Chapter 52
Eavesdropping
For a brief moment, the young princess stood motionless in what was now an exposed puzzle room, her eyes closed tightly in resigned dismay at the reality that she now faced.
In the fifteen or so months of Princess Mary's new life, she had quietly begun to genuinely detest her distant, long-dead ancestor, the ancestor who was supposed to have been an otherworldly hero. The hero who had founded the Midgard kingdom that she was eventually supposed to inherit.
This dislike of somebody she did not know was not because she had not met them; it wasn’t even because of any rumours or legends that surrounded the long-dead hero.
No, Mary had started to hate the founder because the more that she learned about them and their actions, the more incomprehensible and ultimately detestable they seemed to be.
Nothing in her short life exemplified this more than now, as the young princess stood in a secret room; with a reluctant and yet restrained sigh, Mary slowly reopened her eyes, with her sight now returned to her. The princess stared in what quickly became total frustration at the rising steam of what could only be a communal bathroom.
Worse, it took no concentration at all for the princess to listen to the chatting and giggling of what she immediately recognised as the maids that she had been interacting with for the last few months.
The women who had attempted to "make up for” their distance during the year prior.
Mary stopped for a moment, considering the clarity of the voices that she was hearing.
'Actually', Mary began to ask internally, ‘Aren’t their voices a bit too clear?’
In the back of her head, the princess felt the second minds concentrate intently for a moment, not at the voices, but at the now opened puzzle door.
{Some sort of sound amplification on the door.}
A second mind finally said firmly.
‘Of course. I shouldn’t have expected any less.’
Mary withheld a sigh, somewhat unsurprised at the enchantment but annoyed all the same.
{Sylvia knew.}
Mary jerked at the statement, but a quick thought forced her to nod in begrudging agreement.
The princess narrowed her eyes as she thought on the matter further; it was certain that Sylvia definitely knew where the type one puzzle doors led to—truly, there was no doubt in Mary's mind that if she were to check the other type one rooms, they would all lead to bathrooms. However, she had to hold out hope that not all of the bathrooms would be actively inhabited.
She would have to check later just to be sure or confirm it with Sylvia, but the existence of one room like this would imply to her that the others were similar, if not the same.
Now that she had solved this puzzle, Mary was equally certain that the mischievous maid would now be willing to talk about these particular puzzle rooms.
Given enough time, anyone could have figured out the type one puzzles; she had only recognised its true nature near the end, so there was no doubt in her mind that Elizabeth had solved them.
What’s more…
‘Sylvia’s smug amusement means that she knew that it led to an occupied bathroom.’
{We should have been more suspicious when she started talking about our scheduling.}
{I told you! In all of the time that we’ve known her, our obsessive scheduling is something that she has tended to avoid.}
Mary and her internal duplicates were in agreement on this matter: her personal maid had set things up so that she would eventually open this door while the bathroom was occupied.
Unfortunately, the princess could not be certain why.
‘Was she just being mischievous, or is there a different reason?’
“That serious look that the princess has really is too cute.”
Mary flinched at the words, her entire body jerking in the direction that they had originated.
Internally, she fully expects to meet the eyes of the maid who had spoken – she recognised the voice, and it was the excitable redhead that she had reluctantly gotten used to over the last few months.
Instead, she sees the back of a crimson head.
For a moment, the princess looks around the bathroom, both surprised and annoyed with the clarity that she can see through the rising steam. Yet, taking a few more moments to consider what she was seeing, she finds herself only mildly surprised to find that none of the maids are quite positioned to look at the doorway that she had inadvertently opened.
Mary frowns, privately convinced that the founder had arranged the bathroom seating to make discovery more difficult. The long-dead voyeur had certainly added additional enchantments to the door to make peeking easier.
“The princess?”
Came the neutral voice of the black-haired maid.
Mary grimaced externally at the description; she had not found a way to actually learn the names of the maids as of yet. Only the noble-born palace head maid Katarina had ever been introduced to her.
The princess had eventually asked Sylvia what their names were; in the same way she had asked about Katarina, Mary had only attempted to do so once.
Mary internally grimaced at the memory; her personal maid had shown not only her noble upbringing but also her general disdain for the weak by declaring she hadn’t bothered to remember their names.
It was one of the few memories Mary had of Sylvia that made her furious instead of annoyed at the maid and her peculiarities.
Part of Mary understood somewhat that these maids were supposed to be part of the faceless masses and that as a princess she wasn’t supposed to care about learning the names of what the locals would consider a group of commoner maids.
This was presumably why nobody had ever properly introduced them or why they hadn’t introduced themselves.
However, the part of Mary that still identified as Alexander found the entire notion of not learning their names to be rude and offensive; Mary truly believed that if it were allowed to persist, it would label her as incredibly and unnecessarily rude.
From what the princess had learnt about this world and its social norms, Mary truly wished to distance herself from what was considered normal.
It was as these thoughts were swirling around her mind, secretly listening to the chatting of the maids, that Mary had the thought that maybe the total breach of their privacy had an upside.
‘They’ll definitely say each other’s names eventually, right?’
“You don’t think the princess is cute, trying so hard to hide her learning magic?”
This time Mary didn’t restrain herself to a mere flinch; she was too busy feeling abject terror at being found out.
“The princess is learning magic?”
Asked one of the other maids present, this maid Mary didn’t recognise, and it was at that moment that the princess truly realised that the bathroom contained far more than just the maids she was familiar with.
“Definitely.”
“That aura can’t mean anything else.”
The multi-coloured maids she was familiar with all spoke in agreement.
“Isn’t that bad?”
One of the unknown maids asked reluctantly, causing many of the other unknowns to frown at her.
“Only if she gets found out.”
