The waiting maids working in the inner palace held Zenjirou in high esteem.

　　Daring to lay it on the line: They were regarding him as an “easy-care master”.

　　He wasn’t nitpicking about their jobs. He wasn’t giving out orders on a whim. He didn’t scold them when a given task wasn’t completed on time due to some circ.u.mstances as long as they explained it with a legit reason. And he didn’t forget to thank them when they completed a task.

　　Individually, these points were nothing special, but an acc.u.mulation of such trivial considerateness yielded a “comfortable environment”.

　　As such, it was only natural that Zenjirou was held in high esteem by the waiting maids.

　　However, nothing, whatever it may be, was ever “perfect” to the last detail. Thus, it wasn’t like the waiting maids had no complaints at all in regard to him.

　　He rarely let them into the living room or bedroom. He didn’t give straight orders due to his modesty. And his taste in food gravely differed from a person of the Carpa Kingdom as he came from a different world. All kind of “complaints” came up when each maid was cited.

　　But most of their opinions would surely unite when the entire team of waiting maids had to name “the one complaint that they considered as the worst”.

　　Namely: “His abnormal ‘fondness of baths’.”

　　On a certain midmorning, a couple of waiting maids were cleaning the ridiculous large bathroom of the inner palace with heart and soul. As the Carpa Kingdom had high temperatures, physical labour tended to be done during the relatively cool morning or evening.

　　The water had been drained from the two baths, which were large enough to be mistaken has small pools, and the barefooted maids scrubbed the slimy floor with long scrubbers for all they were worth while sweating on their foreheads.

　　It was a stiff job without the slightest appeal.

　　“Aw, Ugh, my hips hurt~!”

　　It was understandable that the young maids would utter words of complaint.

　　A pet.i.te maid with a short haircut wailed, whereupon the tall maid scrubbing next to her replied with a snapping tone.

　　“This place echoes, so keep your ridiculous loud voice to yourself, Fay. To begin with, you’re short, so you should have it better than me. I’ve to work stooping the whole time.”

　　The pet.i.te maid with short hair— Fay was told off like that by the tall maid.

　　As to back up her words, the tall maid— Dolores took her right hand off the handle of the brush and tapped her numb hip with a clenched fist.

　　In fact, Dolores did have a point. The higher up your hips were when cleaning a low place, the greater the strain.

　　Although that was indeed the case for cleaning stooped with just a cloth, a size difference hardly affected the burden when cleaning with a long scrubber. Her nerves, too, had been stretched by the monotone and tough labour. In other words, she was just venting her anger.

　　But the girl called Fay wasn’t so well-mannered that she would quietly put up with that outburst.

　　“Say what? Your voice is way louder. The volume of your voice is proportional to your body size after all, you mountain!”

　　“As if. If that were true, your voice should be too faint to even reach my ears.”

　　“I’m not that small!”

　　Even while cursing at each other, the two of them were still moving the scrubbers in their hands for now, which was truly praiseworthy.

　　Because they were cleaning the wet floor, their skirts were rolled up at the waist part even more than usually, making it a mini-skirt way above their knees. Sandal-like shoes, made out of skin from a Water Dragon, were slipped over their bare feet without socks. Their outfit in itself was rather alluring and charming.

　　However, there wasn’t a shred of s.e.xiness, regardless of how sensual their getup was, because the maids were digging their feet into the floor bowlegged and glaring at the floor with hostility while gritting their teeth.

　　“I keep telling you, you’re too noise, Shorty.”

　　“You’re the noisy one, Mountain!”

　　The verbal quarrel between the two girls was reverberating from the stone walls of the huge bath. As their dispute heated up, their hands inevitable stopped.

　　At some point, the small and the tall girl had dropped everything and were just glaring at each other during their work. Needless to say, their present superior wouldn’t overlook their disgraceful behaviour.

　　“…..”

　　The middle-aged waiting maid, who had worked her brush quietly in one corner of the bath, wordlessly picked up the water bucket at her feet and splashed about its entire content.

　　“Wah!?”

　　“Kyaa!?”

　　Fay and Dolores jumped up with a scream when the cold water suddenly hit their bare feet. The older maid must have held back, seeing as the water didn’t splash on them any higher than their skirt.

　　The middle-aged maid glared at them with half-closed eyes and breathed her words with a sigh.

　　“I don’t see your hands moving. Do your job.”

　　“Y- Yes, I am sorry, Olsha-sama.”

　　“F- Forgive me, Olsha-sama.”

　　The scolding from the middle-aged maid in charge of cleaning, Olsha, wasn’t really all that harsh, but Fay and Dolores flinched exaggerated as if they had been hit with a whip.

