“She did it again.” Richard mumbled as he read over the reports from the healers who had received Scarlet’s teachings.

The events of the previous days had been yet another reminder of the girl's value, and why she was simply permitted to do whatever she wished.

Since the beginning of time, there had been extraordinary individuals, warriors, wizards, healers, inventors, craftsmen and businessmen, who were simply so important to the Kingdom that they were allowed to do whatever they pleased without any consequences and given whatever they asked in order to try to keep them within the Kingdom. A good example of this was those Blacksmiths who could create Magic Weapons, who could openly mock the King with impunity if they so choose.

Scarlet Weaver was one such person. The reason why commoners like her and her mother could come and go from a Duke’s house without showing a single shred of manners or respect without any sort of repercussions or even a word of warning.

Richard could only count his blessing that she chose to use an alias instead of her real name for nearly everything she did, and that few knew about her more… exotic skills. Otherwise, they would stop at nothing to lure her away from his territory, giving her whatever it was she asked for if she would join with them.

And if they ever did… he wasn’t so sure that he would have the ability to keep her.

As much as he hated it, even after all of these years, the only thing that they had keeping Scarlet there was the fact that her mother’s family just so happened to live in their territory. Something that could easily change if she just decided to move.

And if she did leave, they would lose the benefits that they have been enjoying up until this point, such as the economic boost from her various new inventions, or the overflow equipment she creates when grinding for levels. She’d made so many pieces that nearly all of their knights were equipped with the girl’s creations. Not to mention the training equipment and methods she had to offer.

Some part of Richard’s heart, the part not tainted by years spent dealing with the politics of being a noble, felt ashamed about viewing a child, and the friend of his son, in such a manner. But years of managing the territory and the teachings of his mother had twisted his perspective of the world.

Richard’s mother was the widow of Duke Bryce’s eldest brother, and a daughter of the Scholar’s Faction, married out of political necessity. Bryce never loved her, and she never loved him. During Richard’s youth, his father was obsessed with taking care of his aunt during the time when her physical and mental health were deteriorating, and after she died, he went into a depression that lasted years.

This had left Richard’s mother effectively in charge of both the territory, and the children’s upbringing, and being from the Scholar’s Faction, she had placed a much greater importance on governing than fighting, and with his father being ill suited for governing at the best of times, Richard had to act as the man of the house for all political matters.

The first time Richard had ever disobeyed his mother was after his fiancé had left him, and he decided for himself who he wished to marry. It was also the last time he had ever listened to her.

How ironic, that after that, he would be messing around with his own son’s marriage prospects.

He knew that Caesia was in love with the boy, but had convinced the girl to hold off on asking him. If she became engaged to him while he still had a low Tier Class, people would complain, so he asked that she wait until he had managed to achieve a Tier 5 Class.

It was not something easy to work up to for someone who started with a Tier 1 Class, but Richard had believed that his son could make it before he turned 18, believing him to be a genius on the level of Mehal. He was shocked beyond belief when Scarlet reported that he was on course for reaching it by the end of the Winter Season.

The support he had received from the girl was beyond anything that words could describe.

It was a pity she was... not interested in marriage when Richard got Caesia to ask. Scarlet and Caesia were so close to each other, it would have been nice if Charles could have taken both as his wives, but perhaps that was too greedy of him to think. Though perhaps if the two girls just kept getting closer and closer, things would work out anyways.

Richard didn’t care if it was Caesia instead of Charles who guaranteed Scarlet remained with their territory.

Richard looked up from his desk, as there was a knock on the door. “Come in.” Richard said calmly.

The door opened and his wife, Iris, squeezed in through the door, closing it behind her and locking it. Once the two of them were alone, the woman let out a sigh.

“Is everything alright?” Richard asked her.

“Yes. Everything’s fine. Scarlet and Maria have decided to give the other girls some lessons on sewing. I just needed to get away for a bit.” Iris said, moving up to her husband and placing herself in his lap, leaning back into his chest.

