“Now, Madam, please lie down here.”
“Thank you, Laura.”
After Ark had left, Laura got Nia changed and into bed. Then, Laura scolded herself. Why? Because Ark was correct. Nia was exhausted.
It wasn’t the physical kind of exhaustion. Laura and the other servants put all their effort into caring for her every single day, after all. So the exhaustion was purely mental. And, in what she could only think of as failure...Laura hadn’t noticed.
It went without saying that Laura had known Nia for much longer than Ark had. But she hadn’t noticed. And maybe that was the cause of her ignorance. She knew how strong Nia was because she was with her 24/7. And it was because she was so close to her mistress that Laura hadn’t noticed.
Yet, Ark—who had yet to even share a bed with Nia after marrying her and had kept a certain distance from her—noticed. How ironic could it have been if he had noticed because of the distance between them.
“That useless man isn’t completely useless, huh,” Laura mumbled to herself.
“Huh? Did you say something, Laura?”
The disrespectful words for her employer had slipped out of her mouth, but Nia, who looked like she could have drifted off at any moment, didn’t hear. Laura was relieved. After all, Nia was head over heels for Ark. And manners were necessary in close relationships as well. No matter how snippy Laura could get, there were lines that she should never cross, though at times she jumped right over them without thinking.
“No, I didn’t say anything. Relax and sleep, Madam.”
“All right. I’m sorry. I will.”
When Laura said that, Nia gave an obedient nod before giggling.
“Madam?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just thinking that I truly am tired. Lord Ark was right.”
Just as she said, Nia’s eyelids looked as if they could close any moment. Judging from how sleepy she was, she really must have been tired.
That fact was out in the open, and now she could rest when she needed to rest. That was all thanks to Laura’s employer, Ark McGuine. The fact made her jealous, but also, just a little bit... A little tiny bit happy. It seemed that the mistress she adored had met someone that the maid could truly trust her with. Incredibly, unfortunately. Regrettably.
As hardheaded as Laura was about Nia, she couldn’t do much but accept that as fact.
“Just as the master said, you’ve been working hard this whole time,” Laura said. “No one will fault you for taking a little rest.”
Laura held back the words “though it pisses me off.” The words were, of course, because Ark had been right. They were also a bit at herself.
The maid really did want her mistress to rest well. When she thought over all she’d been through, it would have been perfectly understandable for Nia to take it easy for several years. And Ark, who was smitten with her, probably would have allowed it, because he recognized how hard her mistress had worked.
While that was another thing that pissed Laura off, the maid couldn’t admit that out loud.
“You’re right. I’ll rest a bit. After all, the real fight is next,” Nia murmured with a sigh.
This was why Laura couldn’t tell her mistress to rest for a long, long while; she actually couldn’t. Next up was the main act. They’d come to a point where they couldn’t go back. They couldn’t run. The situation, her position, everything else.
If that was the case, Nia would probably stand and fight. Really, she would probably be ashamed at the idea of not fighting. She might regret it for her whole life. Laura knew that, so she didn’t stop her.
“We’ve finally come this far,” Laura said.
“Yes... Finally, we’re here.”
Nia didn’t sound like she had any regrets about what had happened; she must have prepared herself for this long ago. While she might not have known when it would come, she had known that it absolutely would.
“And it’s all thanks to Lord Ark.”
“...You’re right. It is all thanks to the master.”
As much as it bothered her, Laura couldn’t do anything but admit that their meeting Ark had been what decided things, and that really, meeting him had been an act of fate. Had Ark just been a man using Nia to conquer Sylvario, then the maid could have thought otherwise, but the fact that he wasn’t was another annoying thing about him.
“And that very same master was the one who told you to rest, so make sure you get that rest tonight.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Nia mumbled. “We’ll be busy from tomorrow on, after all.”
Balthazar’s fate would surely be decided overnight. Whether they killed him or let him live to be useful, Prince Alphonse would never let this opportunity go to waste.
“Luckily for us, we didn’t lose many soldiers, and we kept their fatigue to a minimum. We could even start our counterattack tomorrow,” Nia said, her mind starting to plan ahead.
“Stop right there, Madam,” Laura said firmly. “Resting doesn’t just mean lying still.”
What would happen from tomorrow onwards? It had been clear that Nia’s mind was starting to speculate on all of that, and so Laura had put a stop to it.
“What will you do if all of that thinking gives you a fever?” Laura said. “Though I won’t stop you if you want to worry the master.”
“N-No, I wasn’t thinking that at all! Though it might not be half bad...?”
At Nia’s words, one thought rose in Laura’s mind: She has it bad.
While she hadn’t really wanted to ever see her mistress be like this, a part of her was also thankful that there was someone who made Nia act this way.
Nia was still a girl, after all. Laura could still remember Nia saying that with a bashful smile on the day they had met him, after Ark had left in a tizzy. Looking back, she thought that might have been a clue that things would inevitably end like this.
“All right, all right. Stop saying silly things and get some proper rest.”
“Okaaaay.”
Laura gave Nia a tiny pat on the forehead, and Nia closed her eyes without resisting. As Laura watched her mistress’s face, wondering if she’d finally go to sleep...
“Laura?”
“Yes, Madam?”
“Thank you too. If you hadn’t been with me, I never would have made it this far.”
“Madam...”
The maid went silent at the unexpected thanks. And in that short moment, Nia’s breathing became regular as she finally drifted off to sleep. She really must have been exhausted. Laura gazed at her mistress’s sleeping face.
“That’s what I should be saying,” she murmured softly, not wanting to wake Nia, a conflicted look on her face.