Page 204 of The Villainess Whom I Had Served for 13 Years Has Fallen

The young lady was unwell.

She had an uncomfortable body that couldn’t walk on its own and couldn’t go to the bathroom alone without help from others.

Soaring through the sky with magic.

In a world where the body is tempered to achieve extraordinary strength, the lady had become confined to a body with restricted movement.

This world was not a kind place to those with physical inconveniences.

Because everyone was healthy and strong.

Even those of advanced age rarely suffered from physical discomfort due to aging, provided they had trained sufficiently.

Of course, there would be some decline in physical strength and appearance compared to their youth, but it was not enough to hinder their movements.

That had been my greatest surprise upon coming to this world. At the same time, I had been shocked by the treatment meted out to those with physical inconveniences.

The place I had lived in was one where consideration existed. Unlike this world, it was a place where people with physical limitations were plentiful.

I speak of those with disabilities caused by aging, illness, or accidents.

It was not that the people of this world were heartless. There were people everywhere who would lend a helping hand to a middle-aged man who had lost a leg in an adventure.

However, this world simply lacked the concept of welfare for those with physical inconveniences. There was no effort to develop systems for the disabled, or wheelchairs like the one the lady rode in, or rehabilitation systems. Society made no secret of its intention to cast them aside.

There were prosthetics, but for some reason, they could be modified into weapons. It was an incomprehensible world.

This world was harsh to those with inconveniences. As a child, I had thought it was irrelevant to me and had observed from a distance. However, after becoming an adult, I could feel the unfairness more directly than anyone else.

After the inconvenience of disability came to the lady, I began to feel bitter about the discrimination I had forgotten.

Even the smallest things were difficult to obtain.

Even a hospital bed, commonly ~Nоvеl??ght~ used in hospitals, was not available in this world.

In this world with the great alternative of healing magic, the concept of rest as a treatment might exist, but there was a severe lack of consideration for those who could not use magic. Moreover, the prices were astronomical.

I still vividly remember leaving the store with a wry smile after seeing how outrageously expensive they were selling items made for nursing the sick.

So I began to care for the lady while being self-sufficient.

I revived the experience of caring for my grandmother, who had been close to me in a nursing home in my previous life. It was not a profession. I was not smart enough to work in healthcare, and I did not have the financial means.

It was a crude nursing technique I had learned by peeking over a nurse’s shoulder while visiting my grandmother, who often came to the orphanage.

I thought it would be useless experience at the time, but while nursing the young lady, I realized it was a valuable experience that came in handy in many ways.

As the saying goes, you never know what you might need.

The young lady who was ill was very stubborn. She was stubborn to begin with, but the young lady’s stubbornness knew no bounds when she was uncomfortable.

-...

She was depressed.

Disappointed.

She had no motivation.

To the point where I thought it would be better if she just got angry, the young lady stubbornly refused to speak.

-Miss, you mustn’t lie in one position for too long.

-Don’t worry about it.

-...

When I tried to change her position to prevent pressure sores, a skin condition that can occur from lying in the same position for too long, she would get angry and say, “Don’t touch me.”

When I tried to lift the young lady up after she fell out of bed, she would shake my hand away and coldly push my hand away, saying, “Don’t pity me. Do I look funny to you?”

I couldn’t understand the young lady.

I didn’t think I could possibly understand the young lady’s sadness, so I didn’t dwell on the presumptuous thought of understanding her.

So I just stayed by her side, silently offering my help.

Thanks to my one-sided care, the young lady gradually began to improve. She talked more than she did when she first lost her leg, and she started to smile more. She was getting better, little by little.

Thankfully.

*

“Haaam...”

After taking the young lady to the bathroom, I leaned against the wall and rubbed my sleepy eyes.

Perhaps because I had just used my rehabilitation hands, there seemed to be more fatigue than usual building up in my body.

I was about to fall asleep as soon as I closed my eyes, but I could hear the young lady’s bashful voice whispering in my ear.

“Ricardo... Are you outside?”

The young lady’s trembling voice was afraid of the night.

I paused for a moment and teased her.

“Ricardo...?”

“H-he has to be there. I-I’m scared of the ghost story about the toilet paper...”

