CHAPTER 91.

Amber immediately summoned the Cursewelder, ready to fight the asshole that was William, however, contrary to her expectations he crossed his arms and spoke, all while he averted his gaze, looking at the door instead.

“I’m sorry.”

She blinked. “Wait, what?”

William groaned, pinching the nose of his bridge, whispering to himself. “This commoner…”

Amber raised her brow. “You know I can still hear you, right, dumbass?”

The son of the duke shook his head, and then unfolded his arms. He still had a very difficult expression, but after letting out a sigh he bowed.

“Amber, I am sorry for how I treated you that day, while I had my reasons, I understand that it was unsightly of me. I will never threaten your friends again, and I won’t threaten you either. Even if…” He bit his lip. “Even if I don’t necessarily agree with you, it doesn’t mean I should disrespect you.”

There was a silence, all while Amber processed what had just been said to her. And in all honesty, she was stunned. Why was William in her room? Why had he just set up a barrier as if he was about to kill her? Again, why was he in her room? And is he seriously apologizing?

A myriad of questions flooded her brain, but in the end, there was only one appropriate reply for everything. At least, an immediate one.

“I… accept your apology so long as you don’t do it again,” Amber said. “Next time I may actually just kill you.”

William scoffed. “I am not stupid, remember? I am a genius, I’m not doing that again⁠— that would only place my father in a difficult position.”

“Right.”

In the end, he was still the same person, but now he understood his position. However, Amber wasn’t planning on ridiculing him or anything⁠— she was better than that. So, instead, she just asked what was in her mind.

“But William, why are you in my room, and why did you set a barrier?” She asked, turning serious. “If it’s to do something⁠—”

“It’s not what you think.”

He interrupted before closing his eyes. For a moment he seemed to be mulling over his words before shaking his head.

“It was a barrier to block sound… I did not want anyone to hear this,” he said, his voice timid, then he met her gaze. “You should be honored, I’ve never apologized in my life like this before⁠—”

“Right, thanks,” she interrupted. “Why did you have to sneak in?”

He blinked before smiling to himself.

“I saw the opportunity, and admittedly I wanted to surprise you. After all, how many people sneak into your room to apologize? Zero, right? I think it’s something that goes to show how much effort I went through, especially not to wake you up at the wrong time.”

Amber paused. The only reason William had been able to do all of that was because she hadn’t been on alert at all, however she wasn’t going to explain that to him, instead she made a guess.

“William, you don’t… socialize much do you?”

“I don’t have time for that, and while I understand that breaking into a lady’s room is discourteous, I still think my intent and action supersedes that.” He clicked his tongue. “I went through great effort to enact my apology after all.”

Ok, he isn’t totally out of touch, he is just too self absorbed. She could work with that, William had logic⁠— he was a logical person shrouded by narcissism, but he was logical.

And so, a sigh left her. “Just don’t do it again or I’ll also kick your ass.”

“Right.” He seemed surprised at her reaction, but didn’t say anything more, instead moving topic. “Anyway, I insisted to come here even though my father didn’t let me, so I’ll be helping out the peasa⁠— the refugees.”

He was going to say peasants, but had corrected it. And Amber didn’t press the issue. Instead, she nodded at William.

“Thank you. That said, you should leave.” Amber put away the Cursewelder. “I don’t want you in my room any longer.”

Willaim’s brows snapped shut, and then after a moment they relaxed. “Alright, goodbye Amber.”

He was probably going to say ‘how dare you order me’ or something, but thankfully he left without trouble, teleporting away, and Amber went back to sleep⁠—

Or tried to, she was too annoyed that he had snuck into her room.

So instead, Amber went into a different room and slept there. And while at first she was oddly anxious, she eventually did fall asleep.

This time, not interrupted by an eccentric noble.

* * *

When she woke up again, it was already noon. She had dreamt she was on Earth and stressing about finishing college while having to go level up and worry about Ill’hine⁠— a weird dream, but ultimately when she woke up none of the feelings remained. Instead, she just felt great and refreshed.

She hadn’t had such a good sleep in months, and needless to say she was in a good mood over it. She headed downstairs, and then paused hearing voices in the living room. One was familiar, belonging to William’s and he sounded exasperated, the others not so much.

“I’m telling you people, Duchess Amber is not interested in listening to what you have to say.”

“Why not? We have just come here to talk,” a female voice replied.

“That is right, we are not here to employ her barbaric methods or the methods the nobles under the Starkell Dukedom used,” a man agreed.

“And yet you have come here to demand for the resources that are being used for the refugees to be lowered, even though they are minimal at best,” William grumbled.

