"This is much more like it."

I was satisfied, watching all the grain sprout. It was almost worth being beaten so badly for this. Lambert did not disappoint, even if I tortured him a little. If anything, I could have done it a bit longer, to relieve all my pent-up stress, but my plans were back in motion again, and I got used to these kinds of injuries already, which was sad and disappointing in itself. I hoped I wasn't secretly becoming a masochist.

"Come on, earn your keep. I expect you to finish this by noon." I yelled at the court wizard. I wasn't paying attention to what he was doing though, too deeply lost in thought.

Masochism, huh? No, I probably wasn't. I was rather inflicted pain on others instead. My blood started to boil every time I thought about that humiliating defeat. I was so close to success. Well, just like last time, right when I thought victory was mine and nothing could stand in my way anymore, I got slapped across the face, and hard.

"How long will it take until it's ready for harvest?" I asked the boy, stepping on his back. He struggled to speak, but I did enjoy bothering him. My other toy got too cocky lately, he might have thought that if I get beaten up so easily, he has the right to talk back to me.

Still, I did better than last time. When I fought the orc witch and her minions, it was a clear victory at first and an utter and complete defeat. I could barely escape with my life after the Goddess attacked me, my wounds were severe just from that one strike.

"Come on, dog, answer me" I kicked the struggling wizard, already on all fours. How was he able to still focus? I couldn't even find this spell after I put in all that effort, and he was able to pull it off in this state.

This time, I got my revenge on the orc brute at least, and I snatched away Lambert too. Originally I did not want to fight the Goddess anyway. Now it seemed like I could easily beat her, but then I got arrogant again and lowered my defenses. Their weaponry improved a lot since the last time. It was more dangerous to me than their magicians. The Goddess was practically a joke, falling over from a single slap.

"Even if you are gagged, don't dare to ignore my questions," I demanded, kicking him again, and a few more times. It felt so good. It made me forget all of those failures, at least for a short moment.

How could I leave her alive? The Goddess I mean. It was devastating when she cast her magic, but she was so slow and vulnerable. Was it just a trick to lure me in? I will never know, and I did fall into her trap in that sense. I was shot in the back and nearly died again.

But I went there with a goal and got what I wanted. The coward folded immediately, as expected. I dropped him off at the manor house, and Stern quickly chained him up, even before my wounds got treated. This way nobody even knew, he was still alive.

I could make him do whatever I wanted.

"Lady Elder... I can't..." He was at his limit. This was all he could say, once I removed his gag, but I didn't care at this point. In all honesty, he made an excellent progress. The grain grew nearly a week's worth in just an hour, on the entire field, as long as my eyes could see.

It was truly amazing, he had an incredible talent. I wasn't sure if he even knew, how special this was. I did, because I spent so much time searching for the right spell from the most basic to the highest difficulty grimoires, and found nothing. But of course, he didn't earn praise.

I snapped my fingers, and Stern ran to take him back into his confinement. Like a well-oiled machine, every part has fallen into the right place. Finally, my plans worked out.

"Give him plenty of food so he can recover by tomorrow!" I yelled after them, while I strolled around to inspect the fields. "The harvest might be a little later than I hoped, but we will still make it in time."

I needed this much success to get over those humiliating memories. I truly deserved them, working hard, to earn the love of those stupid people. They dared to hate me, when I did all this for them. But they were expecting someone to come and save them, feed and protect them, as if this was some kind of right, a privilege they earned, just by being born into this world. Well, I had to suffer for all of that.

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The worst part was that I almost got used to that long, and painful treatment that followed. Now that the healers recognized me, I couldn't see the same enthusiasm in their eyes. Given the chance, they would have probably murdered me on the spot, but I had Stern prepare the guards, just in case. I guess they couldn't easily forget, how I took over the Church from one day to the next.

"My lady, what should we the people?" The Captain of the Royal Company asked once he got back. I had no idea, what he meant. I was still too deep in my thoughts. Seeing my confusion, he continued. "About the failed raid on the village."

"What about it?" I rolled my eyes. I didn't want to be reminded. Maybe he was some sort of a sadist too, but I knew him enough to assume, he wouldn't risk my wrath for no good reason.

