Chapter 11: A New Maid Joins the Fold
The morning peace of the Valerius manor was shattered by the distinct, musical sound of a priceless porcelain vase exploding into a hundred pieces against the stone floor of the hallway.
"I am so sorry! I'm sorry! Please don't beat me!"
Ren, dressed in a comfortable linen shirt, stepped out of his bedroom to find a disaster in the corridor. A tall, heavily built girl was on her hands and knees, frantically trying to sweep up the sharp porcelain shards with her bare, trembling hands.
She was a bovine beast-kin. Two small, polished horns protruded from her messy brown hair, and a long, tufted tail was tucked tightly between her legs in sheer terror. She was perhaps fourteen years old, but already stood a head taller than Martha, possessing a naturally broad, incredibly strong physique that her cheap, ill-fitting maid uniform struggled to contain.
Martha stood over her, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Lyla. That is the third vase this week. And you are bleeding."
Lyla looked down at her hands. In her panic, she had sliced her palms on the porcelain. "I'm sorry, Head Maid Martha! My feet just... they get tangled! I'll pay for it! Just deduct it from my wages for the next ten years!"
Ren activated his Skill Panel, focusing his eyes on the crying girl.
[INDIVIDUAL: Lyla]
[RACE: Beast-kin (Bovine)]
[AGE: 14]
[STR: 45] [AGI: 2] [INT: 5] [MANA: 15/15]
[STATUS: Minor Lacerations, Vestibular Imbalance]
Ren blinked. A Strength stat of 45 was absurd for a commoner. A fully trained Royal Knight in heavy armor usually hovered around 30. But her Agility was virtually non-existent, and the 'Vestibular Imbalance' status caught his scientific curiosity immediately.
"Martha, leave the shards," Ren said softly, stepping forward.
Lyla froze, looking up at the eight-year-old boy. She had heard rumors about the Young Master—that he was quiet, that he spent all day reading. She fully expected him to order her thrown out into the cold.
Instead, Ren knelt down on the stone floor right into the mess. He gently took her large, bleeding hands in his small ones.
"You're hurting yourself, Lyla," Ren said. He didn't use a chant. He simply visualized the cellular structure of her skin, accelerating the mitosis of her epithelial cells using a tiny fraction of his mana. A soft, warm glow emanated from his palms.
Before Lyla’s shocked eyes, the deep cuts on her hands knitted together, leaving behind smooth, unblemished skin.
"M-Magic?" Lyla stammered, pulling her hands back in awe. Tier-3 healing magic was something only high priests could perform, and they charged a fortune for it.
"Stand up, please," Ren requested.
Lyla scrambled to her feet, though she wobbled slightly as she did, her center of gravity seemingly fighting against her.
"Close your eyes," Ren instructed. "Now, lift your right foot off the ground."
Lyla squeezed her eyes shut and lifted her foot. Almost instantly, she listed heavily to the left, her arms flailing, and crashed hard against the stone wall.
"I'm sorry!" she wailed, covering her head. "I'm just a clumsy cow! I can't even stand straight!"
"You aren't clumsy," Ren corrected, pulling a silk handkerchief from his pocket and handing it to her to wipe her tears. "Your brain is receiving corrupted telemetry."
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Martha and Lyla both stared at him blankly.
"Your horns," Ren explained, pointing to his own head. "They change the acoustic resonance of your skull, and they add uneven weight. More importantly, the vestibular system—the tiny canals in your inner ear filled with fluid that tell your brain which way is 'up'—is under the wrong hydrostatic pressure. Your body is incredibly strong, Lyla, but your brain constantly thinks you are falling over."
Lyla didn't understand the big words, but she understood one thing: the Young Master didn't think she was stupid. He thought she was broken, but fixable.
"Can... can you fix it, My Lord?" Lyla whispered.
"Easily," Ren smiled. He stepped close to her. "May I touch your ears?"
Lyla nodded frantically, her bovine ears twitching.
Ren placed a hand on either side of her head. He closed his eyes. Using absolute, microscopic hydrokinesis, he located the endolymph fluid inside her semicircular canals. He didn't change the flesh; he simply adjusted the pressure of the fluid, balancing it perfectly to match the ambient atmospheric pressure and her unique skeletal structure.
