*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*

 

A constant tapping perforated the lecture hall and the finely carved tip of a goose feather became duller and duller with each tap. Holding the poor innocent quil, Sofia stared blankly at the ceiling unconcerned at the laborious work she was adding to her evening. Her thoughts hung high above the seemingly trivial task of making a new writing quill from scratch as she stumped low, very low. Sofia's brothers would have called her a cosmopolitan serpent as for the first time in her life she schemed.  The frontier noble couldn't be called a shadowy mastermind nor did she rival her conniving civilian noble piers but for a person who had just begun to wet her toes in this new mindset, she did a commendable job with hatching her first-ever scheme. Unfortunately in life a commendable job was often not enough.

 

Given that only she and the Academy knew the real identity of the hooded girl it gave her a head start in trying to curry favours with the northern scion. She wasn't particularly happy about sharing this knowledge with the Oriri mages who had already moved in and were already attempting to influence the Blackworm but unless they caused the noble to break her ties with her House, Sofia didn't need to compete with them.

 

It was a given that the identity of the rather strange mage would be revealed sooner rather than later by Sofia's fellow nobles but she hoped that the time she was ahead of everyone else she could use to be the first one to gain access to the high noble. The only reason why the frontier noble hadn't stormed out of her class to maximize her advantage was that the hooded girl seemed to not be the sort of student who left her classes prematurely. 

 

"Junker?" A familiar voice pulled the woman out of her thoughts. 

 

"What?" Sofia asked in a hushed voice before the other noble pointed at the table in front of her, causing the tapping to finally cease. "Oh, no." 

 

The detailed enchanting sketch she had made resembled a pincushion with the busted tip of her quill having punctured the thin sheet of animal skin. The Arrow Catching enchantment she worked on, which would have gone on the rear side of a cuirass took her a week to copy from the example displayed in front of her in the form of a left pouldron. Given that her accidental stabbing spree had damaged the very centre of the sketch where the finest detail was, it caused the entire thing to be next to useless. She wasn't going to be able to make the enchantment in the first place as she lacked both the correct medium and amount of mana needed to create this enchantment at full efficiency level but the study of enchanting revolved around the ability to recall hundreds of complicated designs. In the week she had worked on this enchantment she had pretty much remembered each part of the complicated mosaic comprising the enchantment but unfortunately for the Junker, her lecturer wanted to examine the progress each of them made.

 

With a heavy sigh, Sofia set her quill aside. Her mind raced with excuses but she was no civilian noble, leaving her with stories she herself wouldn't believe.

 

After some time, the Oriri teacher stopped talking and ordered his students both native and foreign to assemble. Like an army, the enchanters formed a line and began to place their work on the lecturer's desk seemingly eager to hear what a half a year of study did to them. For the first time, Sofia cursed herself that she picked the quiet corner at the very back of the room leading her to be the last one in the line.

 

"What is this?" Her teacher asked as he saw Sofia's sketch. 

 

"Ehhh..."

 

"I can't accept that," He said picking up the massacred sheet. His small eyes examined the parchment before switching over to look at Sofia. "I will leave someone here to close the door behind you." 

 

The man produced a clean sheet of high-quality parchment, placing it on the empty desk in front of him before walking away leaving the noble between rock and a hard place.

Even if the Geni'i were more friendly to the foreigners than the rest of Oriripol's upper society, it was rare for them to do anything beyond what they were obliged to do. Sofia didn't know why would her teacher do this, his acute eyes should have seen that the damaged sketch although unusable was up to the standard.

The golden-haired Junker stared at the open door not too far away from her watching students walk through the corridors as the recess lasting four bells started. The sound of a bell began to toll inside her head as a man wearing a collar began to collect the equipment left behind.

 

"Half a bell won't spare me." Sofia's sea-green eyes focused on the empty page on which her mind had already overlayed the complicated enchantment.

 

---

 

As expected she had finished re-drawing the entire Arrow Catching enchantment before the bell rang once again. Her eyes gave her work one last glance before she placed it on the stack of papers belonging to her peers, satisfied with herself.

 

"Goodbye." She said leaving the Enchanting Hall. Expectedly the person she spared her farewell didn't say anything as he followed her with an expressionless stare before closing the door behind her.

 

Sofia hurriedly made her way through the now sparsely populated corridors toward her room where her scheme could mature and hatch.

 

 

 

"Welcome back, my Lady." Annette stopped whatever she was doing and turned her body to face the door. Only Sofia opened the room's door in such a forceful fashion, used to the much clunkier hinges of her home.

