A choir of small birds sang in the trees outside the open window. A gentle June breeze blew in, cool on the skin, and brushed my bangs. Nothing was on fire, nobody was shouting, and the world lay easy on its holders. A world of peace.
Though I was awake, I had no reason to get up.
I couldn't even remember the last time I'd slept for so long undisturbed. In the past, if I wanted to rest my fill, I had to fire off a big explosion and then hide in the ruins, pretending to be dead, until rescuers found me. Now, I could lawfully snooze for as long as I cared to.
Such—luxury. The concept blew my mind.
—"Good morning, milady."
Then a polite voice speaking close by forced me to open my eyes. A few steps away stood a young woman in a black dress, the wavy hems reaching down below the knees, a frilly white apron wrapped around the waist to cover the front. She bowed her head politely and gracefully, hands clasped in front, her long, dark-brown locks gathered in a loose bundle behind the head and held in check by a decorative laced headband.
In short, she was a maid.
The mythical servant class, of which I'd heard so many stories, employed by the rich and powerful. The maid had a smart face, a smile to die for, and gentle cocoa eyes. Her name was Charlotte.
"Who's 'lady'?" I groaned and covered my eyes from the brightness of the day. "I'm not a noble or anything. Just talk normally."
"Your circumstances may be a little unusual," Charlotte argued as she straightened her figure, "but you bear the name of the Ruthford family now, even if only for appearances' sake. It's a name that calls for respect, and you'd do well not to tarnish it. On that note, if I may..."
"What is it?"
"...Why are you sleeping out here in the garage? I prepared a good room for you last night."
Maybe a bit of background was needed. I had to leave the Lufield base on the last day of May when my service was set to end. If I got accepted into the academy, I'd move to the dormitory on campus, but that still left me homeless for three months and a half before the start of the term.
The General told me I could stay at her "city house," which I was told was vacant, and I agreed without thinking twice. It was the most convenient option for me. But…
I forgot the RA officers were almost all nobility. The Commander-in-Chief wasn't an exception to that, as graceless as she could be.
Since the feudal times, the Lord of the Ruthfords had held the title of Count. And the family's modest city home turned out to be a stupid-huge manor sitting in the middle of Canelon, the Kingdom's overpopulated capital.
An estate of 864,000 square feet. A servants' lodge; a guardhouse; a manège; a stable; a target range; a rose garden with a fountain pool and an artistic hedge maze; an idyllic beach pavilion overlooking an artificial pond; perfectly level grass fields…And then the main house, a four-story stack of pale stone and hundreds of windows.
The residence stood out like a huge strip of duct tape slapped on the stony face of the 1000-year metropolis. A gaudy, extravagant amusement park, constructed as though in a provoking show of how some people had simply too much money, and how pointlessly it could be splurged. It was upsetting even to me—but I was now a member of this household.
Before moving in, I dreaded what the General's family was going to say about the improvised adoption, or what I was going to say to them, but that proved a needless concern: she didn't have any. It wasn't a dramatization when the General had called herself the last of her line.
The endless chain of armed conflicts claimed the male members of the family, who'd all sought a career in the RA, and grief and stress took the women. The General was at some point slated to marry a reputable cavalry captain of decent heritage, but this captain fell in battle three years ago. She never got engaged again, and I'd never heard her utter a word about romance in all the time I'd known her.
It seemed the thread of the Ruthford House would be severed at this generation.
The General did supposedly have a younger sister still alive and kicking, but said sister had moved abroad many years ago, after the deaths of their parents, and never once came back to visit. The departure was sudden, and drama was involved, apparently. Their maternal grandmother's family fared well somewhere in the peaceful highlands of Usther too, but the General wasn't on speaking terms with them. She truly excelled at burning bridges, even with the living.
This left the lavish capital residence empty today. Figuratively speaking. There was still a small company of essential workers and guards living on-site, trying their best to keep the stupendous estate from rotting too badly or being looted empty.
I couldn't imagine calling such a place "home."
