“How do you like living here, then?” Rolling her eyes at the head maid, Haiane asked once more before Raeyine heaved a sigh.


    Thinking for a few moments in the silence, as he could no longer fish out a potato from his bucket, Lutiel raised his head leisurely.


    “It’s good,” he said, with his typical face blank of emotions.


    Still, despite his impassiveness, a small smirk rested on the girl’s face, priding itself at Raeyine.


    “Well, it’s not like he would remember any better,” a soft mumble escaped through the room, quickly apprehended.


    “What was that?” Haiane’s smirk turned cold in the eyes. Nonetheless, the maid didn’t speak back, her green hairs flowing low towards the skinning knife.


    “Lutiel, help me so we get it over with quicker,” Raeyine intervened in their fleeting quarrel, seeing as the man had none left in his bucket. And, without too much brooding, her proposal had been accepted.


    The maids watched as Raeyine took the bucket belonging to the maid on her right, emptying it by putting her potatoes in the bucket in front of her. Sharing it along with the white-haired butler, she promptly looked to her right.


    “Thoda, you go take another grater and help her,” she said while jutting with her chin, to which the girl freaked out.


    “W-why? Did I do something wrong?”


    “No, it will just be quicker, so get moving already.”


    “O-okay,” she released a fine stutter, moving along the table with a slumped back, all the way until she faced Lutiel and the head maid.


    Just like that, with a silence permeating the kitchen once again, the majority of the servants focused on their tasks, their shadows morphing ever so slightly as the sun changed its position.


    Washing his hands in the kitchen’s basin, the man distanced himself from the voices flowing about on the side. Drying them swiftly with a cloth that had become sullied over time, a pair of gloves came out from his pockets soon after.


    When it came to the second one, the right glove, he pondered for a few moments, staring at the pale skin around the middle. Although the mark didn’t show around at the time, had he not focused, it could have readily gone off and glowed to the demons around him while he handled the knife on the potatoes.


    Though, as he pulled the glove up, he no longer glanced at it, turning his interest behind. Looking up at the round clock filled with intricate lines of fine metal stretching outwards, he took in what the unobstructed parts showed.


    ‘Twenty three minutes until eight.’ He mused, already observing what the maids were doing beside the huge pile of elliptical potato patties. ‘Why did she wake us up to make so much food?’


    Although he couldn’t do anything but wonder about it, as the fried, elongated circles started to fit wholly inside the large wooden basket with an arched handle, the man didn’t need to wait long.


    “Alright, we can go now,” Raeyine said while holding the basket with both hands and staring at him beyond the three girls. “What are you standing for, Lutiel? Come over here.”


    His eyebrows quivering ever so slightly, he walked closer at her request, despite attaining further doubts about the matter.


    Stretching out his arm as he neared the maid, he took hold of the basket. “Thank you,” she said, her light face turning into a frown while looking behind the man.


    Though, when the man standing in the center of the room turned around, all he could see were plain faces staring back at him.


    “Is something wrong?” Haiane asked, only to see Lutiel’s body turn around forcefully, a certain hand on his shoulder doing so.


    “Don’t mind them, we have these fritters to worry about instead,” the one holding him said, quickly starting to push on his back, towards the doorway.


    Still, seeing her actions, the sleazy maid behind jeered through her head. “Inbie gove tias’o, Raeyi, tias gotovelie crav. Oops, I forgot about our little agreement, hehe,”


    Stopping for a second while Lutiel kept his pace towards the doors, the head maid glanced back at the one whose curved horn hailed to the ceiling. The smirk on the bawdy girl, however, was quickly washed out as Raeyine stared her down, not a slightest of breaths coming out of her mouth.


    “We’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t even think about sleeping before you finish cleaning the whole mansion,” she said, her gaze kept especially at the girl standing in front of two others.


    “What?!” Haiane asked rowdily, on the brink of a scream. The two beside her, albeit not voicing it, shared similarities to her around their faces.


    “Thoda, you take care of the Lady,” she added without caring for the girl, her back already facing them.


    While the maids were left in the middle of the kitchen crippled with dismay, the duo holding the food moved through the corridor. Aiming for the space enlightened by matutinal rays of sun ahead of their way, Lutiel briefly looked to his left, where a tall woman found herself.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    A few steps of silence followed the shutting of the door, but as he carried the bucket, her mouth moved eventually. “Are you curious about what they said? It was nothing phenomenal, frankly.”


    He didn’t move his head around this time, keeping up to the decisive steps taken by the girl. Opening his mouth while gazing through the wood-riddled corridor, he showed interest in something else. “Where are we going?”


    She didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes moving to the side, she witnessed him with their corners. “Let’s go meet up with Rovier first. We don’t have too much time.”


    “Okay,” he said with a plain face, watching as the open space came ever closer to them. Not many steps later, the man already saw the grand hall of the mansion’s ground floor. Donned in marble all around, the walls accentuated themselves with engravings stripped of past significance, replaced by new masters of the lands.


