Three Years After I Quit Being a Butler (1)
The farewell had been icy cold.
“This is goodbye, my lady.”
“Your resignation is rejected, Ian.”
“No matter how many times you reject it, my decision won’t change. I’ve already sold off all my assets and converted everything to cash. No one can stop me now.”
My voice dripped with frost. Even I thought I sounded like an absolute asshole, but my mouth refused to stop. Our young lady wasn’t the type to back down from something like this. Her stubbornness was on another level.
“Just let me go already. I need to live my own life too. How long am I supposed to keep cleaning up after you?”
“Stop… stop it!!”
Emilia stubbornly pressed her lips together and turned her head away from me. The chubby cheeks that had filled out since I first met her now puffed out adorably on the side of her turned face. As expected, our young lady was persistent.
Can’t be helped.
This was all my fault for raising her this way. Whenever Emilia acted like this, I had always given in.
I took a deep breath inwardly and steeled myself. The lines I had prepared specifically for today. Even to my own ears they sounded so obnoxious that I’d want to cut ties a thousand times over. The kind of words that made people want to ghost you immediately.
When I narrowed my eyes and let out a sigh, the young lady’s shoulders flinched.
How pitiful.
Haah. To think that Emilia Lichtenstein would be watching a mere servant’s mood. What kind of humiliation was this for someone like her? It hurt me too, but… some things just had to be done.
I hardened my heart and poured out the prepared lines all at once.
“My lady. You didn’t seriously think I stayed here because I liked you, did you?”
“…What?”
The young lady’s already pale face drained of all color until she looked like a vampire. Skin so white it was almost translucent, paired with those ruby-red eyes. A perfect vampire cosplay. Those jewel-like red eyes were trembling violently.
My lady, if people saw you now they’d think you were a ghost.
She bit down hard on her plump, blood-red lips with her white teeth, but even someone as stubborn as her couldn’t stop her voice from shaking.
“…What are you saying?”
“Haah, why can’t you understand? I endured it all for the money. You really have no sense at all, do you? Did you actually think a servant would genuinely like their master?”
Swoosh.
It felt like I could actually hear the last drop of blood leaving her vampire-like face.
“That’s why you don’t have a single friend, my lady. Can’t you just let me go?”
“…Stop it.”
“I’m sick of it. So sick of it. I held on for the money, but I just can’t anymore. I’m sick of it. To death. Your face, that body with nothing but huge breasts, your arrogant personality, that self-centered attitude. All of it!”
“Stop!!”
The moment Emilia slammed her palm down on the office desk with a loud bang!, she let out a piercing scream.
A moment later, her ruby-like pupils stared straight at me. For a long time, without saying a word.
The gaze carried such fierce determination to dissect every last corner of my heart that I had to focus all my strength on keeping a calm expression.
Emilia, who had been glaring at me like a snake eyeing its prey, suddenly twisted her lips into a smile.
“…It’s a lie, right? It’s all a lie.”
Ugh.
This was exactly why I hated people who were too quick on the uptake!
I didn’t yield and instead made my expression even colder. The kind of face so obnoxious it would make anyone’s affection drop like a rock. Blunt, emotionless, the kind of face that wouldn’t bleed even if you stabbed it.
If anyone saw me now, they’d definitely say, “Wow, what an insufferable-looking bastard.”
To what degree? Exactly the same level of expression our Emilia had given me when we first met.
I was perfectly imitating the face she now showed to everyone in the world except me. The one that said: You are utterly disgusting. I don’t even see you as a person. Talking to a lowly thing like you is unbearable.
That arrogant, hair-pulling expression.
After spending over ten years by her side, I had become unmatched at imitating the villainess character’s expressions. After all, no one knew more about Emilia Lichtenstein, the greatest villainess in this romance fantasy world, than I did.
Including the previous duke she had killed and the siblings she had driven out of the family long ago.
And of course, the crazy bastard who, despite having a fiancée, had an affair with a commoner woman, then came crawling back to her. The current crown prince and her former fiancé.
In this romance fantasy novel world, the person closest to the villainess Emilia Lichtenstein was me.
Me — the butler, Ian Lafri.
Ahem. I cleared my throat and straightened my bow tie.
Even at the end, I wanted to show her a decent side of me. That was probably my final greed.
Her red eyes were brimming with tears, looking like rubies submerged underwater. The sight made my mind feel dizzy, but I desperately pushed the thought away.