“H-he has to be there...”

I chuckled at the young lady’s cowardly appearance as she mumbled in a tearful voice and carefully opened my mouth.

“We don’t have red or blue toilet paper in our mansion, miss.”

“Don’t joke around! I was so surprised because I thought there wasn’t any.”

“I see. I’ll try to answer a little later next time.”

“H-he has to be there...! I’ll die if you leave.”

“Then should I run away?”

“I’m sorry.”

The young lady spoke to me in a trembling voice, as if she was nagging me not to run away and stay there, speaking timidly to me through the door.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

“...”

“I’ll give you some pocket money... Okay?”

The corners of her mouth start to twitch. It’s because I find her acting cutely adorable. Thinking about the girl in the bathroom who would probably cry if I teased her again, I hummed a song.

“Three bears live in a house.”

“...”

“A wicked bear. A butler bear. And just a bear.”

“The bear in our house doesn’t even listen to me.”

“...”

“I should eat him.”

“If the bear soup hears that, he’ll cry.”

“He can cry.”

The girl seemed to have a lot on her mind.

I smiled a little and said to her.

“Anyway, you don’t have to worry. I’m going to the bathroom too.”

“Are you in a hurry...?”

“I won’t run away to the bathroom on the first floor, so don’t worry.”

“Phew... Then can’t I come out and go in right away?”

“Yes.”

As a skilled butler, it was my duty to protect the lady’s feelings, so I answered her worries with a small smile. She was still a young girl, after all. I was quite touched by her thoughtfulness, even though we had spent more than 10 years together.

When the girl went into the bathroom, she took longer than I thought.

Because she had to fix her skirt and do everything with her uncomfortable body. She needed a relatively long time compared to others.

Rather, I thought it was a good thing.

It would have been more difficult if she hadn’t tried to do anything on her own. In terms of rehabilitation, and for her mental health, it was good to see her stubbornness.

Usually, she didn’t often say that she wanted to use the bathroom.

Because she had lost feeling in her lower body, she noticed the signals from her bladder later than others. When she said she wanted to use the bathroom, I had to prepare her clothes.

-Ricardo...

-I think pink will suit you today.

-...

-No matter how much I think about it, I don’t think the light blue dress suits you.

-Right.

At first, I used to struggle a lot because of things like this.

I wondered how I could change her clothes without stressing her out, and I had to find a way to prevent this kind of accident.

As time went on, I was able to guess the time she wanted to use the bathroom, but in the beginning, it was really difficult.

I guess it’s getting better.

Both my skill in caring for her, and her cheerful appearance.

She had improved a lot compared to before.

I thought that tomorrow would be brighter than today. My lady hated staying in one place.

After a short while, a loud noise could be heard from beyond the bathroom door.

I was carefully thinking about what to say as I prepared the clothes I had prepared in advance to hand to her through the door.

‘How should I give them to her?’

It wouldn’t be polite for a butler to make a lady change her clothes. I had to come up with a plausible excuse.

“Ahem.”

I couldn’t think of anything good, maybe because it was so late at night.

It was too hard to come up with a reason why she should change her clothes at dawn.

If it were summer, I could have suggested it because of the weather, but it was spring, so I couldn’t do that. I held the lady’s clothes tightly in my hand and thought deeply.

I still hadn’t come up with a good excuse by the time I heard a ‘whooshing’ sound outside the door.

‘I guess I’ll just give it to her.’

I silently tried to knock carefully for the lady outside the door.

The familiar lady would know what I meant even if I didn’t say anything.

I smiled bitterly and brought my finger to the door, and at that moment, with a ‘bang’, the lady’s bright smiling face appeared before my eyes.

The lady was laughing.

“Ho ho ho...”

She was biting her lip and smiling as if she was about to burst, and her cheeks were puffed out like a chipmunk’s.

Flustered, I tried to look away from the lady, but I started to get question marks above my head when I saw that the lady was fully dressed.

“Huh?”

The lady said with a bright smile.

“I don’t have to change my clothes today!”

I could see a glimmer of hope.

A very small glimmer of hope was screaming at me to give up my little desire.