◇Baron Castle - Courtyard◇
"Beautiful..."
"Hohou, is newbie-chan going for Hauto-san?"
"Kya, Erina-san! Since when have you arrived."
"Just a little while a~go. And, are you aiming for Hauto-san? Doing some social upheaval?"
There are the figures of the captain and the vice-captain of the territory army swinging the magic swords they've just received ahead of the girls. There is no light on the magic sword that the vice-captain is swinging, unlike with the captain's. There's the baron daughter, Soruna with her maid attendants on the shade of a tree further ahead.
"What I'm looking is the sword that Zotor-sama is swinging. I've never seen such beautiful sword before."
Erina's eyes keeps pushing on like she's saying that she's only having an excuse.
"Like I said, it's not like that. It's impossible to have an illicit relationship with someone who's being looked with such loving gaze like that. Moreover, I have someone else I love."
"Ah~, come to think of it, you've said it before. Was it the young merchant who generously gave you an expensive magic potion when you were dying from running into a carriage?"
"Ehehe~, I don't know his name, nor his face though."
The face of someone whom Erina knows well floats in her mind, but the girl prudently keeps that to herself since she doesn't want to add anymore rival than now.
◇The Pioneer Village◇
"Eh? Apprentice is it?"
"Yes, won't you become an apprentice maid at the baron castle?"
There are two maids, and a girl in a room of one of the only two house that the Pendragon village has.
This is a pioneer village that doesn't even have monster-warding barrier pillars. It'll be no wonder if someday monsters attack, erasing this village from the map. The people that reside here are elderly that have been abandoned by their hometown, and ran-away children who are formerly serfs.
Just how does this much reclaimed field exist inside the forest, no one, including the people that live here, knows. It seems the village name is taken from the person who has helped them.
"But, I've never done anything beside farmworks."
"You don't have to worry 'bout that y'know? It's something that even me who's a former soldier can do."
"Meda, you stop talking."
Meda draws her head back from Pina's roar. Pina puts some power on her voice since she can't let her first job as the team leader ruined by her subordinate's foolish words.
"If Totona-ane doesn't want to, then I will do it! I want to be useful to Satou-sama and Arisa-chan!"
"Wait Rorona, where did that come from."
"Satou-sama gave us warm meals. He also left food so we didn't starve. Even the fields here must be something that Satou-sama had prepared."
The little girl emphasizes it with all the might on her small body. She's clearly too young to become a maid. However, Pina seems to have judged that there's no problem with it.
"Fine then. Let's heed your spirit. Rorona, we will employ you as an apprentice maid. Totona, what are you going to do?"
"Uu, please take care of me."
Totona who can't let her little sister go alone to an unfamiliar place reports that she's agreed to become an apprentice maid.