Chapter 29
Translator: True Detective
The Maid's Dream
Anna Moore, a maid of the Grace Viscountcy.
She had one dream that could be considered modest if modest, or grand if grand.
That dream was none other than becoming the personal attendant of the Grace Viscountcy's daughter, Noel Grace.
Wondering what on earth the dream was, and it's merely a personal attendant?
Someone might sneer, asking what kind of grand dream that is.
But if you think about it, it is not necessarily so.
Noel's personal attendant...
It was not a matter to be taken lightly.
Noel Grace, who was likely to bring in a live-in son-in-law in the future and take charge of the family's internal affairs following Natalie.
Becoming the personal attendant of such a person also meant becoming the confidant of the person in power and holding actual authority.
It meant an immediate elevation in status.
Considering that the current Head Maid had been Natalie's personal attendant and assisted her with various authorities including personnel rights, a personal attendant was not something to be scoffed at.
It might be a different story if it were the younger daughter, Noah Grace, but being the personal attendant of the eldest daughter, Noel Grace, was like a guaranteed ticket to power.
Considering that even second and third daughters sent from places like Baronies were aiming for it, it was a fiercely desired position among the maids of the Grace Viscountcy, akin to becoming the Emperor's confidant.
With the situation like this, it could only be called a grand dream for the insignificant Anna, who was of commoner origin.
"A commoner becoming the Miss's personal attendant? The Miss whom not just the Imperial Princess and a Count's daughter, but even The Saintess comes to visit? Well, at this point, isn't it a delusion rather than a dream?"
"Well, having a delusion──no, a dream, is your freedom. Still, you should distinguish between reality and dreams, shouldn't you?"
"Pfft! Do you think a freckled country bumpkin like you suits the Miss?"
"This is why commoners are a problem. Just because the Miss treats us without discrimination, they don't know their place... A person needs to know their limits."
"I'm saying this for your own good, why don't you figure out your place so you don't get disappointed for nothing?"
"Becoming a personal attendant means going to the academy together to attend to the Miss... someone like you? Hah! Are you planning to bring disgrace to the Grace Viscountcy?"
Naturally, those around her sneered like this while watching Anna strive to become Noel's personal attendant.
It was mostly the maids competing with Anna for the position of personal attendant who did so, but Anna was not intimidated no matter what others said.
Because you have to compare the lengths to know which is longer or shorter.
In the first place, if things had rolled exactly according to the sound arguments like the other competitors said, Noel should have chosen her personal attendant a long time ago.
However, Noel did not choose.
It was not because there was any special reason, but she wondered if she even needed a personal attendant when she was only staying at home anyway.
So, after putting it off day after day because choosing was a hassle, she still did not have a single personal attendant.
A truly un-noble-like demeanor.
Because of this, Viscountess Natalie clutched her forehead as if she got a headache just thinking about her eldest daughter.
It was a bit better now, but Natalie was still suffering internally because of her daughter's unladylike aspects, and now there was not much time left until she entered the academy either.
It meant the time to choose a personal attendant was approaching whether she liked it or not, and the competition among the maids aiming for that spot was becoming fiercer day by day.
A situation where, as Noel's reputation rose after her debut, even those who originally did not covet the personal attendant position started to step in.
Amidst that increasingly fierce competition, Anna was doing her job diligently, almost foolishly so, believing that she would be recognized if she worked hard.
Just like now.
"Phew."
Anna Moore wiping away the water splashed on her face and the sweat beaded on her forehead while doing laundry with the towel hung around her neck.
Laundry was the most grueling labor among household chores.
She heard that the Magic Tower was recently developing a magic tool that did laundry automatically, and it was to the extent that all the housewives and housekeepers in the world were earnestly praying for it to succeed.
That was no different for Anna.
If someone asked which was heavier labor between washing dishes and doing laundry, Anna would unhesitatingly choose laundry, regardless of what others might say.
It was a fact that it was that hard, and unlike washing dishes, it drained one's energy.
Still, Anna succeeded in silently finishing her entire given quota.
"Ugh, let's take a short break..."
Ending a bout of war-like maid duties, she entered a breather.
Avoiding the stinging autumn sunlight, she sat in the shade where a cool breeze blew and spread out her writing instruments.
And she started making notes in her notebook──no, sketching pictures.
That sketch was exactly tracing a comic.
It was at the level of a doodle, but it was definitely a comic.
A clumsy and crude combination of pictures where panels were divided and a story unfolded.
It was undoubtedly a comic.
This was the new hobby that Anna developed after seeing The Elf and the Woodcutter comic book.
The comic book Noel had gifted as a welfare measure, saying everyone was working hard due to the recent continuous visits of honored guests.
The shock Anna received the moment she saw it could not be fully expressed in words.
Since she was aiming to be a personal attendant, Anna had read all of Noel's other works, including the fairy tale books, so she naturally knew the entire content of The Elf and the Woodcutter.
Despite knowing it, the moment Anna saw The Elf and the Woodcutter reborn as a comic, she felt immense astonishment and passion.
