So This Seat Has Become a Woman? (2)
Of the five maids, the oldest-looking woman stood in the center. She was the head maid who had plotted Lilith's assassination, and she had spent a long while laboring to kill her. Far from dying, the girl had glutted herself on that ruinously expensive poison as casually as if it were an ordinary meal. After half a year or so the signs of poisoning had begun, slowly, to show—and just when it seemed those efforts might at last bear fruit, there the girl was, perfectly alive.
"Hm..."
The Heavenly Demon swallowed the sound, studying the head maid. That rough tone, spat out the instant the woman laid eyes on this seat's face—judging by the way she spoke, there was no doubt they had tried to poison her. And yet—
Why?
A mere maid? No maid could have planned a thing like this. There had to be someone behind her. Besides, by the etiquette of this place, maids were not permitted to speak down to this seat. Status existed here. Lilith was a duke's daughter, and the gulf between the maid before her and a young lady of the house was the gulf between heaven and earth. The situation was absurd from the start.
"Wench. Your years may stand above this seat's, but why do you speak down to this seat?"
The words left her with her expression unchanged, her gaze fixed straight on the head maid, and they were more than enough to startle the woman and the maids around her.
"...You come back from the dead and lose your mind?"
That she didn't even stammer was beside the point. The choice of words was all wrong. Lilith was only fourteen. She didn't look it, granted—but had some sudden aging of the mind come over her? Listen only to the speech, and it was nearly the manner of an old man who had lived eighty years.
"Hm... I don't care to say a thing twice. You would do well to answer this question. Why do you speak down to this seat?"
Lilith's air had changed without warning, and it was more than enough to bear down on every one of them.
"...!"
She had never once been like this, so they hadn't known. Only now did they feel it in their bones: the sheer physical weight of Lilith.
"Have you gone mad? Did that poison knock a screw loose?"
The maids were plainly cowed, overwhelmed by her presence. Looming over them with that height and that bulk, wearing a look that promised violence, she left the thin, small women no choice but to shrink. But they faced reality soon enough. What could a hard face do? The one in front of them was Lilith—that stupid, timid Lilith.
A step. Hauling that enormous body forward, Lilith closed the distance by a single pace, and they flinched. An overwhelming frame. Eyes looking down on them from above. At first they had been afraid of the size itself. What if she took it into her head to do something wicked? A blow from those hands would hurt, surely. But once they had taken a proper look, it had amounted to nothing. Lilith had been a defective hulk—imposing in outline, and useless besides.
"Th-this! How dare you! To me, who looked after you and raised you!"
The head maid shouted and drew her rod. Head maid though she was, she had taken on the role of Lilith's wet nurse, and under the pretext of discipline she had made a habit of beating the girl with that rod. She could see it already: strike the buttocks hard, where the marks would not show, and the child would bawl that she was sorry and grovel on the floor.
But then Lilith snatched the rod right out of her hands, as if to make a show of it, and merely closed her fist. Crack—whether the thing was worn or simply old, splits began to run through the wood.
"I asked why you speak down to this seat."
The instant the words ended, the rod gave way and burst into useless pieces. Because the soul inside her was the Heavenly Demon? No. The body she had been born with was simply superior. Snapping a rod like this was nothing at all.
"You... you...!!"
Aside from the head maid, the others were already nothing but mice, trembling under the weight of her presence. So the head maid was still the head maid, was she? Even now she opened her mouth while looking Lilith dead in the eye.
"Why do I speak down to you? Because you—! Because House Tiribi doesn't welcome you!!!"
"...Is that so."
Was that the whole of it? Nothing but a powerless little girl. Her physical strength was absurd, yes—but what about a child like that had been such a thorn in the eye? Revolting. Every ordeal this child had suffered until now churned inside her chest.
Shall I kill them?
If she set her mind to it, she could sweep wenches like these away without effort. No—given time enough, she could smash the whole of House Tiribi. Lilith's hand shot toward the head maid's throat and closed around it. That slender neck was caught in an enormous hand.
"Y-you... ghk...!!"
Seized by the throat and nothing more, the woman could do nothing at all; even her words stumbled. A light grip. No blow had been struck. And yet she suffered this much. Truly frail. The head maid's face twisted further and further. Of course it did. Giving pain to others must have been a pleasure, but taking it herself would be agony enough to die of.
