Working as a maid in the Royal Pace involved quite a demanding schedule.

  Unlike modern societies on Earth, there were essentially no bor ws, so employers could insist that their employees work seven days a week or an unlimited amount of hours per day. There was no minimum wage or overtime pay. Everything was governed by the free market, so businesses usually didn't get too carried away (most people tried to avoid jobs with particurly bad conditions), but there weren't many choices if the economy was bad.

  A maid's sary at the Royal Pace was probably the highest in the country, but it came with the downside that it was a highly competitive environment, and most servants (including Hana) worked extremely hard.

  It was something like eight o'clock at night, but the staff of the Royal Pace were bustling and energetic. As a matter of fact, the head maestro's philosophy was that a servant's job never really ended until their masters were asleep, which generally meant that an ordinary maid was officially "on duty" from a few hours before dawn until after most aristocrats were tucked into bed. The period after supper was still extremely busy in the Royal Pace, especially since Galuterican nobility were quite famous for enjoying a luxurious night life. A st-minute emergency assembly was actually quite disruptive for operations.

  Typically, the morning assembly was held in the West Lounge, but the room was not avaible — VIP guests from the Kingdom of Xandu were using it for evening entertainment. Consequently, the Majordomo had instructed the maids to gather in the main ball room, as it was the only other room that could fit more than a hundred staff members.

  Naturally, it was very chaotic, and I felt like I was wading through a sea of people.

  + + +

  Lilian ended up finding me first.

  "Yo!" She said as she fgged me down.

  She took a small loaf from bread from underneath her apron and she immediately passed it to me.

  "I saved you some,” she expined. “Figured you might be a little hungry since you weren’t at supper. Nobody can work on an empty stomach, right?”

  I graciously accepted it from her.

  The bread was still warm, which felt quite nice. She must have grabbed it from the kitchen oven before she came to the assembly, which was not an insignificant detour considering that Lilian had been stationed in the royal family's chambers this entire week.

  I thought about how I should respond, but Lilian had other things to say before I had a chance to open my mouth.

  "Lisa and Stel are still with the Otherworlders, so they won't be joining us."

  "Oh... I see," I responded.

  "It's gotten fairly hectic over there, apparently. A short while ago, they figured out that the Ruby Princess can talk to animals, and since the Beastkin race can understand common creatures, we can apparently communicate with them if we put a pet animal in the middle."

  —Ruby Princess?

  I searched my brain.

  If my memory was correct, Miss Olivia was the maid who was serving the Ruby Room. However, I wasn't so sure about my cssmate's identity. To be honest, there were a few of my cssmates who had altered their appearance so much that they were completely unrecognizable. Evidently, the "Ruby Princess" was one of the girls who had asked for a complete makeover, so she was now essentially a red-haired nekomimi with pink cat ears and a silver fox tail.

  It was actually a little surprising to me because I didn't know that there were any girls in my css who actually liked Japanese anime. In the year that we all spent in Heaven, none of the girls in my css showed any indication that they were interested in otaku stuff, so it seemed a bit strange to me that one of them would suddenly wish for that kind of appearance.

  However, I had a lot more problems to deal with than to worry about my cssmate's fashion tastes.

  "She can talk to any kind of animal?" I asked Lilian, mostly just to satisfy my own curiosity.

  The Beastkin race endemic to this universe could communicate with their reted species, so a dog-person could speak with dogs and wolves... but they couldn't communicate with cats or chickens. At least, it was my (Hana's) understanding that each species had a different nguage, and it seemed rather overpowered if a single individual could speak the nguages of all species in the entire world.

  "It seems so — at least based on what I heard."

  "What about insects and pnts?"

  "Well..."

  Lilian crossed her arms and thought about it for a while.

  She ultimately shrugged and said she had no clue.

  If you thought about it carefully, there must have been limitations to the "Ruby Princess's" powers, since humans were also a species of animal. She had clearly already demonstrated that she couldn't talk to the people of this Kingdom, so at the very minimum it meant she wasn't an unlimited polyglot. It would probably take much more time before we fully understood the parameters of her abilities, but I was quite sure that the Archbishop's staff would conduct a very thorough investigation.