    However, as much as his sight wandered around, Lutiel quickly focused on the entryway up front, the large doors leading them both to the destination.


    The maid opened them, and when his hairs began swaying, the eyes immediately went down towards the basket.


    “They will get cold by the time we arrive,” he said while looking at the girl, however, he wasn’t able to witness any distress from her features.


    The composed expression slightly breaking as she exhaled a giggle, Raeyine spoke through the smile, “Check for yourself. Move your hand close to them.”


    Stopping just before the doorway, Lutiel held the basket with a single hand before the left one waved around above the potatoes. Creases appeared around his eyebrows as the white glove carried a new layer of warmth around it.


    Moving it away, the glove quickly warded off the winds along with the excessive heat, coming back to normal before the wearer brought his head at the girl.


    “Is it your magic?” He asked suddenly, her mien wavering slightly. From a calm smile, the edges curved up even higher.


    “Who knows?”


    Before he could assess her words and looks, she had already turned around, walking towards the old coachman placed among the horses. Without missing a beat, he started treading after the fluttering uniform.


    A similar sight of the past few days repeated itself before him. Paving stones rode through the ground, in a circular pattern around the small fountain, leading off into different paths. Yet, no matter how many dawns had passed, staring at the tall bushes gardened to a precise angle, as well as the sparse, verdant trees, Lutiel’s eyes never seemed to fade their intrigue away.


    Standing inside this manor, despite having a moderate amount of clothes on himself, he didn’t need to shield his body from the piercing winds of the ashen skies.


    Of course, as he looked at the coachman’s horn, as well as Raeyine’s grayish nape, he understood the reason for all of the great phenomena happening around him. It was the work of magic.


    ‘Is the gardening maid responsible for this? But, on such a scale?’ He walked closer and closer towards the carriage, his mind constantly occupied these days.


    However, as many questions as he had, they only grew with time without ever decreasing, it seemed. Once again left with no answer, he let it float away inside his head as the maid before him opened the doors.


    “After you. And don’t worry about letting them fall,” she said, gesturing towards the white seats.


    Not objecting to her words, he simply got inside while tilting the basket for it to fit the doors. Staying in the same place as before, the fried fritters soon rested on the floor, right after Raeyine took her spot opposite to him.


    Quietly, Lutiel saw as the gardens around the mansion began to move away, waving their goodbyes to them. At the same time, he noticed something in the corner of his left eye.


    Turning his head to the girl staring right at him, a voice struck through his ears clearly. Eye to eye, the duo of servants didn’t wane away from the other.


    “We’re going to the town. Sorry for not bringing it up earlier, but I didn’t want to speak so casually inside the mansion,” she said immediately, the first sentence as concise as she was capable of.


    “It’s fine,” he replied quickly with his usual blank face, as well as the new, relaxed jaw of his. “But, I want to know one thing.”


    “Yes?”


    “Why did we make this?” He asked, gazing down at the basket.


    Following his movement, Raeyine also looked at it, prompting her mouth to open up. “Ah, right, I guess you would wonder about that. It’s an annual festival, you could call it.”


    “A festival?”


    “Mhm,” she nodded, their heads already sprung back to prior positions. Looking at the purple eyes lost in wonder, the maid didn’t feel like he truly reciprocated her gaze. So, with a spreading smile, she started anew.


    “Yes, a festival celebrated across all of the Aseun, though that’s a bit ironic,” she chuckled by the end, not looking into his eyes herself this time. Though, she quickly regained propriety. “Do you remember a demon named Magon?”


    His murky pupils trembled at the name while he froze internally. ‘Why is she bringing him up?’ A thought popped to his mind while looking at the maid with a straight face. As shocking as the reveal was, he couldn’t let his control go awry. He felt his right hand itching at the call of his name, but he needed to keep it in check.


    There was no way of knowing what sort of horrors he would be subjected to if the demons came to realize of his glyph and he didn’t want to test that so quickly after his years-long slumber.


    “No.”


    “I figured. Your memory loss basically wiped you clean, except for your name.”


    “Was he someone important?”


    “Well, yes, he was. He was one of the demon lords like Lady Zyponia, actually, but that title had been long since stripped off of him.” She said, a regrettable expression filling her face. The maid’s vision drifted off to the right as she recalled the events, immuring the man as he listened with a pale face.


    “Did he do something wrong?” Lutiel asked suddenly, making Raeyine turn back to him, the poor airs around her immediately disappearing, even a faint smile seemed to emerge gradually.


    “Yes. He did something inexcusable,” despite the face, her tone harshed up at the start, only to fade away as she said the last part, at the same time making the man squeeze his eyebrows. “He betrayed us by killing the one you’ve all been named after.”


    “What?” He asked right after, the words blurting out on their own. The creases around his forehead increased as her voice tumbled around in his ears.