Edwin stared at the single piece of paper on his desk.

They’re starting over. Leave them be. - H.

It was written in thin handwriting, and he couldn’t believe this. Harkin was protecting Mally Mack. That was the only explanation. Harkin was protecting Mally Mack. How the fuck did Mally even manage that? And why would they even feel the need to do so? What kind of dark history were they hiding? What kind of deal had they struck with Harkin to be able to do this, because Harkin was positively mercantile. The old man was a shrewd businessman, and willing to throw anyone under the carriage to make a point. Since when did he protect anyone?

Edwin rubbed his hand over his mouth. This was a dead end. Mally was only getting more and more suspicious. If only he could figure out their history, because he was sure it was a dark, twisted one. If he told Artesia, she would back down and stop hanging around them. It had been nearly 100 years since they last had a Saint, and they could not lose this one. Contamination had become such a problem. It was running rampant, and now people knew how to make it themselves. It would only get worse. The empire was fighting it, but it wasn’t enough. Crops were failing. Livestock were needing to be culled. If Artesia followed her heart, she would follow it away from her duties. The capital was in crisis mode. Nobles were struggling to maintain their territories. The church couldn’t keep up with all of it.

Artesia could not be distracted from her duties. She needed to heal the land. Even the north was suffering. They were surviving solely on imports, and the prices were rising higher and higher. Artesia was needed, desperately.

Irritated, he stood up and strode to the window. Harkin was being selfish. How much had Mally paid him to keep his mouth shut? How had Mally even found out he was the leader of the intelligence guild? He needed to write to his father, figure out what to do, because this was not sustainable.

Furthermore… Where did Mally get the money?

The thought had Edwin stilling as he stared out the window. Where… where was Mally getting the money for this? It cost a pretty penny just to request information from Harkin. To buy his silence… Now, that was a big request. Unless… Was Mally working for him? He protected his informants rather viciously, so that made more sense. Was Mally tied to the information guild? He frowned as he stared out the window. This was… That was the only explanation. Mally was an informant for the guild.

Well, that mystery was laid to rest. Mally was working for the information guild. Probably his spy inside of the adventurers’ guild. Martin typically kept a cautious eye on that sort of thing. He didn’t have anything to hide, but he did worry. Maybe Edwin could convince him to get rid of Mally. If Mally was out of the capital, that would be much easier to deal with the situation.

With a sigh, he turned and made his way to the door. Time to change his hair again.

….

Artesia focused, the spell winding up in her hand before she let it fly. There was a BOOM as she exploded the tree, and there was clapping from behind her.

“What wonderful magic!” her new paladin captain, Marcos, crowed. “I can’t believe you’ve already mastered divine smite!”

“Well, I am the Saint,” Artesia pointed out, and Marcos nodded several times.

“Of course you would master it so quickly,” he said, and she rotated her wrist, working out the kinks in it.

“Your Holiness, please stop exploding trees,” Lisa begged, and Artesia looked around the mess.

“Well, I need targets, and you won’t let me go to the training hall,” Artesia said, and Lisa drew herself up to her full height.

“I will request Bishop Hayes to set up a training area for you, just please stop exploding the trees in the garden,” she said, and then approached the tree with Marcos. He lifted it up and set it back on the stump, and Lisa casted a healing spell on it, binding it back together with a scar where Artesia exploded it.

With a sigh, Artesia sat down in the grass, ready and willing to take a break. It had been a long day, and she was tired. She had woken up at dawn to go train, and she was exhausted. It was time for lunch now, and she was hungry. She needed to go back up to her room, or take lunch out here. Lisa said something about a picnic, so she supposed she had that to look forward to. She was banned from the training hall where the paladins worked, on account of many of them doing it shirtless, and she was annoyed about it. She could handle a few pecs.

With another sigh, she fell back in the grass and stared up at the sky. It was bright out, with a few fluffy clouds on the horizon, and she closed her eyes to bask in the sun. It was shining down on her, and she enjoyed the sound of birds in the trees, chirping away, and the insects buzzing. She was supposed to go to tea with Greta in a few hours, and she wasn’t looking forward to it. Greta made her uncomfortable. The worship… Artesia knew she was a big deal, but she didn’t want to be that big of a deal.