"We had losses, and you returned severely wounded. Again..." He noted though, almost as if he tried to start a fight. "Since it was the elite, people are asking questions, but we could use this to our advantage."

"Use this how? They surprised us with extremely potent weaponry. It penetrated the best armor we had." I claimed, shaking my head. Stern never told me about them in his reports. "It was a failure in reconnaissance. I don't want to embarrass myself with that."

"I understand, but if you want to antagonize the enemy, and make the people like you more, it's better if they know about it." He got my attention now. I curiously waited what did he come up with this time? "If we tell them they decimated us, people will start to take them seriously. We can say, you got severely injured, covering the retreat of our overmatched troops. You lose some prestige, but gain their sympathy."

"Go on," I told him, walking back towards the manor house.

"That is all. The people don't have to think you are invincible." Stern explained, following me around. He was now closer than usual again, draining the life forces of my enemies helped with my wrinkle issues, even if I was nearly bleeding out internally. "It's better if they think the enemy is fearsome, and that you're the only one standing between them and humanity. Add to that your plan to feed them at the height of the famine, and I'm sure they will start to like you more."

"So you propose we admit defeat?" I wasn't convinced yet. "The nobles would take it as a sign of weakness and try to destroy the church."

"So what? Didn't you do that already?" Stern shrugged. He was saying something, to be honest. "And I thought you wanted to get rid of the nobles too. It might be the perfect opportunity."

Considering, that I just came from another lost battle, he put a surprising amount of trust in my powers. I didn't hate it, and his proposal had merits, but I felt less confident about my abilities after how those events unfolded.

"So you are saying, I should even provoke them to attack, by showing off my weaknesses? I'm not entirely sold on that idea. If the people think I'm too weak to protect them, it won't be just the nobles that might turn against me, but the poor would not become my followers either. "I warned him, but I tried to trust his instincts. Even if he was useless in a fight, he had a knack for manipulating people. "I'll leave this matter to you, but make sure the King won't try to put us aside."

"Why would he?" Stern asked confused, as if he had already forgotten, how he got his current post. It didn't hurt to remind him.

"We both got our promotion from His Majesty," I explained. "He can reverse them too if he's not satisfied with how we deal with things."

"Given his state lately, I don't think he even knows what happened." Stern shook his head. Yes, he probably didn't know about anything yet. I felt like my favorite toy overlooked something.

"Almost nobody knows about the attack or our defeat at the moment, but if you want to use it as some publicity stunt, the King will also hear about it, sooner or later." I voiced my concerns. "You not only used his private force to attack outside Nordhaben, you did it without his knowledge, and even failed, with heavy losses."

"Could always put a spin on that. Claiming we had reasons to believe it to be the pope's hiding place. And we had no time to do proper recon, or ask his permission." Stern simply shrugged it off. At least he had an idea what to do about it. "I take it you still don't want to dig him up?"

"Who, the Pope? I have no reason to." I shook my head. Honestly, I had no idea where I even hid his corpse. "As long as he's not confirmed dead, I can throw him in at any moment to justify my actions. And people will buy it. I can't be seen as a tyrant, abusing my powers for no reason."

"You just said, that failure would make you look weak. If we fail to show progress in hunting him down, that would lead to the same thing." Stern argued, but now I felt like he was overthinking it.

"Not as long as they have to deal with the riots caused by the famine. And they will care more about the food I'm bringing to the masses to calm them down, than what kind of dirt they can throw at me." I claimed confidently. He was already shaking his head. I didn't understand.

"This is the problem. As long as everyone hates you, they don't have to worry about what you do. But the moment you become popular, I'm sure, the nobles will try to get rid of you." The Captain explained. "Now they think, you are stuck where you are, with no way up. But once you climb higher, they will try everything to push you back down. They have no say in what the Church does, but if you become popular enough to ascend into sainthood, they'll realize you are a threat. This is why them attacking you now, while they underestimate you could be beneficial in the long term."

"So be it. I trust you to handle these matters as you see fit. Just don't forget to tell me everything in advance. I don't want nasty surprises." I gave in to his ideas. "And don't try to overstep your boundaries. You aren't as lucky as Lambert, to get a second chance, if you fail me."