“Whatever blighted political ploys you’re trying to do here, keep my family damn well out of it,” growled a tanned, navy-haired battlemage. He had his hands slammed on Lucille’s desk, glaring at her.
Lucy tilted her head slightly. She traded glances with Vincent, who was watching the battlemage warily.
Then her face went expressionless as she turned back to the scarred man, and she released part of her spiritual energy, keeping it localised to the mage. His eyes went wide as an overbearing pressure descended on him, the air around him rippling and distorting with invisible power like looking through twisted glass. There was a heavy thrum as the space around him buzzed with the sound of static.
Lucille spoke in a completely toneless and cold voice, “Silas Vadel, get your hands off my desk.”
Breathing heavily, he slowly straightened up, but glowered at her, not taking any step back. They stared at each other before Lucille sighed and snapped her fingers. The spiritual energy was withdrawn like it had never been there.
“You are under the severe misconception that I have done anything they were not already involved in first.” She continued, her voice still cold, “Unless you are making this demand with a comprehensive understanding of all that has happened to Efratel and Marellen Vadel, you do not have the right to try to intimidate me like this.”
His glare intensified, but his expression had changed from just being dark, to mixed emotions as it was apparent he didn’t know what had really happened.
Then Lucille gave him a bright smile. “You are lucky it was me and not one of the Counts you tried this on because if it was them, you’d be dead,” she stated cheerfully.
He furrowed his brows, while Lucy sighed again and just rested her head on her palm, leaning her elbow against the desk. “Firstly, let me tell you precisely what Efratel and Marellen got involved in during July.”
...
The battlemage frowned as he crossed his arms, sitting in the armchair Efratel had been a few hours earlier. Vincent was standing near the door, watching the mage apprehensively, while Lucy was sipping tea obtained from the brass jug, having retrieved both jug and cup from her dimensional bag. She resolved herself to drink coffee more often after this because she didn’t like having to drink tea all the time just so her headaches would get better. Vincent could stop using her artifact for tea and get his own because she liked black coffee and she would have it. Who cared if it was too bitter for anyone not from Earth.
Silas Vadel looked up at her, sighed, and then stood. He walked over to Lucille and gave her a deep bow. “Please forgive me for my overreaction. I’ll accept any punishment in return for not taking this past me.”
Lucy didn’t look at him as she blew on her drink. “Your punishment can be ensuring Marellen has no choice but to accept my offer of sponsorship.”
He straightened up with confusion. “Sponsorship?”
“I’ve given Efratel a sponsorship for Marellen to go the All-Aeon Athenaeum, as well as an official order for him to be Marellen’s manager,” she answered. “They’ll have political immunity during the time he’ll be studying there, and hopefully Marellen will have gained enough power by the time he’s finished to protect them both on his own. I’m doing this to protect those two young nobles, not ruin them,” she stated flatly.
Silas gazed at her with a complicated expression and then sighed. “Again, I am sorry for my reaction. And yes, I’ll get him to accept it. If he doesn’t… I’ll beat him into accepting myself…” he muttered, gazing off into the distance.
Lucy’s expression twitched.
Battlemages and their domestic violence…. I don’t need to give Marellen a therapist too, do I?
He turned his eyes to her again. “Are you sure that’s all you want to punish me with?” He hesitated. “I would prefer not to owe any favours.”
She observed him quietly for a moment and then shook her head. “After what just happened, you haven’t really demonstrated yourself to me as someone I can entrust with actual work,” she replied wryly, the battlemage’s expression stiffening. “And it would be easier to keep this quiet for your sake. If Efratel found out his uncle just threatened the one person preventing him and his cousin from getting killed by an Archmage….”
She didn’t finish the rest of her statement, allowing the navy-haired man to come to a conclusion on his own. His expression turned sheepish, and he slowly nodded. “No telling my nephew about this unless I want to be hated for life. Gotcha.”
She hummed. “What made you react like that, if you don’t mind me asking?”
The man gazed at her for a moment, and then sighed, running a hand through the navy strip of hair on the top of his head, that fell down his neck. “My instincts were easily capable of telling me they had gotten into trouble when they came back. They kept acting skittish and avoided answering some questions, and I was able to see they were meeting up more often to talk about something.” He crossed his arms and frowned. “Marellen even stopped testing those weird magic concepts of his to create spells for actual combat.”
