Appendix — The Lord and Maids’ Culture Clash

The maids working in the palace held Zenjirou in high regard. Or if you were to put it more casually, you could say they saw him as easy to deal with.

He didn’t find fault with their work nor did he give orders on a whim. He wouldn’t even severely rebuke them if certain circumstances were to lead to their work not being finished on time, as long as they had a concrete explanation for it. He always remembered to thank them when they finished their work as well.

None of these things were much on their own, but all together it created a comfortable environment, so it wasn’t surprising that they thought so much of him.

Regardless, nothing in the world is perfect, so they did, of course, have some complaints. He rarely allowed them into the living room or bedroom, his strange reservations when it came to wielding authority often caused him not to provide clear orders, and his otherworldly origins meant that his culinary tastes were very different from the average Capuan.

Each of the maids had various complaints along those lines. However, if they were asked what they found most vexing, the majority of them would likely be of a single mind: his unusual fondness for bathing.

This morning, several of the maids were working intently to clean the absurdly large baths of the inner palace. With the high temperatures in Capua, such physical labor was generally done during the relatively cool hours of the morning and evening.

The two baths were big enough to pass for small swimming pools and had been drained of water. The young maids stood inside them, barefoot, holding long-handled brushes in both hands and scrubbing at the surfaces hard enough to work up a sweat on their brows.

It was simple hard labor with no hint of fun, so it was hardly surprising that they would complain.

“Argh, my back is killing me!” cried the petite girl with short hair.

“The sound carries in here,” snapped the taller girl at her side, “so keep your stupid shouts down, Faye. Besides, you’re short so you’ve got it easier than me. I’m practically folded in half here.”

Underscoring those words, the second maid, Dolores, took her right hand from the brush’s handle and tried to punch the feeling into her back. There was some truth to what she said. Cleaning lower spaces did place more of a burden on a person the taller they were. Then again, using the long-handled brushes meant the burden on them was relatively insignificant. Dolores’s nerves were simply raw from the monotonous effort they were putting in, so it was little more than a general outburst.

Faye, however, wasn’t enough of a saint to let the comment pass.

“What are you on about? You’re way louder! After all, your volume’s proportional to your height, you colossus!”

“That can’t be true. If it were, we wouldn’t be able to hear you without straining our ears.”

“I’m not that small!”

The fact that they didn’t stop working even while flinging insults at each other was perhaps a point in their favor.

Cleaning the water from the floor meant that their skirts were hiked even higher than usual, making them all but miniskirts at least five centimeters from their knees. Seeing the young women with their legs bare, not even wearing socks, only sandals made of water drake leather, would ordinarily be rather titillating. However, in spite of their appealing outfits, they were standing bow-legged to get purchase in order to properly clean the floor, glaring at the surface like it had killed their parents, so there was nothing in the scene to cause arousal.

“I told you to be quiet, dwarf!”

“You be quiet, giant!”

The argument bounced off the large room’s stone walls, and as it grew more vigorous, their work grew less so. Eventually, the mismatched pair were simply glaring at each other, not cleaning, and not moving around the room while they were supposed to be working.

There was no chance of their supervisor overlooking such disgraceful behavior. The middle-aged maid in the corner, who had been scrubbing her own section, picked up the bucket of water at her feet without speaking and flung its contents out.

“Huh?!”

“Gah?!”

The cold water suddenly splashing their bare legs caused the two younger women to jump and shriek. Still, considering the water had reached no higher than their skirts, the other woman must have held back.

The middle-aged maid glared at the pair with half-lidded eyes, remonstrating them with a sigh. “You’ve stopped. Continue your work.”

“R-Right, sorry, Ms. Oraja.”

“O-Our apologies, Ms. Oraja.”

The two of them shook exaggeratedly as if they’d been physically struck by her rebuke, despite Oraja, who was in charge of the baths, not having been particularly harsh.

At first glance, their supervisor had no truly defining features. She was an average middle-aged maid. If one had to pick something to define her by, it would likely be her constantly half-lidded eyes.

The taciturn maid watched her subordinates frantically return to work before she seemed to lose interest and resumed her own. She hadn’t remonstrated them quite as harshly as another supervisor, Ines (in charge of cleaning) would have done. Nor did she strike them like the maid in charge of cooking, Vanessa, would have.