  Even though the welcoming committee was filled with warm and smiling faces, more than half of the people on that assignment were from the Galuterican equivalent of the FBI. They were top spies, government officials, and leading military experts at the forefront of the entire kingdom, and that type of high-intensity environment could make any ordinary maid sweat from nerves.

  If anything, I was gd I didn't need to handle that situation now that I had been reassigned from Kang Jiesu.

  + + +

  My conversation with Lilian was cut short when the Majordomo stood up on a chair.

  "Please! Everyone. Quiet now." He announced.

  The noise in the crowd immediately vanished as if an orchestra conductor waved his baton.

  "I'd like to keep it short," he said.

  "Crown Prince Leopold the Ninth is in attendance."

  + + +

  Probably every single maid in this entire room paled and stiffened in perfect unison.

  It was virtually unheard of for a member of the royalty to attend an operations meeting intended for the servants. A simir analogy on Earth would be as if the CEO of your company suddenly appeared at your workpce. None of us had been given the memo that such an important figure would be here, and accordingly, many of the maids were probably panicking internally. A lot of us were still wearing dirty aprons and many of us hadn't washed up or worn any kind of cosmetics.

  A person from Earth might not understand why we would think this is such a big deal, but a female servant's looks were absolutely a factor when it came to promotions and saries in the Royal Pace. Calling Galuterican society "backwards" or "regressive" was putting it far too kindly — it was probably better to just say it is ft out misogynistic.

  Most nobles treated servants like commodities.

  I could really only think of one reason why the Crown Prince was here right now.

  + + +

  "Please, have everyone rex," the Crown Prince told the Majordomo.

  He put his hands on his waist, and as his body turned, I noticed a certain item was hanging from his waist.

  My eyes immediately focused onto it like a ser.

  —It was a sword.

  A very familiar-appearing shining sword was hanging from a bejeweled scabbard at the prince's waist.

  My eyes instantly gzed over.

  Nobody else seemed to think it was a big deal. To be fair, even if someone did recognize the sword, not many people took the Legend of Excalibur very seriously. The nobility in this universe were heavily prone to embellishment and hyperbole, so you couldn't really trust much of anything when a drunk aristocrat boasted that he owned a sexy mermaid sve in a fish tank or if he had a 200 karat diamond sitting at home in his private treasure vault.

  「Excalibur」 was a family heirloom of the Galuterican Royal Family, and I used to think the rumors about a wish-granting swords were pure gibberish made up by braggarts funting their fshiest possessions like jewelry.

  —After all, if Excalibur could grant any wish, why hadn't the Galuterican Royal Family achieved world domination?

  The te King Harold had been divorced by his first wife, and it was quite a scandal when she fled the country with an entire army chasing after her trail. The King was the ughingstock of the continent for decades before he finally passed away from a massive stroke that left him bedridden and paralyzed for months.

  Any person with a brain the size of a pea could easily deduce that the famous 「Excalibur」 was incapable of granting wishes.

  It was probably a good sword... and potentially a very good sword... but it definitely wasn't a wish-granting sword.

  —Or so I used to believe.

  + + +

  "Crown Prince Leopold will be selecting 25 maids to serve as support staff for an unspecified expedition that he will taking with some of the Otherworlders," the Majordomo announced.

  There were some murmurs and whispers in the crowd.

  "The pay will be five times the normal sary. The duration is likely to be at least six months. The details of the expedition cannot be disclosed at this time, but it will be traveling with 9th division of the Royal Guard to an unspecified destination for a non-military operation. Tasks will involve cleaning, washing, camp operations, waste management, and providing comfort to the Crown Prince, Otherworlder guests, and military guard whenever requested."

  "It is likely to be a physically demanding journey and safety cannot be guaranteed. If you are maimed or killed in the process of this expedition, monetary compensation will provided to your family."

  "If you believe you are qualified to volunteer, step forward now."

  ?