Chapter 3
“Greetings young lady Elizabeth, my name is Adam I am the Count of Meath.” This is the first time I meet a vassal who actually treats me with respect, all the others including the knights prefer to treat me like they would any other young girl. This isn’t the first time I’ve laid eyes on him, but he looks a bit older than the last time I’ve seen him. I should also give him a formal greeting.
“Greetings Count Adam, thank you for coming all this way.” From the etiquette I’ve learned I know that I. am allowed to call him by name directly if I include his title the reason for this is my status being greater than his along with him being a vassal of my father. Etiquette is a bit annoying since I must bow to others quite often something I would never have done in my past life but throwing a tantrum would only result in people treating me like the child I am, so I have no choice by to suck it up. Being a girl in the Middle Ages really does suck, ‘Hey G you did me dirty!’ Yes, I know that I did not specify my gender, but shouldn’t it have been a given for him to... Ugh, I give up, arguing with myself will solve nothing.
“Young lady, I have been asked by the duke to test if you are able to use magic, but it is a bit early for such a thing.” He paused then asked, “was this your wish?”
“Yes Count Adam, I wish to learn magic, for that reason I made the request to my father.”
Wow the old man is a bit scary with his hawk like eyes piercing through me, I think this is the first time I’ve seen yellow irises. Wait, is he using his aura to intimidate me? Yes, the bastered is indeed using his aura, thankfully I too am able to use it. As I grew up, I started exploring more and more of the castle and whenever I got tired I would rest up in the garden, which also serves as the training ground for the knights and their squires. I was able learn quite a bit from them although I once made them all pee their pans when I tried imbuing my brush with aura just like the knights did with their swords but instead, I accidentally projected my aura all over the castle, putting the fear of God into them. Thankfully everyone was too scared to try and look for the source. I laughed for days when I heard that many of the maids and even some of the guards fainted, let's call it a childhood mistake. Anyway, back to this guy trying to intimidate me, should I also make him pee his pans? I mean using aura on the daughter of your lord how rude is that?! I decided not to do so but instead tilted my head slowly, indicating that I don’t understand why he is standing there all silent, at the same time this will prove to him that I am unaffected by his intimidation; and it worked.
“I see, well I would very much like to know if you do indeed possess a talent in magic, if you do, I would also like to offer my services as a teacher.” He grinned when saying that last part, wait why do I have the feeling that I’ve just made the worst mistake of my life?
His smile was honestly more intimidating than his aura, I do want him to teach me, but I got the feeling that if I were to accept my life will become a living hell. Sadly, I didn’t act fast enough as my father burst out laughing and said “Of course you have to be her teacher, who else but you could teach Elly magic.” Dad, I want to kill you, couldn’t you tell that your so-called friend tried to intimidate me with his aura, that’s about as bad as hitting a naked man running in the snow with a frying pan. Well, what could I expect from him, my dad sucks at just about everything, his only gift is being a good administrator but when it concerns war, politics, the economy, magic or aura he becomes completely useless. I bet my grandfather is turning in his grave, regretting that my father was the last of his sons left alive after his death.
Well, now what should I do? I can’t let this man be my teacher, I have the feeling that he would make things needlessly hard for his simple enjoyment. “I could never ask the lord Count to dedicate so much of his time to teach a novice like myself, instead if I am indeed able to use magic please teach me the basics, the rest I can learn through books or occasional letter correspondence.” Oups, in my fear of him becoming my teacher I spoke too formally, a child my age should barely speak proper sentences without being mistaken for a drunkard. Man, the look he’s shooting me
page9image1080301360
gives me the creeps.
“Let us first proceed with the test, as for my becoming your teacher you need not worry yourself for my position, there would be no greater honour than teaching the lady of the Silvier house.” Damn he’s good, but I am so not going to give up.