“I’m sorry to always have to give you the hard work.” Richard said, rubbing his wife’s shoulders as he smiled apologetically.

“Scarlet and her mother are good souls… but that might just be the entire problem. I’m not used to dealing with such genuine people.” Iris admitted.

While in their fancy dresses, either Maria or her daughter could pass for a noble woman, but that disguise would only be skin deep. They were NOT nobles. Their behavior and mannerisms were that of commoners, maybe different from even them, with a style almost unique to the two, so different from the uptight or pompous nobles that Iris was used to dealing with.

Since Maria and Scarlet were such VIPs, Iris changed her own behavior in order to match theirs as much as possible, in order to avoid them being scared off by the feeling of culture shock, but the feeling of culture shock was doubly strong on the noblewoman. It was worse than dealing with her father-in-law.

Even after 5 years of their occasional visits, she still wasn’t used to them, and every hour spent with them drained her of all of her strength. She wondered how the children could stand it, but maybe children were just naturally more accepting, or they were around the pair more often. Or maybe what she was feeling was the guilt that she was not her genuine self with them. Not the daughter of nobility who was trained from birth to hold her dignity and pride in her every movement, so long as eyes were on her. 

Then again, her father had always said to adopt your opponents customs as your own when dealing in politics. If they had a custom of eating shit you must eat it yourself with a smile. And it wasn’t like it was so bad. Scarlet and Maria were good people, and they always seemed to have a desire to help.

“Do you really think I’ll be able to keep our child this time?” Iris asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“Scarlet’s instructions have been sent to the Alchemists who are confirming her claims… though considering it's her, I can’t even find doubt in myself.” Richard said.

“Where in the world did she ever learn such a thing? I’ve never heard of compatible blood-types before?” Iris said with a bit of wonder.

“Who knows.” Richard replied with a shrug. “The girl has a high level of [Decoding]. The way her mind works and the things she is capable of learning are simply different from a normal person’s.”

[Memorization], [Calculation] and [Decoding] were often thought of as the Academic’s skills. 

[Memorization] makes it easier to memorize facts and details, beyond even the effects of a heightened intelligence, and [Calculations] allows you to accurately make use of any information you might have memorized.

Both of these skills can easily be trained by simply focusing yourself to memorize more and more information and try to apply it. However, [Decoding] was different.

In order to increase one’s level of [Decoding] they have to take a problem for which they have little prior knowledge and take it apart by themselves, learning the truth. [Decoding] was the skill of discovery and innovation, and was far more difficult to train, because once you discover something, you can’t discover it a second time, and searching does not necessarily mean you will find anything.

An academic was considered exceptional if they had a [Decoding] of level 50. Scarlet’s was over level 125 the last time that Richard had asked. And she was only 10 years old. Her abilities were beyond any other in the entire Kingdom. Perhaps the world.

Using nothing but a few side notes in some books her mother had, the girl had discovered [Enchanting], and started to create her own unique enchantments. Then she started to design her own spells, invent new techniques and training methods, improve existing magic circles, as well as all the other things she had done. It was just absurd.

“Our little Charles certainly has a tendency of attracting interesting people.” Iris said with her gentle smile.

“...Yes. He most certainly does.” Richard admitted.

Charles did have the tendency to garner the attention of interesting people with his straightforward and earnest behavior. People like Mehal, who had sworn to never take a master and who had scoffed in Richard’s face when he had attempted to negotiate with the man had come back and requested to be allowed to be Charles’ personal tutor after just a single meeting with the boy.

His son was a natural born leader, and he was certain there was no situation that he couldn’t handle.

...Charles had no idea what to do.

He’d managed to call both Isaka and Lloyd to come to a new meeting on the day following the incident, but he had no plan on how to get things to work out.

To speak the simple truth, he knew next to nothing about either Isaka and Lloyd, nor did he have any power over either of them. He have no idea how to mediate between them, nor could he simply order them to stop fucking around. He didn’t even have a proper plan.