The green-haired maid said whimsically. Something that, from what Mary could see, garnered near total agreement with all of the maids present.
“But… you all found out?”
The doubtful unknown pointed out her confusion at the discrepancy, which was obvious. Privately, Mary found herself agreeing with her.
The princess was at this point totally uncertain what was going on with this conversation, and considering Sylvia had pointed her towards it, it almost seemed to be orchestrated.
“Well, we’re not going to tell anyone.”
Said the red-haired maid.
“Right?”
All of the maids that Mary was familiar with, and all of the unknowns but the one they were talking to, said in forceful unison, something which caused the unknown that they were looking at to flinch defensively.
“Aren’t we supposed to tell the king?”
The doubtful, unfamiliar maid asked her fellows hesitantly.
“Only if you want to die.”
The doubtful maid blinked in shock at the black-haired maid, clearly understanding the threat but uncertain where it was truly coming from.
The maids all giggled in amusement at her confusion.
“The silver beast will get you before you can tell anyone the news.”
“Or at least, anyone that would act on it.”
“She puts in a lot of effort to distract the head maid.”
The maids all chatter amongst themselves.
“What silver beast? Who distracts the head maid?”
The now extremely confused unknown maid practically begs for understanding. Mary nods in agreement – she’s uncertain how legitimate the entire conversation is, but she’s admittedly curious now.
The other maids all exchange knowing looks.
“We forgot that you're new here.”
“It’s been less than a year, hasn’t it?”
A few of them asked the now-revealed new maid.
“Sylvia the silver beast.”
One of the other unknown maids spoke firmly.
“She makes sure to distract the head maid.”
Somebody explains.
“Well, it’s not as if a noble-born woman would know when a baby isn’t acting like one.”
The red-haired maid said disdainfully, something which gained a tremendous deal of agreement from the women present.
“The princesses’ personal maid is called a beast?”
The doubtful maid looks at all of her fellow maids and asks something that Mary was also interested in. It was also a question that caused another round of giggling.
“Well, her family is famous for often choosing violence, so it’s something of a shared moniker.”
“Not that she hasn’t earned it while at the palace.”
“It took her less than a month to put the knights in their place.”
Again, the maids started exchanging knowing looks, something that neither Mary nor the doubtful maid missed.
“What took a month?”
The doubtful maid asked hesitantly; the question was something that Mary internally cheered at.
The maids all exchanged another round of looks but chose to explain.
“You know in the training yard, there’s an extremely dark spot on the ground?”
The red-haired maid, who it seems had become a spokesperson, began to speak.
“… Yes? I know that’s a blood spot; all training yards have something like that.”
Said the doubtful maid.
“The training yard of the royal palace didn’t.”
The red-haired maid replied, causing both Mary and the doubtful maid to look at her in shock.
“The main training yard used to have a heavy enchantment that kept it clean from such things you see.”
As the explanation progressed, Mary gained a suspicion of what had occurred in the training yard, something that the doubtful maid obviously shared; nonetheless, the doubtful maid had to ask further.
“Used to?”
“Sylvia destroyed them.”
The red-haired maid answered firmly.
“It was mostly by accident.”
Added one of the others.
‘How do you mostly by accident destroy an enchantment that was presumably extremely durable?’
Mary asked internally, truly wishing, and not for the first time, that she could just step into the bathroom and question the maids without causing herself a significant deal of complications.
Many of the maids giggled at the look of shock that the doubtful maid now had.
“Almost all of the kingdom's knights are from the nobility.”
Mary blinked at the non sequitur; wasn’t that obvious?
“And that means that many of those men come into the palace with… ideas.”
The maids all shared a dark mutter, and Mary correctly guessed that this was about the slavery laws.
“A group of three knights joined the palace guard; they were from some of the hyper-traditional noble families.”
“The families that think that the slavery laws must be extended to common folk.”
One of the maids confirmed this by adding her input.
“It was mostly used as an excuse. Probably.”
The black-haired maid said.
By this point Mary could largely guess what had occurred; clearly the group of knights had somehow gained the ire of Sylvia, and as a former B-ranked adventurer, she had destroyed them so totally that she had damaged a training yard.
The maids that she was listening to quickly confirmed her theory.
“They spent a few weeks being forcefully handsy with poor Alice.”
At that moment, one of the maids whom Mary didn’t recognise flinched before lowering herself deeper into the water. Quickly, her fellow maids gathered around her sympathetically.
“We all complained about it, but nobody did anything about it.”
One of the maids not trying to soothe Alice continued.
“Those bastards eventually cornered Alice in a mostly abandoned room.”
The doubtful maid by now looked on in shock but couldn’t help but ask.
“And did they…?”
“Before they could do anything.”
Came a frail whisper of a voice, one that, to Mary's surprise, came from Alice.
“She appeared right behind them.”
Alice said with clear awe.
The red-haired maid nodded and took back control of the conversation.
“Sylvia dragged the three of them to the yard; it was hilarious to watch.”
She started to giggle maliciously.
“All three of them were larger than her, but she dragged them along like it was nothing.”
“And then after she threw them at the exact place that the massive dark spot in the training yard is, she pulled out a massive axe out of the air."
“And told them to die.”
The red-haired maid said with a degree of awe that was almost equal to that of Alice.
“She killed three palace knights, and no one stopped her?”
The doubtful maid asked while frowning.
“Well, first of all. Nobody wants to get on the bad side of the Iyazoi family; she’s nobility too, remember.”
At that statement, all of the maids present, including the doubtful one, nodded.
“And second, we maids are supposed to be under the royal families' protection. From the perspective of nobles, those knights were trying to "steal" something that belonged to the king.
The maid said, grimacing, and Mary joined her.