personal maid position… I never even considered it in the first place…”
“Re–really?!”
“Yeah. And, well, it seems like you've got some misunderstanding, Lilith, so let me just clear it up. The personal maid offer the Young Master made me is—”
“Isabel~!! You really are my best friend!”
“Hmph?! Li–Lilith?!”
Gratitude welled up in me so violently that I threw caution to the wind and crushed her into a full-body hug.
Isabel, abruptly smothered against my chest, called out my name in a flustered voice.
“Hmph…! Li–Lilith, what the Young Master said was—!”
“Thank you, Isabel! I will never, ever forget this!”
“W-wait, Lilith! Where are you going all of a sudden?!”
“So you won't have to torture yourself turning the Young Master down for no reason — I'll talk him around myself! I'm going to ask him to hire me as his personal maid at the Academy, not you!”
“No, Lilith! I'm telling you, that's been a misunderstanding from the start…!”
I decided Isabel's protests from the floor below could wait, and sprinted up the stairs toward Ethan's room.
Before the resolve in Isabel's heart could waver even a little, I absolutely had to wring a firm promise out of Ethan that he would hire me.