 

"I need you to do something for me." The wheat-coloured hair danced in the draft before settling on her shoulders as the noble closed the door behind herself. 

 

"What is it you need me to do?" Her maid dropped the honorific sensing her Lady's urgency.

 

"Did you overhear other servants talking about someone new?"

 

"I do recall other maids gossiping about a strange adventurer elf who was seen inside the servant's kitchen but I took them as empty jabberings of theirs so I didn’t pay them any mind." Sofia's maid always behaved impeccably while interacting with other people with one minor exception, for some strange reason she couldn't understand, Annette held a strange amount of animosity toward her fellow maids.

 

"Do we have anything I can give a high noble as a gift?" Sofia asked.

 

"Do you want me to go and buy something suitable?" Annette asked her voice half drowned by the sound of a bell. 

 

"Yes but before you do it hand me a letter and some ink."

 

"Are you sure about this my Lady? You only have a bell left before your classes resume, unless you and the person in question both decide to skip the afternoon classes." 

 

"What?!"

 

"This was the third bell of the break, my Lady. Didn't you realise?"

 

"For Aspects' sake, I should have ignored the lecturer." Sofia stumbled forward as she cursed. When she looked up she saw her maid wearing a small frown although she wasn't sure if her maid was mad at her for cursing or insinuating that she could have skipped a lesson. "Never mind, I will just go now." 

 

"Where are you going, my Lady?"

 

"I'm going to meander around, I need to meet someone."

 

"Are you going through the library?" Her maid asked, her eyes focusing on the outside and its windy weather.

 

"Yes." The enchanter noble said.

 

Outcasted again to the half-empty corridors, Sofia trotted forward unsure if she should run or walk.

 

Calm down, why am I getting nervous nothing has happened yet.

 

Slowing her pace, the frontier noble dawned a mask fit for battle rather than a casual stroll she was imitating. Her nervousness might not be unjustified as she was about to deal with a high noble who is a member of a noble house few people interacted with. 

 

Since the House Blackworm only came to Sofia's attention while reading her mother's book about the noble houses of Edor, Sofia imagined that Blackworm was the worst type of house to approach. The book had both a lot and a few things to say about that particular house. It was the oldest noble house in Firmusa with a long and illustrious list of achievements but when she searched for the house's traditions or their attitudes the book came with little outside of them always supporting the monarchy.

 

It might have been the case that the author didn't know much about that particular house but given the amount of detail given to other houses in the region Sofia doubted that. 

Blackworm's secrecy made her job of befriending one of their scions a hard task, akin to dealing with a merchant while not knowing what he sold. Other houses had certain preferences like the Catalian Royal House was fond of falconery, the Athedale's High Marshall House was known to like brutal honesty and so on. These rumours made dealing with these houses easier if not slightly more approachable but having no reputation outside of being considered powerful and mysterious might be the scariest combination Sofia could imagine.

 

I have to try at least to talk to her. I have Hero's blood in me for Aspect's sake... but before I can do anything, I need to find her.

 

"She is a monster, a monster..." Both alien and familiar voices entered her ear as she walked quietly passed the desk where both nobles and commoners sat, reading the collected knowledge inside the Oriri liberary.

 

Looking toward the voice Sofia spotted the copper-ranked student who accompanied the mysterious noblewoman before. He looked like he was in severe distress, staring blankly at the floor. Another student with a quill in his hand sat next to him seemingly trying to help him.

 

"Come on, she wasn't that bad. Maren seemed to take her with little issue."

 

"What are you doing here?" She approached the man who should have been with his ward.

 

"That is not your business." The other man responded, his hand travelling over his friend's shoulder, covering the contents of a page behind him.

 

"I'm looking for the noble you were touring and I will happily leave the two of you if you tell me where she is now." Sofia felt dirty as she specifically puffed her modest and average-sized chest while reaching for the nearby bookshelf.

 

"She went to her lair in the Open Wing." The guide said causing the battle-ready noble to raise an eyebrow in surprise at the ease he said those words but she sensed little that would indicate that the man was lying causing her to head toward the exit.

 

Despite its inviting name the Open Wing of the Academy was in reality a separate complex of buildings where the Platinum-ranked students lived. Sofia found it ironic that the brilliant scions from equally brilliant houses had to live with the idea that anyone who simply was willing to spend more money than them was afforded greater privileges than them.

