The Enemy Family Is Actually a Great Place to Eat
After bowing to the head butler, I walked as far as the central desk of the servants' quarters, and there I could sense the shape of a woman seated behind it.
Hm...? Is she snoring?
"Excuse me?"
Snrrrk...
"Excuse me!"
"Hah!... I'm sorry!!"
The woman shot upright, wiping at her mouth, only to tilt her head a moment later.
"What? I thought you were the head maid. You scared the life out of me."
"You shouldn't be sleeping on the job. That aside, there ought to be a newly prepared room. Do you know where it is?"
"Ah. So you're the one that room belongs to. You look new. How'd you manage to wrap the head butler around your finger..."
Is it because she's a kid...? He scolds me every single day...
The woman muttered it under her breath.
Wasn't he scolding her precisely because she slept like that?
"Anyway, go right and you'll find a room with a sign on it. Head there. We done?"
With that she sat back down and began to snore again.
I had never met a maid this prickly. Most of the maids were nobles, so someone like her was rare.
She wouldn't be able to see it, but I bowed my head all the same, then set off once more in search of the room.
A short walk down the right-hand corridor brought me to a door with a sign hung from the handle. I had no idea what it said. No other signed door registered to my senses, so this had to be the one. I turned the handle.
What I felt was... larger than I'd expected?
Walking the room to take its measure, I put it at a good thirty square meters. A desk with a mirror, a clothes rack, a bed — furnishings that plain, and little else. It didn't look like much, but even this was luxury. When I had gone to the southern demon continent to slay the Demon King, every night had been nothing but a camp.
There seemed to be a window set into the wall as well. To me it was only a vent.
I was tired, and I had nothing to do just now, so I decided to turn in early.
It refused to come off as easily as I'd hoped. After a furious struggle I finally got the maid dress off and went to hang it on the rack—
Too high.
I rose all the way onto my toes, and still couldn't reach. In my old body I could have hung it with my mouth...
Feeling helpless in the most absurd of places, I gave up at once on what I couldn't do, folded the maid dress neatly, and set it atop the mirrored desk.
To truly grasp one's own height, you have to see how far above you the other thing sits. For me, seeing the world through ki sense, that wasn't something I ordinarily felt... I never thought I would learn it like this.
To smother the mood that had sunk a little, I lay down on the bed. It was quite a small bed, but my body was smaller still, so it felt plenty large.
I had just realized something that only made me more depressed...
Miserable as the reality was, I tried to fall asleep quickly, but my heart would not allow it, and sleep refused to come.
The body was one thing. Becoming a slave, I could even set that aside. What rose up over revenge itself — my most important goal — was temptation. Take revenge on Elencia. Take back as much as had been taken. If I did not even do that, then what was I, a man who was not even the Hero anymore?
I had sworn my revenge on that resolve, but Elencia herself was not here. And her younger sibling had not betrayed me the way Elencia had. Cold, perhaps, but still courteous, still kind.
Bring the mansion down, then? For me, who had lost a home, this mansion was the only place that offered any rest. My heart boiled, but my hand would not move rashly. And when I thought the harm would reach the servants as well, the temptation only grew thicker.
Head Butler Melton was still every inch a gentleman, and today, too, he had shown me a great deal of kindness. Could I bring harm to a man like that?
Feeling as though even the heart lodged in this small body were growing smaller, I opened my eyes again. If a blind man has few advantages, one of them is that he can sleep with his eyes open. Whatever the heart wanted, the child's body could not endure the fatigue. In that pitch-black dark my eyes slowly closed, and—
Right. I would have plenty of time to think anyway...
I simply decided to sleep soundly.
Pa-ram. Pa-ram-pa. Pa-ram-ram-pa. Pa-pa-ra-bam-pa. Pa-ram-pa. Pa-ram-pa...
That startled me...!
A trumpet I had never heard before, and strangely unpleasant — an ill omen, as if the whole day would tangle itself if I failed to get up. Thanks to it, sleep fled at a stroke. I stretched and opened my eyes on instinct.
Not that any light appeared.
Was it morning... or night...? Being unable to see the sunlight was, as ever, a lonely thing.
—Chirp, chirp.
Still, the birdsong told me it was morning, so I sat up.
Opening my ki sense to tidy the blankets, I found it had definitely grown since yesterday — a little past two meters. The way beginners gain strength less from growing new muscle than from learning how to use muscle they have never used, the senses, too, climb steeply at the start, by waking what has lain idle.
Not that anything changed all that much for it. I straightened the blankets neatly, opened the window to air the room, and dressed myself properly in the maid uniform. Having worn it once, the second time was a little easier.
I took the pocket watch from the front pocket and opened it.
Six and three, on the left: a quarter past six in the morning.
Stepping outside to wash, I could feel people bustling back and forth even at this early hour. They still glanced my way as they passed, as if I were something curious. Following yesterday's memory through those gazes, I went in where letters shaped into the word washroom were set above the door.
...This was nothing like the place I had imagined.
I had thought it would be somewhere you scooped water from a tub to wash, but water was coming out of some strange iron handle.
