Drinking at home... or was it room-drinking? Since it was a house I owned, calling it drinking at home wasn’t technically wrong. A fair amount of time had passed since Vanessa-san and I started, and four empty beer bottles were already lined up beside her. She was finishing them off fast... At this rate, she’d be chugging them straight from the bottle before long.
I’d drunk with Vanessa-san a few times before, so I knew she wasn’t anywhere near drunk yet. For her, this amount was barely the beginning. She was currently in the "I want to get drunk soon~" phase; a little while later, she’d move into the "I guess I’m a bit tipsy~" stage, and then she’d stay exactly like that until the very end.
"I’m asking a bit late, but you have a really high alcohol tolerance, don't you, Vanessa-san? You aren't neutralizing it with a Blessing like me or using Magic to sober yourself up, are you?"
"Yep. Well, it's mostly constitution. I’ve got about a quarter-Dwarf blood in me, after all... Though it’s not like I can’t use Magic to fix a hangover. If I drink too much the night before work, I’ll use Magic to handle the intoxication and even clear the smell. I can’t exactly show up to work smelling like booze, after all."
As usual, her voice sounded low-key, but there was a slight bounce to her tone that suggested she was in a genuinely good mood. Vanessa-san currently radiated the aura of a middle-aged man drinking in a living room with Tatami—to the point where it felt almost jarring that we were in a Western-style room—but at work, she was always sharp and flawless, the very image of a capable woman. In private, however... well, she was this.
"Come to think of it, you weren't originally a Knight like the others. You’ve been a maid since your time at the Royal Castle, right?"
"Yeah. When Lilia-chan received her peerage and founded her house, she got permission from His Majesty the King to call for Applicants... well, she was recruiting maids and servants, and I volunteered. Strictly speaking, our backgrounds are different, but in terms of how we were handled, it was the same as Illness-sensei."
I had heard that Lilia-san had personally pleaded with Illness-san to join her, but on paper, it was handled as her volunteering to be hired by a Newly-established Ducal House.
"Are there usually a lot of people who volunteer for things like that?"
"Hmm, Lilia-chan’s case was an exception. Usually, when a Newly-established Ducal House recruits servants or maids, they go through introductions or the World Maid Association. For a recruitment drive to happen at the Royal Castle is quite rare. Lilia-chan is royalty, so His Majesty the King was probably worried about her starting a new house and decided to call for volunteers from within the castle instead."
"Ah, that sounds like Ryze-san."
Presumably, the timing coincided with the period when everyone was paranoid due to the tampering with the Order of Knights' information. Ryze-san likely wanted the Servants of Lilia's Mansion to be reliable personnel from within the Royal Castle whose backgrounds were easy to verify.
However, if the King took care of every single detail himself, it might have caused issues for his own position, so he probably settled on a volunteer system to maintain appearances.
"Did many people apply?"
"No, I don't think there were many at all. Even if it's a Ducal House, it was a Newly-established Ducal House. In terms of salary and stability, working at the Royal Castle is much better. Sure, because it was new and short-staffed, you could be promoted quickly if you proved your competence, but the only ones who volunteered were the few who were already quite close to Lilia-chan. That’s why so many Knights did a Job Change to become servants or maids."
I had heard that many of the servants at Lilia-san’s house were former Knights. Apparently, Illness-san had personally trained a significant number of them, meaning almost every maid and servant in the mansion was essentially Illness-san’s pupil. That was why so many people wanted Illness-san to be the Head Maid, and Lilia-san felt the same way.
It was just that Illness-san herself had absolutely no interest in the role.
"...I see. So you were also close to Lilia-san back when she was a Princess, and that’s why you volunteered, Vanessa-san?"
"No, not at all. We had a bit of contact because of our positions, but we’d hardly ever spoken~"
"Wait, really? Then... then why did you volunteer?"
"I thought I could have it easy~ I figured that even with the chaos of a new house, Illness-sensei would be there, so the atmosphere would be moderately relaxed... Plus, if Illness-sensei left the castle, I was worried that a reorganization would put me under Bea-senpai..."
"Bea-senpai?"
"Beatrice-senpai. She’s a good person, but she’s the type who is extremely strict with both herself and others."
"Ah, I see."
Indeed, the compatibility between Vanessa-san, who frequently claimed that labor was crap, and Beatrice-san, the woman known as the Super Maid of Heart, sounded terrible in terms of their work philosophies.
Still, the fact that she called her "Bea-senpai" and used a similar title for Illness-san suggested that they weren't on bad terms.
"It was a total miscalculation~ No, really. I never expected that the staff would be composed of so many inexperienced girls... or rather, girls who had just become maids after being trained by Illness-sensei. In terms of experience and ability, I was second only to Illness-sensei. So, when Illness-sensei flatly refused the position of Head Maid, I was the one who got stuck with it..."
"But you’re doing a solid job as the Head Maid, aren't you?"
"Well, look, I’ll admit I’m a bit of a scumbag, but I’m the type of scumbag who doesn't cause trouble for others. Aside from getting drunk and messing with Kaito-kun, that is..."
"Whoa, doesn't that count as a Nuisance Check?"
"Aren't we close, Kaito-kun? Let's get all touchy-feely~"
After giving that lazy reply, Vanessa-san stood up and moved to the sofa where I was sitting. She plopped down next to me and deliberately draped her arm around my shoulders.
Did she not realize she was only wearing a single T-shirt?! Or did she know and just not care... Either way, the contact was incredibly soft, and even as I tried to feign composure, my heart started racing.
"Vanessa-san, are you drunk already?"
"I want to get drunk soon, but... I guess I'm still a little ways off."
It seemed that, for Vanessa-san, this was just a light joke or a bit of casual skinship. She immediately pulled her arm back with a Bitter Smile and returned to her drink.
...Wait. Was she just going to stay sitting right next to me while we drank?
Serious-senpai: "Aren't they already flirting? These guys, they're flirting!!"