"Open your eyes," Ren said, stepping back. "Now, lift your foot."
Lyla braced herself for the inevitable fall. She closed her eyes tight and lifted her heavy boot off the stone.
Nothing happened.
She didn't sway. She didn't feel the sudden, dizzying urge to throw her arms out. She opened her eyes and looked down. She was standing perfectly still on one leg, as grounded and stable as a massive oak tree.
"I'm... I'm standing," Lyla breathed, tears of sheer relief welling up in her eyes. For fourteen years, the world had felt like it was constantly tilting on a ship's deck. Now, the floor was finally flat.
Without thinking, the massive girl dropped to her knees and wrapped her strong arms around the small boy, burying her face in his shoulder and sobbing. "Thank you! Thank you, Master Ren!"
Martha stiffened, ready to reprimand the girl for crushing the Young Lord, but Ren waved her off. He patted Lyla’s back gently.
"You're welcome, Lyla," Ren smiled, feeling the immense, coiled power in her arms. "Now, how would you like to hit things for a living?"
An hour later, the cellar platform smoothly descended into the underground cavern. Lyla huddled in the corner of the stone lift, terrified of the moving floor, but Martha kept a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
When the platform settled, Lyla's jaw dropped. The obsidian walls, the bright glowing runic lights Ren had installed, and the massive hot spring where Elara and Kira were currently stretching in their pearlescent silk suits—it was like stepping into another world.
"Welcome to the Vanguard, Lyla," Ren announced.
He walked over to a rack of weapons he had forged the previous night. Most of them were sleek, lightweight blades for Kira or defensive staves for Elara. But at the very end of the rack rested a monstrosity.
It was a hammer, but calling it a hammer was an insult to blacksmiths. The handle was a four-foot rod of solid, carbon-reinforced steel. The head was a cubic block of ultra-dense osmium-equivalent stone that Ren had compressed from the cellar dirt. It weighed roughly three hundred pounds. A normal man couldn't even roll it across the floor.
"Pick that up," Ren pointed.
Lyla walked over, nervous. She gripped the steel handle with both hands and heaved. The veins in her arms bulged, and with a grunt, she lifted the massive weapon off the rack, resting the heavy block on her shoulder.
Elara and Kira stopped their stretching, staring in absolute shock.
"Good," Ren nodded, his scientific mind calculating the torque. "Kinetic energy equals one-half mass times velocity squared. Kira uses velocity to generate power. You, Lyla, are going to use pure mass."
Ren pointed to a target he had set up at the far end of the cavern—a two-foot-thick slab of solid granite.
"When you swing a weapon that heavy, the centrifugal force wants to pull you off your feet," Ren lectured, walking around her to adjust her stance. "So we use a wide base. Spread your feet past your shoulders. Bend your knees. You aren't just swinging with your arms; you are using the ground as a fulcrum and your spine as the lever."
Lyla adjusted her feet. Thanks to her newly balanced inner ears, she felt the center of gravity perfectly. She felt rooted to the obsidian floor.
"Take a deep breath," Ren ordered. "And break that stone."
Lyla gripped the steel shaft. She twisted her hips, engaging the massive muscles in her core and back, and swung the three-hundred-pound hammer in a devastating horizontal arc.
She didn't fall over. She didn't stumble. The torque transferred perfectly from the floor, through her body, and into the weapon.
The hammer head slammed into the granite slab.
The sound was deafening, like a cannon firing inside a cave. The two-foot-thick block of solid granite didn't just break; it exploded into fine, powdery dust and jagged shrapnel, blown backward by the sheer kinetic transfer.
Lyla followed through, the hammer coming to a smooth rest at her side. She stood perfectly balanced, staring at the crater she had just made.
"Oh," Lyla whispered. A massive, thrilled grin spread across her face.
Kira’s tail puffed out in shock. Elara slowly clapped her hands.
Ren smiled, pulling a set of freshly tailored spider-silk clothes from his satchel. He held them out to his newest maid.
"Welcome to the team, Lyla," Ren said. "Now, go get in the hot spring. We have a lot of ice cream to eat, and a lot of physics to learn before the stampede gets here."