Interlude: The Second One, or So It Was Told

The day of a silkie began early in the morning.

Frau’s eyes opened before sunrise. She sat up on her bed and rubbed sleepily at her eyes. After a few blinks, she looked at her surroundings. Though a tad drab, it was the same familiar room she was used to seeing — Renya’s room. She had asked to have a smaller bed placed beside Renya’s, and that was where she currently slept. At first, the idea had met with fierce resistance from Shion and Rona, who fussed about whether fairies even needed sleep and the appropriateness of sleeping in Renya’s room.

In the end, Frau had shut them up with a smile and a rather meaningful “Hush now.” To be fair, in making her point, she had also employed every single object in the house by infusing them with her mana. The effect was superb, judging from how pale their faces went. Her one regret was that Renya had been caught in the wake. She ruefully recalled the way he looked at her afterwards, eyes wide with alarm.

She hopped down from the bed. By the time her feet touched the ground, she was already wearing her usual maid uniform. It was unpleasant to sleep in, so she wore a solid white nightgown to bed. When it was time to change back, the switch was instantaneous. She was, after all, originally a fairy who specialized in tailoring.

It took some convincing, but she had also managed to talk Renya into putting up a full-length mirror on the wall. She used it to check her own appearance. Once she confirmed that everything looked fine, she softly approached the sleeping Renya.

Regarding Renya, Frau had come to a certain conclusion: once he fell asleep, it was no simple matter to wake him again. This was supported by the results of a variety of tests she had conducted. There was one caveat, though. If one approached him with the intent to cause harm, he noticed immediately. Renya was extremely sensitive to malice, and even the slightest hint of something threatening could cause him to leap off the bed in the middle of the night. As his roommate, Frau had to pay extra attention to this particularity. She had already overstepped in requesting to share his room. It would not do if her own actions disturbed her master’s sleep.

So long as she was mindful of this fact, though, the rest was smooth sailing; Renya was insensitive to almost everything else. Loud noises didn’t wake him. Shaking him didn’t work either. She had heard that when they set up camp outside, he could even sleep through Shion wrapping herself around him.

Frau took that to mean that hugging was a-okay. Therefore, the first thing she did every morning was dive into Renya’s bed. Despite what she thought was a pretty significant jostle, this had never woken him up. She lifted up one side of the blanket, slipped in, and pulled herself up against Renya’s arm. For the next little while, she would simply bask in pure bliss.

It would be a good ten minutes before she felt satisfied. After fully savoring the sensation, she crawled out of Renya’s bed, made a half-hearted attempt to straighten out her clothes, and left the room.

The first thing Frau had to do was go to all the non-occupied rooms in the house and open all the curtains. This allowed the light outside to enter, functioning as a signal for all those things that lurked in dark crevices and shadowy corners of the house. It told them that their job was done, at which point they would wearily retreat back into the basement after a good night’s work.

Frau had instructed them not to be seen by the house’s residents. To drive the point home, she appended a clause: she would see to it that those who were seen would face swift and absolute annihilation. Normally, fairies couldn’t do things like that. Frau wasn’t sure why she could. She vaguely figured it probably had something to do with the fact that she had been gobbling up half-materialized evil spirits and the like before Renya showed up. Maybe that had altered her nature as a fairy. It didn’t bother her, though. Whatever the reason, if it allowed her to be of use to Renya, Shion, and Rona, then it was fine.

Next, she went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Renya took turns with her making lunch and dinner, but she usually handled all the breakfasts. Today’s menu consisted of soft, fluffy bread and crisp, crunchy bacon with a side of fried eggs. The bread was made in-house, using a method that involved yeast she had learned from Renya. Bread normally sold in bakeries was stiff and not to Renya’s liking.

She then took leafy greens, dried and resoaked in water, and mixed them with thin slices of forest octopus arms to make a salad. Then, she took a sour dressing of primarily vinegar and added it to a mashed paste made by steaming a round vegetable Renya called “the potato-y thing.” Finally, there was the usual meat and vegetable stew, seasoned with salt and well-boiled. To this, she added milk, making a thick, creamy soup that rounded off their breakfast. Recipes were all courtesy of Renya.

