V9-Extra

**Extra: Indirect Cultural Exchange (Spreading Contamination) Between Master and Maids**

	In Kingdom of Capua, the masters of the inner palace were Prince Consort Zenjirou and Queen Aura. However, if one were to ask who was responsible for the inner palace, head maid Amanda was unquestionably that person. The royal couple relied heavily upon her. In general she held authority over all articles coming into and out of the the inner palace, and of course over the people within it. Each of the older supervisory maids would follow head maid Amanda's words to the letter, and the younger maids would stand up straighter as soon as she called their names. And the way they responded to her need not even be said. Head maid Amanda was an extremely capable maid, manager, and strict instructor. It was head maid Amanda who, one night in the head maid's office, gathered together all the supervisory maids and raised a critically important topic.

	”This is a grave situation!”

	With those words, the flat of head maid Amanda's right hand banged down on the table. Had any of the younger maids been present, they could only have cowered in shock, but fortunately the ones present were only older supervisory maids, and they were made of sterner stuff.

	“Could you perhaps explain that in more detail ma'am?”

	Emilia, who supervised the gardens, raised that question in a composed voice. Swayed by those words, head maid Amanda continued in a tone somewhat softer than before.

	“Very well. The situation is certainly grave. I think you must all have noticed already. The contamination is spreading, and rapidly.”

	“Contamination? Are you speaking of some kind of dirt? In that case it should fall to Ines, but she's currently absent after all.”

	Altogether, there were four supervisory maids in the inner palace, but only three were present in that room. The missing person, who's name had just been raised, was Ines, in charge of cleaning. In order to look after Zenjirou who was their master, Ines had been jumped to the Twin Kingdoms. It wasn't impossible that, with Ines being absent, some dirt could have been overlooked. Unfortunately, that wasn't what head maid Amanda had wanted to say.

	“No. I have that responsibility in Ines' stead. There's no problem with cleaning. The problem I was referring to is the contamination spreading among the young maids. Have none of you noticed? How would you evaluate the present condition of the maids in the inner palace?”

	At the head maid's words, the three supervisory maids turned to look at each other in puzzlement.

	“A contamination, of the young maids?”

	“Ahhh, I think I get it now.”

	Next to Olsha, the maid in charge of the bathing area, who had her head tilted to the side in confusion, Vanessa, in charge of cooking, showed a wry smile.

	“Amanda, you mean 'that'? It's young maids getting contaminated, but also young maids who started it?”

	At Vanessa's words, head maid Amanda gave a large nod as if to say 'It's just as I thought'.

	“Precisely Vanessa. Emilia, Olsha; please try to be more aware of impending disasters. Originally, nine maids were assigned to Zenjirou-sama in the inner palace.”

	However, with the passage of time, three maids who were getting older had resigned in order to get married. And, because Zenjirou was visiting the Twin Kingdoms, a further three maids had gone with him. Therefore, at that time, only three of those original maids were present in the inner palace. The rest of the young maids were novices accepted that year. Head maid Amanda heaved a sigh.

	“Of course it's only to be expected that the new arrivals won't know some things, so they should learn from their seniors. Though it's well for them to seek help from me or from you supervisory maids, baring some extraordinary circumstance, they should ask their seniors instead.”

	“Well, that's just natural. No matter what we say, we're not really co-workers. We're bosses. What kind of young girl is gonna want an easy-going conversation with someone like me?”

	Vanessa's words were quite right, but it was also for that reason that head maid Amanda had called this 'grave situation' emergency meeting.

	“Quite so. The new girls have committed no sin, however it will lead to no good. Right now, the only three senior girls left in the inner palace are Faye, Dolores, and Letti!”

	Faye. Dolores. Letti. In other words [The Three Troublemakers]. Always aggressively cutting to the ragged edge of what was permitted for palace maids, in that sense they were a hero party. In the present situation those [Three Troublemakers] were, for the current crop of new maids, their only seniors and only models.

	“That certainly is a grave situation, isn't it?”

	“Calling it 'contamination' is right on.”

	“Is that so? But in that case, we'll just have to fire the new maids who get corrupted, won't we?”

