“I get what you’re saying, Hikaru-san,” I said with a half-smile, interrupting him. “But this is Brooke and Cerise’s daughter, and I really want her to understand that I’m a friend. I’m so eager to get to know her.”
Or to put it another way, it was disheartening to be the only one who wasn’t her friend. Man’ya seemed to like everyone else in the house just fine. And Brooke and his family weren’t going anywhere. It wasn’t realistic to hope I could just avoid his kids forever.
“It’s okay, Shinichi-sama, I’m sure of it.” Myusel, wrapping up her most recent round of first aid, clenched her fists as she spoke. “I know you’ll find a way to be friends with Man’ya-chan!”
“Myusel, baseless, subjective pronouncements are going to trap Shinichi-san, not help him,” Hikaru-san said. Man, he was cold. Right, but cold.
“I don’t think it’s baseless...” Myusel looked at the ground for some reason. “Like me... Before I came here, I was always... a little shy, I guess. I made a lot of mistakes in my work. But in spite of all of that, Shinichi-sama, he...”
I blinked. “Shy? You, Myusel?” A little retiring, maybe. Clumsy for sure. But I had never thought of her as outright shy. “You never seemed that way to me.”
“But that’s exactly what I—because I’ve been able to work with you, Shinichi-sama...”
According to Myusel, at her last posting, she had been frequently criticized as “careless” or “slow.” She had worked at three separate noble houses before she came to our place, but never for very long—hardly more than a trial period at each, you might say. Plus, the complication of being a half-elf made her reluctant to talk to people, so she couldn’t even get close to the other maids at the places she worked. She ended up bullied, isolated... It didn’t sound like a good time.
Now that I thought about it, back when we had first met, she had come across as terrified that she was going to be yelled at every time she made a minor mistake, and now I realized that maybe it was because she’d felt this mansion was her last chance.
Obviously, I hadn’t realized at the time that Myusel thought she was shy, or that she was hiding some kind of inner turmoil. Instead I just burst out, “IS THAT A REAL MAID?!” and generally made such a fuss that she probably felt she had better start talking or she was going to get left behind.
“So it’s... thanks to you, Shinichi-sama,” Myusel concluded, her cheeks red.
Whoa-oh-oh. Too cute!
“Yep. Okay. Thank you very much,” Hikaru-san broke in, sounding put out for some reason.
Oh, what?
“Anyway, Shinichi-san, if you’re really dead set on this, I won’t stop you.”
“Cool. Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.”
At the very least, I was going to get myself out of the “raemu” category.
Myusel was a superb maid. She said she hadn’t worked very long at any one place before this, but when I thought about how that was exactly what had enabled her to end up at our mansion, I was secretly kind of grateful for it.
When it came to food, in particular, you couldn’t hope for a better cook. I have to think that at her previous workplaces, the senior maids, not to mention any professional cooks, probably didn’t let some newly arrived broom jockey anywhere near the kitchen. So I’ll bet none of her previous employers ever suspected her culinary gifts.
She showed special attention to the details in her cooking. In addition to herself, a half-elf, this mansion was populated by humans, a werewolf, and a couple of lizardmen, for a total of four different races, and Myusel made separate dishes with specific ingredients for each of them. As a werewolf, for example, Elvia had stronger senses of smell and taste than the rest of us, so even when her food looked approximately like ours, it was often just lightly cooked, without any spices. Brooke and Cerise, by contrast, got a thoughtful assortment on their plates, but it was generally raw. Vegetables might be pickled, but never cooked. Periodically, Myusel would add fruits to get them some variety.
And what about Man’ya? She ate substantially the same things as her parents, just a little less of them. She sat between the two of them in a high chair Brooke had built, chowing down with gusto. Pickles, in particular, she would simply swallow whole.
“Do you like it?” Myusel asked, looking at the child sweetly.
“Gyoo!” Man’ya replied, nodding. She didn’t, however, bother to stop eating. She seemed really... baby-like. In that respect, it seemed like lizardman and human children weren’t so different. Myusel wasn’t the only one who smiled when she looked at Man’ya; we all did.
“Master,” Brooke said out of the blue. “I really am sorry t’ ask, but might I be excused from my duties for the day tomorrow? M’ wife and I are going to do our homecoming.”
“Homecoming?”
“Strictly speaking, we’d be going back to our clan’s reservation,” Cerise said. “It’s about a half day’s journey from here by bird-drawn carriage.”
“Oh, really? Sure, fine by me. But why so suddenly?” I had no particular reason to stop them. But neither of them had ever mentioned going back to their reservation until this moment. Why bring it up now?
Brooke had once been considered a hero of his clan, and Cerise-san was the daughter of a prominent chieftain in the Tribal Council, so if something was up at home, they might well be called back. If this “homecoming” was just for a pleasant visit, then I would be happy to send them on their way, but if something serious was going on, they needed to go deal with it, not waste time asking for my permission. And they should spend more than just one day