Still, even “the three problem maids” wanted to avoid her glare. And there was a single reason for that: Oraja would wordlessly watch them work, with no expression on her face, and then judge their efforts to be sufficient or not. If she decided that the work was insufficient for a maid of the inner palace, it would be a decision made without emotion. She would simply quietly inform the head maid, Amanda, of their failure.

Oraja’s stance was that work was something you learned by observing and doing, while instruction was needed only as an introduction, and her role was to evaluate her subordinates as useful or not. It was the opposite of Vanessa’s and Ines’s methods, who saw it as their duty to either beat the skills into or coach the younger maids, respectively. Even with their shameful nickname, the young trio always reflexively straightened upon receiving an admonition from Oraja.

Faye and Dolores returned to working properly, so it was a superb method in that respect, although the girls themselves probably found it hard to bear. For a while, silence reigned, with the only sound being the scraping of the brushes over the wet floor.

Dolores was skilled at dissembling, but Oraja forcing silence from Faye’s overly energetic self was rather impressive. Still, if Faye had the personality required to devote herself silently to work for a long while, she would never have become one of the problem maids in the first place. She wasn’t daft enough to neglect her work further after having been scolded already, but she gradually grew more and more restless before suddenly realizing that she hadn’t heard a word from their other roommate, Letti, since entering the room.

While Letti certainly took things at her own pace and was a woman of few words, it was rare for her not to speak at all while they were working.

Making sure to continue her scrubbing, Faye snuck a glance to the side to see Letti’s usually dull face and droopy eyes filled with determination as she worked vigorously enough to set her chest, prominent even through her uniform, swinging.

Huh? she thought to herself, not understanding the uncharacteristic behavior from her friend. Why is she being so diligent?

As Faye considered the situation, the other girl finished scrubbing her own area and walked over with splashing noises on the wet floor.

“I’m done, so I’ll help you now. Where should I start?” she asked, speaking rather quickly for someone as easygoing as she usually was. This was even stranger; she would normally never be so fastidious.

Faye forgot to answer the question and simply whispered back, “What’s going on, Letti?”

Her unspoken question—when had the other girl become so earnest?—made Letti open her eyes wide and offer a surprising answer. “Did you forget? If we don’t finish up soon, we’ll be last to do our shopping during lunch.”

“Ah?!”

“Huh?!”

The word “shopping” made not only Faye cry out but also Dolores a second later. After a moment of shock, a look of understanding spread across their faces. They had indeed forgotten. This was the day, which came every three months, when the trader would be at the inner palace.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

Less than an hour later...

“Hurry up!”

“Faye, if you run in the corridors, Head Maid Amanda will get angry with you.”

“It’s your fault for forgetting your purse, Letti! Argh, we’re so late!”

“We’d have been done long ago if you hadn’t forgotten and slacked off in the baths.”

“Just hurry! We don’t have time to argue!”

Having gotten through their cleaning of the bathroom as quickly as possible, the three troublemakers sprinted down the halls of the inner palace. Of course, the word “sprinted” only applied to their own perception of their movements; in truth, they were moving at what could be described as “a brisk pace” at most.

Regardless of anything else, they were maids of the inner palace, so they wouldn’t cross any truly catastrophic lines. But it was their habit of straying so close to the line that had gotten them their moniker. So the three of them moved at the quickest pace their position afforded them and changed into outdoor footwear at the rear entrance, then crossed the courtyard through dazzling sunlight and headed for another building.

The inner palace was rather small when taking the size of the country into account, but it was still far from being made up of a single building. The main area where Zenjirou slept was at the center, with several other buildings inside a garden, all surrounded by a wall. Everything within that wall was part of the inner palace.

The building they were heading for now was on the outermost edge. It was nearly part of the wall itself and separated the isolated space made by the inner palace from the outer world. This meant that unless they had some specific business there, the young maids were not normally allowed to approach it.

As they sped across the courtyard, three other maids appeared from their destination, chatting.

“Oh, Carina...”

“Kate?”

“Crystal!”

The other three noticed their approach and grinned at them with slightly different smiles than they had just been wearing. They lifted their hands, showing off the fabrics and small perfume bottles they had bought.

