“Let us pray and thank the [Saints] for this timely resolution to the crisis, and let us give thanks to [Grand Magus] Mondoug for his valorous conduct in ending this national threat!”

Fayette was watching [Archbishop] Villefore give his victory speech, but she wasn’t really listening. She heard the words, yes, but they all rang hollow enough to disperse to nothing once she processed them.

A worthless speech. One to stoke the pride of the nation, and assure that measures had been taken, and absolutely nothing about the truth. The true cost. The true waste.

She couldn’t stand it.

But Fayette wasn’t wasting her time there. Marie was standing beside her, actually parsing the contents and implications of the speech. Mousetrap and the Salted Knives stared, eyes grim. Fayette was doing something else. She was focused on Villefore’s face. Committing it to memory.

I’ll remember this. I’ll remember you.

She would remember the others too. She remembered the meeting. Three great and powerful men had entered a rooftop lounge to discuss how matters should be handled, and the result… Fayette shivered.

She had seen the clinic. Bodies with their innards ripped out as every last bit of the disease was forcibly purged and pulled out from the bodies with the harsh hand of magic. Mireille and Olivia were still there, trying to patch up the survivors as best they could, though Olivia had taken some coaxing.

At least she’s talking again. Olivia’s circumstances angered her the most. She didn’t know what the [Grand Magus] had done, but none of Olivia’s medicine was working anymore.

But she hadn’t been allowed to heal, because that had not been the will of the meeting. Those three men had decided that this would happen. After the calamity, the hunters had found the plaguemother's lair, and some surviving neighbors had helped identify her.

A factory worker’s wife. Certainly not a foreign saboteur. It painted a rather clear image—really. The factory was a likely origin point for the disease, and one of the three men had owned it. Was all this just so there would be as little record of that as possible?

Fayette felt it likely. But the true reason for all this… She remembered the [Grand Magus’s] face best of all. How he had strode in like a [Saint], crushed everything underfoot, and channeled it all into power for himself.

It stung at Fayette, even if she didn’t want to admit the real reason just yet.

But the speech was long, and Fayette already had the [Archbishops] face memorized. She didn’t want to watch Cadeau’s self-satisfied preening at the stands any longer. So, she left Marie there and began to slowly stroll away from it all, toward the town that had been newly cleansed. Because it was time.

The itch to her class was roiling. There was no more excuse to delay. She had realized the truth.

It was time to face herself.

—

The town felt eerie to Fayette. The damage and filth were still there, and so were most of the bodies, but survivors now walked the streets instead of the dead. They were gaunt figures with pale faces and skeletal limbs, but some bore a semblance of hope in their eyes too. They were all a sorry lot, but even amid the misery and filth, there was one key difference above all.

The mana in the air felt clean. There was not one bit of eerie miasma to the air now. Fayette wasn’t even wearing the plague mask anymore; she was finally walking the streets with her face open. She breathed the air and felt Nettie squirming in its bucket. But the ambient mana that hung above it all was just so clean.

What a terrible thing. What a beautiful thing.

Because though she did not want to admit it, Fayette understood. She knew why the [Grand Magus] had done it. It felt so familiar. Cleansing through violence. No regard for who got stomped underneath, just greed for the power one would gain through it all.

Fayette reached a plaza that had once held a grand market and sat by an inactive waterfall, staring at the destruction around her. She saw civilians weeping by the streets, clutching the corpses of family members both long gone and more recently deceased. Many had fallen in yesterday’s purge.

Her stomach churned.

If she had no friends to rein her in, if she one day had the power to do this, if she could gain more power by doing it, if it was the most perfect way to cleanse everything thoroughly…

Could Fayette have done something similar?

She feared the answer.

The level. I got the damned level for this. And in that moment… I felt good. I honestly felt good.

But there had been another way. A way to save more of the civilians through Olivia’s medicine, and hard work to clear out the dead, though her own personal gain may have been lesser. But the inefficiency and waste weren’t the only reasons Fayette couldn’t accept what the [Grand Magus] had done. It was also about… how he had done it.

He had not even looked at Fayette.

She had been dismissed, passed aside as irrelevant. Like… a servant.

But Fayette wasn’t really a servant, was she? She hadn’t been one for a long time. So, she took her bucket up, opened the lid, and then tipped it down into the empty fountain, releasing Nettie into the basin. The slime plopped down and began wobbling about, and Fayette watched it as she thought. She could feel the itch on her class again, demanding she answer the real question.