Not only because I hadn't a drop of aristocratic blood, but mostly for practical reasons.
The manor was the biggest target board for magic fire and contract killers around, dwarfed only by the royal castle jutting up on its high hill a couple of miles northwest.
Fencers fought at the front and mages kept back, doing their best to avoid notice—that was the proper order of things. But here I was thrust into the public spotlight and couldn't have felt more out of place.
The bedroom I was given was pointlessly huge too, vulnerable to several angles with poor visibility over the surroundings, and no good escape routes. The canopied pillow hill they called bed was like a cushioned swamp that trapped the sleeper and never let go. I couldn't imagine sleeping a wink in it.
Normally, my senses would automatically alert me if anyone within twelve hundred yards held hostile intent for me. Preset countermeasures would deploy automatically in response to attacks. But the mana-suppressing rings changed everything. My range of detection could barely cover one bedroom now. The spells I could invoke without conscious thought before were no longer possible at all.
I was helpless as a baby.
But it was no use crying about it. A warrior had to be able to adapt to changing circumstances. If I couldn't set up proper protections, then the only other option was to make myself a harder target.
Touring the grounds at night, I came across a subtle one-floor building nestled by a shady grove, a stone's throw from the estate gate. It had probably been a stable in the past. A long, white-painted house with the front and back ends closed only by wide, latched doors.
The interior was hollow through the length of it and unfurnished, the concrete floor swept clear. The beast stalls of old had been dismantled, bales of hay cleared away, saddles taken out and sold. Old bits and bridles and whips were left on hooks to decorate the barren walls, as a reminder of different times. But the space wasn't empty.
The animals had been replaced with mounts of steel.
The new innovation from the fabled technostate of Aschtelt, which had taken the continental markets by storm in the recent decade and inspired less successful imitations; a sort of self-driving carriage powered by a magitech engine instead of muscle—the automobile.
The auto was still a luxury gadget only the elite could afford, but the General seemed to have taken a liking to it. One way or another, she'd procured a whole array of mechanical vehicles, showcasing the timeline of the auto's commercial evolution.
There sure were a lot of them.
Did she plan to set up an exhibit? Maybe she thought these grotesque wheeled boxes were like liquor and only went up in value over time? I had my doubts about that theory.
But never mind that.
I wasn't interested in the machines themselves. Metal effectively blocked sensory magic, so there could be no safer rest spot but there, among the steel-framed monstrosities. Nobody from outside could've pinpointed my exact location.
I went and propped a window open. The birds playing in the poplars outside would let me know if anyone who didn't belong on the premises was skulking about. Nature's own alarm system.
The floor was a little hard and cold to lie on, but I'd had worse before. I found an old saddle pad in the storeroom, which a bit of spirited dusting turned into a serviceable bed for one night. Ah, blissful sleep…
Until the maid showed up.
"How did you find me, anyway?" I asked and sat up to flex my stiff neck.
"How do you think?" Charlotte replied, leaning closer with an upset frown. "By checking every place that isn't locked! Please let me know in advance if you want to go out! I almost had a heart attack when I went to your room and found it empty! What do you think would've happened to me if I lost a strategic-class magician overnight!?"
"Sorry. I didn't think about that."
"As long as you won't do it again. Good grief!"
The maid crossed her arms and pouted childishly.
Considering she knew who I really was, she couldn't have been a random hire picked off the streets. She didn't look beefy enough to be a soldier, either. Probably a CI agent. I was discharged from the armed service, on paper, but the Kingdom maintained firm ownership of me. They wouldn't let me go wherever I pleased without supervision. As a living weapon, that fate was inescapable.
But even if the role of a humble servant was only a blatantly false cover, Charlotte embraced it with confusing devotion. In a blink, she was all smiles again.
"Well, I'm glad nothing bad happened to you. I came to let you know your breakfast is ready, Miss Hope. Shall we go now? You have quite a busy day ahead of you, studying for the academy entrance exam and all. Best get started early!"
"Ah..."
The exams. And here I tried to forget about that part…