Chapter 6: Concerns

The next day, Elice woke up in her bed. Sitting up, she looked around. The room was completely clean, and it was completely undamaged. She didn’t see it, but thanks to the incident from the previous night, some of the rooms and walls and windows were quite damaged.

Yet, here in this room, there wasn’t a sign of damage. Everything was as clean as could be.

“I see you’ve woken up, Lady Elice.”

“Hmm?”

Elice looked across the room to see Marietta standing over another bed. The bed where her sister was laying down, her emerald eyes staring into the ceiling.

“Is it morning?!”

The last thing Elice remembered was waiting in that big room in the basement. How did I get here?

“It is.” Marietta was surprisingly calm and gloomy, proceeding to pick up Rosa and sit her in the nearby chair by the window. She decided it would be healthier for Rosa to get a good amount of sun during the day and lay comfortably during the night, so she took it upon herself to care for her princess.

“Were you safe last night?” Elice asked nervously.

“…That’s one word for it, I guess.”

“What do you mean? Did something happen?”

Marietta hesitated before turning to face Elice. “The assassins busted in through the window last night.”

Elice jumped up, startled. “Did you get hurt?!”

“…No, Miss Edna… She handled them.”

Marietta trembled as she spoke, holding her arm at the thought of last night.

“Wait, did people come in here and attack you?”

“They busted in through the window and tried to kill all of us, but… Miss Edna… I don’t even know what to say. This room was a mess.”

“A mess?”

Elice looked around, but she didn’t see a mess of any kind. No broken glass, no misplaced furniture, no blood. It looked completely untouched.

“There was glass everywhere, blood everywhere, bodies splintered and broken and shattered. Brains here and there… It was gruesome.”

“But there’s nothing here?” she asked confused.

“Miss Sierra cleaned up the room before you woke up.”

“Sierra?”

“Yeah. She was completely quiet, but everything in the room was flying around so freely, I thought I was dreaming. Even the body parts were moving.”

“Huh…”

Elice was certainly intrigued. This was likely some kind of aspect for spatial conjuring.

Still, this was no time to be lost in thought about this. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay at least, and thank you for protecting Rosa.”

“…I wish I could say I did.”

Marietta sat down on the end of the bed, balled up, and covered her face in her knees. “All I did was watch Princess Rosa, and then when Miss Edna was fighting, I cowered. I was more afraid of her than those stupid assassins. I couldn’t even respond properly at the end when the remaining assassins came for me and Princess Rosa. Miss Edna ended up killing them, and I could only tremble when I saw her covered in their blood!”

Marietta’s voice rose as she spoke until it finished off nearly as a yell. It was also shaky as tears threatened to fall from her eyes.

Elice didn’t know how to comfort her. She had never been particularly social, and the only people she ever talked to like a normal person instead of a business transaction or trying to determine their trustworthiness was her mom, dad, Rain, and Riley. She wasn’t even close enough with her brother to talk to him properly, and even though she had seen Rosa like this before, she couldn’t speak up then either.

“I’ll… I’ll get over it, but… but I don’t know what I should do. I’m not smart enough to study curses, and ever since we ran from Caera, I’ve been getting more and more scared. When I finally thought I could make myself stronger to better serve Princess Rosa, then we come under attack, and now I’m even more scared than before! How am I supposed to help Princess Rosa when I’m so useless?!”

Elice couldn’t say anything, but it was clear that Marietta truly cared for her sister, otherwise, she wouldn’t be suffering right now.

Marietta was cast out of her family for her lack of talent. This, Elice knew. Yet that was precisely why Rosa chose her to serve her after Riley left. Rosa began putting Riley’s teachings in place immediately after he disappeared, starting with rescuing this young girl from her loneliness, and she even went out of her way to teach the girl how to use Conjuring. It was precisely this reason that Marietta devoted herself to serving Rosa.

Elice walked over to Marietta and placed her hand on the confused and heartbroken girl’s shoulder. At the touch of her warm hand, Marietta looked up.

“Please. Take care of my sister for me.”

“B-But I…”

“Did Rosa pick you to serve her because you had talent back then?”

“Huh?”

