Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 5
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 5
After Lion finished his talk with his grandfather,
the mood among the servants who attended him was, to put it mildly, grim.
The reason was simple.
“Oh, for— gone again. Off they go, again.”
Hanna, the maid who cleaned Lion’s room, let out a deep sigh as she watched yet another servant pack and scramble quickly out the door.
“What? Someone else left?”
John, the attendant who overheard her muttering, stared back with wide, startled eyes.
“Yes! How can they all just quit the moment our young master is plagued by absurd rumors? Isn’t it too much?”
“Those ingrates. Before, they were always talking about how the young master barely gave them any work, how sweet the job was, how handsome he was. And now they run? Once you’ve joined a house, you stick with it to the end. Who walks out like this with no sense of loyalty?”
A couple of servants leaving might have been understandable, but a mass resignation was rare.
Normally, being hired by a noble family meant you spent more than half your life in their employ.
That was especially true for the Asteri Marquisate, a house of renowned mages.
Indeed, devoting heart and soul to serving a master as a retainer of such a family was generally considered a virtue…
“Haah.”
And yet those damned rumors had blown a gaping hole in Lion’s staffing.
The reason was the fear that anyone linked to the death of the firstborn grandson of a great mage house might suffer some unfathomable disadvantage.
“Do you… suppose the rumors are true?”
Hanna hugged the laundry basket to her chest and heaved another long sigh.
“Our young master may be frail, but he hasn’t been at death’s door. He supposedly survived that Mana Shock, or whatever they call it, three times, didn’t he? And lately he has been more energetic than ever…”
Was that all?
Hadn’t he even begun crafting potions lately?
That meant he had prodigious alchemical talent. How could anyone even consider leaving, based on nothing but a rumor — heaven knows where it started — about some fatal illness?
“Exactly. Where else among the nobility can you find anyone like our young master? We’re living proof of it right now.”
Hanna nodded vigorously at John’s words.
“That’s what I mean! How can they not realize how much they’ve benefited from the young master’s kindness while living here? It’s obvious they’d never be treated so well even if they went to another noble household!”
“Right. Right you are.”
“John, let’s put those baseless rumors about our young master to rest.”
“What rumors are those, pray tell?”
Uh-oh.
John and Hanna stiffened at the knife-edged question that came from right behind them.
“M-Miss Sylvia.”
They immediately bowed their heads at the sight of the neatly dressed elderly woman.
‘The head maid overheard us…’
‘No, John. This might actually be a good thing.’
Was it…?
John stole a glance at Sylvia.
Head maid Sylvia.
A veteran since many years before John and Hanna were even born, she had long commanded the indoor affairs of the mansion.
What’s more, no one knew a single thing about her — where she came from, what her hobbies were, nothing.
And that wasn’t all.
Whenever something went awry in the mansion, she would appear from nowhere and resolve it with swift efficiency.
The very reason the household ran smoothly even without a lady of the house was entirely thanks to the head maid who stood before them now: Sylvia.
“Surely you two aren’t putting stock in such absurd rumors as well?”
And Sylvia detested anything that stained the name of House Asteri.
Exactly the sort of thing such baseless rumors did.
“O-Of course not. But more and more people are quitting over this, and it’s just… a bit worrying…”
Sylvia’s sharply arched eyebrows eased back into a gentle line.
“Good. As long as that is settled, I’m satisfied. Don’t fret over such rumors. I’ve already dealt with all of it.”
“…”
Dealt with it…?
Come to think of it, the person suspected of spreading the malicious rumors had vanished somewhere around yesterday.
‘Terrifying…!’
Goosebumps raced down their arms.
“Heh heh.”
Sylvia smiled genially and walked past the two, entering the room where Petrick was waiting.
“Anyway, this was for the best.”
“Mm.”
For the best… right?
If the head maid had personally intervened, then the groundless rumors were certainly quashed.
The problem was what the future held for those who’d succumbed to them…
‘Hmph. They let themselves be swayed by idle talk. Let them fend for themselves.’
John decided not to dig any deeper into what had happened to them.
* * *
“So that was what happened.”
“Indeed. So this old woman handled it on her own.”
“Good.”
“But your expression is clouded once again today.”
Sylvia asked this while freely tidying up the papers strewn across Petrick’s work desk.
No matter how long she had managed the Asteri household, being so unflappable in the presence of an 8th-Circle Archmage was not normal.
Unless, of course, she were his equal in power or stronger.
Yet Petrick made no objection at all.
He even seemed more at ease like this.
“I was hoping you could take a look at this.”
Petrick drew a potion bottle from within his coat.
It was the potion Lion had brought him days before.
“This is… that potion from the other day, is it not?”
She’d already examined it once.
Something like a Mana Potion, but oddly radiating no trace of Magic Power.
“Correct. I want you to examine it with a ‘Witch’s’ eyes this time.”
“…”
Witch.
A hybrid offspring of demons and humans, with a lifespan of a thousand years.
A faint, eerie light kindled in Sylvia’s dry, clouded eyes.
“Was the examination not concluded back then?”
Only a shallow sip’s worth of liquid remained, sloshing gently in the bottle.
Since the task was simple, Sylvia took the potion, tilted it this way and that, opened the stopper to sniff it — and then froze for a single instant.
“This is…”
This was no ordinary potion.
The quality was one thing, but its fundamental recipe…
Petrick gave a silent nod.
“Well now.”
It was a truly wondrous thing.
“This is not something the young master could concoct.”
Sylvia.
