Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 1 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

The Creeped-Out Maid 

Lilia used to be a royal handmaiden for the Asura Palace harem. In addition to her usual duties as a lady-in-waiting, the role also called for her to act as a guardswoman. She’d been expected to take up arms and come to her master’s defense should the need arise. She was devoted to her duties, and carried out her job as handmaiden without flaw or fail. 

When it came to her role as a fighter, however, her skill with a sword was merely adequate at best. As a result, Lilia found herself wholly outmatched when an assassin struck at the newborn princess, her opponent’s dagger catching her in the leg. The blade had been coated with poison, the sort meant to kill even a member of the royal family, a troublesome toxin that could not be cured by purifying magic. 

Thanks to the wound being promptly tended to by Healing magic, and a doctor’s attempts at neutralizing the poison, Lilia had managed to survive, but there were lingering aftereffects. They didn’t pose an impediment to her daily life, but she could no longer run at any real speed, her gait reduced to a clumsy stagger. 

Lilia’s life as a warrior had come to an end. The palace promptly discharged her from her position. Lilia understood why perfectly well. It only made sense to lose a job she was no longer able to perform. Although this left her unable to pay even her basic living expenses, given her position in the court, she considered herself lucky not to have been executed in secret. And so, Lilia left the capital. 

The mastermind behind the princess’s assassination attempt was still to be found. As someone familiar with the palace harem’s inner workings, Lilia was well aware that she was a likely target. Or perhaps—had the palace set her free to lure out whoever was behind this plot? 

When she’d been brought into the court, she’d been curious why they’d taken on a lowborn woman such as herself. Perhaps they wanted to hire a simple maid who could easily be disposed of. 

Whatever the case, for her own safety, Lilia needed to get as far away from the capital as she could. Regardless of whether the palace really was using her as bait, she no longer had any standing orders, no longer had anything holding her back. 

She no longer felt any sense of obligation to her old life. 

After taking a series of stagecoaches, Lilia arrived at the Fittoa Region, a vast agricultural area on the borders of the kingdom. Apart from the Citadel of Roa, the city where the local lord resided, the region was little more than a grand expanse of wheat fields. 

It was here that Lilia decided she’d look for work. 

With her leg impaired, a career in fighting was now off the table. She could conceivably still teach swordsmanship, but she preferred to find work as an attendant—mainly because it paid much better. Here on the outskirts of the kingdom, there were plenty of people who could wield a blade and teach others how to do the same. There were far fewer people who were fully trained royal maids, capable of overseeing the running of an entire household. Even if the pay was lower than she hoped, money was still money. 

Being hired as a handmaiden by the lord of Fittoa, or even the high-ranking nobles who served him, was a dicey prospect. The people in those circles had a pipeline right back to the capital. If they found out she was a former handmaiden who’d attended the royal harem, she stood a good chance of being caught up in someone else’s political machinations. Lilia wanted no part of that. She’d already had one brush with death, and that was enough for her. 

No offense to the princess, but Lilia was going to do what she wanted, someplace far away from the war of succession. 

The issue was that less-wealthy families couldn’t afford to retain her services. Finding a place that was both safe and still paid decently proved rather difficult. 

*** 

After a month of wandering about Fittoa, Lilia finally came across a job posting that caught her eye. A low-ranking knight in Buena Village was looking for a housekeeper. The posting specified that they were looking for someone with experience in raising children, who could also act as midwife. 

Buena Village was a small hamlet on the far edge of the Fittoa Region. It was out in the middle of nowhere, even by middle-of-nowhere standards. The location was inconvenient, but otherwise, it was everything Lilia had been looking for. Her employer being a knight, even a low-ranking one, was another unexpected boon. 

It was the employer’s name, though, that really got her attention. It was one that Lilia recognized: Paul Greyrat. 

Paul was another student of Lilia’s former master. One day, back when she had been studying swordsmanship, the lazy, no-good son of a noble family had turned up at the training hall. Evidently, he’d been disowned by his father in the wake of a fight and would be studying the sword while sleeping at the hall. 

