The Dragon Slayer (2)
"Ahh... when are we ever going to get all this cleaned up?"
It was a sluggish afternoon.
The maids who had returned to the kitchen after giving the dining hall a thorough cleaning let their groans spill out all at once.
Flour scattered across the floor, cooking utensils strewn about everywhere.
Just one look at the dishes piled high and left abandoned was enough to make their breath catch in their throats.
The head chef who had created this disaster had already clocked out, leaving the cleanup entirely in the maids' hands.
"First, let's soak the dishes in water... then start with cleaning the kitchen."
"Sure, sure..."
Complaining wouldn't do them a bit of good.
All it would do was tank morale and drain their strength—and worse, if the butler happened to overhear, it could turn into a serious problem.
The maids knew this all too well, and so they simply heaved silent sigh after sigh as they trudged off to their assigned corners.
This rush of work wasn't confined to the hours right after mealtimes, either.
Of the twenty-four hours they spent living in the villa, nearly every waking moment was packed with a workload that pierced the heavens.
It was only natural, given that fewer than ten people managed a villa of this size.
And of those ten, once you removed the head chef who cooked his meals and vanished, the butler who gave orders but never lifted a finger, the coachman, and the Marquis's personal attendant, only four maids remained.
Four people handling the cleaning, the meal preparation, and all manner of tidying between them—it truly left them no time to breathe.
The generous pay was the single comfort they had, but it did nothing to ease the stress that rose like a tide from the relentless grind.
"Um... excuse me?"
"What?!"
The moment a soft voice drifted in from outside the kitchen, the maids snapped back with irritation.
Yulia.
The Marquis's personal attendant.
A woman who had landed the position on nothing but her looks—a doll of a girl whose only job was to trail behind the Marquis like a devoted puppy.
She probably spent all day yawning over trivial busywork, occasionally fluttering her lashes at the Marquis for good measure.
The Marquis didn't seem to care in the slightest that Yulia already had a daughter.
Someone with no skills and no work ethic, sitting in a cozy spot like that...
The maids glared at Yulia through gritted teeth.
The more they looked at her, the more she irritated them.
Then Tia's face popped out from behind Yulia, and the maids' twisted expressions softened just a little.
Whatever sins the mother had committed, the daughter bore none of the blame.
"We're busy, so get out. Can't you see the floor's a disaster right now?"
"Oh, s-sorry... You looked busy, so I came to help a little."
"What? And what about the Marquis?"
"He's taking his afternoon nap. You're always swamped after mealtimes because there's not enough hands, right? So I thought I'd help out whenever I can find a spare moment."
"..."
The maid was so flabbergasted that the words simply died on her tongue.
She had never expected to hear such a thing come out of Yulia's mouth.
"Hmph. Help, you say? And what exactly could you do? I doubt your hands have ever touched water."
Surprise flickered through her only briefly before the maid shot back her retort, guard firmly in place.
She must not trust this.
Nine times out of ten, this woman had come to gloat.
Heaven only knew how she'd charmed the Marquis behind the banquet hall, but a sly snake who'd hogged the attendant position for herself couldn't possibly be genuine inside and out.
She had no intention of falling for a cunning fox's tricks just to be laughed at.
"I know how to wash dishes, at least. Cleaning needs you moving around, so I'll just stay in one spot and do the dishes."
"Wh-what? You're actually helping?"
"Don't worry. I won't break anything. And if I do, I'll pay for it out of my wages."
"..."
Yulia rolled up her sleeves with gusto, flashed a bright smile, and headed for the sink.
The maids cleaning around them simply stared after the mother, dumbfounded.
After a moment of sidelong glances, Tia slunk along in Yulia's wake as well.
"Want to help too, Tia?"
"Mmm. Mm. Uuuh... Sud-d-denly I'm so sleeeepy..."
"You just woke up from a huge nap. Don't tell me a lie that big."
"T-Tia would just get in the way, so I'll go outside!"