“No, she didn’t. She picked you because you were ostracized and cast out for what you seemingly lacked.”

Marietta looked at her blankly, while Elice let her downcast gaze fall to her other hand.

“Over the last few years, I’ve been so distant from my siblings, thinking it would be the best way to keep them safe from political strife. It’s precisely because I did that that Rosa never had anyone to turn to to release her emotions. As her sister, I should have been there for her. I should have let her cry on my shoulder when Riley left and her heart was shattered.

“But I wasn’t there for her. Not really. A few weeks after Riley vanished, she asked for a servant. It was a sudden request, and my dad thought that she was starting to feel better, so he allowed it. But I knew what it was. It wasn’t even a few minutes later when she brought you into the castle. I saw the bags under your eyes from tears, but my dad didn’t notice. He just gave his approval.

“That was when I first started truly looking into the noble families. I could tell by your dress that you were nobility. I didn’t trust you, so I searched for your family, and what did I find? The Borveaugh family, exactly what I imagined them to be. Except for their oldest daughter.

“I learned that Marietta Borveaugh was the name of the family’s only ‘failure’ and was looked down on by the rest of noble society. As soon as I heard this, I knew that she was thinking of Riley. He wanted her to be a good person, and we both knew that if it were Riley, he would make sure you weren’t alone. It was for that reason alone that I thought I could trust you to attend to Rosa.”

Marietta’s eyes opened wide, not having expected Elice to reveal such a secret.

“You may not be like him, but you reminded her of Riley, so she cherished you like a friend. And even more than that, she could talk with you with much less reserve than normal, so she felt happy around you. And I’ve seen your own devotion to my sister. So please, don’t worry about what you can’t do. Just please, keep being there for my sister.”

Marietta froze, unable to respond properly.

Perhaps sensing that she needed some time to herself, Elice began walking to the door.

“I need to go talk to someone, so please take care of Rosa in my absence,” she said with a smile.

