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Breakfast ended without anyone dying, without Beatrice draining anyone for a second time, and without Link accidentally destroying the table.
In the Roswaal mansion, that was already starting to feel like an administrative victory.
Subaru Natsuki remained standing beside his chair, wearing an expression of triumph far too large for someone who had just volunteered to work in a mansion whose staff seemed capable of emotionally destroying him before lunch. He had asked for employment with his chest puffed out and his eyes lit up, as if he had found the perfect path to stay close to Emilia, repay the favor, and pretend he had a life strategy. Link, sitting beside him, watched with a mixture of resignation and lingering hunger, because even after eating the equivalent of three days, his body continued acting as if some deep part of him was rebuilding invisible reserves.
Roswaal, from the head of the table, seemed satisfied in a way Link did not find especially reassuring. The noble rested his chin on the back of one gloved hand, smiling with that expression of his that turned any simple decision into a move on a much larger board.
"Then it is decided," Roswaal said, stretching the words theatrically. "Subaru-kun will be trained as an apprentice servant of the mansion, while Link-kun will be assigned to outdoor duties, mainly gardening and physical maintenance of the grounds. Naturally, both will be under Ram and Rem's supervision."
"What a relief," Subaru said, with a stiff smile. "For a second, I thought we'd have gentle and friendly supervision."
Ram, standing by the wall with impeccable posture, closed her eyes.
"Barusu should not worry. Ram will adapt his training to his level."
"Really?" Subaru lit up.
"We will begin from a point below basic."
"That was worse than directly calling me useless!"
"Ram believed it was unnecessary to state the obvious."
Rem, beside her sister, spoke calmly.
"Rem believes that, if Barusu works seriously, he will be able to learn some simple tasks."
Subaru brought a hand to his chest.
"Rem, thank you. Your faith in me lights this dark path."
"Rem did not express faith. Rem expressed a small possibility."
"The light went out very quickly."
Link let out a low laugh, but the mistake was immediate. Rem turned toward him with that serenity that made his traitorous and unprofessional heart forget the basic rules of human behavior. Link straightened his back as if he had just been called to formation.
"As for the secondary guest," Rem said, "his duties must be limited to the outside until the nature of his strength and his horns is better understood. He must not take delicate tools without supervision."
"I can use tools," Link replied, trying to recover some pride.
Ram looked at him.
"The secondary guest broke a glass simply because he heard Rem could bring him more water."
Link opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Subaru slowly turned toward him, horrified and delighted.
"You broke a glass?"
"It was a crack."
"Because of Rem?"
"Because of involuntary pressure."
"Because of Rem."
"Subaru."
"Love is already causing property damage."
Link slowly slid one hand toward the table knife, not to use it, but to threaten the idea. Rem removed the knife before his fingers could touch it, with such perfect naturalness that Link took half a second to realize he had been disarmed.
"The silverware belongs to the mansion," Rem said.
Link lowered his hand.
"Yes, Rem."
Subaru covered his mouth with a napkin, trembling with laughter.
Ram observed both of them with the exhaustion of someone who had already calculated the amount of trouble they would bring before the first day was over.
"Roswaal-sama, Ram requests permission to begin instruction before Barusu and the secondary guest deteriorate the atmosphere further."
"Granted," Roswaal answered, amused. "Emilia-sama, Puck, Beatrice, and I have matters to attend to. Our new employees may begin as soon as possible."
Emilia, who had followed the conversation with a mixture of concern and a restrained smile, looked first at Subaru and then at Link.
"Don't push yourselves too hard. You both just recovered."
"Emilia-tan is worried about me," Subaru said, bringing both hands to his face as if he had received a blessing.
"About both of you," Emilia corrected.
"That is also wonderful."
Link took the last piece of bread from his plate and ate it with resignation.
"You're going to last ten minutes before Ram makes you cry."
"My spirit is resilient."
"Your spirit is shaped like wet paper."
"My spirit is shaped like a hero in training!"
Ram walked past them toward the door.
"The hero in training can begin by picking up his chair and following instructions."
