Side Story: Till’s Hard Work
TILL’S MORNINGS STARTED EARLY.
Her charge, Van Nei Fertio, was the fourth son of the marquis, Jalpa Bul Ati Fertio. As one of his caretakers and a maid-in-training, Till had to wake up earlier than anyone else.
On this particular day, she peeled off her shabby nightdress—essentially a strip of cloth with holes for her head and shoulders—and put on her maid uniform. Having once been in slavery, Till was overjoyed at just being able to wear something so lovely.
“Okay, I think I have it on right. No wrinkles… Aw, there’s a stain on the skirt…”
It was a tiny stain, but the moment she spotted it, Till’s face hardened as if it were the end of the world. A few moments later, she noticed the sunlight spilling through the window. Her eyes flew wide, and she clasped her hands in front of her chest.
“Oh, gosh! Work!”
Realizing she was about to be late, she scurried out of the room. In fact, she was in such a rush that she left the door wide open.
A deep sigh echoed through the room she left behind.
“Thanks to her, now I’m getting up early,” said the sixteen-year-old girl sitting up in the bed opposite Till’s.
Though she was older, this maid was still a teenager. She changed into her uniform, grumbling all the while.
“Seriously, thank goodness Lord Van is our charge. If we had to serve Lord Jard or Lord Sesto, Till would earn me more than a few beatings.” She shrugged, sighing. “Who knows how things will look from here on out, though.”
Jard was ten now, and Sesto was eight. Both children were already little tyrants. Ever since finding out at eight that they had an aptitude for fire magic, they had become extremely arrogant. When things didn’t go their way, they threw a fit. Plenty of maids and butlers had provoked their wrath, resulting in both physical and psychological abuse. Some were dismissed on the spot.
Lord Van, on the other hand, only exhibited the usual selfishness of a child his age. He was vocal about what he liked and disliked, wanted things that interested him, and so on. Perhaps that was why the maids chosen to be his caretakers were often young and inexperienced.
Finished changing, the girl stretched confidently.
“Mmm! Time to give it my all.”
It was Till’s duty to set up Van’s room before the older maids gathered for work. Needless to say, everything had been cleaned up the day before, but that also meant his necessities were back on their respective shelves. Those had to be readied as well.
First up were his favorite chair—a low stool—and a round table. Till placed a wooden bowl and cup on the table. Next, she prepared the bulky towel and sheet Van used for his naps. He had a lavish, child-sized bed, but it being waist height had frightened the young boy. As such, they wrapped the sheet over the thick towel for him to nap on.
Last but not least were Van’s current favorite toys: a wooden horse and sword. Till laid these on either side of the table so he could play with them after eating. Once those were in place, her prep work was complete.
“Hee hee, what a cute table and chair.” Till smiled kindly as she set the table down in the center of the room. She adjusted the angle of the chair so Van could look out the window while he ate.
Since this wasn’t exactly backbreaking work, she spent plenty of time on it. After she confirmed that everything was neat and tidy, four older maids entered the room.
“Good morning, Till.”
“Good morning!”
They exchanged greetings, and the older maids checked over Till’s work.
“Oh, Till—it would be best if the sword went on the right and the horse on the left. Lord Van is right-handed.”
“Oops, sorry.”
Till hurriedly bowed her head. Before becoming one of Van’s caretakers, she had been physically punished for any mistakes. The trauma from that still affected her, and she would react severely to even a light warning. But because she made mistakes so frequently, the people around her knew she was a clumsy person.
“It’s fine, really. You know he would never get angry over something like this, right?”
The maids exchanged nods.
“Everything else looks good. Let us go and fetch Lord Van.”
“Right.”
“I wonder what’s for breakfast today?”
“Pumpkin soup, bread, thinly sliced pork, and fruit.”
“Lord Van loves chicken, doesn’t he?”
“He loves all kinds of meat, so it will be fine.”
“I wonder if I can have some fruit…”
“You really are a glutton, aren’t you?”
The maids engaged in pleasant banter on their way out of the room. Of all the maids working in the Fertio household, these five were undoubtedly living the most peaceful lives. Knowing this, they treated the young Van as kindly as possible to avoid drawing his ire.
Incidentally, this was one of the reasons Jard and Sesto had transformed into such tyrants, but none of them had realized it.
Van’s mornings started early. As the sun shone brilliantly through his window, he showed no signs of stirring.
Eventually, a group of girls appeared, gently calling his name. Their tender, singsong voices roused him from slumber. The boy opened his eyes and sat up, and the girls gently lifted him to his feet. They informed him that it was morning and began to change his clothes.
“Oh my. Did you have night sweats, my lord?”
“Would you like to take a hot bath?”
Van groggily turned down the offer for a morning bath. “Mmn, I hate mornings…”
The little boy mumbled incomprehensibly as he sat on his tiny stool and ate his bread. His maids were all smiles. They assumed these days would continue for some time.
That is, until one day when Till woke Van to find that something was off. It was as if his mind had suddenly cleared, and he was now talking about all kinds of things. The maids were bewildered as Van expressed his thoughts on a variety of complex topics.
But his kind and innocent personality remained unchanged.
“Lord Van seems interested in all sorts of things.”
“More than eating and playing?”
“Just the other day, he asked Till about the kingdom. Would a two-year-old really be interested in that kind of thing?”
This sort of back-and-forth transpired over and over again, and the maids eventually reached the consensus that Van was a child prodigy. He was already walking and talking with ease, initiating conversations on his own. Having become aware of his surroundings, Van must have begun to question things in a way no normal child would.
