On a sunny afternoon, Elisa deliberately held a small rehearsal to make sure nothing went wrong at the salon, and the results left her very satisfied.
Neither the kitchen nor the servants made a single mistake. Everything was handled with perfect courtesy.
After all, these were servants she had hired through a servant agency. They had plenty of work experience and knew exactly how to conduct themselves.
Unlike that detestable male servant!
Simon was only an ordinary male servant and didn’t participate in the rehearsal. Serving guests was work reserved for servants of the second rank and above.
Once the rehearsal was over, Elisa happily rewarded the participating servants with the refreshments used during the rehearsal, then returned to her bedroom with her mind at ease to read the novels popular among the young ladies of the royal capital.
After the servants of the second rank and above finished eating, ordinary servants like Simon went over to clean everything up.
[Simon was cleaning up the rehearsal venue. Looking at the empty plates and the higher-ranking servants resting nearby, he sighed inwardly.]
Elisa looked up from her novel, glanced at [Simon’s Log], and smiled.
Serves you right for stealing my money. You can drool all you want!
***
There were different ranks among servants as well. Even their bedrooms reflected this: Simon could only live on the shaded side, while the higher-ranking servants had rooms facing the sun.
Likewise, for this literary salon, an ordinary male servant wasn’t even qualified to work at the event itself.
Lying on his bed, Simon edited [The Ultimate Male Servant Training Plan] while reflecting on the situation.
That young lady really knows how to be patient. It’s been almost half a month, and she still hasn’t made any direct contact with me. She hasn’t even promoted me!
If I’d gotten an [Ultimate Maid Training Plan], I would’ve transferred that maid to my side ages ago and had her personally attend to me.
As expected of the game’s “Blood Queen” I suppose. She’s nothing like an ordinary young lady who can’t keep her composure.
Taking it slow isn’t bad either. Boil the frog in warm water… first use everyday interactions to build up her affection like crazy, then start squeezing her for cash and bleed her dry of pounds!
But I should speed things up a little at this stage.
The literary salon was a fairly important plot point. He had to get involved.
Besides, he didn’t want to keep serving those higher-ranking servants either.
Time to proceed according to plan.
Simon extinguished the kerosene lamp and closed his eyes.
The sun had only just risen when a commotion began outside the door. Simon got up, washed, and headed to the servants’ dining hall.
Every morning at breakfast, he would give Elisa 2 points of Intimacy. Partly because he needed to let the young lady see the number steadily increasing, and partly to lay the groundwork for today.
“Good morning.” Nora, one of the kitchen maids, greeted Simon and handed him a tray. She looked somewhat exhausted.
[Simon ate breakfast and was in a bad mood.]
[Intimacy -1]
Elisa had dreamed the night before that the literary salon went off without a hitch. She woke in a wonderful mood, only to open the screen and feel as though she’d been struck by a bolt from the blue.
Isn’t it supposed to go up by 2 every morning?!
Why did it drop by 1 today?!
It’s not enough that you steal my shillings, now you’re stealing my Intimacy too?!
Elisa opened [Simon’s Log] at lightning speed, determined to find out exactly what had happened.
She scrolled back to the part where Simon ate breakfast.
[Simon arrived at the servants’ dining hall. Today’s oatmeal wasn’t cooked properly, and the bacon wasn’t very fresh. His mood plummeted.]
So the breakfast tasted bad. Elisa had found the reason, but that only raised another question.
Hadn’t the quality of breakfast always been pretty consistent? It gave +2 every day, so why had it suddenly gotten worse today?
She continued reading [Simon’s Log]. The male servant was just as curious as she was and had traced the problem back to its source.
[Simon noticed that Nora, the kitchen maid, looked exhausted and deduced that the male servant Charles had pestered Nora again yesterday.]
[Charles is on very good terms with Butler Sheldon. Nora may be considering whether to resign from her position. The worry has kept her from resting properly, causing her to cook the oatmeal incorrectly.
So the oatmeal went wrong because something was wrong with the kitchen maid, and something was wrong with the kitchen maid because a male servant had been harassing her….and somehow the butler was involved too?
Elisa was a little bewildered.
She rubbed her head. That passage only explained the problem with the oatmeal, not what was wrong with the bacon.
She continued reading.
[As for why the bacon wasn’t fresh, hehe, Simon had already seen it coming.]
