Chapter 72
Chapter 72
Bringing back the former maid, handling the transfer paperwork, drafting a contract...... There was more to do than I'd thought. Fortunately, almost none of it was work I had to handle personally.
First, summoning the predecessor turned out to be surprisingly easy.
I've said it several times already, but this mansion is owned under the name 'Ye Sa-ra.' The Ye Sa-ra who had practically given up on life and just existed without any drive never actively exercised that right, but strictly legally speaking, I could kick out every servant in this mansion and there wouldn't be much of a problem.
Of course, doing that would obviously completely paralyze daily life, so I'm holding back for now.
Anyway, that's why Yang Hye-in was able to return to this mansion so easily.
That aside, however, Yang Hye-in herself was reluctant to come back.
Well, I wouldn't want to go back somewhere I'd been personally fired by the chairwoman of the largest corporation in our country... no, the largest in the world, either.
The problem was, I wasn't in a position to just let Yang Hye-in go.
As expected, the servants inside the mansion had started avoiding me as much as possible. Where before they would have simply kept their mouths shut while present, now they actively tried to stay out of my sight entirely, especially during the times I was mostly out and about.
They must have realized I was no longer someone they could just ignore and brush aside. The chairwoman had likely laid down the law that the servants were not to speak with me, but I kept trying to talk to them every time I saw their faces.
"Is there a servant manual?"
"Are there any notes summarizing what my previous maid used to do?"
"Is there someone who can give So-hee and me a tour of the mansion's interior?"
All day Sunday, I dragged So-hee around with me and diligently tried to strike up conversations with the servants, so whenever they saw my face, they went pale and scrambled to flee in every direction. When I sped up, they sped up too. Infuriatingly, Ye Sa-ra's feet were far slower than the servants'.
Great, another reason to work on my stamina. Someday, I'll sprint at full speed and catch them.
"Want me to catch one?"
So-hee asked, but I shook my head.
In the power dynamic between employer and employee, the employer is almost always in a much more advantageous position. That much is obvious. Those who receive money, and those who give it—you don't have to think hard to figure out which side wields more influence.
But I remember the contents of the Original Story.
Ye Sa-ra allegedly committed all kinds of abusive acts not only at school but inside the mansion as well.
It wasn't a directly shown scene; it was part of the description of Ye Sa-ra in the ending. Courageous servants exposed her abuses at the mansion, which naturally provided 'grounds to punish Ye Sa-ra.' The chairwoman ultimately abandoned Ye Sa-ra, too.
......Did she really abandon her?
When you're playing the game, Ye Sa-ra's perspective naturally isn't properly shown. Because of that, I never really knew what kind of life Ye Sa-ra had lived, but things are different now.
The servants hired by the chairwoman and placed under Ye Sa-ra—would they really have opened their mouths of their own accord?
The students who were tightly leashed by the chairwoman and treated Ye Sa-ra like she was invisible right in front of her, kids who had thoroughly experienced how the business world operates since childhood, would they really voluntarily report Ye Sa-ra's abuses and help bury her socially?
The chairwoman tried to isolate Ye Sa-ra from the world, but that wasn't solely out of hatred for her.
Simply to steal her assets? No, if that were the case, she wouldn't have gone out of her way to dress her up in that ridiculous outfit, stroke her hair, and touch her face.
......One possibility comes to mind, but I decided to shelve it for now. Thinking about it right this moment won't yield an answer anyway. For now, the priority is whether or not I can find the real consciousness of Ye Sa-ra inside my head. While I'm at it, I'll also try to probe Choi Na-kyung's thoughts.
So, for now, that is why I decided to summon Yang Hye-in back. Even if the chairwoman had imposed some additional condition when she fired Yang Hye-in, I could simply rehire her under my own name and be done with it. Words like 'Don't even think about working anywhere else' are ultimately just threats. No one in this country has the power to blacklist someone like that.
Especially not against someone who can give a single maid an annual salary of 500 million won. Even if the person threatening her has more money than I do.
Perhaps because the call came from So-hee's number and not Ye Sa-ra's, Yang Hye-in picked up surprisingly easily. She seemed a bit flustered when she heard my voice right after answering, of course, but she didn't hang up immediately.
When I seized the chance and told her to come back,
[But I am...]
Yang Hye-in hesitated.
"If you don't want to meet inside the mansion, then let's at least have a conversation outside. No matter what, you can't just quit and leave like this. You never even handed over your duties to the next person."
Ever since my corporate days, I've hated being busy the most. And being busy usually happens when multiple things pile up at once. Which was exactly the situation now.
In my previous life, a senior at my company bought me all sorts of food as soon as I got hired, got incredibly friendly with me, and then, just when I'd been working for about two months and was starting to get the hang of things, she up and quit. She supposedly vanished, leaving nothing behind but a single resignation letter. Severance pay isn't an issue—you can just wire it to the salary account. Or contact the boss later and that's that.