This is goodbye, my lady.
In my heart, I sent one last greeting to the villainess I had raised. With respect.
No — in the original story, she was supposed to grow up as a spoiled, ruined noblewoman. Yet I had turned her into an honor student who graduated from the academy.
I had driven away the crown prince who was supposed to execute his original fiancée after having an affair with a commoner and marrying her instead.
I had trained her magic talent with Spartan intensity until she became a candidate for the next Magic Tower Master.
Wasn’t that enough? Seriously?
If I said I wanted to retire early with a fat bonus, shouldn’t she let me go?
A duke’s daughter who’s about to become the Magic Tower Master’s disciple, with a butler who’s the same age and her childhood friend?
In the original novel, the Magic Tower was full of political scheming and backstabbing. I would have become nothing but kindling for those people.
This villainess was a character I had raised to this point with my own hands! Now that my job was done, it was time for me to disappear.
Yes, this was the right choice!
All I had to do now was take the fortune I had saved up, move to a quiet countryside, and enjoy a peaceful retirement life.
Huu—.
Having made up my mind, I let out a sigh.
I pushed away the pity I felt seeing her flinch and glance at me nervously at my sigh.
The face of Emilia that glared at me with as much venom as possible was already deathly pale. She looked like a ghost.
Even so, those ice-cold—no, amethyst crystal-like eyes were still so beautiful. Maybe I really was seriously ill.
With the most arrogant expression I had never once shown our young lady before, with a face dripping with cold disdain, I dropped the bomb.
“Do you even know how fucking sick I was of pandering to your every whim all this time?!”
“!!”
“What more can you even do for me now, my lady?”
“!!!”
“Or what… do you want to give me something before I go? Since I’m leaving anyway?”
“…W-what?”
“Why not? I worked hard all this time, didn’t I? If it weren’t for me, you’d still be treated like an idiot, a fool, a heartless bitch. I did my best, right? …Since I’m leaving anyway, can’t you at least do that much for me? It’s not like it’ll wear out from doing it once.”
Ah.
I saw it.
In Emilia’s amethyst eyes. Those icy eyes were filling up with tears.
“My lady, that…”
Without thinking, I reached out toward the corner of her eye.
Slap!
Emilia struck my hand away.
“You son of a bitch.”
Inside the vial containing two amethysts, the teardrops fell one by one. They rolled down her marble-like cheeks.
She wiped them roughly with the back of her hand, then spat out the words through tightly clenched teeth.
“You son of a bitch. You’re trash.”
“…”
“Get out of my sight. And never appear before me again.”
I turned away from Emilia without a word. As if I had no lingering feelings for her whatsoever.
With both hands raised and a smile on my face.
Just before I opened the door, the last words Emilia threw at my retreating back were:
“If you appear before me alive again… then I will kill you.”
That was how I had parted ways with the villainess.
Yet now, inside the banquet hall where a party had been taking place, severed heads, arms, and legs of the royalist nobles were scattered everywhere.
The royal guards had been taken out in a single blow by the monsters brought by the Magic Tower’s mages.
Amid the horrific sight of high-ranking royalist noblemen who had stepped forward to protect their wives only to have their heads cut off—
I stood among a group of trembling newly-rich merchants’ daughters, surrounded by gentlemen.
It was supposed to be a banquet hosted by the crown prince at the royal palace.
I had come up to the capital after so long. Commoner-born nouveau riche and their daughters mingling with royalty and nobility.
“Ian! You’ve finally come up to the capital, hahaha. It’s about time you got married, isn’t it? How long are you going to live like a priest? No more refusing my invitations this time, you hear? You need to attend parties like this to build connections with the nobles! Who knows, you might even catch the eye of a fallen noble daughter! That’s how it works, you know?”
The bald man who had invited me—Jeremy Summertime—had already fled long ago. As expected of a shrewd businessman who had risen from the bottom all the way to attending parties with nobles!
He had lured me out of my peaceful countryside life, dragged me all the way here, and then escaped this disaster first. Truly impressive.
Now, in this vast hall, the royalist nobles whose necks had been cleanly severed numbered one, two, three… It was impossible to count how many heads were floating in this sea of blood.
Well, the bald uncle probably had an excuse. Who could have predicted that something like this would happen at a banquet hosted by the crown prince himself?
That would mean a rebellion, after all!
“Drag out the crown prince. Cut off that bastard’s head.”
The problem was… a real rebellion had broken out.