Then tell me what the answer is!
Write whatever you saw coming into the log!
Elisa sighed. [Simon’s Log] was still a little too brief. Sometimes it left out important information, like when Simon had lied to the head maid about how much he’d donated.
There was movement at the bedroom door, and her personal maid entered to help her wash and dress.
She stood and let the maid attend to her, her thoughts still on the contents of [Simon’s Log].
Charles harassing the kitchen maid was something that had to be dealt with. Maids and male servants weren’t allowed to become romantically involved. It would affect the atmosphere of the estate and damage Elisa’s reputation within the circles of wealthy merchant families.
According to the rules, Charles should simply be dismissed to make an example of him.
But he was on very good terms with the butler, and the butler was one of the estate’s most essential servants. He oversaw all manner of affairs, including procurement, and a good butler was difficult to find.
Forget it. I’ll give Charles a warning and dock part of his annual salary. I’ll have the butler announce the punishment.
Having decided how to handle the matter, Elisa couldn’t help lamenting that even rich people couldn’t simply do whatever they pleased. Punishing one servant still required taking another servant’s feelings into consideration.
At the breakfast table, she was just about to give instructions on how the matter should be handled when she suddenly realized she still hadn’t figured out what was going on with the bacon.
The butler was responsible for procurement, and bacon was one of the supplies he purchased.
Her expression immediately turned serious.
When Simon said he’d “already seen it coming”, was he referring to the butler’s procurement? Had he known there would be a problem with the bacon because the butler was passing off inferior goods as better ones?
Was the butler embezzling money?
If so, this was no small matter. The butler controlled the entire estate’s expenditures, involving sums in the hundreds of pounds!
I need to call Simon over and ask him… No, I can’t. I don’t have a reason or an excuse.
After thinking it over carefully, Elisa decided to start with the head maid. She had hired the butler and the head maid separately, so they shouldn’t be in cahoots.
She waved the other maids away, leaving only Head Maid Maria behind.
“Tell me about Sheldon.” Elisa’s face was expressionless, her voice grave, as though she already knew everything.
Sure enough, Maria was intimidated. She trembled and immediately dropped to her knees.
“Lady Elisa, I wasn’t involved!” Maria hurriedly defended herself.
So there really is something wrong with that butler!
Who knows how many shillings he’s already embezzled from me… No, there’s no way we’re talking about shillings. It has to be pounds!
Elisa’s heart ached at the thought, followed by a wave of relief. Thank goodness she’d caught it early.
She took a sip of black tea and braced herself. “Go on.”
What the head maid said next made Elisa realize that no amount of preparation could have prepared her for this.
“…The baron dismissed Sheldon because of it. Everyone in noble circles knows Sheldon has sticky fingers, so no one would hire him…”
How did a baron get dragged into this?!
No, not just a baron….the entire upper-class circle knows about it!
After telling Elisa everything she knew, Maria cautiously studied the young lady’s reaction and flattered her, “Sheldon thought there was no possible way you could know about this. He never imagined you’d known all along.”
No, I didn’t know anything. All I originally wanted was to find out why my male servant Simon wasn’t happy with his breakfast.
I really only wanted to straighten out the kitchen so Simon would keep steadily producing Intimacy points! I thought this would involve the first-rank male servant Charles, at most. I wasn’t even planning to fire Charles!
But now, haha, it wasn’t just Charles, and it wasn’t just Butler Sheldon. She had to dismiss every servant connected to Sheldon immediately, or she’d become the laughingstock of high society!
The ladies of high society would say, Look at that nouveau riche girl living on the outskirts. She actually hired a butler with such a disgraceful record. What a foolish country bumpkin! We mustn’t associate with her.
And the moment those ladies discovered this would be at the literary salon I was about to host, after they saw Sheldon and recognized him.
Even if they didn’t recognize Sheldon, their servants surely would!
My literary salon would turn into a place for them to gossip about me behind my back!
My plan to break into the circles of the rich and powerful nearly suffered a major setback before it had even gotten off the ground!
Elisa shuddered at the thought.
Thank goodness. Thank goodness she’d taken an interest in Simon’s meals.
Tsk. A male servant complaining about breakfast had somehow triggered a huge wave of dismissals. It was practically the legendary butterfly effect!
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