Lilia used to be a royal handmaiden for the Asura Palace harem. In
addition to her usual duties as a lady-in-waiting, the role also called for her to
act as a guardswoman. She'd been expected to take up arms and come to her
master's defense should the need arise. She was devoted to her duties, and
carried out her job as handmaiden without flaw or fail.
When it came to her role as a fighter, however, her skill with a sword
was merely adequate at best. As a result, Lilia found herself wholly
outmatched when an assassin struck at the newborn princess, her opponent's
dagger catching her in the leg. The blade had been coated with poison, the
sort meant to kill even a member of the royal family, a troublesome toxin that
could not be cured by purifying magic.
Thanks to the wound being promptly tended to by Healing magic, and
a doctor's attempts at neutralizing the poison, Lilia had managed to survive,
but there were lingering aftereffects. They didn't pose an impediment to her
daily life, but she could no longer run at any real speed, her gait reduced to a
clumsy stagger.
Lilia's life as a warrior had come to an end. The palace promptly
discharged her from her position. Lilia understood why perfectly well. It only
made sense to lose a job she was no longer able to perform. Although this left
her unable to pay even her basic living expenses, given her position in the
court, she considered herself lucky not to have been executed in secret. And
so, Lilia left the capital.
The mastermind behind the princess's assassination attempt was still to
be found. As someone familiar with the palace harem's inner workings, Lilia
was well aware that she was a likely target. Or perhaps—had the palace set
her free to lure out whoever was behind this plot?
When she'd been brought into the court, she'd been curious why they'd
taken on a lowborn woman such as herself. Perhaps they wanted to hire a
simple maid who could easily be disposed of.
Whatever the case, for her own safety, Lilia needed to get as far away
from the capital as she could. Regardless of whether the palace really was
using her as bait, she no longer had any standing orders, no longer had
anything holding her back.
She no longer felt any sense of obligation to her old life.
After taking a series of stagecoaches, Lilia arrived at the Fittoa Region,
a vast agricultural area on the borders of the kingdom. Apart from the Citadel
of Roa, the city where the local lord resided, the region was little more than a
grand expanse of wheat fields.
It was here that Lilia decided she'd look for work.
With her leg impaired, a career as a fighter was now off the table. She
could conceivably still teach swordsmanship, but she preferred to find work
as an attendant— mainly because it paid much better. Here on the outskirts of
the kingdom, there were plenty of people who could wield a blade and teach
others how to do the same. There were far fewer people who were fully
trained royal maids, capable of overseeing the running of an entire household.
Even if the pay was lower than she hoped, money was still money.
Being hired as a handmaiden by the lord of Fittoa, or even the high-
ranking nobles who served him, was a dicey prospect. The people in those
circles had a pipeline right back to the capital. If they found out she was a
former handmaiden who'd attended the royal harem, she stood a good chance
of being caught up in someone else's political machinations. Lilia wanted no
part of that. She'd already had one brush with death, and that was enough for
her.
No offense to the princess, but Lilia was going to do what she wanted,
someplace far away from the war of succession.
The issue was that less-wealthy families couldn't afford to retain her
services. Finding a place that was both safe and still paid decently proved
rather difficult.
***
After a month of wandering about Fittoa, Lilia finally came across a job posting that caught her eye. A low-ranking knight in Buena Village was
looking for a housekeeper. The posting specified that they were looking for
someone with experience in raising children, who could also act as midwife.
Buena Village was a small hamlet on the far edge of the Fittoa Region.
It was out in the middle of nowhere, even by middle-of-nowhere standards.
The location was inconvenient, but otherwise, it was everything Lilia had
been looking for. Her employer being a knight, even a low-ranking one, was
another unexpected boon.
It was the employer's name, though, that really got her attention. It was
one that Lilia recognized: Paul Greyrat.
Paul was another student of Lilia's former master. One day, back when
she had been studying swordplay, the lazy, no-good son of a noble family had
turned up at the training hall. Evidently, he'd been disowned by his father in
the wake of a fight and would now be studying the sword while sleeping at
the hall.