Marietta, whose eyes were dripping with tears, watched as Elice left the room.

~~~

Elice walked through the mansion, looking for someone else who was awake. She wanted to spend some more time with Rosa and maybe talk more with Marietta, getting to know her better. But at the moment, she couldn’t talk to her about anything. They were both still grieving, but Marietta seemed to have taken things much harder than Elice did. And with her lack of social experience, Elice couldn’t do anything.

Instead, she focused her efforts on finding one of Riley’s servants. She ended up falling asleep early last night, exhausted by her own excitement, nervousness, and recollections from earlier that day, so she wasn’t able to see what happened with all of the assassins. The servants were the ones who said they’d take care of the assassins, so if she was going to ask anyone what happened, it would be them.

Elice walked down the hallways of the mansion, but she didn’t come across a single person. Of course, with the size of this place, that was understandable. If they were scattered throughout the place, then one would be hard-pressed to come across more than one person, if even that.

Still, after having passed through many of the hallways on each individual floor, Elice was finding it rather strange. Weren’t the servants of the mansion supposed to be up earlier in the morning than usual?

Then again, they’re not usual. Plus, they’re probably exhausted.

Having reached the main staircase on the first floor, Elice looked around, but she didn’t even see anyone. But even stranger, both in here and when she was crawling the halls, she didn’t find even a speck of dirt out of place. It didn’t even look like a battle had just taken place. It was far too clean.

Still, despite this, Elice didn’t have any bad feelings. Instead, she remembered what Marietta had said. 

“Miss Sierra cleaned up the room before you woke up.”

“Sierra?”

“Yeah. She was completely quiet, but everything in the room was flying around so freely, I thought I was dreaming. Even the body parts were moving.”

Sierra, the silent girl, was responsible for the room being clean, but was she responsible for the entire mansion being completely spotless? But how? Space Conjuring?

Elice knew that Sierra had Space Conjuring, so she could do a lot. But even so, surely she couldn’t have used her power, which was said to be excessively Ether inefficient, to clean the entire house? How could that even be possible?

Elice shook her head to banish the thought. It was rather complicated for her to try and think this through, so she needed to focus on what she was doing.

Yet even in this wide space, there was nobody.

Maybe they really did exhaust themselves?

Coming to her own conclusion, Elice went back upstairs towards the library. If everyone was still sleeping, then she could simply spend her time studying up on curses like she was yesterday.

When she left off before being dragged into town, she stumbled onto the first version of curses: Ruby Curses. Apparently, they were curses cast by people on other people. It was the specialty of Curse Meisters.

Elice was intrigued by this mostly because she had already seen four different Ruby Curses within the last two weeks alone.

Riley’s curses were strong, but he had no clue as to who put it on him. At least, none that he would tell to anyone. It was likely that he had his suspicions. After all, if he’d lived all of his life cursed like this, then he had probably looked into Curse Meisters of the era, or maybe even other sorceresses like Annika.

Then of course, there was Annika. Riley cursed her with a Slave Brand. It was a common curse that even she was aware of, though she hadn’t given it much thought until recently as she never had an interest in handling criminals.

Anyways, Annika was bound to anyone in the Caera Royal Family. Rosa had decided to be responsible for her, but Elice or Elijah could also give her commands. On top of that, because he cast the spell himself, Riley also partially owned her, so he could command her too.

Then, there was Sierra. Apparently, according to Zaria, she was cursed to be silent. Since it seemed to be a sensitive subject for her and her brothers, Elice thought it better than to ask them about it.

Finally, there was her own mother, the queen of Caera. She was cursed by Annika. Apparently, it severely weakened her and would worsen over time until it killed her, and anyone other than the king would fall under a curse if they got too close to her. Riley managed to overcome it with his own curse, but it was only because his made him immune to the area of effect part of the curse.

Four different curses of various strengths and effects. Ruby Curses were certainly something to behold. Even more so, the book mentioned something about a Crimson Cleansing. Elice had heard of this before, but since she had no interest in the downfall of the Famut Kingdom before, she had never looked into it. Apparently, it was caused by a Curse Meister, but that was all she knew.

Guess I’ll have to check it out later.

Either way, she would have to look into it to determine just how far a curse’s effects could be.

That said, even though she wanted to know everything she could about every kind of curse, she wanted to read about Emerald Curses. After all, Rosa was under an Emerald Curse.

Riley had explained to her how an Emerald Curse was put on someone. Apparently, it was something to do with the body’s Ether System and how its filtering is somehow altered when under immense duress.

Elice understood that it meant that Rosa’s curse was caused by their mother’s sudden death, but at the same time, she didn’t quite understand what he meant. He’d explained so much complicated stuff that she was struggling to keep up. The only thing she truly knew for certain was that Riley’s curse couldn’t devour Rosa’s. They were incompatible.

~~~

In the library, Elice spent some time reading and taking notes on curses. She’d been in here since she woke up, so she’d spent several hours by herself making comparisons and writing down important page numbers, book names, and whatever else she saw as important.

“Hmm. It was called The Demons of Our World? Maybe I should look into Hildegard Famut. I’ve seen her name mentioned a few times in here…”

“She was the First Princess of Famut. This book was made by a Famut nobleman, so it’s only natural she’d be mentioned.”

“But even so, it seems like she’s in the center of a lot of curse related subjects.”

“She was also a knight, so she probably had to go up against them several times.”

“Maybe, but I don’t know…”

After a long belated moment, Elice’s head shot up from the notes she was taking and turned to the side in surprise.

“Wait, Mr Simon?! How long have you been there?”

“Just Simon is fine. I’ve only just arrived.”

Simon was sitting down by the table nearby, his head in his book.

“Is everyone awake now?”

“No. Sierra will probably sleep until afternoon. She spent a lot of Ether last night repairing the place and dealing with the bodies. It’ll take some time until her Ether recovers, but by the end of the day, she’ll be good.”

“That’s good to hear,” Elice sighed. “But she really did make the whole mansion spotless then?”

“Yes. There was quite a mess in the halls, and especially in some of the guest rooms.”

Elice’s suspicions were right, but it left her feeling dumbstruck. How much Ether did Sierra have, and how much did she use? And just what kind of applications did her conjuring have?

“Your brother is downstairs with Zara again.”

“Are they practicing with swords again?”

“They are. I expect his training may last a while.”

“Huh…”

That couldn’t be helped, she thought, since Elijah’s skills were only slightly above average. Training under a professional combatant would probably be quite the undertaking.