Was she really a servant?

She reached into her [Apron of Holding] and took out a book with a blue cover—Friend of the People vol. 15. She had read it many times already, and even debated some of the finer points in it with Marie. The book described better ways to decide who would hold power. Not [Lords], but wise elected people.

But even in a better world, a more fair society… no. Fayette closed her eyes. She saw a face she now saw often, one that often smiled at her. Even with someone like Marie… a proper [Lady] who is just and a friend…

Could she just accept orders like a proper servant should? If her ruler was a good one? Just obey without questioning?

She knew the answer in her heart. No. The one who commanded had the power, and power… that was what Fayette wanted most of all. Ever since she had been set on this path. In her mind’s eye, she saw a fat [Lord] and a box—that was where it had all begun, really.

The box. A box of power.

She hadn’t really been all that happy per se at her old job, but she had been content. Before everything went wrong. Content, because she had not yet felt that crushing grip come down from above, to ruthlessly crush down those below.

The box, that damned box, she still sometimes wondered what had been in it. The [Lord] had been in a panic, commanding his [Guards] to carry it, and thrown all his other servants away as meat shields, all in order to guard and hold on to that box.

But she now knew what had been in that box.

Power.

The specifics of it didn’t really matter, did they? Fundamentally, power was the issue. Something of such great power, that the [Lord] had been willing to throw away everything else to hang on. Power so great that a different [Lord] would try to steal it with violence. Power, a thing of the nobility, a thing for others to not be concerned about.

The nobility would fight over power, and those of lower status would be crushed underneath in the struggle.

It had happened in Palogne. It had happened in the mines. And most terribly of all, it had happened here. Those with more power than most can even dream of, crushing others in their relentless chase for more.

And this time… Fayette had failed to stop the damage. Because she did not have power. And really—she was a [Maid]—a servant. A servant wasn’t meant to be the one above all, holding that power, was she? A servant was supposed to follow power.

But Fayette had never accepted that from the start. Since the very first moment a Noble had truly tried to hold the ultimate power over her, she had fought back.

She had already made her decision, long ago.

Fayette sighed, a melancholy smile on her face. Maybe I am more similar to Marie than I think… I’ve already made the decision, but I’ve run away from truly facing it. A [Maid] without a master, traveling the lands with levels as her only wish. Power, or should I say: levels.

I made the decision, but not the proper steps to really get to it.

She stood up, opened her eyes, and a new fire finally burned in them. So, I’ll do it now.

It was time to choose.

Because Fayette… had been running from the decision. A [Maid] with no master. But still one who lived according to the principles of a servant. That itch she had felt so long—it was intensifying. She could understand now—understand what she had been turning away from. The true nature of the itch.

If a master commands, a servant follows. If a general tells a soldier to kill, the soldier does so. The soldier does not doubt it. The servant does not hesitate. The servant does not bear the true weight of the decision.

Why had it been so simple for Fayette to step on this path? Why did she lack hesitation so? Why was it all so instinctive?

Why was it so easy for a [Maid] to kill?

Because… the servant does not ask whether the act was right or wrong. The servant does not judge.

They just follow orders.

Because it makes it all so easy. So easy to slaughter [Bandits] without care.

Fayette snorted to herself, finally thinking back to that first pair of petty thugs in Palogne. She had killed them so automatically, without even thinking about it really. Why?

But she understood now. Back at the manor, she had never hesitated to kill the kobolds because they were just kobolds, monsters. But her [Lord]… him she had judged. She had known his crimes and executed him due to their weight.

But those thugs in Palogne… when they had stepped into her path, she hadn’t judged them like she had the [Lord]. Maybe she could have, but the thought hadn’t even entered her mind. She had treated them like the kobolds. Because… they were just thugs after all. Fayette had not hesitated for one second.

Had her class smoothed out that decision? Had she wanted it to? Had it done it on its own? Was that the nature of a servant class?

Fayette wasn’t truly a servant, but she had been killing as if she was. Only occasionally giving thought to the act, but never judging. She had killed in the throes of anger, and with cold rationality. But she hadn’t really judged and then killed. She had never asked herself if every bandit deserved it.

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She hadn’t judged, except at the very beginning. The first [Lord]—him she had judged.

Why did I not continue it?

But Fayette sighed because she knew the answer in her heart. It was because she had hungered—hungered for levels. Hungered for power.

