While a rge-scale migration effort was taking pce, Merumeru hung out with Cosmos and some new people that she had brought to the isnd. The little slime girl had come to realize that building a giant castle like the little one she made in the adventurer’s guild for dolls was a huge project for one little slime.

  For example, The first floor walls consisted of concrete blocks with the metal poles in them, the same for the foundation. However when slotted into pce, they left no opening for windows. Merumeru tried to carve out windows but she made some mistakes about which spots were okay to have big windows and which ones were not. If she made a big window and took out too much of the metal rod or had the seam between the two blocks be in a bad spot, the concrete would crack and pieces would crumble off.

  In the cabin, Alex had some books with pictures of castles from Earth. Two types of castles in a pce called bohemia caught her eye. There were ones with only slits for windows and towers that were 90% stone wall. The ones with lots of windows were cuter so she wanted to put lots of windows. It just wasn’t as easy as it looked.

  After a week or so she had the windows and door frames how she wanted them. But then there was another problem. The basement, which she wanted to be like a giant underwater area, didn't stay clear and pristine. The stagnant parts clouded and slimy scum started coating the rooms that didn’t have good flow. Most of the rooms didn’t have good flow. The water came in from an exterior wall and emptied through an elevated drain that kept it at a certain level. Tiny snails started making their home in the basement. Oddly, some tiny fish spawned as well. The slime girl expected this project to go as smoothly as making the creek flow under the grotto shrine but scaling it up introduced new unforeseen problems. She wanted to invite her new friend Aqua to come visit but she wanted to have a nice water area for the Nereid to stay at.

  While Merumeru swirled a stick in the water, lifting it up and examining the brown slime hanging off of it. Some visitors approached her. One was familiar and three were not.

  “Hello Merumeru. How are things going with your castle?” She surveyed the construction site. “You got some windows in. But it kinda smells.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “Meru.” Merumeru nodded her head.

  “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.” Merumer pumped her fist. “Anyway, this is Baroness Yvne and her children. They are my captives!”

  The two younger looking humans dressed well and had an arrogant look on their faces. One was male and the other was female.

  “Ruuu?” Merumeru didn’t think that magical girl Cosmos was the type to take captives. And didn’t she say she was going to go bait a king into attacking her? That must not have gone well.

  “Miss Cosmos.” The haggard looking noble tried to maintain composure. “Sadly, my title was removed after that fiasco in the capitol. I’m no longer a nded noble.”

  “In that case, do you know how to cook or prepare tea?” Cosmos pointed at the eldest of the three people, likely the mother and two children.

  “That is the maids’ job.” Yvne shook her head. “I see you are making a castle, surely there is help other than this slime girl. If you have workers then there should be other help?” Yvne looked a little worried.

  “You really rely on maids.” Cosmos’s voice sounded suddenly ice cold.

  Ynve froze up.

  The son decided to put his foot in his mouth. “But of course. Our barony is known for training the finest maids. Why wouldn’t we rely on them?”

  “Do you know why so many maids come from your manor, young master Cassian?” Cosmos shifted her intense gaze to the teenage boy.

  “Because we have the best training program.” The boy proudly procimed.

  “So good that everyone comes out the perfect maid.” Cosmos dryly replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  The boy nodded, thinking it was some kind of praise.

  “Ones that are perfectly obedient and never question their masters.” Cosmos spoke slower hoping the dense teenager would get it.

  “As a proper maid should… “ Cassian started.

  The girl stomped on her brother’s foot to keep him from sticking his foot any farther down his mouth. “That’s enough Cassian. We may have been at the royal academy but getting the highest punishment for our family besides execution from the king and being abducted by someone who is supposed to be a myth means we’ve committed some grave offense.”

  “Saraphina.” The boy gave her sister a sharp look.

  “It looks like someone isn’t completely dense.” The magical girl gave the daughter an affirming nod. “Care to enlighten them dy Yvne?”

  “Our holdings have been controlled by demons for a long time.” Yvne sadly stated.

  “Of course they are. We are all citizens of the demon queen’s empire. They taught us that in school.” Cassian sounded annoyed, not giving his mother a chance to finish.

  “Don’t interrupt mother.” Saraphina raised her heeled shoe again, and her brother flinched.

  “As I was saying, We’ve been using demonic rituals to turn peasants into maids and selling them or gifting them to higher ranking houses for favors.” Yvne’s voice sounded defeated. “When I married into the household I didn’t know that we were robbing people of agency. It caused a lot of fights between your father and I. What I didn’t know until he died was that he stopped being the man he was the moment he took up running the manor. The man was demon possessed and a demon was controlling him like a puppet. I found this out the hard way after he was assassinated by a revenant.” She took a deep breath and continued. “He told me that he used to be in the hero’s party and that he made a deal with the god of grudges to come back and fulfill his grudge against the demons by sying every st one he came across until he was able to do what the hero and his party could not do, save the world.”

