House Naranoff’s mansion was not as quiet as most houses at night. The maids never slept, at least that was how it seemed, but Aiden knew better. The night maids were simply different from the day maids.

But it wasn’t the maids he had to pay attention to. It was the soldiers.

At night they paraded the halls, keeping watch of everything that happened. There were also more than a handful that paraded the compound.

Aiden stepped out of his room in his trench coat all buttoned up. on his hip was a longsword of the Nastild design he’d brought with him from the palace.

He made his way on a simple casual stroll down the hallway, simple steps carrying him down a simple path.

The maids on about their business that saw him spared a glance at his odd attire before their eyes moved to his swords. The swords were all the deterrent they need to resume minding their business. A Lord out and about in the middle of the night carrying swords was rarely ever a good sign.

He got to an intersection in the hallway and was about to pass when movement in one of the hallways caught his attention.

Aiden stopped, turned to the closest maid cleaning a vase and gestured her away. Confused, she looked from him to the vase she was cleaning. Aiden didn’t want to scare the woman away but he also didn’t have the time that was needed to convince her carefully. So he met her eyes and tapped the pommel of his longsword suggestively.

The woman’s eyes widened and she fled the hallway as quickly as relatively calm steps could carry her.

Now let’s hope she doesn’t interpret that to mean I need help and call a soldier.

Alone, he peeked around the corner of the hallway. At its end was a soldier patrolling the grounds. He had a longsword strapped to his waist and had an air of tiredness about him.

There was a high chance that he would simply greet Aiden and be on his way, but Aiden didn’t need anyone of any relative importance seeing him tonight. Maids were okay. They would talk, but only amongst themselves.

Before their gossips would reach powerful enough ears, Aiden would be done with this place and be on his way.

Until then…

You have activated class skill [Enchanted Weave]

Constant practice paid off. Aiden’s hands moved in quick succession and the effects of an enchantment were already going through him even before his interface updated him.

You have used [Lesser Enchantment of Silence].

His heart grew silent. It’s beating became almost non-existent in his ears. It was a neat trick as far as he was concerned. A good substitute until he learned the [Stealth] skill.

He peeked around the corner again and saw the soldier pause to look at something. Aiden took his chance without hesitation. He cut across to the adjacent hallway and hurried his way down the path.

Aiden had two rooms to check tonight, and if the results were promising, then his task tonight would be relatively easy. If they were not… well, his task tonight would be tiring.

He did not use the enchantment of silence much as he skulked his way around the mansion. Sometimes simple quiet steps were all it took to move past the guards. By the time he got to his first destination his mastery of [Quiet movements] had increased.

[Quiet Movement (Mastery 68% --> 71%)]

Sometimes Aiden wished skill growth in Nastild was the same way it was in video games. The moment you perform an act, you gained the skill. All you had to do after that was level up the skill. But on Nastild you had to work for everything.

It’s why normal people don’t grow fast.

There was some adventurer somewhere that had been adventuring for thirty years and still wasn’t at level 50. It was a sad thing, though it was a normal thing for the indigenes of Nastild.

Aiden dismissed the notification as he pressed himself against the wall beside Nella’s room door. He knew Nella had a study, but from the little he’d learned about her these past few days, she didn’t seem like one to take her study seriously. There was also the fact that he’d heard two maids arguing over who would clean her study.

Both of them wanted to since the ‘lady of the house’ never used it, which meant it was never a mess.

Aiden paid attention to the lock and activated a skill.

You have used skill [Detect].

The information he was looking for came immediately. Details hovered over the door knob.

[Basic Lock]

A basic lock designed by a smith to be unlocked from without or within with a key. You will need a key to unlock this door.

Aiden scoffed. The system and its many suggestions. A [Thief] or a [Rogue] would’ve seen a different suggestion.

It didn’t matter, however.

Just to be sure, he placed his hand against the key hole and activated [Basic Enchant]. He felt his mana pool out of him and into his hand. When it made contact with the door handle through his skin, it simply fizzled out.

Skill [Basic Enchant] does not take effect.

That was a good sign. It also said a lot about Nella that she didn’t have an active enchanted lock. He didn’t know if it was going to make things easier for him or not.

But that was unimportant, he had come prepared for the worst.

He squatted down to the level of the door knob and went to work. He pulled out two thin strips of iron, commissioned before he’d left the palace for a task just like this.

Sliding both inside the key hole at different angles, he started to shake it about. Three shakes in, he stopped. The task was getting loud and loud was not a good thing. There was the possibility that it was all in his head but he couldn’t risk it.

