Thud.
In that instant, my legs gave out and I collapsed straight onto the floor.
‘This is insane, this place is insane!’
It wasn’t the time to be leisurely gathering information about the master of the house. This was a situation where it wouldn’t be strange if a blade found its way into my neck at any moment.
‘A warning…… right?’
It had already been several days since I received the first secret letter. I might have stayed still because I didn’t know what to do, but the side giving me spy work might have thought I was ignoring their orders.
‘No, but still!’
How does it make sense to barge into someone’s room and stick a bloodstained knife in without a word? It’s not like I’d been gone that long!
Tears pricked at my eyes. I was already confused enough from suddenly possessing a body in another world, and now this happening on top of it—it was too terrifying and unfair.
“Why are you only doing this to me…….”
For someone like me, whose only sins in life amounted to things like ‘cursing out a difficult customer’ or ‘cursing out a shitty boss,’ this was far too cruel.
How was it that no matter how I possessed someone, I had to end up in a body like this? If that was a talent, it was a talent. A wretchedly cursed talent.
“Haah…….”
A sigh escaped me on its own, but I couldn’t keep whining forever.
I roughly wiped my damp eyes and bravely rose to my feet. Then I slowly approached the wall where the dagger was embedded.
‘Goodness, could you not have stuck it in a little more gently?’
Up close, more than half the blade was buried in the wall.
Grumbling to myself about the rude nighttime visitor who only had strength and no manners, I grabbed the hilt with trembling hands and pulled.
“Huh?”
Contrary to my worries, the knife came out surprisingly easily. At the same time, the secret letter that had been stuck with it fell limply to the floor.
I quickly shoved the blood-caked knife into a drawer and unfolded the secret letter.
[ Reports once every five days. Until further orders, observe only the Grand Duke’s movements closely. ]
As expected.
It was a similar order to the first secret letter I had received. The only difference was that the instructions in this letter were a bit more detailed.
‘Once every five days.’
Having only ever encountered spies and secret agents through media, what kind of report could I possibly write? My future already looked bleak.
But what was even more suffocating was the last sentence of this cipher.
[ I will be watching. ]
……With this, it was certain.
Someone was watching Lilian, and if I didn’t do as they said, I could die at any moment. For instance, while I slept—or something like that.
“No, but if you have a spy that capable, why not just use them?”
Why Lilian, of all people…….
A fundamental question arose as to why they would deliberately make someone so clumsy at maid work into a spy, but let’s set that aside for now.
There must be a reason. That wasn’t what mattered right now anyway.
‘What should I do?’
Even though I’d done all sorts of part-time jobs in my past life, being a spy was a first. And I had no memories of the original owner of this body, Lilian.
‘If I just say I lost my memories now and can’t do spy work—’
Wait!
What usually happened to people who tried to wash their hands of something like this?
For a moment, images of spies from various media flashed through my mind. From what they said, most of them…….
Gulp, I swallowed without realizing it. The things I imagined felt like my future. And not a distant one.
‘No!’
I couldn’t die meaninglessly in this life too.
I firmly clenched Lilian’s cotton-soft hands into fists. It was a moment when the will to live, quietly dormant within me, blazed fiercely to life.
* * *
“Today, the main building corridor cleaning will be—”
“I’ll do it!”
“Ah, those with spare hands can also do the main building windows—”
“I’ll do that too!”
“Then, after you’re done, in the kitchen—”
“Me! I want to do it!”
The head maid stared at me, who had shot my hand up, with a look that said I was strange. So did the other maids.
“Hey, hey, did you not wake up properly?”
Anna, standing beside me, was startled and jabbed me in the side.
‘Well, that’s understandable.’
In truth, work in the main building was one of the tasks the maids of the Grand Ducal estate avoided the most. That was because the already strict head maid became especially sensitive whenever it came to anything related to the main building.
From the main building corridors to the guest rooms and kitchen. Even the most skilled maids rarely got through a day without being nitpicked.