“If you are too afraid to act when action is necessary, you have already lost.” Charles mumbled to himself. While going in without a plan of victory was reckless, he didn’t have time to waste with the proper recon and tactics. He only had one week before Scarlet would be back, and everything needed to be sorted out before that happened.

This meeting was both his first attempt, and a method for gathering information as quickly as possible. If it failed, he would take what he learned and create a more in depth plan of action.

“Did you say something?” Isaka asked, hearing Charles muttering.

“Nothing of importance, I’m afraid.” Charles replied calmly, taking a few meditative breaths, the same way that Scarlet had taught him all those years ago.

The door to his quarters opened and Lloyd entered, closing the door behind himself. “I’m sorry if I am running late.” He said. He didn’t look away from them, but there was more than a little unease in them, and none of the anger they had yesterday.

His hair also appeared to have regrown itself somehow.

“It’s fine. Thank you for coming. Please, sit, and help yourself to any snacks you might like.” Charles said, gesturing towards one of the chairs.

There was a large assortment of food on the table, due to the several servants that Charles had brought with him for the sole purpose of keeping Scarlet fed. They were all skilled and had high levels of cooking. They were also relatives of Scarlet’s first magic teacher, so they could be trusted.

Lloyd did sit down, and gratefully accepted a cup of water, though he did not touch the food. A pity.

“Since I’m the one who called you both here, I suppose I should begin.” Charles said, leaning forward onto the table in front of him. “It has come to my attention that some members of our party have been hiding feelings of dissatisfaction, and I feel like it might be time for things to be aired out, less it cause problems in the future.”

“Ah… Yes.” Lloyd said, when Isaka didn’t seem inclined to say anything. As a royal prince, his expression was nearly unreadable when he was not flustered about something, and at the moment, he was calm as could be. “If it would be alright, I would like to start by apologizing for yesterday. I was out of line.” Lloyd said with a bow of his head. “I’m not going to make excuses, saying that it was because of my confrontation with Alexander. The truth is, I have been uneasy for a while now. When compared to how well you work with your close friends, I felt like an outsider and became insecure about my future within the group. I understand now that to expect to be treated the same is unreasonable, but I have no experience partying outside of my group with my childhood friends. Again, I was wrong, and I apologize.”

Charles pondered over what Lloyd had said. 

Feeling insecure about oneself in his position was understandable, as he was the only one who joined the party solo, with the exception of Chad, and appeared to have no one outside of the group he could turn to if things went bad. 

The feeling of insecurity was not a rational one though. As a Tier 7 fighter, his abilities would still be stronger than Nico, Sidney and Chad’s, even if the older boys did somehow reach Tier 6 at this point, and Charles would never even begin to consider leaving them behind. But fear was rarely rational.

Charles was about to put Lloyd’s worries to rest when Isaka scoffed quietly. “You say you want to be King, but you admit fault so easily.” The prince said. “My father would have never been so quick to show weakness.”

Lloyd scowled slightly at being made fun of. “Some would say being able to admit when you are wrong takes more strength and courage than just acting like an ass and denying it.”

“Simply admitting your own weakness doesn’t give you the right to ask others to make up for them.” Isaka replied.

“You talk as though you are somehow perfect. Must be nice to never need anyone’s help or forgiveness, but it begs the question of why you are even in a party then.” Lloyd said, getting visibly a little more angry.

“I might not be able to do everything, I don’t merely use others for my own benefit.”

“Are you saying I haven’t been carrying my own weight? Name one thing you’ve done as part of the party?” 

“I have done plenty!”

“Lloyd, Your Highness, please.” Charles said, trying to interrupt them, but the two just ignored him and continued to argue.

That is, until everything went from bad to worse, and he wished they would have just continued to ignore.

“That is it. I have had it with you.” Isaka said, standing from his seat and turning to Charles. “I cannot and will not work with this bastard any longer, I insist that we remove him from the party.”