He released the pins and weaved himself into an enchantment.

You have activated [Lesser Enchantment of silence].

When his hand touched the pins and he resumed his work, he barely heard anything. That was good. He’d learned since that any enchantment he was under from the effect of [Enchanted Weave] automatically extended to anything he touched. His shoes, his clothes, the swords at his hip, the pins for picking locks.

And the locks by extension.

Even if Nella was standing in front of the door, she wouldn’t hear him working. He really hoped the information he’d gotten that said she’d gone out for an expedition as an adventurer and wouldn’t be back for two days was right.

The last thing Aiden wanted was to open the door and find her staring at him like some kind of pervert.

After a moment, he felt the click he was looking for. He turned the knob gently and felt the second click. The door was open.

A cautionary glance around told him that he remained alone. With the certainty, he pushed the door open and slipped inside the room. He retrieved the lock picks before closing the door behind him.

The first sight he was met with was a message from his interface.

You have learned [Lockpicking (Mastery 00.02%)].

That’s odd, Aiden mused as he dismissed the notification. Usually, his skills started at nothing lower than 02.10%, even if it wasn't all of them. But this was low, very low.

Did I have the lockpicking skill before?

He gave it a quick thought and the answer came to him. He hadn’t. Lockpicking was a skill that belong almost exclusively to classes like [Rogue] and [Thief]. [Enchanter] and [Weaver] had no business developing such skills after gaining their class.

Aiden dismissed his thoughts and focused on the attention at hand.

Nella’s room was, in a simple word, a mess. The bulbs were still activated and they cast the room in a soft blue light. It was oddly funny how Nastild had created their own LED lights.

Aiden didn’t know how it was funny, he simply found it funny.

You don’t get LED lights in fantasy novels now, do you?

Nella’s bed, at the center of the room, large enough to hold eight people without complaint, was scattered. The yellow sheets were a mess and the duvet was on the ground. Her pillows were littered all over the mattress. It was almost as if she’d been trying to sneak a lover out in a hurry so that her father wouldn’t catch him.

There was a massive curtain that covered an entire wall and Aiden assumed there was probably one of those massive double doors that opened out to a balcony behind it, like the one in Brandis’ study.

He ignored it as he walked into the room, one careful step after another.

The brown walls were unadorned except for the single portrait of a woman that looked like an older version of Nella that hung just above her bed.

Probably Lord Naranoff’s wife, Aiden thought.

He might have to find out how she died just out of curiosity.

Aiden spotted what he was looking for on the other side of the room and hurried over to it. [Lesser Enchantment of silence] was still in effect so his steps were muffled, almost non-existent. He couldn’t help but smile at the fact that he had a substitute for the stealth skill.

He crossed the room and made his way to the only reading table present. It had a reading bulb right next to it that was turned off.

Lighting wasn’t important right now, besides, the room had enough blue light for him to see almost anything, even fine print. At least as much as a person could read with blue lights.

On top of the table were three pens and nothing else. Far neater than the bed. Aiden ignored it and went for one of the drawers.

Nella said her and her adventurers were currently mapping the cave and that she had a copy of the place that was still a work in progress.

Aiden wasn’t hoping for a perfect map, just a framework he could work with.

He pulled a drawer and paused.

Does she have no sense of privacy? He wondered as the drawer opened.

It was confusing to see someone of her status not lock her drawers or have an enchanted lock.

I’ll be happy to run into a booby trap at this point.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

He looked into the drawer and found it empty.

A sigh escaped his lips. Go figure.

He closed it and opened the next one. There were more pens, some torn up pieces of paper and some cosmetics. He picked one of the cosmetics up just out of curiosity. It was designed for powdering.

On the east side of the room was an entire vanity mirror next to the wardrobe. It was complete with a small wardrobe of its own.

You have got to be kidding me.

The remaining drawers were basically the same thing. More cosmetics, some pens and an arrow head made of what he could only imagine was ivory. Things he felt belonged at the vanity mirror.

If it’s not in the drawer, where would she keep it?

It was mind befuddling. Aiden was beginning to come to the conclusion that there was likely no map in her room.

Had he chosen wrong? Should he have gone to the study, instead?

His mind kept going through the possibilities. The study had always been his second option. Nella’s room was only the first because of what he’d heard from the maids.

Or maybe…

Aiden went to the vanity mirror. It was a long stretch but if Nella was keeping her makeup at the reading table, there was always the possibility that she was using the vanity for the wrong reasons as well.

He went to the vanity. The third drawer opened up to a few folded up pieces of paper.

