Chapter 37: Love and Deception

After wrapping up my meeting with Bertheim on satisfactory terms, I returned home. I had to endure Sabine’s barrage of nagging for coming home all beat up again, but her eyes went round when she heard I’d acquired a new house.

"Are we moving? Where to?"

"You’ll faint when you see that mansion. We’re finally getting a house worthy of nobility."

I bragged to Sabine with a smug grin.

Though Hans seemed very uneasy hearing Göring’s explanation that it was the Lorden mansion with rumors of Satan’s servant appearing, I paid that nonsense no mind. Once ownership transferred to me, we could take our time moving in. Sabine seemed thrilled about the new house, already humming to herself.

I should give my retainers a tour of Rosengarden tomorrow.

"Sister Sabine, I drew the water," Bodo said.

"Then can you prepare the master’s bath?" Sabine asked.

"I don’t know why our master loves bathing so much. Once a week is enough, but every single day! Do you really like bathing that much? I hate bathing the most."

Sorry for loving baths. Along with meals, bathing was one of the pleasures I refused to give up living in medieval times. It was an era when dousing yourself in perfume was more common than bathing, so I genuinely couldn’t stand the body odor and perfume wafting around. Thanks to my influence, my retainers washed frequently too.

Anyway, it was an era with zero concept of hygiene, so I’d developed the habit of always bathing after going out. Because of that, Bodo, newly assigned to water-drawing and bath duty, seemed pretty disgruntled, but what could you do? Kid, that’s your job.

Daniel had stuck Bodo with bath water preparation the very day he arrived.

So household duties were currently divided: Sabine took full charge of the kitchen, Bodo handled water-drawing and bath preparation, Hans and Daniel handled cleaning and chopping firewood. Ted and Oscar were in charge of security and served as soldiers I could mobilize in emergencies.

And they doubled as Hans’s training instructors.

Hans held the dual role of attendant and soldier.

"Should I hire more help?" I asked.

"How about that restaurant girl Hans keeps chasing?" Bodo said.

"...What?"

Who was chasing whom?

At Bodo’s words, Hans, who’d been chopping firewood, jumped in shock and clapped a hand over the little snitch’s mouth. Wait, what was this about? Hans liked someone? Why was I only hearing about this now? Of course, it was my retainer’s personal business, and I’d been mulling over what kind of girl to introduce to Hans, but I’d never expected he’d already found someone on his own.

He’d solved my problem without me lifting a finger.

Using my master’s privilege, I pressed Hans, asking if Bodo’s words were true.

"Tell me honestly. Who’s this restaurant girl who stole your heart?"

"W-well, it’s Matilda, who works at Rosemary."

"Yeah? Are you two together?"

"No! Absolutely not!"

His face beet red, he was vehemently denying it. What was with this guy? Why was he being so hopeless? A mountain of a man turning into a flustered mess, face crimson—honestly, I wanted to smack him. No wonder Bodo had scolded him, saying that if he called himself a man, he should muster the courage to claim her and bring her to his master to ask permission to marry.

A 22-year-old getting lectured about romance by a 10-year-old.

"Rosemary is that restaurant on Linz Boulevard in the west district, right? I think I went there a few times before."

"R-right. It’s where you first bought me a meal, Sir Wolfgang."

"I haven’t gone once since quitting street cleaning."

"Actually, I’m a regular there. Hehe. I went to see Matilda."

"Master—literally just to see her. Just to look."

Judging by Bodo picking his nose while saying this, I guessed it was the honest truth. This wouldn’t do. The master needed to intervene. At the rate this guy was going, he wouldn’t make a move until someone else snatched her up. The conditions seemed decent enough.

If she worked at a restaurant, her domestic skills should be solid, and I expected she’d lighten Sabine’s workload. So I sent Oscar and Bodo to Rosemary to gauge her interest. I’d assumed we’d easily get her consent since Matilda was the youngest daughter of the couple running Rosemary, but...

