I've Become a Maid?
"To think my son turned out to be such a hopeless fool in love... At this rate, he'll end up giving away the whole house..."
"W-what does that mean! I-I only give it away because it'd go to waste otherwise..!"
At Derek's words, Eric's face flared scarlet as he shouted back.
"Haha! Eric, no matter how hard you try, Aris will never fall for you... Aris is going to marry me! Isn't that right, Aris!"
My father, Rodi, hoisted me up into the air as he declared it.
"Dad... I never said anything like that, what are you on about... And I told you to quit doing this, it's creepy."
At my icy response, Rodi sank to the ground as though struck by a devastating blow, utterly deflated.
Speaking from experience here—a man being embraced by another man is nothing short of revolting.
"Aris. Isn't that a bit heartless toward your father?"
Behind me, my mother Atophe stepped out of the house with a gentle smile.
Fifteen years had gone by, and yet her beauty hadn't faded one bit. Was that just an elf thing?
"Mom..! Hehe!"
Ignoring the defeated Rodi, I ran over and buried myself in Atophe's arms. The feeling of her bountiful breasts enveloping my head was indescribably soothing—like sinking into a top-grade bed.
"Oh, Atophe... it seems our Aris has hit puberty. I can still picture it so clearly, the way she used to toddle after her papa crying 'Daddy, Daddy'..."
Of course, that never happened even once. Pure delusion on Rodi's part.
A beautiful, kindhearted mother, and a foolish father hopelessly devoted to his daughter. And kind neighbors besides. We were slaves, yet our days passed in such peace that we never once felt like slaves.
At first, I'd dug around for any way to shake off my slave status... But the master, whoever he was, never once came to inspect us, and aside from a middleman occasionally dropping by to collect the harvest, nobody interfered with our lives at all.
It was simply the life of common farmers. More or less, I was content with it.
Maybe living out my days like this wouldn't be so ba—
And so, I turned twenty.
Still peaceful. Still the same days on repeat. The only change was that I, too, now had to work.
Apparently the welfare for slaves here was surprisingly decent—slaves weren't made to work until they reached adulthood at twenty. The men generally took labor that demanded strength, like guard duty or construction, while the women worked the fields or wove cloth and sewed garments. I couldn't say what slaves in other lands did, but this territory, they said, earned its fortune producing and selling silk-grade fabric and finished clothing.
Now that I was twenty, it was my turn to join them.
"Aris. Congratulations on coming of age."
Eric—who had shot up until he stood two full heads taller than me—walked over and held out the venison in his hand.
"Ah... Eric. Yeah, thanks. Guard duty again today?"
Eric nodded, fiddling with the hilt of the sword at his hip. He'd shown a gift for combat since he was little, and these days he served in the guard unit. Perhaps it was all the daily training, but his whole body had hardened into lean, corded muscle.
"Today's your first day of work, right? Give it your best."
Eric rested his hand on my head and ruffled my hair.
"Ugh, seriously..! I'm not a little kid anymore, why do you keep doing that..."
When I scowled and smoothed my hair back into place, Eric gave a faint smile.
He's done a lot for me since we were small—I can't exactly shoot him down with a straight face.I do have a conscience, you know...
Meat is a precious thing for a slave, and Eric had handed me every single animal he ever caught—so I could endure at least this much.
Yep. That's the reason.
With that, I bid Eric farewell and climbed into the carriage that had come to collect me. Inside were a good number of children who looked to be around my age, and among them were a few familiar faces.
"Aris! You're going too! What a relief—at least I know someone here!"
The girl sitting beside me had a head of curly pink hair. It was Ruina, who lived next door to Eric.
"Ruina... heh heh... They just keep getting bigger every time I look. At this rate, aren't they going to burst?"
With a lecherous grin, I kneaded Ruina's breasts like a pair of rice cakes.
"Nnnh..! A-Aris, you're too much..!"
The enormous mass of flesh wobbled and changed shape with every squeeze of my hands. Judging by size alone, hers might even beat out Atophe's. Not that the number one spot in my heart didn't still belong to Atophe's.
Just as I was busy working Ruina's chest, the carriage rolled to a stop.
"Everyone off."
A soldier in full armor walked up to the carriage and spoke in a cold voice. We clambered down and lined up.
"I wonder what we'll be doing? I hope it's making clothes... Farming looks way too brutal."
Ruina clasped her hands tight and squeezed her eyes shut as if in prayer.
"Same here... what on earth could it be?"
I scanned our surroundings, but... there wasn't a cloth workshop in sight, nor a single field.
"Wait... isn't this the lord's castle? Why would we be here of all places..."
Ruina was right—we'd been dropped off at the residence of the local lord, the House of Duke Arbana.
"All of you, silence! File into the building from the front, one by one!"