Paul had also studied swordsmanship at home, so despite having practiced a different style, it wasn’t long before his abilities surpassed Lilia’s. She was less than amused by that, but in retrospect, she’d never had a knack for it in the first place. 

Paul, on the other hand, positively radiated talent. One day, however, he abruptly left the training hall after causing some kind of big stir for reasons unknown to Lilia. He left with one final declaration: “I’m going to become an adventurer.” 

The man was like a hurricane. 

*** 

It had been seven years since Lilia had last seen Paul. And not only had he become a knight since then, but now he was also married? Lilia could scarcely believe it. She didn’t know what ups and downs he had been through, but if he was still the man she remembered, then he wasn’t a bad fellow at all. If he knew she was in trouble, he’d probably help her out. 

And if he didn’t… well, she’d just have to dredge up some stuff from the past. She had several stories up her sleeve to use as bargaining chips if she needed to. Having done that bit of mercenary calculus in her mind, Lilia headed for Buena Village. 

Paul welcomed Lilia with open arms. His wife, Zenith, was due soon, and the couple was quite frazzled. Lilia had the essential technical know-how from seeing to the birth and rearing of the princess; plus, she was a familiar face that one of them could vouch for. The family was happy to have her aboard. 

Also, the pay was better than Lilia had been hoping for. To her, it was like a dream come true. 

*** 

And then the child was born. 

The birth itself was problem-free, with everything proceeding as it should according to Lilia’s training. Even at the junctures where one could typically expect complications, everything went smoothly. 

But once he was born, the child did not cry. Lilia broke into a cold sweat. The infant’s face was expressionless, his nose and mouth having expelled amniotic fluid, and he made no sound. For a moment, he looked like he might have been stillborn. But when Lilia reached out, she could feel the baby’s warm pulse and the movements of his breathing. 

Still, he did not cry. Lilia remembered something she’d heard from one of the handmaidens who’d taught her: Children who didn’t cry at birth tended to have a host of abnormalities. 

At that very instant, however, her thoughts were interrupted. 

“Ahh! Waah!” 

The baby turned his face toward Lilia, his expression slack, burbling random sounds. Relief washed over Lilia. 

She didn’t quite know why, but it seemed like things were going to be okay. 

*** 

The child was given the name Rudeus, and what an unsettling child he was. He never cried, and never made a fuss. It might just have been that he was physically frail, but that notion was soon proven false. Once Rudeus learned to crawl, he began to make his way anywhere and everywhere around the house—the kitchen, the back door, the supply shed, the cleaning closet, the fireplace, and so on. Sometimes, somehow, he even made his way to the second floor. As soon as anyone took their eyes off him, he was gone. 

Regardless, he would inevitably be found within the house. For some reason, Rudeus never ventured outside. He’d look out the windows, but perhaps he was still too scared to leave the house. 

Lilia wasn’t sure when she developed an instinctual fear of the child. Was it around then, with him slipping away whenever unobserved, always needing to be tracked down? 

Rudeus was always smiling. Whether he was in the kitchen staring at vegetables, or at the flickering of a candle in its holder, or at unwashed undergarments, he was always burbling under his breath, chuckling as an unsettling grin rose to his face. 

It was the kind of grin that viscerally repulsed Lilia. It reminded her of the smiles she’d gotten from a particular cabinet minister as she made her way between the harem and the royal palace in the past. He was a bald man, his smooth head gleaming in the sunlight and his corpulent belly wobbling as he walked. Rudeus’s smile resembled the grin on the minister’s face when he eyed Lilia’s chest. A smile like that, coming from a mere baby. 

What happened when Lilia picked Rudeus up was particularly worrisome. His nostrils flared, the corners of his mouth drew up, and he’d start panting and bury his face against her bosom. His throat would twitch as he made weird, gleeful little giggles. 