It was so bad that among the maids, there was a bittersweet joke: ‘In the main building, you work again during everyone else’s break time.’
‘To think I’d have to volunteer for a place like that…….’
My situation suddenly felt so pitiful, but there was no helping it. For me, right now, this was the best option.
‘I have to be in the main building somehow to spot the Grand Duke.’
My goal—no, the goal of the mastermind who had made me a spy—was the Grand Duke.
But I had absolutely no information about him. No special abilities, no respectable status.
‘Then for now, let’s just monitor the Grand Duke.’
That way, I could at least write a plausible fake report.
I stubbornly ignored Anna’s poking fingers and held my hand up high. At that, the head maid fixed her characteristic cold gaze on me for a while.
“……So be it.”
After a short silence, her permission fell. I beamed brightly to convey that I would work hard.
Yes, up to this point, it was fine.
The work was grueling and the head maid’s nagging was even worse, but it was still fine. Compared to my past life, this was truly a pleasant work environment.
The problem was…….
‘Where on earth are you, Your Highness the Grand Duuuke—!’
The master of the house was nowhere to be seen in his own home.
He’d returned to the estate, supposedly. So why won’t he show up!
No matter how large the Grand Ducal estate was, it had already been three days. At this point, I was starting to doubt whether he was even alive.
“His Highness the Grand Duke seems to stay in his office all the time.”
“He was always like that often, but…….”
“He must be really busy this time.”
Several maids whispered in low voices. I pricked up my ears and continued washing dishes. Fortunately, it seemed he was at least alive.
‘Though that doesn’t mean he’ll appear before my eyes anyway.’
Even among fellow maids, there was an unspoken hierarchy determined by experience.
The Grand Duke’s private spaces, such as his office and bedroom, were generally managed by senior maids who had worked here for a long time.
In other words, it meant the probability of me, who had just passed the probation period, serving the Grand Duke up close was close to zero.
‘Thinking about it now, meeting the Grand Duke that day was itself an incredible coincidence—’
“Good heavens, Lilian! The plate!”
“Y-yes, yes?”
Startled out of my reverie, I jerked my head up. And then I confirmed the disaster that had occurred on the plate.
“Huh!”
Right in the center of the pure white plate, a sizzling— scratch had formed.
“Lilian.”
I was in big trouble.
At some point, the head chef was looking this way with a burly face. In the end, I had no choice but to be summoned by him with a tearful expression.
* * *
I’d surely be scolded.
The ruined plate was obviously an expensive one, I thought.
‘You.’
‘I-I’m sorry!’
‘Enough. Just go to the garden.’
‘Yes……. Yes?’.
But the head chef simply held out a basket as if nothing had happened. It was the snack basket delivered to the gardener every day.
At the unexpected turn of events, I just blinked at him, and he secretly winked his characteristically fierce eyes. Then he mouthed silently.
‘It’s a secret.’
Sir……!
I had gotten close to the head chef while working in the kitchen lately, but I hadn’t expected him to look after me to this extent.
I accepted the snack basket with deeply moved eyes.
And so, the present.
“Where might the gardener be?”
I was wandering around the garden.
Since delivering snacks to the gardener wasn’t usually my responsibility, I had no way of knowing where he was.
‘Well, he’s probably somewhere around here.’
I walked slowly, looking around. And then, at that moment.
‘Hm?’
I spotted a woman I had never seen before.
Dressed in a luxurious purple gown, she was strolling through the garden alone without any escort. Her graceful movements reminded me of a butterfly.
‘Who is she?’
I tilted my head habitually. Just then, my eyes happened to meet the woman’s as she turned her gaze.
“Wow…….”
A gasp escaped me without realizing it. Perhaps she wasn’t a butterfly but a fairy.
As I stared blankly, she soon smiled and waved her hand.
Swish, swish—
It was a greeting from a fairy to me. At that, I too waved my hand as if bewitched.