It was simply insane.

Aiden found what he was looking for by the fifth folded up piece of paper. It was a poorly drafted map, an insult to cartographers all over his world and Nastild. It possessed nothing but lines, but Aiden had been in enough caves to know what an attempt at mapping one looked like.

Careful not to make too much of a mess, he opened up the map in front of him.

Let’s see if your brain still works the way it used to, he told himself.

It did, but not exactly the way it used to. It took Aiden almost five minutes before he memorized enough of the entrance to the cave to be comfortable.

When he was done, he folded the piece of paper back up and returned it to the drawer and slid it shut.

Sneaking out of the room was easier than sneaking in, so was avoiding the guards on his way out. A few stairs of sneaking around and a few hallways later, Aiden found himself at the hall downstairs. There, he discarded the entire demeanor of someone lurking around and strolled down the stairs like a young lord out and about even at this time of the night.

Standing guard at the front door were two soldiers.

One look at them and Aiden recognized them from the training ground. The moment they spotted him, they did the most ridiculous move of placing their hands on the hilts of their sword.

Aiden cocked a brow as he approached them. “Really?”

“It is the middle of the night, Lord Lacheart.” There was definitely no respect in how the first man addressed him. “You cannot leave.”

Aiden took a casual stance and folded his arms.

“By some chance,” he said. “Am I a prisoner in this house?”

“You are not,” the second answered. “But you cannot leave the house so late at night.”

Aiden’s eyes went to the man’s hand on his sword’s pommel. It was casual, but his second hand, his draw hand, was anything but. In fact, it was twitching.

“It is never a good idea to take a threatening stance against an opponent,” he told them. “It makes you an enemy, and I don’t take too kindly to enemies.”

The man that had spoken first drew and inch of steel free. “This is not some honorable duel, Lord Lacheart.”

“It is not,” Aiden agreed. “And I didn’t consider any of them an enemy.”

He didn’t have time for this. If anything, he was supposed to be facing this level of problem at the gate. It seemed his small display at the training grounds hadn’t done its job properly.

Maybe I should’ve killed the first man.

He shook the thought from his mind immediately. That was Order thinking. Not everybody deserved to die because they were being stupid.

“Alright then.” He shook out his hands. “Let’s get this over with and I can apologize to the Lord of the house tomorrow.”

The second soldier looked unsure, his eyes glancing between his partner and Aiden. He looked indecisive even as he reached to draw his weapon.

“Lord Lacheart?”

Everyone stopped.

Aiden recognized the voice.

He did not take his eyes of the men in front of him as he answered. “Princess.”

“Is there a reason you are leaving without me?”

The men in front of him released their swords and Aiden turned to answer the princess, afford her the respect she was due, and stopped.

Princess Elaswit was walking down the stairs, her hair braided back and wrapped around in a bun above her head. More importantly, she was wearing a vest and pants with combat boots. Behind her, strapped to her back, was a massive cleaver as long as a longsword.

Why the hell was she dressed for an adventurer’s expedition?

“I forgive you,” Elaswit said, taking advantage of his pause.

“Sorry… what?” Aiden stuttered.

“When a Lord sees a beautiful woman, he is meant to compliment her on her beauty,” Elaswit explained as she got to the bottom of the stairs. “Her dress, her looks. At the slightest, her massive cleaver. You have not. And you have failed to even after getting caught trying to abandon me when we’ve made plans. And yet, I forgive you.”

Aiden’s brows furrowed.

Elaswit gave him a soft pat on the cheek as she walked past him.

Aiden struggled to calm himself as he grit his teeth. He reminded himself that he was a child, nineteen-years-old, and the princess was older than him by at least two years.

You are not a thirty-year-old man being patted on the cheek by a child.

He repeated the thought twice before successfully calming himself. Besides, if he was a thirty-year-old man living by the logic of his old life, the princess would still be older than him.

Aiden turned to find Elaswit speaking to the guards.

“Names, class, and levels,” she said in a flat voice.

“Princess…” one of them began, but she cut him off with a raised hand.

He was no doubt about to point out how rude it was to ask such questions outside of one’s official capacity. Sadly, Elaswit did not seem to care for such decorum in this moment.

“Understand this, soldier,” she said softly. “Lord Lacheart is within this house based on a royal decree from my father, the king. This decree declares and commands that he is to be granted the highest level of hospitality. The fact that I have arrived here with him should say much on that.”

She looked from one soldier to the other, met their eyes.

