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Elena was feeling a bit frustrated.

She was in a carriage with her mother and her maids. They had left for the Marchioness' tea party since the morning started because the party would be in the evening. The coachman was Lionel and the bodyguards were ten of her best knights.

How did those people manage to live until now with their jobs?

She was twitching her eyebrows thinking about the ambush just a moment ago. She was directing her hate at the supposed kidnappers.

Her entourage had been attacked in an empty road. They were stopped by a big log blocking the road. She gave them a passing mark for the opening. Then a horde of monsters was rushing them from the side. With their mobility restricted by the carriage, this was a good strategy to deal with the knights. She approved.

But their next move was beyond stupid. There was a super knight and a super maid on the carriage, they should know that.

They attacked the carriage directly themselves anyway. And then focusing on fighting Mari and Lionel instead of snatching their target, her.

What's wrong with those people? Where is the poison, the magic, the strategy? Why is fighting their first option? They are rogues, they should use underhanded methods!

She had planned to help them secretly but they were so weird she had to reconsider it. Of course, Lionel slew them without mercy. The carriage moved on without a problem after she had burnt them all by the road and buried them with some 'Earth Magic'. As expected, ten elite knights plus Lionel were overkill, not to mention Mari.

Elena was stomping inside her head because of the wretched plan. Meanwhile, her maid who was sitting next to her was nodding sagely while mumbling something about 'turn-based RPG being unviable'. She looked at her maid wordlessly.

She is as weird as those people. Still, she is my weirdo. Humans in this world are freaks!

Her mother, Filianore, was taking an interest in Mari. She was busy herself chatting up the maid with a casual tone. Very unlike her normal standard behaviors.

Elena turned her eyes back to the other maid.

As Emily’s mana manipulation had improved, she decided to give her maid another exercise to pass the time. She had, in the past few weeks, been searching for magic lessons to teach her maid. What she learned with the Andre guy was not to her magic standard so she didn't want to teach Emily that.

In the end, she still used the sage's training method. It didn't feel like much to her but that was just because she was already at the zenith. If the sage did it, it had to be good. Her lazy logic wasn't wrong, fortunately for Emily.

"Listen here. Your control is good enough so I will show you another lesson. Pay attention."

"Huh? Ah yes!"

Hearing about magic snapped Emily out of whatever fantasy she was in. Her mother also got curious and watched. She had a competent level of magic power thanked to her noble upbringing so she knew what her daughter was showing was strange and intriguing. All mages had their own tricks to further their power and so should she. Filianore had planned to teach Elena her own techniques but the magic performance a few days before convinced her that Elena had already stepped into the realm of great wizards and had far surpassed her.

It was unbelievable to hear that a small little girl like her daughter would be this strong in a month. But she had witnessed her training that fitted this caliber so many times that she could grasp the uniqueness of such a method. It couldn't be imitated. The core of this kind of training was the affinity of the trainee. She was amazed at how her daughter advanced day by day in controlling the spirits. It pained her but Filianore believed that the shock of that incident had pushed her daughter to seek power to her utmost limit.

"Look, spin this mana ball and move it like this between your hands."

"I-It's hard."

"Hmph. Training is supposed to be hard."

A tiny ball of light floated zigzaggingly between Elena's fingers and jumped to the other hand doing the same. Then another and another ball appeared. In just a few moments, there were a total of twenty small balls flying chaotically around her two hands. Their speed increased steadily but there was no collision between any two balls.

"Try one first, and then raise the number gradually. Your goal should be twenty, like this."

"Wow, it's strangely beautiful."

"Moving everything in one direction is easy. So you have to direct each ball to fly in a different orbit. When you get used to this, try varying their speed individually. Now do it."

Elena was setting the limit of the sage as a goal for her maid. Nothing was unreasonable to her as the only benchmark she had were the Heroes and other powerhouses at that level. At least Emily couldn't protest because she had no idea what she had just been tasked with.

If a fledgling mage was left to train alone, they would waste at least a few decades to figure out the optimal training just to learn mana control. There was also the case where they gave up and stuck to an inferior public method of some academies.

Having the way laid out readily like Emily was not unheard of. But her path of magic was of a higher quality than any mage could hope for. This alone had sped up her growth with notable signs. That was also why no one had gone against the matter of a maid being taught magic in the mansion. Of course, her blessing played a big part too, but no one knew that.

