"It's me, Miss."
I sat up and greeted Mary.
"Oh my. Why is the room so dark?"
Instead of looking for a glow-in-the-dark stone, Mary found a candle familiar to her. Finding the candlestick on the stove, she immediately lit it.
"Come to think of it, the heater is off... Oh my, what's wrong with your hands, young lady?"
Mary grabbed my hand in an even more urgent voice.
“It’s no big deal.”
Afraid of hearing her nagging, I quickly pulled my hand away and hid it behind my back. Mary knew very well that I bite my nails whenever I am stressed. Instead of forcibly pulling my hand away, she spoke to me with words full of concern.
"Surely Count Hyrn didn't say anything to the young lady, did he?"
Mary draped a blanket over me as I sat in a chair in my pajamas. Then, she began to revive the extinguished embers in the stove.
"Bringing up the relationship with Hyrn again when even the Duke is here."
The worst-case scenario Mary imagined was, at best, Count Hyrn throwing a tantrum. Or humiliating me in front of other nobles.
Along with the thought that it would be wonderful if today's events were merely that minor, a sense of relief washed over me that I had still preserved Mary's ordinary daily life.
"No, the atmosphere was so serious that there wasn't even a chance to say something like that. More importantly, how are the other maids?"
In any case, they were the ones who had stormed the Magic Tower under the pretext of investigating the maids. Even if they hadn't found anything suspicious about Eon in the exhibition hall, surely there had been some progress over there. If there were just one more child like Tara, she would make a good witness, and there must have been at least ten such children.
"We assembled in the hall and then returned to our respective positions."
“Did anything happen?”
"I have absolutely no idea what's going on. I clearly signed the contract properly before moving in, so I don't understand why the military police are finding fault."
Mary grumbled. The fact that she only grumbled meant that there was nothing for Mary to speak about passionately.
“There is a contract?”
"Yes. They sign a contract when you join as a maid. I did too."
I was momentarily startled by the mention of a contract, but I could easily fabricate something like that. Captain Hanson couldn't possibly be unaware of something I knew perfectly well. It was absurd to dismiss my suspicions based solely on that.
"Did everyone confess how they ended up working at the Magic Tower? Did you confess that too?"
I recalled the first rule: 'Do not speak of what happened before coming to the Magic Tower.'
"That..."
That brief moment when Mary tilted her head felt incredibly long. Sweat beaded on my hands. Would Eon have demanded that the rule be followed even in front of an outsider?
"I don't know about that, since they went into the drawing room one by one. I heard a loud noise upstairs, so everyone went over there, and they stopped investigating the senior maids."
Mary gave me a look that said, "Don't you know what happens next?"
"Does that mean the ordinary maids weren't investigated?"
"Yes. They didn't have time for that."
Overwhelmed with despair, a hollow laugh escaped me. They hadn't even been able to investigate the ordinary maids, who were the real missing persons. Furthermore, far from discovering Eon's evil deeds, they instead praised his skills and even coveted the homunculus he had created. It was a far too insignificant result for a raid that had even mobilized a Duke.
"Miss, what is wrong?"
I forced myself to suppress my unceasing laughter and asked Mary.
"Was there any child who appealed to Captain Hanson for something or asked for help?"
Mary kept shaking her head with a bewildered look on her face.
"That is impossible. Why would a maid dare to do such a thing to a noble gentleman? Especially since they are one of Marquis de Grannois' men."
"Ah. Right. That's right. Yeah."
"Miss, wouldn't it be better for you to get some rest?"
Mary cautiously suggested to me, who couldn't stop laughing.
'Of all times, of all times.'
At this point, I began to suspect that the child might have done this knowing something. After all, although he didn't seem to get along well with Eon, he had been together for a long time.
***
The next morning, I went to look for the little one. It was already nearly ten o'clock, so I naturally assumed he would be awake, but the child was sleeping soundly, oblivious to the world.
"Little one, little one, wake up."
I called out to him and tried shaking him, but the child only tossed and turned and did not open his eyes.
"Eon? Eon, it's morning now."
Just in case, I tried calling the child by a name I had never uttered before, but there was no reaction either.
