Cornelia and Avian ate with delish, the food Avian made today was a simple beef stew with a lot of meat, vegetables and spices he bought from different vendors and stores on their travels from all sorts of villages, towns and cities.

In fact, Avian had spent over 5 small gold pieces buying spices that would last him 8 months stored inside his space ring, his initial funds of 10 small gold pieces plus silver and copper had been reduced to 4 small gold pieces plus silver and copper, with 1 gold pieces deducted from equipment and the short spear he bought.

A normal person would never buy so much spices in gold if they weren’t wealthy or a merchant, but Avian was not any person, he after all valued only 2 things in life making money and eating good food.

Avian normally should have saved money in his situation instead of use so much of it for spices, but Avian simply could not bear eating those stale and hard preserved goods full of sodium, forcing him to have no other choice but to buy those spices and finally get a proper meal for himself.

Which is why, it was fortunate that Avian was able to stumble over some big and quick cash with the bandit raid and through looting Marco’s body, his current funds were well over 70 small gold pieces and a lot of silver and coppers, if it wasn’t for the space ring on his right ring finger then the sound of coins rustling would be heard every time Avian walked, he truly felt thankful for that useful magic item even if he did feel a bit of discomfort from it as it had come from the king and could very well have something like a tracking spell on it.

Well nothing he could do about it for now.

Back to the meal originally Avian would eat alone, even when Cornelia first got to know Avian with his façade he would always take a distance from everyone while cooking by himself and eating by himself, it was only after Marco died and was entrusted to Cornelia that he allowed her to eat his cooking, suffice to say the first time she ate his food was amazing, even now she gulped down the wonderful golden stew without minding the heat while Avian was going slowly really enjoying every second of his meal instead of wolfing it down like Cornelia.

Of course they weren’t the only ones who were cooking their own meal, the merchants too made their small camp to cook something hot and palatable since they had the wealth to afford it while the people who were not that wealthy could only swallow their dried rations with water while holding some bitter expressions.

But regardless of who it was, everyone was looking at Avian and Cornelia’s camp the entire time as they were eating, the superbly delicious smell of the stew simply could not be hidden after all making people hungry and full of desire as they looked at Avian and Cornelia eating with pleasure.

Still no one tried to go over and ask for a bite themselves, people had already tried after all and were met with the same response each time as Avian was not a person who shared his food with just anyone for free, he would always demand money, which was fair, but the cost for a single bowl would always be so ridiculously high that no one dared to take Avian up on the offer.

After the two finished eating, Avian started to collect the cooking utensils to clean them, today it was his turn, Avian divided these tasks with Cornelia by rotation, it was one of those things Cornelia found very odd about Avian as even though he was merciless, cold and much more, he was also strangely fair for certain things like doing chores.

Obviously Cornelia still didn’t know a whole lot about Avian, but she at least knew after spending 6 days with him that he never did something to her that wasn’t fair or over the top, if you disregard the Spartan training and other violent punishments of course.

Watching the flames crackle, Cornelia felt warm as she was exposed to the fire, she watched Avian clean the pot before starting to speak.

-My family…my family is a noble family by the name of Melodias, my father whose name is Garnet Melodias is a Count of the Vera region who was originally a wealthy commoner who made his wealth through working as a merchant, in the past house Melodias was a noble house in decline, it had been stricken with debt all because of the actions of the previous head’s gambling addiction, my grandfather, realizing that he was about to lose his noble title because of his mistakes, my grandfather in desperation met my father and offered him to marry his daughter, my mother, to become a noble and the next head of the family if he would pay off my grandpa’s debt, my father agreed and launched himself from a commoner to a noble by marrying into our family, my mother obviously wasn’t happy about the marriage, but she accepted for the sake of the house and for the sake of my grandfather, a few years later I was born, but then another 6 years later my mother died from an incurable disease…

Cornelia continued, telling her story as she basically told Avian everything he asked, Avian simply listened while cleaning the utensils without saying anything, he didn’t feel like interrupting her right now as she narrated her life.

-…after my mother died, my father remarried with another noble women soon after and had another child with her birthing another girl and a year later a boy. My father is a very busy man because of that I had never much interaction with him compared to my birth mother, but after my mother died I even got less contact with him and soon had to endure his new wife who hated me to the core, she would always say some very mean things about me and my dead mother, but mostly let me be, but everything changed when I turned 15 and it was time for my blessing ceremony.

Cornelia’s voice abruptly turned dark as she described that event, Avian too stopped scrubbing for a moment as he finally turned to her, expecting her to look sad, he instead saw a somber and self-depreciating look on her face as she continued.

