Episode 31
With a calm, settled heart and much steadier breathing, Susan twisted her wrist.
"Let go...."
"Susan."
Susan stopped at my call and looked at me. Gazing down at her, I muttered flatly.
"Fine, think what you want. I don't care. Whether you consider me your master, another person, or someone with no standing at all."
"...."
"But no matter what you think, right now, whatever I may be, I am René Blaire."
Muttering quietly enough for only Susan to hear, I released her wrist as if tossing it aside.
That's when I saw Catherine coming down the stairs. She had been descending slowly, but surprised by the scene before her, she hurried down asking what was the matter.
I glanced at Catherine and pointed at Susan.
"Catherine, throw this woman out."
"Yes....... Yes?"
Catherine answered reflexively, then asked again. Susan's expression hardened noticeably. I, on the other hand, smiled.
"Why make that face? You were the one who said I'm not your master, Susan. Did you think I'd keep someone who speaks such insolence by my side?"
"......Do you think you have such authority? Only His Grace can--"
"Did no one tell you that I now manage the employees?"
A cold silence fell at my words. Susan looked as if she couldn't understand, but soon, as if grasping the situation, her face returned to a flat expression.
"Even if I didn't have such authority, you shouldn't dare ignore my words, should you?"
"...."
"I thought you were smart, but you don't seem that bright, so let me spell it out for you, Susan."
"...."
"You're fired."
The moment the words left my mouth, a ding sounded and a mission success window appeared.
Today's Mission Success!
-Reward: 100 Gold-
It was the first time. The first time I hadn't been happy after completing a mission.
* * *
Roden, having finished work earlier than usual, realized it wasn't yet dinnertime and unconsciously thought he could eat with his sister.
Unnerved by how natural that thought felt, Roden frowned as he stepped out of the carriage. But for some reason, the atmosphere among the employees greeting him was strange. He couldn't even see the butler, Catherine.
Is she busy? Thinking simply, he witnessed a strange scene the moment he entered the mansion. In the first-floor hall, the butler Catherine and the maid Susan were scuffling.
Before he could ask what was happening, Susan spotted him first, passed Catherine, and quickly approached to offer a brief, courteous greeting.
"It has been a while, Your Grace."
"Yes....... What are you doing right now?"
"Your Grace."
Catherine approached as well. Roden wore a puzzled expression at Catherine's grave look. However, it wasn't Catherine who spoke, but Susan.
"Your Grace, may I be so bold as to speak?"
"Go on."
"......It is difficult to say, Your Grace. The young lady is not the young lady right now."
At Susan's abrupt words, a strange light finally appeared in Roden's previously uninterested eyes. His irises were a warm color, yet his gaze was so cold. Susan continued regardless.
"It's as if she has become a different person. She acts in ways she never did before, and her tone and the way she treats a maid like myself are different as well."
"Your Grace, this woman is rambling incoherently from the shock of being dismissed."
Catherine interrupted, but Roden kept looking down at Susan. Susan took that as a sign to continue and didn't stop.
"Did Your Grace not find it strange as well? Surely, Your Grace must have felt a sense of dissonance."
"Susan, stop--"
"Catherine! You must have felt it too! Are you thinking, like the other maids, that the Miss has simply changed? That woman is not the Miss!"
Susan shouted, uncharacteristically agitated, and breathed roughly before exhaling one long, thin breath.
"It has been ten years, Your Grace. Ten years I have served at her side. I know better than anyone that she is not the Miss. That woman is not the Miss! I don't know what she has done—perhaps she switched places...... or, absurd as it sounds, forced herself into the Miss's body....... Whatever the case, we must ask that woman where the Miss is. The Miss is surely in danger."
Roden didn't respond to the end. Instead, he asked Catherine, who was beside Susan, something else.
"Why did the girl fire Susan?"
"From what I heard......"
"No, let me change the question. Did it seem to you that the girl fired her unreasonably?"
Roden asked flatly, narrowing his brow slightly as if annoyed. Catherine briefly fell silent, then shook her head.
"No. The young lady's judgment was correct."
"Then that's enough. Throw her out, even if you have to use force."
"Your Grace......!"
In disbelief, Susan called out to Roden desperately. Her voice was quite anguished, but Roden moved on without hesitation, as if deaf to it.
Catherine stifled a sigh and grabbed Susan's forearm. Susan stood stock-still, clenching her fist tightly before shouting abruptly.
"There's no way Your Grace failed to notice the Miss has changed, and You intend to remain silent as well!"
"Susan, do not overstep."
"I cannot understand. Are you silent merely because that woman is kinder than the Miss? Is that pathetically stupid woman more important than the Miss?"
Thud—Roden's footsteps stopped, and a cold silence descended upon the hall. Soon, the silence broke as Roden turned around.
As he turned to face Susan, Roden's eyes were no longer flat.
Staring at Susan with eyes quietly ablaze with anger, Roden strode toward her and looked down at her.
He whispered lowly.
"Can you take responsibility for what you just said?"
His voice, piercing her ears, was cold enough to freeze her to the bone.
In that moment, Susan realized she had just done something mad, but it was already too late.
When she didn't answer, Roden continued.
"What if that child simply felt disillusioned and changed her behavior?"
"...."
"I asked what you would do if it were simply your delusion. Shall I cut out the tongue that uttered such seditious words? Or shall I stitch shut that mouth that cannot even observe propriety?"
