Within the Nilm family, there is one existence known as the Head Maid.
She is someone who stands above all the other servants and is also the personal maid of the head of the family, making her the third highest person in the mansion’s hierarchy. Incidentally, the only two people above her are the Madam and young Mistress.
As the Head Maid, she acts as the overseer for all the servants and goings-on inside the estate including but not limited to the day to day administrations, logistics, security and welfare.
Right now, that position has always been occupied by one person by the name of Mary, who had been serving the Nilm family ever since its founding.
As part of her duties, she also ensures that all threats to the family are neutralised completely and cleanly.
Which was why she was very upset to know that there were not just one but two actual attempts on her Mistress’s life. If she had a choice in the matter, she would have already gone off and killed the people who compromised her Mistress’s safety.
But because Mistress was still young and innocent about the darker side of the world, Mary waited until the Mistress was occupied with other things before making her move.
Thus, a week after the young Mistress had returned from an attack by her personal maid’s father, she visited the slum quarters of the city with the aforementioned maid in tow at night.
Both of them still wore their maid uniforms which stuck out significantly in such a place, but no one around had approached them. In fact, anyone there who saw them immediately found the nearest place to hide, as though they had just seen the God of Death walk through their midst.
The two of them went towards a particular building located at the edge of the slums. From the outside, it looked no different from the other stone and wooden dwellings around, but if you were to look more closely, you might notice that it was better maintained than the others.
It was this particular building that the two well-dressed maids approached, the older amongst them rapping her knuckles on the door.
Naturally, the maids had come here with a purpose in mind and a social call was definitely not what they were looking for.
Through interrogating the ones that had been captured that night, Mary had learned that they belonged to a bandit group that was hiding within the capital city itself. A bandit group that was recently hired by a certain Inugami assassin to kill a certain Meslatar noble on a certain day one week ago.
There is only one acceptable response for such people of course.
The whispers inside the building went silent before the sound of footsteps could be heard approaching the entrance.
The wooden door opened a crack, allowing light to pour out from the gap and a man to peek through, his face morphing into one of surprise when he saw who was on the other side of the door.
“Black Dagger?” Mary asked with a slight tilt of her head.
The man’s eyes widened slightly which acted as an affirmation for the Trasif maid.
He was in the middle of trying to push the door shut when three thin needles shot through the gap, piercing through his throat.
Mary kicked the door open, her strength enough to send it flying off its hinges with the man still behind it.
Another man that had been hiding on the other side of the door with a dagger in his hands was also flung back as well, the two men being thrown to the other side of the wall and crushed by the door.
The two maids then strolled into the building, as though they were merely here to visit some friends.
On the stairs to the left of the entrance, a male Mahun wielding a bow quickly loosed his arrow, letting the projectile fly straight towards the Trasif.
Mary plucked the arrow out of the air with her thumb and index finger with an extremely casual air, the action akin to plucking a flower by the roadside.
She then threw the arrow back at the man, the arrow flying back at the man faster than it had been from being shot out of the bow.
The man barely even had time to react before the arrow was pierced through his throat entirely, leaving a coin-sized hole in the man’s throat and the arrow sticking out of the wall behind him.
The sound made the other men that were waiting inside rush out to see what was the cause of the commotion, all of them armed to the teeth.
Mary smiled at them, a curtsy would be wasted on the likes of these trash.
“Good day, people of the Black Dagger group, I believe no introductions are needed here since everyone here knows who I am, yes?”
One of the bandits stepped forward, “We have no quarrel with you…”
Though her face showed a neutral expression, the Trasif maid was actually quite furious at the moment.
She had followed the Madam for all her life and she knew just how dearly she wished to have a child of her own.
Now, not only did Madam have the child she wished for, Mistress Aster was also an especially sweet child and an especially talented one. Mary already knew that she was someone who was destined for greatness.
Yet, because plagues like the people in front of her exist, Mistress’s life was in danger more than once while under their watch.
Even so, as much as Mary would like to just massacre everyone in that building right away, she still just needed one final bit of confirmation from them.
She looked at the bandit who had stepped forward, “I believe your group has accepted a job offer from an Inugami recently to capture or dispose of a certain individual, yes?”
The man’s hand twitched.
“I… I don’t believe we do. I think missus has found the wrong people…”
Mary felt it was utterly ridiculous that the trash in front of her could even spout such nonsense like that. Despite living for so long, she still finds some behaviours of Mahuns intriguing, like the current situation for instance.
Instead of simply admitting to their wrongdoings, they would lie just to delay the inevitable.
And when they are faced with an opponent they cannot beat, they will either try and beg for their lives or fight desperately while hoping for some kind of miracle instead of just accepting their fate.
To her, it was truly incomprehensible.
Her companion sniffed the air, “There is his smell in the air… He was here.”
Mary smiled at Katsuki.
Despite not having any initial experience, the Inugami had taken her lessons very seriously.
Though it might be a little biassed of her to say this, she truly believes that Katsuki was the most talented student she had thus far and might even rival her own devotion to the Madam for her Mistress.
She was making heaps of progress in her training which included the normal maid duties and also the combat maid and assassination duties. Mary had no doubt that Katsuki would become a fine maid for the Mistress in the future.
When Mary had told her what she found out about the bandits and who was behind them, Katsuki had eagerly jumped on board the idea that they should wipe the problem at its root by getting rid of the entire group altogether.
And since the one piece of information Mary was missing had been confirmed, there was no need for pretences anymore.
She turned back to the bandit who had been addressing them, “Please, do explain?”
The man stammered and tried to come up with an excuse for his earlier lie and the reason behind why they took the job.
Unbeknownst to them, Mary was already taking the opportunity to silently cast her magic.
“Formless and shapeless is my body, flesh, skin and bones shall be moulded. With limitless choices and boundless forms, let my own flesh bend to my will. Take the form of that which I desire and bind it in permanence till I no longer require. [Body Shift].”
The spell was one that allowed her to change the shape of her body however she wished, something that she had used often during her time as Head Maid.
As the spell took effect, her arms had morphed into blades and a kick of her foot was enough to send her flying forwards and decapitating all the bandits in front of her.
She had intentionally left a few alive so that her companion could take care of them as well. This trip was also meant to double as an extracurricular lesson for the Inugami.
Mary was quite satisfied to see the younger maid show no signs of hesitation in cutting the bandits down. She knew that they were the ones responsible for the attack on her Mistress and thus deserved no mercy from either of them.
The two of them thus worked together to clear the building of any remaining bandits until the final room where their target lay: the boss of the entire group.
Bursting through the door, they caught the male Mahun completely by surprise, allowing Katsuki to sink her blade into the man’s sternum before he realised he was under attack.
“This is for hurting my Mistress, may your soul never rest in peace,” She growled before slipping her second stiletto into his ribs and straight into his heart.
There was no need to show mercy to the trash that crosses their Mistresses.
That night, the population heard about a fire that burned down one of the buildings in the slums. Everyone else dismissed it as an unfortunate accident but only a few of the slum residents knew of the two maids that visited that very same building.