I Didn't Do Anything Bad
Karen first tried to lend Alice her own maid uniform.
"Ugh…"
"What's wrong? Ah."
The moment Karen stepped into the room, she understood why Alice was groaning.
"It's way too tight around the chest and hips."
"…Young Master would like that."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. I mean you can't very well walk around the academy dressed like this."
Karen was fretting over the fact that Yosef still hadn't exploded into some kind of incident. She knew all too well what became of the women who got tangled up in his disasters whenever he caused one.
A cowardly thought even crossed her mind—that if Yosef's attention shifted toward Alice instead of her, she might be able to breathe a little easier.
What am I thinking, with such a sweet girl right here?
Karen immediately scolded herself for the thought. Nothing had happened yet, so there was no reason to wish for an accident on purpose. More importantly, if Alice did get swept up in one of Yosef's messes, the person who would have to clean it up was still Karen.
She had Alice take the borrowed maid uniform back off.
"We'll need to have one custom-made for you."
"Ugh, I'm so sorry."
"There's no need to apologize over something like this."
Compared to the disasters Yosef usually caused, this barely registered as a problem.
"Hmm…"
As Karen sank into thought, Alice asked carefully,
"Is something troubling you?"
"Yes, there is, actually…"
Karen hesitated a moment, then decided to share her concern with Alice. After all, it involved her directly.
"I need to go buy clothes for Lady Alice, and I've been debating whether I should tell Young Master Yosef before I leave."
Yosef was an extremely capricious man. One day he would flip the table because the seasoning on a fish dish wasn't to his liking; another day he would flip it simply because pork had been served. Because of that, the head chef always had to prepare at least three main courses plus side dishes to go with them—a luxury only a house as wealthy as the Goldrains could afford.
"Wow…"
"What are you marveling at?"
"Can he really eat that much if you set out so many dishes?"
"…Yes. He does finish everything."
Yosef enjoyed fine food almost as much as he enjoyed women, but he never left a single scrap behind.
Alice made a peculiar face, as if some odd thought had just occurred to her, but she didn't voice it.
"Then why not just ask him? It seems better than leaving without saying a word at all."
Alice said something perfectly sensible. In a company or anywhere else, handling business without reporting to a superior was a sure way to get scolded. But that common sense did not always apply to servants in a noble house. A noble's servants were expected to have the foresight to prepare a handkerchief and water before their master even coughed.
Karen, who had served as a lady's maid for a long time, possessed an even sharper sense for such things—yet Yosef's whims were so wildly unpredictable that they overwhelmed even her instincts.
Still, Young Master seems to show his emotions less in front of Lady Alice… so maybe there's a chance.
Karen took Alice with her to Yosef's room. Ordinarily she felt like a pig being led to the slaughterhouse, but having someone with her this time made it a little better.
"Come in."
Karen entered with Alice. Inside, Yosef was bare from the waist up, drying himself with a Mado fan. It was a familiar sight to Karen. Whenever she came by the morning after Yosef had brought a woman to his room, he was usually in that state.
"What is it?"
"I intend to go out to have clothes custom-made for Lady Alice. I've come to ask whether Young Master has any particular instructions regarding her attire."
Yosef turned his gaze to Alice and looked her up and down.
"I suppose that makes sense."
"…"
The old Yosef would have said something like it sounded interesting and she should come by that night, or that he would check for himself and she should take her clothes off. He had been a thoroughly self-indulgent, good-for-nothing young master, after all.
"Fine. I'll go with you."
Instead, Yosef gave an entirely normal answer. Karen's mind briefly short-circuited. Even so, her mouth moved on long-honed instinct.
"It would be rather troublesome for Young Master to go in person."
"I also need to teach Alice some common sense."
Karen agreed with that. Alice was far more lacking in the common sense of noble society than she had imagined.
True to its name, Mado Academy was home to a wide variety of Mado technologies. Representative fields included Mado Studies, which researched the principles and foundations of magic engineering; Theoretical Magic, which used mathematics to analyze the laws of magic; and Mado Engineering, which applied Mado to existing technologies.
"Wooow…"
Alice pressed her face to the carriage window, utterly captivated by the various Mado technologies outside, and kept letting out little gasps of wonder. Karen smiled softly at the sight. Alice looked so purely delighted that even the person who had bought her something would have felt satisfied.
