Chapter 2: The World’s Gone Mad, Hasn’t It?

—A yakuza princess’s personal attendant starts his morning early.

With documentary-style narration playing in my head, I left my subspace bedroom and headed for the front courtyard of the yakuza estate.

In reality, an attendant’s morning didn’t begin quite that early. Even at this hour, some people in the city had been at work since before dawn. Compared to my previous world, people here were remarkably industrious.

It had been several days since I became Resina’s personal attendant.

The men and women assigned to the Cineraria Family’s housekeeping division had changed into plain tunic shirts and gathered together first thing in the morning.

“Hey, did you hear what happened at the gambling den yesterday—?”

“You know those guys from the Troby Trading Company? They skipped town—”

“They say the price of timber has gone up again—”

The rumors sounded vaguely ominous.

Some of the workers commuted while others lived on the estate, but once we assembled, we were all treated alike. For the record, I belonged to the third category: people who’d been kidnapped and brought here.

The man who assigned our duties held the title of head housekeeper.

Despite his intimidating bald head and dark glasses, his worn leather apron suited him surprisingly well and spoke of many years on the job. Apparently, he was a professional at “cleaning.” That sounded loaded, didn’t it?

“Crow. You here?”

“Yeah.”

“As usual, you’ll clean Lady Resina’s private rooms. Once you’re done, wake her, bring her breakfast, and act as her food taster. That is all.”

I’d spoken politely at first, but Resina had ordered me not to use formal language with “members of the family,” so for now, I spoke normally. The head housekeeper also seemed unsure how he was supposed to treat a personal attendant who’d come with Resina’s seal of approval.

I was also a little curious whether the other workers’ replies of “Yes, sir” and “Right away” counted as formal speech.

Apparently, around five thousand yakuza belonged to the Cineraria Family headquarters.

Naturally, they didn’t all gather here. They were spread throughout the surrounding area, diligently carrying out their daily work. What kind of work, exactly? I didn’t know much about that part.

One thing that differed from my expectations was that the members weren’t all tough, fearsome-looking men. Many of the men and women in housekeeping looked surprisingly ordinary.

Looked being the important word.

“All right, I need to clean Resina’s rooms first… I guess I’ll do it the usual way.”

Resina had three main rooms for her personal use in this yakuza estate: a sitting room, a study, and a bedroom.

I cleaned all three by myself every morning. That said, this world had many convenient mana-control techniques known as skills. When combined with magic, magic arts, and magic tools, they made housework much easier.

I started with the sitting room.

After spreading my mana throughout the room, I used subspace magic to store away every piece of furniture. Then, in the now-empty room, I brought out…

“Ta-da! The fully automatic cleaning magic tool!”

I’d created this cleaning tool to ensure comfortable living on the frontier. It carefully polished the floor from one end of a room to the other.

In this country, people normally wore their outdoor shoes everywhere except the bedroom, so the floors became fairly dirty even when cleaned every day.

While the cleaning tool worked hard, I extended arms of mana—using the Mage Hand skill—in every direction. They were there to store away every last speck of grime from the windows and walls, along with the rats and insects in the ceiling. Those pests multiplied so quickly.

I did the same to the furniture inside my subspace. My Mage Hands crawled over it and separated away the dirt, then I restored each cleaned piece to its original place. And with that, the sitting room was done. Mana really was convenient.

I’d streamlined the work considerably over the last few days, so cleaning the sitting room took only a few minutes now.

Besides, when I did it every day, there wasn’t much new grime to remove. None of the other attendants had complained, so I assumed my work earned at least a passing grade. That was only my own assessment, though.

After the sitting room came the study.

The actual cleaning process was the same as before. The one slight difference was that, on Resina’s instructions, I was copying every book kept there.

“Ta-da! Knight dolls!”

These were magic-tool puppets, also known as golems. Alchemists—not only me—used them for dangerous work and experiments. Since they had to be controlled manually, operating one demanded a fair amount of concentration.

In my case, however, I possessed a skill called Parallel Thought, so I could move several knight dolls at once. That allowed me to have them transcribe multiple books simultaneously. Mana truly was convenient.

—I couldn’t say this too loudly, but over the last ten years, I’d snuck into all sorts of places and copied an enormous number of books this way. Noble estates, alchemists’ workshops, the library of the Spirit Temple, and so on. Naturally, I absolutely could not afford to be caught.

Books containing advanced knowledge were extremely expensive because their bindings generally contained spell circuits that preserved them for long periods.

An ordinary commoner like me would never even have the opportunity to touch one. But to realize my frontier slow life, I needed to acquire the information in such books as proactively as possible.

Incidentally, Resina had learned about the enormous collection in my subspace Library a long time ago.

Then again, she’d been bored while recuperating, so I’d provided her with all kinds of books. I considered that unavoidable.

Once I finished in the study, I waited until the proper time and entered the bedroom.

“Good morning, Resina. It’s morning.”

“Mmm… Crow. Where’s my good-morning kiss?”

“I’ve never once given you one. Enough sleep-talking. Get up so I can clean the bedroom. And why are you sleeping completely naked? If a male attendant other than me had come to wake you, something terrible would’ve happened—to him.”