“I suppose they never would’ve managed to escape the senses of a battlemage.” Lucille nodded. “Well, has everything been cleared up then?”
He slowly nodded and then gave her an Empire bow, one hand pressed against his chest as he did so. “Yes, Commission Head. Thank you for your generosity.”
Then he turned and left the study. Vincent sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let him come here.”
Lucille tilted her head with a strange smile on her face. “Do I look that helpless?”
Her aide awkwardly coughed into his fist. “N-No, that’s not what I meant.” He adjusted his glasses and crossed his arms. “But I still shouldn’t have allowed someone like that to threaten the Commission Head.”
She just gave him a dismissive wave. “I would’ve done the same thing as you. Don’t take it to hea-” She paused, a strange expression on her face, and slowly put a hand to her nose. “This is a bit ironic,” she muttered, dark amusement in her voice. “What bad timing.”
Vincent’s eyes widened as he realised her fingers had come away wet with red blood. He quickly walked over to her and handed her a handkerchief. “Here.”
“Oh. Thanks,” she said, using it to stem her flowing nosebleed. “Don’t go expecting this back though.”
His expression turned incredulous. “That’s not-” He stopped, and then sighed, running a hand through his hair. He stepped next to her desk. “Are you ok?” he asked, worry on his face.
“Except that my most vital bodily fluid is escaping my body through one of my sensory organs, I’m right as rain,” she deadpanned.
He scowled at her. “Could you please answer my question seriously so I know whether I need to call for a healer or not?”
“Not, because I’m immune to healing spells of all kinds,” she said, reaching into the dimensional bag on her belt.
“I said be-” He halted when he saw she wasn’t smiling. “Wait, you’re not joking?”
“At least I assume so, considering Scytale couldn’t get one spell to touch me even when I wasn’t using a defensive ability,” she replied absentmindedly. She withdrew a small bright blue vial, then tilted her head up and downed it in one gulp. She placed it down on the desk and looked at him as she continued to cover her nose with the handkerchief. “As the nosebleed is due to my unstable soul rather than something physically wrong with me, the high-grade healing potion won’t do much. Still, it will cut down the time needed for the bleeding to stop.”
“I’m still confused about why you’d be immune to healing spells, but I’ll let it go for now,” he said with a frown. “Is this going to happen again?”
“Me needing to use my soul pressure or the blood nose?” she asked, tilting her head.
“The nosebleed, obviously,” he responded, unamused.
She hummed for a moment. “I’d say no because if I had to use my soul pressure again without letting my soul settle, I’d spit up blood. A short coma if I need to use more than a quarter of my spiritual energy.”
He stared at her. “A co- a coma?!” he suddenly exclaimed.
“Only my body. I’d still be conscious. With my soul, I can’t not be conscious,” she explained nonchalantly, ignoring the effect her words were having on Vincent. “Because my soul is compartmentalised into different sections for my mental processes, I don’t-”
“Stop,” he said, holding out a palm. He took his glasses off and pinched his nose bridge. “I don’t care about that. I didn’t even ask about that.” He looked at her, his gaze complicated. “Why are you avoiding talking about things that matter?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She looked at him silently for a moment, expressionless. Then she exhaled loudly. “Because they don’t matter. Once your limbs have been severed a few times, your organs rupture or you get blasted into smithereens, a blood nose is really low on my list of injuries. In fact, a nosebleed has got to be one of the most mundane forms of injury I’ve ever experienced,” she mused with an odd expression. She took away the handkerchief from her nose. “I think It's stopped,” she told him.
“Why would you have to suffer injuries like that?!” he yelled, dumbfounded, and feeling a bit scared because of the relaxed tone she described her experiences with.
“Just the normal methods of torture between mercenaries,” she said, shrugging casually. She tilted her head slightly with an emotionless expression. “And I of all people shouldn’t complain about pain. Most people don’t get the luxury of turning off their sense of pain whenever they want, so if all I get is a headache or two from my soul, then I should deal with it.”
“Oh. So you didn’t have to feel all that pain,” he said, looking slightly relieved.
“Hm? Of course, I did,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I didn’t create the soul technique to turn off my body’s pain until I was at least 72. My time as a mercenary was well and truly over by then.”
He went back to staring at her and then gained a dark expression. “Then why are you talking about this so calmly? It’s disturbing to hear you say this!”
“You asked, I answered,” she replied dryly. “And there’s worse things than pain.”