We entered the building as the soldier commanded. Inside, a sharp-featured maid who looked to be in her fifties sat waiting in a chair.
"Take off your clothes."
Just like that, she issued the order to strip. Male soldiers stood in the room as well.
The slaves stirred and balked at the sudden command to undress, but one glimpse of the wicked spearheads in the soldiers' hands had them trading nervous looks before beginning, one after another, to strip.
Needless to say, I started undressing too.
I formally retract everything nice I said about how slaves are treated here.
"Now then, come before me from the front, one at a time. Show me your behind and spread yourself open with both hands."
The slaves flushed crimson at the absurd order and couldn't bring themselves to move. But when the soldiers thrust their spears forward, they stepped up in turn, bottoms bared, hands spreading themselves wide open.
The maid inserted a tong-like rod into each woman's pussy, then drew it straight back out and pronounced judgment.
"...You've failed. Take this one back."
The first girl examined—a child with hair in twin tails—dressed and was ushered out as though chased from the room.
And so the strange test continued. For every ten girls examined, roughly four passed.
"...Pass. You there, head to that room."
Among those who passed, the prettier girls were moved off to a room prepared separately.
Then, at long last, it was Ruina's turn. The maid's eyes widened slightly at the sight of Ruina's breasts, but she quickly administered the test and sent her on into the room.
And finally—finally—it was my turn.
"...My, my."
When the maid saw my face, she rested her chin on her hand as though in admiration. Swallowing my shame, I stuck out my rear and gripped both cheeks to spread them, and the maid ran the tongs along my pussy.
"Hnngh..!"
It's not that I hadn't touched myself since coming to this world.But... I had never once put anything inside.A sensation entirely new to me.A jolt of tingling heat shot through me, and my hips quivered all on their own.
With a slow, slick glide, the tip of the tongs slipped in just barely—then pried me wide open.
"Hnnnn..!"
Whatever she'd been checking for, she seemed to confirm it at once, withdrawing the tongs and speaking.
"Pass. You too, into that room."
I gathered up my clothes and stepped inside, where the girls who had already passed were gathered.
"Aris..! You came through too..! Thank goodness..."
Ruina's face bloomed into a smile when she saw me, and she hurried over.
"...But what on earth was that thing back there?"
Ruina tilted her head, glancing around at the others.
"...What, you two don't even know that much?"
That was when the red-haired slave who'd been standing off to the side with a scowl—Cali—came sauntering up to us. Cali was the girl who lived next door to Ruina.
"That was them checking our hymens."
Checking our hymens...? Then did that mean the girls who failed... weren't virgins?
"Why would they check something like that...?"
"Naive, or just plain dense? ...We've been given the chance to work here at the mansion as maids, obviously..."
Maids?
"And here I thought... you, a virgin? That's a surprise. One look at you and I was sure you and Eric had already gone all the way. Wasn't he paying for all that meat with sex?"
She snorted, a mocking smirk tugging at her lips.
"W-what kind of bullshit is that, Cali..! Eric just... likes me, and gives me stuff because he feels like it..!"
Cali giggled behind her hand and nodded.
Damn it. She was just yanking my chain?
"B-but... maids? So we're going to be working as maids from now on?"
Ruina clutched the hem of her skirt and dropped her head.
"That's right. There's no other reason slaves like us would ever be brought to a place like this."
"B-but... I still want to live with Mom and Dad..!"
Tears brimmed in Ruina's eyes as she sniffled. Maids lived and boarded in rooms provided within the mansion itself. Which meant they could never see their families. At best, maybe once or twice a year, on leave.
"Don't be stupid. Living here in the mansion beats rotting away in that garbage existence a hundred times over, no? And besides... you never know, do you? Catch the young master's eye, and our station might just rise?"
With that, Cali turned and went back to her place.
It was true that Cali's household was nothing like the warm homes Ruina and I came from. Every single night, the screams of Cali and her mother had drifted out of that house.
"Everyone, attention."
The soldiers and the maid from before filed into the room.
"From this day forward, you will reside here and serve as maids of this household. I am the head maid placed in charge of you all—my name is Edna."
After that, the head maid drilled us in all manner of knowledge: the duties of a maid and the rules we were bound to observe, along with a smattering of etiquette lessons besides.
Once the short orientation was done, we were led off to our respective quarters. I had been assigned to share a room with Cali and Ruina.
An old room furnished with nothing but beds. Compared to the place I'd lived before, though, it had a window, four solid walls, and not one gap for the cold wind to slip through. The beds were hard, but next to a freezing floor, that was heaven.
"So these are the maid uniforms..."
On each of our beds lay two sets of maid uniforms.
"Haah... I do love a maid outfit... but never did I think I'd be the one wearing one..."