That was how my days began. Apparently, every attendant but me was frightened of Resina’s mana, so waking her had become exclusively my responsibility. I didn’t especially mind.

Some parts of the work were difficult, but once I got used to it, I found it rather enjoyable. I was learning all kinds of new things from the books too, and my days might have been more fulfilling than I’d expected.

After helping the other attendants serve breakfast and quickly completing my duty as food taster, my morning work was done.

◆　　　◆　　　◆

Today, one of the organization’s senior figures had summoned me, so I went to an office inside the estate.

“Good work. I’m Crow, the one you called for.”

“—Hey, brat. Get over here.”

I was promptly escorted into a meeting room in the corner of the floor. Hello, I’m a cat in a strange house. That aside, why did everyone here have such frightening faces?

The elderly man glaring at me while releasing a sharp, threatening mana was as gaunt as a skeletal demon.

“Now then, brat. Talk… How did you worm your way into the young miss’s favor?”

He was the Cineraria Family’s chief administrator.

Apparently, he oversaw all the organization’s behind-the-scenes work. I had no idea exactly how senior that made him.

“Um, didn’t Resina tell you anything?”

“Don’t call the young miss by her name so casually… I’ve heard how you met. We’re genuinely grateful that you saved her when she was in danger. But this isn’t a place where an honest civilian like you can casually set foot.”

“I agree. The world’s gone mad, hasn’t it?”

Apparently, the chief administrator addressed the boss as “Brother,” while the other members called him “Uncle.”

Hmm… I didn’t really understand the posts or the relationships between members. Still, I could sense from the atmosphere that he was someone important.

“Um… Uncle?”

“I’ve got no reason to let some outsider who hasn’t shared a ceremonial cup with us call me Uncle.”

“What? What kind of mysterious system is that…? Then what should I call you?”

At my question, the chief administrator released a truly magnificent sigh and abruptly reined in his violent mana.

“My name is Serge Edrahl Banksia.”

“That’s long. Can I call you Mr. Serge?”

“Are you an idiot…? Damn it. I bet you behaved just as casually with the young miss. Is intimidation useless against you because of magic, your constitution, or simple stupidity? Fine… Her orders say I’m to put you to work, but try not to advertise what an idiot you are.”

As our conversation continued, Mr. Serge’s mana gradually calmed down.

For some reason, everyone in this estate had rough, aggressive mana… Did you need to project a certain amount of swagger to make it as a yakuza?

“So… your name, brat?”

“Crow Amaryllis.”

“I see. Crow, I’ve confirmed that intimidation doesn’t faze you, just as the reports said. You’ll continue working as the young miss’s personal attendant.”

I wouldn’t have minded being fired at all. No, wait. If that happened, Resina might fly into a rage and wipe out the Cineraria Family. Hmm.

“The poisoning incident exposed a lot of traitors. We’re short-handed everywhere, so we’ve got no choice but to use you… but don’t you dare try anything improper with the young miss. You don’t want to become monster feed, do you?”

If anything, I was trembling with fear that Resina might be the one to try something improper with me. She’d proudly declared that she would bear around ten of my children.

For now, the fact that we were both ten and our bodies were still immature made an accident less likely. At least for the next few years. If we carelessly entered a physical relationship, I’d probably never be able to leave the family for real, so that was one thing I needed to avoid.

“You’ll also be responsible for treating the boss. Fortunately, you might say, a workshop recently became available in the alchemy building. We’ll assign it to you.”

“Ah, the one that belonged to the chief alchemist who betrayed you?”

“That’s right… Damn it. I can’t believe someone would betray their own parents and siblings. Young people these days have no respect for honor or obligation.”

I see. As expected, the yakuza were extremely strict about betrayal. Though perhaps that wasn’t limited to the yakuza.

“Crow, you haven’t formally joined the family through the sake-cup ceremony yet, but we’re still entrusting you with an important job. If Brother comes to any harm because of some filthy betrayal, I’ll have you chopped into pieces and fed to the monsters.”

Mr. Serge made his mana swagger menacingly again, but I had no reason to betray them in the first place.

In truth, if I decided to abandon everything and escape, my abilities would make it fairly easy. My innate subspace magic was useful, and I’d trained enough mana to wield it to its fullest. If I wanted to flee, I could do it this very moment.

Even so, there was one reason I remained here instead of running.

“Mr. Serge, Resina is my friend. I don’t know the first thing about yakuza honor… but my friend is in trouble, so I’m helping her. That’s the only reason I’m here.”

As her friend, I at least wanted to remove the danger of Resina being poisoned to death.

Once I’d worked until things reached a good stopping point, I’d receive my wages, leave the family peacefully, and finally make my dream of a slow life on the frontier a reality. I was going to do my best.

“Oh, but could you make sure my family’s bakery is safe? They’re ordinary civilians, so I don’t want them dragged into a yakuza war.”

At my request, Mr. Serge sighed as though all the tension had left him, then called for a subordinate and began giving instructions.

Um, please don’t treat the customers in an intimidating way, okay? It was a tiny bakery that could be blown away by a strong breeze. Yes. Just keep a quiet watch over it, please.