	Head maid Amanda slightly raised her voice over her three coworkers who were each expressing their opinions in their own way.

	“The symptoms are already showing. Zenjirou-sama has been letting the maids borrow it, that [Portable Console]. Other than those three, the original nine maids had enough restraint not to borrow it, but the new girls are borrowing it quite brazenly.”

	That could only be called the influence of [The Three Troublemakers].

	“Ahhh, but if Zenjirou-sama has chosen to allow it, isn't that much alright?”

	Vanessa, who among the other supervisory maids had a comparative soft spot for for the younger maids, followed awkwardly with that, but of course the head maid wasn't one who would be swayed by such words.

	“No, it's definitely not alright. What will happen in the future when those girls return to the outside world, carrying the name of [Former Inner Palace Maid]? If we send out mass-production-[Troublemaker]-type maids into the world, the name of the inner palace will be dragged through the mud. We must restrict the troublemakers to only that small fraction!”

	Olsha turned to the head maid, who had suddenly formed a fist, and spoke coldly:

	“If you're worried they're a bad influence, what about firing Faye Dolores and Letti? Isn't it normal to start by cutting out the root of the evil?”

	At that suggestion, which in some way was the simplest and most correct, head maid Amanda sadly shook her head.

	“No. Those three have numerous minor problems, but they always scrape through with a passing grade. Besides which, they're Zenjirou-sama's favourites. We can't fire them.”

	“Aaah, certainly. When you put it that way, if it's just for the inner palace in the present situation, learning from those three girls might not be wrong.” Vanessa put in with a bitter smile.

	The master of the inner palace liked maids with a lax attitude. It could even be said that mass producing such lax maids actually made sense. The problem was that, while the young maids would only serve in the inner palace for a short time, after that they would live the rest of their lives as [Former Inner Palace Maids].

	“I have a duty. In order that the reputation of inner palace maids will not be diminished, I must strictly train those girls! It's a duty of guidance!”

	Head maid Amanda, who was actually quite caring and sympathetic to the young maids, said so with strong conviction.

	“I believe that the inner palace is a place where people of ability work, not a place for polishing up one's abilities.”

	Though Olsha put forward such a harsh opinion while tilting her head, in the end she still understood that the authority to decide overall policy rested with the head maid, and she wouldn't push her own pet theories any further than that.

	“All right then, everyone please work together. We need to find out just how far the troublemakers have influenced the new girls, and nip the problem in the bud. It's not too late. We still have time. We still have time!”

	“Mmm, right. That's... or... Okay.”

	“Yeah, I guess so. It's for the best.”

	“If that's the head maid's decision, then that's what we do.”

	The three supervisory maids affirmed head maid Amanda's hot-blooded resolution, though each with differing words and expressions.

	◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

	Several days later.

	The tall maiden, Dolores, was finishing up her work as usual, when she tilted her head to the side. She had a feeling that something was wrong, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

	“What could it be? It feels like something's different from normal. Like I can't calm down for some reason, or like someone's staring at me...”

	While she was wiping dust from the living room appliances with a soft dry cloth, Dolores looked to her two co-workers for confirmation, but...

	“Aren't you just worrying too much?”

	“Yeah, I don't feel anything different.”

	Faye, with her small stature, and Letti, with her prodigious bust and drooping eyes, both denied Dolores's words.

	Such idle chatter while working should have bought them a rebuke from their superiors, but Ines, who was in charge of cleaning, had gone to the Twin Kingdoms together with Zenjirou, and head maid Amanda, who was filling in for her, had stepped out, saying 'I have a little something to do.' Thanks to that, the tree of them were chatting away freely.

	Dolores sighed at their responses.

	“It was a mistake to ask you two in the first place.”

	It was only to be expected that a simple minded idiot like Faye and an easy-going airhead like Letti wouldn't be as aware of their surroundings as Dolores was.

	Faye was unmistakably pouting as she refuted those words from Dolores:

	“Huh? Why do you always have to make fun of people like that, Dolores? I mean, this is the inner palace. Is there even anything here for you to be so nervous about?”

