Chapter 11: The Maid is Deeply Suspicious

“An engagement with Maritsuji-san? Simply perfect.”

“S-Simply perfect?”

After the matchmaking meeting──or whatever you’d call it──at the hotel, Reizen-sensei dropped us off at home. We’d finished the dinner of grilled fish prepared by Sayaka, and now we’re having after-dinner tea.

Reizen-sensei went home in a hurry today, but while we were strolling in the garden, she’d apparently spoken at length with Maritsuji’s mother about school matters.

“That madam is tougher than any parent… I’m already exhausted from maintaining my ‘mama mode’ as it is. I’m done for. Completely out of battery. Kiyomiya, you’ll pay for this.”

Is it my fault?

I felt too sorry for her to even retort; Reizen-sensei was just that utterly worn out. I saw her off as she wobbled to her beloved Reizen-go and drove away. I just hope she made it home safely.

Well, never mind Reizen-sensei.

It was obvious Sayaka would be interested, so I explained what happened at the hotel meeting with the Maritsuji family.

“If the engagement with the Maritsuji family succeeds, that means they’ll be your patrons, right, Keiji-kun?”

“The Maritsuji are a prestigious family, but they don’t have that much power.”

This isn’t the Heian period; in modern times, economic power matters more than family rank. From the look of that mansion, the Maritsuji family has more money than I thought, but they probably can’t compare to Kiyomiya or Toyohara.

“No, the Maritsuji family’s influence is still very much alive. Probably more so than you think, Keiji-kun. The power of a prestigious family that has lasted a thousand years is not to be underestimated. They might even have a higher status than the Kiyomiya or Toyohara families, who are busy building wealth through business and other worldly affairs.”

“You sure have a casual way of badmouthing someone else’s family… wait, are you badmouthing your own?”

But I get what she’s saying. Even at school, Maritsuji is treated as someone special──less like a young lady and more like a princess.

“Keiji-kun.”

“H-Hey, what is it?”

Sayaka strides briskly toward me. Her large breasts sway with each step──it’s quite a sight.

“You are to make Maritsuji-san’s body and soul your own.”

“Huh? B-Body and soul…?”

What is she saying all of a sudden?

“No matter how haughtily she acts, at the end of the day, Maritsuji-san is just a sheltered Ojou-sama.”

“Hmm?”

“Between me, who has been tossed on the rough waves of the world, and you, Keiji-kun, who was raised like a commoner despite your high-society roots… we should have no trouble disciplining a girl like her.”

“Don’t say ‘disciplining’!”

“Training her?”

“That’s even worse!”

I don’t have what it takes to mold a girl in my own image or anything like that. I doubt Sayaka actually expects me to, though.

Maritsuji Anri, huh… She is, without a doubt, an extraordinary beauty. She’s petite and flat-chested, but other than that, she’s slender and has an excellent figure. She has her scary side, but she’s fundamentally gentle and understanding. Setting aside the difference in our families’ statuses, there are plenty of guys at Sōshūkan who’d want Maritsuji for a girlfriend. If it weren’t for our family situations, I’d probably have some interest in Maritsuji too──

“Ouch, owowowowow!”

“Ah, my apologies. Your arm was just there, ripe for the pinching.”

“S-Sayaka?”

My pinched upper arm hurts so much it feels like the flesh was gouged out!

“I’m sorry, for a mere maid to be violent toward her master. Ah, yes. It’s all well and good for you to captivate Maritsuji-san, but it would be troublesome if you became too engrossed, so I pinched you… Let’s go with that as the reason.”

“‘Let’s go with that’?”

Is there another reason? Surely she’s not jealous, right?

“For you to succeed the Kiyomiya family, you will need external power. Simply proving your own excellence won’t be enough, will it?”

“…Yeah.”

I’m aiming to shed my scumbag reputation, starting by getting top grades at school. From there, I’ll build a faction, increase my allies, and surpass the largest first-year faction, the Fujikawa Group. Fujikawa is a nasty piece of work, but he has a lot of allies. It won’t be easy for me to aim for the top with a small, elite group. The first step is definitely to prove my own excellence, but──

“When it comes down to it, test scores are easy to understand. I don’t have to be number one, but if I rank high enough, people will start to see me differently. But of course, that alone isn’t enough.”

“Indeed. The position of Kiyomiya successor is not so trivial that it can be inherited just by being good at your studies.”

“…Maybe it’s better if you inherit, Sayaka?”

Top of the class, a natural at all sports, and stunningly beautiful to boot. She’s an illegitimate child, just like me right now, but with her high specs, couldn’t she more than make up for that disadvantage?

“Impossible.”

“You mean you ‘can’t’, not that you ‘won’t’?”

“Because Maritsuji-san is clearly heterosexual.”

“Huh?”

“She could become your wife, but she could never marry me. Though, she is so beautiful that even I feel a little flutter…”

“Hey, hey, hey!”

I get that this means we can’t use the political marriage strategy to get the Maritsuji family on our side──that much is clear. But the part about her being beautiful was totally uncalled for! If anything, my heart’s the one racing just from hearing that!

“Maritsuji-san… no, Anri… she’s so cute.”

“Hisaka-sa… no, Sayaka-oneesama…”

For some reason, an image of Sayaka as the dominant older sister and Maritsuji as her cute junior pops into my head. And what’s more, it’s a scene of the two of them sensually entwined and half-naked──

“Are you imagining something perverted?”

“…Even if I was, it’d be your fault, not mine.”

I’ll just blame the maid for this one.

“In any case, there’s no reason to refuse this arrangement. Get on with it.”

“You’re the maid, remember?”

