The light of a certain fireball rising from below the horizon shone through the windows and landed on the closed eyelids of a warm-blooded monster sleeping peacefully inside a hive of human activity.

 

Waking from her slumber the undead elf saw the strangely tall cealing she hadn't remembered seeing in the guild house which caused her to rise from under the heavy cover. Upon laying her eyes on the room she found herself in, a smile appeared as she remembered Kia's strange ability to always end up being mistaken as a noble.

 

The sound of a boot hitting the floor caused the undead hoplite to look down. Like a proper servant, the elf frowned upon discovering that both she and Kia hadn't even taken off their boots for the night. Her lavender eyes ventured toward the large bed where she expected to find the necromancer. Iris walked around the bed with a large cocoon made out of fabric in the middle. She gingerly took hold of the covers and lifted it above her head Iris revealing the undead cat hiding inside the cocoon.

 

The deathly pale kitten began to purr with annoyance as the warm nest she had made was exposed to the cold winter air and began to claw at the air trying to pull the cover back down. Seeing the necromancer looked like she wouldn't wake up for another bell or two Iris let go of the heavy cover letting it fall onto the girl.

 

*Purrr*

 

A muffled purr came from under the thick blanket as the elf stepped away. Seeing there was nothing for her to do the elf took off her boots, setting them next to the door before taking this chance to explore the lodging they had been given. The elf turned around to satisfy her curiosity about what was behind the door in front of her on the far side of the bedroom. 

 

Silently opening the door the elf saw a small room which had been tiled with ceramic tiles creating a geometric pattern similar to the one visible on magic circles during casting. The rooms of course were set up for a high noble so it shouldn't have surprised the elf to see opulence cramped into every nook and cranny but the fact that seemingly no effort was spared even for the small thing like the rim of the bathtub having been rounded and then tiled made even Iris take a second look after comparing this with what was found outside the Academy's walls.

 

Leaving the Master's bedroom, Iris peeked into what should have been a room where a servant lived, finding a modest space with a small table and a chair with a bed at the very back. It wasn't anything special and the room was barely wider than the large window right next to the door. Stepping in the tall elf had to close the door to go further inside the room before beginning to check each of the drawers curious if the cleaners had left something for the next servant living here.

 

"Hmmm?" A note laid on the pillow attracted the undead's attention.

 

For whoever reads this.

Servants are to equip themselves in the tailor shop on Cloth Street for their work during the Lecture period.

 

"I guess even the mighty mages cannot afford to be wasteful without any benefit." The elf said folding the letter into a satchel on her belt.

 

*Knock* *Knock*

 

The elf heard someone knock on the door, looking outside it was still early as the second bell hadn't even been rung yet. She opened the door and standing on the threshold was an attractive young man wearing some sort of uniform. 

 

"Greetings, how can I help?" The undead raised an eyebrow in her mind as she kept a smile learned in her previous life.

 

"I'm here to pick up Lady Blackworm for the morning classes." The man with an Oriri accent seemed to pay little attention to the risen and rudely leaned to the side trying to take a look inside.

 

"We will be ready in a few moments." The undead half closed the door before answering.

 

"We?" The man frowned. "Servants are not allowed to accompany their Masters while they are attending lectures.

 

"Oh." Iris said, closing the door in the man's face and turning her head toward the door behind which her preciously innocent saviour slept, a jolt of jealous anxiety winding the undead to move like clockwork.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

"Lady Sofia?" The frontier noble was stirred into life by her maid shaking her shoulder.

 

"Yesh?"

 

"The first bell had rung."

 

"Hhhrrrrr, a moment longer..." Sofia groaned as she pulled the blanket above her head trying to live by the maxim of out of sight out of mind. With a sharp tug, the noble felt the soft blanket being ripped out of her hands leaving her defenseless against her maid's further attacks. "Is there something I need to do before going?" She said after standing up, already wearing her uniform which she hadn't taken off the previous day.

 

"No," The maid replied while she tugged on her Lady's skirt fixing the folds in the fabric. "Seeing that you are already dressed I saw that it would be appropriate for you to sleep that much longer."

 

Sofia could tell that her maid wasn't happy about her having collapsed from the exhaustion so she didn't say anything while Annette dotted on her, fixing the frontier noble to look like a proper member of noble society.

 

"Will you bind the loose notes I made yesterday into my notebook? I will come back during the recess to collect it." The young Junker said before quickly taking a sip of the cold tea, hurriedly quenching her thirst with the bitter drink while on her way to leave her room.

 

The clack of the bolt closing seemed thunderous in the old and majestic corridor of the Academy. Her living quarters were housed inside the main building which compared to anything else in Edor might have not been considered old only being constructed after the Empire fell but to a human like her anything not in the living memory might have been considered old.

 

It didn't take long for her to reach across the garden whose colours had been dulled severely since the first snowfall. In Oriripol gardens were viewed as prestigious and were used by many lecturers as classes. The garden she was crossing was even called the Garden of Everlasting Debate which was a grand name in her opinion, especially when everlasting meant everlasting unless it was cold outside. In her House's fief snowfall signaled the beginning of a peaceful yet harsh season. Peaceful in the sense that even half-madden demi-human tribes would think twice before venturing into the valley, the marshes between which carefully tracked paths were completely covered up by the snow. Additionally, the marshlands never froze fully, a thin layer of brittle ice forming on their surface which was in a permanent state of melting causing the marshes to overflow each winter completely severing any land route from the direction of the Wetlands.

 

Even without having to ward off raids, the valley offered her family meager agricultural produce which had to last them through the winter as hunting became dangerous in the winter with slow death being only one wrong step away. In her short life, she never experienced a rough winter but the older people in the fief often feared the winter as decades ago a horribly bad harvest across the Pass left their barony with little other than to pray and do their best. Her Lord Father who was a child back then made many changes by encouraging more people to settle inside the Hero's Valley and by localising all the corvee days the local's owed to him, to happen upon the latter part of autumn when they still could sell their produce before getting cut off. Their barony primarily financed itself by selling timber whose price went up before and during winter and the discarded equipment of their enemies, either in their original form or smelted into ingots whose price remained stable through the year.

 

While Sofia's mind began to estimate the price increases of everything the Hero's Vale exported which were bound to happen because of the war, she almost walked into the wall of a side building managing to stop herself in the last moment. Looking at the sun the noble scion hurried her legs to reach her lecture hall in time for class.