Filianore was entranced by the sight of beautiful light orbiting Elena's hands. Her experience told her how hard it was to control such things. Most mages trained along with the spirits of their affinity. Doing so would improve both the mana control and the magic affinity at the same time. Obviously, for nobles, improving as many things as possible was the ultimate way to train. It was hard for them to pick up new ways of training even if someone devised a very good method. So, despite every mage having their secret way of magic, they ended up doing things not too far away from each other.

"Elena, when did you think up such a fascinating method?"

Being asked suddenly by her mother made her surprised a bit. In her memories, Filianore was neither interested in fighting nor magic. In fact, she had never seen her mother do any kind of spell since she was a baby.

“I did this not long after Lord Andre taught me about [Wind Blade]. It was very crude back then but I had made a lot of improvement till now.”

She spewed bullshit in rapid mode without much thinking. She was getting used to this kind of cover story. Then she remembered the event where she had come to this world.

It would be a hassle if she spread this info to the other noble wives and they start asking.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t handle myself very well at that time in the forest.”

Elena dispelled her mana balls and changing back into her regal sitting pose with her eyes closed. It was an attempt to make her mother think she was criticizing her past self regretfully.

“You have no fault, dear. Don’t be too hard on yourself, please. It was not easy to experience the cruelty of this world.”

Being hugged in a dress was a bit uncomfortable for her but she didn’t push Filianore away. The pitiful attempt of a drama somehow worked because it was her mother.

Mari stared at them without emotion since she didn’t know what they were talking about and she would most likely care less about it even if she knew. She had already at the bottom of life so it was hard to be too emotional about others’ businesses. She may give some condolence but that was it.

Emily, on the other hand… She had a dumbfounded expression looking at Elena but quickly resumed her training panickily when a glinting red light looked at her from the small slits between the Demon King’s eyelids.

She spent an hour talking this and that about the high society with her mother. It was boring but she could at least pretend to listen. They sometimes passed by the topic of magic which she liked so it was very bearable to some extend.

She saw her demon maid was starting to get restless with the long ride so she had some idea.

Elena was still in a bad mood from the ambush so she decided to do something to dump that feeling away too. And as how a Demon King should be, she made her surroundings inconvenient for it.

She used [Vision] to look for a monster nearby. There was nothing on the empty field but unexpectedly, some goblins were living underground in a small cave. It wasn’t ideal but she picked one of them anyway.

“Huh? What was that?”

Elena cast a simple binding spell with the ambient mana in the cave. Panic but couldn’t move, the goblins cried so loud that Lionel even felt something faintly through the earth. As expected of a master swordsman.

She directed her exceeded mana toward the goblin in the middle of the flock and amplified its life force as much as she can without it dying. Her feeling of frustration and irritation infused with the monster. It started to grow bigger and bigger. The body was self-adjusted to be optimal for fighting and become more ideal for its kind of monster.

“Oh no, something is not right! Hold! Formation!”

Lionel instinctively sensed the danger and commanded the knights by habit. But everyone didn’t mind that one bit, they too were also fallen into their old habit and followed him without hesitation.

Their group’s sudden stop again on the road not long after the ambush made Filianore a bit anxious. She knew people were targeting their county but being attacked continuously like this was worrisome.

Elena opened the door and stepped outside the carriage. She wanted to see her work and the knights’ battle.

“Wait, Elena! It’s dangerous outside!”

Her mother jumped out after her in panic. Of course, her maid hastily followed too. It wasn’t her intention but she was fine with them next to her anyway. Elena waited for the monster’s entrance expectantly.

That seemed to temp fate as her small mischievous plan was foiled again.

An arrow with sinister dark mana zoomed in on her head. Mari immediately blocked it with her palm and it bounced off harmlessly. Mari also pulled Filianore behind her along with Emily to shield them.

Meanwhile, Lionel jumped in front of them and blocked a new volley of arrows with his swordplay. Knights shot back in the direction of the enemies with spells and arrows.

The little skirmish was fast pace as the assailants emerged from under the grass and attacked them. There were a lot of powerful sword fighters among the enemies. Some of them were even stronger than her knights but the real issue was that her group was outnumbered by about three to one per person.

What the… Who are these guys? They are not with the kidnappers for sure but… ah, right. I have been assassinated by this organization for a while now. And how are they under the grass here? They shouldn't know I would come out. I walked right into their ambush huh.

