The Maid Abuse Report
Karl, the Knight Commander, went deathly pale the moment he heard me. He immediately shot down my suggestion.
“Don’t even joke about something like that, Young Master Edrick! His Grace the Grand Duke has only just returned, and the mountain of work we have to do is already enormous!”
Yeah, yeah. I keep telling you that bastard isn’t going to do any of that work. But of course he wouldn’t listen.
“Lily. Please keep a close eye on Young Master Edrick and make sure he doesn’t do anything reckless. I’m begging you.”
Karl left the room muttering to himself, Aigoo, my head hurts. There’s so much backlog, where do I even start with my report to His Grace?
“What the hell? Why is no one listening to me!”
“Exactly. What even is a coup? Tsk. I’d freak out too if I were him.”
The voice was strangely unfriendly as a teacup was set down in front of me with a clack. When I looked up, I saw the familiar face of a maid.
She had a beautiful face that would turn heads anywhere, but her expression… how do I describe it? It was exactly like the look girls give when their friends drag them into a penalty game at a drinking party and they have to go ask to join a table of women. You know, that “We’re in the middle of a serious conversation right now??” face while radiating pure annoyance.
We’re in a fantasy world, Lily. How the hell are you pulling off that exact PTSD-inducing expression?
“What? Is there something on my face?”
“You seem to be getting more crooked by the day, you know that?”
“That’s my line. The Knight Commander is acting like that because he’s worried you’ll go off the rails and cause an accident, Young Master.”
“Okay, fine, but since when does a maid talk to her master like that?”
As you can probably tell from our conversation, Lily was my personal maid. She hadn’t always been assigned to me. I’d picked her up from an orphanage after some complicated circumstances.
“But seriously, what are you thinking? What exactly are you planning to overthrow?”
“Hmm…”
How the hell do I explain this? Oh, right!
“Lily. Remember that romance fantasy novel I told you about? The one the young ladies in the capital read?”
“The one you talk about so much I feel like my ears are going to grow calluses, Young Master?”
Had I really talked about it that much? Well, I guess the romance fantasy tropes my little sister was obsessed with were pretty fucking stupid. They stuck in my memory enough that I kept bringing them up just to shit on them.
“In those romance fantasy novels, what did I say the so-called Northern Grand Dukes were like? Do you remember?”
“Trash who let the North fall to ruin while they obsess over women and only care about their love lives?”
“…You remember the details better than I expected, Lily.”
“Why are you suddenly bringing up romance fantasy novels?”
“Let’s say Cedric ends up like that. What do you think I should do?”
Lily paused for a moment, thinking, then answered.
“So what can you even do about it?”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Why is that the first thing out of your mouth? Where did you even learn that kind of language?”
“I just picked it up from your own bad habits, Young Master.”
“Anyway! If Cedric loses his mind over some woman and abandons the North, the only way to save it is for me to flip the whole damn thing over!!”
Only then did Lily’s face shift into an understanding “Ohhh” expression.
“You should have just said that to the Knight Commander.”
“I tried to explain, but he didn’t even listen before storming out.”
“Honestly, the moment you started talking about romance fantasy novels, it sounded completely ridiculous.”
She hit me with cold hard facts, so I had nothing to say. Did I really raise you to be like this? Wait… now that I think about it, I probably did.
“If we leave things like this, the North is definitely going to turn into a complete shitshow. This is driving me insane.”
I pressed a hand to my forehead and let out a sigh as my complicated thoughts swirled. That’s when our resident verbally abusive maid opened her mouth again.
“Drink your tea before it gets cold. And anyway, isn’t there only one thing you can do, Young Master?”
“Huh? What should I do?”
“Drink the tea first. Quickly.”
This was one of Lily’s habits. Whenever she brought me tea, she always made sure I actually drank it. If I didn’t, she’d keep giving me the side-eye until I finished it. So I gulped it down in one go and asked again.
“What’s the one thing I need to do?”
“The thing you always talk about. The story of the previous head of the family.”
“Father?”
I’d told Lily quite a few stories about Bernhardt, the previous Northern Grand Duke and my father in this life. Most of them had been along the lines of That’s the true romance of the North. I could never live like that. I thought romance wouldn’t put food on the table, but apparently it does. Something like that.
When I made a face that said I wasn’t following, Lily put on her signature maid-abuse expression again and answered.
“You always said the previous head of the family claimed that in the North, status and titles mean nothing. Only actual achievements speak for everything.”
“Yeah. That was Father’s policy.”
“So if you want to overthrow everything and do whatever you want, you need to build up some achievements first.”