	“If you searched the entire Southern continent, I don't think you'd find another inner palace where the maids have *less* to be nervous about. Not even close.”

	Dolores offered that biting reply to Faye, who seemed to have melted into the relaxed atmosphere of the inner palace without a shred of hesitancy, though Dolores herself seemed to lack awareness of her own lax behaviour.

	Originally, in that space known as the inner palace, in that place were being maid normally meant having one's nerves stretched tight as a drum, there was an undeniable truth. It could mean doing work with no room for failure. It could mean getting pulled into secret feuds between the concubines who had gained entry. Either way, it was a battlefield that would give you stomach ulcers. However, the only ones currently living in this inner palace were the Queen and her husband, which made it a very unusual inner palace indeed. It could even be said that a certain common sense existed in Capua's inner palace that could never be applied anywhere else.

	“Ahh, that's right. From the old stories I've heard, affairs in the inner palace could turn into a real mess, huh? We're lucky Zenjirou-sama has eyes only for Her Majesty."

	Letti's extra-large chest swayed as she cut-in to Faye, who's flat chest fell in relief.

	“Oh? But haven't you heard that Princess Freya will be arriving as a concubine? I mean, it was all behind closed doors, but they made it official, right?”

	Behind closed doors, they'd made it official.

	It seemed like a contradiction in terms, but in that closed world, it wasn't an usual phrase at all. In short, it described a situation in which, though nothing had yet been revealed publicly, a decision had been finalized between the concerned parties and they had already begun to take action.

	“The princess from the Northern Continent, was it?”

	“That's right. Her Highness Freya Uppsala. From what I've heard they're hiring more and more maids so they can be transfered to Her Highness Freya in the future.”

	After she'd considered Dolores's words for a moment, all the colour drained from Faye's face, and she cried out.

	“So... does that mean we might get transferred away from Zenjirou-sama and assigned to Princess Freya? No way! Princess Freya will probably be living separately right!?”

	As Faye said this, her gaze turned toward the various electrical appliances which adorned the living room. Though it might still be the inner palace, if Princess Freya were to have separate living quarters, there would obviously be no electrical appliances there. When it was hot, they wouldn't be able to drink cold fruit juice from the refrigerator. If they even got time off, borrowing the portable gaming console would become difficult.

	While the three were busily expressing thoughts that were a bit too self centred for maids, the living room door opened and another maid strode swiftly in.

	“Please excuse me for interrupting your duties, but I'd like to request your guidance for a moment.”

	The one whos steps seemed to glide was a novice maid. The straight posture of her toned body was her particular characteristic, and her name was Louisa. Though she was carrying an LED lantern in both hands, her gait wasn't disordered by it in any way, as though she wasn't even carrying anything.

	Faye was unusually pleased to be asked advice from someone who could be called her junior, and she puffed up her chest before the novice maid.

	“What? What do you wanna know? I'm your senior so you can ask me anything!”

	With her small stature and child-like face, Faye's action just made her look like a kid trying to act like a grown-up, but Louisa kept her diligent expression and bowed.

	“Thank you very much, Faye-senpai. While cleaning the bathing room, the illumination from this [ell-eee-dee] lantern began to weaken, and when I reported that to Olsha-sama, she ordered me to go to the living room and exchange the [bah-ter-eee]. So could I request that you instruct me on how exactly I should exchange the [bah-ter-eee]?”

	In perfect sync, a look of understanding crossed the faces of the three troublemakers at the words of the new maid.

	“Oooh right. That's not something you could understand until someone teaches you.”

	“Yeah, if you tried to open it without knowing the way, it might get broken.”

	“Okay, I'll teach you how! Now... let's see...”

	In fact, for a person who'd never even touched an electronic device before, successfully changing a battery, alone, without written instructions to rely on, would have been quite a tall order.

	“Here, you turn this round and round until the back comes off like this. See this tube that comes out from in here? This is a [battery]. There are eight of them. I don't think you can really get it wrong, but make sure to check just the same, okay? There's this thinner [battery] inside the [battery], so you switch this part with a [charged] one.”

	“Okay, here you go Faye.”

