Elise was starting to think that they might have gotten in a little over their heads. She had actually been thinking that from the very start, but seeing Robert’s reaction brought it back to the forefront of her mind. The Blood Syndicate was apparently terrifying enough that even an internationally renowned merchant organization was scared to go against them. And they were trying to break in with a group of four, three of whom Elise was certain were underleveled for the task.

Maia had mentioned that Hans had a plan, but if his plan was anything along the lines of the four of them trying to infiltrate the camp on their own and carry out the rescue, she had doubts of its likelihood of success. There must have been more to it. Perhaps the organization that Hans was protected by would be getting involved. That must have been it. There was no other option.

But that raised the question of why this mysterious organization would suddenly move, just to save two people. Did they owe Otto a massive favor? No, that couldn’t have been it. What kind of favor would involve openly going against the Blood Syndicate. It was more likely that they had parallel goals. It was possible that whatever was happening, it had been in motion for a while, and Elise, Penelope, and Maia were just along for the ride.

She turned her attention back to Robert, who was just starting to speak again after a time of stunned silence.

“The Blood Syndicate?” he asked. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Maia.

“Fuck,” he said again. “Pardon my language, but fuck! I know he’s my sister’s fiance, but… Going up against the Blood Syndicate isn’t a decision I can make while my parents are away.”

“I know,” said Maia. “We weren’t expecting your support. We’re going in to rescue him regardless. I was just informing you so you would know why we weren’t involving you in our plans.”

What are our plans? Elise wondered.

“You’re going to save him from the Blood Syndicate? How?”

“We can’t tell you that unless you want to be more involved. And in that case, it won’t be us explaining it. If Lappin Trading wishes to get involved, someone else will stop by to explain the details later.”

That confirmed that there would indeed be more people involved, but it also made Elise wonder why Maia hadn’t mentioned it sooner? If it was something she could freely share with a stranger, why hadn’t she told Elise and Penelope? Did she just forget? She glanced over at Penelope to see that the knight didn’t seem particularly happy about being kept in the dark either, but she didn’t say anything.

“I see,” said Robert. “Well, as I mentioned, that’s not a decision I can make, so I suppose that’s that.”

“Don’t worry,” said Maia. “We’ll rescue him for sure.”

“I certainly hope so,” he said. “I’d love to be able to give my sister some good news when she gets back. In the meantime, as I also mentioned before, you're welcome to stay at our estate until she returns, and I’ll try to contact my father about the situation.”

Maia opened her mouth, but Robert raised his hand to stop her.

“I won’t be giving any explicit information,” he said. “We have procedures in place for these sorts of things. It will be a generic, high-priority alert, and if needed, he’ll teleport back here where we can fill him in in person with privacy wards and such.”

Maia nodded. “Alright.”

“I’ll summon one of our butlers to escort you to the estate. He’ll be here about half an hour after I call for him. While you wait, would you like some tea or snacks?”

“We already ate,” said Penelope.

“What kind of tea?” asked Maia.

“Whatever kind you want.”

“Can I get some Duke Gray?”

“Absolutely.”

The conversation turned to some small talk. Penelope was a bit awkward at first, but after a few minutes, she had opened up, and she and Robert were exchanging anecdotes about Bianca. Here, Elise finally properly learned what Penelope’s relationship with Nick and Bianca were.

According to Penelope, the three had been classmates for all their core curriculum at Jelor University. The knight program was shorter than the mage program, so while Bianca was still enrolled, Penelope and Nick graduated and were assigned to the same knight order. By that time, Nick and Bianca were already dating, but Penelope was happy to be their third wheel.

From Robert, Elise learned that Bianca was the youngest of five, while Robert was the oldest. There were two more brothers and a sister in between who weren’t in the city. One of the brothers and the sister were leading branches of Lappin Trading in other cities, while the last brother was working as an apprentice to an accomplished mage in another country called Otria.