The three problem maids all looked sour. They had been beaten to the sale. The trader brought many one-of-a-kind items, and the fact that such items sold well was much the same from one world to another. If he had presented a particularly good find, these other three would have already snapped it up. And judging from their victorious smiles, that was a definite possibility.

On top of that, as they passed each other, Carina gave them a surreptitious V-sign with her index and middle fingers. Considering the Capuans’ lack of an alphabet, the gesture hadn’t originally existed there, and it was a sign of Zenjirou’s influence on them.

“Grrh!”

Faye’s coworkers’ triumphant smiles set her growling and made her want to lay into them, but she knew this wasn’t the time. Another group might get ahead of them, and that would be beyond stupid.

“Let’s hurry, Dolores, Letti!” she declared instead.

“Ah, wait, Faye! We might be outside, but if the head maids catch us running like this, we’ll get in so much trouble!”

“Fayyyye, wait up!”

Dolores and Letti both quickened their paces to catch up with Faye as she squared her small shoulders and rushed off in a huff.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

The group entered the big room to find a well-built man of middle age sitting cross-legged on the carpet, presiding over an array of goods with a shrewd smile.

There were cloths of many colors and metal bottles the size of their thumbs, filled with perfumed oils, along with accessories like rings and necklaces.

“Ah, so wonderful!” Faye cried out joyfully.

As she was about to rush over to peruse the items, she caught sight of a figure by the wall. The person sitting there, glaring so strongly that she could practically hear the look, was none other than Amanda, the head maid in charge of all matters in the inner palace. Her figure was, as ever, inhumanly perfect, such that it made one think even the creases in her clothes formed by her position obeyed her will.

Amanda normally spent her time in the main building, giving instructions to each of the department heads and maintaining a comfortable environment for Zenjirou, but the reason for her presence here was that she was also responsible for negotiating with and observing the traders.

The room boasted six soldiers with spears in their hands as well, but while in the room, Amanda had an exceptional right of command over them. The maid was putting her life on the line to maintain order within the inner palace, and there were six armed men ready to follow her instructions.

The fact that the trader’s bright business smile didn’t falter despite the harsh look and naked weapons was proof that the chubby man was not a supplier to the royal family for nothing, and that he had more courage than average. He remained seated as he smiled at the three new arrivals.

“Oh my, Madams Faye, Dolores, and Letti. A pleasure to see you once again. I believe I have just the items for all of you. Please, take a look,” he said, bidding them sit in front of the goods.

Remembering his customers in spite of only seeing them once every three months, and immediately being able to put a name to each face, spoke highly of his capability as a trader.

Almost as if drawn in by his smile, the trio knelt on the carpet. They could feel the wordless pressure warning them not to bring shame upon the maids of the inner palace, along with an implicit threat behind it, so they weren’t as expressive as usual, but the rarity of the opportunity here was something they had looked forward to, and it was enough for them to overcome their nervousness.

“Oh, I’ve never seen this pattern before. It’s a little strange but wonderful,” Dolores mused.

“An impressive spot, Madam Dolores. This pattern has become rather in vogue within the capital. The supply is much lower than the demand, so that is the only sample I currently have.”

“I might get a comb, perhaps? My favorite one lost some of its teeth the other day.”

“In that case, I would recommend this one, Madam Letti. It was shaped from the shell of a great ocean turtle. In addition to the item’s beauty, each tooth is finely shaped, so I believe it is the best comb you will find.”

“Hmm, what should I get? I’d like a cute ring or necklace, but I couldn’t wear it at work...”

“Madam Faye, what would you say to this hairband? My own humble opinion is that it would allow you to look fashionable without getting in the way of your work, unlike rings and necklaces.”

Their eyes sparkling, they surveyed the items before them as the rotund merchant continued his sales pitches. The fact that he had nonchalantly recommended a comb with few teeth for Letti’s curly hair, and a band that was suitable for even Faye’s short hair, was doubtless another sign of his abilities.

The crisp words from the trader gradually caused the maids to forget the pressure emanating from Amanda as the three of them leaned forward and put their hands on the carpet, their gazes fixed on the products.