"Mommy hasn't gotten to spend much time with you lately, so I want us to be together. You don't want that, Tia?"
"Mmmu..."
Tia's legs froze mid-retreat toward the kitchen door.
She couldn't bring herself to shake off the look in Yulia's eyes as her mother turned back with that pitiful expression.
Left with no choice, Tia toddled back to Yulia's side.
"What do I do?"
Such an easy child.
Yulia swallowed a laugh and stroked Tia's hair.
The little one adored her mother beyond words, and it made her endlessly endearing.
And yet, when she thought about how this same Tia might one day hit puberty and snap at her... a lump rose in her throat.
"Ah."
"Mommy? Why are you suddenly crying?"
"N-nothing. Dish soap got in my eye."
Tears had welled up before she could stop them.
She hoped Tia would never grow up.
She hated how her tail and horns were steadily growing, transforming her into the proud silhouette of a true dragon.
She wasn't thrilled about her chest gradually swelling after her second growth spurt, either.
Given the chance, she wanted to freeze Tia exactly as she was now.
"Here. The others have already soaked everything in soapy water so it wipes clean easily. All you have to do is take the dishes out and hand them to Mommy."
"Mmm. I can't reach. It's too deep."
"Our little lady. There's a step stool right here."
Standing on the stool the maid had hurriedly fetched, Tia began pulling dishes large and small, along with the utensils, out of the sink and handing them to Yulia.
Yulia, in turn, meticulously wiped each dish with a dry cloth and set it on the drying rack.
Every so often, the maids' gazes drifted toward the mother and daughter busily washing away together.
Every dish came out spotless—not a single smudge, not a spot of grime.
There was real care in the way Yulia's hands worked diligently over every surface and corner.
But above all, there wasn't a trace of falseness in the smile Yulia wore as she laughed and chattered with Tia.
Was she really that pure of a woman?
It felt as though she had become a different person overnight.
Maybe, just maybe, she wasn't quite the terrible woman they'd thought.
"Yulia! This is some cheese left over from cooking—want some?"
"Oh, ooh. Yes please! Except my hands are kind of full right now..."
"I'll feed you! Say ahh. Ahh."
"Ah..."
Having spotted the sliver of cheese clinging to the kitchen knife on the cutting board, the maid approached Yulia with a mischievous grin.
Oblivious, Yulia opened her mouth, and the little morsel of cheese popped right in.
She chewed it absently, letting the cheese melt on her tongue—and slowly, her face began to crumple.
"Huuueeek! What IS this?!"
"AHAHAHAHA!"
"Ugh. Bluh. Isn't this stuff rotten? It tastes all wrong!"
"No, no! That's how it's supposed to taste! Ehehehe."
"People actually pay money to eat this? Why would anyone eat this when they could just let regular cheese go bad for free?"
"AHAHAHA! Your reaction is too funny, seriously..."
The moment Yulia gagged, the kitchen erupted into unrestrained laughter, as if they'd been waiting for exactly that.
The only one who couldn't laugh was Tia.
That cheese was simply delicious.
What on earth was wrong with the taste? Only Tia couldn't understand.
"Ahhaha... my stomach hurts from laughing. But wait, Yulia, you've eaten this cheese before, haven't you? Why are you acting like it's your first time?"
"Because it is my first time?"
"That can't be right. This comes out all the time for the Marquis's dessert and late-night snacks."
"Hm? Why would I be eating what the Marquis eats?"
"Aren't you a personal attendant? Don't you people just help yourselves to that stuff freely?"
"I don't?"
"...?"
The maids had assumed a personal attendant shared the Marquis's table.
They'd all been certain the Marquis treated Yulia as someone special, and this revelation left them utterly flabbergasted.
Granted, Yulia received a certain kind of special treatment, in another sense entirely—but when it came to meals, she worked her fingers to the bone with no dedicated mealtimes at all, exactly like the rest of them.
Only now did their mouths fall open.