“What about everyone else?”

“Silas is out in town somewhere, Zaria is in the kitchen, and Hombell…” Simon turned his head off to the side with a nervous bead of sweat falling from his head. “She’s still playing with her toys…”

“…What do you mean by toys…?” Elice nervously asked.

“The assassins we captured last night.”

“…”

“…”

An awkward silence hung in the room.

“Umm, so what happened to the assassins anyway?” she asked, changing the subject, hopefully.

“Well, we killed most of them. Eighty-six died, and seventy-two were captured for a total of 158.”

“That many? Isn’t that a little bit excessive, especially for an assassination mission?” Elice asked dubiously. Even she knew assassinations were usually carried out by one person. Even if there were multiple people, five would be plenty to handle multiple targets if necessary, assuming they were good at what they did.

“Right. I don’t know all of the details. We’ll have to wait for Hombell to get done playing with her food so we can properly question them.”

“…Is she… interrogating them?” she asked, or rather implied.

“She did come out once last night saying that one of the people she caught wasn’t there of her own will.”

“A slave?”

“Indeed.”

Then another Cursed? she wondered.

“But if she’s a slave, then will we even be able to get answers out of her? What if one of the Slave Brand’s punishments is to die if, say, she were to be interrogated?”

It was definitely a viable argument, but Simon quickly shut it down. “Logical, but that wouldn’t matter either.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked, her head slightly tilted.

“First, if that were the case, then one of the conditions of her curse to inflict punishment would be if she got captured. That would leave no room for interrogation.”

“Maybe, but do you think whoever set it on her thought it that far through?”

“Maybe not, but at that point, we’re just grasping at straws as to what will cause the brand to trigger.”

“True…”

“Either way, Hombell and I decided not to do anything to her. Rather, I told her to leave her alone and let Master Riley deal with it. He’s rather soft on people. Plus, he’s probably the only person here who could bypass that curse.”

“He can…? Ah! Right…” Slightly ashamed at having forgotten about one of the abilities of Riley’s curses, Elice looked away.

“If he can remove the curse, then so long as Zaria is in the room, he can question her.”

He said it so nonchalantly, but after having spent some time with her, Elice found it rather confusing why Zaria would be so necessary for interrogation. She’d come off as rather moody, and to Elice, she seemed like the type to let out her frustrations by her own hand rather than by her words.

“Uh…”

“Yes, Zaria. Her blessing is useful for interrogations.”

“Blessing?”

“Yes. She hates using it, but if it’s to help Master Riley, she’ll use it all day every day if necessary.”

Hearing a certain keyword, Elice muttered, “Hates?”

“Anyways, if you want to read that book you mentioned earlier, everything we have is arranged in alphabetical order. We should have that one somewhere around here.”