“Like what?” he asked, sceptical.
“Apathy,” she stated tonelessly, standing up from her desk. She waved the red-stained handkerchief. “I’ll go deal with this.” She gazed up at him. “Could you move please?”
He frowned at her but didn’t move away. “Are you going to do this again?”
She crossed her arms and tilted her head as she looked up at him. “I don’t normally try to give myself migraines. I prefer to be capable of functioning as a normal human being.”
His serious expression didn’t change. “I mean are you going to hurt yourself again.”
She sighed and used her free hand to rub her face. “I will if I have to. I’m only Rank-0, so any healing potions will have high effectiveness. I know my body. I won’t go over what it can handle.”
His frown deepened as he gazed at her. Then he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Lucille,” he stated sternly. “Please don’t injure yourself if you could avoid it with an alternative. It’s not pleasant to see you do that.”
She stared at him expressionlessly. “Then I’ll do it when you’re not watching,” she replied flatly, slowly removing his hands.
“Lucy!” he said, leaning against the desk with exasperation as she walked around the other side of the desk.
She stopped when he called her name and looked over her shoulder. “Vincent, why do you care?”
He frowned at her like he didn’t know why she was asking that. “Because you’re a friend,” he stated. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly after a moment when she just stared at him silently with no emotion on her face. “Did I say something wrong?”
She blinked, and then stopped looking at him, walking towards the door of the study. “That’s a terrible way to think. I’d make a bad friend.”
“Why?” he asked, crossing his arms as he leaned against the desk.
She turned around with a wide grin on her face, startling him. “I’ve been called insane by many people, Vincent. Sometimes a psychopath," she said, her tone light-hearted and carefree. “It’s not far from the truth.”
He held his chin as he observed her with an odd expression, having had a strange realisation. “Lucy, are you angry?”
“Why would I be angry?” she asked, tilting her head.
“I don’t know,” he stated flatly. “That’s why I’m asking.”
She looked at him silently for a second and then hummed as she gazed at something unseen. “Well, yes. I am angry. Very angry, in fact,” she said with a bright smile. “You see, I just met someone I really, really don’t want to see. Yet I’ll have to do so, and probably on a regular basis for a long time as well.” Her smile widened, and she gave him a casual shrug. “All I can do is try my best to make his life hell.”
Vincent seemed to not know how to respond, and she shut the door behind her.
----------------------------------------
A silver-haired man groaned as he leaned against the walls of the Pavilion’s ballroom, feeling very tired. Vincent was the most drained he had been in years. He just finished the preparations only an hour earlier, and soon the nobles would be arriving for the debut ball. Or debutante, they would finally find out. He supposed he was glad Lucille found him capable enough to organise all this, but he really, really didn’t want to do it regularly. It was a relief to find out she didn’t want to be the type of noble to host banquets for every possible event under the sun, like New Year’s, the end of the year, birthdays, ranking up, traditional ceremonies, or forming an alliance with new forces…. he realised nobles did host a lot of events. But thankfully, she didn’t plan on doing one once she hosted her external debut.
However, that made him feel stressed already because the external debut was an even bigger event than the internal one.
He decided to not think about it anymore and just continued hiding from the eyes of the arriving nobility. It had mostly become an open secret that he was her aide, but it seemed the nobility were aware enough not to bother him during such a busy week. For once. But as for the event that day, and the rest of the week… he knew he wouldn’t be that lucky, especially as the ‘real’ Faction Head behind the scenes. He ran through what he was supposed to do.
He would essentially be acting as her ‘chaperone’ for the next week at the ball and would be directing her to go to different places. They had decided that she would only be there for a third to around half of the event each day, and then she would be ‘allowed’ by him to go back to the fortieth floor, partially to keep the impression that she was only a young whimsical girl, and partially for another reason. To cement the idea that it was he who had the real power. They expected the nobility would start revealing their true intentions once she left and would start trying to see how they could involve themselves in the new plans. It would be when the Counties announce ‘their’ plans for the restructuring, and he would present the plans to everyone.
This meant Lucille was going to be able to spend many of her hours that week blissfully alone and free of pandering and petty noble politics. He should’ve known she had an ulterior motive.
