The Peaceful Life Of A Maid Who Hides Her Power And Enjoys It - Chapter 16

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 16

Whoooosh. An eerie sandstorm blows.

I stood alone on an endlessly sprawling wasteland.

[Save me…]

I looked around in a daze. The desolate scenery filling all directions felt more familiar than strange.

…Ah, this place is the Southern Imperial Archipelago.

It was Quin Island.

My ruined hometown. Hell where comrades’ corpses piled up like mountains.

That’s right. This land I stood on was a hill of corpses.

Grab!

As soon as I realized that fact, a skeletal hand shot up from the ground and seized my ankle.

[S-save me, Andert…]

The face revealed beneath the sand had melted flesh clinging between skull bones, a sight that could hardly be called a living person.

[Andert…]

It was a voice I’d heard somewhere before, but I couldn’t recall the face or name.

A familiar voice. An unknown face.

I have many such existences. On the battlefield, we didn’t ask each other’s names. Remembering names meant having more people to mourn.

[It hurts, save me. Save me.]

[Sir Andert. Why didn’t you help me? Why did you leave me to die!]

These were soldiers who had met their end in war.

Was that why? I couldn’t bring myself to shake off this person’s hand.

Soon a second arm reached out. Then a third, a fourth… a tenth arm stretched out from the ground and grabbed my limbs.

When I finally lost the strength to resist and collapsed on the wasteland, the skeletal hands groped their way toward my face.

[No, no.]

[You’re not Andert!]

The hands that had screamed pushed my body away.

They pointed fingers at me and pressed.

[Who are you!]

I answered Andert, but the dead didn’t hear my voice.

[Don’t lie. State your name.]

[Take off Andert’s shell!]

[Who are you!]

I am Andert.

I’m the real Andert Pager. I took up sword and gun with you under this name! I crawled through hell for 10 years with this name!

[Tell us your real name.]

[How dare you use Andert’s name!]

[You are not Andert! Who the hell are you!]

I am.

I am not Andert Pager.

Andert is my younger brother.

Then, who am I?

I sat up, trembling as if burned.

When I hastily drew breath, instead of the wasteland’s dry air, fresh and peaceful air filled my head.

Before I could recognize where this was, the voice remaining in my mind made my vision dizzy.

[Who the hell are you!]

I was curious too.

“…Who am I?”

“Who are you, you ask?”

What a shock.

When I reflexively turned my head, I saw the Head Maid standing beside the bed.

The Head Maid, who glared at me with cool eyes, continued in a voice dripping with coldness.

“I’ll gladly answer that. You are a maid who boldly overslept, Miss Daisy. Despite oversleeping, you seem to still be wandering in dreamland. Come to your senses before I pour cold water on your head to wake you up.”

Ah, oversleeping.

‘It was a dream.’

Of all dreams to have, why such an unpleasant one? And I even overslept?

I recalled the contract clause about salary deduction after two tardies. My mood, already gloomy from the nightmare’s influence, became even gloomier.

Moreover, my throat was too parched. As if I’d really crossed a desert. I sat down with my knees bent while changing into my maid uniform.

“My throat is so dry.”

The Head Maid shook her head with an incredulous expression and turned toward the door.

“Sigh. I don’t know if I’m raising a scatterbrained niece or educating a maid. I’ll bring you some, so just get dressed.”

“Yes.”

Thud. As soon as the Head Maid left the room, I walked toward the window.

A small note I discovered while getting up from bed was neatly tucked between the window frame.

The note’s contents were as follows.

Though there was no additional content, it was undoubtedly a letter from the Assassin Butler.

It meant to drop by the pub anytime since he had something to say.

‘Did he already find Dian Ket’s legacy?’

I stored the note in my personal drawer, finished preparing for work, and went down to the first floor.

When I stepped out through the wide-open foyer door, I saw the Head Maid, who had said she’d fetch water, stopped in front of the main gate.

She was scanning a letter with an extremely serious expression.

“A threatening letter?”

Her face was so menacing that I couldn’t help but ask about the letter’s contents.

The Head Maid, who stiffened and looked at me, hastily put away the letter and answered.

“Oh, Miss Daisy. No. There’s just something a bit concerning… Let’s go inside. Did you drink water?”

“I’m about to.”

I drank the water the Head Maid ladled generously into a pot, then started my morning tasks.

Sometimes I think the Head Maid really treats me like a working ox.

After finishing mopping the second-floor hallway, I came out to the Small Garden before lunch and checked the potted Lu neatly placed on the steps.

“…Mm, good.”

