Motivation (1)
Ethan Richard Blackwood, the young master of House Blackwood.
The sole heir of the next generation of the Blackwood Dukedom, and a diligent young man growing day by day under the swordsmanship tutelage of his father, a Sword Master.
He also needed to prepare for the Luminor Academy entrance examination he would be taking next year, which meant that, with any contingency in mind, he ought to be devoting himself even more fervently to his sword training.
And yet, of late, Ethan Richard Blackwood had shown himself utterly incapable of focusing on his training.
It was all because of a certain someone who had thrown his mind into chaos—and a certain thing she had done to him three days prior.
The moment his concentration wavered, even for an instant, her face rose unbidden in his mind.
Her chest. And the feel of it…
THWACK!
"AAAGH!!"
Ethan had let his thoughts drift mid-duel with his father Harold—and taken a full blow straight to the crown of his head.
The crack of the impact rang across the entire training ground, startling not only Ethan but even Harold, who had swung the blade.
Training sword or not, Ethan—having left his vitals wide open without a proper guard—could only clutch his head and collapse to the floor.
"Young master?!"
"Master Ethan!"
Shocked by the utterly unforeseen turn of events, his personal maid and the head butler rushed to his side in a panic.
As the healing priest's hands soon worked over his throbbing skull, Ethan silently repented the foolish mistake he had just made.
Letting his mind wander during a bout with his father—who had carved out precious time from his day to spar with him—until his vitals were left exposed: this was among the most fatal of errors a swordsman must never commit.
Worse still, the memory that had drifted into his head was an impure one from days past, and the shame of that burned all the deeper.
"There's hesitation in your blade, Ethan."
"F-forgive me…."
"And it's only grown worse with each passing day. Three days now, with no sign of improvement."
"……"
"We'll end today's duel here. Ethan, you will remain in the training ground and drill your swings with an empty mind—one thousand… no, two thousand times before you return."
"Yes…."
Where the sword was concerned, Harold was a man who held fast to his own principles above all else, and a blade swung without focus was something not even his own son could be excused for.
And so, without a moment's hesitation, he delivered his cold verdict and returned straight to his study.
"Master Ethan, are you quite all right?"
"…It's healed now, so I'm fine."
"Please rest a little, at least until the wound has fully…"
"It doesn't matter. It's just swing drills—there's nothing to injure. …Besides, the assignment Father gave me is less a physical one than a mental exercise, I'd wager."
Sorting out this emotion that kept scrambling his thoughts.
That was the top priority for the young man currently known as Ethan Richard Blackwood.
Taming the unforgettable, overwhelming memory of what had happened with his personal maid in his own room three days ago—such was the duty the young master of Blackwood had to master.
'Can you feel it? This chest of mine—the one Isabel doesn't have, the one only I have.'
'I went to the trouble of offering my chest to you, and you're going to sit there flustered like a blushing virgin, holding your palms out?'
The vivid memory kept blooming at the forefront of his mind, and he shook his aching head, struggling to shake it free.
Born of a misunderstanding, a brief entanglement—yet the fact remained that something mildly indecent had passed between him and his personal maid, Lilith.
His thoughts circling back to that moment again and again was simply the instinct of a young man in the full bloom of youth, beyond his power to control.
That magnificent bust he faced every day, always straining to push down some strange feeling it stirred in him.
The soft skin and supple warmth he'd felt in his palm in that instant.
And the sharpness of her voice that had rung in his ears the moment his hand had moved.
As if Lilith's chest were flickering before his very eyes even now…
"Young master? How is your injury?"
"GWAAH…!"
The instant he realized that the figure flickering before him was not a figment of his imagination but Lilith herself, Ethan toppled backward with a strangled yelp.
Lilith said nothing at his reaction. She simply rose quietly to her feet.
"…You seem perfectly fine, young master."
"I-I'm sorry, Maid. You startled me."
"I know I made a rather difficult request of you that day, but you did promise me you would forget the whole affair…"
"I-I did forget! I told you, I forgot…!"
"…The very fact that you know what you were supposed to forget suggests you haven't forgotten it at all."
"……"
She was right.
Three days after the incident, Ethan still could not forget what had happened with Lilith—if anything, the memory only grew more vivid.
The human brain, after all, is an organ incapable of comprehending negation. Struggling to forget something, and trying not to think of something, are both merely acts that pile more memory and thought upon it.
And so a young man at the peak of his vigor found himself, day after day, no closer to freedom from that memory.
"I-I'll finish Father's swing drills and head back, so everyone may be excused."
"…Yes."
"Yes, sir."
"…M-Maid, you should withdraw as well. When you're beside me… I-I can't focus."
"…I'd imagine not."
"……"
Shooting him a slightly frosty look, Lilith left the training ground along with the other servants.
Ethan stared after her retreating back for a long moment before gathering himself and beginning to swing his training sword at empty air.
Desperately trying to scour that lewd, tantalizing scene from his mind through the grueling repetitions.
Having watched Ethan and Harold's sparring session yet again today, I withdrew from the training ground with the other servants, mired in a rather troubled state of mind.
For three days now, the young master of House Blackwood had taken to wandering around with a dopey expression, his mind clearly somewhere else entirely.
He'd even let his attention slip during the most important thing in his life—his sparring match with his own father. His mental discipline had completely unraveled.
And I knew better than anyone exactly what had caused it.
'Inexperienced with women or not, who knew one groping of a chest would reduce him to this?'
Seducing him with my body to reclaim my position as his personal maid had been part of the plan, sure—but I never expected it to leave this kind of lingering damage.
