Chapter 2: The Disgusting Maid.

Lilia was once a palace maid-guard of the Asura royal harem.

A palace maid-guard was a maid who also possessed the qualities of a royal guard.

She performed maid duties in normal times,

but in emergencies she would take up a sword to protect her master.

Lilia was faithful to her duties

and carried out her work as a maid without any major mistakes.

However, as a swordswoman she possessed only the most ordinary level of talent.

Because of that, when she fought an assassin targeting the newborn princess,

she let her guard down and ended up taking a dagger to the leg.

The dagger had been coated with poison.

A poison intended to kill royalty.

A troublesome poison for which no detoxifying magic existed.

Thanks to immediately treating the wound with healing magic

and the court physician’s attempts at detoxification,

she managed to preserve her life,

but aftereffects remained.

There was no hindrance to daily life,

but she could no longer run at full speed

nor step forward with sharp, powerful footwork.

That day, Lilia’s life as a swordswoman came to an end.

The royal palace dismissed Lilia without hesitation.

It was nothing unusual. Lilia herself accepted it.

It was only natural to be dismissed once one’s ability was lost.

She wasn’t even given enough money to live on for the immediate future,

but considering that she hadn’t been secretly executed

on the pretext of her service in the harem,

she had to think of it as a blessing.

Lilia left the royal capital.

The mastermind behind the attempt on the princess’s life had still not been found.

As someone who knew the layout of the harem,

Lilia deeply understood that she herself might become a target.

Perhaps the palace had intentionally let her go free

in order to use her as bait to draw out the culprit.

In the past she had once wondered

why someone of such low birth as herself had been allowed into the harem,

but now she thought perhaps they had wanted disposable maids.

In any case, for the sake of self-preservation,

she needed to get as far away from the royal capital as possible.

Even if the palace had released her as bait,

since she had received no orders,

there was no obligation binding her.

She felt not the slightest inclination to show them loyalty.

By changing stagecoaches several times,

she arrived at the remote Fittoa Region,

a vast agricultural area of endless fields.

Apart from Roa, the fortified city where the lord resided,

it was a peaceful land of wheat fields stretching in every direction.

Lilia decided to look for work there.

That said, with her injured leg she could no longer handle combat-related jobs.

She might be able to teach swordsmanship to some extent,

but she would much prefer to be employed as a maid.

The pay was better that way.

In this frontier region there were plenty of people who could use or teach the sword,

but properly educated maids capable of performing household duties flawlessly were few.

When supply is low, wages rise.

However, being employed as a maid by the Fittoa lord

or by high-ranking nobles close to him would be dangerous.

Such people naturally maintained connections to the royal capital.

If it became known that she had been a palace maid-guard attached to the harem,

she might be used as a political pawn.

She wanted no part of that.

She never wanted to experience that kind of life-or-death terror again.

She felt sorry for the princess,

but she wished the struggle for royal succession would kindly take place somewhere far away from her.

Even so, if the pay was too low she wouldn’t be able to send money back to her family.

Finding a position that balanced both decent wages and safety proved difficult.

After spending a full month traveling around various places,

her eyes caught on one particular job posting.

In Buena Village of the Fittoa Region,

a low-ranking knight was recruiting a maid.

It stated that applicants with childcare experience

and knowledge of midwifery would be given preference.

Buena Village was a small village lying at the very edge of the Fittoa Region.

The countryside of the countryside. Deep rural territory.

An inconvenient location,

but precisely that kind of remoteness was exactly what she had been seeking.

Moreover, the conditions were far better than one would expect

from an employer who was merely a low-ranking knight.

Above all, she recognized the name of the person posting the job.

Paul Greyrat.

He was Lilia’s former junior disciple.

One day, the spoiled son of a noble had suddenly rolled into the dojo where Lilia trained in the sword.

Apparently he had quarreled with his father and been disowned,

so he began living at the dojo while learning swordsmanship.

Although their schools differed,

because he had already been taught swordsmanship at home,

he quickly surpassed Lilia.

At the time Lilia hadn’t found it amusing,

but now she had resigned herself to the fact that she simply lacked talent.

The abundantly talented Paul one day declared he would become an adventurer

and stormed out of the dojo.

He had been a man like a storm.

It had been about seven years since they parted.

That he of all people had become a knight and even married…

Lilia didn’t know what tumultuous life he had led in the intervening years,

but the Paul she remembered had never been a bad person.

If she were in trouble, he would probably help her.

If that didn’t work, she could bring up old stories.

She had several anecdotes that could serve as negotiation material.

Thinking in such a calculating way,

Lilia set out for Buena Village.

Paul welcomed Lilia warmly.

Apparently his wife Zenith was due to give birth soon,

and he had been growing anxious.

Lilia had been thoroughly drilled in every kind of knowledge and skill

in preparation for the birth and rearing of a princess.

Since he already knew her face and her background was clear,

her identity was safe.

She was welcomed with open arms.

He even said he would pay more than the planned wage,

so for Lilia it was exactly what she had hoped for.

The child was born.

It was neither a difficult birth nor anything unusual—

just an ordinary delivery exactly like the drills she had done in the harem.

There were no problems at all.

Everything went smoothly.

And yet, the newborn did not cry.

Lilia broke out in a cold sweat.

She immediately suctioned out the amniotic fluid from the nose and mouth,

but the infant merely looked up with an emotionless expression

and made not a single sound.

It was so expressionless that she almost wondered if it was stillborn.

When she touched it, the body was warm and the heart was beating.

It was breathing.

Yet it did not cry.

A story she had once heard from a senior palace maid-guard

flashed through Lilia’s mind.

Babies who do not cry immediately after birth

often have some abnormality.

The moment she thought “surely not”—

“Aah… uaaah…”

The infant looked this way

and muttered something in a dazed voice.