The female voice spoke simply. “I simply believe it is best for Cytel to be more secretive about the refugees.”

Amber blinked.

Just what is going on?

* * *

Her name was Aveline Dawnriver, and she was a marchioness under a different Duke, in fact the eight or so nobles here were Marquesses and Marchionesses, and they all had gathered together to change the fate of the kingdom. While dukes had yet to act, Amber’s actions the other day had put a lot of nobles on edge. After all, there was no telling when she would snap and do something to other people. And given not every noble was above level 150, it was quite the troubling thing.

Of course, that wasn’t the entire reason they were here, but it was one of the main reasons, and Aveline had been the one chosen to lead this discussion. She always had a way with words after all, so there was no reason to why she couldn’t talk things through with Amber. Whether it was her violence or the situation with the refugees that greatly concerned the nobles.

That said, they couldn’t do anything so long as William, Duke Zizel’s son did not allow the discussion to progress.

“Lord William, you do understand that this is not a decision that concerns you.”

The son of the duke scoffed. “It does concern me, because you’d be wasting Duchess Amber’s time.”

Aveline raised her brow at that. Since when is William concerned about anyone but himself? Still, she couldn’t let the attitude of the duke’s son to derail the discussion.

“That is only for the duchess to decide, not for you.” Aveline narrowed her eyes.

William clicked his tongue. “It seems you don’t understand your position⁠—”

“Why are you people so desperate to talk with me?” a voice interrupted.

Everyone glanced at the figure leaning on the doorway nearby, she wore nothing but a plain and rather dirty shirt, shabby pants and armored boots that most definitely did not fit the lower class attire she wore. Her hair was brown, silky and beautiful, but also a plain color, and her eyes were a deep orange.

It was none other than the subject of the conversation, Amber herself.

William looked over with some surprise before he shook his head. “You should leave, they will just waste your time.”

In response, she shrugged. “I’d rather get it out of the way now.”

In response, the duke’s son scoffed, much to everyone’s surprise, there was no argument no anything⁠— though then again there had been a rumor of William getting beat up by Amber, and it was quite prominent as well.

Amber in return, sat not too far away from him on the couch and turned to everyone.

“So?” she asked casually. “What do y’all want?”

Aveline was taken aback by her casualness, but with a cough she continued. “We were hoping to talk to you about your actions the other day with the nobles under the Starkell Dukedom. And also, to possibly return the desk you stole.”

Amber raised her brow. “I thought you guys wanted to talk about the refugees?”

“That is the case, but we also hope to talk to you about your behavior,” the man next to her said.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Aveline looked over, it was none other than Marquess Nueville, he was the man that oversaw the nobles in the south, where the sea resided. He was probably the noble she was least acquainted with in this room, and yet possibly the most fearsome given he constantly dealt with pirates and nobles from other continents.

Nueville continued, “such violence is unacceptable to many of us after all.”

Amber raised her brow. “The nobles were the first ones to attack me, it was nothing more than self-defense. If anything shouldn’t you be taking it up with them?”

The marquess shook his head. “I’m told that you provoked them and disrespected them to their face. Just because they are a lower rank than you it doesn’t mean that they should be treated like that.”

Aveline nodded. “That is correct.”

And the hero of Cytel sighed. “You tell me that after they were withdrawing the taxes belonging to the Starkell family and risking their positions as dukes.”

“Just because other people are being unpleasant it doesn’t mean we should continue with that cycle,” Aveline answered simply. “It is important to be better than the other person.”

Amber tilted her head. “Uh, yeah I didn’t feel like doing that.”

Instantly the marchioness frowned. “And that is exactly why we are here to talk, with your violent tendencies there is no knowing if you will do something unsightly to another noble.”

“If there is not a reason to I won’t.” She shrugged. “I get that you are spousing the fact that violence isn’t the answer, but in all honesty I don’t care, not when my friends are getting disrespected or threatened.”

Aveline paused, taking great offense to what was said, but before she could say anything, Marquess Nueville spoke first, “And what will happen when you meet someone that you just can’t beat up?”

“I’ll talk?” Amber tilted her head. “You people are seriously making this a much bigger deal than what it needs to be.”

“We aren’t making it a big deal, it is a big deal,” the marquess said. “You can’t just bruteforce your way through everything, and you most certainly⁠—”

“Look, I don’t care, alright?” she interrupted, evidently annoyed at this point. “I know William said you people would waste my time but this is some next level thing. No, I won’t back off if someone is disrespecting me period.”

At that, Nueville frowned and stood up before her. “This is not something you can brush off⁠—”

“I can and I will.” She crossed her arms. “Now drop it.”