She looked at the group of assassins fighting her knights while still wondering about how they decided to hide here. They were too professional and skilled. Especially the two females that were fighting Lionel. He was stronger than them but not by much and it was two on one so he was in quite a bind.

Ah, maybe they would just attack the carriage regardless. I must be overthinking things.

Mari stayed behind to protect Filianore and her. But there was no need for her to join the fight as a new player had angrily smashed his way into this small battlefield.

The earth shook and split open underneath them as a big roar deafened the air. A three-meters black giant of pure muscle climbed out of the ground. The solid body that was like shining black metal didn’t waste any time to destroy some unfortunate humans nearby with its arms. The knights jumped back hastily while the assassins were murdered like papers under a waterfall. Some of the knights' shields were completely destroyed with one swing of the monster’s arm.

“Is that an Orge!? Why is it black and so small!? Why is it underground!?”

“That can’t be an Orge. It has hair and two horns on its forehead, its face also looks too much like a human.”

The knights were very shaken by the monster’s monstrous strength but there was nothing they could do to subjugate such a beast.

It was their luck that the monster was focusing on the people wearing black clothes. Despite that, some of the assassins were still hell-bent on getting Elena and ignored the carnage behind them.

Elena was not paying any attention to the assassins by the way. She was busy admiring her monster. She didn’t know what it was because she just gave it the needed life force to grow. The goblin had become something very fascinating to her.

“... a lv.90 Yasha. There is Yasha? What is a Yasha?”

Her maid was talking weirdly again. But it was good information. She didn’t understand the number that Emily gave the monster though.

“Yasha? It is a mythical monster in fairy tales. It didn’t exist in the era of the hero so I believe it is a fictional monster. Why do you think it is a Yasha?”

“Mother, you know of this monster?”

Filianore was stunted at seeing such a monster but was also curious about the name the maid had said. But Elena was more curious about such a myth so she steered her mother away from her maid unintentionally.

“Oh, I don’t know much about them. I happened to come across this monster when reading some storybooks in our library. It was some kind of wrathful spirit and was often worshiped by rural villages in the old time.”

“They were worshiped? Monster?”

“It was just a storybook. People must have been scared and had to give tributes in exchange for protection.”

“Hmm.”

Elena looked at the supposed Yasha again. It sure looked wild with its spiky hair, horns, and fangs. If a villager were to be in its presence, they would piss their pants for sure. She used [Vision] to look at its inside more closely.

It has a basic biological structure. But that amount of mana had advanced the soul a little bit, just enough to gain intelligence. It is in a frenzy but its behaviors are very human-like now that I pay more attention to it.

The concept of evolution was widely spread in her old world by the Heroes. It was only noticeable on monsters though. Because monsters were not fully biological organisms and they gathered mana far faster than humans.

She had seen goblin turned into hobgoblin and orc into high orc but never more. So seeing something like this from a goblin she had picked randomly on the field was a first. She had originally thought it was just a mutated hobgolin.

Sparks flashed in front of her face as the blade of the assassins were deflected by Lionel. Elena was reminded that they were still battling with some enemies. Because the two girls that were fighting Lionel were quite strong, the fight was prolonged without an end in sight. It started to annoy her. She wanted to see her monster fight more.

“... [Breeze]”

She raised a hand toward them and blasted them off with an easy-to-use [Telekinesis]. With their level of skill, a simple wind spell like [Air Torrent] wouldn’t hit them unless she blew up the whole road. Obviously, she had to ‘use’ the official spells that she knew in front of others. The two slammed into the back of the monster hard enough to push it forward a step.

Despite the injury from such a strong impact, they tried to run away the moment their feet touch the ground. Elena used [Telekinesis] again to trip them up. She also pierced their feet with some small earth spikes while they were down. Now they were fully in the monster’s sight, no more escaping.

The rest of the assassins that were attacking her were cut down quickly when Lionel was free. Right now they had finished the last one and were watching the monster slaughtering the remaining assassins with vigilance.

“Lady Filianore! We should turn back. It’s too dangerous to go forward.”

“No, you don’t think the carriage can outrun that, do you?”

“We can distract it for you to escape.”

“... What do you think, dear?”

She turned to Elena as she had a very high opinion about their group power right at the moment and she believed they would win. But the real fighting forces were Lionel and Mari. They belonged to her daughter so the opinion of Elena mattered a lot here.

“Do you believe in your skill, Mr. Lionel?”

“... I do.”

He sighed knowing how it would turn out.

“That’s good. All of you go subjugate that monster."

