ORCA 1

The news that the young master was returning sent the mansion into an uproar for some time. Sweeping, wiping, and tidying were daily routines, but ever since the news arrived, everyone moved more briskly. It was because the Madam of the house, who had grown impatient waiting for her son returning home after three years, finally came out to oversee the servants herself. She even picked up a wet floor cloth with her own hands, citing that things were not to her satisfaction. Thanks to this, the servants had to scurry about several times busier than usual. It was better for them to work themselves to death discreetly than to witness the Madam holding a floor cloth or a broom in her hands.

The great cleaning that took place every day made the mansion seem like a place where not a single speck of dust was tolerated. Everywhere one turned, there was a shine. Even the basement hallway, frequented only by servants, was polished with oil until it gleamed.

Whenever the servants gathered, they prayed for the young master’s swift arrival. It was far better for the young master to be in the mansion than to exhaust their bodies like this all day. It had already been a month since they first heard the news of his return home. It would not be strange if all the servants fell ill without exception if they had to do this for a few more days.

Among them, the busiest servant was Niah. Niah went around every nook and cranny of the mansion without a single word of complaint, even though he knew he was taking on the work of other servants. If he had time to say it was difficult, it was more beneficial for him to finish the given tasks quickly. That way, he could get at least a little time to rest.

Above all, if the slow-moving Niah were to harbor complaints midway, it was clear he would not be able to finish his assigned work for the whole day. It was not as if someone would willingly step forward to do it for him or take his side. In the first place, if he had the sense to be dissatisfied with his situation, he would not have suffered it from the beginning.

For the entire past month, while helping with others’ work, the truly essential tasks of managing the garden and greenhouse were pushed aside. There were several gardeners, but the trivial tasks that were the share of Niah, the lowest-ranking among them, always remained. Because of that, he often had to cut into his sleeping hours and go outside until dawn to take care of the garden and greenhouse.

When it grew dark, he would water the trees and flowerbeds or pull weeds, and when the sun rose, he would remove harmful insects from the plants or neatly trim the shrubbery hedges. Turning on the greenhouse lights would make the surroundings too bright, so he could not even turn them on.

It was fortunate that it was just the beginning of spring; if it were the middle of winter right now, it would have been much more arduous. He would have surely hidden somewhere and sobbed his heart out.

Goldfish were a species weak to the cold. Roselpia, where the Weir family mansion was located, was not a very cold region, to the point that a single thick coat would suffice even in the dead of winter, but for Niah, the circumstances were different.

Once, he was severely scolded after being caught dozing off in a warm corner of the greenhouse. Still, his mood would quickly improve when he was taking care of the cute lithops or cacti. It was a relief that he had a simple personality.

The servants all conspired to torment Niah. They did not catch him and beat him, but they certainly made his life miserable. It was better not to hit Niah if they wanted to make him do a lot of work. On days when things went wrong for them, they would often deliberately not give him food. Even on days when he had done nothing particularly wrong, it was up to their whims depending on their mood.

On such days, he would secretly head to the lake under the cover of the predawn hours when everyone was asleep. The lake behind the mansion was a good place for Niah, a goldfish, to satisfy his hunger. As the nights he could not sleep due to all-day starvation piled up, the number of times he jumped into the lake also increased. He was scared about what would happen if he got caught and received a harsh scolding, but the misery of starving was unbearable. So, this was Niah’s one and only secret.

Niah’s humiliation did not end there. The servants used the derogatory term ‘stupid goldfish’ more often than the name ‘Niah.’ Especially when they were angry with Niah, they would invariably shout, ‘stupid goldfish.’ The problem was that when the servants called for Niah, they were usually in an angry state.

“Stupid goldfish!”

Although it was a scream he heard every day, Niah was startled every single time. His small body would shrink even smaller. On some days, he would shed big fat tears. He tried to hold them back, but it did not work well. Then, the servants would shout even louder as if to make a point.

Even though these things continued day after day, Niah strode through the mansion quite bravely. He quickly forgot the bad things. Even if he forgot, another bad thing would soon happen, but he continued to forget. As a result, the number of memories that ultimately remained was always similar. When he forgot one, another one would take its place.

Niah could not dare to define for himself whether this nature of his was a curse or a blessing. It might be a curse, as he might have forgotten the good things of the past as well, so ‘stupid goldfish’ was a curse. But on the other hand, it was also a blessing. It helped him so that painful memories did not pile up one by one.

