Servant (part 2)

"You are mine, and I have the urge to mark everything that's mine..."

Medea said and licked the teeth mark he left on Zorivia's pale skin as he slid the healing pellet into Zorivia's hand.

"W-will we really do it now...? Th-the breaking and entering?"

The blond-haired girl trembled from the excitement that the bite only multiplied, and she whispered while wrapping her arms around the black-haired man's neck, looking at him both expectantly behind the wall of timidness.

"Of course, I am a criminal, after all~"

Medea nodded and...~

-------

Sophie took her sweet time and returned to the room in the west wing in the afternoon.

"Mister Medea? By any chance, did I forget to show you where the staff gets their meals, or are you so into cleaning your new place that..."

*thump*

The short maid knocked on the door and started opening it with a hopeful expression – hopeful that she wasn't the one who messed up, that is – but then some sort of obstacle blocked the movement at a thirty-degree angle.

"Eh? Mister Medea...?"

Sophie flinched, taken aback, and with her petite figure, had no trouble sliding through to check what was going on.

"Sorry for the trouble, big sister Sophie."

The freshened-up black-haired man with thick glasses blocked her way, bowing his head apologetically in the room that still appeared to be a storage and not someone living space.

"Whew... you made me worried there for a second – I thought that you might have gotten trapped or worse under some furniture."

The maid breathed out while looking around with a troubled expression – just by this one comment, it was easy to guess that happened to her, or maybe something along those lines was one of Sophie's fears.

"Well, truth be told – it was close, but I managed to crawl out – could you imagine, though? Surviving at the southern frontline for almost seven years and then meeting my end while cleaning?"

The black-haired man chuckled and pointed at the pile of furniture that he barely started to disassemble as he climbed his way back into the room less than five minutes before Sophie's arrival.

"Eh...?! Are you alright?!"

The maid's eyes widened as she noticed the convincingly accidental-looking and gasped, sounding very guilty.

"Yes. I wouldn't mind a bit of help if that doesn't interrupt your own schedule."

Medea gave a quick answer before moving on to the part that interested him more.

Fueled by the guilt, the short maid basically cleaned up the whole room for the black-haired man as he only moved the heavy furniture around – and Sophie even aided him with that.

"Whew...! That's done, but you must be starving, you're walking around without lunch, and one could request an early supper already."

"I can manage until night."

The short maid breathed out with satisfaction, looking at the finished work, and turned to the black-haired man who responded in a serious voice.

"..."

Medea looked towards the window, already planning to sneak into Zorivia's room the first chance he will be left alone when an eyelash decided to give out and irritated his eye.

The black-haired man squinted, lifted his glasses, and opened his mouth – out of habit, flicking his tongue and brushing against the corner of his eye to get rid of the problem.

"...eh...?"

"...?"

Sophie – who noticed the situation and tried to hand Medea the handkerchief – froze in place with a baffled expression staring at the hesitant black-haired man.

"Umm..."

"..."

The maid fidgeted without looking away from the black-haired man causing him to tilt his head – giving her a silent encouragement to ask away about what was bugging her.

"Mister Medea, I'm sorry if that's an overly familiar question, but... could you show me your tongue...? I mean...! No, uh... I don't mean it like that...!"

Sophie asked, but the moment she heard her own words, he tried to take them back as they did come out rather frivolous.

Still – even after thinking it through, Medea didn't find the request problematic at all and opened his mouth, extending his tongue at its full length.

"..."

"..."

The two stayed like that for a moment before Medea ended the showcase and patiently observed the frozen maid.

"Umm... ehehe... do... do you mind if we go eat something together...? I will show you around again. something..."

Sophie instantly started playing with her hair and fidgeting, suddenly too flustered to properly look Medea in the eyes.

"I'm already taken, and I think of you more like a family member."

"...o-oh... haha... yes... of course..."

The black-haired man shot her down instantly, without hesitation or even batting an eye at her suggestion, causing the short maid's face to turn bright red and scuttle away despite her earlier offer.

"..."

|I do want to grab something to eat to restore m

some energy, though.|

Medea thought to himself while silently watching Sophie's escape with his usual serious expression.

------

In the following two weeks, the number of unfortunate accidents involving the servants in the Rotteloss mansion was greater than in the previous decade put together.

Scaldings, burns, sprains, broken bones, fingers getting cut off... just to name the most common occurrences.

No matter whether it was someone working in the kitchen, a maid, a stable boy, or a guard at the main gate... even the live-in doctor wasn't safe.

After a brief investigation performed by the head butler in person, it turned out that all of those accidents had to do with nothing else but negligence on the job. Although said negligence varied from simply not paying attention to being straight-up drunk, it was still an embarrassment to the highest degree.

Many of the wounded servants were fired on the spot with their wounds being treated but not receiving any other form of compensation.

As a result, the amount of work getting dumped on the remaining servants as the head butler began to rigorously search for new employees was nothing to scoff at.

At that hard time, Medea was handling everything so well that despite being a new hire, he ended up being relied on almost as much as the head butler, Kenneth – and by people like Sophie, who had worked there for many years already.

That is why the black-hiared man was summoned one day to have a talk with Earl Alexander.