The marquess smirked. “Make me.”

And a sigh left the hero of Cytel. “I swear, you nobles are a pain in the ass.”

“So?” the nobleman teased. “If you talked to me about it we could resolve this, but instead you are not open to dialogue, instead you are close minded and opt to engage in barbaric ways.”

“Alright, I’ll talk about it with you. Either stop talking about this and respect my boundaries or get beat up,” she said simply.

“Or alternatively we can⁠—”

She punched. Something cracked. Something in the air blurred. And something inside the room exploded.

Aveline blinked as wood splinters flew through the air and a groan echoed. William sighed, and the other marquesses in the surroundings immediately broke out of their quietness.

“Monster!”

“Barbarian!”

“How dare you?!”

Meanwhile, Aveline was still having trouble recovering from what she had just witnessed. Amber had punched that man over so little. It was insanity. Sure she had made a warning but still… to someone like Aveline it was something absolutely barbaric. All her life she had solved her problems through words, but this… this transcended that.

And for the first time ever, she didn’t know what to do. Amber was stronger than her, she was stronger than everyone present. So what was the answer?

Everyone was on edge, and Amber rather than respond to the accusations, tilted her head instead.

“So, who else wants to get beat up?”

The nobles hesitated.

“You savage…” one muttered.

“She is insane…” another one said.

“What a crazy woman…” someone grunted.

William snorted and Aveline was rather lost seeing what had just unfolded. That was until a noble rose from their seat and pointed his staff at her. And before he could do anything, Amber pointed her finger and there was a flash of silver, before it burst⁠—

The noble screamed as a hole was perforated on his shoulder, and Aveline blinked. It was a display of magic, one that she hadn’t been able to sense, and yet it sent her into a further spiral. Amber was a warrior, and even her Legacy Branch was related to that based on sources. So, why was it that she could use magic?

“If anyone else tries to attack me again I won’t be so kind,” she warned with a frown.

Finally, Aveline decided to speak. “J-Just what is wrong with you?! We just came here to talk!”

“Correction: you came here to talk, your friend who I punched came here to be annoying, and that bleeding guy over there came to attack me.” Amber gestured at the mage that was grasping at his bleeding shoulder.

The marchioness gritted her teeth. “Yet you recurred to using violence over a little provocation, do you not realize how insane it is? I understand that the System grants us power, but to use it so… irresponsibly, on such whims, it is…”

She looked down at the ground, trailing onto a whisper.

“Wicked…”

And Amber in response raised her brow. “Is that so? I really don’t see the issue here. Because what I did was nothing more than retaliation; it’d be stupid of me to let you people walk all over me, no?”

Aveline blinked hearing that as she had a realization, though other nobles didn’t take so kindly to what she said and began to argue, but Aveline’s thoughts were elsewhere.

Trying to talk with Amber was akin to trying to talk to an apex predator. Trying to reason with her was like trying to reason with a monster. You just couldn’t… No, that wasn’t accurate either. It was more like⁠—

“What is happening here?” a sharp female voice cut through the room.

Amber paused, and practically everyone froze. And Aveline of course, was included. In fact, she had been practically the first person to see the new guest, and her eyes were trembling in shock from it.

It was Princess Aurelia.

And she had an awful frown as she stepped into the room, specially upon seeing the broken wood and the bleeding mage. Finally, she turned to Amber.

“So?”

“Well, a noble pissed me off and I told him to stop or get beaten⁠— he didn’t so I punched him. Then that noble tried to attack me so I deterred him by injuring him,” she said simply.

It was a simple explanation, but one that essentially narrated everything that had happened effectively. And it was because of that that Aveline felt hope, and even she somewhat rejoiced. Because while no one here could put Amber in her place, the princess could most certainly do it. Even if the princess had been shown to be Amber’s acquaintance this kind of behavior could not be tolerated.

The princess nodded and came over to Aveline.

This is it. She smiled. This is when she reassures me that Amber will be dealt with!

“You should stop bothering Amber,” she said simply.

Aveline blinked. “Wait, what…?”

“I said it.” Princess Aurelia crossed her arms. “I don’t care much about what you people were saying, but considering Amber isn’t an unreasonable person, this couldn’t have normally happened unless the discussion was particularly annoying and also⁠— from what I gathered you people refused to move on from it as well, so that’s just plain rude.”

“B-But we just tried to talk to her about not using violence and⁠—”

“It doesn’t matter.” The princess shook her head. “Matter of fact is: Amber was right to beat up the nobles yesterday, and she was right in doing what she has done today.”