Falling to all fours, looking greedily at the items while counting the coins in their purses, they were far from being models of the refined inner palace maid, but Amanda didn’t show any sign of coming down on them for it. Whatever else she might have been, the head maid wasn’t as uptight or lacking in compassion as the younger women feared. She was accommodating enough to turn a blind eye to a certain extent in situations like this, which served to relieve the workers’ stress.

“Hey, which do you think suits me best?” Dolores asked Faye brightly as she held up various pieces of cloth.

“Uhh, I think that one with the blue lines is pretty.”

“Hmm? It’s a better fabric, but I don’t think it would fit Dolores right. I think this tawny one would suit you better.”

No matter the world, something that never changes is the sense of satisfaction and enjoyment one gets from fulfilling one’s desire to buy things on a limited budget. In fact, if someone had an unlimited budget and could just take whatever they liked, shopping likely wouldn’t be as much fun.

Eventually, the trio used up their budgets and bought what they wanted. Then the topic changed.

“Thank you all very much. Now, please take a look at this,” the trader said, his smile not fading at all as he lined up small silver bottles in front of them.

“What are these?”

“Perfumed oils?”

“Whoa, so pretty. The only silver one I have is an heirloom from my mother.”

The three of them spoke in turn, their eyes growing wide. In general, perfumed oils were stored in bottles made from wood, copper, or silver, with the quality increasing respectively.

Wooden-bottled oils were practically disposable and for commoners, so being low-level nobles, the girls didn’t own many. Yet the silver ones were certainly high-class items.

Seeing their excitement, the skilled trader’s smile deepened. “Please, feel free to examine them. I prepared the contents, and I am rather proud of them. Each has a different scent.” As he spoke, he pushed the palm of his hand out invitingly.

“Oh, but...”

“Our budget.”

“Yeah, it’s almost all gone...”

Amanda spoke to the saddened maids from her position by the wall, where she had remained silent up until then. “You need not worry about the cost. These are a kind gift from Sir Zenjirou. Choose one to your liking.”

The trio’s reaction was truly dramatic.

“What? No way!”

“Sir Zenjirou said that?”

“Really?”

Their earlier depression promptly turned on its head as they once more moved forward, practically devouring the silver bottles with their eyes. Each bottle was about the same size—that of their thumb—but there were a variety of designs carved into them. One had something akin to a spider’s web, another had twining vine leaves, and yet another had a bas relief of a water dragon arching its neck.

“To explain simply, from the right we have: rosefang, warm chamomile, peppermint, red lily, spikenard, fragrant horndrake, eyeless snake, jeweled water drake, and muskrat.”

“No way?! Fragrant horndrake?”

“I’ll have the jeweled water drake!”

“Ah, I like peppermint, though maybe the muskrat...”

The three maids’ interests focused on the faunal scents. This was just what the trader had expected. Floral oils were generally easier to cultivate and harvest the plants for, but the faunal ones carried the risks of hunting, making them more upmarket.

Some people preferred the floral oils simply for the smells, but with the opportunity to get what would ordinarily be very expensive for free, it was human nature to gravitate towards the most valuable options. If anything, Letti was an exception for being drawn to the oil that best matched her preferences rather than the most costly, high-class ones.

A vein started pulsing in Amanda’s temple at their display of raw greed, but she decided not to say anything...at least not here.

The three younger women didn’t notice the sharpness and chill in the head maid’s look as they each picked up their chosen bottle.

“Right, I’ll have the fragrant horndrake!”

“I’ll take the jeweled water drake. It doesn’t feel real...”

“Hm, I’ve decided. I’ll go with the peppermint after all.”

Seeing their fidgeting and excitement as they smiled widely, Amanda was compassionate enough that she felt it would be improper to lecture them on manners and courtesy at the moment. Besides, scolding them in front of outsiders—as long as they hadn’t gone too far—was not something she was keen on doing.

Swallowing her reproach and lecture, the head maid’s face and voice were equally emotionless as she spoke to the maids now that they had finished shopping.

“Those are your choices, then? Use them well, and be sure to thank Sir Zenjirou. However, half of them should be used to mix with the soap when you bathe. You will then need to report to him how they feel to use. Is that understood?”

