“Are you sure it’s safe?” Franziska asked, her voice barely above a whisper. The three girls peeked out from behind a particularly unkempt bush in the gardens, from here the place where the estate’s wards met their end was visible—if barely.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Malwine assured her for what had to be the twentieth time.

“I borrowed Brother Kristoffer’s umbrella,” Adelheid—positioned between the other two—said with a faint smile. “Just in case.”

That earned her a pair of glares, each for an entirely different reason.

“When will it happen?” the mortal girl asked.

Malwine sighed. Had any of the staff been paying attention to anything at all, they would have been discovered ages ago.

They’d managed to ‘accidentally’ lock Anna Franziska out of the room. While their teacher and a random staffer whose job for the day would apparently be locksmith tried and failed to open barricaded door, Adelheid would periodically return to the room to give them updates on just how well the girls were doing.

She just conveniently left out the part where they were no longer even in the room.

When Adelheid had started talking to Malwine about the seasons—and expressed some interest in seeing the arrival of the new year—she’d sort of just assumed her little sister meant for it to be just the two of them.

The little tag-along was as noisy as she was shy—somehow—and her inclusion made everything far more difficult than it had to be.

For Malwine and Adelheid to sneak out, it would be effortless. But add a mortal with literally zero Skills into the mix, and all of a sudden, they needed days worth of planning to pull this off.

It didn’t help that Adelheid had been more than a little bit vague when asked just how, exactly, Franziska seemed to already know about Adelheid’s ability to move other people.

“Everyone probably guesses I can do it, anyway,” her little sister had insisted—her words had been equally unconvincing each time she made an attempt.

Ultimately, Malwine didn’t actually care that much. So long as her own secrets remained safe, she didn’t mind if Adelheid told the girl anything else.

Am I a hypocrite? Malwine scowled. Her expression softened a moment later. Nah, I just exercise discretion as needed. Sometimes it’s needed, other times, not so much.

“When will it happen?”

Malwine turned to shoot a glare to the side, only to realize halfway through the motion that it had been a pouting Adelheid who had asked, this time. She could only give her little sister an incredulous look, at that.

Unfortunately for all of them, Malwine’s trusty pebble wasn’t anywhere near as good at timekeeping for her to calculate the exact moment in which the seasons would switch over— and she had told them both as much, before they headed here.

“It should be soon,” Malwine could only hope the vague answer placated them for long enough for it to become accurate.

She’d noticed The Fog was a surprisingly slow time of the year whenever she strayed from the areas people stuck to. The more lived-in rooms, bustling with staff, had a way of selling that illusion of activity when in reality, most seemed to treat it as a vacation of sorts.

She hadn’t entered Veit’s hut again, but she’d called out to him enough times to conclude he wasn’t getting up anytime soon. Whenever she next managed to speak to him, she would demand answers—Malwine could only hope she could convey her concern without, well, outing herself and her snooping.

“There!” Adelheid pointed, the glee in her tone blatant.

Malwine exhaled in relief. There had indeed been little time left in the year, after all.

This time around, she found watching her companions’ reactions to be more interesting than watching The Rain itself arrive.

Adelheid’s expression was more than slightly worrying—the girl looked about as suspiciously thrilled as she had when she ‘borrowed’ those coloring pens.

She’d be looking forward to leaning just how her little sister planned to make her feel inadequate this time around. A twinge of maturity had managed to seep into Malwine’s worldview by now, enough that her knee-jerk reactions of jealousy had been toned down into amusement. Most of the time, anyway.

“The sea is crying?” Franziska, meanwhile, appeared horrified.

Wasn’t that how Bernie described it? Malwine wondered. It had been along while since Bernie first explained the seasons to her. A pang of nostalgia stabbed into her.

5803, here we come.

It hadn’t even been a full three years since she first awoke in this world. It felt simultaneously recent and distant.

So much had happened, yet… this was still barely the start of her life.

----------------------------------------

Malwine felt her eye twitch, and keeping herself from backtracking on her stance was a show of willpower.

[Benighted Star]

If you enter a room while hidden, show yourself and activate this Skill to draw attention to yourself for as many seconds as this Skill’s current level. The strength of the effect depends on how your Presence compares to that of the people in the room.

Her representation of Adelheid’s Skill hovered between them.

Adelheid was beaming, and as Malwine settled her thoughts, she found she shared in the joy. At minimum, she was certainly proud.

Definitely not jealous.

“How does it work?” she asked her little sister.

Adelheid hummed, seeming pensive as she tipped her head down and to the left—and all went quiet.

For an endless instant, the world stilled, and Malwine felt as though if she could see whichever minuscule dust particles were floting around, they would have been suspended in place.

Then the world itself appeared to zoom in on Adelheid, highlighting her presence in the room. The mere concept of looking away felt like an impossibility.