"Yes, Milady."

They stealthily gave Mari a glance. Their intention was transparent but that wasn't included in Elena's idea.

"She will stay here protecting us. Any rejection?"

They all felt like a heavy rock had suddenly fallen on their shoulders and stuck there.

Elena didn't actually want any of her knights to die stupidly here though. She used to watch her minions fight with monsters in the fight pit whenever she was in a bad mood so she did it again here. In her mind, there was nothing wrong with such a stressful arrangement for others.

The giant monster was wrecking the road with everything it got. Elena was paying attention to not let any assassins run away. She was not in a mood to let people who tried to kill her live at the moment. The two girls, who were probably of high rank, were being pummeled to the ground by the monster’s merciless fists. They somehow still stayed alive by rolling around to dodge and occasionally blocked deadly blows with their arms, which were probably broken in many places by then.

The knights made a pincer formation around the giant and the few remaining assailants. They would not engage in the fight until the last of the assassins died. Instead, they scanned for any weak points and wait patiently for an opening to destroy the target.

Elena watched eagerly over their fight. Mari had brought out two folding chairs for her and Filianore. Her other maid was nervously looking here and there between the knights and the monster.

“It e-eats her.”

Elena looked back at them. One of the girls was smashed to the ground with her leg grabbed by the monster and half of her head was bitten off. The other one was in a state of shock and sat down limply. Unfortunately, the monster was not considerate of her circumstance. It slammed her down with the other girl’s corpse and stomped on them. The earth that was mashed up together with the blood and flesh of dozens of humans became some kind of disgusting dark brown mud.

The monster roared to the sky after killing the only two who were giving it an increased frustration. Its eyes glowed red followed by its whole body. It was for just a moment before everything turned back to normal. But the monster now radiated some kind of eerie atmosphere that gave all the normal humans goosebumps.

“L-Level up!? [Augmentation (Int)] lv.1!? No, it raised to lv.2 now!”

Her maid became crazy suddenly but her babbling actually had some meaning to Elena. She observed the monster’s state with her [Vision] again.

Something really changed it. Its mind had become stable and its muscle was starting to condense more solidly. Then she discovered a weird part in its chest. A round object which looked like a tiny steel ball around the size of her thumb.

A monster core. Now that’s rare. Hmm, so it absorbed that girl life force directly and took some abilities for itself.

In her old world, there were also some monsters like this. These kinds of monsters grew strong quickly but they also died very fast. About ten years at most. The magic core was their main power. The core consumed others’ life force and funneled it to the body, enhancing it.

But such great power could only be used by monsters somehow. And monsters were all dumb creatures. She was challenged by them sometimes when the power went to their head and got the better of them. Just because they could gain power through eating others didn’t mean they could bite more than they could chew and walk away with that.

She wasn’t worried about those monsters growing stronger than her. Like everything else that could naturally be formed in the material realm, it had its limit to exist. Trying to surpass the limit was not an instant thing. Other things or the world itself would erase such an attempt. And even if somehow, a monster like that succeeded, she would still be able to destroy it. Magic was still magic in the end. If she wanted to crush that core, good luck with wrestling the control of its magic from her hand.

Or she could play dirty by depriving them of mana because no one was stronger than her in magic control. Monsters died faster than humans when there was no mana.

“… food,… eat…”

“It talks…”

Because the girl it had eaten had a very powerful life force, its strength was now beyond her knights. Seeing as the knights weren’t able to tell the power rise was enough to let her know it was completely out of their league.

It was regretful but I don’t want to lose any knights just by going to a tea party.

“Mari.”

“Yes, Milady.”

Mari removed her warhammer from the roof of the carriage and charged at the monster without any hesitation. There were times when Elena had wondered if her second maid was originally like this or just her instinct kicked in.

The knights and Lionel were confused when suddenly Mari appeared in their vision and smacked the monster’s head down to the earth with her big hammer. But it didn’t die in one hit like the Lich.

It jumped up angrily trying to grab Mari’s leg but only to have its arms deformed by a second swing of the hammer. The force blew away the monster and Mari in two opposite directions.

“Lionel! Disengage and come back here. The knights too.”

They were kind of happy to return to their duty as her guards and not fighting some doom bringer monster. Knowing Mari’s power, they didn’t worry too much and watched closely to get experience. Lionel was vigilant and observed the surrounding with double the effort for all of them.