To Sylvia’s eyes—not those of the head maid, but of the Witch bound to House Asteri—this was…
“Is this not the Hero’s Potion?”
The Hero.
The legendary figure who had ended the War Against the Demons fifty years ago and then vanished without a trace.
The peerless veteran whom no labyrinth could cage, and whom even a god would hesitate to make an enemy of.
And…
Perhaps the one person capable of finding Sylvia’s ‘Contract’ inside the labyrinth belonging to House Asteri and bringing her bond to an end.
Sylvia cast her eyes silently back down at the potion.
Through its open mouth, a faint, cool fragrance drifted out — but that was all.
It had no notable effect on her.
“This is an object that cannot be acquired unless you are the Hero.”
“We must not leap to conclusions. A true Hero’s Potion would display efficacy greater than this.”
Petrick paused mid-sentence.
‘If that child is truly the Hero…’
The Hero invariably appeared when evil did.
It had been so during the War Against the Demons.
‘No, there is no way he could be the Hero to begin with.’
Petrick resumed where he had left off.
“At any rate… I intend to ask the boy to craft a finer potion than this.”
“Is there a specific reason?”
“I wish for my sister to experience the same feeling of release that I did.”
“…For me?”
She knew well what those words meant.
Sylvia recalled the distant past, the time when she had lived as a Witch and harbored enmity toward humans.
The then-head of House Asteri, ordered to slay her, had taken pity on Sylvia and captured her alive instead; then, for their mutual safety, they had drafted a special contract.
[The Witch Sylvia shall not leave the Asteri estate.]
[The Witch Sylvia may live as a human upon the Asteri estate.]
[To prevent abuse, the contract shall be kept within the ‘Library’ of House Asteri.]
And so the position she gained was head maid.
Because of her long lifespan, she would retire at the proper time and return in a new body to manage the household once more.
This had been a continuous arrangement even before Petrick Asteri had become the family head, and Sylvia too had gradually softened her old hostility toward humans and had adapted well.
But there was always a side effect.
However much her body changed, repeating the same duties for hundreds of years had slowly worn Sylvia down.
It was for this very reason Petrick broached the subject now.
A potion that had worked perceptibly even on himself, an 8th-Circle mage.
He hoped that drinking it might ease her state somewhat.
He was worrying about her, the Witch he had watched over since he was a small child,
even using the old term ‘sister,’ a word he hadn’t called her since his youth.
“Haha… Ahahaha!”
Sylvia burst out laughing at the sight.
“Do you know what the most useless thing in the world is? It is to worry about a Witch.”
What did a little emotional dryness matter?
She lived for a thousand years and never fell ill.
Was that all?
She’d been born with fearsome Magic Power and manifold arts at her instinctive command.
And should she wish it, she could keep her youth forever.
“There is no need to burden your adorable grandson, then. I am perfectly fine.”
Yes. She was truly fine.
And if she were not… what of it?
“Besides, you know as well as I do that a potion of that caliber does nothing for me.”
“…Should the boy succeed in crafting a potion that does affect you, I shall take that to mean you are willing to drink it when the time comes.”
“It will not be easy.”
For a potion like that, not even a true hero might be enough.
Sylvia smoothed away the Witch’s expression and returned to being the ordinary head maid.
She straightened her attire and bowed with respectful courtesy.
“Then this old woman will take her leave for now.”
Swish.
Sylvia melted away, vanishing as if slipping into the shadows.
Petrick stared at the empty space where she had stood, maintaining a long silence, before calling his attendant with the air of a man who had reached a decision.
“Go and summon Lion.”
* * *
“You called for me?”
Lion promptly made his way to his grandfather’s room.
Last time, there had been a plausible excuse that delayed him, but this time he had none.
So he had to at least show he was diligent.
‘And I should check whether the potion worked well for him.’
He opened the door and stepped inside…
“Is something troubling you, Grandfather?”
“What trouble?”
Petrick’s overall air was markedly different from usual.
An ordinary person might not have noticed, but Lion had years of experience as a corporate salesman.
There was no doubt. That face was unmistakably the face of someone wrestling with a concern.
“Or did you not sleep well last night?”
“No.”
“Lack of exercise?”
“No.”
“At your age, perhaps rich food is harder to digest?”
Why you—.
Just as a faint flash of ire crossed Petrick’s face, Lion bluntly declared,
“Then it is because of my potion.”
“…”
Petrick’s response stopped dead.
‘Just as I thought.’
Lion glanced briefly at the emptied potion bottle to one side, then shifted his eyes back.
“Indeed. It is about that potion that I called you here.”
Petrick conceded with uncommon speed. His swift agreement betrayed how impatient he was.
“Can you craft something of higher quality than the potion you made before?”
“May I ask who it is for?”
“Mm.”
After a rather long pause, Petrick quietly ventured,
“It is a gift — for the head maid.”
The head maid… Did he mean old lady Sylvia?
‘Certainly, she works hard for this house.’
But for someone like her, even 2-star quality should produce a tremendous effect.
And yet… he wanted something better than before?
‘Besides, even a 2-star potion is impossible under the present circumstances.’
For one thing, no more one-star herbs were appearing, and even if he gathered good ones, there was no guarantee he would get another lucky break like last time.
Realistically, a two-star potion was Lion’s absolute limit.
But—
Without question, this was an opportunity he had to seize.
“It will take some time, but I can do it.”
Lion’s instincts told him so.
There was definitely something romantic in the air between his grandfather and old lady Sylvia!