“...Your Highness, please be reasonable. No one has done anything to get so upset over.” Charles said, trying to calm him down. Lloyd was as shocked as Charles and just stood with his mouth open in silence, his eyes glancing worriedly towards Charles.

“Nothing to get upset over? He’s already admitted that he wished to take what rightfully belongs to my eldest brother. I can’t believe I ever agreed to let him into our party to begin with. I gave it a chance, but enough is enough. I want him out.” Isaka fumed.

Charles bit his lip and looked toward Lloyd who looked a mixture of angry and miserable. The face of a man who was drowning. 

“...Your Highness, I ask you to reconsider. Lloyd might have his flaws, but he isn’t a bad person. If we kick him from the party, where will he go? He doesn’t have any allies he can turn to, or status he could use.” Charles said, trying to appeal to the young half-elf’s empathy. Regardless of his abilities, Charles’ noble heart would not let him turn his back on Lloyd, who he invited into his party.

It did not work. 

“Either he goes, or I go.” Isaka said with finality. 

Charles froze at Isaka’s ultimatum. Without the Prince and his group, they lacked the number of healers required to gain entry into the Labyrinth, and they didn’t have any spares they could turn to. Meaning that if he left, they would all be left stranded. 

Charles was now at an impasse. Did he side with the Prince and compromise his principles as a noble, or did he refuse and risk the party as a whole.

The seconds seemed to drag on for hours until Charles finally replied. “Your Highness, I will not abandon a party member without just reason.”

“...I see. You have made your choice.” Isaka said, getting up and leaving, with his attendants behind him.

“I… You aren’t kicking me out?” Lloyd said, surprised, glad, worried and ashamed all at once. “Why would you do this for me?”

“...Because it is the right thing to do.” Charles said with a sigh. “I’ll give Isaka some time to calm down and try to reason with him again. Hopefully I can get him to change his mind.” 

“I don’t think that is going to be easy.” Nico said from his place behind Charles.

“Doing the right thing rarely is.” Charles said, rubbing at his eyes. “What a mess.”

Of course all this had to happen while Scarlet was away. Charles actually suspected that his debt of gratitude to Scarlet had been the only thing holding Isaka’s tongue this entire time. With her gone, the pent up frustration within the group just leaked out.

Charles wasn’t worried for the Prince. He might not be able to explore as deeply as before, but he and his party were strong, and they could use their influence to gather supporters at the lower levels of the Labyrinth. But if Charles couldn’t get Isaka to return, they would need to find someone who could replace him if they wanted to be permitted into the Labyrinth at all.

“How am I going to be explaining this one?” Charles mumbled to himself.

DyslexicWriter

Slowing down a bit. Partially because of depression. Partially because of school. And partially because of a different story going on in the back of my head.

A story where people are given 'jobs' at birth and an church orphanage for people with either shameful jobs or those considered to be useless (not profitable for the parents). So the main characters are a 'thief', a 'prostitute', a 'gardener', and a mute 'painter' girl, all abandoned at birth because of their 'jobs'.

The plot being that they are treated like shit, because the religion claims that their poor jobs are because of crimes in their previous life (attempting to do a job other than the one god gives you is heresy), but the 'Saintess', a girl their age who was taken from her family and grew up in the same church their orphanage was at, showed them kindness, and treat them like family.

So when the signs of the Demon King coming start and people start talking about the duties of the Saintess to risk her life, the misfits start their training in order so that they can protect her. Using the abilities that come with their 'jobs' in strange ways in order to fight the good fight.

Thief: Tries to be Batman. (Shadow sneak and takedowns)

Prostitute: The tank with high endurance and the ability to draw attention to her and a pain into pleasure skill. (Think Darkness except self-aware and embarrassed by it instead of constantly seeking out pleasure in the form of pain.)

Gardener: Weak plant magic and low stats, but is resistant to the after effects of performance enhancing drugs. (Basically a gentle giant who snorts herbs and then roid rages on everyone with a massive scythe and a 4x strength multiplier.)

Painter: Living drawings and cute sign boards instead of talking.