At times, she had tried asking Shion and Rona for recipes, only to be shown a most uninspired collection of either roasted or boiled items. Seasoning was binary: either salt or sugar. Frau soon decided that she’d rather not use the recipes from the girls.

Once breakfast was ready, her next job was to wake up the residents. Renya was easy. She only needed to glance at him a little threateningly to make him fly hysterically out of bed.

“Hey, uh… Can we talk about how you wake me up every day? This isn’t good for my nerves…”

“Frau is really sorry, but this is the easiest way. It works like a charm every time,” she said with a quick bow, leaving Renya with no choice but to scratch his head in concession.

Once she told Renya that breakfast was ready, she produced a small piece of ice in her hand and moved to Shion’s room. After opening the door, she walked over to Shion’s bed, where she lay sleeping. The usual knot at the back of her head was gone, and her lustrous black hair spread freely across the bed. The knot must have gotten in the way when she slept.

Shion did not rise easily. Frau pulled down Shion’s blanket a little, revealing the nightwear around her chest. She slipped the piece of ice right into the cleft and left the room without a second glance. Behind her, the screaming began. She paid no attention; it was a daily occurrence.

One room remained. Frau found that she wasn’t very fond of dealing with the voluptuous beauty inside. She entered to find Rona sprawled carelessly on the bed wearing a translucent nightgown. Her blanket was entirely displaced. The temperature in the house was usually controlled through magecraft, so it was never so cold that a blanket was necessary for slumber. Frau was in charge of keeping each room comfortable, but there were times when she felt a strong urge to drop the temperature a few dozen degrees in this room.

Rona’s extravagant proportions might give off the impression that she was a tad plump, but that would be untrue. She was better described as “full.” There was a certain part of her body that was fuller than most others, and every time Frau saw them, she secretly uttered a curse for them to get ripped off. Once, she cursed a little too seriously and one of things in the basement actually showed up to carry out her command. Ever since then, she had tempered the strength of her cursing. She still cursed, though. Who could look at those and not?

“Miss Rona, rise and shine!”

Compared to the other two, Rona was a good riser. She woke up as soon as Frau spoke. That was one thing Frau appreciated.

“Mmm… Haa…”

Rona yawned as she opened her eyes. It was needlessly seductive. More secret cursing ensued as Frau maintained a perfectly charming smile. Words such as “fall off” and “sag” never left her lips.

“Miss Rona, it’s morning.”

“Mmm… Good morning, Frau. I’m getting some chills… Did you lower the temperature?”

“Nn-nn, it’s the same as always. Miss Rona is just wearing too little.”

Make them fall off? Make them sag? asked the basement things. She would if she could, but she had to say no. Renya would chop her to bits.

“Breakfast is ready.”

“Thanks. I’ll be there soon,” answered Rona before she murmured something about “chills” and “weird.” Frau left her alone with her thoughts and moved on to the next task.

Laundry was done in the bathroom. All of the residents’ clothes needed to be washed. For Frau, though, this was a trivial matter. By using the Control spell, the process was nearly automatic. The process of doing laundry for her was more or less subconscious, so she could go clean up the kitchen in the meantime. By the time she returned all the dishes to the cupboard, all the clothes had already found their place on the racks in the garden, hanging beside a number of blankets and mattress covers that Frau had stripped away from the beds.

Renya and the girls were rarely home during the day. They were usually doing guild missions, involving such trifling matters as collecting raw materials and hunting weak monsters. Their period of absence, however, was also when Frau got down to business. This was her serious time.

First up, tending to the garden. Unbeknownst to Renya and the girls, the grass and trees growing in the garden were not normal. Frau had been supplying them with mana and nutrients. The mana came from Renya. As for the nutrients… Well, as Frau liked to put it, the source of the nutrients was “hush-hush.” The result was that while the plants looked normal, they were actually more monster than flora. When she came across grass that had grown too long, she politely apologized before plucking them out. Once they were dried and carefully flattened, she could extract thin strands of tough fiber from the long, slender leaves of the grass. She had no idea why, but by weaving various fibers together, she could produce a thread many times more durable than its parts.

