Chapter 14

“Senior Catherine, hurry up! I’ve finished cutting the potatoes, so bring me a sack of onions next!”

“Yes, Miss Lilith!”

“Please stop with the formalities!”

This is what happens right after you realize that you’re running out of time and have made very little progress in the kitchen.

As soon as we realized the problem, we rushed to work, and Catherine and I busied ourselves in the kitchen, completing the remaining tasks as quickly as possible.

We had about 20 minutes left before the other senior maids were due to arrive.

Somehow, we had to get all the vegetables until dinner prepped in that time, so we didn’t have time to think about anything else.

In my frantic state of mind, I gathered up as much as I could and used my magic and skills to shred the vegetables.

One by one, the giant pots, each about a meter high, were filled with the vegetables that Catherine and I had prepped.

“How many minutes do we have left?!”

“Uh, about… ten minutes?!”

“Aaaaah, fuck!”

“Hey…!!”

The profanity was coming out of my mouth as I inadvertently forgot that I was Lilith, but my brain was too overloaded to care about that right now.

Triple casting takes a lot of brain power in the first place, and now I was doing it dozens of times over in an iterative process.

On top of that, I’m feeling dizzy from the damned garlic flavor in my mouth.

Normally, I would have rinsed my mouth out with Clean every now and then, but wasting spell counts on that was a luxury I couldn’t afford right now when I needed to chop more vegetables.

“Here, I’ve shaved all these carrots…! Then the onions are next, I’ll finish the garlic and potatoes, but you take care of the onions first!”

“Uh, yeah! Okay…!”

The good news is that Catherine’s work efficiency isn’t completely abysmal.

In fact, objectively speaking, she was actually quite fast. She could peel a single carrot at the same rate that I could triple-cast Clean and peel three potatoes.

I wondered why she had passed the work to me when she was so good at it in the first place, but I couldn’t waste my thoughts on that now.

All I could do was to trim as many vegetables as I could, as quickly as I could.

“How much more?!”

“Uh, what, what?! Hey, I’m just getting started with the onions…”

“Not that, I mean time, time!”

“Time?! Well, if it’s that bright…ah, maybe five minutes….”

“Oh shit, I’m going crazy!”

There was still almost a third of the work left to do, and at this rate, even if I died and woke up, it was impossible to finish it in the original time frame.

If I did, Ariana and Alicia, who had their work left to do much less than before, would be suspicious as to why I hadn’t finished it.

Add to that the fact that they would see me working on it myself, and the suspicion would only deepen.

Considering that I used to chop a day’s worth of vegetables in two hours every day, my realistic chopping speed was way behind even Catherine’s.

Still, we were able to cut the remaining workload by about a quarter, thanks to the two of us keeping busy in the remaining five minutes.

Still, it was unnerving to have this much work left to do.

If I had magic at my disposal, I could probably finish the remaining workload in about 10 minutes.

If I tried to do it without magic, it would take me almost two hours, and at this rate, the other senior maids would 100% question the work I’ve been doing.

At least Catherine’s stupid…no… she’s naive enough that I can fool her into thinking I’m a noble, but the other two bitches aren’t so easy…

…especially Ariana. If that cunning bitch found out I was using magic, I would be caught for my weakness, not for being a noble.

‘…So do you know what the bitch said then? She said that it wasn’t her.’

‘…You’re as stupid as ever…..’

“Uh, what should we do? I think Ariana and Alicia are about to enter the dining room!”

“…….”

…I heard them, I know, dammit.

The work I had left could be accomplished if I could somehow find ten minutes, no, five, to get it done.

It’s so ridiculously unfair that I’m getting caught for barely getting this much done.

If I could just buy a little more time, I’d be fine…

…even if it’s just five minutes, if I can somehow stop two people from coming into the kitchen…

“Uh, what do I do?! What do I do?!”

“…….”

What can I do?

…

This is still a pretty ugly situation, but I’ll take what I can get.

