Noth was in disbelief. It was possible that there were things even the prophets didn’t know? The God-dess could just decide to keep the truth from them? Ah, but perhaps it made sense; Just because you knew something didn’t mean that you would want to give your mouth permission to speak it aloud. There goes Noth’s secret plan to try and ask the prophet about it later. Besides, if it was something that the world’s one and only almighty deity had forbidden being known, then perhaps he shouldn’t be risking his life prying into the topic. Maybe it’s best to just write this one off as something he’d learn about in the future and not rush things. After all, if this was all part of some great and cosmic plan from the God-dess, then he’d be sure to get a front row seat to whatever crazy thing it and his angel had in store, whether he liked it or not. There was no reason to fuss about it all ahead of time.
At least if his angel was going to get a second form then that meant she was highly likely to stick around in it, instead of going off and disappearing.
Serris looked visibly relieved when he decided to give up on his line of questioning. He couldn’t really blame her, it must have been tough doing her best to give him information without going against the God-dess’s will. The way she immediately snuggled up against him once he laid back down and pulled up the covers was kind of annoying, but he couldn’t fault her for it after the emotional rollercoaster she’d probably had to experience. He could do his best to just ignore his discomfort for the night.
Besides, he probably needed the contact as much as she did right now anyways.
~~~
Another year had passed. Noth, who was now 16, had officially received the decree of his new title, name, and ‘[Gift]’, along with his territory. He was now completely viewed by the country as Noct Keiran, the Count of Sleekka. And with such a decree, he would now be expected to move into his new lands, post haste. Of course he was bringing along the kids; They were his responsibility, and he would never leave them in some far off place where he couldn’t guarantee their safety. The surprising addition, however, was Elillith. She’d shown up on the day of Noth’s departure with her bags already nice and packed, as if it was a given that she was going. Noth had once spoken to her about if she wanted to come along with him, sure, but she’d never really given him a single reply, just a vague nod before she left to tend to the children. He hoped she hadn’t taken that simple interaction as some kind of order from her superior or something. Part of him would like to think that they’d grown close enough that she’d never assume he was using his status against her, but he knew better than to just think it was all that easy.
Noth had also tried asking the knight who'd been training him to come along, but when he'd heard where Noth's territory was he immediately snorted and turned him down, saying something about how he didn't retire just to go and fight demons. The teen was a little hurt hearing his rejection, but he supposed the old man's words made sense. It would be better to leave him here where he'd be safe and happy.
The trip to Noth’s new lands took about a day to reach, and so he, Elillith, and the children all had to stay overnight in an inn. Despite the worries of his father, Noth insisted on travelling without a single guard, citing the fact that he had a new, offensive style ‘[Gift]’. If everyone was told that he was a [Heavenly Monster Slayer], but then travelled while needing to be guarded, people might talk. Frankly, it called to question if he could even defend himself, let alone the territory he was given. Instead, Noth decided to keep this trip as a low profile family affair. In his mind he tried to imagine that they were on some kind of vacation or adventure. And maybe it would really feel like one until they all got acclimated to their new home.
For most of the ride in the motorized carriage, the children all seemed to be extremely excited. There were so many new sights, new smells, new things along the way, and they seemed to really have loved experiencing it all, especially together. However, after the first eight or so hours of travel, near when the sun had started to set, they seemed to be getting quickly worn down. Eventually they all collapsed in a pile in the back of the carriage, beside the ever unaffected Elillith. She arranged them so that they were no longer laying on top of each other, and then covered them all in a blanket. Noth had been using watching them as his own entertainment, so once they were knocked out he got a bit drowsy himself, but he pushed through it since he was their group's only source of protection. It's possible he could have asked Serris to wake him up if it seemed like something dangerous was nearby, but he didn't expect all too much from the angel lounging on top of the carriage roof, so he didn't bother.
The children all woke back up again once the carriage stopped for the night, as if the lack of motion woke them up. Or maybe it was the ambient noise of the busy main road outside of the inn. But just because they woke up didn’t mean they were truly lucid, and the groggy children didn’t truly seem to awaken until they were sitting at a table in the inn’s dining room with a piping hot plate of food being served in front of them. Seeing the previously zombie-like children all suddenly come to life and start gobbling down the food like their lives depended on it put a smile on not just Noth’s, but even Elillith’s face. Funnily enough however, less than a minute later Ren’s face turned slightly worried, Helt’s expression turned questioning, and Jean’s visage looked decidedly disappointed. Even though they were all making different faces, their eyes were all pointed to the exact same thing: Their food. Despite how excited they’d all been to try the local delicacy, it seemed it wasn’t something that agreed with their young tastebuds. Noth laughed and ordered something else for them that would be a surefire hit. Ren seemed very happy to see the food being replaced, but Jean and Helt shared uncomfortable looks over such precious food being wasted. The teen loved seeing all the different reactions the children had to things, and he hoped that even once they made it to their destination that he'd have plenty more fun experiences with this family he'd made.