When the butler arrived, Robert walked them all the way out the office to the street where a carriage was waiting. The carriage took them to the south side of the city, the side opposite the Jungle, where they passed through a tall gate leading into the Lappin estate.

Elise found herself surprised at how un-extraordinary it was. They had a lot of land, but the land was fairly wild and unkempt, and the mansion was big, but ordinary. It was almost like a Victorian era farmhouse, though cleaner and newer-looking than any Elise had ever seen.

The interior was similarly modest, and actually quite cozy. The floors were hardwood with rugs over the centers of the room and hallways to dampen the noise. In their brief tour of the house, they were shown the kitchen, the sitting room, the two guest bedrooms where they would be sleeping, a few bathrooms, a separate wing of the house where the servants stayed, and finally, outside under a gazebo, a teleportation pad.

The teleportation pad was the first true sign of opulence that Elise had seen. Based on how expensive the teleportation into the city had been, she could only begin to imagine how much the actual teleportation pad cost, and here, the Lappins not only had a personal one, but it was one of the larger variety, which were supposed to be able to transport up to 10 people up to 5000 miles away.

Once they had moved their things into their rooms, Penelope and Maia asked if there was anywhere on their property that they could practice their more destructive skills, and if possible, a place where they could do it in private. The butler was happy to show them to a cleared out section of grass surrounded by trees. It was a bit overgrown, and clearly hadn’t been used in a while, but he said that it was where the youngest son trained when he wasn’t at the university. There were a few stone dummies, similar to the ones that Elise had used in Dokkalfheimr, though these ones seemed to lack the self-repair functionality, based on the chips and scorch marks still left on them.

After promising that they would not be disturbed, the butler left them to their business. After a quick round about the premises where Elise kept her ears and {Mana Sense} on the alert to make sure they truly weren’t being watched, she returned to the clearing and she and Penelope glared at Maia.

“So, we’re not the only ones working on this mission,” said Penelope.

“Yeah, I forgot to mention that,” said Maia. “My bad.”

“Your bad?”

“Honestly, I figured Hans would go over it when we met with him later. I didn’t consider that we would have to give an explanation to the Lappins. Still, I should have at least mentioned it. Sorry.”

Penelope glared for a few seconds longer before sighing. “Fine. Who are they though? Who are we working with?”

“I don’t know much, and what I do know, I’m not allowed to say,” said Maia. “Hans will explain everything.”

“I don’t want to get involved with another criminal group,” said Penelope.

“They’re not a criminal group!” said Maia. “I seriously can’t say anything more, but they’re nothing like the Blood Syndicate.”

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“They’d better not be,” grumbled Penelope, before turning around and drawing her sword to start training.

Maia looked at Elise with an apologetic smile. Elise hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“I don’t really like being kept in the dark either,” she said.

Maia’s smile fell, which made Elise feel really bad, but she needed to put her foot down, so she just turned around as well, pretending she didn’t notice.

Elise started her training by practicing {Magic Missile} a couple times, using it on low output to get used to maximizing her mana efficiency, then switched over to {Vicious Bloom}, which she hadn’t gotten much chance to work with yet. She had tried it out a few times back with the drow, but it was a difficult spell to get the hang of. When cast, it created a seed, seemingly out of nothing, and Elise had about half a second to decide whether she wanted it thrown or planted. If she chose to throw it, it would be launched forward with a semi-controlled trajectory, while if she chose to plant it, it would shoot into the ground where it sat like a landmine.

When the seed bloomed, it was like a miniature chaotic explosion of plant matter. One moment, there was nothing, and within a second, there would be multiple feet of thorny, flowering vines wrapping around anything they could and burrowing their roots into everything they touched.

The spell wasn’t actually all that damaging to the environment though. While it would attempt to take root in anything it hit, it struggled with more solid objects, such as trees, or rocks, or more importantly, armor. There were a few battered pieces lying in a crate on the edge of the clearing, and when she used {Telekinesis} to toss one, the roots were not able to do any damage to it.