Hah... the world really has improved.
I stood in an empty stall and examined the handle-like thing. How did water come out of a thing like this? Studying it closely, I copied the maid beside me and turned the handle to the left, and as if in answer, warm water flowed out.
Was it made with black magic? A convenient power, I had to admit — if only it weren't so unsettling.
I washed my face in the running water and, with considerable effort, washed my hair. It was long, and that made it quite a chore. Everyone was glancing at me, but that was only because I was someone they had never seen. I bowed my head, dragged the wet hair forward, picked up one of the towels spread by the entrance, and dried off.
Shaking out my hair, I checked the watch.
Six and seven, on the left. About time I headed out.
The conversation I then had in Elouis's office... was nothing much at all. Had I slept well, had I eaten, had I memorized the layout of the mansion, come by every morning until the birthday party — Elouis-style inquiries after my welfare, in truth. I was also handed a schedule sheet laid on thick with ink, and until work began I was to do as I liked—
"Even if you say you have no need of me, what do you mean, do as I like?"
"Then you're a bodyguard. Go and build your skill or something."
I was given a wooden sword as well.
Certainly, if I meant to kill Elencia, I needed to become far stronger. In that case, the method was...
Nothing but training.
Power that comes easily is power that betrays you.
So, before the training began... there is a saying that even an imp eats before it makes trouble. To grow strong you need an orderly life, and an orderly life begins, of course, with breakfast.
Retracing my memory, I followed the path and arrived at the servants' dining hall. It was emptier than I had expected. Plenty of people must have been skipping breakfast. The busier you are, the more you ought to make certain you eat in the morning.
It was not something my ki sense could sort out, so I closed it just short of the entrance — and then a delicious smell stabbed at my nose, along with the maids' chatter and the spatter of oil. I felt even more than I had with my ki sense open.
I really do need to widen this soon. There's still far too much that's inconvenient.
Not that wanting it wider makes it so...
I fixed the direction of the smell in my memory, opened my ki sense again, and walked toward it. At the end of whatever was leading me stood a row of something covered with lids. To the touch it seemed a glass-like material, but ki sense could feel only the outer surface, so I lifted a lid...
Warm...!
Heat was rising from the vessel beneath it. They had things like this! A revolution in the world of buffets! Bread and omelette that never went cold! Even if this, too, was black magic... I would have no choice but to acknowledge it!
I was drooling in anticipation when a human shape approached from behind. I hurriedly grabbed a plate from beside me and loaded it with bread and omelette. Carrying that heaping plate toward where I had heard the maids earlier, I found six-person tables set out, and settled at one where no one sat.
Eating alone... It had been a very long time. After I became the Hero we had always eaten together. Felis's cooking had been absurdly—
No. What was I thinking, with good food sitting right in front of me?
I took up the utensils and demolished the meal without mercy. Perhaps because the body was young, my appetite was raging. And with my sight sealed away, my sense of taste seemed far more sensitive.
Tak.
Hkk... hkk... That was delicious. Today's meal.
I set the utensils down, pressed my palms together, and offered the chef my thanks in my heart. From the way I had seen someone walking about with plates, it seemed there was a person who cleared them. Partly to let the food settle, I set out to find a place to train.
The place I found, somehow or other, was a small wood. Among the places I knew, this was the only one where others were unlikely to see me. There was a little pond as well. I could wash here later. Even if I perceived nothing but shapes, I could hardly bathe with the ladies.
So. The place was secured... and surely no one else would be out here this early. The time was eight and three, on the left. Plenty of room.
Shall I start testing this body?
I lifted the wooden sword and swung it ten times in random directions.
"Haht!"
"Ha!"
A heavy sound of wind being cut. The score of that first test, carried out while I shouted with all my might...
Hek... hek...
Five points.
My arms already hurt, and I was out of breath. Before any talk of adaptation, I was simply far too frail... Setting the disappointment aside, I moved to the next test: the techniques I had used in my days as the Hero. Of them, I would use the easiest.
I lowered my body, crossed my feet, and spun quickly, loading that rotational force straight into the sword.
Dragon Sword Art
[Revolving Slash]
If I cut hard with that power...!
Ah...!!
Thud!!!
Unable to control the force, I toppled and planted my head in the ground. What a humiliation...
"Uwek!"
Weak to pain as well, it seemed. A pathetic scream, and my ki sense snapped shut along with it.
Not even worth a single point... Half a point. Whether it was the Demon King's curse, I seemed weaker than girls my own age...
I sat there stroking my head, evaluating myself, when—
"Ahahahahaha!! Kuhuhuhahak! Kekek...!"
Laughter, as if someone had held it in until it burst.
Mortifying... Who on earth is in a place like this...?
The laughter seemed at last to settle into the sound of footsteps.
"I thought you were a maid, but you're a clown? Pfft... ahahaha!"
A voice that still sounded young. With the pain finally subsiding, I opened my ki sense.
What I felt was...
"Hey?"
Red eyes...
"Mind reacting a little?"
A pitch-black child...
No! They really did feel completely black!
I am not a racist!!