“Your Holiness, that’s not appropriate,” Lisa said, and Artesia reached forward and dragged her down with her. Lisa sat down with a humph, and Artesia stretched out in the grass.

“It’s a nice day out,” she said. “We might as well enjoy it.”

Marcos sat down next to her, and the three of them stared up at the small, fluffy clouds in the sky.

“Why…” Marcos trailed off. “Why are you training so hard, Your Holiness?”

Artesia was quiet. She was rapidly becoming aware that she was now in a world where people actually died. Where people died for her, and next time, she wasn’t going to be so helpless. She was going to fight. And that meant training. She was learning all kinds of offensive spells.

Sunbeam and divine smite were the main ones she had just learned. Sunlight saber was a bit more difficult. The spell was the ability to condense sunlight into a steel form and change it at will. It was just called sunlight saber because a saber was the obvious choice, but she used it as a shield. She wanted to figure out how to turn off magic, via purifying. She was sure it was possible, but she had to study holy magic theory to do that. There was also a top level spell, disintegration, but she was wary of using that. She was very wary of using that. It completely obliterated everything in its path, and it was… Well, it was difficult to use, for one. And for two, it was a one shot one kill. She thought about Mally dropping all of those bandits, but…

She didn’t want to be like that. She didn’t want to be that changed by this world.

“I don’t want people to die for me without doing anything about it,” Artesia said quietly, and Marcos was quiet.

“We’re happy to die for you, Your Holiness,” he said gently, and Artesia pursed her lips.

“I’m not happy with it, though,” she said, just as gentle, and Marcos looked over at her, a grave expression on his face.

“Your Holiness… We don’t want you to fight alongside us,” he said. “I’m glad you know how to defend yourself now, in case we fall, but we don’t…”

“I won’t have people die for me when I can do something about it,” Artesia said flatly, and Marcos fell silent. With a sigh, Artesia stood and squinted at the sun, hands on her hips. There was an idea percolating in the back of her mind, but she would need Lisa on her side for it. And she did not have Lisa on her side. Lisa disapproved of virtually everything she did, and she was sick of it.

“I’m going back inside. I’ll take lunch in my suite,” she said to Lisa, and then she turned to walk off. Idly, she wondered what Daisy was up to these days. She hadn’t seen her at any tea parties whatsoever.

Ah, well. The plot would move as it should move, and Edwin would fall in love with her regardless. The less Artesia saw of her, the better.

….

Daisy screamed as she hacked at a goblin, and it blocked her wild, swinging strikes with its club.

“Come on, Daisy, you can do better than that,” Mally called, and Daisy hacked at the club, shearing it in half. The goblin looked down at the half of a club on the ground, and then back at Daisy, and she swung the sword wildly to take off its head with one clean blow.

“I did it!” she crowed, and Mally stretched out by the stream.

“Good job,” they drawled, and Daisy looked around.

“There should be more around here somewhere…” she said, and Mally climbed to their feet and stretched again.

“This way,” they said and turned, walking through the forest, and Daisy hurried to follow them. “You probably dulled your sword doing all of that. You’re going to have to sharpen it on the way back.”

“Okay!” Daisy agreed cheerfully as Tuna sniffed around the stream. She stopped to pee, and Daisy politely stepped around her to let her handle her business.

“Do you want to get something to eat after this?” Mally asked, and Daisy ducked under a low hanging branch.

“Can’t. I have a tea party today,” she said, and Mally eyed her.

“You’re going to be late,” they said, flat, and she shrugged.

“It’s not till four, and it’s only noon. It takes me an hour to get ready, and twenty minutes to get there, so it should be fine.”

“Who invited you?” Mally asked, and Daisy brightened up.

“Greta Arwin!” she reported. “She’s absolutely lovely. Just the epitome of class and grace. I can’t believe I got invited to her tea party!”

