The Guild Master Whose Hobby Was Helping People Found Himself Surrounded by the Strongest, Overly Attached Members - 3

Chapter 3: The Expressionless Maid’s Overbearing Love

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“When I was still the daughter of a noble family by the name of Lisette Cadina—”

“Eh? You’re a noble?”

“I was. I am not anymore. Now I have lost the family name, the title, the land—everything.”

Her tone was as calm as ever, but the weight of her words slowly pressed in.

“My father lost in a political struggle, our house collapsed, and my mother fell ill and passed away. The only thing left to me was the name of a noble and even that became nothing more than a subject of ridicule for some.”

I had no idea who those “some” were. But the humiliation must have been something far beyond comprehension.

“To survive, I entered a service training facility. That was about eight years ago.”

Her exact age was unclear, but Lisette must have been around eighteen. So she had entered that so-called training facility when she was about ten years old.

“There, a ‘maid’ was not just someone who served. Speech, etiquette, cooking, combat, resistance to poisons, sexual service, assassination techniques… Everything was drilled into us to become a convenient tool for one’s master.”

“That’s…”

I couldn’t continue speaking. Things I had only ever heard of in movies were actual reality in this world. The calmer her tone, the more the abnormality behind her words stood out.

“In time, I was chosen as a maid and arrangements were made for me to be bought by a frontier noble in the countryside. However, along the way I was attacked by bandits and received a fatal wound in the mountains. Though I managed to take down the bandits, the guards fled, leaving me behind in the forest.”

…That was incredible. Even now, I would avoid fighting multiple bandits if I could. Unless the power gap between me and the bandits was overwhelming, sheer numbers would crush you. Yet Lisette, still barely middle-school age at the time, defeated them alone.

Such incredible strength…No wonder she eventually grew to SS-rank.

But if that was how things went, then she shouldn’t be standing here now. How had she survived? Did she drag herself to a village with the last of her strength, or had someone happened by—

“And as I was left only to wait for death, suddenly, I heard the sound of someone’s footsteps.”

At that, cold sweat trickled down my back.

“The sound of branches snapping, a groan as someone tripped. Then, holding a basket, with a leaf stuck to one eye, a man looked down at my bloodied body. I thought—pardon me for thinking like this—I thought he was another bandit. Maybe he came to sully me and finish me off. But instead, he reached out his hand to me—”

“………………Ah.”

So… strangely enough, her story was easy to picture in my head. And of course, the perspective in my mind wasn’t hers. I t was the man’s. There was no doubt about it. That man must be me.

I remembered now. When I’d been out gathering herbs, I’d seen her collapsed there. I thought, “Crap, someone’s down!” and since I didn’t even have proper bandages, I tore my own shirt to stop the bleeding and carried her to the nearest guild—

“I thought I had been saved. …But the real hell began from there.”

“Uh, yeah… W-what happened…?”

No, maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t me, and I could still bluff my way out.

Clinging to that faint hope, I pretended to remain clueless, but Lisette went on without hesitation.

“As the man carried me in his arms, a ferocious monster appeared before him.”

“H-huh…? What kind of monster was it?”

I asked anyway. One last desperate gamble for another possibility.

“That monster was a Minotaur. I don’t know where it came from, but just looking at it made clear it had slaughtered many people, its axe dripping with blood.”

Yeah, that confirmed it. The one that had appeared in front of me that day while I was running—that was a Minotaur.

Normally, they only stayed deep within dungeons, but by sheer chance a “stray” had wandered to the surface and, at the worst possible timing, blocked my path. The Minotaur was carrying that massive axe, growling, crushing the ground under its hooves.

Oh, hell yeah, here it comes…

I remembered smirking to myself inside.

“…I fell into despair all over again.”

Lisette’s hand trembled slightly. That moment must still have been vividly burned into her memory.

“The Minotaur was a savage monster. No ordinary adventurer could fight it while protecting another person. In other words, in order to survive… He would have had to abandon me.”

That judgment was correct. Fighting while guarding someone multiplied the risks many times over. It was the kind of act that only increased the chance of death. Normally, no one would do it. No one could do it. No one should.

“…For that, I bore no resentment towards him. I was already filled with gratitude that he even tried to help me. But… Because I had once been given hope that I might live, the shock of the despair was all the deeper.”

For the first time, Lisette’s voice carried a faint trace of heat to it.

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