Paul had also studied swordplay at home, so despite having practiced a
different style, it wasn't long before his abilities surpassed Lilia's. She was
less than amused by that, but chalked it up to her own lack
Paul, on the other hand, positively radiated talent. One day, however,
he abruptly left the training hall after causing some kind of big stir for
reasons unknown to Lilia. He left with one final declaration: "I'm going to
become an adventurer."
The man was like a hurricane.
***
It had been seven years since Lilia had last seen Paul. And not only had
he become a knight since then, but now he was also married? Lilia could
scarcely believe it. She didn't know what ups and downs he had been
through, but if he was still the man she remembered, then he wasn't a bad
fellow at all. If he knew she was in trouble, he'd probably help her out.
And if he didn't…well, she'd just have to dredge up some stuff from
the past. She had several stories up her sleeve to use as bargaining chips if she needed to. Having done that bit of mercenary calculus in her mind, Lilia
headed for Buena Village.
Paul welcomed Lilia with open arms. His wife, Zenith, was due soon,
and the couple was quite frazzled. Lilia had the essential technical know-how
from seeing to the birth and rearing of the princess; plus, she was a familiar
face that one of them could vouch for. The family was happy to have her
aboard.
Also, the pay was better than Lilia had been hoping for. To her, it was
like a dream come true.
***
And then the child was born.
The birth itself was problem-free, with everything proceeding as it
should according to Lilia's training. Even at the junctures where one could
typically expect complications, everything went smoothly.
But once he was born, the child did not cry. Lilia broke into a cold
sweat. The infant's face was expressionless, his nose and mouth having
expelled amniotic fluid, and he made no sound. For a moment, he looked like
he might have been stillborn. But when Lilia reached out, she could feel the
baby's warm pulse and the movements of his breathing.
Still, he did not cry. Lilia remembered something she'd heard from one
of the handmaidens who'd taught her: Children who didn't cry at birth tended
to have a host of abnormalities.
At that very instant, however, her thoughts were interrupted.
"Ahh! Waah!"
The baby turned his face toward Lilia, his expression slack, burbling
random sounds. Relief washed over Lilia.
She didn't quite know why, but it seemed like things were going to be
okay.
***
The child was given the name Rudeus, and what an unsettling child he
was. He never cried, and never made a fuss. It might just have been that he
was physically frail, but that notion was soon proven false. Once Rudeus
learned to crawl, he began to make his way anywhere and everywhere around
the house—the kitchen, the back door, the supply shed, the cleaning closet,
the fireplace, and so on. Sometimes, somehow, he even made his way to the
second floor. As soon as anyone took their eyes off him, he was gone.
Regardless, he would inevitably be found within the house. For some
reason, Rudeus never ventured outside. He'd look out the windows, but
perhaps he was still too scared to leave the house.
Lilia wasn't sure when she developed an instinctual fear of the child.
Was it around then, with him slipping away whenever unobserved, always
needing to be tracked down?
Rudeus was always smiling. Whether he was in the kitchen staring at
vegetables, or at the flickering of a candle in its holder, or at unwashed
undergarments, he was always burbling under his breath, chuckling as an
unsettling grin rose to his face.
It was the kind of grin that viscerally repulsed Lilia. It reminded her of
the smiles she'd gotten from a particular cabinet minister as she made her
way between the harem and the royal palace in the past. He was a bald man,
his smooth head gleaming in the sunlight and his corpulent belly wobbling as
he walked. Rudeus's smile resembled the grin on the minister's face when he
eyed Lilia's chest. A smile like that, coming from a mere baby.
What happened when Lilia picked Rudeus up was particularly
worrisome. His nostrils flared, the corners of his mouth drew up, and he'd
start panting and bury his face against her bosom. His throat would twitch as
he made weird, gleeful little giggles.