Yesterday morning, sprouts appeared for the first time.

The cotyledons of the seeds I planted were dicotyledons.

Though the leaves were small, they were plump, and a total of 22 seeds had germinated. Their irregular clustering looked so insignificant.

‘Cute.’

Plants can be cute too.

Lu, you have 22 bodies. You have 22 bodies, but it’s nice that your name is decided as Lu. No matter what anyone says, you’re Lu.

“Thin them out.”

A dry tone that broke my admiration fell from above my head.

“Or transplant them. But there are too many to transplant. There’s no special space to give them in the garden either. It would be better to just thin them out.”

When I looked up, delicate features like a glass doll were looking down at me.

The midday sun glinted behind blue hair reminiscent of a cascading waterfall. But something like the sun couldn’t catch my eye. This man’s face was more dazzling.

“Why?”

“Pull out mainly the ones with thin cotyledons and weak, transparent stems.”

“I mean why?”

“If nutrients are dispersed in such a small pot, it’s hard for them to grow properly. It’s right to keep alive only the ones worth saving.”

To apply such barbaric logic!

I looked at the pot with mixed feelings. Even if barbaric, it wasn’t wrong. If they cluster together in this small pot, only a tragedy of mutual killing would unfold.

‘Life is bitter. Even plants compete to survive.’

But thinning out cotyledons I sprouted with my own hands left me feeling quite uncomfortable.

When I glanced around the garden, Lu warned in a cold tone.

“I said there’s no space in the garden.”

“None? There are so many empty spots? There’s only grass by the fountain, and only grass in front of the flower beds?”

Over there, over there, and over there too.

Forgetting the sting on my lips, I pointed to various spots around the Small Garden, and Lu grabbed my finger and answered with a kind yet pitiful expression, as if teaching an idiot.

“It’s the aesthetics of emptiness. The value of beauty is maximized through emptiness. The flowers planted in a garden aren’t refugees. There’s no reason to recklessly bring them into empty spaces.”

So he absolutely refuses, even if it kills him.

‘I can’t forcibly dig up the ground either.’

The Weatherwax Estate basically has all employees share all household duties together (except cooking).

So when Lu was busy, I would water the garden, and when I was busy, Lu would clean the fireplace (except cooking).

But the garden’s aesthetics were definitely Lu’s domain.

This meant I needed his permission to transplant more than ten pairs of cotyledons that might harm the garden’s appearance.

“Plant…”

No, facing my nemesis Lu directly, I can’t bring myself to speak.

“Plant…”

I turned my head away and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Let me plant them.”

I barely managed to say it, but there was no response.

I peeked one eye open and saw him asking back with a face that clearly didn’t want to let me plant anything.

“Let you?”

His expression seemed to ask, ‘Am I your slave?’

“Ple, plea…”

“Plea?”

“Please.”

His enchanting face tilted sideways. Lu gestured with his chin toward the pot teeming with cotyledons.

“Do you know what kind of flowers these are?”

“They’ll be pretty.”

“What makes you so confident?”

“Because their name is Lu.”

Lu’s eyes narrowed further.

Perhaps because his eyelids were thin and his eyelashes sharp, even his squinting looked picturesque.

“You know how to flatter too?”

His voice sounded more like a scoff than mockery.

Lu, who had been staring at me intently, raised his head to survey the surroundings, then walked behind the fountain. He soon lightly touched the grass area beneath the wall.

“Here, in a row. If they get messy, I’ll bury them with dirt. I’ll be inspecting, so work diligently.”

Oh, he agreed so easily?

Before he could change his mind, I quickly moved with the Lu pot. As I turned to get a shovel, he blocked my path, lifted his chin, and gave what wasn’t quite an order but was an order nonetheless.

“Say thank you.”

“…Thank you, Mr. Lu.”

After enjoying the sight of my face as I spat out the words, he disappeared with his long legs swaying. What a picky guy.

I picked up the shovel and began digging up the firmly rooted grass.

…But once transplanted to the garden, are these Lus still Lu? Lu was the pot’s name, but these cotyledons have left the pot and established themselves anew in the garden.

‘Maybe I should give them a new name like “Branch Lu” or something.’

How much time had passed since I planted each cotyledon separately?

Children’s arguing voices came from beyond the wall.

“I’m going to be Raphael.”

“No way, I’m Commander General Raphael!”

“Hey, you idiot. Your hair is brown. So be Commander Andert instead. Or play Her Excellency Natasha?”

“What? I don’t want to be Andert. Then I’d have to die to Grand Sorcerer Mephistopheles. I’m Raphael!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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