Character Information - Who is who?
Because I have created quite a variety of characters, I will now create little cheat sheets before a chapter for the characters who will appear in the chapter, but not for those who haven't. Please open the spoiler if you need some reminders. (Be careful. It can be a spoiler for the chapter!)
Melina Leonandra (Spider-kin)
* Known Position
* Head maid of the MC
* Specialization(-s)
* Cleaning, Cooking, and Management
* Eyecolor
* Blue Colored
* Hair Color
* Purplish-Black Colored
* Miscellaneous
* Mother of MC's disciple and one of the Antagonists
* Hates when her master visits her and acts like a commoner
(Close-)Retainers
* None mentioned
Francesca Leonandra (Spider-kin)
* Known Position
* Personal Maid of the MC
* Specialization(-s)
* Cleaning and Cooking
* Eyecolor
* Dark-Blue Colored
* Hair Color
* Black Colored
* Miscellaneous
* Likes sweets and gossip
(Close-)Retainers
* None mentioned
...
Servants were essential for a good functioning estate. They not only helped with many tiresome things that only stole time from their masters, but they were sometimes friends, comrades, and more who stood with them through their most difficult times.
However, they were also the sole reason for other, more unpleasant things.
"Did you see how cute Narsi and Lin looked? It was adorable!"
"I know, right? Even their fur is so fitting. The black is really making her more mysterious, while Narsi looks so regal with his golden blond. It reminds me of the one story... what was it again?"
"Haha! You really started reading non-stop since you learned it. Is it really that fun?"
"Yes, and I think it was called The Lust and Sorrow. I wish my husband would be a little more like Reginald in the story... or Narsi."
"Oh please, not every noble is mannered. Look at what happened to Alex!"
"Oh my, I heard of that, but..."
Melina overheard the conversation while walking through the dining area. Today, she would eat with other servants since she had no time to eat anything. She could only cook for her hatchlings something quick.
Usually, her husband would cook, but it wasn't possible anymore since he was part of Alexander's workforce and produced the paper now, which made enormous amounts of gold. She found it quite funny how baffled he became when their master told him he would be responsible for something that made millions of gold a year.
First, he wanted to decline, but after seeing the wage, he couldn't not do it. The gold he made was now similar to hers, and if they were a little frugal, they could be considered rich after some years. If they also calculated their daughter's wage into their household income, they would be immediately considered wealthy commoners since Ocilia's wealth was already substantial.
However, all she did with it was to put it into some chest inside her room and forget about it. They all decided to put the gold to good use for their youngest if they couldn't be of service to Alexander. They would pay some other artisan or merchant to take them as apprentices or send them to a boarding school.
Besides her chaotic family life, she was Alexander's headmaid and was responsible for many things. One of those was planning the servants' shifts, and she always did it meticulously weeks beforehand, but the moment the Nine-Fire youth appeared, it was all thrown overboard. Their servants swarmed them and tried to be helpful, but it only became chaotic.
The worst was that they were similar to the usual Leonandra estate servants. Only Alexander's and the Lady's were much more serious and ignored most gossip since they had too much work to even care about such things.
Melina didn't know how Aro managed the ladies' mansion, but she was overwhelmed even though Aurum, their new head accountant, gave her more than enough funds. It was mostly a problem of finding enough trustworthy personnel to handle their workload.
From cleaning up their master's working stations to cooking eight times daily for him. She was also instructed to look after Alexander's brother and be as courteous as possible to him.
The workload was a lot to deal with, and she needed to work overtime, which was a funny term for her, so that the mansion would function properly. The other servants were in the same situation and had to work their asses off. However, nobody complained because the position came with many perks and high pay. Thus, most were much more serious with their work.
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Not from other mansions, though. Melina slightly smirked when she walked through the dining area to get something for her and saw how excited most servants were to get to know each other and asked the new ones out about their masters and mistresses.
"Is Lin always this on edge?"
"No, she is just really careful since she had some bad experiences."
"Oh, tell me!"
"Ok! But first, I really want to know why Narsi, who is this regal and beautiful, is at the same time so shy. I need to say he is too cute!"
"I know, right? You see..."
The moment she entered the large kitchen, it was overcrowded and chaotic. The moment the servants were alone without nobles, they would start getting messy and barely cleaning up after themselves. Even though Aro made a plan for them, they barely followed it. Usually, the low servants would clean up, but they seemed unusually lazy.
After some observing and cooking, Melina saw that Francesca was talking with a dog-kin maid from the Nine-Fires who had floppy ears. She accidentally overheard what she was talking about and decided to step in before her colleague's head rolled.
"You see, Alex is cute and all, but he really comes after his father."
"The lord? Isn't he a noble too?"