Those first thugs she had seen in Palogne—she had killed them without a second thought. Maybe they had deserved it, maybe it was justified. But she had never asked herself that. Because it was so convenient to just go on, kill those who stood in front, clean up undesirable elements through brutal force, and get more levels.

But now she saw the end of the path. The city filled with dead around her. Killing without heed, as long as it cleansed and brought power. If she went on, someday she might do something like this.

That was why she had finally realized it. Only being on the receiving end of it did she realize the fault in her own methods. It felt horrifying, but also amusing to Fayette—she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She looked down at her slime, Nettie, happily moving about in the fountain’s basin, and shook her head. Because…

“I’ve been thinking like a [Lord], haven’t I?”

Thugs are just thugs. Bandits are just bandits. Servants… are just servants.

She felt a weight settle on her shoulders, that constantly present invisible observer. It was watching her now. Because it was time for her to choose.

She could see the paths ahead. Three of them, which had been offered to her all along, to offset the balance.

First, the path of judging. Kill as a master would, not as a servant would. Strive to judge whether everyone truly deserves to die.

It had been offered to her many times now, and always she had felt her class writhe. When Pierre had asked her to judge, she had run away. After that, she had let the others judge the [Murderer]. And the bandit who they had released. One doesn’t have time for such in the throes of combat, but with a foe surrendered or defeated… mercy would also have to be given.

But that was only the first choice.

The second one, the easier one… would be for me to take someone on as a master. Someone to judge in my stead, so I could continue fighting on without worry, because it would not be my duty to think it through.

It was the more natural path for a [Maid], but who could she choose? Marie? No—I don’t want us to be like that…

Marie was the only person she felt she could maybe trust, but Fayette… she didn’t want to place herself under Marie. She liked the [Lady]. She liked being a [Maid] to her. But to be a servant to her…

It felt like a terrible thing. Like something would come between them. A gap that could not be crossed. No, she wanted her and Marie to be something else, even if she didn’t know quite what yet.

The third choice.

I could continue on as I have, killing with wanton disregard for the justice of it, not thinking about the annoying things. She could do it. She had been doing it for months already. Eventually, the itch would subside—probably.

But there would be consequences. Not just that she might someday do a thing like what the [Grand Magus] had done.

There already had been consequences.

Fayette spun her broom in her hand and felt how her [Combat Maid] skills helped her control it. A fine class to have. She swung her broom down to the ground, then closed her eyes, letting herself fall to [Maidsense]. There was still much grime in the city, and she felt it all. The [Maid] moved around the fountain, going through the motions of combat, so familiar to her instincts now.

It was a fine class. She truly did like it. But… it wasn’t the only class she had been offered.

Already last time, at her level 15 class-up in Palogne, two of her options had been… concerning. Fayette licked her lips. [Maid of Cleansing Flame]. Would that count as a [Murderer] class? Surely, it would be at least in that direction. I probably wouldn’t have this itch if I had picked it.

Yes, if she went on killing as she liked without judging, and without taking on a master, the path of a [Murderer] would eventually reach her. I’m getting close to level 30… what if my only rare options are [Murderer] types?

If she had to choose between ascending to a rare [Murderer Class], or being stuck with an uncommon class, what would she choose? She didn’t want to know. But most of all… she imagined her friends.

“They wouldn’t like that very much, would they Nettie?”

Fayette knew she was different, she knew she was odd. She didn’t really feel empathy in a similar way as others did, not for strangers. She didn’t weep for the lost as Marie had. She didn’t flinch at the blood as Mireille did. She didn’t regret the dead as Olivia did.

But she did want her friends to like her. And that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to take on the mantle of judge… Her current way wasn’t working. She wanted to improve the world, clean it up, make it make more sense.

But now she stood amidst a ruined city. A city where a powerful man had used brute force to cleanse things in the simplest way. Her current methods would lead to this. She had already made her decision.

I have to change.

I am no servant.

I will judge.

And so, she closed her eyes, dropped her broom to the ground, let her senses fade, and reached deep into her soul, reaching for that ever-present invisible hand. Whatever you’ve done for me to make all this easier… no more. I will judge it all.

Fayette let go, accepted her role as judge. She gave away the ease of following orders.

Something shifted, and that ever-present itch in her class closed—finally at peace. No more itch. But other than that…

Nothing changed.

Fayette opened her eyes, stared around the plaza, then stared at her pet slime. Nettie stared back. Fayette blinked. “Huh.”

She searched within herself, for a seed of doubt, of hesitation. A seed of sadness over the many lives she had taken. Anything—any of hint of something lost, just to show the difference.