Soap was the invention that Zenjirou had most recently devoted himself to making. He had managed a viscous liquid, but it still stank of the oil.

Hearing the ulterior motive behind the expensive gifts, each of the three reacted differently.

“What?”

“Oh, so that’s why.”

“Huh? We need to mix it with the soap? What a waste.”

However...

“I said ‘understood?’”

The trio seemed to sense the danger incipient in the cold gaze as they corrected themselves.

“R-Right!”

“Understood, Head Maid.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

They straightened up and bowed in unison.

Once the younger maids had left, the room fell silent. The six soldiers against the walls and at the entrance were forbidden from talking inside, so it meant that the only people in the room were, for all intents and purposes, Amanda and the middle-aged trader. If both held their tongues, the silence would continue indefinitely.

However, Amanda didn’t intend to preserve that silence for longer than necessary.

“Allow me to once again offer my thanks,” she began, bowing her head in a picture-perfect gesture.

The merchant’s lips curled into an amiable smile underneath his deep black mustache as he waved a hand. “No, no, not at all. It is an honor beyond compare to be able to offer my wares to those working in the inner palace.”

“I see,” Amanda answered, withdrawing the words, not seeing a need to refute him. Regardless, the thanks she had offered were valid.

The man was a purveyor of goods for the royal family. While he was himself a commoner, he was also a merchant wealthy enough to put lower nobles to shame. With this in mind, his wares were all high-class, and he would ordinarily not have anything the young maids would be able to buy with their own funds. For example, it would be like making an appointment on Earth for a manager of a high-class jeweler like Harry Winston, Cartier, or Bulgari to come to a private home just to purchase a single piece from them for less than ten thousand yen. It would not be worth the effort.

Even so, the man’s smile was no mere falsification. “You truly need not let it concern you. Her Majesty herself buys from me periodically, so my turnover is never in the red, and above all, my dealings with Sir Zenjirou have gained me things even a mountain of gold could not.”

The objects in question were cultural items from Earth. Flat buttons sewn on with four holes in the surface, for instance. Capua only had buttons that protruded from the clothing as a form of decoration, so these flat buttons had the potential to cause a small cultural revolution.

With flat buttons in use, they could even develop new styles with buttons hidden on the insides of clothes, which would be particularly valuable to laborers as their size and style meant they wouldn’t be in the way. The merchant had plans to design military dress using these types of buttons and to sell them to the royal army before long.

Other things Zenjirou had done included showing him screws, screw caps on plastic bottles, and the pump on a shampoo bottle. All of these required significant engineering to reproduce, but once mass production became viable, they were utterly groundbreaking developments. If even one of them panned out as expected, he’d recoup his investment in the blink of an eye.

“If this allows me to remain in Sir Zenjirou’s good graces, there could be no greater joy, truly,” he said, keeping his ambitions to himself as he respectfully bowed his head along with his modest words.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

Back in the inner palace, a source of resentment amongst the maids was once again Zenjirou’s love of baths. This resentment didn’t just stem from the daily effort of cleaning them each day. A large part of it was that he had come from another world and was recommending, albeit inadvertently, his own bathing habits to the maids in this world, and the recommendation was practically an order.

Capua was blessed with large water reserves, so washing the body was a practice already well-rooted in their culture. However, the climate was also obscenely hot, so even noblewomen were less likely to bathe rather than simply rinse. Therefore, Zenjirou’s “recommendation” naturally saw some resistance from the women of this world.

Still, a year had passed, and the trio’s views had started to change.

“Phew, we’re finally done for the day.”

“Aw, looks like no one’s here.”

“Of course not. Look how late it is.”

It was very late at night at this point, and their voices echoed through the changing room. At this hour, their master and Aura had both bathed already, as had the rest of the young maids. Their late finish was, of course, to be expected, as they were on bath duty at the moment. Much like a cook’s lunch came after their patrons were all fed, those entrusted with the baths bathed after everyone else.

“Right, let’s get this finished,” Faye declared.

“Wash yourself properly and not just to get it over with. Sir Zenjirou is surprisingly fastidious about cleanliness,” Dolores scolded her in turn.

“That’s right, Faye, we finally get to have a bath. We should savor it.”