	“Thanks Dolores.”

	Faye had received instruction from Zenjirou directly, and so she was accustomed to changing the batteries of the LED lantern.

	“Then you put it in like this, and all you have to do is put back the part you took off and turn it the other way, and you're done. It can fit back on crooked though, so be careful, okay? This [battery] is empty now, so you need to [charge] it.”

	“I'll do it, Faye-chan.”

	“Yes, like that. Thanks Letti.”

	After she'd finished changing the batteries, Faye took the rechargeable dry-cells she'd removed, along with the charger, over to the side of the living room near the garden, where a component of the generator provided a row of electrical outlets.

	”See? You put them in here like this. Four [batteries] can go in at once, so once there are four in it, you need to push this part with two metal rods into this hole over here. You have to make sure you firmly push it all the way in, okay? Once you push that in, this small light will glow orange. See? When the light disappears then [charging] is finished. You can put the other four [batteries] in this cloth bag, and once the light disappears, do the same thing with them. When the [batteries] are finished [charging], you put them in this bag and put it in that drawer. Do you understand?”

	“Yes, thank you very much for your instruction.”

	Having heard Faye's prideful explanation, Louisa stood straight and gave a bow in a manner so precise one might have expected her to go [BEEP].

	Bowing once again and excusing herself, Louisa withdrew to the corridor, where head maid Amanda had been quietly waiting for her. Though it seemed she'd been ambushed by the head maid, Louisa didn't appear surprised, and smoothly bowed.

	“Give me your report. What sort of advice did you end up getting from those girls?”

	“Yes, head maid Amanda. This is my report. Faye-senpai was the one who mainly...”

	Louisa gave her report, detailed yet easily understood as though she had been trained specifically as a spy, and when she had finished, head maid Amanda's eyes widened just slightly. Things had deviated from her expectations, in a positive way.

	“Very well. It seems there were no problems. Good work, Louisa. You may return to your duties.”

	“Understood. Thank you very much.”

	While she was looking back at Louisa, who seemed to glide rather than walk away, head maid Amanda put her hand on her chin and considered.

	“So their guidance was very thorough and easy to understand? It's not much, but at least in this case, they seem to have it together more than Kate's group do. Is because they have juniors now? Perhaps those troublemakers are at last taking some pride in being maids of the inner palace.”

	Head maid Amanda expressed such rather wishful thoughts, but sadly her conclusions were somewhat off the mark.

	Faye's explanation had been so good only because it was related to the electrical appliances. With their overflowing curiosity, the three troublemakers had taken advantage of Zenjirou's kindness without hesitation, and so they'd grown much more used to handling the electrical appliances than any of the others had. Those devices were unique in the world. In a way, they were worth more than magic tools. Normally, even knowing how kind and tolerant their master was, one would hesitate to tamper with such precious things. That Faye and the other troublemakers would be more skilled in handling the electrical appliances than the other maids, who'd been restrained by that psychological barrier, was in some sense inevitable.
	Beyond that, Faye had just become someone's senior for the first time, so she'd been overeager to show off and she'd gone into full [Cool Senpai Mode]. It had been a special confluence of two unique circumstances. That was something head maid Amanda would later be made to understand, whether she'd want to or not.

	◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

	Having easily finished the cleaning of the living room, the three troublemakers had begun to clean to bedroom. They were taking as much time as they could, working slowly and methodically, when a maid called Mirella interrupted them.

	“Please excuse my intrusion. Here are the cleaned sheets.”

	True to her words, both of her arms were loaded down with white cloth. Mirella was one of the new maids who had come at the same time as Louisa. Both her speech and the way she carried herself were extremely refined. It was so much so that her uniform made her look less like a maid and more like noble daughter dressed up as a maid.

	Well, it wasn't actually that unusual for the daughter of a major noble to be working as a maid in the inner palace.

	Dolores quickly and sharply answered Mirella, who stood in the entrance with both hands full of sheets.

	“Thank you very much, Mirella. You can just go ahead and put those over there. We'll take care of this, so you can go back now.”

