I Became the Maid of the Lout Prince

T/N: This bonus chapter is sponsored by James B. (13/14).

An opportunity to ask Agnes about what had happened came sooner than expected.

After the samgyeopsal party started, Antonio, spoonfed by Agnes the entire time, left the dining area first.

At his table, only Agnes remained, picking at her food late into the meal. It wasn’t difficult to have a private conversation with her since no one else was paying attention to her.     

As I mentioned before, Agnes doesn’t have any friends except for me and Seraphine. Also, since Seraphine was currently in the midst of a fierce competition for the Hero’s attention between Seriste and Selena, it was only natural that Agnes would be left alone.

Fortunately, Ethan didn’t particularly try to stop me from going over to talk with Agnes. From the beginning, Ethan wasn’t the type to restrict me much unless it involved talking with the Hero or other men.

“Lady Agnes.”

“…Lilith.”

“Did something happen earlier today? Things seemed a bit complicated between you and Prince Antonio.”

“…It’s nothing.”

“Could it be that Prince Antonio’s injury… is related to you?”

She flinched.       

Though she didn’t speak up, that gesture alone was as good as an answer. Well, I had already suspected as much from the moment Agnes volunteered to take care of Antonio.     

When Agnes, who showed no interest in others—or rather, went beyond disinterest to actively find them bothersome—voluntarily offered to get involved with Antonio, I had already drawn my conclusions.

It was a simple deduction that if Prince Antonio hadn’t returned with one arm injured like that, Agnes would have been the one injured instead.     

“From your reaction, I think I can guess what happened.”   

“W-What do you think you know?”

“Just, well, the reason why Prince Antonio got injured.”

“…” 

“So. Are you really not going to tell me what happened at the lake?”

Since Agnes seemed to think she’d been completely found out, her expression grew complicated, and it didn’t take long for her answer to come.

“…Don’t tell anyone else.”

“Of course not.”

To get to the conclusion first, Agnes apparently didn’t know why the three-headed hydra appeared near the lake.

She said it just suddenly appeared while she was being cautious as usual, watching for any monsters that might approach the lake.

It was probably either a hidden monster from the Witch’s Forest event at Luminor Academy, or the type of monster that appears when certain conditions are met during battle events.

Or perhaps, like how the Roaring Crescent Bear and Moonlight Wolf appeared together, it might have shown up due to the increased number of people and the average level of everyone combined. It was a complex situation where nothing could be confirmed with certainty.

Well, since the event in the Witch’s Forest was almost over, it wasn’t particularly important anymore. There was a more important issue at hand, anyway.     

‘The relationship between Prince Antonio and Agnes is more important.’

Just until a few hours ago, Agnes had openly disliked being in the same group as Antonio, so why did she suddenly volunteer to take care of him? 

By listening to Agnes’s story, I was able to confirm what had happened between the two of them.

“…It was my mistake.”

“What kind of mistake?”    

“I should have kept more distance while casting my spell. If I had taken out the heads one by one from range by sniping them, it could have ended without anyone getting hurt, but I hastily cast an offensive magic spell as soon as it appeared.”

She had acted assuming that once she destroyed one head, it would either collapse or hesitate, but the three-headed hydra didn’t stop attacking even after two of its heads were killed.

Above all, she said she hadn’t expected all three of its heads to target her.

Fortunately, Knight Colt cut off one of the three heads with her sword, and Agnes’s magic destroyed another before it could reach her body, but there wasn’t enough time to prepare the next spell to block the last one.

The time needed to prepare that next spell was bought by Prince Antonio, or more precisely, by the sacrifice of his right arm.    

“To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. I didn’t think he wouldn’t even be able to cut off one hydra head properly.”

“…”

“But… still, it’s true that I didn’t get hurt thanks to him. So, I have to take responsibility.”

She couldn’t deny that it was thanks to Prince Antonio blocking the hydra’s head by letting it bite his arm that Agnes could chant her second spell.

Thanks to her defeating it right after the prince’s arm was bitten, his injury was limited to just a broken arm, but Agnes seemed concerned about Prince Antonio who had gotten hurt while trying to protect her.

It seemed that this current ‘Taking Care of Prince Antonio’ situation started because she was looking for a way to repay her debt and apologize.