They remembered, with sudden mortification, how they'd coldly brushed off Yulia whenever she'd poked around the kitchen asking if there was anything to eat.
A wave of guilt came flooding in, leaving a sour discomfort settled somewhere deep in their chests.
"Are we almost done with the dishes?"
"Just a little more!"
"Mmm. My arms are tired..."
"If it's too hard, you can stop now. Good work, my daughter."
"No way! I'm helping Mommy to the end!"
"My, my. Who did she get that iron sense of responsibility from? Certainly not her father, I'd say."
"Hehehe. Who is Tia's papa?"
"Yeah, yeah! I've been dying to know too. Can't you tell us, Yulia?"
"Ah. Well, you see..."
With the misunderstanding peeled away layer by layer, the kitchen filled up in no time with warm, easy cheer.
Not one of them put a single word of apology into the air.
But even without such awkward formalities, Yulia could feel it in her gut.
I could get close with these people, too.
They weren't bad people at all, really.
"That one's a bit... complicated? Let's save that story for another day, nice and slow."
"Th-thank you..."
"And is there anything you're curious about with us, Yulia?"
"Hmm."
When Yulia tilted her head, she could feel several pairs of eyes looking back at her with faint, hopeful expectation.
There was plenty she was curious about.
How ladies who looked to be born into money had ended up working a place that demanded labor so brutal it rivaled a construction site.
Why they always seemed to trundle off to the bathroom in one great flock whenever nature called.
And then there was the matter of certain sounds—two voices, mingling, drifting through the walls of the dormitory on the nights they slept over. Whether those were really the sounds she thought they were...
"What's wrong? Your face has gone all red."
"N-nothing..."
Yulia turned her head away, cheeks burning, and picked a different question.
"The Marquis. What's his name? I've been wondering about that."
"The Marquis's name? You mean the one that goes before Dragonia? You didn't even know that yet?"
"Nope. What is it?"
"Schwarz, obviously. Schwarz Dragonia."
"Ahh..."
Schwarz.
It was a Germanic word meaning black.
Yulia repeated the name over and over in her mind.
It stirred a strange sense of déjà vu, as if she'd heard it somewhere before, but she chalked it up to simple premonition and let it go.
What was he like in the original story?
The question came to her out of nowhere.
Marquis Schwarz Dragonia.
What kind of character had he been in the book this world was based on?
He looked the part of a third-rate villainous noble drunk on lust, yet then he'd show her a quietly dignified respect that made him seem nothing of the sort.
In public he carried himself with all the gravity of a marquis, but in private he tossed out jokes like some goofy neighborhood uncle.
He was an enigma of a man.
.
.
.
"Yulia. Yulia..."
The office, that afternoon.
Marquis Dragonia fingered a teacup long gone cold as he pored over the documents.
The stack was not particularly thick.
Which was strange.
Normally, when you hired an investigator to run a background check, even the most ordinary nobody came back with a dossier so thick it could stand up on its own.
Yet the information on Yulia and his daughter Tia amounted to exactly two pages between the pair of them.
It was as though they had been hiding out in some remote corner of the world until very recently, then simply popped into existence.
"A Saintess who had concealed her whereabouts, appearing suddenly with her memories lost..."
The odds were high that the Hero Leopard knew the full story.
But the man would hardly cough it up willingly, and even if he did, it would almost certainly be a lie—which meant his own investigation was non-negotiable.
Irritation leaked out of him in a huff of breath as he turned to the next page, and the Marquis's eyes gradually widened.
"Tiamat..."
Tiamat.
All this time, he had known her simply as Tia.
Only now had he learned his daughter's full name.
But that wasn't the reason the Marquis was stunned.
"The name of the Dragon Slayer. What a blood-chilling name to give such a sweet little child."
Dragon Slayer Tiamat.
The name of a dragonewt who, in antiquity, had slaughtered hundreds of dragons and driven the entire race to the brink of extinction.
It suddenly seemed all too clear what the person who'd given that name had intended—and at the thought, the Marquis's groin went numb.