Maid
“Waaaaah! Waaaaah!”
Mary's scream echoes through the room, and distantly, she notes that the sound seems to be bouncing off the walls and heading directly to the door beside her bed—the door that Mary had heavily suspected went to some sort of servant's quarter.
Mere moments after she had started crying, as if they had been waiting for a cue, the heavy door beside the bed swings open, and the silver-haired maid that Mary remembered carrying her marches out.
Mary does not feel any pride in the fact that this essentially confirms there is some sort of ready room or maid's quarters beyond that door.
As soon as Mary sees the silver-haired maid, she stops crying, unthinking of how that might look to someone more familiar with a baby's mannerisms, and immediately starts to stare at the stunningly beautiful and yet bafflingly recognisable maid. Even for someone used to seeing people with bio-sculpted beauty, the maid is exceptionally beautiful and exotic.
As Mary had previously noted, the maid had a classical ponytail restraining her shimmering silver hair, hair that, even with that ponytail, cascades down her back. Her eyes were also a metallic silver, literally glowing with a breathtaking light that Mary knows comes from the maid's mana, although she is unsure of the specific aspect of mana that produces that glow. For Mary, who has only recently begun to use this mana sight, the glow is almost blinding.
That light above all else tells her that this maid has a deep well of power, of magic, that Mary had not seen in anyone but her birth mother. Mary had to admit that it was an interesting phenomenon to observe; if she looked even closer, she could see the mana slowly drifting away from the maid in waves. The luminosity that she knew dwelled beneath the maid's skin radiated from her body at certain points, most noticeably from her eyes, which appeared to be drowning in power.
Mary frowns as the maid finishes approaching the bed and starts to reach over the rails to pick her up.
With the maid now closer, Mary looks at her more deeply, focusing not on her features or mannerisms but on the growing number of famous fictional maids from Earth that the maid resembles. Mary feels her face twist into a look of confusion as she looks at the mirror image of someone that should not be real.
'This', Mary thinks, ‘cannot be a coincidence.'
Between her rebirth in this place and the presence of such a recognisable maid, it is clear that someone has manipulated events; otherwise, how could a person who looks like this possibly exist? And again, why the hell is she dressed as a cliché French maid?
The maid reaches under Mary's arms and lifts her, holding Mary close to her bosom before she turns around and sits. Mary blinks and looks at the railing only to find it has vanished.
"Well, Princess, it sounds like it’s time for your first meal.” The maid speaks with a strange smile on her face.
Deep within herself, Mary understands the true implication of the word "meal", yet she begins to search for the non-existent plate of food, which she would not be able to eat even if it were present.
Then reluctantly Mary looks at the maid's breasts… but the dress that she is wearing doesn’t look like it can be easily removed, and she is not moving to do so anyway.
The maid smirks down at her, clearly enjoying Mary's confusion. And then the maid's mana visibly shifts, focusing on the top of her dress. The top of her dress instantly glows brightly, absorbing the maid's mana, until it reaches a certain threshold and the dress begins to disappear entirely.
Mary blinks in interest before focusing intently on the mana particles; at first it looked like they had disappeared, but as she focuses, she can see some sort of faint outline. Perhaps the dress is still there but has been made intangible somehow?
Mary feels her face briefly rubbing against the soft and silky fabric of a purple bra, but then that too begins to disappear, and suddenly she is being held by strong and muscular arms right up against the maid's naked but impossibly soft breasts.
Mary feels her face heat up in a furious blush.
There is a major part of her that remembers being Alexander, that remembers being an adult man and truly does not know how to feel about this bizarre situation. She remembers that Alexander had never really had time for relationships, how he had concentrated completely on his education and future career, intending to leave things like finding a partner or starting a family for later.
Mary knows how that had ended up; Alexander had died having never so much as held the hands of a non-virtual girl. And now here Mary is, face-first in a stunningly beautiful woman’s breasts… about to have a meal.
‘What even is my life right now?’ Mary thinks to herself in dismay, wondering if the maid could have given her a bottle instead. She tries to consider her options before the obvious solution hits her. As a baby, there is one way that might work, right?
Mary breathes in deeply, feeling her tiny lungs expand until they are almost bursting as she prepares to throw the largest, longest, and most furious temper tantrum that has ever been witnessed.
“No complaints now, this is for your own good, you know? My mana-rich milk will help you grow strong, I promise." The maid says, down to her with an amused smile. “Many people would kill to be in your place right now.” she continues, her smile twitching into a smug smirk.
‘Well, then they’re welcome to it!’ Mary thinks to herself derisively, glaring up at the maid. And then the first part of the maid's explanation reached her: ‘So ingesting mana-rich foods makes someone stronger? That makes sense, I suppose. And this maid seems to be magically powerful… it’s probably true that people would kill for it in various ways.' She thinks to herself, somewhat convinced by the explanation.
And then Mary twitches as she considers how out of place that explanation is. ‘But why explain that to a baby?’ Mary looks at the maid in suspicion. ‘Surely not? If she knew, then why would she help instead of taking me to the Duke as an imposter?’
'No, she’s just talking out loud. Alexander did that all the time.’ Mary tries to convince herself.
