I must control my facial expressions, all I did was go on a patrol of the area, nothing else. I absolutely did not find a potential source of income that would not rely solely on me. Then again, I am used to the modern mining methods and though I am familiar with artisanal mining it is not my specialty. Even worst, the refining processes I am knowledgeable of can only be done in modern refineries with still inexistent chemicals and furnaces that are far too advance for this time period. The only alternative I can think of is to employ another Alchemist like myself to do the process with magic as is customary in this world, sadly hiring an alchemist, even one who is no more than a novice, costs more than what I am willing to pay. That is if I can even find one as those who are able to use magic are extremely rare so much so that our duchy only has two master mages, three if I include myself, and less than two dozen novice and intermediary mages. With that being said, the purity of any given metal is not as high as in my old world since the Alchemists hired are usually of moderate skill they cannot achieve as high a level of purity as modern technology, a master like myself could but I doubt that I would have the time to do it. I still intend to keep this world in the Middle Ages as such introducing techniques that go beyond the known technological level of this world is out of the question, at the same time I do not intend to expose my miners to needless dangers such as the use of Mercury.

I will have to think of a solution for the mining related issues, but I am starting to form a plan, one that if successfully implemented could place me even above my father the duke in terms of wealth and power; I can’t wait to be 15.

After finishing my patrol, I returned to where we had stopped and started helping with the cleanup. Tristan noticed my mood but chose not to ask any questions.

“Captain we should ether stop and start our camp preparations or reach the nearest village.”

“Yes, we should stop here for the night, everyone is surely tired so we will camp in that clearing next to the river.”

After an hour spent setting up camp, doing the chores and cooking food the knights finally settled down to rest for the night. Are you asking about what I did during that time? Obviously, nothing, I am the daughter of a duke, even if I am currently traveling with the knights, I still do not intend to do chores but as compensation I used my powers to create seasonings for the food which the knights loved. Honestly, it’s more than faire, in this world the price of spices is even higher than that of gold when converted in grams.

During the night we all took shifts to guard the camp and this time I was forced to participate as knight captain Mayron knows that I only sleep around three hours every two days thus making me the one person least likely to be affected by a reduction in sleep. After the age of 8 I noticed that I could stay awake and never sleep and the worst that would happen to me is feel a bit uncomfortable with a slight headache, that is why I decided to sleep once every two days, it was more of a decision than a need. I honestly don’t mind being the lookout as I would still have spent a boring night. Nevertheless, simply standing guard is far too tedious a job as such I continued forming my plan in regard to my discovery and how I could make the most out of it.

Buying the rights to the mine is one way to develop this region but to be frank it would do me little good, money is no issue to me as I can create it in as many forms as I want. Creating a mountain made purely of gold and silver is no dream to me but the benefits will be few, ignoring the obvious problems such as inflation and the devaluation of whatever I decide to create the greater problem is the outcome of my actions as if the mined minerals simply find their way to the coffers of my enemies or to arm their armies then they would become a demerit more than anything else. Doing nothing will result in me gaining nothing so this is also out of the question. As such I am now in need to both gain the rights to the resources and at the same time keep them. Given my situation one would be forgiven for thinking that it is impossible, but I have the perfect plan to accomplish everything I desired and at the same time give my father some breathing room and the nobles a false hope. This will have to wait until I get back to the castle and frankly, I won’t be able to make use of it until I become an adult.

Having finished setting up the plan in my mind I returned my attention to guarding the camp where I started feeling the presence of someone observing us. I slowly turned my head towards the mountain in the distance. I couldn’t see anything but the feeling I have is real, there are a few ways I could make sure that a person is watching us but if I were to use aura projection or magic detection, they too would know that I have detected them. I turned my head back only to see Sir Mayron with his eyes open and looking at the same direction I was eyeing a few moments back. He shook his head indicating that I am not to act then he went back to sleep.

I mean if both of us felt it then I am sure that someone is shadowing our movements, I could go and capture them before they even notice me but since the captain said to leave them alone, I have no choice but to acquiesce.

In the morning we quickly packed up and continued to pursue the trail left behind by the bandits. “Be on your guard everyone, the tracks around here are fresh.” Sir Mayron warned us but frankly I can’t understand him, why is he letting some unknown individuals follow us. I hate to think it, but could Sir Mayron be a traitor? No, if there is a single person apart from those who serve me directly who I can implicitly trust then it would be Sir Mayron.

Then why? Why let them know where we are? I am not sure if those tracking us are the bandits in question but even if they aren’t they could still pose a threat to us. Have the other knights not sensed that we are being followed? Tristan has for sure felt them but even he is ignoring them.