Why are you pushing my engagement? Don’t I get a say in this?

“However, I must say that Maritsuji Anri is also suspicious. I can’t quite read the Maritsuji family’s intentions, so I’d like you to be cautious.”

“I know. There’s a clear merit for the Maritsuji family in connecting with the Kiyomiya, but they’re especially particular about bloodlines. It was strange from the start for them to propose an engagement between the daughter of their main family and an illegitimate child.”

Even I’m smart enough to be suspicious about that.

“We’ll need to investigate…”

“…”

Maritsuji was trying to investigate Sayaka, and now Sayaka plans to investigate the Maritsuji family. I really don’t like this tense relationship of mutual investigation…

“By the way, speaking of investigating, there’s something that’s been bothering me.”

“That sounds better than this topic. What is it?”

“I haven’t seen much of Maki-san lately.”

“Maki?”

An unexpected name came up.

“That can’t be right. She’s been eating her meals, hasn’t she? Oh──she hasn’t eaten today yet.”

“Conversely, I hardly see her except for meals. She sometimes comes home late at night. And today she was out the entire day.”

“Huh, really?”

Putting today aside, I really didn’t notice she was coming home in the middle of the night…

“This is a large mansion. It’s hard to notice people coming and going.”

“So how did you notice, Sayaka?”

“I check all the security camera footage. This mansion doesn’t have any security guards, so I have to do it.”

“You were doing that too? Hmm, maybe I should hire some security guards.”

Even after formally employing Sayaka as a maid and paying her salary, there’s still plenty of money left for the Kiyomiya Family Old Manor’s operating costs. We have two high school girls living here, and an adult beauty who sometimes drops by. Maybe I should tighten security.

“There’s no need to pay for extra personnel. Of course, I’m not saying you should divert that to my salary. Just give me permission to set up traps to repel intruders.”

“Increasing your salary would be the better option…”

If I give Sayaka permission to do that, she might set up lethal traps around the old manor. Nobles have an aversion to military force. They prefer more insidious methods.

“Wait, that’s not the point. What is Maki doing?”

“That’s what I want to ask you. Aren’t you Maki-san’s close friend, Keiji-kun?”

“We’re not that close… I still don’t know much about the Sogano family.”

“The Sogano family is a clan of the Toyohara line.”

“Eh, really?”

“Though they’re not that closely related by blood, and they aren’t recognized as an official branch family. It seems they split off before the Heian period and made it to modern times without any particular ties to powerful houses.”

“How do you know all that?”

“It was in a historical mystery novel I read a while back. It was a novel packed with obscure historical facts.”

“You got that from fiction?!”

“Incidentally, the culprit’s name was Kiyomiya.”

“…I guess that can’t be helped.”

The Kiyomiya name is in regular history textbooks. Nowadays, none of the noble houses complain about being used in entertainment. My father even said he wouldn’t mind if his ancestors were gender-swapped into cute girl characters.

I can’t be that understanding…

“I did investigate properly, just in case. It seems it is correct that the Sogano are of the Toyohara line.”

“Huh… The Toyohara have zero blood ties to the Kiyomiya, so I’m not that familiar with their branch families. But I have heard that they have countless branches. They were a prolific family, and besides establishing their own branches, they often had their children adopted into other noble families.”

“In the past, they controlled other houses through bloodlines… how terrifying.”

“Yeah…”

That wasn’t just the nobles; the samurai clans did it too. In fact, you could say that expanding influence through marriage and adoption is a standard strategy all over the world.

“So, Keiji-kun, you could also take over the Maritsuji and Sogano families.”

“We live in an age of monogamy!”

“That’s just a systemic issue. No need to get hung up on marriage. Your own parents aren’t married, are they?”

“…It gets complicated when you bring my parents into it.”

“It’s fine. Your parents are Kiyomiya Takatsugu and Wakura Honoka. My parents are Hisaka Tsukasa and some nameless nobody. Let’s just unify it like that.”

“Nameless nobody?!”

She’s talking about my biological father, right? I don’t really care what people say, but hearing it from Sayaka…

“Fufu, isn’t it amusing? In any case, you’re thought to have commoner’s blood in you, Keiji-kun. And now you’ll be the one to dominate the bloodlines of both Kiyomiya and Maritsuji, two of the most prominent houses… Now, go forth and multiply.”

“Your way of thinking is terrifying!”

You make it sound like I have some twisted lust for revenge against the great houses!

“It’s such an interesting idea, though… Well then, let’s get back to the matter at hand. You are going to make Maritsuji-san’s body and soul your own, Keiji-kun. And to that end, I shall teach you how to handle women.”

“…What exactly do you want me to do?”

“First, I think it would be best to make use of your fetish, Keiji-kun.”

“My fetish? What’s that?”

“You will, of course, have Maritsuji-san wear a maid outfit. You’ll subjugate her by treating her as a servant, and on top of that, you’ll be able to satisfy your own sexual desires.”

“There’s nothing I need to learn from you!”

What in the world was all that talk for?

No, but seriously──

“Maritsuji Anri is not an opponent I can handle. I’m not just against the engagement for the sake of it. I plan on shedding my scumbag reputation and establishing my position at Sōshūkan first. If I carelessly join forces with Maritsuji──”

“You’d be the one to be swallowed whole, Keiji-kun…?”

I gave a silent nod to Sayaka’s words.

It’s less about the Maritsuji family and more about the individual, Maritsuji Anri, that’s so terrifying. To put it another way, the daughter is even scarier than her mother, Maritsuji Rina.

I’ve known Maritsuji since elementary school. She’s the kind of person where if I make one careless move, I’ll get more than just a little burned.