It was enough to send a chill down Lilia’s spine; she almost wanted to hurl the boy to the floor in reflex. The child showed absolutely no affection. That smile of his was, quite simply, creepy… the same smile as that cabinet minister, who was rumored to have purchased a number of young women as slaves. And this was an infant, smiling like that. Nothing could be more unsettling. Lilia felt she was bodily at risk from a baby. 

She could only wonder why this child was so strange. Was he possessed by something malevolent? Had some curse been laid upon him? When she considered those possibilities, Lilia knew she couldn’t stand idly by. 

She rushed to the store, spending a small sum on what she needed. Then, when the Greyrats were asleep, and without asking Paul for his permission, she performed a traditional charm of banishment from her homeland. 

When Lilia picked Rudeus up the next day, she was certain: It hadn’t worked. The baby still had the same unsettling aura. Just the look on his face was enough to give her the creeps. 

Zenith herself had often said things like, “When that boy’s feeding, he really goes at it, doesn’t he?” She was completely unperturbed by the whole thing! Even Paul, a man of weak principles and something of a womanizer, didn’t give off vibes like his son did. 

Lilia had once heard a story in the palace harem. Back when the Asuran prince was still a baby, he’d crawl all around the harem grounds, night after night. It turns out he was possessed by a demon. Not knowing this, one of the attendants picked him up, and he pulled out a knife he’d hidden being his back and killed her by stabbing her in the heart. 

It was a frightful story. And Rudeus was just like that. Lilia had no doubts: This was another case of demonic possession. Oh, the boy was calm and placid now, but once the demon within him awoke, he’d make his way through the house while the family was asleep and kill them all one by one. 

Lilia had been far, far too hasty. She never should have taken this job. At some point, she knew, she was going to be attacked. 

She was, after all, the type to take superstitions quite seriously. 

*** 

And so, Lilia lived in fear for the first year or so. 

At some point, however, Rudeus’s ever-unpredictable behavior changed. Instead of disappearing and reappearing at random, he stayed holed up in Paul’s study in one corner of the second floor. Well, perhaps “study” was a generous word for a simple room that housed a few books. 

Rudeus would shut himself in there and not come out. One day, Lilia took a quick peek and there he was, staring fixedly at a book and muttering to himself. What he was saying didn’t sound like words. Not words from the common language on the Central Continent, at least. 

Besides, he was too young to be talking already, and certainly nobody had taught him to read. Which meant the boy was just looking at the books—not reading them—while making random sounds. 

For it to be anything else would just be weird. 

Even so, Rudeus sounded like he was speaking with an actual, meaningful cadence for some reason, and it looked like he understood the content of the book he was looking at. Yikes, that’s weird, Lilia thought as she watched secretively through the crack in the door. 

And yet, she strangely felt none of her usual revulsion toward him. Ever since the boy had taken to hiding away in the study, his hard-to-define, unsettling oddness had abated a fair bit. Oh, he’d still occasionally laugh or smile creepily, sure, but Lilia didn’t get chills whenever she held him anymore. He had stopped burying his face in her chest and panting. 

Why had she been so unsettled by him, anyway? In recent days, she’d gotten a sense of earnestness and diligence from him that she was loath to interfere with. Lilia spoke with Zenith about it, and she’d apparently gotten the same impression. From that point on, Lilia figured, it was best to leave the boy be. 

It was an odd feeling. Leaving an infant alone wasn’t something responsible adults did. But now, intelligence glimmered in Rudeus’s eyes, in contrast to mere months ago when there had only been a crude dullness. And there was the gleam of a resolute will to go with that intellectual brightness. 

What should they do? Nothing in Lilia’s meager experience had given her the tools to make a good decision. There’s no one right way to raise a child, she’d been told. Had that been from one of the older royal handmaidens? Or perhaps her mother? At least there was nothing too off or unsettling about the boy now, nothing to fear. 

In the end, Lilia decided to leave well enough alone. Any interference might cause the boy to revert to the way he’d been before.