The [Maid] found none.

Fayette laughed. Uproariously. She clutched to her stomach and barely stayed on her feet. For a moment, she had thought that perhaps the release would bring something back, something that the class had perhaps taken from her.

The ability to weep for a dead stranger, to feel pity for an enemy. But now Fayette laughed—because she understood. I’ve always been like this, haven’t I? I always will be too. It’s just… me.

But, as she calmed, as Fayette stopped laughing and thought back more clearly—she realized that something actually had changed. Just a little detail. All those Bandits she had killed, those thugs in Palogne, every single [Knight] she had condemned to die in gas…

She remembered their faces now. Even the kobolds.

Fayette blinked and stared down at her slime. “Is that all it really takes? Something so small?”

It changed nothing. It changed… everything.

Was it a small thing after all? She could remember the thugs in Palogne clearly, their threatening visages, and she didn’t regret killing them one bit… but she also remembered the kid. The [Bandit] they had let go. Who Fayette had wanted to kill, but Marie had released.

She saw his face now, afraid, underfed, weak, shivering. And for the first time… she felt herself hesitate. Now that she could remember his face, killing him did not feel as easy a prospect.

Huh. So that’s what this is all about.

Effort. She had no natural empathy, or at least not much of it. So, enforcing her new ideal, sticking to her decision to judge, it would be down to sheer effort. Her class wouldn’t help her do it. But Fayette didn’t mind that.

She sat back down on the fountain, smiling. Because effort wasn’t a bad thing. If one had to struggle, to take the more difficult path… would that not lead to levels? Fayette relaxed the tension in her shoulders and watched the brightening sky all around her. It felt different. The sunlight felt warmer, though winter fast approached.

Now that she thought about it, a [Maid] might be a good person to act as judge. Though she wasn’t a true servant anymore, she was still a [Maid], and [Maids] weren’t generally those who made the big decisions. No, it was important [Lords] and [Ladies] who did that. They made the decision.

But a [Maid] was often in that same room, where the decisions were being made. A [Maid] could have a very good vantage point. Who else would be closer? Who else could be a finer judge?

I bet that Pierre fellow never even sees his victims before he judges them. He can only act based on evidence. But Fayette had been here. She remembered. She had memorized the faces.

Fayette smiled because she felt more sure of her path than she had in a long time. Is this what a [Combat Maid] with no master should be like? Surely, this must be the answer.

She fixed up her skirt, then turned around on her seat by the fountain, turning towards its center, to where a slime wobbled about as her only audience. Because once more it was time for something new.

It was time for her first judgment.

Fayette looked left and right, saw once more the streets littered with corpses, and her smile slipped. Her anger hadn’t truly faded, it was always there in the background, a steady beat of outrage. And she felt oh so angry.

Fayette closed her eyes and tried to picture her future path, as a [Maid] who would judge before she killed. So far, she had been just blindly stumbling along, fighting monsters where they popped up and killing anyone who stopped her. A lonely crusade against the world, but ultimately a misguided one.

Because she wasn’t really solving anything, was she?

Yes, she had done some things in Palogne, but the factories still stood in their places just as before, and the same [Lord] still ruled over it all.

Yes, she had done some things in the mines of Arreau, but those mines would go to another [Lord], and eventually, greed would strike again.

Yes, she had killed zombies and chased their creator here in Bienvenizze, but the true origin of the plague was still shrouded, and a trio of powerful men had done whatever they wanted, crushing survivors underfoot in the name of greed.

Fayette saw the light. She opened her eyes and stared at the sky, slowly taking something out of her pocket. A knife. Just a butterknife. She lifted it into the air and watched the sunlight glint off it.

So that’s what justice is all about… it’s about being thorough. I haven’t been judging, so I haven’t gotten rid of the true root of any of this, just more and more symptoms. Yes, to be just does not mean that one should not kill… it just means that you have to think it through better.

Fayette watched the glint of sunlight paint her blade orange and smiled. “Yes, the essence of justice is to be accurate with your murder. To kill those truly deserving. To smite the root cause of it all!”

She looked down. “Don’t you agree, Nettie?”

Her slime wobbled. Fayette felt its mind pulse at her. HUNGER. FEAST. PURGE. DESTROY THE FILTHY.

Fayette sighed. “I knew you would understand. But I’ve really been slacking off, haven’t I? Cleaning things thoroughly used to be my whole thing! I can’t believe I just… forgot all about it because killing felt so easy and simple.”