“Catherine, listen to me.”

“Huh?! Oh, no, what?!”

“Go to the kitchen door right now, and don’t let anyone in the kitchen for the next ten minutes.”

“Wait, you don’t want me to let anyone in?! Uhhhh, how do I do that?!”

“I don’t know. You can talk to them, argue with them, or take them somewhere else, but that’s up to you.”

“B-but how should I….”

“Is my nobility a joke to you? It wouldn’t be hard for me to bury you and those two bitches if I set my mind to it….”

“Ha, I’ll do it! I’ll do something about it, Miss Lilith!”

I felt strangely guilty that I’d come out with what was almost a threat, but it was for the best in this situation.

She didn’t seem to be able to comprehend instructions the first time unless they were spoken in this manner, after all.

“Hey, guys~! Good morning, it’s a beautiful day, and the weather is nice today too…!”

“…Catherine, did you come out of the kitchen?”

“What do you mean ‘the kitchen’, I just got here…?”

I heard Catherine’s voice from the prep room between the kitchen and the dining room while I dumped the last of the potatoes and onions on the counter.

If only I could somehow, some way, finish this…!

“…Catherine, did you come out of the kitchen?”

“What do you mean ‘the kitchen’, I just got here…?”

“What are you talking about, I didn’t see the back of your head once while walking with Ariana all the way here.”

“Uh, that’s because….”

Catherine seriously wanted to cry.

Her day had been a mess since the crack of dawn, and she didn’t even know how things had gotten to this point.

If only she hadn’t stalked Lilith at dawn this morning, she wouldn’t be in this much trouble.

After an hour of waiting, she followed Lilith to find her and Master Ethan in the kitchen.

Furthermore, she discovered that Lilith uses Clean to chop vegetables.

Desperate to be forgiven for passing her work to a noble, she ended up humiliating herself in front of the powerful woman.

All of this had happened in the span of three hours for Catherine.

She’d just finished helping Lady Lilith, who was furious that she’d caused the delay, and was busily chopping vegetables.

On top of that, she was now being forced to stand in front of the kitchen to stall for 10 minutes.

‘What should I do?!’

Catherine had spent the past year being used and taken advantage of by her coworkers. As she stood in front of Ariana and Alicia, she felt her vision getting darker and darker.

The relationship between the three of them was no longer that of equals as it had been when they first entered Blackwood Manor, but more like that of two masters and one slave.

Because she had been taken advantage of by her companions for a year, a deeply rooted sense of defeat had formed in Catherine.

Stalling them by striking a natural conversation was virtually impossible.

Even worse, however, there was a bigger problem behind her, preventing her from escaping.

Catherine’s fleeting recollection of Lady Lilith forced her to compose herself and somehow make conversation with the two of them.

After all, it wasn’t as if she had any choice of her own.

“Well, other than that, Alicia, Ariana…”

“……huh?”

“Oooh, do you think we could take a quick morning walk to freshen up before work….”

“Morning walk~?”

“Uh, yeah…! It’s such a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing, and flowers are blooming….” *1

It was a ridiculous suggestion, even to her own mind, but alas, it was the best excuse Catherine could come up with.

‘If I just walked around the mansion once, that would give me about ten minutes, so that should be enough to buy time for Lady Lilith.’

So she continued to talk as best she could, trying to convince Alicia, who sounded as interested as she was.

“What about going to work?”

“Li-… Lilith-… ah…. What does that junior maid know? What kind of guts would she have to argue with her seniors coming for a leisurely stroll?”

“Oh~ Catherine, what’s wrong with you? Are you the kind of person who says those things?”

“Well…. we shouldn’t care about that stupid bitch, whether she works or not…! Just rest a little more….”

‘I’m sorry, Ms. Lilith!’

Catherine, who had no choice but to curse at Lilith in order to somehow fulfill the mission she had set for her, somehow managed to convince Alicia.