I was worried that he might fall into a long sleep like before. For now, I decided it would be better to wait quietly until the child woke up.
'Well, considering all that commotion, I suppose you must be tired.'
I was just as exhausted. It was a strange sensation; my body felt as heavy as waterlogged cotton, yet inside, it felt as if I were completely empty inside, like a cardboard box.
Wondering if I was hungry, I went to a restaurant before breakfast was even ready. I swallowed a piece of hard bread with milk, but the feeling of emptiness did not change.
“What the hell?”
It was only after attempting to cast the teleportation spell that I realized this was mana depletion. That was also the reason I abandoned my resolve to go find Tara immediately.
If it were simply a matter of stamina, I would have managed to move somehow with the help of potions.
Since I had been learning teleportation magic by reading books, getting out of the magic tower wasn't a big problem. Of course, Eon would be chasing me, but my goal this time wasn't to escape from him, but simply to meet Tara. It seemed that if I just had that short time before Eon came to catch me, I could get what I wanted.
'I wonder what I did to run out of magic power.'
I briefly recalled the homunculus in the exhibition room that had stopped the moment I gave the command, but I soon shook my head. It wasn't a spell, but a simple word. Believing that the homunculus had obeyed my words was an excessive display of self-importance.
"Right? It makes no sense, doesn't it?"
I asked the child a question, even though I knew there would be no answer.
"But why did you want to tell me that they were homunculus? Was that that important? Important enough to be something I had to do as soon as I could move properly?"
It was such a busy day that I let it slide, but the little boy I saw yesterday was far from what I had imagined. His cynical tone and calm demeanor. It was only now that I truly realized that, contrary to appearances, he had lived for three hundred years.
"Wasn't it more important for that bastard, the Tower Master, to be punished? Huh? You didn't know something like that happened?"
The child certainly wouldn't have known who visited the magic tower or what was happening downstairs.
'But...'
I recalled the sound of the child's giggling and innocent voice. It was behavior that I wouldn't have thought particularly unusual if we had been chatting or eating together. However, the way he controlled the homunculus, which looked like a corpse, had already gone beyond the realm of an ordinary child.
Even though I knew they were not human, I stood by and watched as their heads were severed and knives were plunged into their hearts.
It was only now that I painfully realized that the child was a non-human being who had lived for over three hundred years.
'Don't be fooled by appearances.'
Up until now, I had considered the little one an ally without a shred of doubt. I unwittingly became convinced of it because of the childlike behavior he showed in front of Archmage Sally.
'Who on earth are you?'
I gazed down at the child sleeping in the sunlight with an angelic face.
***
It was only after leaving the child's room that I realized the magic tower was noisy, unlike other times. As I went down the stairs, I soon ran into Mary.
“What’s going on?”
"The Marquis ordered all employees and researchers to gather at the home."
What on earth is going on now? I hurried down the stairs. Before I could even reach the platform, I heard Eon's voice.
"As you are all aware, the Magic Tower is currently engulfed in malicious rumors and is under suspicion by the Military Police. Therefore, we are compelled to recommend that all employees and researchers resign."
'Retirement?'
It was a word that made me doubt my ears.
'Suddenly like this?'
Sending all the maids back wouldn't erase everything that had happened so far. Moreover, if they carried out a massive reduction in personnel after the military police investigation, it would look suspicious to anyone.
'It would be a different story if you had sweet-talked the other person enough that such things didn't matter.'
The Duke who had his eye on the Homunculus came to mind. Eon seemed to detest him terribly, but personal preference and gains and losses were another matter.
I could hear the murmuring of those who had suddenly lost their jobs. Called a suggestion, at this point it was no different from being fired.
"I understand that there may be some of you facing difficulties due to suddenly losing your jobs. After much consideration, I have decided to pay retirees five times the equivalent of five years' salary. I hope this will be of at least some help in resolving your hardships."
At the mention of five times five years' worth of salary, the people around were buzzing with a different meaning than before.
"Does the same apply to researchers?"
Researcher Sally's voice was heard. Could she be planning to leave the Magic Tower, too?
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