“Uh, thank you,” she responded gratefully.

~~~

Meanwhile, Elijah was once again practicing with Zara. Naturally, he was already covered in scratches.

Off to the side, the Summons and Rain were watching them.

“He’s quite strong, that one,” Darius said.

“How does he produce electricity when he’s not casting any spells or enchantments?” Joy asked.

“It’s possible it has something to do with his blessing.”

“If that’s the case, I wonder if we can awaken a blessing too?”

“I would think so,” Rain said. “You said that your world had no Ether or conjurings in it, right?”

“Right.”

“That would mean that it is possible that you had one, but because there was no way for you to use Ether there, then there was no way to awaken it.”

“Then that means that we can awaken one here?” 

“Possibly.”

“Maybe later, we can ask Mister Riley to use the Appraisal Tab?” Darius suggested.

Joy thought for a moment, but then she gave her answer. “No, it’s fine. If I have one, I’d rather discover it on my own.” It was true she wanted to sate her curiosity and learn it quickly, but she felt like she would be using Riley if she were to ask.

“Same here,” Wyatt said. “I’d rather avoid asking that guy anything.”

Wyatt was still being bitter. He knew how much of a gap there was between himself and Riley, especially since he picked a fight with him. But unlike Joy, he couldn’t simply look over the fact that he was so easily defeated. Perhaps it was because he still held his pride as both a man and a fighter. Whatever the case, he just couldn’t let it go.

“…”

Blanch was even worse, having barely muttered a word since his own defeat. After last night, though, he felt it was a good idea to watch Zara and Elijah train to see how much of a difference there was between the two.

When he was summoned a year ago, Blanch began training with his daggers. His sparring partner was often Elijah who was better than the average swordsman. He’d lost many times on pure swordsmanship alone, but with his conjuring at his side and his additional speed, he managed to defeat Elijah several times himself.

This left Blanch prideful, having believed that Elijah was the strongest swordsman in the country. Certainly, other adventurers didn’t hold a candle to him, many of them not having any conjuring talent of their own.

He didn’t think about the other three Summons at all, believing them to have nearly the same strength as him since they were also “heroes” as he called them.

And that was precisely why he was frustrated now. They’d all lost pretty dramatically in the last week alone. Watching Zara play around with Elijah like this so easily made him much more annoyed.

“Oof! Looks like he’s down for the count,” Wyatt said.

Elijah was on the ground, knocked out once again.

“He’s definitely improving.”

“He never stood a chance, but it is still impressive to see that he was able to dodge him at all.”

“Ugh, I’m so glad I’m an archer instead of a swordsman. Melee looks painful…”

Darius and Rain were analyzing how Elijah did while Joy complained. Having seen enough, Blanch walked off with a bitter face.

Placing his sword on his back, Zara turned to the others. “He’ll be back up soon, but he’ll have to let Silas heal him for the day.”

“Well, you have been at it for about an hour,” Wyatt said.

“He’s got quite the amount of stamina.”

“So do you! You have to lug around that big thing everywhere you go, and you swing it around like it’s made of paper!” Joy cried.

“Well I have used it for years.”

Zara chuckled at Joy’s exasperation while Darius merely smiled.

“So, Zara right?” Wyatt asked. “Do you have any idea what your master intends to do with us?”

“Intends?”

“Yeah. I know better than to think that we’ll just get to stay at this place for as long as we want. Before long, he’ll want us out of his hair. So I want to know, what is he planning to do with us?”

Zara held his hand up to his lips and thought pensively. “I can’t imagine Master Riley kicking any of you out.”

Wyatt was dissatisfied with this answer and took a step forward. “Don’t bullshit me. This isn’t the first time I’ve been put in this kind of situation. Not long before I was summoned, I was tossed aside the moment I was given any small refuge, all because I cost extra money! This could be the same situation!”

“Wyatt, even if that happened back in our world, that doesn’t mean that will happen here,” Joy argued, holding Wyatt’s arm.

“It’s better to be skeptical than to fall for such a ruse again, true.” Zara thought to himself about Wyatt’s words. “I understand your concerns better than most, so I get where you’re coming from. But as I said, I can’t imagine Master Riley just abandoning any of you.”

“I just don’t buy it.”

“Well, I’m not against your view, so feel free to keep thinking it.”

“…I don’t get it. Why do you have so much faith that he’ll just let us stay?” At this point, Wyatt was too confused to understand what Zara was thinking.

“Me? Well, just look at the town.”

“The town?”

“Yeah. Master Riley saved a massive number of people by bringing them to his own home. They don’t have anywhere to go now, but he still wants to let them live here.”

Wyatt’s eyes widened like he hadn’t thought of that.

“If he’s willing to do that, then why would he want to kick you out? Because you’re Summons? Nobility? Royalty? If he was callous enough to do that, then Celeste, Zaria, and I wouldn’t have lived here for nearly two years. The same goes for Simon, Silas, and Sierra.”

