4. The Maid
Emily hurried back to the young lady's chambers and opened the door to Olivier's room. Olivier, already awake, was sitting at her desk peering into a book just like any ordinary evening.
As Emily entered and closed the door behind her, Olivier looked up from her book, met her eyes, and pointed with a finger to the table in front of the sofa.
On the table sat a glass of white milk and two bite-sized sandwich pieces neatly shaped and sliced.
"Dinner. Eat it. Sarah brought yours earlier too."
Emily shook her head. She was chiding herself for completely forgetting the young lady's dinner because she'd been so fixated on that secluded room at the end of the second-floor guest corridor, and shame and embarrassment burned from having witnessed that indecent scene.
Even when Olivier gestured again with her eyes, Emily just stood there rooted, head bowed. With a helpless shrug, Olivier turned her gaze back to her book.
"Lady Olivier."
Emily called out in a small voice, and Olivier responded halfheartedly with a vague "mm-hmm" without lifting her head from the book.
"...Who's Ellie...?"
Emily stammered. Olivier looked up from her book and studied Emily quietly. Then she glanced back at the book and spoke.
"Sort of like a guest."
Olivier's curt reply only fueled Emily's curiosity. A guest? The intense scene in that room at the end of the corridor, tangled up with Baron Belpharos, didn't seem like something a mere guest would do.
Sensing Emily's burning curiosity, Olivier looked up from her book with an annoyed expression and began explaining.
"She's an outside hire who came with Dad when he was appointed mine overseer. Some... noble's employee interested in minerals. She took over as liaison while that person's away on the eastern continent."
Olivier furrowed her brow slightly, as if recalling something.
"It was some... rare mineral. They say it comes out in tiny amounts very rarely from here, the Scren Mine, and it's incredibly valuable. So whenever any gets mined, Ellie contacts her employer right away to buy it. Like a buyer, I guess?"
Emily voiced the question she'd been dying to ask.
"Then, the maid outfit today..."
"Oh, that? Mom probably asked her to wear it just for fun since she used to be a maid once. You saw her face, right? She's pale. She's not well, so aside from occasionally going in and out of the overseer's office, she stays cooped up in her room. Her back bothers her too. She stays in the staff quarters on the third floor."
Emily recalled Ellie's peculiar gait from the night before and that morning in the banquet hall. And to shake off the memory of that deeply arched back moving so fluidly just moments ago during her liaison with the baron, she shook her head vigorously.
Watching her with an intrigued expression, Olivier continued.
"Lotte and Sarah openly dislike Ellie. Gives them the creeps or something. Mom, on the other hand, doesn't pay her much mind since she's just some other noble's employee."
Does Baroness Belpharos not know about their relationship? Emily wondered, lost in thought.
"You hardly run into her anyway, so they treat her without any personal feelings. Oh, the name of that mineral..."
Olivier squinted, unable to recall it. She muttered frustratingly, the word dancing on the tip of her tongue. Then, as if it finally clicked, a bright smile lit her face.
"Right, adamantite. This place, the Scren Mine, used to be a massive magic mine way back in ancient times. Before the Anti-Magic War, they say."
Adamantite, Anti-Magic War—those were unfamiliar terms to Emily anyway, but the words "magic mine" piqued her interest. Among the people she'd seen waiting for her dad back then, there was a boy about her age who'd introduced himself as a mage. Was it because the Scren Mine was a magic mine that mages went inside it? And that man. Emily felt a vague certainty that Lady Olivier might know about that entirely white man.
Lady Olivier read a lot of books, after all. Mostly romance novels, judging by the colorful covers with passionately gazing men and women, but still.
"Miss, do you happen to know a man who's all pure white? From head to toe, white."
Olivier's face took on a puzzled look at Emily's sudden question. Emily continued cautiously, watching her reaction.
"Maybe a mage... or something like that."
Watching Emily's tense, rigid expression as she asked, Olivier's lips quirked up slightly.
Of course I know him. He was so famous it was hard to imagine anyone who didn't. But the Emily in front of her really seemed clueless. Was it because she lived in such a backwater?
Before satisfying Emily's curiosity, Olivier deftly changed the subject.