It was only afterward that Catherine realized that it was Ariana, not Alicia, who needed to be persuaded.

“Enough with the walk, let’s get to work, girls.”

‘…Ariana?!’

The one who’d set her up, turned her into a debt maid, and thoroughly exploited her for the past year.

If she was who Catherine expected she would be, Ariana should agree to take a break while Lilith worked.

Contrary to her expectations, Ariana was the first to say she was going to work.

“Ariana?”

“Well, I’ve been letting her work for three days already, so the least I can do is show up for work. We should at least give our junior a break, especially when she looks tired every time she comes to work.”

“But that’s not necessary, right? If you’re a junior maid, it shouldn’t matter whether your seniors come in late or not….”

“Hmm, that’s weird~? The Catherine I know definitely wasn’t the kind of friend who would say something like that.”

“…….”@@novelbin@@

“Is there some reason I shouldn’t be in the kitchen right now?”

“……!!!”

A smug glare, as if she was already convinced beyond doubt.

As soon as she saw that look in Ariana’s eyes, Catherine finally realized something.

Unlike Alicia, Ariana had seen through her awkward act.

‘She knew it all along…!’

During that incident a year ago, and now.

Ariana was always one step ahead.

Catherine had been her servant for a year now, and she knew that better than anyone.

It had been foolish to try to deceive her in the first place.

“…….”

…Though, that didn’t change the fact that she had to keep Ariana out of the kitchen.

“Will you please step away from the door, Catherine? Lilith will be waiting for you inside.”

“…….”

“Hmm, that’s not fun.”

*SLAP*

*GASP*

“……!”

The slap came without warning, even though she had only been blocking the door for about three seconds.

The lack of hesitation startled both Catherine and Alicia.

Before they could take stock of the situation, Catherine’s other cheek was dyed red again by Ariana.

*SLAP*

*GASP*

“…I thought I said you’d be treated nicer, like my pet puppy, if you behaved.”

*SLAP*

“……Aghhh!”

“I haven’t been hitting you lately, so it’s been creeping up on me! After all, a bastard like you has to be beaten once every three days to obey me, right?!”

*SLAP*

“……!!!”

Catherine’s cheeks grew hotter and hotter as the palm moved back and forth.

However, she was filled with DETERMINATION *1, and somehow managed to keep the door to the kitchen from opening.

When she showed no sign of moving out of the way, Ariana’s kick hit Catherine at her side.

*POW*

“Ughhhh…!”

“Catherine, how far do you think you’re going with this?”

“No…. s-stop it…. please….”

“I’ll see you later, after work. It’s been a while, but let me remind you who your superior is again.”

After cleaning up Catherine’s mess on the prep room floor, she was about to yank open the kitchen door.

The dark-haired maid in the kitchen opened the door before she could and stepped out.

“…….”

“Lilith?”

“…Have you come to work, seniors?”

“Sorry, Lilith. We were going to leave early, but there was someone blocking the kitchen door, so it took us a while.”

“…I see.”

Lilith glanced out of the kitchen and into the prep room with a tired expression, only to find Catherine slumped on the floor, sobbing.

Her gaze flickered to Ariana’s slightly reddened palms.

“By the way, Lilith. Did you get your work done today?”

“…….yes.”

“You’re the most professional of us all, Lilith. I’m sorry we always seem to be having so much fun.”

“…….”

“Why aren’t you answering? Are you rebelling?”

The black-haired maid pretended not to have heard Ariana’s words and frowned as if she was pondering something.

Lilith, who had finally made her judgments about the events in front of her, met Ariana’s eyes and spoke quietly.

“…Ariana.”

“…Lilith? You’re a little short with words….”

“Keep your mouth shut, you fucking bitch.”

“Whaaaaat?!”

A heavy fist struck upward into the senior maid’s lower jaw with a dull thud.

Ariana was airborne for a moment.

T/N

sans undertale