Hearing that, Lilia felt relieved.

She had no basis for it,

but somehow she felt everything would be all right.

—

The child was named Rudeus.

He was an eerie child.

He never cried, never fussed.

Perhaps his body was weak, but at least he wasn’t much trouble.

That was what she could think… only at first.

Once Rudeus learned to crawl,

he began moving to every corner of the house.

Every single corner.

The kitchen, the back door, the storage shed,

the cleaning supply closet, even inside the fireplace…

Somehow he even managed to get upstairs.

The moment she took her eyes off him, he would disappear.

Yet for some reason he was always found inside the house.

Rudeus never once went outside.

He would sometimes look out the window,

but perhaps the outside world still frightened him.

When did Lilia begin to feel an instinctive fear toward this infant?

Perhaps when she stopped taking her eyes off him

and had to go search and find him.

In most cases, Rudeus would be smiling.

Sometimes he stared fixedly at vegetables in the kitchen,

sometimes at the flickering flame of a candlestick,

sometimes at underwear before it was washed,

muttering something under his breath

while wearing a creepy smile.

It was a smile that inspired physiological revulsion.

During her time in the harem,

Lilia had occasionally visited the palace on missions

and met a certain minister whose smile resembled this one.

The smile that greasy bald man gave

while shaking his plump belly

and staring at Lilia’s chest.

That was the smile now appearing on a newborn infant.

Especially terrifying was the moment when she picked Rudeus up.

He would flare his nostrils,

pull up the corners of his mouth,

breathe heavily through his nose,

and press his face into her chest.

Then, with his throat twitching

as though trying to suppress the laugh itself,

he would let out a bizarre sound—

somewhere between “fuhi” and “oho.”

In that instant, a chill ran through her entire body.

A chill so strong she almost wanted to slam the infant she held

straight down onto the floor.

There wasn’t the slightest trace of an adorable baby.

The smile was simply and utterly revolting.

It was the same smile as the minister rumored to purchase large numbers of young female slaves.

And a newborn was making it.

The discomfort was incomparable;

she even felt a physical sense of danger from an infant.

Lilia thought:

There is something wrong with this baby.

Perhaps some evil entity has possessed him.

Or perhaps he is cursed.

Once the idea occurred to her,

Lilia could no longer sit still.

She ran to the tool shop,

spent nearly all the money she had

and bought the necessary items.

When the Greyrat household had fallen silent for the night,

she performed the warding ritual passed down in her hometown.

Of course, without Paul or anyone else’s permission.

The next day, when she picked Rudeus up again,

Lilia understood.

It had been useless.

The same creepy feeling remained.

Just the fact that an infant was making such a face was unsettling.

Even Zenith had said,

“That child… when I nurse him, he licks me…”

Lilia thought that was outrageous.

Paul might be a womanizer without any restraint,

but even he wasn’t this creepy.

Even as genetics, it was simply wrong.

Then Lilia remembered.

Ah yes—there had been such a story in the harem.

Long ago, an Asura prince possessed by a demon

had crawled on all fours through the harem every night

in order to revive the demon.

And a maid who, unaware of this,

found him and carelessly picked him up

was stabbed through the heart from behind with a hidden knife

and killed by the prince.

How horrifying.

Rudeus is that.

No doubt about it.

He is definitely that kind of demon.

Right now he’s behaving himself,

but eventually he will awaken,

and when the whole house is asleep,

one by one…

Ah… I acted too soon.

Clearly far too soon.

I never should have taken a job in a place like this.

Someday he will definitely attack me.

………………Lilia was the type who seriously believed in superstitions.

For the first year or so, she lived in fear like that.

But at some point—

Rudeus’s unpredictable actions began to fall into patterns.

He was no longer appearing and disappearing like a phantom;

instead he started holing up in Paul’s study in a corner of the second floor.

Calling it a study is generous—

it was just a simple room containing a few books.

Rudeus would shut himself in there and not come out.

When she peeked in,

he was staring at books and muttering something.

They were not meaningful words.

They couldn’t be.

At the very least, they were not in any language commonly used in the Central Continent.

He was still far too young to speak.

Of course no one had taught him letters.

So surely he was just a baby looking at books

and making random sounds.

Otherwise it would be strange.

Yet to Lilia,

no matter how she listened,

it sounded inescapably like meaningful sentences.

It looked inescapably as though Rudeus understood the contents of the books.

Terrifying…

While watching Rudeus through the crack in the door,

that was what Lilia thought.

Strangely, though, the sense of revulsion had disappeared.

Come to think of it, ever since he began shutting himself in the study,

the unidentified creepiness and unpleasantness had gradually faded away.

He still occasionally gave that creepy smile,

but when she picked him up she no longer felt discomfort.

He no longer buried his face in her chest

or breathed heavily through his nose.

Why had she ever thought this child was abominable?

Lately she had even begun to sense a sincerity and diligence in him

that made her feel she shouldn’t interfere.

It seemed Zenith felt the same.

She had consulted Lilia about whether they should just leave him alone.

It was an outrageous suggestion.

Leaving a newborn infant unattended

was something no human being should do.

However, lately Rudeus’s eyes had begun to show the color of intelligence.

Until a few months ago those eyes had held nothing but idiocy.

Now they held firm will

and a brilliant intellect.

What should be done?

Lilia had knowledge but little experience,

so making a judgment was difficult.

Who was it that said there is no single correct answer in child-rearing—

a senior palace maid-guard,

or her own mother back in her hometown?

At the very least,

he no longer felt creepy,

no longer caused discomfort,

no longer inspired fear.

In that case, there was no need to interfere and make him revert to how he was before.

She would leave him be.

In the end, that was the conclusion Lilia reached.