Wyatt thought to himself about Zara’s words, but something that he said seemed to spark with Rain. “You say that as if you are all mostly nobility?”

“Well, Celeste isn’t nobility, but Zaria and I are. Or rather were. The two of us are fallen nobility. As for the Gagnon siblings, their family situation is rather special.”

“I’ve heard her name a few times? Who even is Celeste?” Joy asked. Indeed, her name has popped up several times in the days that she spent here, but not once has she seen the person in question.

“She’s another resident of the mansion.”

“Resident?”

“Yeah. She doesn’t serve Riley, but she still lives here anyway.”

Hearing this, Joy felt a twinge in her chest, and her cheeks puffed up and lightly reddened.

“Right now, I believe she went back to the Capital with Alexandria, so she may not be back for a whi-” Zara paused for a moment. “Actually, they’ll probably be back soon…”

Darius and Joy wanted to ask what he meant, but before they could, Zara continued. “Anyways, Alexandria is basically Master Riley’s Secretary. Celeste lives here freely. Aside from them, Lupus and Horus also serve Master Riley.”

“Lupus and Horus?” Rain asked.

“Yeah. See way over there, well beyond the lake?”

The others followed his finger to where it was pointed. Off in the distance, just barely noticeable along the horizon, there were trees. From this distance, they were barely even able to be made out.

“Every spring, Horus likes to go hunting. Around here, there’s not much. So he made do with the woods. They’re surprisingly vast and have plenty of creatures in it, but it’s so far off that adventurers don’t really go out into much. There’s no real reason to. That’s a big reason why there’s not an Adventurer’s Society branch in town here. And that’s why, for Horus, it’s perfect.”

“I see,” Darius spoke. “And if that’s the case, then this Mr Lupus is with him?”

“Correct. They should be back by June.”

“More people,” Wyatt muttered.

Having remembered his question, Zara looked back to Wyatt. “So did I answer your question?”

“…I still don’t expect him to be so accommodating to us…”

“Haah…” Zara sighed. “Well, believe me or don’t. You’d be better off asking Master Riley when he comes back.”

Zara looked back at Elijah before propping him up on his shoulder. “It’ll be lunchtime soon, so let’s go ahead and go back in.”

Zara walked with Elijah in tow, muttering about how he hoped Silas would wake up soon.

Wyatt stood still with his head downcast. He knew he was being too guarded against Riley, but he didn’t care. He had been through enough to know that there was no such thing as real charity. Especially in this case, having picked a fight with the man for a petty reason. There was no way that Riley wouldn’t remember that.

“Look, Wyatt. You’re being too distrusting.”

“Joy, you’re in the same boat as me. Don’t you see? What good are we to stay here? That guy is probably just waiting for the chance to kick us out! Stefan aside for being a complete jackass, what about me and you? Don’t you remember what we did before Edinburgh attacked? Wouldn’t you hold a grudge, too? Not to mention, all we are here is more money for him to spend to take care of us! It would be simpler to simply kick us out!”

“You don’t think I’ve thought about it? Believe me, it’s eating me that I did something so stupid! But even so, does he seem so petty that he’d kick us out so readily? To me, it doesn’t look that way!”

“Maybe, but this is no charity! We just happened to be there when he saved the prince and princesses! They’re one thing, being so high up in the world and practically being family to him. Same goes for that Edna chick, or hell, even Beauclair or whatever her name was! They were already acquainted! But us? We were just there on the side! What reason would he have to let us stay when there’s nothing in it for him?! We’re not friends or family! We’re strangers!”

Joy wanted to argue back, but she couldn’t. She could only bitterly choke back her words.

“You’re thinking too far into this,” Darius said.

“How so?”

“Just think about what Zara said. He and the others who serve him wouldn’t be here if he thought that way.”

“So what?! They decided to be his servants! That’s completely different!”

“No, it’s not. After what I’ve seen, he comes across as the type of man who will help anyone he sees. He said before that he was gifted with his title and this house, but he didn’t want either. With someone like that, someone who doesn’t seem to want anyone traveling with him, I would imagine that he’d want servants even less. Yet here, he still has it, and he’s helping those who have nowhere to go by giving them a place to stay, even if that place belongs to him.”

“That’s just because it was convenient, surely!”

“Haah…” Darius sighed. He was starting to become rather annoyed with Wyatt’s arguments. It may have had to do something with his own past, so it was probably just a reaction that was ingrained in him, but even so.

“If that’s the way you see it,” Rain said, “then why don’t you prepare yourself to be independent? Wouldn’t that solve all of your problems?” Then he walked off towards the mansion.

Wyatt was speechless as he was left behind, Joy and Darius leaving him behind.

…What an obvious answer.

Next Chapter will be on February 3rd, 2024.