“He’ll be fine, right?”

I muttered as I passed through the main entrance hall without hesitation and headed up to the second floor.

When he returned to the mansion, he looked perfectly fine on the outside.

Still, I wondered if he was injured anywhere else.

‘He should be a little more talkative.’

Because he’s the type of person who wouldn’t show any signs of being hurt even if he was.

I couldn’t help but worry more after finding out that no one was by Dietrich’s side.

Is this sympathy?

‘No. It’s not sympathy.’

It wasn’t that I felt sorry for Dietrich and wanted to treat him well. I absolutely didn’t want to take care of him out of pity.

Isn’t my current situation not one where I can sympathize with anyone?

I’m on the verge of seeing an ending where I get shattered to pieces along with Harpe!

I, who was busy just trying to survive, didn’t even have the luxury to sympathize with or hate anyone.

I roughly looked around to see if anyone was on the second floor, but as usual, there was no one except the servants going up and down the stairs.

It felt as if only ghosts lived on the second floor.

I passed through the quiet corridor and soon arrived in front of Dietrich’s office, knocking on the door.

“Young Master Dietrich, are you there?”

However, there was no response telling me to come in or asking who it was.

I deliberately knocked on the door using honorifics in case there were prying eyes, but it seemed like no one was in the room.

Where does he keep going?

My mood swings several times a day because of Dietrich, who is nowhere to be seen!

‘But why am I in such a bad mood?’

Is it because I couldn’t confirm if Dietrich was unharmed and safe?

Or is it because he returned but didn’t acknowledge me?

I sat on the floor, scratching my head, but I couldn’t come up with a good reason.

He said he was going somewhere this morning and hasn’t returned since then.

‘Ah, it would have been really nice if there was a part in the original novel that explained in detail what Dietrich did every day!’

The days when I had no interest in Dietrich were already a distant memory.

Now my only concern was one thing.

Dietrich Delgado’s daily life.

I had no idea he would be so rarely seen in the mansion, doing who knows what and where.

‘As Marie said, did he go out in the morning and hasn’t come back yet?’

Or maybe he’s already in his bedroom.

I abruptly stood up from my spot and this time changed direction, heading towards Dietrich’s bedroom.

As soon as I arrived, I lightly knocked on the door, but there was no response.

With this, it was certain that Dietrich was not in the Delgado mansion.

Then where did he go?

I slid down and sat against the white wall next to the bedroom.

I felt a sense of futility and all my motivation disappeared.

As summer began, the noticeably longer day finally started to paint the sky in a golden hue.

I looked around at the rapidly darkening surroundings and stood up from my spot.

As much as I wanted to sit and wait for Dietrich.

I couldn’t do that.

Even if there was no one around, if someone saw me, who wasn’t even a maid in the main building, staying here, they would find it strange.

‘Yes, Dietrich is the most promising candidate to inherit the dukedom of the Delgado family.’

It was only natural for him to be busy.

He must be living a slightly different life than a maid who only peels potatoes and onions and stirs soup.

‘We live in different worlds.’

I was able to have friendly conversations with him because I was the Spirit of the Sword, but a maid in a servant’s uniform and Dietrich had distinctly different statuses.

Employer and employee.

An employee can’t just come looking for them whenever they want to see them.

‘The difference in status is felt anew.’

I straightened my clothes.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone, feeling drained of energy.

‘That jerk Dietrich. Is it that hard to just tell me you’re back?’

If he called me to tell me why he took Harpe, I would have hurried over even if it was hard.

If I had met Dietrich, I would have also told him that I met Nocturne Frey while he was going north.

‘Come to think of it, I met Nocturne Frey too.’

I was really flustered back then.

But strangely, now I didn’t have time to care about Nocturne, whom I used to like so much.

It’s because Dietrich keeps messing with my head, so I don’t have time to quietly admire Nocturne!

Dietrich started to annoy me again, so I went down to the first floor, exhaling sharply.

I hoped the heavy steps back to the residence were just due to my mood.

Because I didn’t want to admit that I was upset about not seeing Dietrich.

But that night, I couldn’t sleep a wink.

I heard rumors about Dietrich in an unexpected place.