"No! He is a druid and former mercenary. So, Alex is behaving more like a co..."
Before Francesca could end her sentence, Melina stood behind her, grabbing her shoulder, "Excuse me, Francy, but this kind of topic is not something we should discuss."
The spider-kin turned around in shock, and her eyes widened even more while the color changed to a deep blue, "Me... Melina, what are you doing here?!"
Melina smiled at her, but her following words were like a knife, holding against Francesca's throat, "I would rather ask you what you are doing here. What I was about to hear wasn't something I expected from you."
The dog-kin maid wanted to interject, "Excuse me..." But Melina shushed her and waved her hand to dismiss her, "...Psch! Not your problem, go away."
She looked at the frightened young girl again and this time became more serious, "I don't want ever see that you gossip about master, do you understand?"
Francesca tried to explain herself, "I am sorry! I was just... It will not happen again, I promise!"
Melina nodded at her, "Fine, follow me. We need to have a long talk."
While Francesca bit her lower lip and let her head hang, Melina was a little on edge. She was Alexander's head maid and responsible for every servant doing their job. Besides the work, a requirement to join his mansion was that no information would leave. There was a simple reason: Alexander asked her to do it, which would be enough reason, but there was also a good explanation. He had a lot of very secretive projects, and he feared that any minor detail leaking could bring problems.
Through explaining, she understood that the servants barely understood what he did, and by them talking about details about the happenings in the mansion, they could think that they would be minor, but in truth, they could be something substantial. If a lower servant or someone less trustworthy had the information, they would sell it to the underworld, and who knows what would happen then. So, a general rule was established that nobody talked about anything that happened inside the manor.
Everyone understood it and held onto that rule like their life depended on it: Alexander and anything that occurred inside the minor mansion was a forbidden topic to talk about.
Usually, if someone asked about their master, they would refer them to Melina, and she would tell them that it was none of their business. Her behavior was also why she was so disliked by other servants, but not like she cared much.
Her stomach grumbled, and she became annoyed, 'Damn it, maybe my hatchlings have left some scraps for me.'
When she and Francesca turned around, she suddenly felt something wet around her face. Someone threw some cheap wine at her. It was one of those swan-kin butlers who were under Lorient. After their little stunt, they were demoted to the lowest position in the estate. They needed to live outside the walls with all other lower servants as punishment and had all privileges stripped from them.
Another punishment was a very severe mana contract they needed to sign, as Alexander didn't trust them. The moment they broke them and uttered any information that they learned of inside the minor mansion, they would die immediately. Noriken personally countersigned it for it to have such a strong effect.
Melina wiped the wine from her face and looked at the smirking swan-kin youth. She was boiling inside but appeared stoic on the outside, looking at him like he was just an annoying vermin.
He opened his arms wide, and his tone became sarcastic while being clearly drunk and full of anger, "Oh, excuse me! I accidentally slipped up, but what can you expect of lower servants like myself?"
Melina tilted her head and smirked herself. She opened her hand and out came threads that wrapped around herself roughly. She chanted something, and lights began to surround her. After a moment, the light faded, and black flakes slowly floated down from her. She was fully clean again.
She smiled at him but didn't say anything, as this display was more than enough to show she was far above him. It was no secret that Alexander was a mage like his disciple, who also was her daughter, Ocilia, but seeing his maid casting magic surprised everyone.
The kitchen, full of servants, took a step back and looked at her like an exotic animal. Melina understood it too well as she felt much more terrified and happy at the same time the moment she acquired [Mana Sense].
Her master gave her and her husband this gift for their birthday with some instructions from Ocilia on how to get [Mana Manipulation] and some easy lifestyle spells.
She needed months to learn the cleaning spell, but it was all worth it. She never bathed again and even cleaned her hatchlings with it, which was much easier than going into the bathhouse.
Other maids inside the minor mansion knew of this and waited for their turn to receive the blessing. Their master didn't like the name and always made faces when someone said it, but she couldn't call it differently. It was a blessing, giving her much more time to do other things and substantially easing her life.
She even recommended to Alexander to bring it up as a loyalty perk to other servants, which he readily accepted and gave her the authority to choose a maid once a month to receive it. With this, the morale inside their mansion became high, and after Cloelle received it, too, others desired it and worked like their life depended on it to be the next one.
She turned back and walked out together while hearing hushed whispers, which made her smile proudly.
"Was this magic?!"
"Yes... I didn't know that even Alex's servants learned it..."
"Do you think..."
"I know what you wanna say, and I am thinking the same."
The night ended with Melina reprimanding Francesca for hours and punishing her with extra work and a pay cut. She was ready to discipline her much more harshly, but her master forbade physical punishments.