	When she heard the words of her senior maid, Mirella's eyes blinked in an elegant expression of her surprise.

	”Are you quite sure that's alright? I have the task of returning the sheets to their proper place; so Olsha-sama instructed.”

	When she heard that, Dolores looked up toward the heavens in frustration.

	“Well, if you were told that clearly, I guess there's no helping it. Go ahead, Mirella.” Dolores said, heaving a deep sigh.

	“Very well.”

	Though she was confused at the attitude of her senior maid, Mirella obediently set about her work.

	She called it a task, but all it really amounted to was putting the sheets into the correct drawer. While it could be said that Mirella, who had been brought up as a noble's daughter, wasn't skilled with her hands, she still finished her task quickly. Having finished in no time, and somewhat doubtful at how slowly her seniors seemed to be going about their own work, she raised her voice again.

	”Please excuse me, I can see that you're going about your work very carefully indeed, but are you sure this is alright?”

	Dolores, who was on the bed on all fours so as to find any red body hairs which might have fallen, answered her clearly and without concern.

	“Yes, it's fine. Right now, Her Majesty Aura is pregnant after all. Unless she absolutely has to leave for the royal palace on official business, she passes almost all of her time in this room. That's why we put so much extra time into tidying it up.”

	“I see. I apologize for my impertinence.”

	Assenting to Dolores's words, Mirella slightly lowered her head as she offered her apology. Just the same, she felt a slight pang of worry, and thought to ask about it.

	“Even so, is there really enough time for that? However important it may be, if you dedicate so much time to the bedroom alone, will you not run out of time?”

	This time, rather than Dolores, it was Faye, who had been repositioning the pillows over and over, who answered her.

	“It's fine. We cut as many corners as we could with the living room and the other cleaning, so we got that done in no time.”

	“Eh?”

	“Faye!”

	Faye's bold proclamation of corner-cutting made Mirella blink in surprise, and Dolores suddenly warned her.

	“Uh, no. That's not it at all, Mirella. It's not like we were just trying to stay in the air-conditioned bedroom for every extra second or anything. For the sake of Her Majesty who's preg...”

	“Well then, I'll excuse myself and let you return to your tasks.”

	Likely thinking that if she continued the conversation any longer, she might become an 'accomplice', Mirella took that moment to withdraw from the room with a polite bow, muttering to herself as she did.

	“Even so, we are in the hottest season. I can truly understand the desire to loiter longer in this room.”

	As expected, head maid Amanda was once again lying in wait in the corridor.

	“Your report.”

	“Yes, head maid Amanda. Dolores-san and the others were...”

	By the time Mirella had finished, Amanda was looking up at the ceiling with one hand over her face.

	“Those three girls... Even for troublemakers...”

	“Head maid Amanda...?”

	“It's alright, Mirella. You may return to your post.”

	Hearing Mirella speak as though worried for her, Amanda's face snapped back to its usual stern expression.

	◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

	On the night of that day.

	Usually, the maids in charge of cleaning would have been standing by in the chamber adjoining the living room, but Aura was currently pregnant, and so, rather than the expansive living room, she was passing her time in the smaller bedroom, where the air-conditioner was more effective.

	For that reason, the maids were standing by in the living room, where there would be only one door to go through and they could respond more quickly should their master call.

	“Huuuuh... somehow we got through another day.”

	“Aaaah, it's too hot. Your Majesty, won't you please summon me to the bedroom quickly?”

	“I know, right? Anyway, we can hold out until then with something cold. Here.”

	Though they whispered as quietly as they could, the three troublemakers were lazily relaxing on the living room sofa, casually drinking fruit juice and sugared ice water from the wooden cups for maids. Though sitting on the couch and taking food and drinks while they waited were things Zenjirou had permitted, there were only three maids who would indulge themselves to that extent.

	It was hard to tell if the three troublemakers were standing by, or just making themselves at home.

	“Please excuse me.”

	Their ears registered a voice, and a petite and child-like maid with her black hair in a short ponytail came in.

	“Aaa, Nilda-chan. What is it?”

	When she noticed the petite novice maid, Nilda, Letti greeted her with her usual unguarded tone.