Looking back on it later, that senior had been looking for a way to escape that company from the very beginning. Whether she'd landed a job at another company, or simply found the work so grueling she wanted to quit everything, I'm not sure, but thanks to her, I ended up inheriting the entire workload of the senior who was also my direct mentor. Without a proper handover.
Still, I managed to handle it somehow with the two months of experience I'd built up diligently learning, but my memories of that period are vomit-inducingly brutal. Who actually likes involuntary overtime?
Of course, you can't say the present situation is exactly the same. Normally, the maid who replaces Yang Hye-in would already have completed her training by then.
......But since the maid I wanted to use was So-hee.
"Even if you really can't stand it, at least complete the minimum handover before you go. For that period, I'll calculate it properly and pay you a daily wage."
[.......]
"Shall I come find you? Should I go out and hail a cab right now?"
[......No. I will come to the mansion as quickly as possible.]
"Good, then."
[Thank you, young lady.]
Why the thanks? It's just paid work.
And so, the handover problem was resolved by summoning the predecessor, and it was all wrapped up by Sunday evening. Yang Hye-in said she'd have to pack up and leave again, so she would start the handover on Monday. Since things were already going this way, I decided to pile the transfer procedures and contract drafting onto her plate, too.
Well.
Why not.
I mean.
Yang Hye-in handling it would be far more efficient than me doing it. If it really came down to it, I'd just pay her extra for the related work.
People say not everything in the world can be solved with money, but usually, the reason it can't be solved is that there isn't enough money for it.
And I had enough money that I wouldn't run short for most things.
Come to think of it, wasn't it the World Health Organization? I think someone said a few percent of Elon Musk's wealth could solve world hunger.
Should I invest a few percent, too? If it improved my public image, it would make an excellent shield later, even if something blew up. I had no intention of tackling all of world hunger, but if it was a domestic problem, wouldn't it be possible to solve it to a visibly noticeable degree?
Alright, let's put this on the checklist.
The second thing I had to do was find a maid uniform that fit So-hee.
I had no idea where the maid uniforms were kept.
Since things had come to this, I decided to figure out the mansion's layout before Monday.
*
"When I get back from school today, the predecessor will be here, so you can probably become an official maid starting this evening."
"Then, from that point on, do I have to use maid speech?"
Seeing So-hee's face flush slightly at my words, I gave her a dumbfounded look.
Uh...... Does she have some sort of fantasy about the maid profession or something?
"......Probably best to do that in front of the other servants. When it's just the two of us, you can just talk casually. Actually, I think it'd be kind of uncomfortable for me if you didn't."
"Yeah?"
At my words, So-hee thought for a moment, then nodded.
"Okay, then. Let's meet in the evening."
Since her transfer procedures weren't done yet, So-hee would be going to her own school today. Though she'd likely be attending the same school as me in the very near future.
I had found the maid uniform yesterday in advance. As I'd expected, most of the mansion was vacant. Honestly, the place was so big that just walking around opening doors had easily taken over an hour, so it would have been more surprising if most of it was actually in use.
Thanks to that, I was able to find all the places inside the mansion the servants used, like storage rooms. In a room that looked like a clothing shop's stockroom, the uniforms the servants wore were hung up in rows, sorted by work type and then by size.
Ah, so money really is endless. It means they didn't hire and then procure servant attire; they made them all in advance and kept them in storage. And this is a place with almost no personnel changes.
"Yeah, let's meet this evening."
I said my goodbyes and headed toward the car. Since So-hee had to walk to school, I'd come out a bit earlier today. Fortunately, perhaps because of the ruckus I'd kicked up yesterday, the servants seemed rather pleased when I announced I'd be leaving earlier than usual.
Well, I'm not particularly hurt by it.
I waved once more to So-hee, who for some reason looked to be in an exceedingly good mood, and got into the car.
*
Even after I got out of the car, the driver didn't say a word, so it felt a little awkward. Perhaps thinking I might try to start a conversation, the car pulled away the moment I stepped out.
Having no particular rapport with the driver, I just kept walking toward the school's main gate.
There were quite a few kids arriving at the same time as I was, but maybe because of the tyranny I'd been running around the school lately, they all walked well away from my side. Thanks to that, a round circle formed around me like a barrier.
It wasn't yet time for Ha-neul to arrive, so I decided to just walk alone. Perhaps because I was alone and thus easier to ignore, there were barely any kids sneaking glances at me.
......That's how it was. They weren't sneaking glances at 'me.'
Rather, they were stealing glances somewhere behind me.
With eyes that looked like they were watching some strange person.
"......."
Wondering what was there, I turned around,
and with a swoosh, I caught sight of blue hair disappearing behind a nearby tree.
"......."
What in the world, I thought, and stared intently. The Disciplinary Committee Member who had hidden behind the tree poked her head out slightly, met my eyes, and immediately ducked back behind the tree.
......Don't tell me, is she actually trying to hide?