She had come up with plans in case the situation changed though, such as using the mental transmission technique to have one-way communication with him. He had expressed his worries that the use of her spiritual energy would cause her soul upset again, but she had assured him it would be fine, which, knowing her, didn’t give him much reassurance. But the fact that she was having soul issues, when reincarnation was a System reward and shouldn’t have any side effects, seemed to suggest her condition was some of her own doing. And that put him back to square one on what she was exactly because no soul could escape the System’s purview, even if she had illegally acquired an old reincarnation spell from before the realm's assimilation.
He sighed and decided to move from his position to somewhere slightly more secluded, as the lesser nobility were slowly entering the Pavilion central ballroom. The fact of the matter was that the reason why he was trying to find out about Lucille was that dealing with her felt like some strange ancient creature from an outer plane had come to him and started magically offering everything the Commission needed for apparently no cost at all. So far. He didn’t believe there was anything free in the realms, and she had begun showing signs that she had a different agenda in mind. Not that he could ever decipher it with how obvious she was about not wanting him to know what it was.
And what did she mean she had seen somebody she hated?! He knew as an absolute fact that she hadn’t been anywhere since her impromptu outing the month before because they had been too busy doing work in her study from morning to night each day! If she had managed to find a way outside all that to go anywhere, he wanted to go with her!
The reality was he had been hired by Lucille Goldcroft, and not the Aurelian Commission Head. She had even said that was the case, and that she would need to ask him to arrange some things that wouldn’t make sense in context with her status as the Commission leader. She had told him she needed someone who could follow her requests to the spirit of them and not just the law, which was what he was trying to do…. But she didn’t seem to understand he needed to know what she wanted from him. Or more accurately, she very obviously knew he was getting annoyed with her, but didn’t care and wanted to continue doing what she was doing anyway. And it had gotten worse since Scytale had fallen asleep.
Also, she was a terrible person for making him feel so awkward after he said he called her a friend. Who cared if she had a convoluted and morally ambiguous past, that was the true indicator of an evil person or not.
Well, she hadn’t exactly denied the friendship on her end, just seemed to try to warn him against thinking that way. For now, he’d attribute it to her strange mood, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still angry at her blatant disregard for her own heal-
“Now, who could this wallflower be?”
He inwardly groaned because a noble had spotted him, but then he blinked as he realised he recognised the voice. He straightened up as he saw who had spoken.
“Jacques? Is that you?” he asked, surprised.
The pony-tailed blonde man grinned and waved energetically at him as he came closer. Vincent turned to look at the man with red-tipped straight silver hair next to him. “And Caius?”
“Ah, so you haven’t forgotten about me then,” ‘Caius’ replied, smiling. “I hear you’ve been busy.”
“That’s an understatement,” he said, rolling his eyes. Then he spluttered as Jacques hooked an arm around his neck and made him bend over slightly, his glasses falling off his nose.
“Yes, I heard you’re now the top boss of the Commission!” he exclaimed with a grin. “Well, second top boss,” he amended.
“You have outgrown us lowly mortals in one leap,” Caius said, giving him a mocking bow. “We can only bask in your glorious presence.”
“Ha, ha,” Vincent stated dryly, slowly disentangling himself from Jacques’s hug. He had always been overenthusiastic when approaching his personal space. “I suppose our past relationship had no part in your desire to be the direct subordinates of the Commission Head’s aide.”
“Well, friends in high places, and all that,” Caius said, grinning.
“Hey, I only came here because Melissa told my parents something, and I now get pushed into doing actual work!” Jacques complained. “I only ever wanted to lounge about doing nothing and use their money freely! Who did such a thing to me?”
“I did,” Vincent replied, eyeing the man with a raised eyebrow.
“Wait, you?” Jacques said, slightly stunned.
“On the Commission Head’s command, I used Melissa’s advice in selecting two people to be my secretaries,” he explained to the blonde man. “Not my mother, because she’d try to put my dearest eldest brother’s spies next to me, and not Genevieve, because I’d be killed if I got within a kilometre of her.”
“What, didn’t you know you came here because of him?” Caius asked Jacques, an odd look on his face.
Jacques held his chin in thought. “Nope. My parents probably never told me because I would refuse to come otherwise. I only got told I was coming for a job halfway through the trip.”
Vincent and Caius glanced at each other, and both sighed in a shared understanding of Jacques’s personality.
“Anyway,” Caius said, turning to Vincent. “On the command of the Commission Head?”