We moved to the garden/training ground where Lord Adam started stripping the upper part of his body before turning and doing the same to me, wait pervert alert. I retreated and hid behind my father but for whatever reason he pushed me back towards Lord Adam saying “Don’t be scared, there are many ways one can control magic, by striping the upper portion of your body Adam will be able to test them all without us wasting the entire day going from test to test.” Easy for you to say, you aren’t the one stripping in public. Then again, I also don’t wish to spend the day taking tedious test one after another, I guess I have no choice. After striping the upper portion of my body, I approached Lord Adams who took me by the hand and enveloped my whole body with his own saying “Tell me If and when you start feeling something strange, sometimes it feels uncomfortable and other time it is relaxing, it all depends on the person.” I already feel plenty uncomfortable, just do your thing old man, I “hummed” to show that I understood and the very next moment I could feel nothing but pain, pure unadulterated pain. So much pain that I lost consciousness and regained my senses only to lose myself again for what I believe to be the whole day when in fact Lord Adam stopped everything he was doing after my first scream. I kept convulsing for a while after that horrid experience.
When I finally regained full control of myself, I was in the arms of a Knight running to the doctor ‘Don’t you know that it is bad to touch someone who is hurt, you could cripple them for life.’ Anyway, I tugged at his sleeve to show that I am no longer in any pain, but the knight did not stop, he kept running until he entered the doctor’s office. Of course, I use the term doctor very liberally here, in reality this man is what would best be known as a charlatan in my past life. He does use herbs on some injuries and illnesses, for this I have no comment as I know very little about medicine but the reason, I call him a charlatan and a quack is because I once saw him forcing a knight to bleed himself to cure an illness. Ever since then I swore never to ask him to treat me no matter my ills and woes.
The knight explained what happened to me to the doctor when the door burst open due to my slow father entering, as for Lord Adam, well he ran parallel to the knight who was carrying me. The doctor gave me a gooey substance he called medicine and asked me to drink it which I of course kept refused until my father forcefully opened my mouth and commanded me to drink. I mean this is child abuse, I am so going to tell a civil worker and you will... Oh yeh no such thing in this world, here the Lord’s word is law after all. So, I did as I was told but the next sentence out of the doctor’s mouth sent me into a panic “The young lady needs to be bleed so that the dirty blood will be replaced with a new one.” You, you are insane! Never, I tried getting up and running away but both the doctor and my father caught me. My father gave me one of his fatherly smiles, probably thinking that I am scared of blood which in this case isn’t too far from the truth, I am scared of a mad man making me bleed for no reason. Honestly, I don’t even care anymore, acting like a proper lady to gain favour with my father and the vassals, yeh screw that. I put everything I learned during the knights training and my own practice into action. I used my aura to strengthen my whole body and yanked my arms away from them, I then took out the one who I believed would be the most troublesome if asked to apprehend me, the knight. I first accelerated to try and knock him out with a hit to the neck, but the knight reacted on time and blocked my kick. Now that his guard is up I don’t think knocking him out will be much harder, thankfully he isn’t using his sword but then again I only know a little of the martial arts of my old world, I was never able to stick to one martial art for long, from Aikido and Karate to Kickboxing I when through them like a model selecting clothes for Fashion Week.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
All I cared about was escaping so I had to resolve to take drastic action, sorry Mr. Knight I hope you will still be able to have children after this, honestly I wouldn’t have done it if I was more
confident in myself or if I was more aware of my capabilities, I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me. Yes, I kicked him in the one area man cherish most. I could hear an auditory hallucination where everyone in the room uttered the same “Ooooww”, but I chose to disregard it. I then made my way to the door, not paying any attention to Lord Adams, I can beat a knight using aura and dirty tricks but a mage, Ha not even in my dreams. Mages are extremely powerful, fighting a novice mage would take a group of knights working together, but for a master I would need an army. As such I made my way out of the quack’s office trying to run and hide in the stables only to find myself floating in the air.