“Despite that, not only have you treated a Lord, a man well above your station, like a prisoner in a house where he has been promised the highest level of hospitality, you have also drawn your sword on him.”

“Princess,” the guard who’d been hesitant to draw his blade said hurriedly, panicked. “No swords were drawn.”

She met his eyes. “An inch of steel drawn is a sword drawn, guard. On a guest and your superior by law of the crown. And without provocation. Now, unless you wish for me to inform the lord of this manor about this.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Your name, class, and level.”

“Notel,” the guard replied. “Slasher. Level 16.”

Elaswit turned to the second guard.

“Baltada,” he said, eyes turned down and a frown on his lips. “Knight. Level 17.”

Elaswit scoffed in derision. “I will remember the both of you. Now open the doors. Lord Lacheart and your princess have a task to deal with.”

In a matter of seconds, the doors were open and Aiden and Elaswit were walking out of the building.

“It may seem mean to you,” she told both guards as she past them, “but you could’ve easily lost your lives today.”

Both guards kept their heads low.

“Ask me why, Baltada,” she instructed.

Aiden watched the entire thing, unsure how to feel about it.

“Why?” Baltada asked.

“Because Lord Lacheart does not possess a combat class,” she answered. “Yet, at level 11, on no more than acting on custom, he bested a level 20 with a combat class. He has taken what life has dealt him for creation and domestication, and turned it into something capable of so much harm. Remember that the next time you cross his path.”

With that, she turned and left.

“Let us depart, Lord Lacheart,” she instructed as she passed him by.

Aiden followed, still unsure of how he was supposed to feel about what had happened.

It was…

He didn’t have the words for what it was.

…

Aiden and Elaswit rode in the midnight air, their jepat going through the city’s backstreets as fast as they could quietly manage.

The rest of the ordeal at the estate had gone smoother. Aiden had intended on covering the distance to the cave on foot but Elaswit had been against it. She’d turned them towards the stables and had gotten them two jepats.

At the gate, the guards obeyed her every word. Elaswit was the princess of Nastild and she knew how to use her power.

“Do you disagree with the way I have handled this so far?” she asked him as they rode along the outskirts of the city.

“Why would you imagine I do?” he said.

“Because you have been quiet since we left the estate.”

“I have been quiet, princess, because I am not a man of many words.”

“You seem to speak enough when Valdan is around, though.”

“Perhaps.”

Aiden directed his jepat into a sea of trees and down an inclining slope and Elaswit followed behind him. She caught up shortly after, her jepat trudging alongside his.

“You still haven’t answered my question, Aiden.”

The strain she put on his name was indicative of the fact that he’d used her title instead of her name.

It made Aiden wonder if she had known what he had come to the city for. She had, after all, told him to call her by name when they were alone or in the presence of Valdan. Maybe she’d expected to be riding alongside him and Valdan for this task.

“Did you know what I wanted?” he asked instead. “How did you know that this would happen?”

“I am my father’s daughter,” she said. “When someone in your position decides that they want to leave the comfort of the palace for some reason or the other, it begs the question of why. I asked around and it wasn’t difficult to learn that everything you’ve done since coming to my world has been in the name of power.”

Aiden grunted. It was the only response he could give as their jepats trudged across a small stream of flowing water.

“So,” she continued when the sounds of splashing water wasn’t in the air, “it was safe to say that a requested trip this far north was for power. Couple that with your uncanny display for possessing information you should not, I knew you were up to something.”

Aiden turned to her as he slowed his jepat.

She had been paying attention.

“Did you put yourself up to this?” he asked.

Elaswit laughed. “Now what would give you the idea that I didn’t?”

“First thing, princess—”

“It’s Elaswit, Aiden.”

“—I do not possess an uncanny level of knowledge,” Aiden continued without missing a beat. “I possess knowledge because I ask questions and I’m lucky. Second, despite everything I’ve done, you’ve never taken any interest. If you had, I would know. And third, this feels more political than direct. Direct is for you and your father. Your mother and prince Derenet are the political ones and since you don’t listen to your brother, I’m inclined to believe your mom’s the reason you’re here.”

“And my youngest brother?”

Aiden paused. “Vaskot?”

He tried to remember what he knew of the boy. He knew what kind of person Vaskot had become but not the kind of person he was. It took him another moment to realize that princess Elaswit was investigating, in a manner of speaking.

“I have no idea,” he answered.

“I will tell you that I’m impressed you even remembered his name,” she said. “Almost everyone ignores him.”

Aiden wasn’t surprised. Everyone ignored Vaskot. Aiden had certainly ignored him in his past life.