Elise was certain that it would do serious damage to living creatures, but she had unlocked it only after her huge hunting spree that overloaded the drow’s food stores, so she never got a chance to properly experiment with it. It already seemed like a cruel spell, and using it on targets whose bodies wouldn’t go toward keeping people fed was just too much.

Still, she was sure it would be a useful spell, and her control over it was poor, so she needed to improve with it. As with {Magic Missile}, she could alter its power by changing how much mana she put into it. The seed produced would not be visibly different, but the effects were very noticeable. At minimum output, the resulting vines were almost unnoticeable amongst the grass, which was fine with her. While they withered and died a few seconds after blooming, they never fully disappeared, and she didn’t want to litter the entire area with them.

One interesting thing that Elise noticed when practicing with efficiency was that while it was slightly easier to control the thrown trajectory of the seeds with weaker ones, no matter what she did, she could not control the actual bloom of the seed. It seemed that her spell created the seed with the chaos already within, and there was nothing she could do to control it. Whenever she tried, nothing seemed to happen.

That was fine though. The thrown trajectory was the most important thing she needed to master, and since the difference between weak and strong was so minute, her practice with weaker seeds was not only effective, but also incredibly efficient, since she only needed a little bit of mana to get it working.

When she finally ran out of mana, she did her usual absorption meditation, opening up her acupoints to allow more mana in. While she meditated, she had a sudden thought that she hadn’t gotten a Skill Quest for this particular type of mana meditation. With the circulation, she hadn’t gotten the quest until she reached her epiphany about what mana circulation was. Was it the same with the absorption? Was she doing it wrong? Or was it just that there was no Skill Quest for that?

She knew Jens didn’t really like her much, but she also didn’t think that he would have actually misled her on absorbing mana. With circulation, that wasn’t something he actually taught her, and it was her own misconception that caused her issue, but the absorption was taught directly by him. Elise guessed that the reason she wasn’t getting a Skill Quest for that was that unlike mana circulation, which was kind of like creating new organs that didn’t originally exist, her absorption method was more like stretching existing muscles, and didn’t warrant a skill.

Once she was full on mana again, she took a short break from training to watch Maia and Penelope. Mostly Penelope though. Elise couldn’t see Maia half the time, since she seemed to keep melting into the shadows and reappearing elsewhere. What Penelope was doing was much more static. Elise had noticed out of the corner of her eye that she had been practicing with her sword earlier, but now just seemed to be doing strength training.

Strength training for a knight was very different from the strength training that Elise was familiar with back on Earth. She had idly wondered in the past how people with higher Strength stats trained their bodies, since she couldn’t imagine any weights heavy enough to help them would be practical to hold, but it turned out that the answer was that they didn’t use weights.

Everything Penelope did was a body weight exercise. Some of them were similar to things Elise had seen back on Earth, but most were absurd and superhuman. For example, one of the things Elise watched Penelope do was a handstand triple flip. She started in an ordinary handstand, and then lowered her body down so that it was parallel to the ground. If she had just gone back into the handstand position after that, it would have been a normal–albeit impressive–calisthenics exercise. That is not what she did. Instead, she pushed off the ground hard, launching herself ten feet into the air and flipping three times before landing back on her hands in the exact same spot, perfectly still as though she had never moved.

Elise’s jaw dropped when she saw this. Not only was it an incredible feat of strength, the coordination and balance required to do it so cleanly was mind-boggling. She repeated the exact same action twenty times, though by the twentieth, she was much more wobbly, and when she landed in the original handstand pose, her arms were trembling.

Elise watched in awe as she did a few more equally impressive exercises before returning to her own training. With {Vicious Bloom}, there was actually a third option that she could choose after the seed’s creation, and that option was to do nothing with it. If she chose that, the seed would fall to the ground, where she could do whatever she wanted with it. She could manually throw or plant it with the same effects as the other options, or she could carry it around, or hide it in someone’s belongings, or whatever else she wanted. However, depending on how much mana she put in, it would automatically bloom after a certain amount of time, so she couldn’t hold onto it forever.