"The truth is, you are nothing, are you. What exactly are you so proud of? That your post sits highest among the maids?"
The grip tightened.
"Kgh... kagh...!"
The blood left the head maid's face until it was pale. Desperate to live, she clutched at Lilith's hand and then dug in with her nails. Flesh tore beneath them, and blood ran down. Did it hurt?
To this seat, pain like this is nothing.
A thin, strange smile rose on Lilith's face.
"The moment it comes to this, they always thrash, so desperate to live."
A manner of speaking, as if she had killed more than a few. In truth it was not a matter of a few. In younger days it had been closer to wholesale slaughter.
This seat could kill her at a whim... but it is still too soon.
In her heart she had already turned the question over dozens of times. Killing the head maid would not keep her from learning who stood behind this. And if she did kill someone, would Duke Tiribi simply smile and let it pass? He had stood by and watched Lilith be tormented, so perhaps it would be fine.
Well. Killing her this easily would be a waste.
The conclusion was to let the woman drag her life on a little longer—and to make the mere fact of living feel like hell. Slowly, Lilith eased the strength in her grip.
"Hah...! Hah...! Haaah...!!"
The head maid sucked in air as if she had been waiting for it. Eyes round, she stroked her own throat, as though it hurt too much to bear. For an instant she had nearly died. The pain of a throat closing had been great past words, and when her breath was cut off in a heartbeat and the air sealed away, her life had flashed before her eyes.
This isn't the Lilith I knew...
They said a person changed after coming back from death. Had Lilith grasped something at the very edge of it? Even so, for someone to change this much overnight made no sense.
"I will ask. Why is this seat unwelcome?"
Her voice was frightening now. This was not the stupid, gullible Lilith of before. It was as if a demon had taken root in Lilith's body.
"I... I was wr-wrong..."
The head maid no longer had the courage even to meet her eyes. In truth she had known from the beginning that Lilith possessed a body so massive she would never lose, even against an ordinary grown man. Had she not just seen it—that figure, choking her throat and smiling with such wickedness?
"...You don't imagine that I was wrong answers this seat's question, do you?"
That was not the answer the Heavenly Demon wanted. The head maid lowering her head? That was only natural. Who would dare not bow before the Heavenly Demon?
"Th-that's... because you're the child of a lowly commoner..."
The head maid laid her true thoughts bare. Had she failed to answer properly, she might truly have died this time.
"A commoner.... For a reason as petty as that, you tried to poison this seat?"
"H-how..."
Flustered, the head maid ducked her head in a rush. How had she found out? Had she known all of it and simply endured? No. That couldn't be. Who would be stupid enough to know, and still drink poisoned tea at every single tea time?
"Surprised? Did you think this seat would fail to notice a thing so trivial? You already deserve to die by this seat's hand."
A shudder ran through her; gooseflesh, and her whole body shaking. It was fear. Faced with the terror that she might truly die, the head maid thought she might piss herself.
"Very well. Then who ordered it?"
"Th-that..."
The head maid fell into thought. Which of them was more frightening? Lady Hoian could be called the most influential figure in House Tiribi, and she had ordered Lilith killed. A head maid like her—cross Lady Hoian, and it would be no surprise whenever she died. But the Lilith before her eyes was no less dangerous. That thing was simply a mad dog. Yes. Mad dog suited her perfectly: Lilith, who had just bitten down on her throat. They said there was no answer once a mad dog had you in its teeth. If she meant to live, then at least for now she had to crawl before Lilith.
"Lady Hoian ordered it."
The moment the name leapt from the head maid's mouth, the maids beside her startled with her. How could she speak the lady's name so carelessly? Was she truly unafraid of what would follow?
What follows...? Of course I'm afraid. But Lilith is on another level.
When her throat was crushed, the head maid had understood. Ah—her life was being toyed with. That bearing, able to kill whenever she pleased. Lady Hoian would at least send a person off slowly, by poison. Lilith could beat her to death with her own hands and still have strength to spare.
Should I just... abandon Lady Hoian and cling to Lilith?
The girl's power was frightening enough that she even considered jumping ship.
"All of it! I only did exactly as Lady Hoian commanded! I'm a powerless head maid.... If I have any sin, it's only that I listened well to my mistress..."
Lilith reached out and clamped a hand over the head maid's mouth.
"Shall I pull out that filthy tongue?"
Terrified, the head maid shook her head in a frantic no.