　　In charge of cleaning, Olsha was an average woman of middle age without any striking traits in particular.

　　If there was such a thing as a trait, it would be how she always kept her eyes half-closed as if she was sleepy.

　　“…..”

　　The tight-lipped and inexpressive waiting maid quietly returned to her own task, her interest lost after confirming with a glance that her subordinators quickly got back to work.

　　She was neither as faultfinding as her fellow supervisor Ines, the maid in charge of cleaning, nor did she rule as iron-fisted as her other fellow supervisor Vanessa, the maid in charge of cooking.

　　But even the “Three Troublemakers” wanted to stay clear of her glare by all costs.

　　There was a good reason for that. Olsha judged the work of young waiting maids as “good or bad” by observing them inexpressively and wordless.

　　And if by chance she decided that the “modus operandi of a maid was inappropriate for the inner palace”, she would stay apathetic to the core and calmly report to Supervisory Maid Amanda that someone “failed”.

　　Olsha’s stance was as following: A job was something you learned by observing and then doing it yourself. Instructions were only necessary once at the beginning. And a superior had the responsibility to distinct between capable and useless subordinators.

　　Her way of thinking was the complete opposite from Vanessa, whose purpose in life was to drill the skills into the young waiting maids, or Ines, who considered it her greatest obligation to guide the other waiting maids.

　　Fay and Dolores, part of the infamous “Three Troublemakers” known for their easy-going and lax att.i.tude, also reflexively straightened their backs when receiving such a “scolding” from Olsha.

　　In the end, the waiting maids, starting with Fay and Dolores, were making an effort to do their job because of it, so it might actually be a good management in itself. Although the young waiting maids on the receiving end could do without it.

　　“…..”

　　For a while, only the sound of brushes scrubbing over the wet floor could be heard in the bath without anyone saying a word.

　　That was nothing unusual for Dolores, who was in pretty good control of herself, but even Fay, a bundle of pure energy, was shut up, which definitely spoke in favour of Olsha’s self-a.s.sertion.

　　However, Fay wouldn’t be called the “Head of the Three Troublemakers” if she could maintain a diligent working morale in silence for long.

　　She may not be so stupid to neglect her task when she had just been scolded, but she started to get distracted bit by bit. Suddenly, she remembered that she hadn’t heard anything of her other roommate Rethe yet, ever since they had started cleaning the bath.

　　The scatterbrained Rethe certainly was a girl of few words and did things at her own pace, but even so, it was strange that she didn’t speak a single word during work.

　　Carefully continuing with her task, Fay sneaked a peek at the side. Rethe was diligently working her brush while her huge b.r.e.a.s.t.s, distinguishably even through her maid clothes, swayed. Because of her drooping eyes, she was usually looking somewhat silly, but now she kept an expression as serious as possible.

　　(Huh? Why’s Rethe so serious?)

　　Witnessing the unusual behaviour of her roommate, Fay inclined her head puzzled.

　　And while Fay kept her small head inclined like that, the big-breasted girl with drooping eyes finished cleaning her a.s.signed area and approached her while her footsteps made splis.h.i.+ng and splas.h.i.+ng sound on the wet floor.

　　“I’m done with my side, so I’ll help you out. Fay-chan, where do you want me to start?”

　　Usually at her leisure, Rethe now called out to her with a relatively quick tone.

　　This was definitely weird. Her roommate with the drooping eyes was by no means such the diligent type.

　　Fay forgot to answer her question and asked back in a whisper.

　　(Hey, Rethe, what’s going on?)

　　Rethe widened her dropping eyes in reaction to the question, which implied the meaning of “you have never been this serious”, and replied disappointed.

　　“Have you forgotten, Fay-chan? If we don’t hurry up with our job, we’ll end up last for the ’shopping’ at noon.”

　　“AH!?”

　　“EH!?”

　　‘Shopping’

　　That one word made Fay, but also Dolores, who was scrubbing nearby, raise an exclamation of surprise.

　　After a moment of surprise, its meaning dawned on the two of them.

　　Yes, they had forgotten.

　　A merchant came to the inner palace once every three months and today was that day.

　　* * *

　　A couple of minutes later.

　　“Hurry up!”

　　“Fay-chan, Supervisory Maid Amanda will get mad at us when we run in the hallway!”

　　“It’s all your fault for forgetting your wallet, Rethe! Aw, we’re totally late!”

　　“In the first place, we would have had all the time in the world if you had not forgotten about today and took the cleaning seriously~”

　　“Whatever, just hurry up. We have no time to waste!”

