A month ago, Eliza would say that falling five times a day was a lot.

If you asked now, she’d say those were rookie numbers.

For the umpteenth time, Eliza plummeted to the ground after her arms gave out. She was doing push-ups, which would be considered unladylike had she been a Daisy like Miss Corbin but she wasn’t.

No, far from it.

Eliza wanted to be a Rose.

That’s what she told herself but this task was arduous and her progress was glacial.

It didn’t help that Eliza wasn’t the fittest girl in the mansion. Far from it. She’d never done anything physical in her entire life and to say her hands were wet noodles would be a compliment.

“Milady, your father clearly doesn’t want you to become a combatant so early,” said Iris from behind, staring at Eliza ridiculously fail at whatever she was trying to do, “You’re just a child.”

“It’s unfair! I can’t even learn magic without reaching that requirement, apparently,” said Eliza and hopped up to her feet, already winded after trying to do five push-ups.

She didn’t even reach three.

“His concerns are well-founded. It is factually impossible for a child to learn Magic,” said Iris and fixed her glasses with two fingers that pushed up the middle.

It was this gesture that made Eliza want to wear glasses in the first place.

“And why’s that?” asked Eliza and collapsed on the bed. She knew it was one of those times that Iris was correct and digging a deeper hole for herself was unnecessary.

“Because to survive the Mana Implantation, you’ll have to be durable enough to endure the process. 5 Durability is the minimum whereas 10 makes it a certainty,” said Iris and raised a finger, “You’ll need to defeat the monster from which you’ll extract the core from. Nobles ordinarily get a core without killing the monster but Lord Fairman doesn’t believe in privileges. You’ll have to kill the monster yourself.”

“Me? Kill a monster?” yelled out Eliza and stuttering, she continued, “T-there’s no way he’d make me do that.”

That’s what she wanted to tell herself but there was.

He was a psychopath.

“Oh, he will absolutely make me do that,” said Eliza and slammed her fists into the soft cushion of the bed a few times. She turned to Iris and with her best impression of a pretty face: a big smile on her face with a slightly open mouth, eyes wide, and her brows slightly raised, “Do you have an idea?”

“There is no way for you to reach those numbers before you reach the age of six at the very least,” said Iris and that’s when Eliza slumped back to her bed.

But she wanted to learn how to fight fast!

“That’s dumb,” retorted Eliza and rolled around on her bed, throwing her best impression of a hissy fit. It was something she’d learned that other children did, which she’d never done before, “Everything is dumb. Training your body to learn magic? That’s just bad design. Geez, this world lacks customer service.”

“Customer service?” asked Iris and raised an eyebrow, a finger on her chin and lips pursed, “How do you know of that, milady? I’d assumed you haven’t been reading.”

Why… did she say that?

She knew the word and its meaning yet it seemed like she shouldn’t. It was just another thing on her list of things that she shouldn’t know yet did.

“I just know it since I’m a genius,” said Eliza and flashed her best smirk. She pointed at herself with her thumb and added, “Did you think I wouldn’t even know of something as simple as that?”

“Milady… how did you learn the alphabet?” asked Iris, a look of concern on her face.

So Iris had decided to assume she’d somehow managed to read?

“No, a better question would be, how did you manage to sneak into the library without notifying me? I was certain I had my eyes on you at all times,” added Iris.

“I told you. I just know it. I even know how to write the hieroglyphs from the Compendium,” said Eliza, hoping deep down that it would garner her special treatment and let her learn something useful before she reached the conditions for the Mission.

It wasn’t likely but a girl could hope.

“The hieroglyphs?” mumbled Iris and she sternly walked over to Eliza, grabbed her by the forearm and slapped her wrists with two fingers, “It’s not ladylike to lie, milady.”

“But I really do know it,” mumbled Eliza and pulled her arm away.

If her Empathy wasn’t a pain in the ass, she’d have had Iris punished for that. If she felt fear…

That wasn’t something Eliza wanted to subject herself to.

That’s when she realized that for the first time in her lifetime she felt an emotion from Iris —anger. No, it wasn’t anger. It was more along the lines of annoyance.

“Actions speak louder than words. Write, then,” said Iris and dragged her out of the room and toward the library.

No parchments nor ink was kept in Eliza’s room as she hadn’t started to learn how to write or read yet. If Eliza’s memory served right, only the library and her father’s study had any ink at all but she’d never entered the library.

After she walked in, though, Eliza’s eyes brightened as she looked around at the bookshelves that reached the ceiling, full of thick books with various-colored covers. She couldn’t help but put a large smile on her face and stare around.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

No.

That amazement wasn’t hers.

Her Empathy was odd. Unless she specifically wondered where the emotion came from, she’d feel it at full force but after she started to question it, it’d be dulled and she’d realize whether it was hers or someone else’s. If it was her own, it wouldn’t be dulled, obviously.

Iris placed Eliza on a chair gently and brought a quill and an inkwell. Then she spread a folded-up parchment and placed a few metal cubes on all four edges to keep it from folding. With the largest frown Eliza had seen on Iris’s face, she stood aside, hands crossed.

It reminded her of Miss Corbin.

“What happens if I can actually write?” asked Eliza after she took a hold of the quill.

It was an unfamiliar sensation.

Could she even write it even if she knew the shapes?

“Then you’ll be deemed a prodigy,” said Iris matter-of-factly, peering down at the parchment with a complete lack of emotions. The annoyance from before was gone, hidden away somewhere.

“What happens if I’m deemed a prodigy?” asked Eliza.

There was no comment.