	Nilda trotted up to her like a small cute animal, and gave her a smile devoid of all malice.

	“Tonight I'm allowed to borrow the portable game console, so I came to get it!”

	Saying that, Nilda made two happy little fists in front of her chest. Anyone who saw her doing that couldn't help but feel a little happy at the sight of her. Perhaps it was the artless genuineness of her.

	“Oh, is that so? It looks like you're addicted already. It's pretty interesting, isn't it?”

	Nilda showed her agreement by nodding throughout Faye's words.

	“Yup, it's really, really interesting! If my roommates Mirella-chan and Louisa-chan would let me, I might just play all night.

	“Ah-ha-ha. I guess you haven't pulled an all-nigher yet, Nilda."

	“If you want to play all night, you should aim for day in the rainy season when you're on garden duty. If the next day's work is done quickly, you should just be able to pull through.”

	“Oh, I see.”

	Nilda Naively took in the lessons of her good-for-nothing seniors.

	Naive admiration. Naive praise. Naive laughter.

	Just for being their cute little junior, the three troublemakers found themselves spoiling Nilda.

	“Oh, I know. We got our hands on a new food. Wanna try it with me, Nilda-chan?”

	Slapping her hands together as she said so, Letti went over to the refrigerator without waiting for an answer.

	“A new... food?”

	“Yup, food. Zenjirou-sama says he wants to hear people's impressions from trying it.”

	Letti was someone who usually had her head in the clouds, but now her movements were brisk and precise as she pulled various foods from the refrigerator. What caught her eye first was a metal bowl containing a foamy mass mottled with black tinges.

	“What's that?”

	“It's fresh cream taken from the milk of mountain goats, and it was beaten for a whole day.”

	The only sugar available was brown sugar, and so the appearance wasn't that appetizing, but recently they'd managed to eliminate the smell from the goat's milk, and so taste testing had been extended beyond just Zenjirou and Margerette.

	Next, Letti went to the freezer of the refrigerator and took out some wild strawberries, frozen solid.

	“What are those for?”

	Nilda was now sitting on the Sofa, staring with rapt interest. Letti smiled at her happily.

	“Hee hee. Like this! And this!”

	Letti took the frozen wild strawberries, and putting them into the bowl with the fresh cream, she thoroughly smashed them like a wooden pestle. She then mixed the smashed strawberries into the chilled fresh cream. Before long she had finished it. An improvised strawberry ice-cream.

	Naturally the idea had come from Zenjirou. Because brown sugar had been added for sweetness, the overall colouring was bad, but during the hottest season, the girls found this sweet and sour frozen treat irresistable.

	Distributing it onto wooden plates, and holding wooden spoons, the tree troublemakers and Nilda at once brought the red and black cream to their mouths.

	“Coooooh”

	“This is so...”

	“Yeah, it came out good.”

	“Wow! It's so good, Letti-san!”

	All four of them had blissful expressions, eating (pseudo) ice-cream on a sweltering night.

	“That's plenty left, so eat up, okay?”

	“Okay, thank you very much!”

	Surrounded by her kind seniors, a joyful smile bloomed on Nilda's face.

	***

	After she was fed ice-cream, Nilda had unconsciously taken the portable console with her. Unfortunately, where she was going was not to her own room, but to the head maid's office where she had been summoned.

	“Nilda, report what you found when you arrived at the living room.”

	“Okay, head maid Amanda.”

	Thanks to her senior's magnanimous generosity, Nilda was all smiles, and she made her report obediently and without malice.

	“...so Letti-san made ice-cream for me. It was really delicious.”

	“............”

	Stopping for a secret midnight snack, when she'd come to borrow her master's toy in the middle of the night...

	And Nilda didn't feel the least bit guilty about it. Head maid Amanda looked like she'd swallowed a bug.

	“How could this have happened? Out of all of them, for Nilda to become the worst corrupted... What will I even say to the Marquess?”

	”Eh? Head maid Amanda? Why are you looking at the ceiling?”

	She had been muttering under her breath, so that even when Nilda was standing directly in front of her, she hadn't heard what she'd said.