The pitch-black room was no impediment to them as they had the general layout of the space memorized, so the three of them chatted away as they swiftly disrobed, setting aside the soot-stained clothing from the heating apparatus.

“Uhh... I’m sure it was around here,” Dolores commented after undressing, feeling around for the LED lantern and finally pushing the switch. “Ah, got it!”

The room was suddenly filled with a bright light.

“Agh.”

“Oh, right, Sir Zenjirou said we could use the light as well.”

Their eyes scorched by the brightness after having grown used to the dark, Letti sounded much happier with the realization as she blinked the spots from her eyes. As she’d said, permission to use the light was a recent thing—until then, they’d had to bathe by the light of an oil lamp.

Zenjirou had originally tried to use as little light as possible to prolong the life of the batteries, but after asking the maids to test the body soap, he’d needed to reverse his judgment. Using soap meant that the floor became far more slippery, and accidents in the bath could be surprisingly dangerous. When comparing the batteries’ lifespans and the safety of the maids, the former became much less important.

“I’ll take the light, then,” Dolores chirped, holding a towel to cover the front of her body in one hand and lifting the lamp in the other.

“Ah, you’ve forgotten your perfume,” Faye warned.

“Jeez, you can just bring it with you. I’ve got my hands full here.”

“Fine, sure thing,” Faye answered, holding a towel against her body with one hand and the two tiny containers in the other.

“Ah, wait up,” Letti protested, trailing behind them as Dolores led them into the bathroom with the lamp raised.

The baths were directly behind the door of the changing room. Huge plumes of steam rose from the water, and the temperature was even warmer than outside despite it still being the hottest season of the year.

It was little wonder that Faye let out a noise of displeasure and screwed up her face. “Damn it,” she said, “it’s not just hot, I can barely breathe. Let’s hurry this up and get out of here.”

Having said her piece, she strode quickly to one of the baths.

“Hey, don’t just head for the cold bath. You need to wash off with warm water first,” Dolores scolded in the direction of Faye’s bare backside. She placed the light on a stand by the wall and used her now-free hand to pick up a bucket as she walked towards the other bath.

“That’s right, Faye,” added Letti, “Take a proper bath. Washing in the hot water feels great.”

Out of all the maids, Letti was probably the one who most enjoyed the warm baths each day. She had been fond of them even before they’d been recommended by royalty, so she was one of the few who had adapted without issue.

“She’s right,” Dolores agreed. “I get why you don’t like it in this weather, but hot water gets your hair and body much cleaner. Give it up already and get over here.”

Dolores, in contrast, didn’t care for the process, but she understood the utility.

“All right, already. Fine, let’s get the worst part over with! Actually, if we don’t hurry it up, we’ll bump into our supervisors!”

At the other extreme was Faye, who utterly loathed bathing. She had always been one to simply rinse herself off, more like a bird bathing than anything else, so it was hardly a surprise that she disliked bath time.

“That’s true, I definitely don’t want to get caught in the bath by them,” Dolores answered with a shrug of her slender shoulders.

The head maids under Amanda all took late baths due to the amount of work they had. So if the trio finished up quickly, they wouldn’t have to deal with the uncomfortable situation of bathing at the same time as their superiors.

Faye took a wooden bowl and plunged it into a similarly wooden bucket that held the liquid soap, scooping out some of the contents.

“Ugh, this really reeks,” she complained.

“And that’s why Sir Zenjirou bought us expensive oils to get rid of the smell. Come on, try it out.”

“Eh he he, I’ll smell of peppermint. It’ll be great.”

Each of the three used their own bowls to gather some soap and then immediately opened the lids of the tiny bottles of perfumed oil. If anyone particularly sensitive to smells had been around when they opened the three different scents right next to each other, that person surely would have disapproved. However, the young maids’ noses were not that attuned. If anything, the mix of scents drowned out the oily stench of the homemade soap, so their expressions eased somewhat.

They inhaled deeply over the open containers, enjoying the fragrances.

“So, this is what fragrant horndrake smells like. Yup, it really gives off that classy air.”

“I’ve got jeweled water drake. Jeweled water drake. Apparently, fishermen who get their hands on some when it washes up can buy a new house and a new boat. I wonder how much you’d get for this bottle.”

