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Translator: penny
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: Piel the Head Maid
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"Hey! No!"
As a reward for the Proxy Blood Fate, I gained the right to pick one 'broken slave' from the back line every month on slave intake day.
And ever since that day I defeated Syl Argent, my daily life had been completely turned upside down.
First, the annex where I lived.
Not long ago, starting with Karen, the servants who had been swarming like maggots were all swept away in a group embezzlement scandal, and the aftermath was bigger than I'd imagined.
Now, only silence remained in the annex.
No cook, no butler, no cleaning staff.
Just a few days ago, the place had been surrounded by a swarm of people clinging to me like snakes, but now they were all gone, leaving only an empty shell of a house.
Agram, the Family Head, naturally showed no concern for his son's well-being.
He probably just calculated that personnel were needed to manage the 'family's top-grade merchandise' without damaging it.
So he said.
He'd assign new servants to manage me.
But I thought differently.
"Family Head. It'll just mean more bugs anyway."
"Bugs...?"
"Yes. The illegitimate son's annex is basically a cockroach den to begin with. Wherever the predecessors left their corpses, the new bugs that sit there will just get filthy, steal, and rot in exactly the same way."
Agram's eyebrow twitched ever so slightly.
I added more.
"So there's no need to waste the Argent Family's precious manpower on me. Compared to the mansion where you, the Family Head, and my brothers and sisters live, my annex is the size of a mouse turd. I'll quietly live in that tiny space with the worthless slaves I 'pick up' from now on."
The illegitimate son's annex, tabooed by the family, was a trash heap where embezzlement breaking out again wouldn't be surprising at all.
My words were logical and perfectly aligned with the Argent way of thinking.
And Agram knew it too.
As long as I was in this territory, I couldn't escape the palm of his hand by even an inch.
So he permitted it lightly, without the slightest change in expression.
'Honestly, I thought he'd refuse at first, so I had Plan B and C ready...'
Well, thanks to that, the outcome was perfect.
As the saying goes, the fox is king in a den without tigers.
All the bugs that had been crawling in under the guise of surveillance had been crushed.
With the Family Head officially declaring 'Don't waste time on Lucas one by one,' even those idiots wouldn't dare think of stepping into my living space anymore.
In the end—
It was much smaller than the main mansion, but for two kids, the several-hundred-pyeong annex was absurdly spacious and now fully in my hands.
"From now on, this house means the two of us, me and Piel, have to clean, manage, cook, and even do laundry."
Just imagining it made me sigh.
But still, it was a hundred times better than living under the gazes that watched me even when eating, sleeping, or even shitting.
No, it was almost paradise.
Especially seeing Piel right beside me, excited solely by the fact that it was 'just me and Master,' regardless of the hardship—it melted away any lingering worries.
"Yay! Just me and Master, just the two of us! Hehe!"
Piel ran excitedly through the empty hallway.
Her tail flapped like a propeller, and she was a kid who normally had to walk primly by my side because of the hostile gazes from all around.
Now, she was completely free.
"Master! So does that make me the head maid of this annex now?!"
"...Head maid?"
"Yes! There's no other maids, so I must be the chief, right?!"
And then, out of nowhere, as if she knew somehow, Piel came declaring herself head maid.
Normally, head maid was a position for a noble's daughter.
Managing the mansion's etiquette, finances, events... A role that was called a maid but was essentially no different from deputy Family Head.
For a slave like Piel, not even regular maid ranks were allowed by this world's common sense.
But whatever, the master himself was on the illegitimate son route with zero regard for origins—what did it matter?
"Hm... If you want to, go ahead."
As I shrugged lightly, Piel's eyes sparkled.
"R-Really? I can be head maid?!"
"Yeah. I said if you want to, do it."
"...! Th-Thank you! Yay! I'm head maid from now on!"
Piel spun around once, raising both hands high.
Her tail thumped against the wall, expressing her joy outright.
She looked so thrilled that the empty several-hundred-pyeong annex suddenly felt like a playground for one kid.
And so, on the first day of the annex reorganization, Head Maid Piel—officially inaugurated.
Piel had awakened as head maid!
At first, it was just a joke.
I'd just let the kid have her fun with 'Sure, you be head maid.'
But... that was the problem.
The fact that there were only the two of us in the annex apparently held an absurdly huge meaning for her.
The girl who usually came rubbing sleepy eyes with me to wash up started taking on all the housework by herself at dawn the very next day.