	For that cousin's daughter who tilted her head in puzzlement, head maid Amanda racked her brain for the rights words to warn her with.

	◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

	Early morning, the next day.

	The three troublemakers: Faye, Dolores and Letti, were summoned to the head maid's office.

	Just the fact that they'd been summoned had put Faye on guard, and frightened Letti, though they still looked innocent. Nothing definite had been said yet, but Dolores at least was hanging her head with a look of contrition. Perhaps she alone had enough character to be worth beating into shape.

	Thinking this, head maid Amanda slowly began to speak.

	“Do you three know why I've called you here?”

	“I don't.”

	“My apologies. I'm afraid I don't know.”

	“I don't know.”

	At the head maid's words, the three troublemakers shook their heads as one.

	Was that because they were truly unaware of the reason, or all *too* aware, or perhaps they simply didn't want to stir up a hornets nest with a clumsy guess. Whatever their reasons, the three troublemakers said nothing.

	Having expected that reaction, Amanda intentionally gave a deep sigh.

	“This concerns your interactions with the new maids.”

	She glared at the three of them as she finished. Though even under that glare, the troublemakers only tilted their heads in confusion.

	“Our interactions with the new maids?”

	“Have we done something bad?”

	“Even though we just wanted to be nice? Does that mean... did one of those girls actually complain or something?”

	The three troublemakers replied with honest confusion, and this time head maid Amanda's sigh came from the heart.

	“It was absolutely bad. We need to pound the basics into these novices, so tell me, which of their seniors was it who were teaching them clever methods to get out of work? Which ones were showing them all the ways to take advantage of their master's kindness!?”

	Prompted by the expression on head maid Amanda's face, all three immediately began to apologize.

	“Ah, yes. I'm sorry.”

	”We were thoughtless and got ahead of ourselves.”

	“Truly, I have no excuse.”

	However, any way you looked at it, those apologies were 'Because we got yelled at' and not 'Because we realized we'd done something bad.' And yet, head maid or not, Amanda couldn't chastise them that harshly. The cruel reality was that their master, Zenjirou, would look favourably on maids who abided by the lessons these three had taught.

	“............”

	That meant a frontal attack would never get through.

	Head maid Amanda understood that (whether or not she wanted to), and so, reluctantly, she decided to dangle some bait.

	“Oh, since you're here, perhaps you three have heard already? As soon as next year, or the year after that at the latest, the masters whom we serve in the inner palace will increase by one person.”

	“Yes.”

	“I have heard such a rumour.”

	“Her Highness Freya, right?”

	Head maid Amanda nodded her head at their answers.

	“Yes, that's right, and that being the case, we will necessarily begin using the outbuildings of the inner palace, and not just the main building. I suppose we'll have to divide the maids, between those serving Zenjirou-sama and Her Majesty Aura in the main building, and those serving Her Highness Freya in the outbuilding.”

	The faces of the three became suddenly meek as they listened, and after clearing her throat, head maid Amanda told them plainly:

	“On that occasion, I had been planning for you three to stay in the main building, attached to Zenjirou-sama. For some reason your behaviour seems to have strongly endeared you to Zenjirou-sama.”

	“...GHH!”

	At those words, the three troublemakers almost raised their voices with joy.

	Wasn't that just natural? No offence to princess Freya and the outbuilding, but the inner palace was heaven. It had the electrical devices brought by Zenjirou. It had Zenjirou himself, who was an abnormally indulgent master.

	Having exactly guessed the inner thoughts of the three troublemakers, the head maid continued:

	“However, if some of the new maids should happen to learn how to behave like you three, then there may not *necessarily* be a need for you to stay in the main building. There would be no problem with those newcomers serving Zenjirou-sama in your place.”

	Their response to those words was dramatic.

	“I beg your pardon. Never again will I guide the novices in such a way.”

	“Please continue to pound the true meaning of being a maid of the inner palace into those novices.”

	“We'll be the ones to serve Zenjirou-sama!”

	“......I'll be expecting much of you.”

	Head maid Amanda heaved a deep sigh as if to empty her lungs.