We undead hate meditative posture, and sitting crossed-legged for thousands of years sounds stupid. Only the great sages among the mortals, who were claimed to last over a thousand years, had enough patience to do it. It’s all a sham, let me tell you.

The supposed sages meditated and died hungry after a few days. In my boredom, I had stopped their body’s aging, and they lived for thousands of years as fresh corpses. So, meditation or not, you should eat bread and walk around, and not be crazy like those sages. It’s all pointless.

“Can you feel the surge, my lady?” I asked, looking up at her. I was seated on the floor while she was lying on my cot, trying to use different attribute mana from the surrounding.

She raised her hand and cast [Ice Shards], forcing six ice sickles to materialize in thin air, following which she cast another [Ice Shards], managing to summon a total of eight sickles. Multicasting, which meant she had learned to assimilate the mana from her surroundings. All the sickled broke before I could compliment her, and my lady’s breathing had become hoarse.

“It’s hard to sustain, mongrel,” My lady got up, her hands tying her sprawled hair to a bun. She quite looked like a modern woman now, though her fairness was incomparable. “But I’m surprised that I managed to multicast the same spell. Praise me, mongrel!”

“You are amazing, my lady,” I smiled at her. “Can you use [Freeze]? Or [Firewall]?”

“Not yet,” she looked at her palm and then at my lips before averting her eyes. “But since I can use multicast, did I break through to Amateur tier?”

“In external casting, we can’t exactly mark the boundary of mage ranks, but if you want to categorize, you could say that once a learn a common spell. For now, my lady, try relearning [Freeze] and [Firewall]. You will be surprised to see how efficient the spells actually are.”

“I’m exhausted,” she said, casting me a glare. “You will ask me to train throughout the night again!”

“We have less than three months left, my lady. Once you graduate from the academy, you can sleep as much as you want.”

“What’s the point of that shitty title if I got a mongrel with me?”

“Well, that sounds hardly convincing, my lady,” I said with a sigh when we heard footsteps from the corridor. The sun had settled past the horizon, so the noble girls could be the only visitors. Nonetheless, I sent my [Devil eye] to gauge the situation outside.

“Lady Letitia asked me to send you to her room, so you can wait inside, lady Beth and lady Casey,” I saw the two girls tagging behind a maid of the manor with broad smiles on their faces. Both had a wooden suitcase, durable and light, with them, probably clothes, which they were dragging behind them.

“You scram, maid!” Beth waved at the maid and pushed open my lady’s chamber door.

“Ahoy, Let…” she stopped short her excited greeting and looked around the room.

“I’ll greet them,” my lady got off my cot and ambled outside my room, with me trailing behind as usual.

When we reached my lady’s chamber, Beth was kissing Casey furiously, the latter against the wall, their hands wrapped around each other. Well, this is what they came here for, I sighed.

“What the hell are you doing in my room?!” My lady roared soon after I cast [Ward], this time around the whole western corridor. I didn’t know what kind of dangerous antics these noble girls would indulge themselves in, so I prepared for the worst. It was a mild [Ward], though, something that would let even weaker mages walk freely inside out. Stronger mages required more attention, and even my [Ward] couldn’t help much, except for warning me of their presence.

So, if you thought I would ravage kingdoms with my [Ward] alone, it’s time to reconsider. There are no overpowered spells in any world if you leave out [Undead]. That’s just how magic works. I am over-powered for one reason: I know [Undead], and I am an undead. It’s not conceitedness but a fact.

The girls’ lips were swollen, breaths hoarse, when they pulled back. Casey grinned foolishly while Beth was annoyed at being interrupted. Well, if you hate interruptions, please copulate in your own rooms.

“Get to cleaning,” my lady said, and both stared at us in surprise. “I need stainless western courtyard by the time you leave.”

Her way of getting back at them for the scar. I really liked how my lady exploited her friends. You can’t blame me for everything, you see. All I had said was that friends were meant to be exploited when she was probably eight years old.

“Hey, hey, Leti?” Beth was more flabbergasted. “We came here to train, remember?”

“And you were training,” My lady said, staring at them with her cold gaze. She was more irked than usual, and I didn’t quite know the reason.

“Make sure they clean, mongrel!” she said and walked back to my room.