“Ah, yes,” he replied, retrieving his glasses hanging around his neck and lifting them to check their clarity. “They suggested I do it to make it obvious I don’t care about the County heirship. If I did care, I’d likely be considered the 6th ranked successor just from my new position.”
“So you are listening to them?” Caius asked curiously. “The rumours among the County vassals point to a shared consensus that you and the Counties are the real power behind the scenes, yet from what I’ve heard leaking through your mother’s supporters, there has been some….. interesting plans being discussed, their origins apparently being the Commission Head themself.”
“And when is this mysterious Commission Head going to reveal themself?” Jacques added, crossing his arms. “I’m sick of all this secrecy. Just tell me who’s going to be dooming this Faction or not already.”
“Nobody is dooming anything,” Vincent stated flatly, lowering his glasses to rub them with a clean handkerchief, not the one he gave Lucille. “If someone was going to be dooming this Faction, it would be you.”
Jacques narrowed his eyes at him. “Hey, as their aide, you must’ve met them plenty of times. Come on, tell me what they’re like,” he said, nudging Vincent with his elbow. “Get me in the know before the big reveal.”
Vincent sighed and replaced his glasses. “It will only be an hour more before they come. You probably won’t get a chance to meet them personally today, due to all the main County members here, but I’ll make sure to introduce you personally sometime this week. Failing that, at the end of the week when you take up your position as my secretary.”
“Oh, yeah, that thing. Will I be the first secretary or second secretary?” Jacques mused.
Vincent and Caius glanced at each other, and then at the man. “It will be second secretary. Obviously,” Vincent replied.
“Obviously,” Caius repeated, nodding his head.
Jacques glared at them. “You guys are the worst.”
Caius turned to Vincent. “I accepted the offer, because I was bored, and wanted to do something new and interesting. I can’t promise I’ll stay if it doesn’t satisfy that requirement.”
“If it’s interesting you want, then you’ve come to the right place,” Vincent remarked dryly. “And Melissa told me what you wanted, so I asked for you with full understanding of this.”
“But Vincent, I’m not sure if I could do a good job at this,” Jacques spoke up, a troubled look on his face. “I have the basic education of an Evisenhardt descendant, true, but I’m sure there are others better suited for this.”
Vincent looked at him for a moment and then shrugged slightly. “If it’s not for you, you can leave. However, calling you here was mostly just to get you out of the County, as Melissa asked. I’ve heard about your situation.”
Jacques’s expression became complicated. “Ah… right. But if that will cause issues for you, then maybe it’s better that I-”
Vincent held up a hand to pause him. “Neither I nor the Commission Head care about your relation to commoners, so you don’t have to worry about that. I’m aware that the reason behind the vassals becoming more vocal about your relationships has several…. political insinuations behind it. Staying here will at least keep you out of the crossfire.”
Jacques looked confused, but Caius turned to him with a worried look. “Are you saying that… Olden is getting involved in…..?”
“I’ll discuss the details behind this in a more private setting,” Vincent replied, nodding his head.
“So it wasn’t just the fact that the commoners normally got better grades than me that made them angry….” Jacques murmured.
Caius looked at him oddly. “Jacques, just out of curiosity, what were you ranked within your year level?”
“Oh, just below average,” Jacques replied nonchalantly. “I scored 100% whenever I did the tests though, which gave me a pass.”
Caius facepalmed, while Vincent sighed. He turned away when a nearby waiter in a white waistcoat came up to him and whispered to him that it was beginning. He nodded and then turned back to Caius and Jacques.
“I need to go. A few things will be revealed tonight, but some might make you confused, so I’ll clear up your questions afterwards,” he told them.
“And the mystery continues,” Jacques remarked wryly, grinning.
Caius shot him a look and then nodded to Vincent. “Let’s catch up some more later. It’s good to see you again,” he said.
Vincent waved goodbye to them and headed towards one of the exits. He paused slightly as one of the arriving nobles was announced.
“ANNOUNCING THE 8TH CIRCLE GREEN TOWER WIZARD, AND 2ND WIFE OF HARALDUS EVISENHARDT, MELISSA VIOLETTA EVISENHARDT!”
Vincent blinked as he saw the green-haired woman waltz into the ballroom with a smile on her face.
I didn’t think she was coming. And she didn’t care about the right order of arrival either. Well, she always loves being spontaneous. I suppose I’ll say hello later.
And then he left the ballroom to go find Lucille.