 

When she stepped out into the world, she unfurled the latches holding her short cloak's collar down before tightly sheathing her exposed neck from the frigid wind. In all this frantic meandering from one side of the building to the other, the frontier noble had forgotten what terrible weather awaited her outside. 

 

"It's not as bad as back home." Sofia comforted herself as she took a step outside the door's threshhold instantly feeling the strong wind hitting her body. "How can a frontier noble be scared of a little bit of winnnnd." She tried to say as her teeth began to clatter from the cold.

 

Following the evergreen summer shrubs kept green by what Sofia suspected were the school's pupils with an affinity to life magic all year round, she eventually arrived under the roof of an auxiliary building.

 

From the sounds and smells coming from inside, the building was a kitchen, specifically a servant's kitchen. She as a student but also because of her noble blood was not allowed to enter areas specifically designated for the servant staff. This etiquette was universal across Edor having roots in the old aristocracy of the Empire. 

 

In her youth, Sofia remembered visiting family in the countryside closer to the capital. Although she wasn't sure if the people she visited were actually distant relatives of House Junker as her Lord Father always introduced strangers to her as uncles or aunts, the nobles seemed to live in only a tiny part of the giant house she was picturing in her mind as the majority of it was dedicated to the servants and its continuous maintenance.

 

 It was somewhat strange that Annette, her maid entered her room each day and knew basically everything about Sofia's habits while she hadn't entered Annette's room even once back home. Yet, no matter how much she thought about it she couldn't imagine a different reality where she would violate her maid's privacy.

While the heroic noble was pondering on the oddities of her life a proper woman with long black hair tied into a ponytail passed Sofia rousing her from her thoughts.

 

The scion of the House Junker found it odd that another noble who was neither dressed like a high noble nor behaved like a servant was also heading toward the large rectangular-ish building. From her looks the woman was most likely a member of a noble house with rather a militaristic tradition. Her steps hinted at many bells worth of dance lessons, something a daughter of a wealthy merchant might partake in but not as much. 

 

If she had to describe military houses it would be by comparing them to the other two types. Given two tokens, Sofia would put both tokens in the military, practical slot when talking about frontier nobles like her Lord Father. They had to tame the dangerous wilderness with limited resources while also fulfilling their duties to act as the first line of defence against demi-humans and other man-eaters. On the other side, she would have given both tokens into politics, etiquette and wasting of resources to civilian nobles who with their immense wealth could help rebuild humanity's old glory but they rarely did anything. Lastly military nobles were like bridges with a token in each category between the heroic and honourable frontier nobles and those pesky civilian nobles and their greedy ambitions.

 

Sofia's face developed a deep frown as she remembered stories her brothers told her from time to time causing the boyish-looking noble to momentarily return to her frontier ways before snapping herself out of it and quickening her pace. The sound of metal armour moving came from under the dark-haired woman's cloak confirming Sofia's assumptions.

 

That's good, a military noble shouldn't have discovered that there is a Blackworm inside. She is probably here to pick up her training partner.

 

The tall woman opened the main door to the large building resembling a summer residence of Athedale's king. The two split ways as Sofia turned right and the woman turned left with a confident stride, striking envy inside the military-minded frontierswoman's heart.

 

Sofia meandered through the halls lined with an expensive-looking carpet which would have cost more than the barony her family ruled over if sold in the Pass. She didn't knock at any of the doors on the first floor, she was secretly hoping she would stumble onto a servant preferably the stern elf accompanying the Blackworm to the Academy. 

 

Unfortunately for the golden-haired noble, her luck had run dry as the only thing travelling through the corridors with her was the sound of her boots hitting the stone at the end of each long segment of carpet.

At the end of her patrol, she ended up at the same place as she entered with an unassuming staircase leading to the next floor.

 

"Excuse me what are you talking about?" An unfamiliar voice reached Sofia's ears before she had climbed the stairs. 

 

"I need to talk to Lady Blackworm." Another feminine voice said. "I heard you had arrived at the Academy very recently." The voice said to another person.

 

Excuse me?

 

Upon reaching the end, Sofia's sea-green eyes saw a scene fit for a novel rather than reality. A noblewoman with black hair tied into a ponytail stood in front of two women, the cloak she wore slid from her shoulders and fell onto the floor with a quiet whisper revealing the fact that she was wearing armour which had been polished so much Sofia could see her own shocked expression in the warped reflection. One of the women was a copper-ranked student who had large black bags under her eyes while the other one was a certain hooded mage who was central to Sofia's virgin schemes.