Tomorrow they would finally make it to their new home.
~~~
The air seemed to change as soon as they set foot inside the territory. It was around afternoon, and the heat had suddenly skyrocketed. The ground that had previously looked like perfectly normal dirt and grass seemed to transition into loamy ash, the kind that you’d find nearby a volcano. In fact, that made a lot of sense, considering the decently sized mountain they could all make out in the distance. At first the trail they were following led them through lush vegetation and bustling wildlife, but about half of the way to the territory’s only town, Sleekka, all of the greenery seemed to start petering out. Eventually everything they could see turned into just black craggy ground, dry ash, and the occasional dead tree. The scenery seemed so barron and uninviting, and it didn’t make a lick of sense to Noth that someone would decide to live in this dead and decrepit looking section of the territory, instead of the lush and loving beginning of it. Besides, it was actually quite a threat to be living so close to an apparently active volcano; Why would anyone choose to live so close to it?
As the group grew nearer and nearer to the town, they started to see the oddest thing yet; A thicket of tall, thin, bamboo-like trees, all twisting and swirling at random points and odd angles, painted in a gnarled looking deep navy colour. They all marvelled at what these odd trees could be, and how anything like them could have possibly survived in such a barren and burnt looking landscape. In the middle of that large outcropping of strange trees they could make out the shapes of many small houses, supposedly the town of Sleeka, tucked safely away within. And on top of a large hill in the very back of the town, peeking out even higher than the far too tall trees, a mansion rested its back against the other end of the thicket.
Their carriage slowly made its way through the thin trail between the blue trees. Somehow once they entered the thicket the air seemed to cool off, if only slightly. The dilapidated town started to come more and more into view, and they could see how the bedraggled looking residents seemed to look at them with a mix of scorn and possible greed. The children almost shrunk back into the carriage as they felt the sting of the malicious gazes. Somewhere above the carriage the displeased chuckles of an angel reached Noth’s ears. The teen knew from experience just what thoughts she must have had about the townspeople.
And of course, Elillith looked unbothered, as always.
***
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The halls were cleaned. The maids were in place. The candles were lit.
Everything was perfect for their new master to arrive.
Not a single thing could go wrong, lest they lose their new lord’s favour.
God-dess only knows what would happen to them if they displeased him.
They’d been told that their new Count’s [Gift] was extraordinary, although they hadn’t been told exactly what it was. None of them knew the intricacies of noble society or the church, they didn’t know why such an amazingly blessed person had been titled a Count, nor why they’d been sent here, to the frontier. All they knew was that they needed this person desperately if they wanted to survive. It was possible that someone with such an outstanding and powerful enough [Gift] to be sent to such a dangerous territory might just have enough sway with the church to decide that he hated this place and didn’t want to be there anymore. That was their biggest fear.
And that was what the head maid Mellen was the most determined not to let happen.
Mellen had triple checked that everything was clean and in place for the arrival of their new, important lord. Their supplies were not the most posh or sophisticated, and maybe the rooms, despite their best efforts, might look a bit bare and boorish. But they used the very best that they had to give. They would just have to outshine their limitations with hard work. The head maid marched back and forth, scrutinizing the maids, making sure that they all looked prim and proper.
Sadly, one of them did not meet her expectations.
That one would have to be removed.
There was a young maid, one whose curls just didn’t seem to be resting right today, and were frizzy and flying all over her face. The old head maid snatched up the woman’s messy hair and threw her to the ground.
“Do you think we could convince our master to stay here when you show up looking like this? Why would he need such a messy woman to serve him?”
Mellen delivered a final kick to the downed maid’s stomach before motioning to some of the nearby manservants.
“Get this disrespectful thing out of here.”
As the young maid was dragged away, Mellen double-checked that not a single bit of her hair or attire looked ruffled or unkempt.
~~~
Their new master arrived. He looked young, and yet confident. That was perfect; It meant that if they could successfully ensnare him, then he could protect the town for many decades to come. The unperturbed confidence that shone in his eyes as he strode down from the carriage was barely eclipsed by the curiosity he was showing in his new home. This was also to Mellen’s liking. Perhaps he needed a bit of schooling in hiding such obvious interest, but such things would help to make the staff’s jobs much easier.