“I’ve got my peppermint. Hmm, it’s a nice smell. I really do like it the best.”

“Hey, Dolores,” Faye interjected, “how’s that jeweled water drake smell? Let me have a sniff.”

“Ah, I want a try too. I’m after Faye,” Letti added.

“Sure, as long as you both lend me yours.”

The three of them passed around the different perfumes. At the moment, it seemed like there was no great difference between maids in this world and high school girls back on Earth. The scene was essentially the same as the “give me a bite” scene one might see in food plazas and the like.

The exchange continued for a few moments, each of them enjoying the various scents. They soon forgot that they were sitting naked on chairs in the bathroom, just enjoying their chat about which options they liked and didn’t.

The young women had only small towels covering their laps and were moving their hands expansively, so Faye’s modest chest, Dolores’s own completely flat one, and Letti’s—which was vast enough that it looked like she’d taken some of her friends’ shares as well—were completely unobstructed.

They sat around savoring the scents for quite some time, none of them keeping track of how long they had been there.

“Ah? How long are we going to keep this up?” Dolores—always the most rational of the three—suddenly pointed out. “We’re supposed to be testing them on the soap.”

“Ugh, that’s right...”

“We’re really supposed to mix this with the soap? It’s such a waste.”

Part of the reason they had allowed their prattling to go on for so long may well have been the unconscious thought that they’d be throwing the oils away.

“I agree with you, but that’s how it is. Come on.”

“Urgh, fine.”

“We should start with just a drop, right?”

As the three grumbled, they tilted the bottles over the bowls of soap. Droplets fell in with a splish and vanished into the mass.

“Nothing. I can barely smell it.”

They mixed in another drop.

“Hmm? Maybe a bit more?”

Carefully, drop by painstaking drop, they mixed in their precious oils...

“Hey, it doesn’t reek anymore.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Aw, look how much we used up all at once.”

By the time the perfumes started to win out over the oily stench, about a tenth of each bottle had been depleted. While the loss left their hearts saddened, the sacrifice had by no means been for nothing.

“Smells good.” Dolores smiled in satisfaction after washing off the soap with the bucket and sniffing her arm.

“It better. We used so much oil that if it didn’t help, I’d probably cry.” Faye, for her part, still had some lingering regrets about the loss, and her smile was much fainter.

“Yup, the soap is really great, though. Look, my finger just glides over my skin. It doesn’t smell if you add the perfume, so I’d honestly use it every day like this.”

While it was true that Letti had liked bathing to begin with, the perfumed soap had certainly brightened her mood as she smiled happily, brushing a finger across her skin.

“You shouldn’t worry about it too much, Faye,” Dolores reminded her. “Sir Zenjirou gave them to us, so it’s not like we had to pay for them ourselves.”

“We didn’t, but it’s still a waste having to use it like this when we finally got some really high-class stuff we couldn’t buy on our own.”

Even with the regrets they were voicing, the three all rinsed off and headed for the bath, where they sank into a pool of water that seemed big enough to swim in.

Faye preferred the colder water and was immediately sending glances towards the bath next to them, but she decided to spend some more time with the others first. Leaning her head back on the edge of the bath to look up at the sky, she splashed her arms and legs around, stretching out in a slightly inconsiderate way.

Suddenly, she had a thought and voiced a question. “Oh, yeah, what did Carina end up getting? She was so smug about it with her victory sign, so it was probably pretty good. Do either of you know?”

“I only heard secondhand, but apparently it’s musk,” Dolores answered easily, serving up the gossip from where she sat with her hair bound up out of the way of the water.

“What?! No way, musk?!”

“The one from the Northern Continent?”

Faye and Letti asked their questions in unison, both shocked. Musk was a fragrance obtained from an animal called a musk deer. It was common knowledge that faunal scents were higher-class than floral as a rule, but when it came to musk, the animal itself wasn’t the issue.

The Southern Continent was primarily the domain of large reptiles, with practically no large mammals. Inevitably, that meant there were no musk deer on the continent. Therefore, all of the musk fragrance came from inter-continental trade. Since one in ten such ships were said to sink on the way, everything that took the trade route was unavoidably expensive. Even in comparison to Faye’s and Dolores’s fragrances, musk was a step above in terms of status. Simply wearing it at a high society function could well become a point of conversation.

