Early the next morning, Anna Virelle walked briskly toward Wilson Manor, her knee injury no longer a major hindrance.

Work for the kitchen maids started at 7:00 AM, requiring her to wake at 6:00 AM—a simple task since Pomegranate Lane typically became noisy well before dawn.

As she walked, she observed other commoners rushing to begin their day's labor, a stark contrast to the nobility who often held banquets until the early hours and slept until past 9:00 AM.

Maids like Anna, who returned home every night, usually finished their shift at 7:00 PM, leaving the late-night duties to the live-in maids who received higher wages. After greeting the guards at the back gate, Anna followed the route Rebecca had shown her the previous day.

he manor's kitchen was vast, staffed by over a dozen people and equipped with a large grandfather clock that read 6:55 AM when she arrived.

Rebecca, a twenty-year-old veteran of five years and a trusted subordinate of Madam Mary, immediately put Anna to work finishing up after the previous night's banquet.

Rebecca maintained a stern, impersonal demeanor, much like Madam Mary herself. She tasked Anna with washing napkins and learning to fold them into decorative shapes, insisting that Anna would not move on until her work was satisfactory.

Anna listened intently to the demonstrations on how to remove stubborn stains, and she finished washing and hanging the napkins within thirty minutes. When it came to folding the napkins into "flower" patterns, Anna's modern education gave her an advantage; her finger dexterity and spatial reasoning were far superior to the average commoner's. While Rebecca expected the lesson to take hours, Anna presented a perfectly folded petal pattern almost immediately.

"You folded this yourself?" Rebecca asked, surprised. Anna nodded, explaining that it was simple once she understood the trick. Rebecca, beginning to recognize Anna's talent, assigned another maid to teach her more complex patterns while she polished the silver—a high-status task reserved for senior staff.

By the time Rebecca finished her own work two hours later, Anna had mastered all twenty traditional patterns, including ones Rebecca hadn't yet taught her. In this world, such a curriculum usually took three days to master. Rebecca conducted a formal assessment, and as Anna passed every test perfectly, a rare, faint smile finally touched the senior maid's lips.

Anna remained humble, crediting her success to the quality of the instruction. Rebecca then moved on to teaching tableware etiquette. Memorizing the various forks and knives used for different courses was trivial for Anna, who was used to analyzing complex data and reports in her previous life.

The training was interrupted at noon by a youth shouting at the kitchen door, "Where is the new maid?". Anna realized he was talking to her. She recognized the boy as Waldo, the valet who had been with Patrick Wilson on the carriage.

Anna felt a surge of apprehension, realizing the demon was not going to leave her alone. She viewed this forced interaction as the inevitable price for the "help" the Abyssal Lord had provided in getting her the job.

"Lord Patrick is ready to eat," Waldo announced. Anna tried to demur, claiming she was still learning the rules and might offend the master, but Waldo was firm: "The master specifically named you".

Anna suspected the demon still didn't even know her name, given that his valet only referred to her as "the new maid". Seeing no way out, she accepted the task. Since the kitchen always kept a breakfast ready for the late-rising Lord, Rebecca handed Anna the breakfast box.

As Anna followed Waldo out, the other maids began to gather and gossip, spreading various rumors about her that had been circulating since her "parachuted" hiring the day before.

Anna, however, ignored the pressure of the rumors, focusing instead on her strategy for the demon: she would simply continue to refuse him.

Anna Virelle met Lord Patrick again in the sunroom of his private quarters. The glass in this world was virtually identical to what she remembered from her past life—panes of bubble-flecked transparent glass were fitted together to enclose the outward-extending balcony, catching the sunlight at angles that cast faint, shimmering rainbows across the room.

Bathed in the soft morning light, Lord Patrick sat in a crisp white shirt, looking as though he were draped in a divine glow; his handsome features were as stirring as those of an angel.

To anyone else, it was a breathtaking sight, but the moment Anna saw the demon with his chilling, evil aura lurking beneath that beautiful skin, she immediately lowered her head, terrified of accidentally meeting his gaze.

She stepped forward with cautious precision, opening the insulated food box to set out a breakfast served on exquisite porcelain. The spread included Orlando grilled sausages, warm goat milk from the Mitha Highlands, white bread made from refined flour, and a savory meat sauce for dipping.

Once the meal was arranged on the table before the demon, Anna retreated to the side. She could feel him watching her the entire time, but she kept her eyes fixed on the tabletop, not daring to look his way. According to the etiquette Rebecca had taught her, she was required to wait until the master finished his meal to clear the table, unless ordered otherwise.

Rothgar Valemont did not look away. The night before, Earl Edgar Wilson had held a banquet, which Rothgar had skipped under the pretext of being unwell. He despised socializing with hypocritical humans and had no interest in their trivialities, so he had simply gone to sleep. He was actually surprised to find himself awake today; in the Abyssal Realm, he was prone to sleeping for years at a time.

Clearly, the wager with Balian Draven was weighing on his mind. The Abyssal Tree Seed was something he absolutely had to obtain, and since Balian had been generous enough to put it up as a stake, Rothgar did not intend to disappoint him.

Thinking of the bet, Rothgar's lips curled into a slight smile, though it did not signal happiness. On the contrary, he was feeling extremely irritated. Why couldn't this human woman just obediently accept his proposal so he could watch her spend the rest of her years in agony until her final breath? Why did she insist on playing so many mental games?

Drawing on Patrick's memories, Rothgar leaned an elbow on the table and wore a captivating smile, his gaze drifting lazily toward Anna. "My beloved girl, how are you finding the kitchen? If anyone bullies you, you must tell me; I will protect you".

Hearing this "passionate confession," Anna's only thought was that the demon truly didn't even know her name! She saw no point in reminding him how ridiculous it was to claim "deep love" for someone whose name he hadn't even bothered to learn.

"I am deeply grateful for your concern, Lord Patrick," she replied respectfully. "Everything is well in the kitchen, and everyone has been very kind to me".

Rothgar chuckled and gestured to the seat beside him. "Would I have the honor of inviting such a beautiful lady to dine with me?".

Patrick's memories provided an endless supply of flowery phrases, a fact that Rothgar found quite convenient. Had the first human woman he encountered not been this deep-seated schemer, he might have already won the wager.

He considered that killing her or simply ignoring her to find a different target might be easier, but either choice felt like a personal humiliation. To him, getting a lowly human to accept a proposal should have been effortless; her resistance felt like a deliberate provocation.

The wager had only just begun, and he had plenty of time to pay her back for this defiance.

Anna kept her head bowed as she answered, "My Lord, I am but a lowly maid. I would not dare stain your reputation. Please, do not say such things".

If the demon were standing before her in his true form, Anna might not have dared to resist. But since he was possessing a human and seemed bound by certain rules, she intended to use that to her advantage and "rebel" against him with perfect, polite justification.