To think that he would catch me so easily, I now understand why mages are so rare and why they are so feared but there is one thing no one knows about me and that is that I have powers that far exceed this world’s understanding. During my castle exploration I found a number of empty rooms and chose one to start learning how to use the powers I was given. I started with creation as it is the least risky among them, both for me and my surroundings. For an entire year I tried using creation to create things and gradually learned how it worked at first, I was unable to use it as I could not understand how to use magic, then I gradually started to understand and instinctively I learned how to create things although I have to admit that this power is far too difficult to use. When I believed that I had an understanding of how magic worked I tried using creation to create my first object, something essential to all modern people, a smart phone. Yes, I am a hypocrite just like every other person to walk the earth. I know I hated my former world because of technology and yet here I am recreating it, but I reasoned that no one will know how to use it and that it would give me an advantage over anyone else in this world. Well, me telling you all of this is a waste of time just like me trying to create something on which I have no real understanding. I did manage to recreate the outside shell, but the inside was empty, in other words I cannot simply create whatever I imagined but instead I need a real understanding of my creation, from the components to the different function and in the case of this type of technology maybe even coding. This is not to say that the power to create is useless, far from it, rather with my background in mining I am able to create just about any mineral an alloy imaginable, would you mind guessing what I did after achieving this level of understanding and proficiency? Yup I created a stash of gold that I will use when I take over this house, hopefully my parents won’t have another child, especially not a boy but I will deal with that later. Returning to my confrontation with Adam I am not sure if I should use my power to create along with control to throw knifes at him or if I should create a footing for myself to run on? Then again, the chose was never mine to beginning with as the mage used some strange powder to knock me out, guess I was too late in acting.
Next thing I know I am in the doctor’s office surrounded my 3 old men having a discussion, I did not let it be known that I was now awake and did my best to find a way to escape but their discussion drew me in.
“Me Lord, I cannot get the blood to flow out of her, whenever I open a vein, it immediately closes, barely a drop of blood flows out of the incision.”
“Then do you have another way? If not, then you better find one.”
“She will stay unconscious for the rest of the day, the powder I used is quite effective so be sure to be done with everything before she wakes up.”
“Yes, seeing blood would be scary for a little girl.”
“I say that that little girl is the scary one, being able to best a knight at age 4 is something I’ve never heard of, even if he was holding back. Even scarier is how many avenues she can take when learning magic, I have to say, she is truly gifted.”
“I guess our family not having a mage in 3 generations did have a purpose.”
“Indeed, she might become a prodigy like no other, I am even thinking that I might need to take her to live amongst the Elves given how her magic develops. She might also live longer than even we
mages, the more I think about it the more I believe that my lord should send your daughter to live amongst them.”
“Not that they would even consider it, but when she grows up, I will at least tell her that she would not need to stay and live amongst man. This duchy will need a successor, but I have many relatives, any of them would jump at the opportunity to take over after I die or retire.”
“Lord it is too soon to make such a decision.”
To think that mages live even longer than nobles, I guess you learn something new every day. But before any of that ‘No old man I will be your successor, don’t you dare take me out already, you didn’t even ask me.’ Wait, Elves exist in this world, that's awesome. In Norse, German, and Scottish mythology elves are simply long living creatures but what if in this world they were immortal, maybe I should go and get a few elves to become my companions that way I wouldn’t be alone after the successive generations of humans dying whilst I continue being immortal. Companionship is necessary, in my past life I was never into creating a solid emotional relationship instead preferring to enjoy things as they are, a fling here and a two-month relationship there, that was my life but even with all that I was still emotionally attached to my dog. Honestly if someone had kidnapped my dog I would have probably given them half my fortune just to get her back and yet it was partially her fault that I died; quite ironic.
Now what should I do? Wait until Lord Adams leaves then make my escape or maybe I could persuade them that I am fine? Yes, the second option is the more rational path but the first has the greater chance of success even if it only temporary. I made my decision; I am no coward as such I will make use of the absolute power of cuteness along with the acumen of a merchant and the rhetoric of a true politician to get myself out of this madhouse. First, I slowly started moving to get their attention then I opened my eyes only to see the eyes of lord Adams popping out of their socket making me draw an involuntary smile on my face. No, ‘now is the time to concentrate, you don’t want to be a part of that mad doctor’s experimentation on how to make a semi-immortal bleed.’
“Daddy” I gave him my best puppy dog eyes then said, “Elly is fine I promise, see I can move, and I don’t feel pain anymore.” Hahaha, I knew it, my father’s now pudding in my hands. “If you want, I can come tomorrow and see the doctor that way you can see that I am truly fine.” Give him an offer that would serve to compensate him for his worry and finally move the target of his emotions from fear of me being hurt to anger towards another “Mr. Adam is mean, why did you do that? Elly was nice to you.” Wahaha, eat that old man, this is for catching me when I tried to run away. Needless to say, I succeeded in diverting my father’s attention from me to Lord Adam and whatever I accused him of, the man seemed so shocked that I woke up that I am not even sure that he heard what I said.