When considered this way, the stupidity of forgetting things quickly felt quite decent. Good things did not happen to him anyway. There probably were no joyful or happy things in the past he had already forgotten. He believed that every single day. It was more comfortable for his mind to think that they never existed from the start, rather than living while longing for the pretty, sparkling things he could not remember.

In any case, Niah was more often troubled by his present self, who would completely forget an errand if he let his guard down for just a moment, than by the past that had already gone by.

“Niah! What are you doing, not moving quickly? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Yes? Yes! Ah, umm…, what did you say I had to do?”

Niah asked back with a simple-minded face at the urging of the kitchen servant, Andrian, who approached while stomping his feet. Andrian shrieked. Niah, who trembled his shoulders at her scream, bowed his head and took a step back while cautiously observing her. His heart was pounding from the shock. It felt as though the horns on Andrian’s head would stab him at any moment.

“So stupid! Just like a goldfish!”

Andrian shouted again and scolded him with a fearsome expression. Niah could not say anything, only looking down at the floor. Andrian, who became even angrier at that, neurotically threw the ivory tablecloth she had collected from the long table in the dining hall. Niah, who failed to catch it properly, hurriedly picked it up.

Perhaps because the mansion had been extremely busy for the past month due to the news of the young master’s return, Andrian had been throwing tantrums at the slightest provocation. It was not just her; all the servants in the mansion were like that. Only Niah was being scolded more than usual for things that were not even his fault, and he had to do more work as well.

Andrian glared at Niah for a moment with a displeased expression before quickly turning around and walking away. Niah, who waited until she disappeared around the corner of the building, hugged the tablecloth tightly. Then, he quickened his steps and headed for the laundry room in the backyard of the mansion. He intended to hurry before he forgot what he had to do again, and then just forget about the scolding he had just received.

Of course, that was not something he could control at will. But maybe this time, the ‘stupid goldfish’ would help him right away. Niah let out a small sigh as he trotted along.

Stupid goldfish.

Today, he repeated the derogatory term he sometimes called himself only in his mind several times over. He did not like saying it out loud. Just hearing it was enough.

Life in the mansion was never smooth. Since the news of the young master’s return had been heard, it had become much harder. He slept less than usual, did not eat well, and was scolded whenever there was a chance. If he originally cried about once a week, it seemed he had cried every other day for this past month. Maybe he cried every day. No, did he originally cry every day? He was not sure. These days, perhaps because his mind was completely preoccupied with the news of the young master, his memory fluctuated even more severely.

However, Niah wished that the young master would come very, very slowly. This was because there was not a single pleasant piece of news among the rumors circulating the mansion.

Niah, who had slept only a little from tending to the garden until late, rubbed his sleepy eyes and diligently got up. He went straight to the servants’ bathroom in the basement and washed himself quickly from head to toe. He was the only one awake yet. If he happened to oversleep and had to wash together with others, he would always be teased, so he always tried to wake up first.

The other servants would hold their noses and snicker, saying he smelled fishy when he cried or was near water. Niah knew they were saying it just to torment him, but he still sniffed his forearm. He kept smelling himself on the way back to his room. His body only had a faint scent of soap.

Niah’s room was in a secluded spot on the floor just below the top floor, the place least touched by human feet in the vast mansion. Calling it a room made it sound plausible, but it was actually a narrow closet under the stairs, which had originally been used as a storeroom and was given to Niah as if it were a great favor. Of course, it was a scheme by the other servants, but Niah did not mind at all. He was rather glad to have a space of his own.

It was cumbersome to go to and from the basement bathroom every morning and evening. It was also difficult to go up and down the narrow and steep spiral staircase used only by the servants. But those moments were brief. The garden, greenhouse, and vegetable patch he tended with his own hands, the lake surrounded by the forest, and this small room served as his support in the brutal mansion.

The only object that could be called furniture was a small, worn-out bed. Even that had one leg broken, so a large stone was propped underneath it. Beside the bed, a low, crude wooden box was set on its side and used as a table.

On sad or scary nights, he would place a candlestick on it and light a tiny candle. The leftover candles from the mansion would go out quickly, so he had no choice but to hurry to sleep before the room became dark again. He could not dare to hope for something like an oil lamp.

A box identical to the one used as a table served as a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. The few clothes and undergarments he had were folded neatly and placed at the foot of the bed. This alone already filled the room, leaving no space to step.