 

"Lady Blackworm I wish to become your loyal retainer," The sound of metal filled the hall as the woman took to one knee, her armoured gauntlet resting on her heart while ready to receive the oath of loyalty. "Will you accept me as your loyal serva-!?"

 

Sofia's body shrunk into a ball as she felt a thunderous force almost sweep her off her feet. The armoured noble had been flung through the air, disappearing almost instantly from Sofia's sigh behind a corner. 

 

"Ahh!" The copper student dropped to her knees, her arms pressed against her ears, either agonising over her ears or in fear of being next to experience sudden and violent flight.

 

Aminds shattered glass the high noble stood still with her hand in front of her, the magic symbols around her wrist disappearing in a matter of moments. Bizarrely, when Sofia's eyes inadvertently focused on the unstably violent mage in the centre of the chaos whose hood had slipped off she didn't see what she expected. Instead of a gleeful brat or something similar the high noble resembled a scared fawn she saw while hunting with one of her brothers.

 

The ghostly white girl looked around herself, her face sculpted into a cold mask yet the two colourful beads of colour searched the area around her for safety.

 

*Creak*

 

The wooden step let out a terribly loud noise as Sofia's body stupidly took a step forward. In an instant the girl's palm glew with magical light aimed right at her. Her instincts took over and like a beast tamer approaching a panicking animal, Sofia slowly began to approach the girl holding her breath as an unknown spell was aimed at her. The golden and blue eyes watched carefully the noble's every move seemingly ready to unleash an even greater punishment than she did to the knight.

 

The white light inside the Blackworm's palm began to dim quickly as the girl dropped her hand, the entire scene must have taken less than a moment as the copper student's lament stayed at the same note as Sofia remembered it starting. She watched as the aversion inside the girl's eyes turned to cautious curiosity as she bobbed her head up and down like an owl, wearing an unchanging stone mask while observing the stupidly daring noble.

Bizarrely the girl's hand traveled to her neck touching it, causing Sofia to see that under her cloak the mage wore a strange seemingly priestly black robe.

 

"I want Iris." The mage's monotone voice showed a little hint of urgent desperation. Without warning the girl who was only a little bit shorter than her rested her head against Sofia's chest.

 

Cryomancer?

 

Sofia instantly asked herself as she felt a sudden and painful wave of cold jank all the heat her body had. The cold she felt was so intense Sofia thought for a second she had been stripped naked and thrown outside but the sound of broken glass under her shoes suggested otherwise.

 

"Where is this Iris?" The frontier noble asked the strange northern girl who was leaning heavily against her, seemingly exhausted from either casting the spell or drained emotionally, she couldn't tell with how pale her skin already was.

 

Heading toward the direction pointed by the high noble the daughter of a Baron supported the still very much dazed girl who was surprisingly light. Upon walking all the way to the other side of the building, Sofia knocked on the last door.

 

"A minute!" A voice penetrated the door which seemed to act like a health potion to the porcelain white cryomancer. "Good eve- Siri?" A tall elf opened the door wearing a servant uniform which fitted her strangly well. The girl leaning on Sofia leapt forward suddenly disappearing behind a door as it shut close, leaving the noble with wheat-coloured hair alone in the corridor.. 

 

She stood there alone awkwardly thinking about what had happened and half expecting for the door to be opened once again before she remembered that the knight flung through the air and probably needed medical assistance.

 

 

---

 

 

"Ughhh! I hadn't even said anything to her. I'm a failure to House Junker." Sofia held her head inside her arms as Annette listened to her story.

 

"My Lady I think you are too hard on yourself, you have done excellently."

 

"How so!? The noble lamented into her maid's shoulder.

 

"It was not like she would accept your proposal on her first day of meeting you-"

 

"Second!"

 

"Second day of meeting you," Annette corrected herself before continuing. "Since my Lady had given Lady Blackworm a favour in helping her return and making sure the other noble didn't die I'm sure she will at least accept your invitation to talk further about helping House Junker survive the war."

 

"You think so?"

 

*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

 

Before her maid could finish a knock caused Sofia to rise to her feet out of habit. With a light pull of her tanned hand, Annette pulled her Lady back down onto the sofa. She would never let her Lady to be viewed in such a humiliating state. The maid barely greeted the unexpected visitor before she was left alone holding the door open. Turning around her Lady's head rose as she spotted a note written on soft noble paper which wasn't even sealed inside an envelope.

 

"What does it say, Annette?"

 

"It says that you are to go to Professor Potr right now."

 

"The Master of Students?" Sofia said, wiping her face clean before reaching for the letter.