Subaru straightened abruptly.
"Yes, boss Ram!"
Ram stopped.
"Do not call Ram that."
"Yes, Ram-sama."
"Not that either."
"Miss Ram."
"Acceptable for now."
Link looked at Rem. She said nothing, but made a small gesture indicating he should follow her. For some reason, that was enough for Link to stand up more carefully than necessary, as if correct posture had suddenly become a vital matter. Subaru saw him and smiled with brotherly venom.
"How obedient."
Link did not look at him.
"I'm going to bury you in the garden."
"That will count as job practice."
"Barusu," Ram said from the door. "If you are going to talk, do it while walking."
"Yes, Miss Ram!"
Thus officially began Subaru Natsuki and Link's first day of work at the Roswaal mansion.
Not with a ceremony, nor contracts, nor noble oaths. It began with Subaru tripping while trying to pick up his chair too quickly and Link following Rem down a hallway while trying not to look too much at the orderly movement of her uniform.
The distribution was immediate and cruelly logical. Ram would be in charge of teaching Subaru the mansion's general rules, basic etiquette, room layout, behavior before Roswaal and Emilia, and the fundamentals of domestic service. Rem, for her part, would show Link the outdoor areas, the garden tools, and the physical tasks that could be assigned to him without endangering the dishes, the curtains, or Beatrice's peace of mind. Later, the sisters would switch positions to correct specific errors, because according to Ram, "a disaster observed by two people is better documented."
Subaru considered that phrase unnecessarily ominous.
Link considered it fairly reasonable.
Subaru's first destination was a service room where uniforms, cloths, buckets, brushes, brooms, dusters, cleaning products, and a variety of household objects were stored—objects that, to him, looked like weapons of war disguised as maintenance. Ram opened a wardrobe and took out a simple male uniform, black and white, far less elegant than Roswaal's and far more threatening because of the responsibility it implied.
"Barusu will wear this while working."
Subaru took the uniform with both hands, lifting it in front of himself.
"Ah, a butler suit. The ultimate symbol of elegant service, refined discipline, and the fantasies of a certain specific audience."
Ram looked at him in silence.
Subaru lowered the uniform.
"I said nothing."
"Ram heard too much."
"I'm sorry."
"Not enough, but let us continue."
Ram then explained, with dry precision, that a servant had to wake early, prepare his appearance before presenting himself to others, maintain posture, speak only when necessary, observe the needs of the mansion's inhabitants, not interrupt important conversations, and above all, not make strange comments every time a woman breathed near him. Subaru tried to take mental notes, but every rule seemed accompanied by a different possibility of failure. When Ram taught him how to bow correctly, Subaru made such an exaggerated bow that he almost hit his forehead against a piece of furniture.
"Barusu looks like a merchant begging not to be executed."
"I am demonstrating extreme humility."
"Humility does not require self-harm."
"That explains a lot about my recent life."
Ram did not ask.
Probably out of wisdom.
Meanwhile, Link was led outside.
The mansion's garden was immense. He had already seen it from the window, but being there was different. Stone paths crossed areas of lawn maintained with precision, trimmed hedges marked soft divisions between zones, ornamental trees provided shade in carefully chosen spots, and farther beyond, in the areas less visible from the main façade, there were real work areas: tool sheds, piles of soil, cut branches, sacks of fertilizer, stacks of stone, water buckets, and fences in need of maintenance. That, he could understand. Dirt. Weight. Wood. Tools. Physical work. There were no curved knives, no magical libraries, no nobles smiling as if they knew too many things.
Only Rem.
Which, somehow, was worse for his stability.
"This area belongs to outdoor maintenance," Rem explained, walking in front of him with soft steps. "Some tasks are regular, such as watering, removing weeds, cleaning paths, and transporting materials. Others are performed as needed, such as repairing fences, moving decorative stones, or pruning branches."
"I understand."
"The secondary guest must learn to distinguish weeds from ornamental plants before pulling anything out."
"I can distinguish plants."
Rem stopped and pointed to a group of green leaves beside a flowerbed.
"Which of those is a weed?"
