That same day at the Dark Frost Mercenaries’ estate, a shock wave rippled through the servants’ quarters.
“It can’t be...”
The housekeeper and the maids could scarcely believe their eyes. The servants’ quarters were located in a separate building, consisting of one large room that slept ten maids and the housekeeper’s room. It was only one story, made of wood, and had gotten extremely rickety in the forty years since its construction—or had it?
Now, the outside walls were squeaky clean, the front door that had needed a good shove to open swung to without a sound, and the floor in the corridor was so polished that it was slippery underfoot.
“Welcome back, everyone. Your dinner is ready.”
Standing there with her head bowed was, of course, Nina.
“N-Now see here!” the housekeeper spluttered. Her immediate thought was that Nina had put the servants’ quarters ahead of her actual duties. “You’re a laundry maid! Do you have any idea how much laundry the band goes through every day? And yet here you are, shirking your work to clean up our living quarters, when there was absolutely no call for it!”
“The laundry is all finished, ma’am! One of the senior maids kindly checked it for me.”
The housekeeper rounded on the maid in question, a tall girl in charge of laundry and cleaning. “Explain!”
“Sh-She’s telling the truth, ma’am... I, um, I don’t really know what happened. Before I knew it all the laundry was done and hanging on the line.”
“Don’t tell me you left it all on the line?!”
“N-No, ma’am... When I turned around, it had all been brought inside, folded, and put away...”
“F-Folded and...and put away...?!”
“I had time to spare, so I moved on to cleaning. Then this girl said she wanted to clean our rooms. I didn’t see any harm in it, so I said she could...”
The housekeeper stared at Nina, baffled.
Nina smiled back at her. “Dinner is waiting. Please, eat up while it’s hot.”
Needless to say, the dinner was so good that the maids kept going back for more helpings. It looked no different to their usual fare of meat and vegetables with a little soup, but the flavor was something else entirely. They polished it off in no time.
The housekeeper looked dazed. “Nina, you...you said you used to work for a noble family, didn’t you?”
“That’s right, at an estate in the Crecente Kingdom.”
“And are...all maids there able to do things like this? Laundry and cleaning and cooking...”
“Oh, any maid could do the same.”
“Any maid... Well, I suppose so. It’s a big world, isn’t it?” Curiously, she appeared satisfied with this explanation.
Nina just looked at her in puzzlement.
The next day, Nina was put in charge not only of the laundry, but of cleaning the main house too. She polished off so much of the work that four of the ten maids were left with nothing to do. Meanwhile, the other maids all clamored to switch their assignments.
“I want to do laundry!”
“Let me take cleaning duty!”
In other words, they wanted the jobs that Nina would finish for them.
“Oh dear... They’re all getting lazy...”
But the housekeeper was a shrewd woman. She realized that just as an effective medicine became poison in too high a dose, relying too much on one capable maid would end badly. She did misunderstand things sometimes—like when she’d thought Nina’s “any maid could do the same” was merely a sign that the world was full of all sorts of people—but she perceived very well the extent of Nina’s skills.
She also didn’t hesitate to act. She clearly defined the work that Nina was allowed to do and instructed her that she must leave the remaining tasks to the other maids.
Of course, this meant that after Nina whizzed through all her work, she was left at a loose end. But she had a unique talent—she was exceptionally good at finding new work. She started to tackle tasks that no one had gotten around to, from smartening up the training grounds, to weeding the back garden, to fixing the roof. In no time at all, the whole estate was immaculate.
Tien, who’d been keeping watch from afar, obviously noticed when Nina began clambering about on the roof.
“N-Nina?! What is she doing?!” she squeaked, panicking.
Soon, not only the maids but the residents of the mansion themselves began to notice the improvements in their living environment. Even the old man, who was always popping in and out through the back door to procure supplies for the mansion on the housekeeper’s instructions, had called out to Nina once.
“Look at you go!” he said. “It’s always admirable to see a young ’un working hard.”
“Oh, no. Any maid would do the same,” Nina replied. “If anything, sir, I admire you for bringing such vigor to your work at your age.”
The man chuckled. “I wish you’d tell my son that! The way he puts it, I’m an embarrassment and I ought to stay home.”
“I’m sure he just doesn’t want to see you exert yourself. He sounds like a fine son.”
“You’re a sweet girl. If my son were twenty years younger, you’d make him a good wife... Too bad, too bad...” Leaning on his cane and his back stooped, the old man tottered away. The son of a man his age was probably pushing sixty. Even if he were twenty years younger, he’d still be far too old for Nina. But she just smiled brightly at the old man as he left.
The mercenaries, too, caught on to the changes.
“Is it me or this place looking kinda sparkly?”
“I better not have heard the word ‘sparkly’ come outta your ugly mug.”
“Hey, leave off the name-calling!”
So went one exchange between two beefy, fierce-looking men with scarred faces.
Mercenaries were an even rougher bunch than adventurers. Their routine looked something like this: They rolled out of bed some time after lunch, headed to the training grounds to do drills, and then, when evening came, they went into the city to drink and make merry, only staggering back to the mansion after midnight. They became unruly when they were drunk—throwing up and smashing doors and walls and suchlike—so only the male servants attended to them at night.