  “What happened after that?” Saraphina asked, eyes widening.

  “I called him a murderer and ran away. He warned me that if I tried to accept the title of baroness that I’d be possessed by some demon.” She shook her head in regret. “I didn’t believe him, instead I told the adventurer’s guild that there was a dangerous, unkilble undead and paid for the quest to hunt him down and subdue him.”

  “Did they capture the abomination?” Cassius looked disgusted by the thought of the walking dead.

  “Yes they did. I had to pay extra to seal the walking corpse in a coffin. But that was the st choice I was able to make.” The former baroness hung her head. “Because my husband’s fate became my fate not long after that. Being a prisoner in my own body I had no agency in sending you two away. You see, the demons don’t want humans to get too high a level so they are okay with us not living so long as they have convenient repcements.”

  “Good points, but you are missing the main issue.” Cosmos examined her painted nails.

  “What do you mean?” Yvne looked confused.

  “What action can bring the boogie girl out of the shadows?” Cosmos winked at Merumeru, when the noble squirmed.

  “The fmingo?” Yvne tried. “I think that protecting birds would be the least offensive action of that day.”

  Cosmos gestures all around. “Do you see any fmingo here keeping me company?”

  All three of them shook their heads in unison.

  “That is because vilins like you killed my familiar.” The magical girl sounded deadly serious.

  “Meeeeruuuuuu” Merumeru unched a hug attack on magical girl Cosmos.

  Cosmos giggled. “Thank you for the hugs Merumeru but you are ruining the tension.” She patted the slime girl tched onto her leg. “I know you and Fufi are good friends.”

  “I’m sorry.” Yvne bowed deeply. “If I could turn back time I would have taken that revenant’s advice and took my people and left. Please let us know how we can make up for our transgression somehow.”

  Cosmos let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not really upset with you.” She shot Cassius a look. “Except for you, you need to get bonked a few times to get the stupid out of your head.”

  Cassius frowned and joined his mother in bowing.

  “I’ll tell you what. You can start by cleaning up the cabin.” She pointed to Alex’s cabin. “How are you at making tea?”

  Merumeru chuckled. She pulled down one eyelid and stuck out her tongue at the trio.

  Yvne twitched but meekly answered. “We’ll try our best.”

  Everyone went into the messy Cabin. It was very messy. The trash was full, dishes lined the counter and dirty clothing piled in corners.

  “What a strange building.” Yvne looked around but then plugged her nose.

  “It isn’t from this world. Technically, this is part of a different pnet floating a few miles above Terre.” Cosmos headed down a hallway before anyone else could ask questions.

  “This is quite the mess.” Saraphina frowned at the condition of the living room and kitchen.

  Cosmos came back with three maid costumes. “I brought these for you.”

  Yvne paled. “Where did you get those?”

  “Does it matter?” Cosmos waved the maid outfits in front of them. “Maybe you should take a bath and get changed.”

  “Mother, what is wrong? They may be maid outfits but at least we won’t get our nice clothing stained.” Seraphina gave her mother a reassuring smile.

  “You don’t understand…. The costumes…” Yvne trailed off.

  “Am I that cruel?” Cosmos tossed an outfit at each member of the family. “I guess we’ll have to find out. Merumeru, can you prepare the bath?”

  “Meru!” Merumeru let go of Cosmos’s leg and toddled off to the bathroom. Shortly after the sound of water pouring could be heard coming from the hallway.

  “But these are women’s clothing.” Casius protested.

  “Do you think being male should exempt someone from becoming a maid?” Cosmos asked Cassius with a grin.

  “Of course. Who would make a male dress in this garment?” Cassius sneered at the frilly dress.

  Cosmos put a hand on her cheek for dramatic effect. “Oh I wonder who would do something so unthinkable?” She side-eyed the former baron.

  “Cassius please do as she says.” The former baron didn’t seem to want to give a proper expnation about the details of the maid operation in the manor.

  It took a while to bathe and get everyone changed but all three of them appeared in their uniforms. Yvne and Saraphina took it in stride but Cassius looked humiliated from being forced to crossdress. They spent a whole day cleaning and Yvne kept a close eye on Cassius, as if expecting him to change forms at any moment. Luckily, Cosmos was true to her word and no one was unwillingly wearing cursed maid outfits.

  Later that night, Cosmos sat on a bench outside with Merumeru and something fell from the sky.

  “What’s that?” Cosmos caught the falling object.

  It was one of those smartphone things that Alex had. Also, it was cutely decorated.

  “Meru?” Merumeru wobbled her legs, wondering what was up.

  Cosmos fumbled with the phone. It lit up and dispyed a message. “Darn, it looks like I need to go back to the moon. Luna is getting fck for my actions.” She looked at the slime girl. “You are in charge here. You can hold down the fort while I’m gone, right?”

  Merumeru nodded. She wasn’t exactly sure what holding down the fort entailed but if three people wanted to py house or help build the castle she’d be happy to py with them.