Link looked at the plants.
The plants looked back at him, metaphorically, with the arrogance of living beings that knew exactly how much he did not know.
"The... ugly one."
Rem blinked.
"They all have a function within the garden's design."
"Then the one that shouldn't be there."
"That is what Rem asked."
Link breathed deeply.
"I'm going to need training."
"Yes."
Rem's answer carried no mockery. That made it more lethal. Link would have preferred if she insulted him like Ram; at least then he could defend himself. Rem only stated facts with a calm voice, and every fact fell over his pride like a shovel of dirt.
The first task was carrying sacks of fertilizer from the shed to a cultivation area. Rem took one to show him the weight and the proper way to lift it, using the legs and keeping the back straight. Link, determined to prove he was not completely useless, took two sacks at once.
Then four.
Rem stared at him.
"The secondary guest does not need to carry all of them at once."
"I can do it."
"Rem did not say he could not. Rem said he does not need to."
"It's faster."
"If he breaks the sacks, it will be slower."
Link opened his mouth to say he would not break them.
One of the sacks creaked beneath his fingers.
He went still.
A thread of fertilizer began falling from a torn corner.
Rem looked at the sack.
Then she looked at Link.
"You must control the pressure of your hands."
Link carefully lowered the sacks.
"Yes, Rem."
"You must also stop answering 'yes, Rem' as if that fixes the damage."
"Yes, Re... understood."
Rem tilted her head slightly, and Link had the absurd sensation of having passed an exam.
The second attempt went better. He carried two sacks, then three, using his arms as support and not his fingers like death pincers. He advanced with physical ease, perhaps too much, because his body did not feel the weight as it should. Rem walked beside him, observing his posture, rhythm, and the way his shoes sank slightly into the grass. Link was useful. That became clear quickly. He could move loads that would have required several workers, lift large stones without visible effort, and push a fallen log as if it were a badly placed table.
He was also a public hazard.
When trying to drive in a fence post, he sank it too deep and split the wood in half. When using a rake, he gripped the handle so hard that he left finger marks on it. When removing weeds, he pulled out along with them a plant Rem calmly identified as "a decorative species Roswaal-sama appreciates." Link stared at the dead plant in his hand as if he had just committed a political crime.
"Is it very expensive?"
"Not as much as the dining room dishes."
"That doesn't answer."
"It will be replaced."
"That doesn't answer either."
"Rem recommends not mentioning it in front of Roswaal-sama with that guilty expression. It would be obvious."
Link buried the plant in a mound of soil, more out of funerary reflex than logic.
"Rest in peace, aristocrat plant."
Rem observed him.
"That was not necessary."
"In my defense, I'm under pressure."
"The plant was too."
Link looked at her.
Rem maintained the same expression.
"Was that a joke?"
"Rem only told the truth."
Link remained silent for a few seconds.
"It was good."
Rem did not answer, but for a very brief instant, so brief it could have been imagination, her visible eye seemed to soften.
Several hallways away, Subaru was discovering that being a butler was not the glamorous path his imagination had sold him.
Ram taught him to fold sheets.
Subaru folded one.
Ram looked at it.
"No."
"What part is wrong?"
"The sheet."
"That isn't a part, that's the entire object!"
"Correct."
Then came dusting. Subaru waved the duster confidently, raising a cloud that made him sneeze three times in a row. Ram waited in silence until he finished suffering.
"Barusu has redistributed the dust."
"That is technically resource movement."
"The objective was to remove it."
"I'm learning."
"Ram notices. Slowly."
The laundry was worse. Rem joined during that part to teach the correct technique, because Ram, as she herself explained without any trace of shame, "had more important matters than wasting strength on wet cloth." Subaru tried to wash a garment following Rem's instructions, but he applied too much energy at the wrong moment and ended up splashing water on his face. Rem offered him a towel with professional kindness. Ram, who had returned just in time to see the result, delivered her diagnosis.
"Barusu has lost against a shirt."
"It was a textile ambush."
"The shirt was not moving."
"That proves how dangerous it was."