Worse, the whole thing had originated from my own stupid misunderstanding, so in the end it amounted to nothing more than a perverted maid offering her chest up for her own master to grope.
Looking back on it now, it was so mortifying I could die—but what unsettled me even more was Ethan's glaringly changed behavior.
Anyone could see something had shifted inside him, and he was acting on it constantly, yet his manner toward me grew more and more awkward with each passing day.
At this rate, it was only a matter of time before everyone figured out that I was the reason he'd become like this.
…Honestly, though, the solution might be simpler than I thought.
Just close my eyes, grit my teeth, and let him touch me one more time—enough to dull the intensity of that overwhelming first memory.
The reason he kept zoning out with that idiotic look on his face was simply that the stimulus had been too strong. Getting him accustomed to it would solve most of the problem.
The only catch was that I really, really didn't want to do that—which was exactly why I was agonizing over it now.
He'd already gotten one feel; that should've been the end of it. Letting him grope my chest two, three times until he got used to it? Did that sound sane to anyone?
The moment that happened, I'd effectively be sucking myself straight down the road to becoming the original game's Lilith.
And who's to say Ethan, once truly awakened to the sensations of a woman's body, wouldn't come back demanding something even worse?
What I had permitted was strictly the chest, and nothing more. If Ethan demanded any further lewdness, I had absolutely no intention of allowing it.
Plus, frankly, I had no personal desire to let him touch me again, either.
It wasn't so much that I disliked Ethan's touch—it was that strange, indescribable feeling I'd had the last time he groped me that I couldn't stand.
For one split second, when I gave myself over to that sensation, I'd felt something inexplicable—as if I might never return to being my original self.
Which left me with exactly one viable option.
Somehow redirecting Ethan's focus—currently locked onto the memory of groping my chest—somewhere, anywhere else.
Granted, replacing the memory of Lilith's chest in the head of a young man in his sexual prime wouldn't be easy. But if I wanted to resolve this situation, it simply had to be done.
If Ethan went on in this unrecovered, dazed state, there was a real chance Harold would piece together what had happened between us.
And if that happened, this would no longer be a matter of simply losing my post as personal maid. A maid who dared to seduce the master's own son could very well face severe punishment.
'Worst case, I might end up forced into an unwanted reunion with those wretched bitches at Silverwood Territory….'
More and more anxious scenarios clawed their way up into my head, and my worries only deepened accordingly.
I had to redirect Ethan's attention elsewhere before Harold caught on—and toward something constructive if possible, something that had nothing to do with me…
"What is it that troubles you so, Miss Lilith Rosewood?"
"GWAAH?!"
Lost in my stubborn, unsolvable worries, standing frozen in place—before I knew it, Head Butler Dietmeier had approached from in front of me and addressed me.
Even after facing that man with his perpetually unreadable expression, my head remained as tangled as ever.
'I'm already up to my neck worrying about the Ethan situation, and now this guy pops out of nowhere…'
His appearance—complicating my already complicated mind even further—nearly set off a flash of irritation.
But then a thought flickered through my head: perhaps I could actually get some help from Dietmeier, who managed so much of the household.
Come to think of it, this head butler had observed Ethan and Harold's sparring sessions far longer than I had, and had witnessed the recent change in Ethan firsthand as vividly as anyone.
In fact, Dietmeier had a record of watching the two of them duel long before I ever began observing Ethan's training.
Maybe, just maybe, with the information I could draw out of him, redirecting Ethan's interests would be entirely possible…
"…Head Butler Dietmeier, may I ask you something?"
"What would you like to ask, Miss Lilith Rosewood?"
"You've watched Master Ethan cross swords with our Lord longer than I have, haven't you?"
"I have. In case either the young master or the head of the house should suffer a serious injury, I make it a point to observe whenever I am able, ever since their sword duels began, so that I may respond at a moment's notice."
"In those duels between the young master and our Lord—may I ask whether the young master has ever, even once, defeated him?"
"…Forgive me, Miss Lilith, but that concerns the young master and the head of the house personally. It is not something I can readily share, even with the young master's own maid."
…Of course. Tight-lipped to the last, this head butler wasn't going to spill anything so easily.
Truthfully, his reaction alone made the answer obvious—but I'd been hoping for an official confirmation straight from Dietmeier himself.
So I pressed him once more, as though I genuinely needed to hear it.
"It's knowledge I truly must have, Head Butler. …I believe I may have found a way to return Master Ethan to his former self—now that he's suddenly begun changing like this."
"…Can you say that with certainty?"
"Not certainty. But… I believe there's a possibility worth pursuing."
"……"
"Surely you don't wish to keep watching Master Ethan unable to focus like this, Head Butler Dietmeier."
At that, the butler visibly relented, his expression settling into a thoughtful frown—he clearly could not disagree.
He seemed to conclude that answering me would be an act in Ethan's own interest, and at last Dietmeier replied with careful deliberation.
"What I am about to tell you must not be spoken of to anyone."
"Of course."
"Since Master Ethan began his sword duels with Lord Harold, the number of times the young master has landed a valid strike upon the Lord of the house is…"
"……"
"…Regrettably, not once."
Dietmeier glanced about furtively, wary of any prying ears, as he slipped me the privileged information.
The head butler wore a guilty expression as he made his confession, as though he believed he'd just been speaking ill of Ethan—but I, for my part, could not stop a quiet smile from blooming inside me the instant I heard his answer.
Because in that very moment, a plan flashed brilliantly to life: a way to wrench Ethan's attention—still wholly consumed by the memory of my chest—toward something else entirely.