It was enough to send a chill down Lilia's spine, almost to the point
where she wanted to reflexively hurl the boy to the floor. The child showed
absolutely no affection. That smile of his was, quite simply, creepy…the
same smile as that cabinet minister, who was rumored to have purchased a
number of young women as slaves. And this was an infant, smiling like that.
Nothing could be more unsettling. Lilia felt she was bodily at risk from a
baby.
She could only wonder why this child was so strange.
Was he possessed by something malevolent? Had some curse been laid
upon him? When she considered those possibilities, Lilia knew she couldn't
stand idly by.
She rushed to the store, spending a small sum on what she needed.
Then, when the Greyrats were asleep, and without asking Paul for his
permission, she performed a traditional charm of banishment from her
homeland.
When Lilia picked Rudeus up the next day, she was certain: It hadn't
worked. The baby still had the same unsettling aura. Just the look on his face
was enough to give her the creeps.
Zenith herself had often said things like, "When that boy's feeding, he
really goes at it, doesn't he?" She was completely unperturbed by the whole
thing! Even Paul, a man of weak principles who was something of a
womanizer, didn't give off vibes like his son did. The boy didn't even line up
with his own parentage.
Lilia had once heard a story in the palace harem. Back when the
Asuran prince was still a baby, he'd crawl all around the harem grounds,
night after night. It turned out he was possessed by a demon. Not knowing
this, one of the attendants picked him up, and he pulled out a knife he'd
hidden being his back and killed her by stabbing her in the heart.
It was a frightful story. And Rudeus was just like that. Lilia had no
doubts: This was another case of demonic possession. Oh, the boy was calm
and placid now, but once the demon within him awoke, he'd make his way
through the house while the family was asleep and kill them all one by one.
Lilia had been far, far too hasty. She never should have taken this job.
At some point, she knew, she was going to be attacked.
She was, after all, the type to take superstitions quite seriously.
***
And so, Lilia lived in fear for the first year or so.
At some point, however, Rudeus's ever-unpredictable behavior
changed. Instead of disappearing and reappearing at random, he stayed holed
up in Paul's study in one corner of the second floor. Well, perhaps 'study'
was a generous word for a simple room that housed a few books.
Rudeus would shut himself in there and not come out. One day, Lilia
took a quick peek and there he was, staring fixedly at a book and muttering to
himself. What he was saying didn't sound like words. Not words from the
common language on the Central Continent, at least.
Besides, he was too young to be talking already, and certainly nobody
had taught him to read. Which meant the boy was just looking at the books—
not reading them—while making random sounds.
For it to be anything else would just be weird.
Even so, Rudeus sounded like he was speaking with an actual,
meaningful cadence for some reason, and it looked like he understood the
content of the book he was looking at. That's so strange, Lilia thought as she
watched secretively through the crack in the door.
And yet, she strangely felt none of her usual revulsion toward him.
Ever since the boy had taken to hiding away in the study, his hard-to-define,
unsettling oddness had abated a fair bit. Oh, he'd still occasionally laugh or
smile creepily, sure, but Lilia didn't get chills whenever she held him
anymore. He had stopped burying his face in her chest and panting.
Why had she been so unsettled by him, anyway? In recent days, she'd
gotten a sense of earnestness and diligence from him that she was loath to
interfere with. Lilia spoke with Zenith about it, and she'd apparently gotten
the same impression. From that point on, Lilia figured, it was best to leave
the boy be.
It was an odd feeling. Leaving an infant alone wasn't something
responsible adults did. But now, intelligence glimmered in Rudeus's eyes, in
contrast to mere months ago when there had only been a crude dullness. And
there was the gleam of a resolute will to go with that intellectual brightness.
What should they do? Nothing in Lilia's meager experience had given
her the tools to make the right decision here. There's no one right way to
raise a child, she'd been told. Had that been from one of the older royal
handmaidens? Or perhaps her mother? At least there was nothing too off or unsettling about the boy now, nothing to fear.
In the end, Lilia decided to leave well enough alone. Any interference
might cause the boy to revert to the way he'd been before.