Alice raised her head from the book, taking a deep breath to calm herself. She had spent a lot of time lately browsing through the Blackburg library and searching through various books discussing Northern noble houses and politics. The one she was currently reading was no longer a general knowledge thing, but a very detailed report on the activities of the house Bearhide during the last two decades. That was naturally not something readily available to the public, however, in the Blackburg library there seemed to be multiple such documents from different authors for each of the noble houses.

Her face turned slightly red when she remembered the embarrassment caused by attempting to get her hands on these more guarded documents. She had been originally reading books from the first out of the 5 sections of the library, assuming that as a newcomer that was all she could obtain. However, when she had confronted Irwyn on how to obtain a higher clearance he had informed her with a rather confused expression that she already could access up to 4th level. From what she had heard the 5th section required a direct bloodline of the current duke, so accessing the 4th was already quite a big deal. She almost wanted to scold her master for having so much trust in someone like her, but deep down she understood that she really needed someone to trust her at least this much for a long time.

"Are you alright?" a soft voice sounded from beside her. While Alice herself had turned 16 and apparently became a 'beauty worthy of envy', Elizabeth had also grown up to become a 12 years old girl. And Alice had to admit that the girl's talent was terrifying. Every source material Alice had read told her that her own pace for advancement under Irwyn's guidance surpassed the greatest recorded geniuses by a landslide, yet Elizabeth was tangibly catching up to her every single day, despite their significant age gap.

"Yes, I just spaced out," pushing out those negative thoughts out she smiled at Elizabeth. Despite everything she grew quite attached to the girl over the last 4 years, perhaps like to a little sister which she never had. It was only natural, after all the two girls were extremely out of place in the Blackburg manor: Most of the servants working for the Blackburg family were trained since they could speak to be absolutely loyal and obedient, and the vast majority of them belonged to entire bloodlines of Blackburg servants reaching dozens of generations back. Although they never were outright hostile, Alice still failed in building a close relationship with any of them. Well, it was quite possible that she was just far worse at making friends than she liked to believe.

With a sigh, Alice closed the book. She was now too distracted to continue reading something as boring as a dry day by day report, "What are you reading anyway?" Alice asked Elizabeth.

"Nothing much, I just wanted to try my hand on some enchanting," she smiled shyly. Shyness was rather rare for Elizabeth lately, so Alice naturally grew curious.

"You could have asked Irwyn," Alice said doubtfully, "I am pretty sure he could teach you personally," it was only natural to say something like that; Irwyn seemed almost omniscient at times, perfectly aware of details about abilities he himself did not possess. Alice mostly became aware of that when he very accurately pointed out a deep-rooted but subtle mistake in her magecraft that she was herself aware of, and easily offered multiple plausible solutions Alice never would've thought of. When she started to look for things like these she quickly realised that Irwyn understood concepts few experts in their respective fields could even fantom. She was still mustering the courage to ask him how that was even possible but the fear of possibly damaging the relationship that she was getting extreme benefits from stopped her every time.

"The thing is…" Elizabeth went red in the face and paused for a few seconds, "It will be Irwyn's birthday soon. I wanted to surprise him."

"I see," Alice chuckled. Elizabeth became rather confident when compared to how she was 4 years ago, however, whenever it came to Irwyn her attitude changed dramatically, "In that case you will need something to practice on, right? How about we go to town and perhaps eat lunch together?" Alice needed something to clear her thoughts anyway. She was spending way too much time in the library recently, and it started to get on her head.

"Alright," Elizabeth smiled and agreed right away.

They exchanged the black dress for a plain one this time around and accompanied the next Blackburg carriage travelling to town. Their clothes would not stand out in the more well off streets of the town where mostly merchants and well-off townsfolk with their families resided, and it would be a welcome change of pace to Alice. It was often rather annoying to wear only the same monotone black dresses to Alice, so she was overjoyed when she found out they were actually allowed to wear whatever they wanted if they headed out on their own business.

It did not take long for them to arrive at the Black city. Alice and Elizabeth gave their goodbye to the silent deadpan maids they travelled with and were on their own way. Since the sun was already high up they first went to get lunch, the inn’s staff greeted them by name the moment they arrived since especially Alice could be considered to be a major customer. The food served to the Blackburg maids was definitely not bad, in fact, it was better than most food Alice ever ate after fleeing from the catastrophe at her home, however, it was still mass-produced to feed all of the numerous Blackburg maids, and there is only so much the cooks could do with a philosophy of quantity over quality. Overall Alice would eat at the manor whenever she was busy and would eat out if she decided it was finally time to relax, and Elizabeth seemed to follow along most of the time. After the food they began to scour some of the shops, at first they went to some general stores where they didn’t buy anything, just because Alice felt like looking around until they finally arrived at a shop with magical goods.

The moment they opened the door Alice could feel the countless mutually conflicting sources of mana. It was like taking in an entire plethora of smells at once or trying to listen to a hundred different voices, and Alice was quite baffled by this sensation. It was in fact their first time visiting this store since all things required for magic were usually provided from the Blackburg stocks, and Alice could only stand still to try and take that all in. After a while, she regained her composure and noticed that Elizabeth was not much better off than her. It took them a few more moments to actually enter the store.

