Chapter 11
The Heroine and the Maid
It had already been a month since the young masters left the Duke’s mansion.
Normally, we would have moved to the annex too, but the young masters wanted Deriksha and me to continue as their personal maids, so we stayed in the main building.
Being a personal maid and receiving a high salary was nice… but honestly, I had nowhere to spend it.
They provided a place to sleep and food to eat, and I wasn’t particularly interested in travel or clothes. The money piled up, but seeing it didn’t make me happy.
I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, glancing at Deriksha. Today, she was again sitting at the desk, writing a letter to Young Master Odin.
“Deriksha.”
“I’m busy.”
“What are you going to spend your money on?”
Despite saying she was busy, Deriksha paused her writing. After a short thought, she answered:
“First… I guess I’d buy a house?”
“A house?”
We’d live in the maid quarters anyway. Why bother with a house? My curiosity piqued, and I sat up.
“Are you planning to marry?”
I thought she might be like other maids who retire after marriage. Deriksha nodded.
“I haven’t thought about it yet, but I will someday.”
“But if you married Young Master Odin, you wouldn’t need a house.”
Deriksha frowned and tossed a crumpled piece of paper from the desk at me. I caught it easily, unrolled it, and read aloud:
“Hello, Young Master Odin. Summer has passed, and now the autumn leaves are starting to color.”
“Hey, I’ll kill you!”
Blushing bright red, Deriksha ran to my bed. I laughed and hid my head under the pillow.
Like Deriksha’s letter described, autumn had quietly come to the Duke’s mansion. A cool breeze made it necessary to wear a coat or shiver.
Looking at the red-tinted trees, I often thought of the young master who had gone to the Academy. What was Lou doing now?
Demian sometimes sent letters—well, almost every day.
Even Young Master Odin frequently sent letters to his personal maid, Deriksha, yet Lou hadn’t sent me a single letter in a month. Seeing Odin send letters to Deriksha, he might have thought of me at least once.
Could he still be sulking because I didn’t see him off?
On the day the young masters left for the Academy, I didn’t see them off, but Deriksha went to send off Young Master Odin.
She said Lou had been looking for me until the very end. He kept watching the mansion’s entrance until the carriage left, and Deriksha had wondered if she should wake me and bring me along.
Hearing that, I felt a little guilty. I hadn’t realized Lou wanted me to see him off so badly. I had always thought he was indifferent, but he actually had a warm heart.
“Maybe I should write him a letter too.”
Thinking of Lou, I said it aloud. I had nothing to do, and if he was sulking, this might help.
Deriksha, who had been hitting me with a pillow, stopped and looked at me.
“To whom?”
“To the young master who never even greets his maids.”
Deriksha gave me a baffled look. I reached for paper and a pen and began writing without hesitation:
“To Young Master Lou. Hello, Young Master. It’s already been a month since you left. We spent the whole vacation together, yet not a single word from you? Are we only this close? This maid almost wants to tell on you for sneaking out of the mansion on the ball night without the Duke knowing.”
“You’re trying to get yourself fired, huh?”
Muttering while writing such a rude letter, Deriksha chuckled. She dropped the pillow and returned to her chair.
“Maybe Young Master Lou thinks you can’t read,” she said.
Perhaps. Most commoners couldn’t read or write. Even in the Sharonde Empire, literacy was low compared to today, and many maids in the mansion couldn’t read either.
I had retained part of my lost memories, so reading the letters here was familiar. At first confusing, I quickly got the hang of it. I wasn’t illiterate before losing my memories.
I looked at Deriksha.
“By the way, Deriksha, where did you learn to read?”
She grew up in an orphanage and wasn’t from the Academy. Learning to read by herself as a child would have been almost impossible.
She flinched at my question, hesitated, and then fiddled with her hair before speaking softly:
“……If you keep it a secret, I’ll tell you.”
Curious, I raised my hand and said confidently:
“I swear.”
Even after my vow, she hesitated, then quietly began:
“……Young Master Odin taught me when I was little.”
My mouth fell open. Odin? And when she was little?
“Eek?”
“Well, it’s a long story… curious?”
“Very.”
Seeing my sparkling eyes, she sighed and began her story:
“I grew up in the Duke’s mansion following my mother, who was a maid. Around age seven, there was a week-long ball to celebrate Lady Abel’s birth. Everyone was busy preparing, so I played alone in the garden. That’s when I first met him.”
Even before she said who, I knew. I grinned:
“Your first love?”
“You really hate breathing, don’t you…?”
I laughed, hugging the pillow. It was a surprisingly exciting story. My best friend’s first love—and it was still ongoing.
“So how did you become close to Young Master Odin?”
“We met in the garden, talked, and became friends. During the ball, we promised to meet every day in the garden. He probably thought I was a noble girl, and I didn’t reveal that I was a commoner.”
That made sense. Falling in love at first sight, she wouldn’t want to reveal her commoner status.
“And that’s how I learned to read too,” Deriksha said casually.
“Seven years old, and he taught you to read…?”
“He’s incredibly smart,” she said. The letters here were difficult. For a seven-year-old to teach them? And for her to learn in two weeks was amazing.
“Since you met at seven, you must be childhood friends, right?”
“We met at seven, but after the ball, we never saw each other. My mother died the next year, and I grew up in an orphanage. I became a maid at the Duke’s mansion at fourteen, but Young Master Odin had already gone to the Academy. We only met again a month ago.”
I recalled the Odin who returned from the Academy a month ago. He had looked surprised to see Deriksha, the personal maid.
It turned out he had expected a noble girl, and seeing her in a maid uniform shocked him.
Deriksha scratched her cheek and continued:
“I was scared he’d scold me, but he just seemed really happy. He’d been looking for me for years. It’s no wonder I couldn’t find him as a commoner.”
Now I understood why she had been so scared. She had pretended to be a noble, hiding her commoner identity from a minor duke. Even as a child, that could have been a serious crime.
Deriksha sighed quietly, and with that, the story ended.
I reflected on her story. It was grander than I expected.
A commoner girl hiding her status, meeting a Duke’s son, longing for years, and reuniting as a maid and young master. A story worthy of a novel.
“…a story worthy of a novel—”
“……Huh?”
“Why?”
Before I could answer, a thought hit me. This was a novel.
The title of the novel I had read before possession surfaced in my mind. I looked at Deriksha in shock.
I realized one thing immediately:
[Long brown hair down to her waist, smooth and untangled. Despite hard maid work, her skin was flawless. But what stood out most were her eyes—deep green, showing a strong spirit. She carried herself proudly, unbent by her position as a maid. No wonder the young master fell for her—]
“Deriksha…….”
[It was Deriksha.]
After two months of possession, I had finally found the heroine.