"She refused? Why?"

She’d turned down the chance to marry a noble’s attendant?

The dream job for commoners was serving under nobility.

I hadn’t expected her to decline a marriage proposal.

"There was an uproar at that house over it, but it seems the young lady already has someone else. I heard she’s pledged her future to some knight."

At Oscar’s words, Hans, listening beside him, sank into despair.

A knight with a commoner woman? Not as a mistress?

Unless he’d lost his mind, a knight-class noble would never take a commoner woman as his legitimate wife. For nobles, marriage was an extremely powerful tool for forging alliances. Wasting that on a mere commoner? Either the girl had her head in the clouds or she knew exactly what she was doing—one of the two.

Oh, maybe that knight wasn’t noble class.

Not all knights were treated as nobility; in my case, I occupied the lowest rung among nobles as a hereditary knight. If he was a first-generation knight, he couldn’t claim noble standing. I consoled Hans. I needed to find him a more realistic, sensible match.

"I’ll definitely find you a match, so cheer up. Don’t mope just because you got turned down."

"...Yes. I’ll put my faith in you alone, Sir Wolfgang."

"I’ll make tons of your favorite meat and vegetable stew. So cheer up."

"The only ones who comfort me are my master and family. Sob sob."

"If it were me, I’d have swept her off her feet first and worried later."

"Bodo, you’re really heartless."

Hans drank heavily that day and, to his credit, shook it off completely the next morning.

And several days passed after that.

I’d completely forgotten about Matilda when Bodo brought me unexpected news.

"That girl ran off with her family’s money?"

"Yeah. There’s chaos at that house over it."

The couple who owned the place had opposed the relationship from the start, doubting the credentials of the knight Matilda was seeing, but Matilda had ultimately chosen to elope. Bodo added that surprisingly many women ran away like that.

Having been exposed to the seediest street rumors, Bodo knew all about this, so I could only click my tongue. And those women who ran away usually ended up sold to the brothel district with debts heaped on them. Parents tried to get their sold daughters back, but the crushing debt made it impossible.

It’d be better to just toy with them and discard them; wasn’t this a purely predatory scheme? And the organization that made this their main trade was Rafel, one of the slums’ three major groups. Come to think of it, I’d had some run-ins with those Rafel bastards. The men who’d targeted Sabine had been Rafel’s people.

When Bodo first came to our household, he hadn’t adjusted easily. He’d grown up scraping together a few copper coins as a tout in the brothel district or being treated like a stray as a prostitute’s son rather than a commoner. But the reason he hadn’t turned out twisted like the worst of the slums was that he’d at least had his mother’s love.

Life bound by rules took time for the free-spirited Bodo to get used to, but as Sabine looked after him like a sister and taught him things one by one, Bodo gradually opened his heart. Besides his mother, this was the only time someone had shown him such warmth.

That’s why Bodo was especially devoted to Sabine.

And he was fond of Hans too.

A bit slow but sincere older brother?

The reason Sabine took such good care of Bodo was their shared experience of losing their mothers. Hans and Sabine had lost their parents to an epidemic and, relying on their only relative (their aunt), had been fortunate enough to reach the duchy.

And when I’d first taken the street cleaning supervisor position, I’d noticed Hans’s diligence, honesty, and desperation, which was why I’d hired him as an attendant. Having lived in the brothel district, Bodo possessed a wealth of underworld knowledge.

I hadn’t known about schemes like Matilda’s case: luring women in, saddling them with debt, then selling them to the prostitution guild. The organization behind it was Rafel, the most ruthless of the three, locked in a hostile rivalry with Treppen. I’d learned that through Bodo too.

Rather than simply using Bodo as an attendant, wouldn’t it be wiser to groom him as an informant specializing in underworld intelligence? Plus, he knew many people in the brothel district. He knew the district’s residents and even some guild members—wasn’t that quite the network?

It had been Bodo’s resourcefulness that uncovered the meeting place based on that information.