After reaching a certain clearing I felt some of our pursuers abandon us at which point the knight captain started reducing our speed little by little until “Men, ready yourselves… Now!”

Everyone turned back at once and charged the remaining pursuers, I was unaware of what the knights were planning as such I was left behind, this most likely was a way for Sir Mayron to keep me away from danger and knowing what he was thinking Tristan also chose to ignore the obvious questions I had and when along with the captain’s plan. I appreciate them wanting to keep me safe, but I would at least like to be told what they were planning.

“Sir Egless take your squad and shadow those who split off.”

“Yes captain, men lets go!”

By the time I caught up with the rest of them I could see a splinter group following some tracks a bit more to the north than our original destination whilst the rest of the knights subdued the four men who followed us to this point. One of them had his hand cut off whilst the others suffered some minor injuries whereas were completely unharmed, I guess that this is an obvious conclusion since those men only had daggers and no armour. I got down from my horse and put my palm over the stomp of the now handless man and cauterized the wound, for once at least the people we captured did not try to kill themselves and instead suffered through 10 minutes of torture before they spilled just about everything they knew.

In summery they are mercenaries hired to attack the nearby villages to draw out the knights of Verlie, once they accomplished the first part of their plan, they were to lead them to the mountain pass of Galgathar where they would ambush them, if the knights did not take the bait, then they were to resume their attacks until they did. As for who hired them, the four men claim not to know, their mercenary group fell on hard times, and they were forced to take less than savoury jobs. The two riders who split off from their group went through a shortcut to tell their leader that we took the bait and to get ready for the ambush.

Honestly it looks like Sir Mayron had already guessed everything, I couldn’t help but respect him more after seeing how effective his tactics were. He is likely the greatest reason for why my family is still in power even after losing the best parts of our territory, he has served as knight captain for almost 24 years and was even knighted by my grandfather two years before his death. I am somewhat ashamed that I doubted him so easily, I mean yes, I have to be on guard at all times as one may never know of where an enemy might appear but even then, Sir Mayron is like my uncle and as previously said he serves as the foundation of our military power. If he was ever to betray my family, then he would have done it long ago. In terms of fire power, I easily surpass all the knights combined but in close distance I am no more than average, even factoring in my unnaturally fast healing, my gargantuan amount of Aura and its strength I could barely match him, but I am certain that I am incapable of defeating him, as such I too can be dealt with if Sir Mayron had truly been a traitor.

Feeling my gaze on him the captain looked back at me and gave me a knowing smile and I couldn’t help but give him one of my own. We bound the four men, left two squires to watch over them and started chasing after Sir Egless. We caught up with him in no time, but we kept our distance, it would be a miracle if more than a hundred men on horses managed to shadow the two messengers, so instead we kept our distance and followed the indicators left behind by the advance squad.

Three hours later, we left our horses behind and started climbing the mountain where we assume the ambush was supposed to take place. The path marked by the advance team indicates that they made their camp in the mountain.

“Captain, should I scout ahead?”

“No need, if there were traps then the advance team would have dealt with them and as for possible lookout well it’s not like a group of over a hundred in armour could be less conspicuous. Focus on advancing, we need to reach them before they get ready to escape and preferably before they are ready to fight.” And advance we did, at such speed that we might have been mistaken for athletes running the hundred-meter sprint, only instead of a straight track we have a rocky mountain. Sir Egless and his squad were found hiding behind some large rocks, in front of them being two lookouts. With all the noise we were making with our armour clanking we were immediately spotted but before I could shoot them down, they used what I could only describe as a pair of Cymbals. The noise reverberated throughout the mountain, without a doubt alerting the rest of the mercenaries.

‘Sorry captain but if we are to catch them then I need to take action.’

I created two daggers that I shot straight towards their behinds making their escape less likely or at the very least painful. I then sped up even faster and created somewhat solid pockets of air upon which I started running, although it might look more like flying. I can hear the captain grumbling but I ignored him but what I could not ignore was Tristian jumping from bolder to bolder trying to keep up with me; those who know him less than I do would think that he is running trying to protect me when in fact he simply used me as an excuse to do what he actually wanted to do from the start.