Eliza didn’t know what she was signing up for and that made her feel discomfort.

“What might be the problem, missy?” sheepishly asked an old man that sat behind one of the desks. He had a soft, gray beard that formed a goatee and had a bandana wrapped around his head, only a few stray strands of disheveled gray hair visible from underneath it.

“I am afraid it is none of your concern. It is between the Little Miss and me,” said Iris coldly before Eliza could even open her mouth.

The old man nonchalantly nodded and leaned back on his rocking chair to continue reading his book. If it wasn’t Eliza or Iris that saw the library with such glamour, it had to be the old man. If she recalled correctly, she heard something about a scholar staying in the mansion to translate a few books from Ancient Elven.

“Do you admit to your faults, milady?” asked Iris after a few seconds, “Apologizing is an essential skill for a Noble to master.”

“Let’s make a Contract, Iris,” said Eliza and gave Iris yet another cheeky grin.

“And what would the conditions be?” asked Iris.

Eliza closed her eyes and built the Contract information within her head.

Contract Notification

Condition: No more bedtime for Eliza Fairman if her knowledge of the Compendium Hieroglyphs is proven.

[Offer to Iris Riversong]

[Discard]

It was fairly simple to create a screen with the information, especially when the condition was simple. Eliza heard that some Nobles created numerous clauses and terms for Contracts which gave her a headache so she stopped listening to Iris’s ranting when she started to explain it last year.

She chose to offer it to Iris without a second’s doubt.

“If you cannot, however, your bedtime will be one hour earlier,” said Iris.

Contract Notification

Condition Requested: Eliza Fairman’s bedtime will be an hour earlier than the norm, that being 9 o’clock in the evening, if her knowledge of the Compendium Hieroglyphs is disproven.

[Accept]

[Deny]

Eliza accepted.

“Say something,” said Eliza and dipped the quill into the inkwell until it sucked up enough ink to write a few of them.

“There are exactly seven different ethnicities in the Empire of Vanaris,” said Iris, making Eliza roll her eyes.

Anything was turned into a lesson.

Eliza scribbled the hieroglyph for “there are”, as it was a rather common one with no issue. The shape for “7” was also easy. “Different” and “exactly” were similarly easy. Ethnicity, on the other hand, was one that she didn’t know so Eliza pulled what was known as a prodigious move. Instead of actually writing down a hieroglyph she knew, she drew a similar shape and imbued it with the intention.

It was simple.

She’d done it with her murmurs and groans when she was a child. Doing it for a written language couldn’t be that difficult… right?

“Empire” and “Vanaris” were both simple, but in the hieroglyphic grammar, it could only be written as “Vanaris Empire”, which was what she did. Then “in the” was morphed into yet another makeshift hieroglyph as she didn’t bother to memorize the shapes for those two.

The end result was a total of 8 hieroglyphs that had a red tint as if it was the wax that was used to seal letters shut.

“Can you read it?” asked Eliza and placed the quill back into the inkwell.

Iris stared at the parchment for a few seconds and by the second, her eyes grew wider. Bit-by-bit, Iris’s mouth started to open until they were hanging open, her jaws completely dropped.

“You… did it,” said Iris.

“I told you, didn’t I? I’m just that amazing,” said Eliza and checked her emotions once again.

The emotion that Iris felt was shock, not pride. That meant Eliza’s boasting attitude was a product of herself this time. The repressed part of her that still desired worship —the fragments of the Goddess that she was.

“I-I’ll have to inform your father as fast as possible,” said Iris and promptly left the room, walking backward as she left.

The old man was a scholar and that meant he was far superior to Iris, who was a mere servant and it meant that she didn’t have the right to turn her back to him, even if he wouldn’t care.

After Iris left, though, the old man stood up and walked over to her. His back was hunched and both hands were held behind his back as support. It seemed that one of his eyes couldn’t see anything, completely gray whereas the other one was of a hazel color, which Eliza assumed to be his one good eye.

“Intriguing, I have to say,” said the old man and nodded his head a few times, “I assume it is an Exotic Skill that you have that lets you do that. Polyglot, if my memory is half as good as it was.”

“Polyglot… how did you know?” asked Eliza and stepped back.

“I know many things,” said the old man and let out a dry chuckle. He lightly patted Eliza on the shoulder and stared at the hieroglyphs for a few seconds. He then asked, “You don’t necessarily have to use the hieroglyphs, do you?”

Eliza shook her head.

The man chuckled for a few seconds once again and walked over to one of the shelves. From there, he grabbed five books.

No, calling them books would be wrong.

They were scrolls.

He placed them on the table in front of Eliza and looked at her with expectant eyes.

“Those are languages that even I have failed to decipher. My Linguist Skill needs a small amount of reference for me to learn the language but it seems that you do not have such limits,” said the old man and raised five fingers, “If you give me enough material for me to use as reference, I’ll teach you five Skills. They will all be integrated to become one. Is that fair?”

“How do I know they aren’t useless?” asked Eliza questioningly.

She could almost feel the honesty.

No, honesty wasn’t it. It was desperation. He wanted to read and understand those books, or perhaps the languages themselves. He would win nothing by lying.

“Fine… You’ll have to teach me first, though. There’s nothing I can’t decipher, after all,” said Eliza and crossed her arms, a large grin on her face.

Yes, this was it.

Being treated as if she was special was what she’d been looking for. Even if she was locked within the mansion, if she could at least get that, then she could at least entertain herself a bit.

Five Skills…

What exactly were they?

“Let’s make a Contract,” said Eliza and started to imagine the starting sentences for it, constructing the screen.