The Most Noble Lady Is Hiring
“Now then, why don't you contract with my noble self, I wonder?”
“Pfft, of course not. Life couldn't possibly just roll along smoothly like that.”
I slumped down in the shade and heaved a sigh so deep it seemed it might sink into the ground. If I counted up the meager balance I'd scraped together in my account, I could probably scrape by for a month or two.
But the problem came after that.
With a body like this, I couldn't even go back to part-time work, and if I wanted to be recognized as a Hunter and rake in real money, I couldn't even register with the Management Bureau. Look at the Absolute Contract skill—if anything, didn't it just mean that in this form, I was someone who could hardly accomplish anything on my own?
In that case, there was only one solution: find a loyal attendant to serve at my side.
And the place to recruit one would naturally be the Hunter Gallery, where the Awakened gathered.
First, I needed a permanent handle befitting my exalted station. I couldn't very well remain a floating anonymous poster forever, getting trampled by the common folk.
“A name... hmm, how about TheMostNobleLady?”
Proclaiming it the most dignified, fitting name I could boast, I registered the handle and began typing out my recruitment post.
Greetings, lowly commoners.
My noble self is magnanimously considering taking in one faithful servant to attend at my side and maintain the cleanliness and dignity of my residence.
To properly become my attendant is, after all, an honor to one's family line and a lifelong grace.
• Duties: Serving tea time, keeping the residence in order, and porter work
• Qualifications: One who submits without a single word of objection to the Lady's absolute authority
• Salary: The boundless glory of dwelling at the Lady's side
Those who wish to receive my grace may submit their resumes with the utmost sincerity.
• Special skill: Crafting Maxin Gold at the perfect golden ratio for tea time
• Credentials: Monster Hunter adventure rank 60, Ranked Silver 3
A smattering of utterly worthless comments dangled from my post like rotten fruit. To think the world trusted people so little. I really was Awakened—my class was merely a bit unusual and one of a kind—and it was starting to genuinely rankle.
Well, what could one expect from short-sighted, insignificant peasants? Born as I was with an innately generous nature, my noble self had no choice but to forgive and understand.
By the way—Omurice Slave?
A commoner had dared to leave a private message for my noble self? Wondering what on earth this was about, I clicked through to his gallery guestbook, where a lone open-chat link sat abandoned.
What now? I tapped the link, and it immediately connected me to a one-on-one chat room.
What was this, this faint sense of déjà vu?
I slipped my phone away and stealthily lifted my gaze to look straight ahead. In the distance, a lone figure was striding briskly toward me, staring fixedly in my direction.
A crisply tailored shirt, neat slacks, and a composed, elegant impression—black hair pulled smoothly back into a low tie.
Which is to say, as far as I knew, this was Baek Dan-ah, the college girl from next door.
She marched right up to me, stopped dead, and then—with an expression of sheer disbelief—bent down and began scrutinizing my face.
“Um, e-excuse me...? Has something managed to stain this Lady's noble face?”
At point-blank range, close enough to feel her breath, she raked her eyes over my every feature.
“...It's really you?”
“Y-yes?”
“You're ‘TheMostNobleLady’ from the gallery, aren't you? No, more importantly... what exactly is your relationship with Sangcheol?”
“Oh my, don't tell me you're that ‘OmuriceSlave’? I never imagined you would frequent such a squalid little den—”
“Yes, that's me. Which is exactly why I'm asking. Who the hell are you, wearing Sangcheol's clothes... no, wait, why did you come bursting out of Sangcheol's room today?”
I spent about three seconds weighing how to explain myself before concluding that a suitably plausible excuse was the better path.
“...I am Sangcheol's girlfriend, you see.”
In an instant, Dan-ah's eyes froze over with a chill of several tens of degrees below zero.
“Don't lie to me.”
Why on earth had she turned so ice-cold, I couldn't possibly fathom. Granted, my noble self had told a lie, but still—oh. Dan-ah took one step closer and began to hiss at me in a voice pitched low and menacing.
“I know Sangcheol better than anyone. Mondays and Wednesdays he works the convenience store from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays he's at the distribution center from 5:30 in the morning, scraping by on cup ramen and discarded stock—when would he ever have time to date? He comes home at exactly 11:40 p.m. every night, spends Friday and the whole weekend holed up in his room gaming, too cheap to even order delivery. A hopeless homebody shut-in like that suddenly has a girlfriend? Give me a break.”
Ugh. That brutally honest barrage of facts made my chest throb. She'd recounted my sordid past with such pinpoint accuracy that I couldn't even muster a rebuttal.
But my noble self was now a supremely noble daughter of high birth—how could I possibly meekly admit to having lived such a vulgar life?
While I was racking my brain for a defense, the look in Dan-ah's eyes sank even deeper.
“So no—I'm the one who knows best in the whole world that Sangcheol has no girlfriend. Who are you, exactly? A thief? If you don't want to get reported to the police for breaking and entering, you'll tell me the truth.”