"Grab that sandwich and come over here? Starting today, I'll teach you letters little by little. This time it was just the Loren count and his wife, but when nobles travel, their maids usually come along. High nobles like count families bring two or more. Maids in noble houses can mostly read and write simple things, so as my maid, you need to match that level."
Emily's expectant face fell into disappointment as she shuffled over. She dragged a chair next to Olivier's desk and plopped down. Her appetite still gone, she hadn't brought the sandwich.
Olivier pulled a sheet of white paper from a square drawer under the desk, scribbled it full of the alphabet and two- or three-letter words, and handed it over. She explained the top were uppercase and lowercase letters, the bottom words, and gave her a fountain pen. Emily peered down at the paper with a bewildered look.
"Here. Here. Write each one ten times today, memorize them all by this time tomorrow. Oh, and memorize those simple words at the bottom too. Just twenty words specially for today. We'll increase the number starting tomorrow."
Olivier started messily checking off the tasks on the paper. Emily looked at the instructions with a troubled expression.
Suddenly pausing, Olivier studied Emily's face. Too hard? Emily gripped the fountain pen, at a loss before the densely packed letters on the paper. Her pale face stiffened in panic at the sight of them, bewilderment flickering over her gray eyes.
"Learning Coeltish isn't that tough. The real headache is ancient languages."
Olivier muttered, and Emily's expression hardened further as she stared down at the paper. Watching her, Olivier's lips curved up again.
Now was the time to answer Emily's question. A little motivation. With a reason, she'd have no choice but to learn.
From the bookshelf beside the desk, crammed full of books, Olivier pulled out a pink-covered volume and slid it toward Emily.
Emily's eyes widened as the book landed in front of her. In the center of the pink cover stood a towering, pure white castle. Aside from the unreadable text above and below, that was it.
"Know what this is?"
Emily shook her head. Smiling mischievously at her clueless expression, Olivier spoke.
"This book has everything about that white man you're curious about."
Instantly, Emily's eyes sparkled with curiosity. Olivier smiled at her with her eyes and tapped the cover like playing piano with her fingertips.
"It's a novel where the white man is the protagonist. Just like you said, he's a mage. This white castle is where he lives."
Emily stared intently at the cover, clearly hooked by the word "mage." Pleased inwardly at her deepening interest, Olivier went on.
"Once you learn your letters, you can read this fluently. Here, it's yours now. I've read it so many times I've practically memorized it."
Emily carefully picked up the pink-covered book. No matter how she looked at it, it was one of the young lady's favorite romance novels, and the protagonist was that white man. She examined it slowly. Huge title and lengthy blurb stretched above and below the white castle illustration, but without knowing letters, she couldn't grasp the meaning.
Staring blankly at the book, Emily gripped the fountain pen tightly. If she learned to read as the young lady said, she could learn about him. No choice now but to study for real.
Olivier smiled at Emily, who glared piercingly at the paper with pen in hand. Emily gripped the pen with a determined look and began scrawling crooked letters on the white paper. Not writing, but tracing them. First time with letters, so it couldn't be helped.
Olivier turned back to her own book. A while later, when the scratching pen sounds stopped, she looked over to see Emily had already filled the entire sheet.
Olivier handed her another blank sheet. Taking it, Emily started tracing letters more easily than before.
Watching Emily engrossed in memorizing the alphabet and muttering the words below, Olivier spoke up.
"Emily."
Emily looked up, and Olivier pointed to the food on the table.
"At least drink the milk. If you don't eat, you'll stay flat as a board forever. And like the guys in that romance novel with the maid protagonist last time, I bet this book's hero wouldn't like flat planes either?"
Olivier teasingly raised one eyebrow and glanced at Emily's chest. Emily's face flushed crimson, and she hurriedly crossed her arms over her chest.
Instantly, shamefully, Ellie's voluptuous breasts came to mind, heaving as she cried out lewdly earlier. And Baron Belpharos devouring them hotly. The baron sucking greedily on the red nipples dangling from those full breasts, drenching them in saliva, and Ellie moaning in response—it lingered in her mind, refusing to fade.
To Emily, the scene had been utterly shocking. Whoosh—heat surged to her cheeks as she recalled them. Her throat burned with thirst.
Emily shot up, went to the table, grabbed the milk, and gulped it down.
Watching her, Olivier let out a soft chuckle.