Chapter 478 It's Home For Me, But It's Hell For You
“Welcome to our home!” I gestured towards the interior. “Although I guess this isn’t the first time you’re here anyway, but welcome!”
Tiara looked around the hall, “Mmm… I don’t know why but the feeling I’m getting now is different from what I remember…”
Katsuki spoke up from beside me, “That’s because you are no longer seen as an outsider, Miss Tiara.”
Mmm… I’m not sure what Katsuki means by that?
Aria frowned a little at my personal maid, probably because she had not addressed Tiara as a princess.
She was just about to say something when Tiara raised her hand, “No, I would rather not be treated as a member of Royalty here. I do not expect you to accept that as quickly, Aria, but I would definitely appreciate it if you could do the same.”
The Mahun maid snapped her mouth shut before bowing her head, “I thank you for your consideration, Princess. But I shall only start addressing you otherwise when you have officially stepped down.”
Tiara nodded and said nothing more.
I turned to the other two “guests” behind them, “Umm… So I guess you two will also be starting work here today.”
Niaris curtsied, “I thank you for the opportunity, Lady Nilm.”
The former Baron Staphone beside her merely glared at me.
“Umu. Katsuki, could you take care of them?” I asked.
“Of course, Mistress. Please leave it to me.”
She then escorted Niaris while pushing along a rather angry former Baron out to the otherside of the hall. The only reason why he hadn’t lashed out and been quiet was because of the slave collar around his neck, which was also present around Niaris’s neck as well.
Speaking of which, I asked Mother to let me train with the maids as well but she told me that I would only be allowed to join after this semester was over.
Since we only had another month or so to go left in the school year, I agreed to it.
Time really flies huh? I’m going to be a second year student soon.
Yet I can’t help but feel that so many things happened this year… I’m not against some excitement in my life but I wouldn’t mind just having a rather uneventful school year either…
I reached up and took off my [Mask Of Impossible Identity] and stashed it away. The former Baron and Niaris have yet to see my real face but I believe it would be revealed to them sooner or later now that they have been placed here as our servants so it’s no big deal.
They wouldn’t be able to spill this secret out since we had ordered them through the slave collar to be unable to do so.
Yes, my idea was to take them on as our servants. I figured that the former Baron’s problem was that he did not know who he was dealing with so putting him through the servant training and letting him live here for a while might make him understand how big his mistake was.
It might seem like he was actually getting a pretty good deal out of this, but here’s the thing… His conditions as a criminal slave was that he had to serve as our slave until his work here pays back the equivalent of the damages he had done to us.
He was not wrong saying that he received the ‘minimum’ punishment for this, since this was a punishment that may be given to a criminal that broke something valuable inside a merchant’s store for example. They would then need to work for the merchant until the value of their labour was deemed equivalent in value to the damages they did.
Pretty light of a sentence for what he had tried to do.
Here’s the thing that he did not understand…
What is the value of damages he could owe for attacking our Family? The very same Family who has close ties with the Royal Family and who got even closer because their only child had just been engaged to the Princess?
Not to mention the fact that the Head of the family is known to be unable to conceive and only received a child through the miracle of the gods?
The price for such a thing was already inconceivable to begin with but that’s not even the part we screwed him over the most for.
You see… How much value the work of these types of criminal slaves are worth are usually determined by the base salary a normal worker might receive if they worked for the injured party… And if the slave incurs additional costs during their sentence, it would only add on to what they owe.
What he isn’t aware of is that our servants don’t actually get a salary… They get an allowance… And if we were to base the value of his work on this allowance we pay our servants, it would not even be enough to cover the cost of food and board he would incur just by staying here.
Unless he were to choose to live on the street and eat nothing during his punishment, there’s no way for him to avoid this cost since he had already lost his house, his family and everything he had owned.
And even if he were somehow still able to do that… He would definitely not be able to avoid incurring the cost of the training that we would need to give him as a new servant of the Family. There was no way we would be letting him serve as a servant of our Family without at least being proficient enough after all.
Since the training was perpetual where our servants continue to train themselves throughout the service… You can see where this is going.
In other words, his fate was already set to be a slave of ours for the rest of his life with no way out.
His daughter must also be aware of this and she was at least grateful that we did not just end her life for what she had done.
Of course, there is a committee in the Kingdom that has people in charge of making sure that these sorts of things don’t happen to all criminal slaves and that they at least have a way of earning back their freedom… But who amongst them would dare to try and help this guy and piss off Mother?
Yeah, this guy is pretty much fucked…
Even if we were to main, torture or kill him, no one would bat an eye. The funny thing was that the person himself isn’t aware of this yet.
That’s why Mother actually approved of this idea wholeheartedly and sent him to be trained as a butler with the others.
She even made sure to let all the servants know just what this guy did to land himself in this position.
I didn’t even need to do anything anymore, the other servants of our mansion would definitely be giving him a hard time on their own.
If he manages to get by a day without at least being beaten up once or twice, that would be considered fortunate for him.
Everyone in this mansion is his enemy right now.
I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
Footsteps came from the side and Tiara, Aria and I turned to see Delmare running up to us.
The Siren stopped when she saw us, her eyes widening when she saw Tiara standing beside me.
She pulled out her notebook and scribbled something on it before showing it to me.
‘Is the princess staying over?’
Tiara answered for me, “Hello Miss Delmare. I hope my presence here does not inconvenience you, but I have just been engaged to Aster as her fiancee and will now live with her for the foreseeable future.”
Delmare turned to me, silently asking me with her eyes if this was true.
I scratched my cheek, “Umm… The King offered me a reward for saving Tiara… And the reward was for this engagement…”
Delmare scribbled in her notebook again, ‘Is that even considered a reward?’
I turned to Tiara in a slight panic, the person in question is right here you know? Don’t you think that question is a little rude?
Tiara let out a laugh, “Hehehe. You certainly are quite bold, Miss Delmare. You are right though, it certainly is more rewarding for me than it is for Aster and I am grateful for that.”
Delmare nodded to show that she understood before skipping to my side to wrap her arm around mine. She even made sure that my arm slipped into the space in between her boobs while she squeezed them together.
Hmm? That’s unexpectedly assertive of her.
Tiara smiled at the Siren, “There’s no need to worry, Miss Delmare. I know my position very well. So you don’t need to worry about me overstepping my boundaries.”
Oh… Was Delmare actually jealous?
Delmare pursed her lips before taking out her notebook to scribble something in it while still holding on to my arm.
‘Date?’
I giggled, “Ehehe~ You want to go on a date with me?”
She used her notebook to hide the lower half of her face before nodding slowly.
So cute~
“Alright~ Since we have no school tomorrow, how about we go somewhere?”
She nodded before burying her face in my chest to hide her blushing expression.
Really cute~
I guess I have a date to plan for tomorrow now. But in the meantime, I guess I should bring the Princess around the mansion first~
Hmmm? Did I just hear a man’s scream coming from where Katsuki had brought those two? Must be my imagination.