“He’s a part of the royal family,” he said. “Everyone should know the names of the royal family.”

Aiden looked around, calculating how far he’d gone as they lulled back into silence. One of the pieces of information he’d gotten before leaving the palace was a map of the Naranoff territory. If he wasn’t mistaken, they were in the right geographical area.

Why didn’t I look at the map once more?

“Where are we going, Aiden?” Elaswit asked, as his jepat marched in a circle.

Aiden’s head remained on a swivel, thinking.

Would’ve been easier on foot.

His brain worked better on foot.

“If I said I wasn’t going to tell you,” he answered. “Will you turn back?”

Elaswit snorted. “You should know me better by now.”

Aiden paused on his search and looked at her. “You do know that I have spent, in sum total, less than a day with you, Princess.”

“And yet you avoid me like you know me and don’t like me.” Elaswit gave him a fake smile. It was oddly warm, friendly.

Who would’ve thought I’d be friends with a princess in this life.

“So, would you like a map?”

Aiden paused. She’d had a map the entire time?

He shook his head. Of course she did.

He held a hand out to her. “Yes, please.”

She laughed and offered one to him, pulling it from somewhere behind her. It was rolled up. “Three soldier belts and no maps. You should rethink your life choices, Aiden.”

Aiden took the rolled up map. “My life choices are just fine, Elaswit.”

He unrolled the map, held it out in front of him, then frowned.

Not enough moonlight.

He rolled it back up and gave it to her.

“What?” she asked. “You aren’t going to tell me you’ve gotten it that fast.”

Aiden shook his head. “I didn’t. There’s not enough moonlight to see with.”

“Aren’t there enchantments that give you the ability to see at night?”

“There are.” Aiden frowned, looking around once more. “But those enchantments are above my current level. I can’t use them even if I wanted to.”

He turned, his jepat trotting along with him. After a while, he pointed. “That’s east.”

Elaswit nodded.

“Then that’s north.” He pointed again.

Elaswit nodded.

“Then…” he pointed. “That’s south.”

He turned and kicked the jepat into a trot. Elaswit followed.

They rode for almost half an hour before Aiden found what he was looking for. He reined in his jepat, and dismounted.

Elaswit did the same.

When they were done tying their jepats to a tree, she asked, “So where are we?”

“The cave.”

“The cave.” Elaswit looked at him. “As in the cave the cave? The one Nelly’s investigating?”

“Nelly?”

“Nella Naranoff. I call her Nelly.”

Aiden nodded. “Well, yes. Nella’s cave.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to get a unique skill.”

“Haven’t people been dying and getting missing in there?”

There was a note in her voice. Aiden knew it well enough. It was fear, which wasn’t illogical.

He started walking forward, downhill. The forest grass was slowly being overthrown by sturdy ground.

“You can always wait out here, princess,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll be out in a few hours.”

“You want me to stand out here in the open for a few hours?” she panicked, then rushed after him. “There could be other monsters out here.”

Aiden looked at the handle of her cleaver poking out from over her shoulder. “Aren’t butchers supposed to be badass?”

“Who said I’m a butch—”

She paused.

“It’s the cleaver, isn’t it?” she asked with a sigh.

Aiden nodded. “It’s the cleaver.”

Butchers were the most common class known to use cleavers in combat.

They walked another few steps, still going downhill. The ground grew firmer with every step. Aiden kept his attention on the path around them. The trees. The small sounds of insects chirping. The life of the forest.

Elaswit had a few things to say, all of them mundane. Aiden kept his attention on the task at hand. It was a little unfair of him, but now that he knew she wasn’t here simply because she could be, he was keeping his replies close to his chest.

Back in the palace, the others were most likely getting ready for their mock battle. He wondered if Letto had finally hit level 10 and what class he would’ve chosen. If there was anyone whose life he’d impacted intentionally in this timeline, even if it was in a small way, it was Letto.

There was a part of Aiden that wanted Letto to be offered a class better than [Thief].

Elaswit realized that Aiden wasn’t in the mood for much talking when she asked a question about him and returning to earth and he’d replied with a grunt. After that, she’d remained silent.

When they got to their destination, Aiden stared at the entrance with a tired expression. He’d really been hoping, but hope wasn’t always a friend.

“So what do we do about that?” Elaswit asked.

Aiden shrugged. “We continue with what I came here to do.”

At the entrance to the cave, eight jepats stood idly.

Some people were here.

Aiden only hoped they were adventurers. If they aren’t, you could just kill them.

Or not.

He hated when he thought this way.