"...."
"Ten years of service...... Yes. You are likely the employee in this mansion who has watched that child the longest. But am I not the wrong person to say that to?"
Roden let out an uncharacteristic sneer. The smile he wore, as if nothing were funny, seemed to stab Susan sharply.
"I have been with that child her entire life. Would I not know her better than you, who has watched her for a mere ten years?"
Susan's face hardened stiffly. Having finished speaking, Roden returned to his usual expressionless face, looked down briefly, then sent a short glance to Catherine.
Understanding the meaning of that gaze, Catherine pulled at Susan's arm, which she had been holding.
Susan violently shook off Catherine's hand. Then, as if she had never been frozen, she smiled perfectly, grasped her skirt, and bowed courteously.
"I understand. If that is Your Grace's will, I shall take my leave. Thank you for everything until now."
It was a noble bearing and tone she maintained until the very end. Roden ignored Susan without showing so much as a sneer or anger.
* * *
Thud. Having sent away Catherine, who tried to follow, Roden was heading to his office alone when he suddenly pressed his forehead against the wall.
A sharp pain flowed across his forehead. Even so, Ruden leaned against the wall with an indifferent expression, looking down.
The events from moments ago crept back into his mind. That heated voice still rang vividly in his ears.
"That woman is not the Young Lady!"
"Does Your Grace intend to remain silent as well!"
"Are you keeping silent for no other reason than that mere woman being more frail than the Young Lady?"
And what had he blabbered in return?
"I have been with that child her entire life. Would I not know her better than you, who has only watched her for a mere ten years?"
It was an utterly absurd thing to say, even to himself. What did he know, exactly? What on earth?
"Only yesterday, I too said that she seemed like a different person."
The important thing was that he still couldn't erase that thought.
Yes, the head maid's suspicions had been justified. They certainly had.
To a degree that couldn't be explained away by simply saying she had changed, she was vastly different from how she had been just two months ago. Yet the reason he had ignored the head maid's words.
Was simply…….
He hadn't wanted to hear that child slandered. He had strangely hated hearing that she wasn't her. Even though he himself had suspected she might not be her.
Blink. He closed his dry, gritty eyes and opened them, barely escaping the tomb of his thoughts. Rubbing his parched eyes listlessly, he turned his steps.
His destination was his younger sister's bedroom. He wanted to check on her, as it seemed the head maid had said harsh things to her.
However, he had no choice but to halt his steps again because of Hendel, who came running frantically.
"Y-Your Grace……! I have come to see Your—"
"No need for greetings. What is it this time?"
"Th-the Young Lady… The Young Lady has disappeared……!"
"What?"
"Her bedroom, she definitely returned to her bedroom, but she isn't there either……. We looked everywhere in the mansion, but she is nowhere to be found……!"
"……Could she have gone out?"
Hendel shook her head urgently, her face on the verge of tears.
"I asked the coachman and the gatekeeper, and they said the Young Lady never went out…….."
"Are you certain you searched the mansion properly?"
"I swear……! We searched together with the other maids, and she is not in the mansion…….."
"……Search more thoroughly for now."
What is she up to now……. Ruden gave Hendel a brief order and immediately headed toward her room.
He arrived shortly after, and indeed, the room held no one at all.
The world outside the window was growing increasingly dark, and Ruden's brow furrowed. Where had she gone at this hour?
As Ruden turned his head, he spotted a sheet of paper that had fallen to the floor and picked it up in one swift motion.
"A dismissal notice……?"
What was written on the paper was none other than a dismissal notice. His puzzled expression immediately relaxed. He thought she might have taken it out to dismiss the head maid.
But what was written on the dismissal notice was not the head maid's name. No matter how many times he blinked his eyes in disbelief, it was none other than his younger sister's name.
Come to think of it, she had said she became a maid herself to carry out a mission. For such a girl to write her own name on a dismissal notice…….
"Could this mission have been about dismissing a maid?"
His coral-colored eyes slowly rolled toward the desk. After maintaining his silence for a moment, he hesitated and hesitated before eventually opening the desk drawer.
A stack of resumes came into view at a glance. Along with his younger sister's resume placed on top.
"She really did write a resume."
Ruden perused the resume as smoothly as flowing water, as if he had never hesitated, then blinked at a faint sense of wrongness. Reading the same part over and over due to the inexplicable discomfort, he gradually realized.
"Her handwriting…… has changed?"
It had. So much so that it was strange he had only noticed now; the handwriting on the resume had completely changed.
Originally, it had been crooked and difficult to read, as if written by an extremely aged person. Her handwriting had been that bad, yet now it was elegant to the point of being smoothly legible.
Had someone else written it? One plausible possibility came to mind but was immediately dismissed.
There was no way someone else would have written such a bizarre resume for the noble young lady of a Count's household to become a maid of that very household. Above all, if it had been ghostwritten, rumors would have spread about the 'Young Lady' trying to become a 'maid'.
In other words, this elegant handwriting was indeed his younger sister's.
Then why had it changed so drastically?
One strange thing was that this elegant handwriting was not unfamiliar. Rather…….
Rather, was it familiar?
No, to be precise, it felt like something he hadn't seen in a long time…….
Yes, strangely enough, it felt as though he were seeing this elegant handwriting for the first time in a very long while.