The marchioness froze. “How is she⁠—”

“Do you want to suffer some kind of punishment from this?”

And Aveline shuddered. “N-No…”

“Good, then leave and stop bothering the hero of this kingdom.”

“Right…”

What just happened? Aveline was trembling. Since when is the princess so… biased towards Amber…?

She looked over as Aurelia began to engage in conversation with Amber, it was an unbelievable sight, and yet one that showed they were clearly friends or at least in an incredibly friendly relationship due to the lack of honorifics.

And Aveline just couldn’t understand.

Amber was important, she was the hero of Cytel, she had powerful friends, but at this point she had the entirety of Cytel in her favor. And that was something Aveline just couldn’t comprehend.

She looked at Amber.

Just how deep do your connections go?

She turned towards the other nobles, they all had terrible expressions.

What happened is unacceptable, and it is not something I can continue to let happen… violence truly isn’t the way here…

And moreover, Amber hadn’t even tried to move the topic into the other reason they had come here, she just plain refused and tried to dismiss the topic instead. It was something that Aveline couldn’t accept.

It was something that a lot of nobles couldn’t accept.

But at the same time, what could she do?

Aveline felt… helpless. Amber had too many friends, too many connections, too much of everything.

Feeling despair, Aveline stood up, gesturing at the nobles to follow. Then, she bid her farewell to the present people, and retired herself, all while feeling truly lost for the first time in her life.

* * *

Aveline Dawnriver ⁠— Amber learned her name from William ⁠— and her group left without causing too much trouble. And thankfully, as time passed, there didn’t seem to be any issues with any of that either. In that timeframe, Amber got to relax and even help out with some refugee related things such as destroy part of the forest to make housing space via a Primordial Blazing Bolt, and she also got to witness William duel Charles a multitude of times all while praising her and saying he wasn’t enough.

All in all, the days were strange but not bad. To her it seemed that she was done with all the noble squabbling that had been going on, and now she could move on. She had also spoken with Asil, and Cecile⁠, the former was going to linger around until Amber would leave for the Sacred Forest, and the latter wanted to stick around for this journey. Velda and Deer had yet to return, but it was only a matter of time.

She also took the chance to go to Val’leri’s tower to visit her friend to talk only to find her missing, and to her surprise, she had somewhat turned into an urban legend amongst the knight squads. That day had been quite amusing.

Also, due to the nobles, she had been briefly concerned about the potential problems that housing refugees from Ofril could cause, but according to everyone she spoke to it wouldn’t be a problem. So, in Amber’s opinion, life was going pretty good. She even took the chance to try to find more information about Cursed Berserker’s of the past, but unfortunately nothing about Ishtar had shown up.

It was on her third day when Amber decided to do something more active, and while she could have asked Asil or William to blast her with spells to train her resistances, instead she sought something more engaging. So, she chose to head to the adventurer’s guild and do something.

Amber entered through the double doors, wearing a different set of casual clothes yet now wearing the greaves of the new armor set. Her distinct appearance immediately drew glances.

“Is she pretending to be an adventurer?”

“Dude look at her level!”

“What do you mean— wait, what the fuck…”

Shortly after that, everyone was looking at Amber. And while it wasn't unexpected that people were wary of her, they seemed overly so. Still, she ignored that and approached the board full of requests, then upon finding nothing interesting she went to the receptionist. A young woman with glasses, who was the first to start conversation.

“You are from the capital right?” the receptionist asked her, her tone dubious.

Amber tilted her head. “Sort of? I mean, I've been here around the same time as Laria so I guess.”

The receptionist blinked. “Right… I think that's acceptable.”

She nodded at some adventurers that were looking her way and they visibly relaxed, much to Amber's confusion. But she decided to ignore that and instead turn to the matter at hand.

“I noticed the requests on the wall aren’t…” She thought for a moment for the appropriate wording. “Something that I would possibly die in, so do you have something like that, that I could take?”

The receptionist paused. “Unfortunately that is everything we have.”

Amber blinked. “Is that so?”

She turned to the wall, pausing for a moment, deliberating before approaching it and grabbing anything that was close by⁠ that would take a day at most — thankfully each request had an estimated time-frame for things ⁠— and then, she brought all of them to the receptionist.

“These are…” she hesitated. “Do you want me to pick one for you?”

Amber shook her head. “No, I want all of them.”

She raised her brow. “What do you mean?”

“I want to do all of these requests,” Amber declared, gesturing at the papers. “Every single one of them.”

The receptionist paused, and the adventurers that overheard her immediately protested in defiance against her actions.

In the end, she couldn’t take all of the quests.