Yosef, too, watched Alice's profile for a moment before suddenly asking,
"Who bought you that ice cream you were holding?"
"Pardon?"
"It didn't look like something you bought with your own money."
"…It was someone I'd never met before."
"Do you remember what they looked like?"
"Um… oh—there he is!"
Alice pointed out the window. Yosef turned his head in that direction.
"Isn't that the saint candidate who just enrolled this year? I believe his name was Benedict."
He was famous enough that Karen knew both his face and his name. Yosef's expression hardened for an instant. He did not look like a man seeing Benedict for the first time.
"A saint candidate, so he showed you mercy. Were you wandering around looking that pitiful?"
"No. I asked him the way to the academy, and he bought it for me."
Once you entered the Academy City, most people could find Mado Academy without much trouble—the buildings were simply that massive. If someone still had to ask for directions, Benedict would have found them pitiable enough.
Without a word, Yosef shut the window.
"Huh? Why are you closing the window?"
Alice asked lightly. Karen kept her mouth shut. In the past, a question like that alone would have earned her a severe scolding from Yosef.
"Because we don't get along with their kind."
The Goldrain family, thanks to their greedy head, contributed an extremely meager amount in offerings to the Holy Order. They clearly made enormous sums of money, yet what they handed over to the Order was barely a sparrow's tear. One could not forcibly extract donations from nobles, but the Goldrains were so stingy they wouldn't even keep up appearances. Because of that, the Holy Order looked poorly on the family.
"Ah…"
Hearing Yosef's explanation, Alice seemed to understand why Karen had gone rigid. By any measure, the Goldrains looked like the villains in this situation rather than the Order. Pointing out a problem like that in front of a notoriously infamous noble was no easy thing.
"Then do you contribute properly, Young Master?"
"Alice!"
But Alice went and did it. She asked Yosef of the Goldrain family—infamous for its greed—straight to his face whether he paid the Order properly. Even Karen, who would never have interrupted under normal circumstances, found her mouth opening on its own.
"I haven't."
Tears welled at the corners of Karen's eyes. Being inside this carriage right now was terrifying. She had no idea how Yosef would react to Alice's words.
"Do you want me to pay properly?"
"…Wouldn't it be better if you did? The Order's holy power actually exists, after all."
Alice seemed to wonder, watching Karen's flustered reaction, whether she had said something wrong. Even so, she did not take her opinion back. She was the sort of person who asked what she was curious about and spoke honestly when she thought something was wrong.
"Fine. I'll pay."
Yosef accepted it so readily that Karen and Alice both cried out in shock at the same time.
"What?!"
"What?!!"
"Quiet. Keep your voices down a little."
The Goldrain carriage was fitted with expensive soundproofing magic. The noise did not leak outside, but it reverberated within, making Karen's voice sound even louder. Yosef frowned slightly.
"I-I'm sorry…"
Karen immediately shrank into herself.
What on earth is going on?
Karen's confusion continued.
Is Young Master actually trying to change?
There had been a time when Yosef had laid hands on the daughter of a high-ranking noble house and thrown the entire Goldrain family into a state of emergency. After that incident he had left women alone for a while, but he was not the sort of man who changed his behavior of his own accord unless something that serious happened. And yet that same Yosef had just agreed, on a single word from Alice, to pay the Holy Order properly.
Because of this one girl? What is so different about her?
To Karen's eyes, Alice was a kind and pure young woman. But with enough money, Yosef could find any number of similar noble daughters. There was no shortage of indebted noble houses that were easy to silence, either. Karen could not figure out what it was about Alice that was changing Yosef.
Still, if academy life keeps going like this, it might be a little better.
Karen cautiously allowed herself a bit of hope. When she had first heard she would be going to the academy alone with Yosef, she had been so worried about the danger she would face that she could barely sleep. But if Alice was with them, she might be able to rest a little more easily.
That hope shattered the moment they arrived at the dressmaker's.
"I'll buy clothes for you as well."
"Pardon?"
Yosef said he would buy clothes for Karen too.
"Wouldn't it be a waste to leave that face as it is?"
"Pardon…?"
Karen's face went deathly pale. It sounded as if Yosef had just publicly declared that he had his sights on her as well.