Niah crouched on the bed and changed into freshly washed clothes. Because the ceiling sloped diagonally, he had to go to the farthest corner to stand up straight. Niah immediately left the room. The texture of the clothes made of stiff linen felt scratchy. As he walked, he sniffed himself once more. The clothes smelled of grass well-dried in the sun.

The mansion was bustling. A delicious smell continuously wafted from the kitchen, and as if that was not enough, people came from the butcher shop and the winery to deliver meat and wine. Some of the hall servants were busy climbing ladders to wipe all the long windows and hang new curtains. A few others were polishing the ornate and expensive furniture and artworks placed in the front hall with dry cloths.

Outside, everyone was busy cleaning the tree-lined path that led from the main entrance to the garden and the mansion’s large gate. Niah, too, was called here and there while watering the flowers. He scurried about without a moment’s rest, leaving him out of breath. He was also hungry, having been kicked out of the dining hall for being in the way. It was when he had eaten only half of his share. But what bothered him the most was, of course, something else.

He knelt down and diligently scrubbed the inside and outside of the garden fountain with a cleaning brush. His body was floating because of the fountain’s wide rim. In the mansion of orcas, there were many inconveniences for a small fish species like him. Moreover, Niah was a ‘Pearlscale,’ a small goldfish species among the carp family, so he was on the smaller side even among them.

The size in beastman form and the size in human form were not absolutely proportional, but among the Weir family’s servants, Niah was the third or fourth smallest. The only ones smaller than Niah were Bailey the ant, the Madam’s errand boy, Norma the Maltese, a stable hand, and Aki the squirrel, a hunting ground servant. Andrian, a sheep beastman, was about half a handspan taller than Niah.

Niah’s arms, with sleeves rolled up, moved busily in the cold water. He circled the round fountain on his knees, scrubbing away moss and grime. The loud splashing sounds were swallowed by the fountain’s water jets. The water-soaked marble basin sparkled under the bright sun. Niah focused on his scrubbing, squinting one eye due to the water droplets bouncing off the surface. Dark, mottled stains had also formed on the light brown clothes he had changed into earlier.

While relentlessly scrubbing the fountain, Niah occasionally glanced at the tree-lined path that stretched all the way to the gate. He bit his lip tightly, trying hard to flatten the face that kept wanting to form a grimace. It was not just because his skin, numb from being in the cold water, hurt.

Today was the very day the young master was said to be returning.

When Niah was hired as a gardener, the Weir family’s young master had already left to be the guardian commander of the territorial war at the border. He had not returned once in the past three years, so this was the first time Niah would actually see him. He had overheard the servants chattering that even before, after enrolling in the military academy, there were more days he was absent from the mansion than present.

The more Niah heard the servants talk, the more worried he became. It seemed the young master was not a very gentle person. The rumors about the young master circulating the mansion made Niah feel smaller and smaller.

He could endure the torment from the servants as he had until now. But it would be a huge problem if he made a mistake in front of the young master and got kicked out of the mansion. There were not many suitable places for a goldfish to work. It was even more so for him, as he had an especially poor memory even among goldfish.

Niah buried his head towards the fountain and pulled down the corners of his lips. On top of that, the young master’s name, which he had heard several times, was hazy. He had definitely heard it, but no matter how hard he tried to think, it just would not come to mind. Stupid goldfish. Niah finally felt like crying.

Suddenly, servants came flocking out from all over the mansion. Niah, startled by the loud noise, shot up and looked around frantically. Dozens of servants all came out and began to line up in rows. Niah, who had been fidgeting, also ran over with a sense of urgency. In the distance, at the end of the tree-lined path, a pitch-black carriage was slowly entering. He could see the Madam and the Master descending the entrance stairs.

The young master is here.

Niah swallowed hard. He pulled down his rolled-up sleeves and tidied his clothes by patting them down. There was nothing he could do about the wet stains. He even brought his nose to his arm and took a sniff. Then he stopped and tried to hide behind the other servants as much as possible. Nothing had even happened with the young master yet, but he was scared for no reason.

The carriage stopped at the entrance of the garden. It was quite a distance from the mansion’s main entrance, but not so far that one could not distinguish people. Niah peeked his face out slightly and observed the carriage. He wrung his hands, fidgeting with his fingers, wondering what he would do if the person was incredibly scary-looking. The coachman who got down first opened the rear door and bowed his head.

“Orca!”