Rem explained again, patiently, how to wash without deforming the fabric, how to wring without twisting too much, how to hang each garment according to its material, and how to check stains before they set. Subaru listened seriously. Far more than expected. Between jokes and complaints, he truly wanted to learn. Ram noticed, though she said nothing kind about it. Rem noticed too, and that was why she continued explaining without reducing him to a lost cause.
By midmorning, the sisters switched positions.
Ram went out to the garden under the excuse of supervising Link's progress, while Rem stayed with Subaru to continue the indoor tasks. The change felt like a turn of fate for both of them.
Subaru, left with Rem, straightened with a smile far too large.
"Rem-sensei, I'm ready to receive domestic wisdom."
"Rem is not sensei."
"In my heart, yes."
Rem looked at him in silence.
"First instruction: do not speak while counting utensils."
"Yes, Rem-sensei."
"Second instruction: do not use that title."
"Yes, Rem."
Meanwhile, Link saw Ram arrive in the garden and felt a strange mixture of relief and condemnation. Rem had left, which allowed him to breathe without feeling every word could destroy him. But Ram had arrived, which meant destruction would come by another path.
Ram examined the work in silence.
The split post. The marked rake. The aristocrat plant buried with a small stone over it. The sacks transported efficiently. The stones moved in record time. The soil area prepared better than expected, though with furrows too deep in some places.
"The secondary guest is useful," she finally said.
Link blinked.
"Was that a compliment?"
"Ram has not finished."
"Of course."
"The secondary guest is also clumsy, impulsive, too strong for normal tools, and sentimental toward dead plants."
"It was an important plant."
"It was a plant."
"Rem said Roswaal appreciated it."
"Roswaal-sama appreciates many strange things. That does not make them important."
Link looked toward the small vegetal grave.
"It still died under my care."
Ram observed him sideways.
"If the secondary guest maintains that attitude, the garden will end up full of funerals."
"I'll try not to."
"That would be convenient."
Ram then took pruning shears and showed them to him. Link received them with too much caution, as if they were a sacred relic or a trap. Ram pointed at a nearby hedge, where some branches stuck out from the established shape.
"Cut only what breaks the line."
Link looked at the hedge.
Looked at the shears.
Looked at Ram.
"And how do I know what breaks the line?"
Ram pointed with her finger.
"By looking."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
The pruning was a contained disaster. Link had a good eye for large shapes, but was terrible with small details. He cut too little out of fear, then too much to compensate, then tried to fix it and turned a tiny irregularity into a suspiciously flat corner. Ram watched him with the serenity of a judge before an accused man incriminating himself.
"Stop."
Link froze with the shears open.
"Very bad?"
"It is not a tragedy."
"That sounds better."
"Yet."
"That sounds worse."
Ram took the shears from his hands and corrected the shape with three precise movements. She did not seem to exert herself. She only cut a little here, adjusted there, removed a small branch, and the hedge regained harmony. Link looked at the result with respectful irritation.
"That was cheating."
"That was skill."
"I dislike skill."
"Skill tends to discomfort those who do not possess it."
"Do you always talk like that?"
"No. Sometimes Ram is kinder."
"When?"
"When the receiver deserves it."
Link let out a dry laugh.
"Well, at least you're honest."
Ram returned the shears.
"Again. This time, less enthusiasm."
Link obeyed.
And, to both their surprise, improved.
Not much. Not miraculously. But enough that the next hedge did not look like the victim of a personal attack. Ram did not praise him. She only said "acceptable," which Subaru would have already recognized as the local equivalent of receiving a medal.
Inside the mansion, Subaru had a similar experience, though much less dignified.
Rem taught him to serve tea. The task seemed simple until it became a choreography of temperature, quantity, posture, service order, and the exact placement of the cup. Subaru tried to imitate her. His first attempt spilled a little. The second left the cup too close to the edge. The third was almost correct, until he got excited and raised his thumb.
"Do not make unnecessary gestures during service," Rem said.
"Understood."
"Do not smile as if you expect applause either."
Subaru erased the smile.
"Understood."
