『MV:INEBCEBTH』Arc-1 Ch-3

As I approached my fifth birthday, I naturally began to get into all sorts of mischief—exploring the house, playing hide-and-seek—and little by little, the people around me came into focus. Let me introduce the people who filled my daily life.

“Young lady. Shall we play after breakfast?”

“Yay♪”

The one who called out to me was Tokitou Aki-san, a maid sent from the Keika-in family. She was practically my constant companion. With no parents around, she was apparently balancing her student life with her duties as a maid.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Today we have your favorite—salmon fillet.”

“Salmon~”

The one who prepared the meal was my wet nurse and head maid, Saito Keiko-san. She was supposed to be unmarried, but when she stood next to Aki-san, they looked so much like mother and daughter that I had to pretend I didn’t notice.

The darkness of the hua clan society—not nobility—is deep. Besides those two, there was also a relief maid named Katsura Naomi-san. Katsura-san was off today, so when Aki-san went to school, she would be the one to look after me.

“Let’s eat.”

At my signal, everyone pressed their hands together and began eating. Despite my young age, as the lady of the mansion, I sat at the center of the table. Besides the female staff, there were, of course, male workers as well—the mansion was supported by their hands too.

“Young lady. After your studies, you’ll take an afternoon nap…”

The butler, Tachibana Ryuji-san, was the only male staff dedicated to this house—and my personal butler. He was an elderly gentleman who handled all sorts of troubles in my stead, though sometimes the way he looked at me, as if appraising something, made him a little frightening. For now, I continued to act like an innocent, pure child.

For the daughter of a ducal house, the number of attendants was rather small, but this was my current daily life.

…None of them appeared in the game, though. What does that mean?

“Young lady, where are you?”

“I won’t tell you♪”

While playing hide-and-seek with Aki-san, I explored the mansion. This fifty-year-old, two-story Western-style house with a garden served as my residence in the game, and seeing it now, I couldn’t help but feel that the real thing matched the illustrated background perfectly.

This mansion in Den-en-chōfu, Ōta-ku, Tokyo, was originally used as the Keikain family’s secondary residence and later passed down to my father. But now, no one visited here—except for me. The main Keika-in family estate was in Shirokane, Minato-ku. While hiding in the bushes, I heard voices from the other side of the wall.

“Is this the Keika-in family mansion? The gate always seems to be closed.”

“Yes, it’s their secondary residence. The main house is in Shirokane, I believe. Now, a little young lady lives there all alone.”

“That’s so sad. The Keika-in family too… The glory they had in the previous generation’s time is a thing of the past. They seem to be struggling in many ways.”

“If you say that, it’s the same everywhere. I miss the bubble era.”

The bubble collapse.

The economic event that sealed this country’s long stagnation—whether you call it the Lost Ten Years or Twenty Years. We were right in the middle of it now, and the voices of the ladies beyond the wall carried a faint note of anxiety.

The problem was that things would only get worse from here. And I was the only one who knew that.

“Wah!?”

“I found you, young lady. I told you not to hide inside trees, didn’t I?”

“Ehehe. Sorry.”

Lifted out from the shadows of the tree, I was gently scolded by Aki-san. Something suddenly came to mind, so I decided to ask.

“Aki-san, you go to school, right? Is it fun?”

“Yes. I’m in the high school division, but if my scholarship application goes through, I’m thinking of going to the university division. Of course, I have no intention of leaving your side, young lady.”

That single sentence was enough. The world of the hua clan—or rather, the nobility—was a world of appearances. If a maid serving a noble family went to university, that family should at least cover her expenses. Otherwise, they would be looked down upon both within and outside their circles.

“That family must be in financial trouble, huh?”

That’s what people would say. Yet Aki-san mentioned a scholarship. Which meant that the Keika-in family no longer had the luxury to pay for her tuition. It was then that I clearly realized—this lifestyle wouldn’t last much longer.

“Wow… It’s this bad…”

Taking advantage of the butler Tachibana’s absence, I secretly peeked into the account book. What I saw there was the expenditure of a hua clan household. Even though they had scaled down since it was only me now, personnel costs for four people came to around two million yen. Add utilities and miscellaneous expenses of another million, for a total of three million yen per month.

On the income side, we were basically relying on remittances from the Keika-in family—but that amount had clearly decreased. It used to be five million yen, but now it was down to three million. Tachibana had been managing the deficit through financial maneuvers, using up the surplus funds just to keep things running. Knowing that the final blow of the bubble collapse was coming, I could see that these expenses would soon be cut even further.

“Yeah… I don’t want to part with Tachibana, Keiko-san, Aki-san, or Naomi-san.”

Even if I were destined to be a villainess—no, because I was a villainess—I had to do everything I could for the people who had stayed with me.

That’s why I couldn’t bear to be separated from them. So I decided to cast off the mask of the good girl.

┳⁠━━━━⁠━⁠⁠━⁠━⁠━━━⁠┳

Footnotes

┻━⁠━━━━⁠━━⁠━━━⁠┻

Address Confirmed.

This mansion is in Den-en-chōfu; the Keikain family’s main estate is in Shirokane. Most likely, during the previous generation’s time, the family patriarch held considerable influence here in Den-en-chōfu.