The powers G gave me are truly incredible but sadly there are limitations, when it comes to my power of Creation, I am my own limitation in that I need to know what I wish to create for my powers to work. The form this knowledge takes is diverse, from scientific knowledge such as the atomic makeup of a given mineral, to more simple methods such as how something tastes or feels, I can recreate them without any issue but if I have too little knowledge over my would-be creation then I would fail, and the end product will be incomplete similarly to the time I tried to create a smartphone. In addition, the more complicated or the bigger my creation the more time it would take me to actually create it and the more imperfections there would be. My power to Control the world around me is more limited not in its capability but in its application, manipulating or altering an object takes a perfect understanding of what your desired outcome will be as such the brain power needed to actually use this power is too great for it to be of much use outside of the perimeters I have already learned through repetition. Finally, Destruction is the least useful of my abilities, the problem here is the power itself as it is extremely weak, I once created a five-centimeter square cube of pure Iron, and it took me almost six minutes to destroy it in its entirety. The one area where destruction is remotely useful is when it is used on non-tangible constructs such as the air or magic effects like curses.

Seeing that their camp is just below me I decided to erect a few walls, blocking the two possible exits, and trapping the mercenaries. It’s funny how I did to them what they planned to do to us. Their mercenary groups was decently sized around sixty men all of which are obviously well trained. At this point they’ve already lost; I mean I could toast them all and none will be able to resist me, but I want to keep as many of them alive so instead I took out my unique sword and leaped into the fray. Tristian had taken the lead whilst I was sealing the exits but once I had my blade out everyone focussed on me. My blade that shined with a thousand lights drew them in and I couldn’t be happier. When I first created this diamond sword I thought that I went too far and that using it in a real battle would prove disadvantageous, I even considered hiding it and creating a sword made of some metal alloy instead or at least coating the outside of the sword in Steel or Titanium to hide its brilliance but now that I can see the effect it has on my opponents I am glad that I chose not to do so. I am not the best swords-women but with all my many gifts I can take on a mercenary company like it was the easiest thing in the world. Tristian and I swept through them like a hurricane, one after the other they all fell to our swords, surprisingly there was a young novice elemental mage who tried to use fire against us, but I brushed it off by destroying it and Tristian finished her off by knocking her out; mages are rare enough that killing one, even if they are your enemy, is considered a waist. It’s a shame that she wasn’t an alchemist for if she was, I would have taken her as a student and made her work in my future mining operations. After we had taken down about twenty of them including their mage, they decided to surrender. The one I assumed to be their leader came forwards, dropped to his knees, and bowed his head in a symbolic gesture that shows his complete surrender.

“Let us live I beg of you; we surrender all I ask is that you spare us, please.”

This made things much easier, “Who hired you to attack Verlie.” I guess I should start with that but to be honest it’s obvious who did.

“I don’t know, two men approached us and offered us a bag of silver. I didn’t want to take the job, but I had no choice, we ran out of money and jobs are getting harder to find. The war in the north is over so we had no choice but to move and during the trip we spent all we had. I tried to find out who they were, but I couldn’t let this opportunity get away from us. We are mercenaries, no lord would ever hire us unless there was a war and the continent has been calm for the past few years, many of those in our group chose to retire but that’s because they had other skills, we don’t, all we know is how to fight. The blacksmiths, the healer and everyone else who could find a job some ware else did, we are all that’s left.”

The leader told us about the situation of their group and about the reason behind their actions but frankly I could not care less as I was now thinking of what I should do with them. It is true that they pillaged many villages, but we never got a report of anyone being killed so I suspect that they truly were forced to accept the offer those two men gave them, for their own survival. At first, we did not intend to take prisoners but since we already did it would be too cruel to continue with the plan and kill them, not to mention that one is a mage as such she could be useful. In cases where bandits were captured, they would be used as slaves or if there is no need for them then they would be sold for a profit. Both are rational actions as simply executing them would serve almost no purpose other than vindication and the instillment of terror on future acts of banditry, but it is likely that this was all staged by Aren as such killing them would truly be a waist.

I could hear the clanking of armour coming from behind one of the boulders I created before it was shattered to pieces. The first thing to come out of the captain’s mouth was “One week of Aura projection” the moment I heard that I felt that the weight of the world had been put on my shoulders, I even thought of getting on my knees and begging him to reconsider but the look on the captain’s face made me hold my tongue and simply nod. I honestly thought that it was an empty threat, to think that I, the daughter of a duke, would be made to inflict torture upon myself by a loyal vassal of all people. I could hear Tristian giggling next to me but he too stiffened after hearing his own punishment “And you funny boy, one month of chores, let’s add to add to that seven additional night shifts.” At this point I don’t know which one of us has it worst.

“Captain that’s no fair, I went ahead to protect the lady”

“What do you take me for? An Idiot?” Well, I guess I am not the only one who knows Tristian’s true personality.