“Damn, that little minx! I’ll have to get some off her later!”

The excitement of the news seemed to have warmed her up even further as Faye threw her fist in the air and hauled herself up.

“Hey, don’t just stand up like that! You sprayed me with water. You already getting out or something?” Dolores asked, wiping the spray off her face with a scowl.

“Hardly. It’s too warm. I’m getting into the cold water,” Faye answered. “If I just left now, I’d probably die from the blood rushing to my head.”

She immediately put actions to words, moving to the other bath. Now that Faye had mentioned it, Dolores noticed she had grown rather warm herself and that she’d not have the best night’s sleep if she just left the warm water immediately. She decided it would be a good idea to follow her friend’s example and then turned to Letti.

“What about you?” she asked their remaining roommate.

“Yeah, it’d be nice to cool off...but I just feel like I’m forgetting something.”

“Forgetting something? What?”

“If I knew what, I wouldn’t have forgotten, would I?”

Letti tilted her head with a vaguely troubled expression, each movement sending her breasts swaying in the water. Regardless, her misgivings couldn’t resist the siren call of the cool water, and she headed to the other bath with Dolores.

“Ahhh, I love that chill!” Faye cheered.

“Phew, that’s true. By the way, Faye, Letti thinks she’s forgotten something. Any idea what it could be?”

“Nope.”

“Hey, at least give it a little thought first! And why are you paddling around in the bath again? If the head maid saw you, she’d—”

That was as far as Dolores got before her expression froze.

“The head maid?”

“Ah ha ha... Dolores, I, uh, I remembered...”

“What a coincidence, I just realized as well.”

Dolores’s face twisted as Letti laughed drily, both of their gazes moving in the same direction... Towards the door to the changing room.

“What’s wrong with you two?” asked Faye, the only one of the three not to understand the situation, still paddling away.

The faint sounds from behind the door weren’t their imagination, and considering the younger maids had all bathed already, there was only one conclusion. At this rate, Faye’s future as a maid would be in jeopardy, so Dolores—not so callous towards her roommate as to ignore the risk—gave her a warning mixed with a sigh.

“Faye, this isn’t me being mean. Stop your swimming. It’s too late to escape now.”

“What? Escape?” Faye asked, her feet coming to rest on the bottom of the bath just as the door opened, letting several people inside.

“Oh my,” said Amanda, leading the group. “I thought there was someone here because of the clothes. That would be you?”

“Honestly, you three. I don’t intend to put restrictions on your free time, but you have an early morning tomorrow, so you should be more responsible,” Ines added.

“There’s no real harm, Ines. Some naked bonding with our young colleagues will do us good. Why not get them to wash our backs? It’s been a while.”

Amanda was leading the group, with Ines (in charge of cleaning) and Vanessa (the head of cooking) following with their own comments. Farther back were Emily and Oraja (in charge of the gardens and baths, respectively), both of whom remained silent.

The heads of every department were gathered in front of them.

“R-Right, we ended up spending a while on the soap...” Faye managed, finally grasping the situation.

“Pardon me,” Dolores said carefully, maintaining a polite expression.

“Ah ha ha... E-Excuse me, ma’ams...” Letti added, trying to somehow get out of the circumstances they had found themselves in.

The three caught a glimmer of hope as they all rose from the water and bowed. It was not meant to be, however, as the seniors did not silently watch them leave.

“Wait right there,” Amanda instructed. “As we are all here, we will verify that you can wash yourselves fully. You may be called upon by Sir Zenjirou at any time, after all.”

“Indeed, particularly you, Faye,” Ines added. “You do have a tendency to find caring for your hair and body to be too much of a hassle.”

“Well, that’s how it is,” Vanessa finished. “There’s no harm in learning how to take care of yourself while you’re young, so recognize that and get back over here.”

Having received orders from all their superiors, no refusal was possible.

“Right...”

“Understood, ma’ams.”

“Thank you for your care.”

The three problem maids answered them in turn with sighs, resigning themselves to their fates and heeding the summons.

The time they had spent enjoying themselves together now held an air of tension as it became a formal instruction on proper bathing by their superiors.