Mara couldn't hear what they were saying, but the atmosphere didn't feel casual.
It was a deliberate conversation—perhaps even an important one.
I think it's best not to interrupt them, Mara thought before quietly turning around and heading to the bedroom.
"What an exhausting day," Mara whispered as she let herself fall onto her bed.
...
...
...
The next day, Mara slowly opened her eyes, but unlike the previous morning, Alice wasn't there to wake her.
The first thing she noticed was the silence. She was alone in her bed, surrounded only by stillness and the faint light of dawn filtering through the wooden walls of the basement.
The other two beds were empty, their sheets cold and neatly stretched, as if no one had slept in them.
Mara got up, her movements still heavy with sleep, and sat on the edge of the mattress. Without thinking too much about it, she got dressed in the clothes Mordred had given her: the loose brown shirt and the black shorts.
With each passing day, she felt more comfortable with that simplicity. Unlike feminine clothing, it didn't cause that uncomfortable friction against her own skin—that constant reminder of a body she still hadn't fully come to feel as her own.
Once dressed, Mara left the room and climbed the stairs to the main floor.
The aroma of coffee already floated through the air, mixed with the sweet smell of freshly baked bread. There, behind the reception counter, was Alice, sorting through some papers with that habitual calm that seemed immune to the passage of time.
"Good morning, Alice," Mara greeted as she approached the older woman. "And… Reiko?" she asked afterward, scanning the room for the dark-haired girl.
Alice looked at her, and a warm—slightly playful—smile spread across her face.
"Awww, I knew you liked Reiko," she replied in a touched tone that Mara immediately recognized as teasing.
"Of course I do! She's pretty cute," Mara played along, shrugging with a half-smile.
"Fufufu," Alice's laughter was soft, almost a whisper. "She left this morning and will probably be back in about a week."
Mara blinked.
"…Huh?"
Did I really bother her that much? she thought, and the idea—irrational as it was—caused an uncomfortable pinch in her chest.
In her past life, more than one person had told her that she was… unpleasant to be around. She had never really understood why, especially since she had always done her best to fit in, to go unnoticed, to not be a burden.
"It wasn't because of anything you did," Alice interjected, as if she had read the turn of Mara's thoughts—or simply noticed the sudden shift in her mood. "What happened is that last night we received a letter from a client who, due to her… circumstances, can't be seen in places like this, but was interested in our services. So I sent Reiko to meet with her."
"I see…" Mara murmured, a hint of curiosity now mixing with relief.
"The meeting place is quite far away, since it's the residence of a rather well-known noble," Alice explained, her slight smile seeming to hide more than she let on.
Mara nodded, but then a question that had been circling her mind for days finally surfaced.
"I know it's a bit late to ask, but… are the three of us the only employees?" she said, recalling the arrangement of beds in the basement: one for Alice, one for Reiko… and hers, which had been empty before she arrived.
At the question, Alice's smile seemed to falter for just an instant.
It was almost imperceptible—a brief blink, a slight tightening of her lips—but she recovered immediately, as if she had practiced that expression many times before.
"Originally, there were more of us," she answered, her tone tinged with a soft, almost melancholic nostalgia. "But many of them decided to leave… for different reasons. So for now, it's just the four of us."
"I understand…" Mara replied, though in truth, she didn't fully understand.
Wait… four? Weren't there only Reiko, Alice, and me? Who's the fourth?
Besides, there were only three beds in the basement.
Did that person sleep in one of the guest rooms?
Mara was so absorbed in that mental puzzle, trying to fit together pieces that didn't quite match, that the sudden sound startled her completely.
BAM!
A sharp, heavy impact—like something large slamming into the wooden front door—yanked her out of her thoughts.
Mara snapped her head toward the entrance, her heart pounding hard in her chest.
There, sprawled face-down on the reception floor, one arm stretched out and her face pressed against the wooden planks, lay the motionless figure of a woman.
"W-WHAT?!" Mara shouted, her voice filled with genuine shock as it echoed through the inn's quiet morning air.