Anastasia, female, human species, age 17, unmarried, maid.
Strictly speaking, my occupation is (Servant) who follows players. In the game, most servants are monsters, captured and tamed by players, with only humanoids representing a small minority of servants.
I belong to the ultra-rare humanoid servant category: a unique, exclusive NPC, one and only with no duplicates.
Due to having been a servant in my previous life, I have no complaints about my status in the game. Having served at the Young Miss's side, I frequently interacted with maids and harbor no particular aversion to maid uniforms. Rather, isn't it natural for female servants to wear this?
Servants need not be overly elaborate in their attire. Still, overall cleanliness and tidiness are essential, so I'm quite willing to accept the black and white maid uniform... Though I feel the skirt that only covers above the knees is somewhat short, and the excessive lace trim at the hem is rather troublesome. While it's not to the point of being hateful or hindering cleaning, the lace seems to serve no purpose other than increasing the sensuality factor.
The game's setting is based on the late medieval period, woven together with various fantasy races into a magical world. I can't vouch for everything else, but the medieval period definitely didn't have maids with such short skirts or meidos wearing black stockings. Well, the game company needs to make money, too. They have to meet players' basic aesthetic preferences. At the very least, the characters available to players must be carefully designed. (TN: Meido is Japanese for maid.)
That's roughly how things are.
"Anna~ An~~~na~~~"
And the girl knocking outside is…
The moment I opened the door, I unhesitatingly stepped aside. Immediately afterward, a graceful figure flew into the hall, accompanied by a "plop" sound as she became one with the clean floor in a spread-eagle position.
Maintaining a maid's etiquette, I offered my sincere greetings to the mysterious creature on the floor, neither servile nor arrogant.
"Good day, Lady Christiana."
Information rapidly flashed through my mind.
Christiana Montefeltro, the only daughter of Count Montefeltro, the noble lady least resembling a noble. All the servants around her are cute, beautiful girls, yet she herself pays no mind to the strange rumors about her.
Recently, she's been visiting almost every day.
A mysterious creature. Christiana wiggled twice.
"Anna~~~ How cruel—"
She burst into tears, her bright eyes brimming with water.
"I was so worried about you! Besides, I told you to just call me Chris!"
"That wouldn't be proper. You are a noble, using nicknames casually would be disrespectful to the Montefeltro family."
"It's not that serious! If I just sweet-talk Father a bit, no one would think it's inappropriate!"
"...Pardon my presumption, but Lady Christiana, aren't you already 17 years old?"
"Yes, yes! I'm seventeen, and Anna is seventeen too—we're perfectly matched!"
I meant that sweet-talking one's father at seventeen might be a bit...
Never mind. I'm not a servant of the Montefeltro family; correcting Chris's personality isn't my responsibility. Chris hasn't done anything too improper either, so I can't turn her away.
So I deliberately avoided responding to Chris's expectant gaze.
"Would you accept some regular plain tea?"
"As long as it's tea brewed by Anna, I'd gladly accept it even if it contained poison! Actually, maybe I've already been poisoned—by the poison called... love!!!"
"Very well, please wait a moment."
"Such a cold response?! I thought that line was super cool!"
I gave a slight bow, selectively ignoring the nearly petrified Chris.
Thankfully, I was already a servant before transmigrating. Although my gender has changed, slipping into this role has been particularly easy—I shouldn't have given myself away.
Serving regular plain tea to guests is certainly negligent behavior. When I was processing the slime earlier, I checked the inventory—only regular plain tea remained for serving guests. In fact, even the slime was the only food in the house, with its long shelf life being its greatest advantage.
After preparing the tea, Chris had already taken a seat in the hall. Just minutes ago, she was crying her eyes out, but now she sat properly, full of anticipation.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."
I presented the tea and stood at Chris's side. Originally, my master would have been conversing with Chris while I stood behind them and listened, but now, I have no master.
Chris took a small sip of the plain tea, set down the cup, and let out a satisfied sigh. Her beautiful face showed an expression of contentment.
Well, after all, my tea brewing level is Lv. Max (maximum level cap)—as expected of me.
Chris's wine-red eyes regained their usual sparkle, and then she parted her rouge lips.
"—Anna, let's elope together."
"Lady Christiana, please forgive me, but I wasn't aware tea could make one drunk."
"It's not like that! I'm super serious!"
Chris shook her head desperately, her chestnut-colored long hair dancing with the movement.
"Just thinking about Anna being bullied by those adventurers tomorrow makes me sad enough to eat seven pineapple buns in one go!" (TN: Stress eating with pineapple buns. I can't get the exact nuance down.)
"As far as I know, your average consumption is six per day, and about being bullied by adventurers, that's rather..."
Adventurers—the term NPCs living in the Lemoria Continent use to refer to players. The Young Miss is also a devoted player of this game, so the term adventurers naturally includes her. Hearing words that seemed to insult the Young Miss, I tactfully expressed my disagreement.
But Chris didn't see it that way. She seemed to view adventurers as fierce demons, like floods and vicious beasts.
She slammed the table and told me with deep anguish:
"Anna is too pure! We're talking about adventurers here! For 100 crystals in compensation, they'll risk anything; for 1,000 crystals, they'll trample all laws; for 10,000 crystals, they'll commit any crime, even risking being wanted by the kingdom! And Anna's value is worth far more than 10,000 crystals!"
"Is... is that so...?"
What kind of existence are adventurers really? Are they as depraved as Chris says? I know about crystals—they're the currency players obtain through microtransactions, considered an almighty resource in the continent of Lemoria.
I also understand what will happen tomorrow: the game officials will launch a new mode. In previous game modes, for adventurers to obtain servants, they had to defeat them first, and then there would be a certain probability of successful taming. Exclusive NPCs have different taming methods, but the countless variations inevitably involve a fight.
However, tomorrow's update will introduce a new system. A new method for obtaining exclusive NPC servants has been added—dating them and making them fall in love.
The only exclusive NPC equipped with this new system is named Anastasia.
"............"
Eh?! That's me?!