Chapter 125: Four Maids
[Void POV] Year 5, Day 207
Void opened his eyes.
[Did I remember correctly? Did Kira and that goblin actually... no. Better not to think about it. Too much. Way too much for one day.]
He looked around the VIP area. Everything was calm and quiet now, settled into the aftermath.
Aldric was gone, Kira was gone, the goblins were gone — the crisis and spectacle had concluded while he was out.
Only those four maids still stood near the table where Aldric had been sitting. Otherwise the area was empty — everyone else had fled, distancing themselves from the disaster as fast as they could.
He heard Spy's voice via seed network. «Kira is fine. She's in one of the side areas. Free and no longer in pony equipment.»
Relief hit Void immediately, substantial enough to feel physical.
«Aldric was moved away by his people. Everyone at his table escaped—even before the Kira and goblin show ended. Probably trying to distance themselves from the mess and the humiliation, anything to avoid being associated with him.»
Void commented, «The maids are still there though.»
«Yes,» Spy confirmed. «They've been standing there the entire time without moving a meter. Just... standing. Waiting. Processing maybe.»
Void looked at those four maids more carefully. Really looked.
They looked broken — like their entire world had collapsed and everything they'd known had shattered around them. Lost, uncertain, completely adrift.
[They need help. Need to talk with someone, need support, need anything at all. And everyone here is avoiding them like plague after Aldric's failure. Can't just leave them like this and walk away.]
Void stood with his decision made.
He'd go talk with them, help them if possible. They clearly needed it — needed someone, anyone, to actually see them and care about their situation.
Maybe even help transfer their contracts, take them to Borderwatch, give them something better than whatever Aldric had put them through — a fresh start and an escape from this disaster.
Black Wings lined up around him as he approached the maids, clearly worried about follow-up complications or danger — professional protection in full vigilance mode.
The first maid—the one standing slightly forward, probably the leader—spoke as soon as Void reached them. Her voice sounded broken and strained, barely holding together.
"You are Mr. Void? Kira's master?"
Void nodded. "Yes."
She continued. Struggling. Finding words with visible effort. "You have a very impressive head maid, Mr. Void. I've seen my fair share of revenges and pettiness over the years. But nothing like that. Nothing even close."
She let her words settle, then continued. "I think you can rest easy for the next few centuries. After today's show, the kind of people who'd normally try things against your household will think three times before lifting a finger. She made quite the statement out there."
Void wasn't sure what to say after this compliment. [Not why I came here, not what I want to discuss. Kira's revenge isn't the point — these maids are. Their state, their need, their situation.]
He decided to change the topic. "How long have you served Aldric Razorclaw?"
"Two and a half years or so."
[Not long. So Aldric acquired them from somewhere relatively recently. Interesting. Where did he find four Ealdred-trained maids?]
"And before that?" Void asked gently, trying to understand their situation.
The maid answered with a brief flash of happiness — like a fading memory of distant warmth — before sadness came crushing back down. "I was head maid for Master Cornelius. And these three sisters—" she indicated the other three maids "—served directly under me."
[Damn. Messed up with this question. Everyone knows the story about Cornelius and the mass suicide. Banking Guild High Council member. Died. Servants jumped into his grave. Made massive news. Tragic. Disturbing. Famous.]
Void felt confused. [Why are these maids even alive?]
The answer came from the head maid. Almost like she'd read his mind. Or maybe his face had betrayed him. Or maybe it was just such a common question that she'd answered it countless times before.
"He made us promise. Me and my sisters. That we wouldn't follow him. Our kind master probably only wanted the best for us. Wanted us to live. To find new purpose. To continue."
Her voice went hollow and empty. "But it looks more like a curse with every passing hour. We watch the others who followed, who died properly, who served completely. And we're still here — trapped by promise, unable to follow them, unable to die, unable to move on."
[Fuck.]
Void cursed internally. [These four are like suicidal survivors? Only survivors from a dead servant network due to some promise given? And Aldric somehow got hold of them? This was Cornelius's family table—perhaps some relations somewhere. But don't want to dig more into it. Probably nothing good comes from understanding that connection anyway.]
He looked at the four more closely, searching for something to save this conversation — anything to shift the topic toward something less painful.
And wanted to curse again. More than before.
K3. Tigergirl. Stripes different, but not that different from Kira actually. Same height. Same size more or less.
And the way she was holding herself — he'd seen it before during his 200 years of slavery and recognized it instantly. Unmistakable, the kind of thing you never forgot.
Her tail had been cut. Probably many times. And not in nice ways — not like Maximus had done for ceremonial purposes. No, this had been cut direct from the body, brutal and systematic and repeated.
He'd had one owner during his slavery years who'd kept many beastkin slaves. That owner had loved punishing them by cutting tails like this, then using healing magic to restore them — an endless cycle of pain and torture.
Even all the forget-me spells had done nothing to remove the screams of those whose tails were cut. Or the memory of how many had killed themselves rather than go through it again.
And those who survived? They developed this strange walking style afterward — permanent, recognizable, the kind of thing you couldn't unsee once you knew.
For this walking style to persist even after Ealdred's training — 500-plus years of experience perfecting movement instruction — it had to be a regular occurrence, recent enough that her body hadn't yet relearned to hide it.
Void needed to know — had to know. "The names. All four of you. Did Aldric give those to you?"
The head maid—Annabel—nodded. "Yes. Me and my sisters got our names this way."
Void looked at K3, needing confirmation — needing to understand how sick Kira's brother really was. "Did Aldric do that to you? The tail cutting?"
K3 looked down, not wanting to answer — shame and pain visible on her face. But finally she spoke, almost crying, voice breaking. "Yes, Master Void."
