The Maid
In highway accidents, drowsy driving kills more people than drunk driving for one simple reason: there's no chance to brace for the danger at all.
That was exactly the case now.
When two people who never expected someone to come flying around the corner slammed into each other, the impact left a serious aftermath.
Much like a compact car crumpling against a dump truck, the slender-framed maid went flying and landed hard on her backside.
"Ugh... a-ah, that hurts..."
The corridors of the Grand Ducal Castle were paved with solid marble. A solid jolt must have shot straight up through her tailbone. On top of that, she had been airborne before the fall; if nothing was cracked, she could count herself extraordinarily lucky. Even in a mutual-fault collision, feeling sympathy for the side that took the worse of it was only natural.
For a normal human being, that is.
"Y-Young Master! Are you unharmed?!"
Rendler rushed over and patted me down from head to toe, checking every inch. At the sound of his voice, the maid looked up at me with eyes that still held a faint sheen of tears.
Strangely, her face looked familiar. I was certain I had never seen her before, yet something about her nagged at me.
A moment later, the maid's frozen expression—caught in what looked like cognitive dissonance—twisted into pure horror.
"E-Elden Young Master...!?"
I had never seen a human face turn that pale so quickly. The flush of pain that had painted her cheeks vanished as if by magic, and the moisture that had gathered in her pupils dried up like water under a blazing sun.
Apparently even a maid of the Grand Ducal household had heard plenty about the infamous reputation of Elden Raphelion.
"Good heavens, apologize at once!"
Rendler barked at her. The maid scrambled up onto her knees in a panic and began to beg for her life in the most abject manner imaginable.
"Y-Young Master...! I'm so sorry! I-I was in such a hurry I wasn't watching where I was going! I've committed a crime worthy of death...!"
We had both been at fault when we collided, yet the one who had actually been hurt was the one apologizing. A light collision caused by mutual carelessness, and somehow one party became the sole aggressor.
A trivial mistake that might happen hundreds or thousands of times in an ordinary life became a capital offense for someone else—simply because they were born lowly.
And seeing that fragile figure, I was unpleasantly reminded of my own childhood. Of the day I had been forced to my knees and made to apologize after a mutual scuffle, simply because the other boy happened to be the principal's son. Of the day I had to swallow my injustice and plead, not because I had wanted to be born with nothing or wanted to live with nothing, but simply because I had nothing.
It was a bitterly ironic thing to see my old self reflected in her.
"Where do you think you're looking when you walk?! If anything had happened to the Young Master's precious person, what would you—!"
As Rendler continued to scold the maid, I lifted my left hand lightly to stop him.
"I'm fine. Get up."
I looked down at her with a complicated gaze. I had not the slightest intention of blaming a girl who looked ten years younger than me. In a society this vicious—where a single mistake could lead to death—simply surviving was already praiseworthy enough.
But the maid could not even raise her head. She only trembled like a leaf in the wind.
"I-I'm truly sorry...! I'll be careful from now on so this never happens again! Please, just once, forgive me...!"
...Just how, exactly, had this maid defined Elden Raphelion in her mind? I doubted she would have been this terrified even if she had crashed into the Demon King himself.
"I said I'm fine. Get up."
Seeing my past self overlapping with her again and again, I raised my voice a fraction as I ordered her. Facing the weak version of myself was never a pleasant experience.
Only then did the maid look up at me with a tearful face.
"R-Really...?"
Back then, when I had been forced to kneel before the principal's son, there was something I had desperately wanted: a hand that would tell me to straighten those knees with dignity. A hand that would tell me that living without means was not a crime. A hand that would pull me out of injustice and grievance.
That must have been why. The reason I reached out a hand to a life forced to endure unfairness simply for having nothing—the reason I offered a warm smile and a hand to my past self—was exactly that.
Of course, I was about to learn yet again that situations rarely go as planned.
"Kyaa! S-Save me—!!"
Hmm.
Not so easy.
It took a full five minutes to convince her that the hand I was offering was not about to slap her across the face, and that the smile I wore did not contain the thrill of violence.
Thankfully, this was the corridor leading into the inner castle, so foot traffic was sparse. If any of the three Regret Route girls or someone connected to them had witnessed the scene, I might have been branded "a scoundrel who pretended to withdraw just to lower their guard and score points from behind."
I could live with notoriety. Infamy, however, I would refuse with every fiber of my being.
"Th-Thank you so much..."
"You can go now."
I gave the order and turned to head back to my room.
"Kyaa."
The moment I took a single step, the maid collapsed, and I could not take another.
I turned my head. She was sitting on the floor, clutching her right ankle in pain.
"Tch. You're hurt."
"Ah... I-I think I twisted my ankle. I'm fine, so please don't worry about me."
"..."
They say an unlucky person breaks their nose even when they fall backward. This maid had only landed on her rear, yet she had managed to sprain her ankle as well. Luck was clearly not her strong suit.
"It's swollen quite badly."
The ankle peeking out from under her skirt hem was swollen to roughly twice its normal size—a delicate ankle that would have fit easily in one hand. Just looking at it made my own ankle throb in sympathy.
I glanced around. For a second I wondered if she might be an undercover examiner for candidate verification, but the swollen ankle was unmistakably real. Besides, verifying a candidate who had already declared withdrawal would have been the most useless exercise imaginable.
I asked Rendler,
"Where's the infirmary?"