Elise didn’t like this option. It felt risky, like she was generating a live grenade, and then setting it down right in front of her face. With the standard amount of mana, she only had about thirty seconds to get rid of it before it automatically went off. By loading it up with as much as she could manage, she could extend that to about five minutes, but it was still uncomfortable. She couldn’t see many scenarios where this method would be preferable to the other two, so after getting a general feel for how the amount of mana affected the time limit, she went back to practicing the ordinary throwing option.

Despite promising they wouldn’t be disturbed, about fifteen minutes after they started, a maid had come with a barrel of water, and after three hours, around noon, the butler returned with two more maids carrying trays of sandwiches and other foods. They made no attempt to be stealthy, fortunately, so Elise was able to stop what she was doing and pretend to be napping off to the side before they arrived.

Neither Penelope nor Maia protested either time they were interrupted. Maia was actually very grateful when both the water and the food arrived, as she was not handling the heat well. Penelope was stoic as always, but by the time the food arrived, even she was sweating, whatever skill had been protecting her from the heat evidently having been overcome by her exertion.

As the day went on and the temperature reached its peak, the trio ended up opting for less active training. Maia and Penelope both chose shady trees to meditate under while practicing their mana circulation, and Elise followed suit. In the two hours she spent under the tree, she did not manage to make any significant progress toward her goal, but she was finding it much easier to pump her lower core. As Penelope had predicted, it was much smaller and weaker than her central core, but it was already significantly less stiff than it had been the day before, and despite the soreness it caused, Elise enjoyed the sensation of mana being pumped to her body. It made her feel much more energized than usual.

That night, Robert joined them for dinner, and then they returned to their rooms. Elise stayed with Penelope, and was provided with a makeshift cushion bed in the corner of the room. After the day’s exertion, neither she nor Penelope had any trouble falling asleep, and they woke at sunrise to do it all again.

They spent the next day much the same, though Elise added a bit more physical movement to her morning regimen, saving some of the more intense mana practice for when it was too hot to move around. Across the two days, she gained eight levels in {Vicious Bloom}, two in {Magic Missile}, and only one in {Mana Sense}, which she found a bit disappointing. It was her highest level skill aside from {Inspect} though, so it made sense that it was harder to level, even when used so frequently.

The day after, they trained for a short while in the morning, but they ended early to go inside and bathe. Bianca’s ship was supposed to arrive that morning, and her teleportation was scheduled to happen right at noon. Penelope didn’t want to miss it, so she went inside a full hour early, and was clean and waiting by the teleportation pad a half hour early. Elise stayed behind with Maia for a little while longer.

At first, she justified it by telling herself that she didn’t want to be stuck pretending to be an ordinary rabbit for so long, but when Maia was ready to go in as well, and Elise was still reluctant to move, she realized it was more than that. She had been dreading meeting Sophie again, worried what she might say if she found out what Elise was. She didn’t have as much dread about Bianca, since she had only known the woman for a few hours, but it was still there.

I have to go, she told herself. Even if I don’t reveal myself, I can’t keep running from confrontation. It will have to happen eventually.

It was only five minutes until noon when she and Maia arrived at the teleportation pad, and despite her constant self-reassurance, Elise was still feeling anxious. Bianca would probably want to come with them to rescue Nick, right? In that case, Elise would have to reveal herself. If she did that, Nick would definitely find out, and if he found out, Sophie would find out.

I could trick her into a secrecy contract, she thought idly.

No! she immediately responded to herself. No tricking her into a contract.

It would solve that problem though.

I’m not going to keep running away!

Elise told herself that when the time came, she would just come clean with the truth, and while she tried to resolve herself, the temptation to keep running away, and even use her fey abilities to hide the truth was still there, nagging at the back of her mind.

When noon came, her internal discomfort and lack of resolve had reached the point that she was almost relieved when the teleportation pad didn’t activate.