An era of barbarism.
A dark age.
The love between a human and an elf unfolding in the background of a continent in the past called by such names.
The story of an elf who fled from slave hunters and a young man who ended up protecting that elf while picking up dry branches in the mountains.
A fairy tale that made one realize the gruesomeness of slavery and how nauseatingly evil discrimination and prejudice against other races were.
The comic version of The Elf and the Woodcutter, reborn based on such a fairy tale, gifted Anna with an experience even more spiritually fulfilling than the novel.
And the comic version of The Elf and the Woodcutter was made by slightly reinforcing the story, just like the play version of The Bridges of Imperium Town.
For that reason, unlike the novel which was written very simply, plainly, and in a fairy tale-like manner so it would be good for children to read, the 'flavor of seeing' was exceptionally different.
The story that changed slightly as it was reborn as a comic was like this.
The basic framework was entirely the same, but detailed background settings and such were added a bit more.
100 years since the hero won and the Demon King was subjugated.
Ironically, contrary to everyone's expectations, the world where the common enemy known as the demon race disappeared now began to wage wars among fellow humans.
The continent faced conflict, not peace.
While there were reasons for this in its own way, the important thing was the fact that they could not welcome the blue future everyone had expected.
Never-ending war.
It was not only humans who groaned in that war.
The madness of war made them discard humanity under the pretext of being for the victory of the group.
To create powerful weapons, they captured dwarves and used them as slaves, and captured beastmen, who were natural-born warriors, using them as slave soldiers or gladiators in the colosseum.
In the case of elves, those in power bewitched by their beautiful looks took them as spoils of victory.
It was such an era.
A time when madness was prevalent like an old friend.
A terrible era of barbarism where slave hunters ran rampant, and children would say they wanted to grow up to own slaves and live a life of luxury.
A shameful past that eventually led to a race war at its end.
In some ways, it was a dark age for the continent worse than the time when the threat of the Demon King and the demon race existed.
In such an era, there was a young man named Ben who had become an orphan amidst the war.
The innocent young man, unsuited for the cruel era, would go to the mountains to gather dry branches during the slow farming season.
He would sell them for pocket change and also provide them as winter firewood for the elderly who had uncomfortable bodies.
「Isn't he an idiot? It's one thing if he's selling firewood to earn pocket money, but he just gives it to others?」
「How foolish. Who's going to recognize him for doing that, is there any profit? He's just being used by the old folks, tsk tsk.」
The world was so bleak that people were busy sneering at such good deeds.
The ravages of war never ended, and slave hunters ran amok, taking advantage of that chaos.
Nobles were too busy colluding with slave hunters to line their own pockets rather than maintaining public order.
No matter how much the church tried saying things shouldn't be like this, it was just an empty echo.
In such a world going mad, Ben went to the mountain to gather dry firewood that day as well.
Logging was not allowed freely, but picking up scrawny, dried-up branches was fine.
However, Ben, who went to the mountain with the thought of digging up some medicinal herbs or wild greens and picking up firewood, ended up picking up an 'elf' instead of branches.
An urgent rustling presence.
He wondered if a deer was being chased by hunters, but what popped out from the shaking bushes was not a deer, but a scantily clad elf.
Draped in rags, her soles were full of scratches, likely from running barefoot for a long time with broken chains on her ankles.
The signs of hardship were evident, but she was indeed an elf.
She was so beautiful that one could not feel such hardship.
Ben, who lost his soul unknowingly at the elf he saw for the first time in his life despite having heard rumors.
And the elf, who thought she had barely managed to escape taking advantage of the slave hunters' carelessness, was flustered upon encountering a human.
At that moment,
「You damn thing! Do you think you can escape!」
The shout of the slave hunter chasing the elf could be heard.
Hearing that sound, Ben snapped back to reality and spoke to the elf.
「Hide in here.」
「What? Why...?」
A human helping her?
The elf lady was flustered by the unimaginable situation.
「We'll talk later.」
Ben hurried the elf as if there was no time for that now, and eventually, the elf accepted Ben's help even without withdrawing her suspicion.
「Hey, country bumpkin! Didn't an elf come this way?」
Eventually, the slave hunter who chased after her asked Ben while huffing and puffing.
Facing such a slave hunter, Ben bantered, utilizing his experience of haggling with merchants on market days.
「An elf? I don't really know about that, but I did feel the presence of something coming this way and then going in a different direction as if it noticed me... Was that an elf?」
With sparkling eyes, Ben added words so the slave hunter would withdraw his suspicion.
「By any chance, if you catch it, since I provided information, some reward for me too──.」
At that greedy appearance Ben acted out, the slave hunter snorted and left without even replying.
And when the slave hunter's presence completely disappeared,
「He's gone. You can come out now.」
Ben spoke toward the direction he had hidden the elf, but there was no returning reply.
He wondered if she had perhaps run away without a trace in the meantime, but...
「Huh? Hey there, Miss!」
In reality, there was the figure of the elf collapsed in a faint, as if her energy was depleted.
2,416 words
73 views