I Became the Maid of the Lout Prince

Chapter 6

Slapping.

It’s a beautiful Korean tradition that involves getting someone else to do the work you don’t want to do.

Whether it’s a team project in a major in college, a group in the military, or a group of people sharing a job.

When people gather and form an organization, a hierarchy naturally arises; there will always be a place for slapping in this world.

As soon as I realized that I was being slapped by the senior maids, a reflexive expletive came out of my mouth.

A conversation from yesterday evening flashed through my mind as soon as I ensured no one was in the kitchen.

Up until that point, I had a hunch that something was off, but I didn’t realize it.

‘Our conversation was a little awkward for some reason.... did these bitches screw me over...?’@@@@

They’re only a year more experienced than me, and they’ve already learned to be mean.

I was so focused on my work as a maid that I didn’t even think about it.

Those bitches would probably sneak out at six o’clock, right on time for work. No matter how often they slapped me, they wouldn’t miss work...

...and they would work just as lazily as I did on the work I did earlier.

...Yes, I can tolerate that much.

It’s a game world, a fantasy world, and it’s where people live together.

The idea of expecting moral rectitude from a maid working for a ducal family was odd in the first place.

In reality, this situation, where I’d been dealt with in a hurry, wasn’t so bad for me.

Especially since it allowed me to achieve my true purposes for which I had truly hoped to work in the kitchen.

‘It’s always better to practice magic when no one’s around.’

Normally, I would have been practicing my magic in secret, avoiding the watchful eyes of the other senior maids.

Now that I was alone with no one else, it meant I could use magic to my heart’s content without anyone noticing.

So, essentially, the situation wasn’t so bad.

In this world, there are three main ways to increase the maximum amount of mana one can have.

The best way is to drain it to the bottom and then fill it back up again to perfection.

It was a law of this world that just by repeating this, the maximum amount of mana would increase regardless of level.

There were two other methods, but this was the only one I could utilize right now.

I couldn’t expect to grow by hunting monsters and leveling up right now.

‘I have magic at my disposal, and I have a means of replenishing my mana.... is it really better off just being alone...?’

A place where you can use magic to your heart’s content without being detected.

A place where you can replenish your mana with food as soon as it is used up.

For the senior maids, it was the perfect environment to be thankful for the slapping.

‘You won’t be able to grow at higher levels because you’ll need to replenish your mana, so you should put as much as you can in while you’re still at level 2.’

Maximizing one’s mana by draining it to the bottom and refilling it is much harder at higher levels.

While mana consumption is the same between the low and high levels, maxing out the amount of mana at high levels was bound to have its limitations.

Once you’ve drained triple and even quadruple-digit amounts of mana, it’s quite an arduous task to replenish it.

In this world, the only means of restoring mana other than sleep is through food, and the human stomach has limits to what it can digest at once.

The amount of mana I could replenish with a single garlic clove was a whopping 50.

Compared to other mana-replenishing foods like apples and tangerines, this was a ridiculously efficient item.

However, due to its pungent aroma and aromatic taste, raw garlic was considered inedible by most of the characters.

The few characters who could eat it, including the main character, were allowed to eat a few grains.

Since heat destroys nutrients, I had to chew on this raw garlic thoroughly to replenish my mana efficiently.

If half a clove of garlic can replenish all my energy, why not?

If I was Lilith before I regained my memories of my previous life, I probably wouldn’t have even attempted it, but I still had the memories of Lee Ji-Hwan, who had lived in Korea for 26 years.

This much garlic is nothing for Koreans....

Crunch.

“......Ugh?!”

As soon as I chewed half of the garlic, the pungent aroma that lingered in my mouth almost made me spill its contents.

...What is this? Did garlic always taste like this?

I’ve had ssamjang *1, but I don’t think I’ve ever tasted raw garlic like this before.

Was it because I became Lilith in the game that my body’s ability to taste it had changed into Lilith’s tastes?

“Ugh...Blehhh...!”

I barely managed to steady myself as I was almost dizzy from the strong garlic scent that seemed to envelop my entire face.

I managed to swallow half of the garlic in my mouth.

I thought I could eat raw garlic without a problem, but this unexpected obstacle was going to hold me back.

It was a moment that made me reflect on all the times I’ve criticized characters in Luminor Academy for not eating garlic.

If it’s this painful, no wonder they can’t swallow it raw.

“Mana....Yes, the mana....”

Despite the pain, I had to check what needed to be checked, so I clasped my hands together again and pulled up Lilith’s information window.

There it was, clearly stating the significant change in maximum mana.

『Current Mana: 21 / 21+1』

It had been completely emptied and then refilled by eating garlic. As soon as it was replenished, the maximum amount of magic increased.

At least it was a change that confirmed that the suffering he’d just endured wasn’t pointless.

It was only an increase of 1 for now, but by level 10, it would be almost a 6 or 7 increase.

No matter how I thought about it, this was the most ‘efficient’ way to increase the maximum amount of mana.

“As far as the cult ending goes... Never....”

I couldn’t sit around whimpering now, not if I wanted to avoid a future where I’d be beaten by a damned pig.

Using Clean once more to empty my magic, I popped the remaining half of the garlic back into my mouth.

“Wow...!”

I swallowed the nausea rising in my gut and somehow managed to chew the energy supplement down the back of my throat.

After this, there’s no telling when the next opportunity will come.

I could change jobs again as soon as tomorrow, or the senior maids could decide to come in early on a whim, and this was a difficult training method to utilize.

I had to give it my all, treating every day as my last chance. I had to avoid the bad ending at all costs, even if it meant breathing a field of garlic down my neck.

No matter what happens.

T/N

Ssamjang is a spicy dipping sauce made with soybean paste and Korean chili paste (gochujang). It contains raw aromatics like garlic and spring onions and is often used for food wrapped in lettuce or as a complement to grilled pork belly (samgyeop-sal).

Hello! Axiomatic here.

Since the site got reset, I’m changing up my TL style. I noticed that I had to do this as I was re-editing this chapter and the ones before it.

T/N will only exist if I actually do have T/N or something important to announce.Only definitions of untranslated Korean words will be listed in the T/N.New ways of formatting text will be introduced as I progress through the chapters, if necessary.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading, and see you in the next one!