“…I can’t repay this with money, anyway. The budget from our family wouldn’t be nearly enough, and I’d just get criticized for trying to put a price on a royal’s body.”

“…”

“So, I have to repay it like this at the very least. It’s my fault he got hurt, anyway. I do have that much conscience.”

Hmm.

I thought it might be turning into a romantic flower garden situation for Prince Antonio, but it wasn’t that simple.

Rather than a heart-fluttering ‘I’m starting to see you differently after you saved me’ situation, it was more of an ‘I have no choice but to repay this debt I owe you’ situation.

‘Well, Agnes was the most difficult to pursue in the original story, anyway.’

She wasn’t the type of heroine who would fall for someone just because they saved her life once or twice. To make her fall in love, you’d either need to save her life five or six times or solve some massive incident that would change her whole life.

First, I needed to reduce the burden Agnes felt towards Prince Antonio.

“Well, Prince Antonio getting hurt isn’t your fault, Lady Agnes. I’m sure Prince Antonio doesn’t think he got hurt because of you either.”

“But, if only I had judged the situation a bit better…”

“You did brilliantly by responding immediately to a situation where you didn’t even know if a three-headed hydra or something else would appear. And if you hadn’t made that quick judgment, wouldn’t there have been an even greater sacrifice than Prince Antonio’s arm?”

“…That’s true, too. Thanks for saying that, Lilith.”

My words seemed to provide some comfort, as her troubled expression softened a bit.

‘Now then. How should I guide the relationship between Agnes and Prince Antonio…’

To be honest, it wasn’t like I was actively supporting Agnes and Prince Antonio’s romance because I wanted to. Agnes, one of my only two friends, didn’t necessarily need Prince Antonio by her side to be happy.

But in the current situation, the person most likely to make Agnes happy in the future was, no matter how I thought about it, Prince Antonio.

After all, I had seen Agnes’s ‘Old Maid Solo Ending’ countless times in my previous life.  

While characters like Natalie, Seraphine, and Luke had other men they could end up with if they didn’t end up with the Hero, some characters like Agnes and Seriste would end up with this kind of solo ending if they didn’t end up with him.

Especially in Agnes’s case, because of that difficult personality of hers, there really was no man who would take her at all. Plus, there was the added evaluation from her rather strict family home.

First of all, among men of higher status than Agnes, there were almost none who would actively approach a woman with such a troublesome personality.

Also, any man who wasn’t a noble who actively approached Agnes wouldn’t be accepted by her. More precisely, the Elizabeth family, which had designated Agnes as their heir, would adamantly prevent it.

As a result, Agnes’s predetermined future was to grow old without any relationship with men, unable to find a suitable match until the end of her life. Even the hopeful pure love route with the Hero or the route as a member of his harem were both impossible in the current situation.

In that sense, Prince Antonio wasn’t from a family bad enough for the Elizabeth family to reject, and he was also the only noble (specifically, royal) man who could accept Agnes’s troublesome personality.

‘Even so, it’s too sad to grow old lonely in a magic tower without any relationship with men throughout her life.’

Wouldn’t it be good to create at least ‘one’ opportunity for her to meet a man who matches her standards and would love her?  

Seeing how he unhesitatingly offered his arm in Agnes’s moment of crisis, it seemed he wasn’t approaching Agnes with any ill intentions.

Prince Antonio was already completely smitten with Agnes, so if I could just arrange an opportunity for them to get closer, their relationship would surely work out well.     

“Anyway, Lady Agnes, you’re planning to take care of Prince Antonio for three days, right?”

“…Well, for now.”    

“In that case, wouldn’t you need my help? For example, you could pick up some knowledge about how a female servant should take care of a male employer.”

“Huh?”    

“You haven’t forgotten, have you? That I’m a debt maid of the Blackwood family and Ethan’s former exclusive maid.”

“…That’s not really something to be proud of, is it?”     

…Well, that’s true, but…

“Anyway, wouldn’t someone with experience in serving be better at it? If you’re going to take care of Prince Antonio anyway, I think it would be wise to listen to my advice. At the very least, we should make sure you don’t commit any ‘improper acts’ while taking care of Prince Antonio.”

“…That’s true. What should I be careful about?”

Grin.

This is my chance.     

A chance to be the cupid for Agnes and Prince Antonio!

T/N

Thanks for reading, see you in the next one!