"The intention to improve is good."
Subaru lifted his head.
Rem was looking at him calmly.
"But you must allow your hands to learn before your mouth intervenes."
Subaru brought both hands to his chest.
"Rem, that was constructive criticism. I almost cried."
"Do not cry over the tea service."
"Understood."
At noon, both apprentices briefly reunited in a side area of the mansion, where Ram and Rem had coordinated a short break. Subaru arrived with his uniform slightly crooked, his hair messier than at the start, and the expression of a soldier who had survived a campaign against the laundry. Link arrived with dirt on his pants, a green stain on his sleeve, a splinter in his hair, and the face of someone who had discovered that plants could silently judge him.
They looked at each other.
For one second, neither spoke.
Then Subaru pointed at the green stain.
"Did you lose against the garden?"
Link pointed at the dampness on Subaru's sleeve.
"Did you lose against a shirt?"
"Technical draw."
"Mine too."
Ram and Rem, standing behind them, spoke almost at the same time.
"Clear defeat," Ram said.
"Partial defeat," Rem said.
Subaru looked at Link.
"Rem was kinder to you."
"Rem is perfect."
Silence fell.
Subaru slowly smiled.
Link closed his eyes.
"I said it again."
"Yes."
"It was involuntary."
"Yes."
"Don't mention it."
"Never."
Ram looked at Rem.
"Rem, the secondary guest is developing a concerning pattern."
Rem answered with her usual serenity, though Link thought he noticed a different nuance in her voice.
"Rem believes the secondary guest is tired."
"Yes," Link said quickly. "Tiredness. That. I'm very tired. My tongue no longer controls my thoughts."
Subaru murmured:
"That sounds dangerous if your thoughts are still in Rem mode."
Link gave him a soft elbow strike. At least, he tried to make it soft. Subaru let out a groan and bent slightly.
"That was my emotional rib!"
"It was your real rib. It got in the way."
Rem looked at Link.
"You must control your strength even when joking."
Link straightened.
"Yes, Rem."
Subaru, aching, raised one hand.
"I need to record this. Rem just saved me from fraternal violence. Thank you, Rem."
"It was not for Barusu. It was for general safety."
"My gratitude adapts to humiliating contexts."
The break was short. Too short, according to Subaru. After eating something light—and after Link ate again with an appetite that made Ram murmur that the kitchen budget would need a meeting—the training continued.
In the afternoon, Subaru moved on to what he called "the advanced phase of domestic suffering": cleaning floors. Rem showed him how to dampen the cloth, how not to leave marks, and how to progress in sections. Subaru began with enthusiasm, but soon discovered that cleaning well required a patience that could not be defeated with heroic poses. In less than half an hour, his knees, back, and parts of his pride he did not know existed were hurting.
Ram passed beside him and observed the floor.
"Barusu left an area uncleaned."
Subaru looked.
"Where?"
Ram pointed.
Subaru brought his face closer.
"That's a shadow."
"It is dirt."
"It's shaped like a shadow."
"Dirt does not become innocent by having artistic form."
Subaru cleaned.
In the garden, Link received a task that did seem made for him: moving large stones to reinforce the edge of a path. It was heavy, direct, satisfying work. Rem returned to supervise him that time, because Ram had to attend other internal duties. Link lifted the first stone with ease, carried it to the indicated spot, and placed it. Rem checked the position.
"More to the left."
Link moved it.
"Too much."
He moved it again.
"Now it is tilted."
He lifted it, adjusted it, lowered it.
"It must be stable."
Link breathed deeply.
"The stone hates me."
"The stone has no feelings."
"It has attitude."
"That seems like a projection from the secondary guest."
Link looked at her, surprised.
"Did you just analyze me?"
"Rem only observes."
"You observe too well."
Rem was silent for a moment before answering.
"It is part of Rem's work."
Link did not know what to say to that.