“Don’t let anyone bully you,” Mally said, and Daisy nodded fervently.

“I won’t!” she said. “But, Greta is the daughter of a marquis. Can you imagine me going to a tea party with the daughter of a marquis?”

“Be careful. The more high ranked they are, the more vicious they are,” Mally said and cut down a branch in the way, and Daisy paused.

There it was again. Mally talking like they knew something Daisy didn’t. They could just be hypothesizing, or they could have grown up as a servant’s child in a great house, but Daisy didn’t know. Mally never talked about themself, but there were little hints and clues, constantly. Daisy desperately wanted to ask, but she knew she wouldn’t get a straight answer. It was frustrating, but Mally was entitled to their secrets.

“I’ll be careful,” Daisy promised, and she desperately wanted to ask, but she held her tongue.

“Okay,” Mally said, and continued through. “How many more do you have to kill?”

“Just one!” Daisy reported cheerfully, and Mally nodded.

“Alright,” Mally said, and ducked under a low hanging branch. “Let’s get you your final kill and head home. We can’t have you late for tea.”

“I’ll need time to take a bath…” Daisy said, and Mally hummed.

“We can head back now…”

“No, that’s okay! It’s just one more,” Daisy said, because she needed to get this mission done. Mally was rocketing through the ranks at the speed of light, and Daisy needed to catch up with them.

“Alright, then,” Mally said and stepped over a fallen tree trunk. “How many more quests do you have to do before you reach B rank?”

“Uhm… Nine?” Daisy replied, and Mally nodded.

“You’re going to be at C rank for a while, then,” they said, and Daisy flushed.

“It’ll be fine! I’ll catch up to you in no time!” she said, and Mally paused and suddenly drew their sword, standing at the ready as Tuna pinned her ears back and let out a low growl. There was a loud thump, like a loud footstep landing on the ground, and Daisy’s eyes widened in horror at the sight of the ogre walking directly towards them.

The creature let out a roar and broke out into a run, and Daisy screamed in terror, but Mally simply stepped forward. He slowed to a halt and coughed, blood streaming out of his eyes, and blood splattered the ground as he coughed again. Mally tilted their head in interest, and he swayed and collapsed.

“Well, that was terrifying,” Mally deadpanned as Daisy clung to her sword, and she realized something very important.

Mally was way out of her league. She hadn’t really processed that until this point, but Mally was massively out of her league. Their magic was absolutely fucking terrifying. Daisy didn’t know where to even start with it. They could kill anyone, at any time, and no one could do anything about it. Mally was… a force of nature, and Daisy was just along for the ride.

Daisy needed to improve her magic, she realized. She desperately needed to improve her magic to catch up to Mally, and she had no idea where to start. She had no time on her hands between all of the adventuring and training with Ivan. It was a huge problem, and she realized she might never catch up to Mally, which was ridiculous, because she wanted to stand on equal footing with Mally. How was she going to do that?

She felt like a fire had been lit under her ass. Mally was terrifying, and she wanted to be terrifying, too. She wanted to have power in a way she would never have it as a poor count’s daughter. Marrying well would solve nothing. She had to be more than that. She wanted power on her own terms, not by this archaic way of thinking. Of course, she didn’t think lesser of those girls that gained power through their connections, but…

But.

She needed to do more than this.

And she needed to do it quickly.

When she returned home, she would improve her magic. That was the only option. She needed to improve it and make it dangerous, and she needed to figure it out before it came back to bite her in the ass. Puppeteering was fine and good, but she needed to be just as good as Mally if she was going to survive in this world. This world, she had discovered, was cutthroat and deadly. And she needed to apply herself to be better than that.

Yes. When she got home, she would play her lute until her fingers bled. That was the only option here.

She had to get better.

 

A/N: we're through the backlog now so expect updates to slow down from here on out. I tend to leapfrog between projects so one thing will get a whole lot of updates and another will sit there so it's really up to the vibes of that day. anyways, we're nearly at 10k views, so thanks in advance for that!