Elena left them be and watched the one-sided beat down. She had to praise the monster for its exceptional durability. And Mari too. Her maid had gotten very accustomed to fighting. With the first few hits that couldn’t finish off the monster, she had changed the tactic to destroy as many joints and bones as possible.

I need to do something for her. All of her attacks have less power than she could produce. She is too lightweight to put all her force into her swing without flinging herself away.

It was funny for Elena the first few times she saw Mari flying around whenever she swung her warhammer. But doing that all the time would look bad in front of other people.

If she put weight on her maid, her small frame would be imbalanced. And it would be ridiculous if her maid punctured her floor with her small feet just by walking around the mansion. She didn’t intend to let her maid wear some bulky weight on her uniform or casting gravity spell every time there was a need. Too much of a hassle.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to give her another warhammer. Two big chunks of metal would be perfectly balanced, hmm... as it should be.

*BAM* *BAM*

The beat-down didn’t end. It looked like the Yasha had a powerful regeneration that could keep up with Mari’s heavy strikes. All its bones were broken and healed continuously without a resting moment. To normal people, it looked like a pointless action to keep hitting the monster. But to her eyes, the Yasha was already on its last leg.

Regeneration needed energy and it didn’t have endless mana like her. Although Mari couldn’t fight at her full potential yet, she still possessed a body equaled to her Heavenly King. So taking a beating from her one-sidedly would not do well for anyone, even if it was her old Heavenly Kings.

Mari jumped back to contemplate something. She only stopped for a second and started running at the monster again. Her eyes glowed slightly for a brief moment as well as her muscle under her skin. Elena was the only one who could see that.

“GRAAAAGGHHH!”

With a rarely heard battle cry from her, the warhammer was swung down like a meteor onto the monster’s almost-invincible head. The air was rippled and burnt along with the hammer as it crashing down.

No good. She needed to learn more.

Elena cast a high power [Wind Barrier] between her group and the two. She also used [Telekinesis] to hold down Mari to prevent her from being blown away by her own attack.

The impact came like cracking thunders that struck next to them. The Earth shook and turned upside down like a giant wave from the point of impact. The place itself exploded upward with a dust cloud as everything around Mari got disintegrated and was blown away.

What was left was the smoking lower half of the monster Yasha in the ten-meters crater and a large area of dug-up earth except their carriage's. Mari was hovering about it as the [Telekinesis] spell still held her in place. Elena released her spells and started to dust off her dress.

“Oh, Gods bless us. That is insane.”

“I know she was powerful but seeing it is on a whole new level.”

“Hey captain, can you win?”

“Shut up! I am not your captain anymore!”

The adrenaline rush made the knight excited and rowdy. Her mother also had a higher heart rate than normal. Her maid was acting quite calm and nonchalant though. Elena thought the girl would be like a maniac seeing something like this but her maid had proved to her once again how weird of a person she was.

“As expected of Mari. That monster was nothing to you. You are so cool.”

“I was not aware of this kind of power in all my life. Truly, living is a constant experience.”

Well, good for them, I guess. This clears my mood somewhat. Meeting any more obstacles on the road would be a hassle though.

She used her ‘Earth Magic’ to restore the road and buried all the mess they caused. Cleaning up evidence was a good move anyway. The enemies should have a hard time investigating stuff. She also put up some effort to do it slow enough to be view as not very good with this element. If people saw her could do anything she wanted with magic this soon, it would be annoying to maintain her comfortable life.

With every distraction over, her carriage continued toward the castle of Marquess Calahan. Her initial plan had been destroyed prematurely, so she would need something else. She would wait to see how they were to get some new ideas. Putting too much effort in dealing with those nobles made her feel wrong somehow and it was irritating.

---

*Shattered*

“!!!”

A maid that was cleaning the hallway in a big castle trembled as the sound hit her ears.

With a shaking hand, she reached into her pocket and took out three crystal amulets. One of them was crumbled and half of its shards had stuck back in her pocket.

Her eyes were dilated as she looked at it. Blood had run dry from her skin as it became as pale as a corpse. Then one of the remaining amulets on her hand also shattered right in front of her eyes.

The maid slumped down silently as her tears dropped uncontrollably. Her hand clenched the shattered amulets hard regardless of the blood dripping out from the cut.

“Sis…”

The muffled cry of a maid was hidden away in the vacant hallway as clouds gathered above the castle. With no one knowing or being aware, the girl disappeared without a track from the place.

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End of chapter 10