Reaching this conclusion, the maids decided to educate Van on every topic he showed interest in. The only problem was that his questions ranged from simple to complicated, and they were about things that even the maids had never considered before.
“Lord Van asked me how our kingdom was founded.”
“He asked me why magical aptitudes exist.”
“He asked me what sorts of other countries are out there. Where did he even get that idea from?”
The maids were confident in their knowledge of household chores and etiquette, but not so when it came to culture and history. In a royal or ducal household, there would be multiple maids from noble backgrounds who had received a proper education growing up. Those maids would’ve been able to answer such difficult questions.
But maids from a knight’s household or nearby towns—or even former slaves —would never be able to provide adequate responses. They were also young, so they would have had few opportunities to learn about such things.
As the maids’ answers became more and more ambiguous, Till alone continued to explain things to Van with strangely boundless confidence. She believed more strongly than anyone else that Van was a genius, and whenever he asked a question she could not answer, she secretly went to the study to learn about the topic. Being a maid from a count’s household originally, Till had been educated enough to read, write, and perform simple math.
“Um, let me see… Books about monsters…”
One day, while searching the study, she heard a low male voice from behind her.
“Do you have business in the study?” Till leapt up in surprise.
“Eeek! Esparda?!”
She whirled around to see Esparda, narrowing his eyes at her. She’d been caught red-handed.
“Do not tell me you plan on selling books.”
“O-of course not!” Till responded tearfully. Terrified, she shook her head.
Esparda shot her a sidelong glance, then gazed at the carefully organized row of books. “Was there a book you were looking for?”
Till gave a little nod. “Um… Lord Van said he wanted to learn about monsters, so…”
“Is that so?” Esparda asked, stroking his chin.
“Y-yes. I told him they were terrifying creatures that feast on humans, but then he asked me what types there were and how to defeat them.”
Esparda read between the lines: Till could no longer provide the boy with those answers, so she sought books that could give her the knowledge she needed.
“Hrm, and Lord Van initiated this topic?” Visibly intrigued, the old butler studied Till’s face. “What other questions did he have?”
“Er, well, he asked about the founding of the kingdom, our relationship with neighboring nations, how powerful the Chivalric Order is, about magic… Oh, and he also asked about the role of the nobility and money.”
Esparda’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “Lord Van is but two years old, is he not? Yet he has such questions about the world and he understands the answers… Heh, fascinating.” He casually plucked a book off the shelf and handed it to Till. “If you seek fundamental knowledge on monsters, this book should serve that purpose. I grant you permission to borrow it, so please read it to Lord Van.”
With that, the butler left the study. Finally released from the tense situation, Till clutched the book to her chest and let out a deep sigh.
Afterward, Esparda would go on to ask Van’s maids all kinds of questions before directly asking Lord Jalpa for permission to serve as his tutor. Till still had no idea that it was her report that resulted in a two-year-old Van having to study his butt off.
When Van turned four, Lord Jalpa heard all about his immense growth from Esparda, and so the boy was allowed to participate in sword training a year earlier than other children.
The maids had been ordered to serve as his opponents until he was used to swinging a sword, so Van spent his days happily training with the girls. He got to mock-battle with adorable maids—what was not to like?
As the days went by, the maids could no longer keep up with Van’s reflexes and movement; he didn’t move the way a child his age should have.
“It seems like Lord Van can tell where I’m going to go.”
“Yeah, exactly. I can’t win at all.”
As the maids conversed, Till rubbed her chin, a serious expression on her face.
“Perhaps Lord Van is also a natural-born swordsman?” Everyone laughed—until they didn’t.
“…It’s a little early, but should we report this to someone?”
No one explicitly said what they’d be reporting, but most of the maids nodded in silence.
Till, however, tilted her head. “You mean to Esparda?” Shock rippled through the others.
“Esparda, really?”
“Isn’t he scary?”
“He’s much kinder than you think,” Till told them.
“I don’t buy it.”
“He always has such a scary look on his face.”
“Then will you go tell him, Till?”
The maids seemed doubtful, but to their surprise, Till gladly agreed to be the messenger.
“I was joking, Till,” said the maid who’d asked, a concerned look on her face.
“You don’t have to force yourself.”
“Honestly, don’t push yourself so hard…”
The girls were worried, yet Till smiled innocently and bobbed her head. “Don’t worry! I’ll be right back!”
She ran off to find Esparda and informed him of Van’s amazing sword skills. For a moment, Esparda appeared to mull things over, but he soon passed the report on to the captain of the Fertio soldiers in the hopes of confirming Van’s talents. Amused, the soldier had Van fight one of the boys in soldier training.
The captain had his own doubts about Van, but the boy needed just a few moments to prove himself capable of fighting on even footing with the older boys. When he witnessed it, the captain’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Van was barely four, yet he was defeating an experienced soldier-in-training who was ten years old.
As the days went on, Van won more and more of their bouts. The boy wasn’t just riding momentum; he was observing his opponent and carefully thinking about how to fight. He was at a clear disadvantage when it came to strength, stamina, and size, so it all came down to his natural skills. The very day the captain realized that, he broke the news to Deputy Commander Dee.
And that was how Van’s nightmarish educational plan became even worse.
Meanwhile, Till nursed a deeply exhausted Van day in and day out without realizing she was the one who’d brought Esparda and Dee into the fold.
