The Maid Who Smiled at the Abyss
By @john1208
Niemi wakes up in a damp servant’s cot with a kelp-wrapped package dripping onto her face. Inside are spy orders from her trusted mentor, Matron Oili - and the severed tongue of the previous maid. Niemi has transmigrated into the gothic horror game Tides of Ruskola, assigned to serve Taavet, an ostracized arcane prodigy exiled to the academy's flooded East Wing. Destined to become the Abyssal Calamity, Taavet currently spends his days conjuring lethal shadow-spikes and threatening anyone who enters his rotting domain.
Knowing he slaughters those who show fear, Niemi adopts the persona of a cheerfully oblivious airhead. When Taavet summons abyssal blades at her throat, she politely uses them as drying racks for his clean shirts. She absolutely refuses to leave his side, humming through his darkest magical tantrums while secretly healing his curse-scars.
Her relentless sunshine melts his fractured mind, but the result isn't romance - it’s a suffocating, feral dependency where Taavet’s magic secretly rots the boots of anyone she merely smiles at. But as Taavet stabilizes, Niemi uncovers a horrifying truth: Matron Oili is the cultist driving him insane. Can Niemi outsmart her mentor before Taavet realizes his beloved maid was originally sent to betray him?
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