Robert and I, who had finished preparing ingredients more simply than usual, were on our way to the courtyard with a cool strawberry juice to give to Marie.

“Marie will be so happy.”

“Yeah. Because it’s strawberry juice.”

The best thing about working in the hot and stuffy kitchen is that I can stuff all the leftover food into my mouth!

But the two of us, who had already drunk three glasses of the remaining strawberry juice, decided to give the rest of the strawberry juice in the bottle to Marie.

Today, when they were doing laundry on a large scale, the weather was sweltering.

It was going to be terribly hot hanging endless amounts of laundry under the scorching sun.

I felt sorry for Marie, who must be exhausted.

A glass of cool strawberry juice would probably bring a smile to Marie’s face.

I hurried my steps to the courtyard with a light laugh.

It wasn’t far from the kitchen to the courtyard.

If you walk a little further, you can see the wide courtyard with blankets and laundry hanging all over.

“Marie!”

Robert, waving his hand in greeting, ran to Marie.

Marie, who was mature in everything, and Robert, who was clueless and simply innocent, bickered endlessly but quickly became close.

“What’s going on?”

I grabbed the collar of Robert, who was nestling against her with a much larger build than Marie, and showed the bottle in my hand.

“Oh my! Is that strawberry juice?”

“Yeah! I brought it for you!”

I could feel the other maids who were hanging laundry looking at me when I mentioned strawberry juice.

Judging by their flushed faces, they seemed exhausted from the heat.

In their eyes looking at the strawberry juice, there was a desperate desire to have just one sip.

But realizing that the juice was in the hands of a new maid at the Delgado mansion whom they had never spoken to, they awkwardly looked away.

Although it had been quite some time since I started working as a maid at the Delgado mansion, I had never properly talked to the other maids.

There was no particular reason.

I was a maid who only worked in the limited space of the kitchen, and I rarely had a chance to meet the maids in the main building except for Marie.

I quietly looked down at the strawberry juice in my hand.

It seemed like there was enough that even if I shared it with everyone here, there would be plenty.

‘Especially since the weather is hot.’

It wasn’t bad to share, as we weren’t on particularly bad terms.

I let go of Robert’s collar I was holding and waved my hands wildly towards the people around, shouting loudly.

“Everyone, have some strawberry juice!”

Attention was instantly focused on me. I raised the hand holding the strawberry juice and smiled brightly.

“Heidi, you’re the new maid this time, right?”

At the suggestion to share the juice, the maids who initially kept their distance were now sitting in a circle around me.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I heard there was a new maid, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen you since you moved from the main building to the kitchen so quickly. I only heard what Marie occasionally told me.”

“How’s the kitchen work? There are rumors that everyone wants to avoid it because it’s hard.”

“By the way, your eye color is so pretty.”

Unlike earlier when they were awkwardly just moving their eyes, the maids who took a sip of the cool juice kept asking questions with sparkling eyes.

The barrage of questions was simple.

Light and fun topics that women of this age could endlessly giggle and chatter about, such as where I came from, how the kitchen work was, and if I had a lover.

It had been a while since I had such a pleasant conversation with people other than Marie and Robert.

After talking for a long time, I could see that they had fully opened up to me.

It felt like my stress was relieved as I was chatting with people of similar age.

‘Indeed. I haven’t been looking around too much lately.’

Let’s forget about the heartless Dietrich now.

Let’s stop thinking about someone who didn’t even tell me when he would be back!

I deliberately tried harder to focus on the conversation.

To the point where Robert next to me said, “You’re getting along with those kids?”

The topic of our chatty conversation eventually shifted to our employer, the Delgado family.

Among them, a maid who worked near the duchess’s bedroom whispered softly.

“Ah, right. Do you all know about that? About Young Master Dietrich. The story about Young Master Dietrich’s unique taste.”

Dietrich?

I perked up my ears and focused on the update about Dietrich that I didn’t expect to hear here.

The maid paused for a moment as if savoring the attention focused on her, then spoke in an even more subtle tone than before.

“Oh, my! Everyone knows. That Young Master Dietrich is homosexual!”

What is this about?