As the Skill’s effects faded, Malwine gasped, at a loss for words. “…Wow.”

“I know!” Adelheid flashed her a grin. “I’ve been testing it, but haven’t tried it on Mother yet. It just hasn’t felt like the right time, and she’s almost always with Sister Matilda.”

Malwine nodded. “I feel bad for Matilda. No offense, but Bernie can be… a bit much, sometimes.”

Her little sister simply giggled. “Mother likes her fancy rules, I know. And I don’t. I used to wonder if that was why she didn’t like me, back before I understood people don’t like me, in general. Before I understood why they ignored me.”

Malwine reached over on instinct, to squeeze the girl’s shoulder, but Adelheid caught her hand and gripped that instead. “It’s okay, sister. I’m bigger now and can handle it.”

Letting go, Adelheid took a few steps back. With a smile, she did a twirl in the center of the room, her hands apart as if to show the size of it. “Even if I can’t make people like me, I can make sure they can’t ignore me anymore.”

----------------------------------------

Veit’s desk was empty today, his mug steaming. He kept his other hand flat on the desk as he sipped his tea—the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to paint his nails was more than proof enough for Malwine that she hadn’t imagined something being wrong.

“You had me worried, you know,” Malwine said, her expression one of disapproval. “You could have just said something. Left a note on the door. I spent half The Fog wondering where in any Devil’s name you were!”

The silver-haired man exhaled slowly, keeping his face close to the mug. “I… miscalculated. I was not as careful as I should have been with something, and needed some time to recover as a result.”

“Oh?” Malwine raised an eyebrow, torn between the urge to pry and her newfound willingness to afford him at least a bit of privacy. After another second of consideration, she decided she did indeed deserve more. “I don’t see how that’d require disappearing for that long?”

Veit eyed her. For once, Malwine thought she could get a good idea of what he might be thinking—suspicion crossed his features, but resignation soon replaced it. “Let us say, The Fog is a complicated time of the year. For one such as I, there can be benefits to some exposure. And I miscalculated. That was all.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I thought The Fog was like, impairing, and that’s why people don’t travel during it?” That earned her a glare from the forester, but he didn’t refute her.

“Okay,” Malwine figured it might be wise to simply drop the matter. She supposed she could hardly blame someone so old for having that kind of problem. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my progress with the Acclimation and Control values of my Affinities. And some other things. Assuming you’re up for it?”

Veit looked at the desk, summoning the projector without another word.

Her improvements since The Fog had been minimal, but Malwine was still quite proud of herself.

Mana Sources for Malwine Rīsanin

Root Acclimation Control Redacted 51 25 Redacted 27 13 Redacted 24 12 Redacted 20 10 Locked - - Locked

- - Locked

- -

Other Affinities: Ore III

“Excellent progress,” Veit praised, absentmindedly taking a hand to his temple. If he had any intention of convincing her he was fine, he was not doing a great job at that. “I suspect it was only your ignorance that kept you from increasing those values before. Now that you have a better idea of what to do, they’re soaring because they’re catching up to what they could have been.”

Malwine frowned. “Even my fourth?”

“The first five-hundred or so, I’d say, are far from difficult. They simply take time. The general expectation for someone training since childhood would be for them to enter adulthood with at least a thousand Acclimation each, and half that value in Control. That much is somewhat selfpoliced, as your Roots will instinctively try to remain around that ratio.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say a thousand?”

Veit let out a laugh, the sound brief. “You haven’t the faintest clue as to how far those values can go, girl. I recall meeting an old House’s scion when I was little—their name eludes me, now. I could have been no older than you are now, except truly that age. He put the Champions loitering in my father’s estate to shame. That was also the day I learned what a billion was.” “Thanks, I hate it.”

“You are in a fundamentally different position to where a high noble with four Classes and multipliers would be, and he was admittedly several centuries old. I would simply prefer that you know of such things, to not let an inflated ego get the better of you.”

I don’t have an inflated ego, she wanted to say—for some reason, her double’s tongue wouldn’t move.

Her teacher sighed. “You mentioned there were other matters you wished to discuss?”

“Yes,” Malwine took the bait, glad for the change in topic. “I was wondering whether it was safe to try and circulate mana from all Affinities at once? If it can even be done?”

“It can and should be, later on,” Veit said. “You wouldn’t want to start getting your channels used to that until far into the future, when you have Classes forged at least once over. It can lead to some… confusion. You want your Classes to be at ease with the Root assigned to them, and only later would you start introducing the others to it, to improve how swiftly you can shift your focus from one Skill to the next even if they use different Mana Sources. Think of it as a form of multitasking, though Roots will always be less effective outside their category, in any case.”

Malwine didn’t have that problem anymore—not since [Enforced Longevity] became one of her Skills, letting her categories share mana freely—but she held her tongue. Instead, she went for the low hanging fruit. “I have a [Multitasking] Skill, funnily enough.”