Just as Dan-ah, hands trembling, pulled out her phone and began pressing hard on the keypad for 1-1-2, I rushed to block her.
“W-wait! The truth is, my noble self... I really am Sangcheol?!”
“...I'm sorry, what?”
Dan-ah's thumb, hovering over the call button, froze solid.
“Th-that is to say, I woke up this morning and I'd Awakened, and my whole body changed into this!”
I cried out desperately and flapped the hem of my baggy T-shirt for emphasis, but all I got back in return was that same narrow-eyed stare.
“Save it. I'll just call Sangcheol myself, so—”
Muttering this, Dan-ah began operating her phone, dialing somewhere.
And in that very moment.
Bzzzt— bzzzz—
Vibration began rattling in my pocket. I peeked at the screen: an unfamiliar number, not saved to my contacts.
Dan-ah's face went ghost-white as she watched me pull out my phone... but hold on—when had my noble self ever given out my personal number?
Hmm, perhaps it was something I'd jotted down for her in passing long ago, just in case the neighbors ever had an emergency. Yes, surely that was it.
“...You stole Sangcheol's phone too? Where is he? What did you do to him?”
Haah... how utterly, unbearably loud.
“Enough.”
Why, pray tell, should my noble self stand here groveling out explanations for some insignificant commoner? I had already spent the whole day being marched in circles by those contemptible government office drones, and now some next-door peasant dared to talk down to me, closing in step by step?
A commoner—a commoner—raising her voice to my face and spitting out casual speech?
“Like hell I'll stop! You've been spouting insane nonsense this whole—”
“I said that will be quite enough. Commoner.”
I stepped forward, caught her chin between my fingers, and tilted her face smoothly upward.
“If you do not close those pretty little lips of yours this instant, I cannot say what will become of the precious lifespan of that vulgar peasant called ‘Park Sangcheol,’ the one you keep wailing about?”
“...!”
“Even the Lady's mercy has its limits. How dare a mere commoner bark away like a rabid dog that doesn't know its master? If you truly wish to lay eyes on that man alive once more, you will mind your manners and know your place.”
I let my fingertips glide gently down her frozen jaw.
“If you understand, then lower your head like a good girl, and answer only the questions my noble self puts to you.”
Dan-ah's jaw trembled as if to argue, but she bit down hard on her lip and, at length, gave a grudging nod.
“Excellent. You are Awakened yourself, are you not? What is your class?”
“Why should I have to tell you something like—”
“Oh? So you truly don't wish to see that man alive ever again, I gather?”
The moment I arched a brow with a smile, Dan-ah's shoulders flinched hard.
Shooting me a look brimming with resentment, she squeezed out her answer in a voice that seemed to crawl into the ground.
“...Maid.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Maid?
No—what on earth was a Maid class supposed to be?
“Then... would you care to elaborate a little more clearly? If you speak so vaguely, how is my noble self meant to understand you?”
Dan-ah let out a long, exasperated sigh and mumbled on with a look of one who had simply given up on everything.
“It's useless for anything except housework or a stamina buff. The Hunter Association doesn't even glance at it. They treat it like garbage.”
“Is that all?”
“There's etiquette stuff, I guess—boosting someone's charisma or presence? I can buff things like that, but it's completely useless on my own, so.”
Against all expectation, this was an ability that my noble self desperately, desperately needed.
Charisma and presence—why, with those, my own Aristocratic Authority would rise all on its own. And was that not precisely the qualification of a servant whom I needed most at this very moment?
“Oh my... then you are truly perfect. You there—contract with my noble self.”
True, my Aristocratic Authority was still only F+, earned from nothing grander than cleaning a one-room apartment, so forcibly subjugating her into a binding contract was beyond me. But the Absolute Contract skill clearly also stated that it could be concluded by mutual consent.
And right now, I held a guaranteed winning card in my hand.
It felt a bit like swindling her, and my conscience pricked faintly—but really, if I framed it as magnanimously rescuing a destitute commoner from her wretched, wandering life, there was hardly any reason to feel sorry at all.
“...I'm sorry, what?”
Seizing the moment as Dan-ah's eyes wavered violently, I tapped her chin with my fingertip and pressed on.
“Become my faithful, exclusive attendant and serve me, and I shall guarantee not only that man's safety—I may even one day allow him to kneel before you, alive and well. Oh~ hohoho!”
After all, since Park Sangcheol was my noble self, he would never turn up somewhere else for the rest of time, and he certainly had no reason to die. And so long as he was bound beneath this absolute, supremely noble power of mine, there was absolutely, absolutely, ABSOLUTELY no chance of some heaven-defying insubordination in which I myself ended up toyed with or crushed into miserable submission down the line. Which meant I could simply enjoy exploiting her with total peace of mind, no?
Fufu—truly a terrifying, airtight, flawless plan!