With a grimace and barely audible sigh, Mary accepts her fate and opens her mouth. The maid places her nipple in Mary's mouth, and Mary reluctantly begins to suck.
‘Sweet and creamy,' Mary thought with dismay. ‘I kind of wish that it was disgusting instead… this feels perverse.’ she concedes.
‘But the worst part is that Alexander never drank milk this delicious before; it’s totally beyond the synthetic milk he used to buy.’ Mary thinks to herself, her grimace getting worse. ‘Is the taste another effect of it being mana-rich? Are mana-rich foods just tastier in general?’ She mentally shakes her head, trying to think of anything else.
“That is quite the unpleasant face you're making, Princess," the maid comments in amusement. “I’ll have you know that a service like this is in highest demand.” she boasts in a joking tone.
Mary is too reluctantly busy to send more than a half-hearted glare at the maid and instead tries to distract herself.
Mary attempts to ignore her physical actions and concentrate on the mana that she is ingesting, trying desperately to find out what it will do to her. The maid had said that her mana-rich milk would empower her somehow, but what does that actually mean?
The system had told her about four different mana aspects that would in a traditional magic setting be potentially improvable.
'Let's dismiss the possibility of alignment changing for now.’ Mary thinks to herself, dismissing one of the four options.
‘Density, Quality and Quantity. Improving those three factors would be logical and provide a rational basis for claiming that someone is becoming more powerful. Right?’ To her dismay, this is the only guess Mary has, but her newfound instincts once again say that she is largely correct.
With a tentative idea in mind, Mary focuses intensely, trying to feel what the maids' mana is doing to her. Physically feeling the milk as it settles in her stomach proves easy enough. But the physical milk wasn’t what Mary was interested in, and she was trying to ignore that she was drinking breast milk as much as possible. The mana that the milk contained, on the other hand, quickly began to disperse as it entered her body, not merely as the milk settled in her stomach but apparently as soon as it entered her mouth.
Or more accurately, as it exits the maid's breast’s body.
‘The mana disperses as soon as it starts to leave the body. But… it doesn’t look like it is leaving my body as well.’ Mary confirms to herself that she hadn’t properly followed the mana yet, but it was clearly being added to her in some way.
The easiest bits of mana, Mary notes, are small packets of energy which essentially bleed into her body, although she’s not really certain what this achieves; it clearly integrates with her physically in the same way her native energy already does.
The more interesting part is the mana, which disappears and travels into what she has assumed to be either her soul or her mana pool. Mary remembers that while she was in the womb, she ultimately decided that the difference between her soul and her mana pool could simply be academic. Now she is far less sure.
Mary feels her soul, or what she assumes is her soul, and can now sense it bleeding energy directly into what she is now certain is her mana pool, and it is there that the maids' mana is travelling to. Mary believes that the energy flowing from her soul into her mana pool is likely the primary method of generating energy, but she also thinks that if her mana pool were empty, it would be filled with mana from the milk.
Instead of being filled by external mana, she feels the metaphorical walls of her mana pool slowly but surely expanding, as if it were a balloon being filled with water. This, she thinks, is an understandable effect of ingesting external mana, and even with how little she knows about this world, it gives her some ideas on how to expand her mana pool further.
What is surprising is that this expansion feels secondary. Mary had compared her mana pool to a balloon, but it didn’t really feel that flexible. The primary sensation she experiences can only be described as compression. She feels her own mana becoming… sharper? Better? Certainly denser.
Mary smiles as the answer becomes obvious. Yes, clearly, her mana pool exists and is slowly expanding, but the real benefit, it seems, is that both mana density and mana quality also increase. The denseness she feels in her mana can only be called self-explanatory. Currently, Mary can only speculate about the potential benefits of dense mana.
The quality of her mana, now that she is properly inspecting it, that too is obvious. It is simply a measure of how beneficial the mana is, how effective her mana is at something. But then, wouldn’t mana-rich drinks such as the maid's milk be in incredibly high demand? Alternatively, it may only be beneficial for babies, while a person's mana becomes much more stable as they age.
‘So… do mages in this world engage in typical cultivator behaviour? Should I get my young master play-ready… or would that be Jade Beauty?' Mary smirks to herself. No doubt there is some sort of plateau, a limit to how far any given mana-rich material can push a person's inner reserves.
‘So, it’s possible that mages are very similar to cultivators in this world and that alchemists have additional capabilities from the usual magic-inspired ones. Such as, for instance, the creation of pills and potions to increase a mage's mana aspects – those would be in high demand, right?’ Mary concludes.
But that means she is lucky that Alexander indulged in a few cultivator novels. Thanks to that hobby of his, Mary can think of several ways that she could magically empower herself, though they might not be wholly unique.
Mary feels her stomach reaching its limit and knows that it is time to stop; somewhat reluctantly she removes herself from the maid's breast. The maid brings Mary to her shoulder, lightly patting her on the back, prompting a burp.
The maid pulls Mary away from her shoulder, and Mary instantly sees the maid's dress has reappeared in a flash of light.
“Now that you're satisfied," the maid said with an amused smile on her face, now holding Mary in front of her. “I think it’s time we had a talk, don’t you, little princess?" She continued, staring at Mary right in the eyes.
Mary instantly starts to worry again when it becomes clear that she is expecting an answer.