Proper washrooms

The next morning, Beretta was jolted awake by a cacophony of maids screaming.

"Kyaaaa!"

She immediately got up from her bed and rushed outside the maid's dormitory, expecting to find something kind of horrible disaster to have happened.

But when she looked down at the atrium, she didn't see anyone at all. In fact, it was eerily empty. 

Usually, by this hour, maids would be bustling, cleaning and tending to their chores. Yet now, there wasn't anyone there at all.

"…No way…"

Following the source of the screams, she hurried to the kitchenhouse, where she found a crowd of maids gathered, fawning over something.

"What's with all this commotion?" she asked.

The young maids all turned around and faced Beretta with the biggest smiles on their faces.

They quickly stepped aside and showed her what they were fussing over.

And once they did, Beretta's eyes widened in shock. Near the cabinet where most plates and kitchen utensils were usually kept, there was suddenly a new fixture of a bowl sticking out of the walls.

And on top of this bowl was the miraculous faucet. Not just one, but there were three of those, all lined up in a row.

"The young master must have made them last night!"

"Isn't this amazing?" one of the maids screamed. "We can wash all the plates here, and we don't have to go down to the well anymore!"

Beretta stepped over to the faucets and twisted the lever. Instantly, a steady stream of clear, non-magic water began to splash down the bowl.

"Shishishishi… and that's not even the best part! You have to see what he did to the bathroom!"

Before she could respond, the young maids all pushed the veteran maid towards the communal latrine.

This had always been the least pleasant part of the mansion. Since it was a shared facility for all the employers of the mansion for doing their business, it didn't exactly smell like the greatest place in the world.

Yet, even as they got closer, Beretta barely even smelled anything from the latrines.

And as they all stepped into the room, the reason finally became clear.

The entire room had now been transformed. Faucets were installed on one side of the wall, and pipes ran along the floor, ensuring that all the dirt and wastewater would flow out of the room without leaving their stench behind.

On the opposite side, there were 'toilets' installed, which had the marvelous ability to flush down business away to the river, making the bathroom as clean as it had ever been.

"We've already tried it out!" one of the maids exclaimed. "It works just like how the young master said it would!"

"I'm still too scared of the 'flushing' sound, but I think I'll get used to it in the future," another added hesitantly.

Having access to clean, running water in the house was a complete game changer. The maids not only felt as if they were incredibly clean the whole day but their work had also been reduced by a significant margin!

"Did you like it?" Just then, a youthful male voice spoke up from behind the maids.

Michael stood there, leaning against the wall with a knowing smile on his face. 

The maids let out a collective squeal and immediately rushed over to wrap him in a big hug.

"Young master, I love you! I'll serve you forever!"

"I never thought that you'd give us something so precious, thank you!"

"I want to stay in the bathroom forever!"

Michael's entire face was smothered by the maids hugging him from all sides, but he didn't exactly seem to hate it. 

Instead, seeing them so excited over something so basic only made him realize how low the living standards were in this world.

At that moment, he made a silent vow to continue making his and everybody else's life better in the future as well.

Once he managed to slip free from the overeager maids, Michael walked over to Beretta.

"There's something else I want to show you," he said.

The older maid glanced over to the young maids, but they looked just as confused as to what the young master was talking about. It seemed as if the bathroom wasn't the only surprise he had in store for the maids.

Michael then slowly walked over to the maid's dormitory, with Beretta and the rest of the maids following behind him.

The maid's dorm was a building annexed to the mansion where all the maids slept and lived their daily lives outside of work. Each had their own small room and their own designated washrooms.

And as they followed him, Beretta couldn't shake the feeling that he was heading towards her personal washroom.

"Young master?" Beretta asked.

Even though it was named as a personal washroom, it only had the bare necessities like a bucket and a dipper used to wash themselves.

But when Michael opened the door, every single one of the maids stared at the strange fixture and pipe connected to the wall.

There was a single pipe coming out of the wall like the faucet, but this one looked completely different than the one they had seen before.

This one was saucer-shaped, with numerous tiny holes on the bottom.

Michael turned to them with a proud smile. 

"This," he said, "is called a shower."

Michael turned the lever, and suddenly, water began cascading from the tiny holes in the saucer-shaped metal, creating a miniature waterfall in the bathroom.

Beretta cautiously approached the falling water from the shower.

It was warm.

Unlike the cold, strange water that mages conjured, this felt real—natural.

"I know you don't like magic water, so I created this shower," Michael said. "You don't have to carry another heavy bucket from the well. No more straining your back."

That last part of his sentence struck a chord.

Beretta and the other maids had always assumed that the young master never knew of her condition.

But as it turned out, he knew exactly what she was going through.

"Young master… is that the reason you created this in the first place?"

Michael turned around, a slight blush on his face. "No, no, I just—just want a shower for myself too, that's all. And this? It's nothing. It didn't even take me that long."

The young maids couldn't help but giggle behind their hands. Even when lying, their young master was so adorable.

"Kyaaa! He's so sweet! You've become much cuter, young master!"

"He's not only smart, but he's incredibly caring as well! What a perfect man!"

Beretta, on the other hand, felt her eyes well up. Even though she was just a maid, the young master still treated her with a lot of consideration.

This was the exact reason why she loved serving the young master. And perhaps the reason why she wouldn't mind doing so for the rest of her life.