When I actually thought about it, she was right. Our Lily really is sharp. Whoever taught her did a good job.
“I was always smart, you know.”
“Can you read my mind now??”
“It’s all written on your face.”
No way. I inherited my father Bernhardt’s rugged Northern warrior face. I’m confident in my poker face. Anyway, after hearing Lily’s words, one clear thought popped into my head.
“Lily! Pack some luggage for me. I’ll be gone for a few days, and we’ll need to camp out!”
“…By yourself, Young Master?”
“Yeah. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to move freely now that Cedric’s back.”
“No. Didn’t you hear the Knight Commander? He clearly told me to watch you so you don’t do anything reckless.”
“But Lily, I’m going to build up achievements like you said. What are you talking about?”
“If you really must go, then I’ll come along to supervise.”
Huh? Lily’s coming too?
Well… I’m terrible at cooking. Having Lily around for camping would probably make things a lot easier.
It wasn’t a bad offer at all, so I quickly agreed.
“Then pack for two. I’ll go talk to Cedric real quick.”
“Have a safe trip.”
Leaving Lily behind, I hurried to Cedric’s office to let him know I’d be gone for a few days.
“…As late as possible.”
I thought I heard Lily mutter something under her breath at the end, but it was too quiet to make out.
Lily’s expression changed in an instant.
“Young Master…”
The “We’re in the middle of a serious conversation right now!!” big-sister-who’s-annoyed-at-everyone expression she’d been wearing vanished without a trace. In its place was the flushed face of a seventeen-year-old girl, completely lovestruck.
“He drank every last drop again today. Hehe…”
Lily gently traced her finger over the exact spot on the teacup where Edrick’s lips had touched. She stroked the white porcelain with her long, slender fingers for a long time before carefully lifting the cup with both hands.
And then…
“Chu… chu…”
She pressed her lips to the empty teacup, pretending to sip from it with utmost care. The exact spot her lips touched was the very same place Edrick’s lips had been when he downed the tea in one gulp.
This was a secret hobby that only Lily in the entire world knew about. No—one that no one should ever know about.
“Haa… Young Master Edrick.”
The moment she indirectly shared body heat with the Young Master she adored so desperately.
After savoring the indirect kiss for quite some time, Lily set the teacup down with clear reluctance. Normally she would have taken this cup back to her room and used it until it was time to switch to a new one.
But today, something far more important had come up.
“An outing… an overnight trip… just the two of us…”
That’s right. She still didn’t know what it was for, but her master had told her to prepare luggage for several days outside.
“I deserve a pat on the back for that one.”
In that moment, Lily had used her quick wits. She’d brought up the Knight Commander Karl’s words and insisted that she had to go with him. Fortunately, her master had accepted it without any suspicion.
“The abusive maid attribute can only be perfected on top of flawless work performance, after all.”
It went without saying that Lily’s increasingly crooked attitude toward Edrick lately was entirely intentional. Ever since she was young, she had asked every maid in the Grand Duke’s castle who had watched over Edrick what his ideal type was. From their answers, she had gathered clues.
— Now that I think about it, it was when the Young Master was thirteen, wasn’t it? He came to me with a serious face and said something.
— What did he say?
— He asked me to tell him, completely deadpan, “Young Master, other than lazing around every day, you have no talent at all.”
— Excuse me??
— Strange, right? No one in the entire Northern Grand Duchy has ever seen Young Master Edrick being lazy.
— Oh! I just remembered something too. He once asked me with a look of utter contempt to say this: “Even if I received praise from you, Young Master, it wouldn’t make me happy at all.”
The answers made no sense, but there was a common thread. Every young and pretty maid in the Grand Duke’s castle had, at one point or another, been asked by Edrick to deliver some incomprehensible line while wearing an expression of complete apathy or contempt.
After persistently investigating the clues for several years, Lily had finally found a certain novel that was secretly popular among the male nobles of the capital.
Its title was The Report of Abuse Maid J-yang.
According to the book, there were quite a few young male nobles in the capital who found joy in being verbally abused by their maids. They apparently had what was called a “maid abuse fetish.”
‘The Young Master definitely has a preference for the abusive maid attribute.’
Having only recently reached that conclusion, Lily had unconsciously awakened her natural talent as an abusive maid.
“This is no time to be standing around. I need to prepare thoroughly so the Young Master can eat perfectly even while we’re outside.”
Lily gave one last longing look at the teacup that had touched Edrick’s lips, then slipped it into the pocket of her maid uniform. She left the room with quick, light steps to start packing.