The stones ended up well in the end. Not perfect, but solid. Link had the strength to move them without tiring too much, and when Rem explained that it was not enough to put them "where they looked pretty," but that they had to support each other so they would not move in the rain, he listened with real attention. Rem noticed that. Link could be impulsive, clumsy, and too prone to gripping tools hard enough to damage them, but he was not lazy. When he understood a task, he concentrated on doing it well. His problem was not lack of will. It was excess strength, lack of habit, and a mind still jumping between fear, embarrassment, and recent memories.
By the end of the afternoon, both apprentices were exhausted in different ways.
Subaru was sitting on the floor of a hallway, with a cloth in his hand, staring at the clean stretch before him as if it were a conquered mountain.
"I have discovered something," he said.
Ram, who was checking the result, did not seem interested.
"How unfortunate."
"Being a butler is hard."
"Barusu discovered the obvious after several hours."
"No. It is harder than hard. It is a war against entropy. Dirt comes back, fabrics wrinkle, cups move, people eat, and someone has to wash the dishes. This mansion does not run on magic. It runs because you two are monsters of domestic efficiency."
Ram looked at him.
"Barusu has just said something correct."
Subaru lifted his head, excited.
"Was that a compliment?"
"No. It was an anomaly."
"I'll accept it!"
Rem arrived from the end of the hallway with Link behind her. He had dirt on his boots, rolled-up sleeves, hair tousled by the wind, and a tired expression, but one less destroyed than Subaru's. There was something on his face that had not been there in the morning: a small satisfaction. He had broken things, yes. He had buried an innocent plant, marked a rake, split a post, and created a stone border that needed four corrections. But he had also carried materials, cleaned a stretch of path, reinforced a fence, moved logs, and left part of the garden better than he found it.
Subaru looked at him.
"You look less dead."
"The garden doesn't talk."
Ram raised an eyebrow.
"The secondary guest talks to dead plants."
"It was a farewell."
Subaru pointed at Ram.
"She caught you."
Link sighed and carefully dropped against the wall beside him, trying not to dirty it too much.
"How did it go on the butler path?"
Subaru looked at his hands, wrinkled from water and the cloth.
"I have seen hell. It is shaped like laundry."
"I discovered stones have opinions."
"Productive day for both of us."
Rem approached Ram and gave her a small summary of the outdoor tasks. It was not a formal paper, but the conversation between them functioned like a report. Ram listened without interrupting. Rem explained that Link possessed great physical strength, good endurance, and willingness to learn, but required constant supervision with tools, pressure control, and delicate work. Ram reported that Subaru had terrible initial technique, excess noise, a tendency to dramatize every task, and a surprising capacity not to give up despite repeated failure.
"In conclusion," Ram said, "Barusu is useless but persistent."
"Rem believes the secondary guest is dangerous but useful."
Subaru and Link looked at each other.
"I think you won," Subaru said.
"I don't know. 'Dangerous but useful' sounds like the description of a cursed shovel."
"Better than 'useless but persistent.'"
"That sounds like an exact description of you."
"That's why it hurts."
Rem looked at both of them.
"You will continue tomorrow."
Subaru paled.
"Tomorrow?"
Ram looked at him with devastating calm.
"Employment is usually repeated."
"I knew that, but my soul hoped it would be a unique experience of personal growth."
"Disappointment will also be repeated."
Link closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall.
"I am going back to the garden."
Subaru looked at him.
"Even after losing against the stone?"
"The stone and I reached an agreement."
Rem tilted her head.
"Rem does not remember any agreement."
"It was spiritual."
"The stone has no spirit."
Puck, who appeared floating from a corner as if he had heard the correct word to intervene, smiled.
"Technically, many things can have affinity with minor spirits if the conditions are adequate."
Link pointed at the small spirit.
"Thank you."
Rem looked at Puck.
"That does not confirm that the stone made an agreement."
"No, but it made the conversation more fun," Puck replied.
Subaru collapsed backward onto the clean floor.
"Don't step here. It cost me my youth."
Ram looked down at him.
"Barusu, get up. You are dirtying the floor you just cleaned."
Subaru opened his eyes in horror.
"No."
"Yes."
"This job is cruel."
"This job is work."