-My blessing that was revealed on that day…turned out to be one of the blessings on the blacklist, the blessing of the [Thief], I still remember the priest who held the ceremony, look at me in horror as he saw the blessing while I couldn’t believe this was happening, my father was immediately informed of this and I was instantly brought back to the house, I don’t remember what kind of discussion took place while I was kept in my room, but for the next 4 years I was kept in the house never allowed to leave as my father feared the bad reputation I would bring to the house if it was known that I his daughter had the blessing of the [Thief], my father already wasn’t viewed very highly by the other nobles because of his origins as a commoner and if they knew that I also had the [Thief] blessing he would immediately become a target for mocking or someone to be looked down upon by high society as he would be considered someone of impure blood.

Impure blood, a term used to describe people who were the children of people with parents who had blessings that were on the Blacklist.

In this world, while blessings couldn’t be 100% inherited to the next child, the chances of the person who has a powerful blessing being inherited by their child is very high compared to any other random child awakening to the same blessing.

This is why those who ruled and were one of the higher class in this world, always aimed to marry people with strong blessings so that their offspring could inherit the same or a better blessing essentially keeping their power over the people with weaker blessings.

This practice was logical as it ensured that the power in the family would never leave if they continued to marry people with powerful blessings essentially purifying their bloodline.

It stood to reason that nobles who did this would hate people with impure blood the most as they were a danger to their bloodline if they were let in somehow, plus people who had a blessing on the blacklist were treated less then human because of the evil and harmful nature of their blessing, it wasn’t hard to believe why Cornelia’s father was so guarded that he would lock his daughter in his house for 4 years considering he seemed to always want to be a part of high society with how ambitious he was gathering his wealth.

This also explained Cornelia’s abilities and he attributes, as the blessing of the [Thief] gave 2 abilities at the beginning one being [Stealth] and other being [Steal], so far Avian had only seen her peculiar stealth ability which was without a doubt her [Stealth] as what it did was cause the users presence to be hidden and not easily spotted, it wasn’t the same as invisibility as you could still see an individual who used [Stealth] instead they were harder to notice and could easily hide which was in a way better then invisibility.

One of the books Avian read even described that people who mastered high level [Stealth] could seem invisible to people even if they stood right in front of them, Avian doubted that he wouldn’t notice someone if they stood right in front of them even if they were a master of [Stealth], but then again this a world where he could shape blood with his mind so anything may as well be possible.

[Steal] was an ability Avian had yet to see, he wondered if Cornelia had ever used [Steal] in the first place considering her upbringing which would likely make her frown upon it, as stealing was not something a noble would do.

[Steal] was also self-explanatory, the user could steal from an individual a random item without them noticing, of course this didn’t always work as the person could still notice or the user could fail using the ability, from his understand it all depended on the user’s dexterity versus the attributes of the person the user was trying to steal from. Later when the [Thief] mastered the ability some more, the book described that they could steal more items or control what they could steal.

Avian was curious how it worked and wanted Cornelia to demonstrate to him, but he didn’t interrupt her yet and simply continued to listen as she seemed about to finish.

-My father’s second wife though, knew of my blessing and only started to abuse me more afterwards, I still kept on enduring hoping father would be able to do something, but ultimately this never happened as one day me and my butler Marco who took care of me all my life just like my mother were called into my father’s office, it was the first time I saw my father for many years, I thought I would happy seeing him, but he was like a complete stranger to me when I saw him, I still hoped that maybe he finally would help, but instead he gave Marco a small sack and the proof of ownership for the small general store in Alimdal.

Cornelia said, still vividly remembering the cold words her father said to Marco without even looking at her.

-Take this and leave the house, from today on she is to abandon the name of Meliodas and never speak or ever return back here, if ever at any time news of your existence or connection to the house gets spread, know that I won’t stay still nor acknowledge her existence.

Marco who stood next to Cornelia keeping a blank face simply nodded his head.

-I…see, thank you for your kindness my lord.

-Fa…

Before Cornelia could call out to her father, Marco had already taken 2 items from the desk and dragged Cornelia out of the room swiftly, Cornelia remembered how heartbroken she was and how much she cried as Marco had her dressed and dragged her to the nearest coach to leave immediately.

She finally stopped crying after a few days on the road, stubbornly convincing herself that her father didn’t actually abandon her, but simply temporarily send her away and that he would ask her to come back after a while.

Marco at the time simply sighed at his misses delusional thinking, but didn’t say anything as he believed it was better for her to believe a lie than to know the truth, on their road they stopped in the capital to change coach and met Avian that way.

Cornelia also quickly came to terms with reality after the bandit incident where Marco died and now she simply had no idea what to do other than to follow Avian who she was entrusted to by Marco.

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