Void could barely keep himself controlled as he made a wild guess. [It can't be that extreme, right? Can't be that sick or that calculated and cruel. Please say I'm wrong, please say it's not this bad.]
"Did he name you K3 as 'the last Kira'? And then got some release when cutting your tail? Like getting back at his sister? Maybe every time he received new mail from her?"
All four maids froze in absolute stillness — shock and recognition hitting them at once as understanding dawned.
Then K1 spoke, her voice shaking. "What? It... it was indeed always after the letters arrived. Always. We thought it was just coincidence, just timing. But you're saying..."
K2 added as horror built. "And the 'Kiras.' He always placed them around K3. We thought it was just positioning, just formation. But..."
[What 'Kiras'? What the hell has Aldric done? Does he have like an army of maids named Kira?]
K3 exploded with pure rage. "I will NEVER serve this bastard again! Never! Not after understanding this, not after knowing! He used me! Used my pain! Used everything for his sick obsession with his sister!"
Annabel's voice carried the same fury and recognition. "Yes, sisters. How were we so blind? How did we not see it? We are so done here — done with him, done with this, done with everything."
She turned to Void with deep, genuine gratitude. "Thank you, Mr. Void, for opening our eyes — for showing us what we couldn't see and freeing us from our own ignorance."
"No, no," Void managed, overwhelmed. "It was... my pleasure, I guess. I didn't mean to... I just wanted to understand. To help maybe."
All four bowed to Void. And it looked divine. Actually divine.
You could see their gratitude in it — their skill, their centuries of perfected technique, the devotion they'd learned and the service they'd mastered, all showing in one perfect bow.
It almost looked like reality around them got affected by it. The air shimmering, the details shifting — something responding to their absolute sincerity and perfect execution. Their complete gratitude expressed through form, thanking Void for opening their eyes using every skill they'd mastered over centuries.
Void found himself wondering. [Are my household maids also able to do something like this after centuries of perfecting their skills? Is this what true mastery looks like — what complete devotion and perfect service eventually become?]
And this definitely caused an effect. Almost everyone in the VIP area was watching now — this direction, this moment, this display of perfect gratitude and divine skill.
All four turned and started walking toward the exit with visible purpose and determination — something decided, something resolved.
But Void asked one more question fast, needing to know if they required any help. "Your contracts? With Aldric? Do you need assistance breaking them?"
Annabel answered as she kept walking, leaving no room for doubt. "We're free agents. But thanks for worrying, Mr. Void. We never needed salary or anything — so those details never came up in contract negotiations. We'd planned to finalize everything symbolically when we gave our oaths of eternal loyalty and received our loyalty collars. But that never happened. Never will now."
She paused at the door and looked back. "So we're free agents. No contractual bounds to this bastard — no ties, no obligations, nothing keeping us here."
[First good news of the day. Cutting tails would probably be more than enough justification to end any contract — torture, abuse, systematic cruelty all valid grounds. But that would still create a lot of legal mess, paperwork, proceedings, complications.]
[But now? They're just free. Can walk away from this completely and go live somewhere they choose. No paperwork, no aftermath, no further entanglement.]
He watched them walking proudly toward the exit. They looked like they'd found purpose — something to live for, something to pursue, anything better than serving Aldric and suffering as tools for his sick sister-obsession.
Void walked back to their table and sat down. Everyone else settled too, the VIP area returning to normalcy and calm.
He actually felt good — like he'd done something decent, something right, something that genuinely mattered.
Helped four broken servants escape, helped them understand and find freedom. Small thing maybe, but definitely good.
Azra sat on the other side of the table with catkin Lulu in her lap, feeding each other strawberries with whipped cream. The whole thing looked cute and innocent on the surface.
Until you knew the backstory.
Azra had pulled out the classic elf playbook for taming a catkin — the kind of method elves had perfected over thousands of years — and worked it through start to finish.
He'd tried to offer Lulu something else — internal schools here in Central, education, opportunities, a real future. The girl had rejected everything. Azra had locked her in during the hour before bringing her here — perfect taming finished before he even knew it was happening.
At least he'd made Azra promise to train and teach the girl — make her smart and educated, not keep her stupid the way elves so often kept their pet catkins. The kind of catkin pet who stayed comfortable in a gilded cage, perfectly obedient because she'd been hollowed out into a decoration.
But he had no real hope it actually helped.
His father had kept a catkin. Everyone called her "Professor." Smartest person in the house. Respected. Valued. Educated beyond most nobles.
Until his father entered a room. Then she became like a five-year-old begging for attention — desperate and needy and pathetic. All that intelligence disappeared, all that education turned meaningless. Just a pet performing for its master, nothing more.
And after his father's death, she'd cut her own throat to be with her master even beyond it. Devotion absolute, love complete, the taming perfected to its terrible end.
[Don't want to think about Lulu and Azra. What options did I have? Forceful separation? Both would resist and hate me for it. Plus high chance others would get involved if the drama got too big—Kira or even Null. Complications everywhere.]
[In some twisted way, it's actually best for Lulu. Alternatives? Back to the streets, where slavery and brothels and early death waited. At least with Azra she has protection, food, safety — has something, even if that something is being a pet, taming dressed as care, losing herself completely to elven ownership.]
[Lesser evil. Always choosing lesser evils. Always accepting horrors because the alternatives are worse. Always compromising, always settling, always...]
He watched the exit again — where the four maids had left, where they'd walked out with purpose and determination.
Happy about the good deed done today. About freeing them and helping them escape.
At least that one had been pure good — the kind of decency that didn't require swallowing yet another lesser evil.