Lachersia was happy. For the first time in her life, she felt alive. It was a wonderful feeling, one she wished from the bottom of her heart would never fade.
Every day, every hour of her life was filled with new bright colors as if a veil that had been obstructing her vision before was lifted and even her progress on her magical research was beginning to go smoother because of it.
While before she had been seen as an elusive mysterious figure that was there since the times of the previous Demon Wave, a cold and unfeeling Grand Mage, somebody who was more of a symbol than a human being, now even the people from the Academy and the Court Mage division began to see her as someone that was relatable and her popularity began to soar.
Everything seemed right and everything seemed well. And it all was thanks to the person who had entered her world, the person who had established a paradise filled with bright and holy light inside her heart by being there.
Yes, she was talking about Jennifer.
But, unfortunately, there would always be those who would wish to destroy the happiness of others. Those annoying pesky bugs who seem to have nothing else to do with their short pathetic and completely inconsequential lives but acting as a giant nuisance that would get in the way of Lachersia and Jennifer’s happy and quiet days.
Yes, she was talking about the nobles. The faction under the Duke of the Northern Glassier Laras, in particular, had mastered the art of being a fly buzzing around and being noisy and irritating.
There were many times when the topic of the combat training of the summoned heroine was raised, the questions about Jennifer’s blessings and war potential as well as many other things like that were flowing endlessly. Naturally, they would also remember her beautiful arrival to the kingdom and the most recent scandal where there seemingly was a dispute between the king and the heroine and use those two episodes to gradually ostracize both Lachersia and Jennifer or split them apart slowly.
There were several reasons for such activities. First and most obvious was, of course, the sheer influence that both Lachersia and Jennifer had.
The Academy was one of the most reputed and oldest institutions on the continent where mages of the finest grade would be raised every generation. The connections and the resources that Lachersia could receive was she interested in such things, would become astronomical and even the government couldn’t influence it too much.
The Court Mage Division was the most elite military unit in the kingdom that has served well as a very important part of the military foundation of the country as well as a deterrent for the influences from outside the borders. They would be equivalent to a nuclear bomb on Earth. Though they only answered to the king and had little influence or authority in the military overall because of it, the position of being the head Court Mage still had a lot of weight and Lachersia holding the title for several generations has always been an eyesore to the nobles and only her absolute lack of interest in power saved her the trouble of dealing with them.
Being the champion of a God had a lot of both religious prestige and admiration and support from the masses too. Not to mention that Lachesis was the head of the planet’s Pantheon and being her champion allowed for the greatest influence.
The fact that both Jennifer and Lachersia banded together was something that nobody could predict because of the aloof and uninterested behavior that Lachersia had been showing before.
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Together they became a political power of fearsome strength and a huge threat for the authority of others, so it was only natural that the nobles began to move.
Well, it was only a part of the reason and surprisingly, it wasn’t the most important one. Suddenly becoming hostile with the two would be nothing but idiotic, so most nobles took either a friendly approach or became cautious and looked at how things were playing out. Only a minority, though it wasn’t too small, unfortunately, took an opposing stance.
The biggest factor behind the hostility of the biggest opposing voice, the Laras’ faction, was actually the personal interest of the leader, the Duke of the Northern Glassier himself as well as those from his faction. His domain, the Laras Duchy was the most religious region in the country with the astonishing 96% of the population being believers of the church of Fate, also known as the church of Lachesis. His faction was also a loyal part of a bigger one, the Royal faction.
Jennifer’s first impression that put Cardinal Manroove into a state of depression and the consecutive falling apart between the heroine and the king put the Duke into a very difficult spot.
The champion of the Goddess made a horrible first impression with the Cardinal of the Goddess’ church, therefore, making the relationship between the institution of worship and the messenger of the subject of the worship somewhat strange and hard to judge and then on top of all of it, Jennifer subtly had an argument with the king, the leader of the Royal faction. And it all had happened in a truly small window of time, catching Duke Laras unprepared.
Before any of this could be fixed, she joined hands with an insanely powerful backer in the form of Lachersia so even salvaging this situation became troublesome as there appeared a conflict of interests.
Navigating in this disgusting mess of relationships was hard, especially when back at home this incident could be used against him. Such stress caused the poor Duke to have some hair loss.
It could be solved easily enough if he took a more gentle and subtle approach but just because he was the faction leader didn’t mean that he could control it so easily. The nobles in his faction had roughly the same circumstances and not everybody there was very competent. So good old human stupidity caused a small noble start a wave against Lachersia and because the duke, Thomas Laras, had to keep control of so many things at the same time, the small wave had snowballed into a tsunami. It was as if fate herself had willed for him to end up opposing the youngest and most powerful Grand Mage of the kingdom.
So, in the end, he had no choice but to stand against the fearsome opponent, as unwilling as he was. One could say that he was the victim of the circumstances. An innocent person caught in a landslide.
But it didn’t matter to a certain easily irritable Grand Mage with the disposition of a psychopath and her beloved heroine who could be as malicious as a demon when shown enough hostility.
It was very unfortunate that Jennifer had requested Lachersia to bring her the various pieces of information about the financial state of the Duchy, the information about his spending habits, the information about the servants inside his house, everything down to the kind of shoes he was known to wear only to spend the next three days picking everything that she was given apart with uncharacteristic meticulousness.
It was also unfortunate that the Duke was only human, with a human heart, human emotions, human attachments and human weaknesses. He had his past lovers, his past infatuations and his present attachments too. Fate was borne out of cause and effect and the effects of his causes became his biggest weakness.
A weakness he spared no effort to conceal. A weakness the heroine was able to uncover anyway.
Another unfortunate thing was that among the annoying flies he was big enough to be both annoying and potentially useful.
And the most unfortunate thing was, that he opposed the two people that had both a lot of power, time, resources but had little in terms of what made humans, humans.
After the three days when she was reviewing information were over, and after a lot of hugs and cuddling that were silently demanded of the heroine, Lachersia and Jennifer set off to the Northern Glassier region and spent a week there incognito, searching, plotting and trapping.
And then they, also incognito, they had a meeting with him.
A very unfortunate thing indeed.