　　Having finished cleaning the bath in a rush, the “Three Troublemakers” were now running down the hallway in the inner palace. Having said that, their opinion of running was actually subjective. For an onlooker, they were “walking at a fast pace” at best.

　　Despite everything, the three of them were still waiting maids of the inner palace. They would never cross the line. Nonetheless, they sometimes did came pretty close to that line, which earned them the alias “Three Troublemakers”.

　　Anyway, the three walked down the hallway as fast as their standing as maids of the inner palace allowed them to. At the rear entrance, they changed into their outdoor shoes, then crossed through the courtyard under the dazzling midday sun and headed for a separate building.

　　The inner palace of the Carpa Kingdom was relatively small, considering the size of the country, but that didn’t mean it only consisted of a single building standing by itself.

　　Castle walls surrounded several buildings and their yards, the main building, where Zenjirou lived, at its centre. The entirety of it was called the “Inner Palace”.

　　Right now, Fay and the two other girls were heading towards the building that stood at the very edge of the inner palace.

　　That house was partly merged with the outer wall of the palace and served as a gate, connecting the isolated inner palace with the outer world. Due to that, the young waiting maids were normally forbidden to go near it unless they had a special reason.

　　When they quickly crossed through the yard, a group of three young waiting maids was coming back from the house Fay and Co. were heading to, chatting with each other.

　　“Ah, Karina…”

　　“Kate…?”

　　“Christel-chan?”

　　The three maids ceased their chitchat, as they also noticed Fay and the others approaching quickly, and showed them a different smile than before.

　　Each of the smiling maids waved their hand and proudly showcased the textiles and small phials of perfumed oil they had bought just now.

　　In contrast to them, the “Three Troublemakers”: Fay, Rethe and Dolores were all scowling.

　　They had been beaten to it.

　　The merchant brought a lot of one-of-a-kind items. Rare items sold well, even in a different world.

　　Even if he had some “good stuff” in stock, it would have already found their way into the hands of the other waiting maids. And judging by their smug smiles, that event was more than likely.

　　Moreover, Karina covertly held up her index and middle finger in a “Victory Sign” when she pa.s.sed by them. Needless to say, the phenomenon of a “Victory Sign” initially didn’t exist in this world, as there wasn’t even the Latin alphabet. Such particulars represented the influence that Zenjirou had on the waiting maids.

　　“Grr…!”

　　Since her co-workers looked like the cat that got the cream, Fay felt the urge to yelp at them, but she clearly had other priorities right now.

　　It would be way too foolish if some other girl stole a march on her again while she snapped at her co-workers, who were already done with their shopping.

　　“…Let’s go, Dolores, Rethe!”

　　“Ah, wait, Fay. Even if this is the courtyard, you shouldn’t be running like the wind. If the Supervisory Maid catches you, you’ll be done for!”

　　“Aw, Fay-chan, wait~”

　　Dolores and Rethe also quickened their pace, chasing after Fay, who stormed off unfazed.

　　* * *

　　When Fay and the others entered the large room, a middle-age merchant with an amble belly gave them an affable smile as he sat cross-legged on top of a red carpet, all kind of articles spread before him.

　　Textiles in all various colours. Perfumed oil in metal phials as thick as a thump. And accessories such as rings or necklaces.

　　“Uwah, nice.”

　　With a beaming face, Fay was about to rush over to the merchant at full speed when she noticed the silhouette sitting near the wall at the last moment.

　　The person glaring at her so strongly that you could feel the tension in the air was no less a figure than Supervisory Maid Amanda, the overall superior of the inner palace.

　　Her sitting posture on top of the carpet with a straightened back and knees together was as perfect and inhuman as ever. To the point that it made you wonder if even the wrinkles in her clothes obeyed the will of the middle-aged head maid when seated.

　　Normally she worked in the main building of the inner palace, only concerning herself with instructions for all the waiting maids and the preservation of Zenjirou‘s comfortable lifestyle. Why was she here now? Because her duties also encompa.s.ses the negotiation with the merchants and their oversight.

　　Right now, there were no more than six soldiers with short spears present, but Supervisory Maid Amanda had the exceptional right to a.s.sume command of them in this room.

　　In face of the fierce glare of the maid, who put her life on the line to keep the order in the inner palace, and the drawn weapons of the armed soldiers under her control, the plump man of middle age left his obvious business smile unchanged, a sign that he wasn’t a purveyor to the court for nothing. At least his dauntlessness was remarkable.

　　The merchant, still sitting on the carpet, smiled at the new arrivals.