The Maid Wants to Be Trained (4)
"…Huh?"
For a moment, I thought time in the drawing room had frozen solid. Hadn't winter just ended not long ago? The reason was obvious. Even the warm spring breeze blowing in from outside the window seemed to refuse entry into this room!
It was all thanks to the short sigh Estelle had just let out—a sigh converging on absolute zero.
Her eyes had already lost every trace of the calm composure she wore as the perfect maid. They trembled finely with an inexpressible contempt and disgust.
"…What did I just hear?"
…Whoa. This is bad. Really bad.
"Ah, no, what I mean is…"
I waved my hands frantically to make excuses, but before my words could even connect, the air in the room started to shift ominously.
—Crackle.
"Huh?"
I couldn't believe my eyes. The silver tray she'd smacked me with earlier—frost began forming along its edges, turning white. Soon, even the steam rising from the teacup I'd been about to drink froze solid and dropped to the floor with soft plops!
'No way, it's actually freezing?! What the hell is this?'
It had gone beyond just cooling; physical frost was settling on everything around us. This shouldn't have been possible. Magic, you ask?
'Yeah, it's gotta be magic.'
And that's exactly the problem.
In this romance fantasy world, there were only two types who wielded magic!
First: sheer geniuses. The kind the super-hot, magic-obsessed Mage Tower Master would flip out over and kidnap to his tower. Outside the academy, encountering one was harder than plucking stars from the sky.
Second: black magic! Unregistered magic users! The ones honing their craft in secret, away from the mad tower master's gaze—they sure as hell weren't normal!
In this world, they were the deranged terrorist and assassin group that proudly filled one axis of the villains!
If Estelle were the former, the Mage Tower would've snatched her up ages ago. No way she'd still be the head maid of the Ashy Barony.
Which left… the latter?
Estelle as a mysterious black magic assassin attempting to kill the crown prince?
'We're screwed.'
My cerebral cortex lit up like a Christmas tree. First things first: pretend I saw nothing. When a powerhouse's identity is unknown, it means anyone who witnesses their strength ends up dead.
'…Act like I didn't see it. No matter what, play dumb and defuse this situation first.'
I gripped my chattering jaw and forced the most pitiful, harmless expression I could muster.
"E-Estelle! Calm down! It's a misunderstanding!"
"A misunderstanding? What part of that beastly demand—asking me to lift my dress to show you my garter belt—leaves room for misunderstanding, young master?"
Estelle shot back at me like I was worse than a bug.
"Truly, utterly irredeemable trash. I could overlook you sweet-talking that Lydia woman from Daily Caliola with your vulgar pulp nonsense, seducing her soul right out of her. Fine. But throwing unbearable teasing at your childhood friend lady? And now, harassing the one and only maid in this manor? Do you even have a shred of reason in that head of yours?"
The scolding poured out without pause. She wasn't wrong about a single thing, so I couldn't even retort.
It was just the pure, creative impulse of an artist dying to visually confirm the perfect harmony of pleats, tension in that flawless maid skirt, and the garter belt beneath. I'd lost all sense of reality.
Bluntly demanding to see something as intimate as a woman's garter belt? Hell, even the cops couldn't argue with that.
"I must've lost my mind! No, wait—there's a reason! It's all for the family!"
"Planning to unveil some miraculous logic about lifting my skirt for the family's sake? You can't even come up with a proper excuse, you vulgar, beastly noble!"
Aaah, I'm done for. Off I go, oblivious to the maid who's a black magic user. This is so unfair!
How was I supposed to know one of the worst villains in this romance fantasy was the maid from a third-rate extra family?!
This unfair world! Die, romance novel author! I wanted a harem adult male-oriented worldview!
Snap.
Something broke in my head. It had to be what people call the "thread of reason."
And rightly so.
"Estelle Orot."
The voice that escaped my lips held zero emotion.
"I won't say it twice."
It was coercive.
"You're my maid, Estelle."
"……Young master?"
I was issuing that command—"Lift your skirt"—to what might be this world's worst villainess.
This was my only path to survival.
Ian. Ian Ashy.
Estelle Orot repeated the name of the young master she served in her mind once more.
The guy who couldn't handle his own affairs properly.
Who always hid behind others when trouble arose.
A pathetic existence utterly devoid of any masculinity.
Just moments ago, he'd been that pitiful, hopeless man. But now, he no longer existed in this room.
"I won't say it twice."
"You're my maid, Estelle."
"Lift your skirt."
Those three short, coercive sentences. Eyes cool and empty, devoid of even a thread of emotion. Beneath that overwhelming gaze treating her like property, Estelle nearly forgot to breathe.
The chill that had frozen the room melted away in an instant. A prickling shiver raced down her spine, and an uncontrollable heat surged up from deep within her body.
'When… did the young master change like this?'
Estelle took in the man before her with trembling eyes.
The old young master had been nothing but a dense, pathetic nerd holed up in his room, clueless about women's hearts.
But lately, he'd changed noticeably. Seducing Lydia with slick tongue-work one moment, then casually flirting with his frequent-visiting childhood friend Lena, telling her he liked big-mouthed women.
Each unfamiliar sight had made a corner of Estelle's chest throb with an inexplicable pain, like needles pricking her.
And now, that man was directing a brutally heavy, coercive command solely at her.
By all reason, it was an outrageously rude and vulgar request. She could smash his head with the silver tray and storm out of the manor without a word of regret.
'This is exactly the situation where I should.'
But Estelle couldn't bolt from the room right now. No, she couldn't refuse.
In fact, this moment, bound by that cool gaze, felt grotesquely sweet.
'Fine. Even if the young master is a rotten noble clueless about the world.'
She knew full well the heavy implications in this empire of an unmarried woman showing her undergarments—especially something as intimate as a garter belt—to an unrelated man.
It was tantamount to a pledge of total submission, offering everything she had.
'In other words.'
It was too serious and dominant to dismiss as mere perverse whim or a joke—the voice and eyes he'd just unleashed.
'That was… a confession of oppression, but you're mine?'
Her breath quickened. She had to refuse. A trashy confession like this—she'd never seen or heard of such a thing. Cold reason urged her on.
But another thought crept in.
What if she asserted her pride here and rejected this humiliating command? It was obvious.
That hopeless young master would undoubtedly run off to that clueless childhood friend or the paper-peddling woman and make the same request.
He'd turn that heavy gaze on another woman.
'Wouldn't that be better? Better than getting tangled up with a maid like me—for the young master to connect with a proper noble lady….'
The thought reached that point.
'No.'
Estelle ground her teeth inwardly.
'I hate that. Really hate it.'
This dense, violent possessiveness directed only at her—stolen by another woman? She'd been the only one silently enduring this man Ian Ashy, whom no one else could handle, watching his depths all along.
Everything about this man—even these vulgar, dangerous desires—had to be hers alone.
Yes. So this was the feeling.
She stepped slowly, very slowly, toward Ian.
The rustle of her maid uniform's fabric sounded unusually loud.
She leaned in slightly, meeting the cool, empty eyes of Ian.
The heat had vanished before she knew it, replaced by Estelle's utterly cold gaze.
Her lips trembled faintly. She closed her eyes tightly as if in contemplation, then opened them to speak to Ian in a voice thick with contempt.
"Promise me, young master."
The fingers in her white-gloved hand gently gripped the frills of her black maid dress.
"That you won't… make this request to any other woman but me."
Confirming Ian swallow dryly, frozen in a daze, Estelle lifted the corner of her mouth ever so slightly.
"Then……."
Her skirt hem rose just a little, with a soft rustle.