At first, it was admirable.
Even up to the second day, it was a nice sight.
But on the third, fourth, fifth day... by the end of the week, things got weird.
Piel woke up at dawn every day and went to bed late every night.
Meanwhile, I lounged in my room, planning future routes while playing young master and reading books leisurely.
The contrast was so stark that eventually, I muttered to myself:
"...Fuck. No matter how I look at it, this is child abuse."
I knew there was no weekend concept in medieval times, but working such a young maid every day like this scratched at my conscience as her master.
If I'd known it'd turn out like this, I wouldn't have made her head maid.
Piel was sweating buckets and loving it, but every time I saw it, I felt like some nouveau riche grinding young slaves for luxury.
If I could at least pay her wages.
But in this shitty world, there was no minimum wage, and slaves got nothing at all.
So, on the tenth day, I couldn't take it anymore.
I secretly grabbed a broom to help Piel.
But when she saw me sweeping a corner and slowly, very slowly walked over with a smile.
And in that moment, a chill ran down my spine.
Piel was smiling.
Unmistakably smiling... but her face didn't look like it was smiling at all.
"Master... what are you doing right now? Hehe."
"Huh? Oh... nothing much, just thought it looked tough cleaning alone, so I figured I'd help. There was a broom here."
"A broom? Where? Hehe."
"Huh? Where... right here in my hand—"
Piel slowly raised her head, cutting me off.
She looked around.
As if the broom in my hand wasn't even visible.
At first, I thought it was another joke and held up the broom more clearly.
Then, like a shadow passing by, a hand moved.
"...Huh?"
Suddenly, the broom was in Piel's hand.
Crack.
With a smiling face full of mirth, without the slightest hesitation, she shattered it to pieces.
She dropped the broken wooden chunks into the trash, then turned back to me with a bright smile.
"See? No broom."
"Uh... yeah, right..."
"Master is the 'master' of this annex."
A small, warm hand overlapped mine.
"Among the noble masters I know, none clean alongside slaves."
She tilted her head slightly, her tone as gentle as ever... but somehow closer to a 'declaration' than persuasion.
"And me cleaning everywhere... there's a reason for it."
"A reason?"
"Yes. In the future, there might be more people living in this house besides just us two, right?"
Her words trailed off with a soft smile.
"So I have to manage the house in advance. That way, we can live happily... ever after."
At the end of that sentence, Piel's eyes locked onto mine precisely.
"Right, Master?"
"Uh... yeah, sure."
She had a point.
There was a real chance more 'slaves' would come soon, and preparing the house for that was excellent judgment as head maid.
And yet—
'...Happily ever after?'
That phrase gave off a strange, inexplicable sense of dissonance.
As if it wasn't 'live together' but more like 'keep confined.'
No, she's still a kid.
Just cute words to make her master happy.
I patted her head in praise anyway.
With the condition that she go to bed early if it got too much for me to watch.
And the next day.
"So you're saying Piel is managing this entire annex by herself right now?"
"Yes, that's right."
A single blue bird quietly landed on the windowsill.
Flutter.
The air warped for a moment, and the bird's form shifted into a human silhouette.
Her personal method to evade the Argent mansion's surveillance net.
As soon as Princess Evelyn dropped her transformation and entered my room, I explained Piel's recent situation.
Her eyes froze over in an instant.
"Lucas Argent."
"Yes, Princess."
"...Are you trash?"
"..."
Help and she bitches, don't help and she bitches.
I had no idea what she wanted.
But since this anger was fully expected, I bowed my head like a criminal this time.
"You have nothing to say, huh."
"Sigh... Every time I meet you, you show me a 'new world of disappointment.' This much has to be on purpose."
Oh dear... this was awkward.
And considering why I'd called Evelyn today, asking in this atmosphere was even more awkward.
Then, the princess with arms crossed snapped.
"So? What does our Ashen Hand member want with summoning his Leader this time?"
The mood was hell, but she was the only one I could ask.
I carefully opened my mouth.
"Um... about that Water of Life you used on Piel last time. I need it again."
"Water of Life? Lucas Argent, are you hurt somewhere?!"
The princess jumped up and patted me down, checking everywhere.
She really does care for her subordinates.
But regrettably, this time the one getting hurt wasn't me or Piel.
"Ah, I'm fine. More precisely... someone who's about to get hurt soon."
"About to?"
"Yes. Because today is—"
I smiled.
"Argent Family's slave intake day."
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