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“Welcome to my humble establishment, young ladies,” the clerk chuckled. He was an elderly man with wrinkles all over his visage, yet a pleasant smile. Unfortunately, the countless sources of mana made it impossible to accurately guess whether the man was a mage. Although Irwyn probably could do it, Alice thought.

“Hello,” Elizabeth smiled back with confidence, while Alice only nodded her head in acknowledgement, already looking around the various shelves spread around the store.

“You are quite young for casters, in fact, one of the youngest I ever met,” the man said and beckoned them to come closer to the front desk.

“Why do you think we are?” Alice could not imagine anyone sensing her mana in this chaotic madness.

“Isn’t it obvious?” the clerk just chuckled again, and pointed at the entrance, “You stopped and stared in a daze the moment you entered. It doesn’t get more clear than that.”

“I see,” Alice realised that what he said made a lot of sense. Any half-decent magician would probably be dumbstruck when encountering something like this for the first time. Except for Irwyn, she added.

“Well then, what are you looking for? As you can see I don’t exactly have any other customers right now,” he said as soon as the girls arrived in front of him.

“We are looking for something that a novice enchanter could work on to improve,” Alice said.

“Impressive,” the man said after a low whistle “to dabble with enchanting in your age,” Alice decided to not correct him on who wanted to try their hand on enchanting, “You are quite lucky. I just got a resupply, had you come yesterday I would have nothing even half-decent to sell you since last week a Blackburg maid came by and bought my entire stock. Let’s see. where did I…”

It was at that moment that the door creaked, and someone else entered the store. It was a tall curved woman with blond hair and soft visage.

“Oh, Daisy, it’s been such a long time!” the cleric seemed absolutely overjoyed to see the woman as he instantly recognised her.

“Sorry, I am in a bit of a hurry. We can catch up later, I just came to drop this off,” she quickly approached the desk, and placed a sack that Alice didn’t notice until this point on in front of the cleric.

“You really need to sell me your recipe sometime,” the cleric looked through the bundles of fragrant herbs, “the potions I make from these are 10% more effective, and 5% less toxic than my best concoctions,” he then took out a pouch, put in a couple coins, and handed it to the woman.

“It’s not about the recipe,” the woman just chuckled, apparently not the first time she gave him that answer, “I will be on my way, have a good day.” and like that she left. It was very sudden, so Alice did not really get much time to react while this went down.

“Alright, sorry for the disturbance,” the cleric apologised when he finally realised there were still customers right in front of him, and stacked the bundles of herbs beneath the desk, “Where did we left off?”

The man was quite resourceful, and it did not take the girls long to get what they wanted. It was pretty expensive, but their stipends as personal maids of Irwyn von Blackburg were nothing to scoff at either. When they were finished shopping they headed back towards the gates, intending to hitchhike with the first Blackbrug carriage going back to the mansion.

They were quite lucky in a sense since they immediately spotted a leaving carriage, however, there seemed to be some disturbance. 6 maids were in an argument with someone blocking the carriage. As soon as Alice and Elizabeth walked around they immediately recognised her as the woman called Daisy they met in the shop not so long ago.

“I really need to speak with him!” the woman insisted stubbornly.

“Get out of the way, or we will resort to force. This is the last warning!” one of the maids seemed to be getting short-tempered.

“What is going on here?” Elizabeth exclaimed before Alice could. That attracted the attention of everyone. While the woman’s eyes widened the maids were mostly deadpan, except the two eldest standing in the back who seemed to recognise the two approaching girls.

“This peasant woman is insistent about arranging a meeting with lord Irwyn, even claiming that he owes her a favour, and she refuses to get out of the way until we agree to relay something that ridiculous,” one of the younger maids frowned.

“Isn’t it then up to lord Irwyn himself to decide whether to meet her?” Elizabeth pushed forward, and Alice decided to leave her the limelight.

“Who do you think you…” the maid tried to retort, but one of the older maids stepped forward, and smacked her over the head, stopping her mid-sentence. The other maids who were about to speak got the hint, and shut their mouths.

“If we were to report every similar incident it would be a major annoyance to lord Irwyn,” the older maid replied with a perfect poker face, “Such things unfortunately happen quite often, mostly by people who want to use a nonexistent favour to get some money from us. Since she doesn’t have any mana we naturally don’t intend to pay her any heed,” she concluded. Alice had to admit that the woman seemed to not emit any mana at all. In fact, it was as if…

“You are wrong,” Elizabeth seemed to notice the exact same thing as Alice that Irwyn warned them about multiple times, “Just try to sense her. It’s not only mana that is missing, but it feels as though she didn’t even exist like a normal person would,” in other words: The woman’s control over her own mana was so good she was able to completely erase any leaks. That was something that Alice herself definitely could not perform herself, in fact, based on what she knew it required at the very least a mage at the peak of the 3rd tier. The older maid also seemed to now realise the difference as sweat appeared on her forehead. At this point, Elizabeth had already stepped forward and stood in front of the woman.

“I will definitely personally tell lord Irwyn that you are looking for him. What is your name?” Elizabeth smiled, perhaps trying to imitate the smile that Irwyn always wore.

“Daisy Bloom,” the woman smiled back.