“Ruddy?” Casey looked at me with pleading eyes, and I shrugged.

“This faithful dog!” Beth cursed and stopped short of kicking my groin. Yes, I have one if you are wondering.

Beth and Casey spent the rest of the night cleaning, and my lady reassured me that she would go to dinner alone. It was her way of asking me to keep an eye on the two girls who were sure to get under the sheets once we left them for themselves.

Guests didn’t eat with the family, so both the girls had to get their own food or eat the food meant for the maids. It’s was the usual treatment when relatively unknown nobility stayed at the Marquis. Further, the two girls were just unruly brats, so they didn’t even get a second glace in the manor.

I brought some food from the main kitchen, bypassing the main dining room, and kept the two girls fed. They were exhausted after cleaning two rooms, and when my lady returned, she ushered them for training.

“If you thought you’ll get to spend quality time together, please perish that intention, lady Beth,” I said when she gave me a reluctant glance. “My lady is doing this for your good. You won’t be sleeping tonight, and I’ll cure your fatigue with my heal spell tomorrow.”

Both of them stared at me in agony when my lady’s shouts pulled them out of the trance. I followed them to my lady’s chamber and watched her giving succinct instructions to the two noble girls from the sidelines. She paused every once in a while, staring at me for affirmation, and after my nod, her words would continue.

Beth and Casey were surprisingly resilient this time, seeping her words with the utmost attention. They never really focused much in the class, so this came out as a surprise. And mind you, my lady’s voice is soothing, so it’s really hard not to fall asleep.  

“Hey, Ruddy,” Casey called out to me once my lady had gone back to my room to continue her training. “Is she asking us to destroy our mana reserve?”

“Well, that’s what my lady did, and you saw her [Ice Shards] this noon. You won’t need mana reserve if you are planning on using external casting, so the sooner you unlearn internal casting, the better. And I presume you have already learned channelizing mana, so it shouldn’t take you more than a night.”

Casey nodded and walked back to one of the cleaned rooms. I stopped Beth before she could enter it.

“What now, bastard?!” Beth gave me an impatient look.

“The second room, lady Beth. You will be training and not cuddling.”

“How dare a butler–“ she stopped short and smiled at Letitia, who had just walked out of my humble abode. “I was about to return back to my room, Leti.”

With that, she rushed back to her own room, and I returned to my lady’s side. She pulled me inside, excitement evident in her eyes.

“[Fire Wall],” she beamed, and it was the brightest smile she had ever given to anyone since her mother’s death. “I learned it!”

“One more spell, my lady, before you start learning new ones,” I said.

“Wash my hair, mongrel,” she said, losing the smile just as fast.

“My lady?” I raised my eyes in question. “Didn’t we just wash it yesterday?”

“You don’t ask questions!” she lied on her back, face away from mine.

I went out and returned with a trough soon, settling down on the floor again. After removing my gloves, I gathered her strands in my hand and cast [Waterfall].

She shivered when my fingers touched her ears, and I apologized intermittently. A tranquil ambiance lingered in the room, the sound of dripping water and my lady’s breathing destroying the secrecy of the night. She turned around, much to my surprise, her black hair wet hair sticking close to her cheeks.

“Why did you come to me, Rudolf?” She asked, sitting up on the cot and let her legs dangle below.

“To help you become a formidable villainess, my lady,” I said, removing the strands of the hair clinging to her cheeks. My bare skin scraped against her face, and her expression changed imperceptibly, her eyes moving over my lips again. She hated when people touched her, but she had become strangely accommodating.

“Don’t people hate the villainess?” she asked, uncertainty in her eyes. She was young, so I understood her conflicts, but she didn’t need that.

“They do,” I pointed out. “They hate everything different from them, so you don’t have to worry about being different, my lady. Be yourself, give in to your desires, until the world bows before you. You don’t need acceptance since fear would give you that.”

“They hate you too?” Her hands almost touched my cheeks, but she pulled them back.

“Yes, my lady,” I said. “They hate me with strange passion as if my head is their spoil.”

“But you’re beautiful on the inside,” she said, now reaching for my cheeks.

“I am anything but that, my lady,” I laughed.

I am grotesque, maimed, cursed, but not beautiful.