But now, deliberation done, audience ready, it was finally time for the session of court. Fayette’s first judgment. She rolled the butterknife over her knuckles and bit her lip, deep in thought.

What do I truly want? Really, truly? If I had one wish, right now, what would that be? What judgment do I want to give?

And then she smiled, wicked and sharp, because she knew that answer too. It had been the same one always. She had done it before. She had judged once. Her first judgment back at the manor had been very clear.

The ones who had caused this suffering, this disaster, this complete mess. The ones who had made her friends suffer and weep…

Those three men. She remembered their faces well. She remembered them going into the meeting room together, and what had happened here after. They had to have planned it all. The culprits. Three names.

[Achrbishop] Villefore

[Lord] Du Anglers

[Grand Magus] Mondoug.

Some of the most powerful, influential, and high-level men in the country.

Du Anglers was probably the backer of it all, the financier. Maybe the man behind the plague, if the factory truly was the root cause. He was involved in this, though Fayette knew him least.

Villefore had gone in front of the people and lied. He had spoken of foreign saboteurs and covered for any incompetence by the government. He had used the faith in the church to make sure records were clean.

Mondoug… he had wielded the knife. He had pointlessly crushed so many lives, all for the sake of personal power.

Fayette knew in her heart they were guilty. She could forgive none of them.

And her one wish—what she really wished for deepest in her heart—

Fayette gripped her knife harder.

I want to shove this butter knife through their necks, slowly, so they understand. See that it is the [Maid] who did it. Tell them it was just me—not anyone higher up who commanded it done. Not a servant. A [Maid].

She did not hesitate with her judgment.

Those three—I will kill them.

They will die.

It was a certainty in her soul, and she felt a load lift off her chest. The conclusion, the decision—it was made.

And Fayette wasn’t the only one who noticed. Someone always watched.

[Conditions met: Use 2 skill points to upgrade Cutlery Control to Blade of Maid’s Judgement?]

[Y/N?]

Fayette blinked. She stared at the knife in her hand. A butterknife.

Yes.

[Cutlery Control has been upgraded to Blade of Maid’s Judgement]

[Blade of Maid’s Judgement: This blade will be as sharp as its foes are deserving of its bite! Let the wicked cower at the Maid’s wrath!]

Fayette stared at the butterknife in her hand and felt at it with her finger. It was dull, just a normal butterknife. But she could feel it now. A tension.

When the time came, it would be just as sharp as it needed to be.

And she realized she recognized the knife. She furrowed her brows, puzzled, as a vague remembrance came. “Have you come to me before?”

When she had attacked Marie’s Fiancée, had a butterknife not appeared in her hand, without her calling it? It had been in Arreau too, when Pierre had asked her to judge. Had a knife not appeared in her hand then?

And even in the beginning, if Fayette really strained her memory, when she had killed her first [Lord]… Had a butterknife not jumped to her hand?

“Have you been waiting for me? All this time? Huh.”

She stared down at the slime. Nettie stared back. “Weird.”

Fayette flicked a hand, and the butterknife disappeared into nothing. Then she flicked a hand again, feeling at her new skill, and the knife appeared back in there. Easy as that.

“Huh, handy thing.”

But not enough. It was still just one blade. Fayette sighed, and rocked in her seat by the fountain, for though she had given her judgment that she would see those three men dead, she knew it would not be easy.

Their party of four… It would not be enough for something like this, that she knew. She couldn’t just wait for them all to level either, she wanted to start doing this now. No more wasting time.

But—Fayette was not alone in chasing this sort of prey. There were others.

Again, Fayette looked to her side, at the book she had laid by her seat—Friend of the people. She wasn’t their friend, not yet at least, but maybe they could be hers. She opened the last page and took out a card in flowing handwriting. An invitation for her, from that [Journalist]. Marat.

Fayette turned the card over and read the address on it.

She knew the address by heart, but still, she repeated it, tasting the words. “Jacob’s Bell Tavern, St Jacques.”

The words tasted like blood.

Fayette smiled wider.

Yes, alone, it might be difficult, but with sufficient backing… Her knife would find its way.

The decision had been made, and the path to it had been found—but there was one more step. And the smile fell from her face.

The others. Her friends. What would they think of her conviction?

Fayette stood up, dismissed the blade from her hand, and collected her book back to her apron. She took Nettie back into its bucket and started strolling back.

She would convince them.