Emilia appeared shortly after, guided by the noise and perhaps by Puck, and found Subaru trying to stand without placing his hands on the freshly cleaned floor, Link sitting against the wall with dirt on his boots, and the twins observing them like supervisors of two disasters in the process of domestication. The scene made her smile.
"It looks like you worked a lot."
Subaru stood up abruptly, with energy his body had not possessed five seconds ago.
"Emilia-tan! I cleaned, washed, served tea, survived Ram's criticism, and received instruction from Rem. I am practically another man."
Ram observed the floor.
"Barusu is still Barusu."
"Don't destroy my evolution in front of Emilia!"
Emilia laughed softly and looked at Link.
"And you? How was the garden?"
Link tried to stand with dignity. His legs protested enough that he decided to remain seated one more second.
"Good. I broke fewer things than I could have broken."
Emilia seemed to accept that answer as genuinely positive.
"Then that is progress too."
Rem nodded.
"The secondary guest showed progress at the end."
Link felt the exhaustion disappear a little.
"Thank you, Rem."
Subaru opened his mouth.
Link pointed at him without looking.
"No."
Subaru closed it.
Puck floated around both of them, amused.
"What a lively group. Lia, I think the mansion will be noisier from now on."
"It seems so," Emilia replied.
Ram sighed.
"Ram regrets confirming it."
Rem added:
"Rem will prepare more detailed instructions for tomorrow."
Subaru brought both hands to his head.
"More detailed! I didn't even survive the basic ones!"
"That is why they will be more detailed," Rem said.
Link, still leaning against the wall, looked toward a nearby window. Outside, the garden he had worked on during the day stretched beneath the warm light of sunset. It was not perfect. Surely Ram or Rem would find a thousand flaws if they reviewed it closely. But part of the path had been reinforced, the sacks had been moved, a fence was firmer, and the battered hedge no longer looked completely doomed.
It was little.
But it was something he had done without dying, without killing anyone, without losing control, without his horns appearing from rage, and without the kagune destroying the mansion.
Beside him, Subaru continued complaining about the floor, the laundry, the title of Barusu, and the injustice of work being so repetitive. Emilia listened with patience, Puck laughed, Ram corrected him, and Rem calmly listed the tasks for the next day.
Link felt deep exhaustion, but not emptiness.
For the first time since arriving in that world, the fatigue did not come from running for his life.
It came from having worked.
And that, in some strange way, made him feel a little more human.
Even though he had Oni blood.
Even though something red and unknown slept beneath his skin.
Even though Rem looked at him from time to time as if she were trying to solve a question she still did not dare ask.
Subaru dropped beside him, defeated by the day and by Ram's authority.
"Hey, Link."
"What?"
"Tomorrow is going to hurt."
Link looked at his hands, full of small marks from dirt and pressure.
"Yeah."
"Do you regret it?"
Link thought of the destroyed warehouse, of Elsa, of Felt being taken by Reinhard, of the horns on his forehead during breakfast, of Rem explaining how to place stones without making them hate him.
"Not yet."
Subaru smiled weakly.
"That's almost optimistic."
"Don't get used to it."
Ram clapped once, soft but definitive.
"Break is over. Barusu must finish putting away the cleaning utensils. The secondary guest must remove the dirt from his boots before walking through the mansion. If both of you wish to remain employed until tomorrow, begin now."
Subaru groaned.
So did Link.
Rem, with the implacable calm of a perfect maid, added:
"Rem will supervise."
Link stood up immediately.
Subaru looked at him with betrayal in his eyes.
"You didn't even pretend to hesitate."
"Work survival," Link said, shaking off the dirt. "Learn."
"No. That was Rem."
Link did not answer.
But he walked faster.
And so, under Ram's tired gaze, Rem's severe patience, and Emilia's soft smile, the first day of work at the Roswaal mansion continued until even Subaru no longer had the energy to complain creatively. It was not glorious. It was not heroic. No one won a battle or recovered an insignia. But among cloths, buckets, stones, plants, and mistreated tools, the two outsiders took their first real step into a routine that seemed peaceful.
Far too peaceful to last.