Then, let's eat!”
“Let's eat~”
“Let's eat.”
The three of them had their breakfast in silence. Slowly but steadily, they transferred the mountains of food — far in excess of what a normal girl would consume — from their plates into their bellies. It was because they all possessed ‘Increased Food Consumption’ as a racial penalty.
Because of that, even though they were among friends, they never shared while eating. Foire chewed while her cheeks were bulging with food, Lumiere ate elegantly, but her fork moved at a ferocious speed, and Sixth ate at a rate in between the two.
“Huuu…”
The three of them exhaled in unison and then looked at each other.
“Seconds?”
“Sounds good, but let's take a break first.”
“Yeah, I'm so stuffed~ Say, Sixth, isn't it your turn to serve Ainz-sama today? You seem perkier than normal today.”
Foire smiled mischievously, and so did Sixth.
“Lucky you, how much longer will it be until it's my turn?”
Lumiere counted off the days on her fingers.
The rooms of the Supreme Beings of Nazarick were massive in scale, so much so that one person needed half a day or more to clean one of them carefully. By numbers alone, it was possible for the maids to clean them all on a daily basis, even with Albedo's spare room factored in, but that would require a lot of people to work all day without any rest.
However, this was not a problem to the maids. They had been created by the Supreme Beings of Nazarick; it was only fitting that they should work their fingers to the bone for them in devout reverence.
And then, these fanatical workers had been told to stop by their god, Ainz Ooal Gown.
Ainz knew the hardships of working under unethical companies, and he could not bear to let these girls, who were like his friends’ daughters, suffer like that.
He had told them, “Don't clean the unused rooms so frequently”, and then “You will be grouped into teams for shifts.”
Thus, the regular maids of Nazarick were organized into two shifts; the day shift and the night shift. The former had thirty people and the latter had ten, while the one remaining person got the day off. After calculating the working days for the maids, the announcement that they would have a break every forty-one days was met with complaint.
It was not that there were too few days off, but the opposite. They protested the need to have a day off at all.
The purpose of their very existence was to work for the Supreme Beings. When they were told they didn't have to work, it damaged their self-worth and they felt like they no longer had a reason to exist.
As such, the maids took their concerns directly to Ainz. They said, “Please don't take our jobs”, “We want to do it all day and night”, and so on.
Ainz shot the suggestion down on the spot. A fatigue system existed in Yggdrasil and while it could be easily solved with magic, there was no guarantee that fatigue would be healed as easily in this world. Even with magic, it would be bad if the workforce was worn down to the point when it could no longer function, like a cog gradually losing its teeth due to overuse.
Yet, the maids adamantly refused to back down. Faced with their tears, Ainz gave in and proposed a new type of work for them, which was to personally serve him. That task entailed staying by Ainz's side to attend to his every need and whim, and the maids would take turns filling that role.
This offer was as tempting as sugar honey sprinkled with sugar to the maids, whose greatest joy in life was to serve the Supreme Beings. They accepted the order without a second thought, telling themselves that “we need to take care of ourselves and rest well the day before, so we can serve with all our strength when it's our turn.”
“We need our nutrients so we can work hard, you know. Plus, depending on the circumstances, you might need to skip a meal too.”
“Of course, when you serve Ainz-sama, your brain needs all the nutrients it can get.”
“I want something sweet~”
The three girls nodded in unison. It should be noted that all the maids carried several meals' worth of candy and other such treats on them. They would snack on them whenever they had free time while serving Ainz. However, be it fortunate or not, they simply could not find that free time. As such, the morning meal was very important to them.
“Have you heard? They say they're going to cook using ingredients from the outside world and have a food tasting.”
The other two gasped at Sixth's statement. She felt that was natural, because few of the maids thought well of the outside world — the world that lay beyond Nazarick. Some of them felt that the outside world was inferior to Nazarick, but most of them were afraid of it, because the floor right above their home, the 8th floor, had once been invaded by people from the outside.
“Can we all go to the tasting? Or will only a few of us be allowed to go?”
Just as Sixth was about to answer Foire's question, the atmosphere in the canteen changed. The air itself seemed to heat up. As the newcomer came into the maids’ sight, they couldn't help squealing in delight.