The head maid had been notified to prepare 4 more rooms for the family that the Count would be bringing along with him, but she didn’t know what to make of the woman and three children that were accompanying him. The children all looked quite young, but they were all too old and much too different to have possibly been the Count’s offspring. And who was this woman? Though their new lord may have grown into a fine looking young man, he couldn’t possibly have been outside of his teens yet. And she looked to be in her late 20s or early 30s, maybe?
…Could it possibly be that this woman was the count’s lover?
…And were those kids perhaps… hers?
All three of the children looked so different, but that could easily be explained away by them all having different fathers, even the purple one.
Had their poor inexperienced lord been hooked by some wicked woman right when he reached the age of nobility? She was slightly attractive, but she didn’t look like the kind of femme fatale that would be able to repeatedly steal men’s hearts and genes like this. Was there some other trick to her? Maybe a [Gift] that attracted men’s interests? Mellen looked the woman up and down several times, hoping that her discerning gaze could somehow pick up some extra detail that she’d missed. Of course, she didn’t let her scanning get in the way of giving a proper introduction of herself and the staff to her new master. But once all of those necessities were out of the way, the old head maid made sure to get her questions in.
“...And who might these four be, my lord?”
The Count let a little smile grace his lips as he replied to her.
“Oh yes, forgive me for forgetting to introduce them sooner. This is Elillith, Jean, Helt, and Ren. They’re like precious family to me, so do your best to treat them kindly.”
Mellen’s eyes followed along with the Count’s gestures, doing her best to diligently burn such important people’s names into her mind. Yes, knowing their names was the first step to learning more about her new lord’s ‘family’. The more she learned about them, the better that she could tell if they were truly worthy of being here.
~~~
It didn’t take the old maid long to come to a conclusion. In fact, it never took her long to know what she thought of someone in the first place. Perhaps it was one of the perks of being a [Superior Maid]. Their new lord was truly sent by the God-dess, she’d become very reassured of that fact. But Elillith and the three children? Well… Mellen had kept a keen eye upon them, and had sadly found them all quite lacking, some more so than others.
The tall girl, Jean, seemed to win the hearts of all the others, but she’d failed to fool the head maid in such a similar way. Mellen could see how flawed the girl was in actuality, and she saw nothing worth fawning so vulgarly over in her. If anything she was just a young pretty tramp who was desperately trying to find some kind of purpose to serve. How could someone still not know what they were trying to do with their lives by the age of 9? She’d had 2 whole years to decide by now, how indecisive must the girl be? Pathetic. Mellen didn’t like the thought of Jean sticking around her new master only because she’d managed to be ‘pretty’. No matter how young the girl might have been, it still sounded positively indecent.
Helt, the purple one, was supposedly the descendant of a people called the ‘Krysthids’? He might have been a bit of a novelty around these parts, and perhaps the young lord was keeping him as some sort of interesting trophy, but functionally the child seemed useless to Mellen. All he did was toddle along after the Count all day, and on the few occasions that the young lord left Helt alone at the residence, he seemed to curl into himself and give off a sort of overall pained look. How useless could someone be, seemingly without a function if their master so much as stepped outside. Yes, the only purpose such an inept thing could serve as was a trophy, just like Jean. And what would people say if they learned that their territory’s master was keeping a unique little boy as some sort of pet? No, this certainly wouldn’t do.
The last child wasn’t really even worth mentioning. As soon as she heard what Ren’s [Gift] was, she immediately erased the girl from her sight. It might as well have been that Ren had never even existed, in Mellen’s eyes. How kind and caring must their master be to let something as filthy as her exist in his presence? Or perhaps she was a piece of a collection, just as the other two were? Either way, so long as the Count listed her amongst his family members, there was no way that they could possibly do anything to her directly.
No, Mellen couldn’t do anything at all to the children directly, but that didn’t mean that she was without her ways to torment them. If she could convince these unhelpful freeloaders to leave willingly, then no one could ever find fault in it, not even her new master. And even more importantly there was one eyesore that she could in fact easily deal with directly. The young lord may have been fooled by the cunning and cool woman, but Mellen hadn’t bought for a second that she wasn’t trying to prey on him. Perhaps her master had listed off the woman ‘Elillith’ as also being a part of his family, but at the end of the day it seemed that her true job was just to be a nanny to the children he’d brought along. And if the woman was performing a job for their Count, then that meant that Mellen would have a certain amount of power over Elillith, considering how a head maid certainly outranked a mere nanny.
Yes, no matter what it took, Mellen would remove these silly tumours that were latching on to their town’s only hope.