On the sofa in Lilia-san’s office, which was used for resting and for urgent visitors, I was sitting, holding my head in my hands.
Lilia-san, who was sitting opposite me, was looking at me with a worried expression on her face, and her complexion doesn’t look that great either.
To be honest, I hadn’t expected that I would face such problems with building a house.
……No, I’m not talking about the housewarming party. I heard that Ein-san and Zwei-san have been making preparations for that party at an overwhelmingly fast pace, and that the date for the event has been decided and preparations are complete.
Then, as for what is the problem that I’m currently troubled with…… That is……[……Lilia-san.]
[……Yes.]
[Illness-san is too amazing……]
[I understand. I know exactly how you feel, Kaito-san.]
Yes, currently, in my house…… in my house that could be described as a mansion, Illness-san had done almost all the work by herself.
[Lilia-san, a mansion of this size usually requires a lot of servants, right?]
[Yes, one would normally need a certain number of people just for cleaning and other maintenance work, and even just maintaining the garden requires more than one gardener. Adding the other jobs, one would need a lot of servants.][Thinking about all that work, just 10 or 20 people aren’t enough, right?]
[Of course. Every person needs rest and vacation time, so one would need more than what was needed. In fact, for a high-ranking noble, the number of people I employed is rather small for the size of my mansion.]
Hearing my grave words, Lilia-san also replied with a serious expression on her face.
My house is the same size as Lilia-san’s mansion…… The same size as the mansion of Lilia-san, who holds a very high position as a Duchess, is the sister of the King, and has many subordinates who have followed her since her days as a knight.
I don’t know the exact number of people who work at Lilia-san’s mansion, but there are more than 50 people whose names I know. There are still some people who I’ve never talked to, and that should mean that there are probably much more than that.
Well, in Lilia-san’s case, there are civil servants who help her with her work as a Duchess and people who guard her mansion, so I can’t really say that I would need the same amount of people she had in her mansion…… Still, it was obvious that a certain number of people were needed to maintain the mansion.
[……Illness-san originally did ten times more work than other maids.]
[……Yes, but she was apparently already holding back on work……]
[If she does work of an entire mansion, that’s not just ten times more, right? It could be dozens or even hundreds of times the amount of work, right?]
[Yes. That’s how I perceive it too.]
When I had said that much, I paused for a moment and deeply exhaling…… I muttered.
[……Illness-san, it doesn’t seem like her workload changed that much…… I mean, she’s still “helped me brush Bell as usual”……]
[……She also brought me a cake and helped me out with some of my overdue work.]
[……What do you think?]
[To be honest, I’m trembling. I thought that even though she was a Count-rank, handling so many household chores is much harder than fighting, so I thought that she must be exhausted even if she was keeping her calm.]
[……Right?]
[……Yes. But I didn’t expect…… that she really wasn’t joking, as even with all the work she’s done, “she’s still rather bored”.]
Of course, Lilia-san knew that Illness-san had done most of the work in my house by herself. Rather, Illness-san was the one who offered to do it all for me.
As for Lilia-san, she was thinking of having Illness-san assist us until she could find servants for my home, and she was also planning on sending more maids who had some spare time…… but the situation was very far from what Lilia-san had expected.
The first was that Illness-san nonchalantly did everything but the work of Anima, Eta, Theta, and Caraway-san all by herself.
If Illness-san was having a hard time or was fatigued, we could have sent additional people to help her but…… instead of looking like she was having a hard time, she seemed to be in a better mood than ever, as if she was saying “I’m grateful to have something to do since I’ve been so bored”.
The second was that Illness-san, who rarely asserts herself, had unusually told Lilia-san and I that she wanted to continue working at my home.
If it’s a request from Illness-san, who rarely, if ever, asked for anything, neither Lilia-san nor I can ignore it.
The problem wasn’t only that, but also that Illness-san was too capable. Currently, she doesn’t only clean and do the laundry, but also gardening. All of her work is also top-notch.
Well, it might be too early to say this, but if I hire someone else…… It feels like the quality of work would degrade instead, and with this matter being her strong desire, how relaxed she is after doing all of it, and the perfection of her work…… There is no advantage to hiring other servants.
I did tell Illness-san to not push herself…… but on the contrary, saying “It may be selfish of meeeee, but I’d be happy if you could just cooooooount on meeee.”, she asked to continue doing almost all the work by herself.
That was the first time I’ve seen Illness-san strongly wish for something…… and as someone who she’s currently being tremendously taken cared with, I had no choice but to agree.
Incidentally, as a side note…… Mom had proudly told her “Even if I look like this, I have a long experience of being a housewife!”, but the way Illness-san worked broke her mind that she muttered “……What in the world is she…… The God of Housework?” That even caused some ruckus as she started calling Illness-san with a “-sama” added to her name.
[……As far as I’m concerned, she’s doing the housework for me…… so I’d like to pay her a decent wage but……]
[I know what you mean. I’ve experienced what you’re going through many times.]
[……How do you think I can get Illness-san to accept the salary I’m proposing to her?]
[……That’s what I’d like to ask too.]
Yes, what Lilia-san and I are worried about is Illness-san’s salary. As for me, I want to pay her a salary befitting her work. I think she should be paid at least as much as the total number of servants I was originally going to hire……
However, I know very well that Lilia-san has many many such proposals in the past, and that Illness-san had been adamantly refusing them.
To be honest, I can only see a future where I’ll get a “No, thank you” if I tell her about such a thing. Seriously, what should I do……
As I was thinking about this, I heard the sound of an orderly knock, and after Lilia-san gave permission to enter, Illness-san, the person we were just talking about, entered.
[Excuse my intrusioooon. Lunamariiiiiiia is absent todaaaaay, so I brought you some teaaaaaa~~]
[T- Thank you.]
I could see Lilia-san twitching on her seat…… Nonchalantly working in place of Lunamaria, who is absent for some reason, is the person who does tens to hundreds of times the amount of work that other maids do.
It’s just a guess, but I feel like Illness-san could even do her work in Lilia-san’s mansion and in my house together by herself if she wanted to……
[Oyaaa? The both of youuuu look so gluuuuum, what’s the matteeeeer?]
Since Illness-san is keenly aware of the subtleties of other people’s emotions, she seemed to notice immediately that Lilia-san and I were troubled with something, and asked us with her head tilted.
Now then, what should I do…… Since she had appeared anyway, why don’t I just ask her about her salary? She’ll probably refuse, but I guess I should think of a way to persuade her after I see how she reacts.
With that thought in mind, I glanced at Lilia-san, who silently nodded back, as if she understood my thoughts.
[……Actually, since Illness-san is working on my house now, I would like to pay Illness-san salary in addition to the wage Lilia-san pays you……]
[I seeeee, thank you for your conceeeern. I will respectfulllllly accept it.]
[Yes, I know that Illness-san is like that———– Unnn? Please wait a moment, Illness-san.]
[Yeees?]
[……I may have misheard you for a moment, so I’d like to ask you once again. I’d like to pay you a salary, Illness-san.]
[Yeees, I’ll gratefully accept it. I’ll leave the details of my salary to Kaito-samaaaa.]
[ [ …………………..Arehh? ] ]
Lilia-san and I both tilted our heads at the response that was completely different from what we had expected.
<Afterword>
Q : Why did Illness-san agree so easily?
A : Because it was Kaito that had told her that (Illness’ Absolute Priority: Kaito > Herself)
Serious-senpai : [……I have a bad feeling about this. Stop, put that Illness event away…… That woman’s heroine power is just too monstrous…… Stop with the individual events……]