"At the end of the corridor on the left, Young Master. About a hundred meters, distance-wise."
"Fortunately not far. I'll be right back."
"Pardon? What do you mean by—"
I grinned and clapped a hand on Rendler's shoulder.
It had been a mutual-fault accident, but she had been seriously hurt because of me. A maid who had to run all over the Grand Ducal Castle all day now had a swollen ankle—that was basically a workplace injury. I could not wash my hands of the responsibility. And I had injured a young girl who looked barely into her mid-teens. Helping her was simply the right thing to do.
At least, that was how an adult from the world I had lived in was supposed to act. Taking minimal responsibility when you hurt someone else was basic human decency and ethical sense.
So I was only helping. It was not about showing goodwill or offering kindness, and it certainly was not about trying to move my tearful old butler.
"I'd rather support her myself, but I really don't want any annoying gossip sticking to me for a while. There will be eyes in the infirmary too."
Even with his advanced years, supporting a girl that slender should be no burden. I recalled he had been quite athletic in his younger days.
"Pardon?"
"I'm counting on you. Until my withdrawal is approved—no, until the betrothal contest is completely over—I want to stay quiet."
"Then I shall fetch a servant who can assist the maid—"
"Wouldn't it be faster to just support her yourself instead of spending time calling for help? It's only a hundred meters, you said."
"B-But that maid nearly inflicted serious injury upon your precious person, Young Master. As a member of House Raphelion, to assist someone like her is—"
"Tsk. Too many words."
I furrowed my brow at the lengthening excuses and put force into my eyes—exactly the way the original Elden Raphelion would have.
Of course I could never fully recreate the original character's pure human-garbage, trash-tier, beast-like, scoundrel energy, but even a decent imitation was effective enough at cutting unnecessary chatter short.
As if to prove the point, Rendler's excessive loyalty deflated a notch. I should make use of that occasionally when needed.
"Y-Yes, Young Master. I understand."
"Good. Thanks."
I gave his shoulder a couple of pats and walked over to the maid.
She looked up at me with a completely blank expression—the face of someone who could not comprehend the perfectly ordinary situation of one person helping another. That only made me want to help her more.
And helping her was no different from helping my past self.
I approached, dropped to one knee, and carefully whispered into her ear.
"........."
"It's a minor fracture. I've stabilized it for now with an ankle brace and support, so it should be fine if she rests for a few days."
Rendler stood beside the maid, who sat on the infirmary bed, listening to the diagnosis. The Young Master who had claimed he only needed her escorted there had added one more request: stay with her until the examination was finished.
He had not been particularly pleased, but a head butler whose duty was to obey had no right to refuse.
The chief physician returned with a single crutch and handed it to the maid.
"Take this crutch with you. You know you'll need to return it, right?"
"Yes."
"It'll throb a bit at night. If it gets too bad, come back. I'll give you painkillers."
"Yes... thank you."
"That will be all."
The physician finished and withdrew. At the same time, Rendler rose from his seat.
"With a crutch, you won't need anyone supporting you anymore."
"Ah, I-I'm truly grateful. I don't know how to face you..."
"No need to thank me. I was simply following Young Master Elden's orders."
"E-Even so..."
"If you truly feel bad about it, be more careful from now on. One of these days you might get seriously hurt—far worse than this."
A casual piece of advice, tossed out as if it meant nothing. Of course, no one short of the king himself could casually mistreat a servant of the Grand Ducal house—but that was only the surface story. Malicious nobles found ways to exact revenge behind the scenes. And when such revenge was carried out, there was never a master willing to stand as a shield for a servant who had made a mistake.
In the end, the ones who got hurt were always the lower class of the social hierarchy—the disposable servants of the household.
The maid bowed her head and offered sincere thanks for Rendler's concern.
"Thank you for worrying about me... I'll make sure nothing like this happens again."
"Then take care on your way."
"Yes."
Yet just as Rendler was about to leave the infirmary, he stopped and looked back at the maid.
"W-Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Ah, there is something I wished to ask."
"What is it...?"
Before speaking, Rendler checked the surroundings carefully.
He was curious. What exactly had the Young Master whispered into the ear of a completely unknown maid? And for some reason, he found himself looking forward to the answer.
He knew well that a person's fundamental nature did not change. That was especially true of young masters from noble houses. They lived lives of absolute power that required no change at all. He had always believed that, and a lifetime spent watching Elden Raphelion had only hardened the conviction.
And then, all of a sudden, change had appeared.
He had spent his entire life at Elden Raphelion's side, served him his entire life, and the boy had always been the same. The sudden transformation he was now witnessing could not help but carry great meaning for Rendler.
Of course, a change that had not even lasted a full day was far more likely to end as a mere whim or change of heart... but what of it?
He simply wanted to know what his master had said. So Rendler asked quietly,
"Earlier, Young Master whispered something to you. Would you be able to tell me what it was? I am most curious."
"Ah..."
The maid glanced around. After a brief hesitation, she finally spoke.
"He said... if I tell anyone other than Head Butler Rendler that he helped me..."
Her voice trailed off as she checked the surroundings once more. Her cautious eyes looked a little frightened.
Rendler took a step closer, urging her on.
"If you tell anyone...?"
A moment later, when the trailing words finally became clear, a strange expression settled over Rendler's face.
"...then I'd really die... he said..."