“Under ?”

“Yes.”

“Rarity?”

Malwine considered lying. “Rare.”

“Good, good,” Veit spoke slowly, his eyes narrowing. “How many Skills do you have in each category?”

“Four in , five in and , and three in .”

Considering this fell within the maximum Skills someone on the Mortal Esse could have, she didn’t see a point in omitting anything—after all, speaking of Skills could serve as a nice segue into asking him for Skills.

Veit produced a thin paper from his inventory. It reminded her of a bookmark, with a landscape painted on it. It also gave her no description when she focused on it. “Tap this.”

Malwine squinted at him. “What is that?”

“A rudimentary… category balance tester of my father’s making. It works on signals, rather than exact numbers.”

She reached for it gingerly, letting her right index finger just barely tap the object.

“Oh, sweet Devils.”

“That’s a new one.”

“What in any Devil’s name have you been doing with that category?”

“I have, uh,” Malwine eyed her Skills panel innocently. “[Meditation]. And some stuff.”

“Magically speaking, your Class weighs more than and combined.”

“Wait, that’s something you can quantify?”

“Not quite, but it’s the easiest way to explain. Think of it as… imagine each category could hold ten lemons in it, as you are right now.”

Lemons exist. That further implies the existence of lemonade. Neither fact was particularly relevant.

“Okay, and?”

“Say, your would have seven lemons, while your and have four.”

“Could you not have picked another fruit?” Mostly so I can find out which others exist.

Veit ignored her. “Your would be at eleven.”

“I thought the maximum in this analogy was ten?”

“Yes.”

Malwine stared at the forester in silence. “Oh.”

“Indeed, oh,” Veit shook his head. “I take it no one ever warned you about the dangers of not keeping your Skill categories balanced?”

“My uncle and grandfather both told me some things, but I obviously couldn’t ask them for advice directly,” Malwine shrugged. “I know I’m supposed to stick to rarities that are near each other, but if I see a good Skill, I’m not going to not take it just because I have an Uncommon.”

She knew she was basically snitching on herself for the Legendary there, but the Timeless {Vanagloria} was unlikely to care about such a thing.

“That is why you watch your Traits and Aspects most of all. Rarity is only the base for such things,” Veit sighed. “Think of it as a multiplicative effect. They make your categories heavier, in a sense, each time they add depth to a Skill. I must confess I know not how anyone can manage to make a category this much heavier, however.”

“What can I say, I try my best,” Malwine laughed nervously. “While we’re at it, though, would you happen to have any suggestions on anything I could add to ? Even if you hadn’t said all that, I would have mentioned it eventually. having the least Skills has actually been bothering me for a while.”

“There is something,” Veit admitted. He cupped his chin pensively. “Give me a moment.”

Malwine nodded, waiting in silence. Her unofficial cultivation teacher’s eyes kept flicking around as he browsed through something only he could see.

“This should do,” Veit finally spoke. He raised a dainty hand, and a bronze coin appeared between his middle and index finger. “There would be no one better for this than the likes of you, actually.”

What’s that supposed to mean?! Not that her minor outrage prevented her from having her double reach out for the coin.

Clave Imprint

Brought forth by Aitel Khödan

Grants the user [The Way of the Clave], enabling them to instinctively grasp alternative ways in which to navigate communication on a situational basis.

“Again with the ‘brought forth’?”

“My father is or was an expert in certain obsolete forms of summoning magic.”

“Forms of magic can become obsolete?”

“They can when they consist of grabbing objects from other worlds, which have a limited supply of them.”

A snort escaped Malwine. “That’s fair,” she turned back to the coin. “Is this your way of telling me I need to work on my communication skills?”

“I’ll let you be the judge,” Veit told her, barely concealing a smile. “You should know I will return to my patrols once The Rain ends, and given what a certain old man did, I will have to be much more consistent in them. This does mean we are unlikely to see each other often until the next The Snow.”

“Oh,” Malwine couldn’t say she hadn’t expected something like that, but it still sucked to hear. “What do you recommend I do in the meantime?”

“Keep working on Acclimation and Control. Aim for Level 70 at least—that much is clearly within your capabilities,” Veit seemed to consider what else he might say. “If you can, examine your Skills. Look for something fundamentally wrong. There is likely a Skill there you might need to evolve, or a Trait or Aspect in need of replacement. Even accounting for rarities, the gap between your categories should not be that pronounced, I’m afraid. It all but guarantees something is amiss in the category.”

“Right,” Malwine’s double licked her lips. She couldn’t quite think of how to finish the conversation. “See you next The Snow?”

“Or so I hope,” the forester waved at her.

“Don’t get lost in The Rain.”

“Until we meet again, Malwine Rīsanin,” Veit said, and as he waved a second time, her double collapsed without any input from her.