On one side of the garden, a certain type of plant seemed to flourish. The numerous stems, however, were actually connected underground, meaning that it was all one organism. The tips of this plant’s stems contained a deadly toxin.

Above ground, its leaves were home to spiders, jet black in color, that quietly weaved their web-like nests. These used to be regular spiders that lived in the garden, but now, they were better categorized as monsters. Being the size of a human thumb, they were somewhat larger than regular ones of their breed, so they also received Frau’s stern warning to not show up when Shion or Rona were around.

The silk they produced was the same color as their body. Though thin and supple, the black thread was nonetheless remarkably tough. Frau knew the spiders to sometimes go to places hidden from the eyes of the residents, where they hunted small birds and animals. When a dozen of them got together, the webs they spun could catch even humans. Once their prey was captured, they injected a strong solvent into its body, dissolving its innards so they could suck them up. Soon, the victim would be reduced to nothing but skin and bones — literally. When this happened, Frau would have to clean up after them. Faced with a pile of remains, she would have no choice but to dry them, crush them up, and bury them in the garden.

As a matter of fact, the clothes Renya currently wore were made with the silk from the spiders and the fibers of the grasses. Both were extremely difficult to procure and handle, so mass production was out of the question. At the very least, though, Frau intended to make sets for Shion and Rona at some point.

There were also many other trees and plants growing in the garden, but even Frau couldn’t keep tabs on which ones were what kind of monster. It wouldn’t be worth it anyway; every time she looked away, some of them would morph into different ones. An accurate record was an impossible task. She committed to memory only the ones she frequently used, figuring she could examine the rest whenever the need arose.

Once the garden had been taken care of, it was break time. Frau had no need to eat, so when the house was vacated, she didn’t need to cook. Instead, she lowered herself onto her favorite resting spot — Renya’s bed — for a short break.

The garden wasn’t that big, but for some reason, there were frequently people strewn across the ground. In order to keep them from being seen by Renya and the girls, she hid the bodies deep within thick growths of plants. They had probably been immobilized by some sort of toxin and passed — whether out or away, she didn’t care to check. Left there, they would eventually be pulled into the earth by the roots around them. At times, though, it was necessary for her to take a couple of live ones and throw them into the basement. What awaited her poor victims down there was a very cold and terrible end. The basement things loved the warmth of the living. Specifically, they loved sucking it out.

Frau didn’t exactly need the constant supply of fresh bodies, but she certainly appreciated it. She had no idea who kept sending them over, and she didn’t care enough to find out. They had her gratitude, though.

“Frau should thank them some time.”

Being a fairy who knew her manners, Frau would very much like to say thanks in person, but she simply had no way of figuring out who to thank. The thought elicited a sigh from her as she prepared the ingredients for the next meal in the quiet afternoon kitchen.

There was much to prepare. Various soups were needed for flavor, yeast was required to make bread, vegetables had to be ground to a paste, and dressings needed to be mixed. These, and most of her repertoire of techniques, were all taught by Renya. While she worked, she cast Control to bring the laundry in. They were then folded, and the nightwear was neatly placed on the beds, taking care to avoid wrinkles.

Then, she began cooking dinner and readying the bath. Dinner today was ground meat with a dab of spice, cheese-coated pasta, and a salad of leafy vegetables with boiled eggs and chicken. The finishing touch was a fruit bowl and some wine. The wine was cheap, but it did its job.

Once she finished cleaning up after dinner, her day’s work was mostly done. There remained a few more duties such as cleaning the bathroom and readying the ingredients for breakfast tomorrow, but there was no rush. As long as she got those done before going to bed, it would be fine.

For some reason, Rona was the first to sleep. Shion was next, followed by Renya. Frau was fairly sure there was some reason for Renya turning in last. She never asked, though, because she was also fairly sure the reason would turn out to be something very stupid that Renya deemed extremely important.

Only after the three residents were sound asleep did Frau crawl into bed. When she did, it was the cue for those shapeless and soundless forms to emerge from the basement. Through the rest of the night, countless shadows would roam the house in silence, guarding it from intruders. Their work would continue until the next morning when she opened the curtains again.

What should Frau make for breakfast tomorrow? That one last thought occupied her mind as she closed her eyes.

So did the day of a silkie come to a close.