William stood delightfully behind the elegant door, the door fading into the background as the man’s charms overwhelmed it, his charismatic smile was enough for a damsel to faint on the spot. His skin was as smooth as silk, giving him the presence of a noble birth. Dressed in a surprisingly long robe down to his ankle, he gazed at Fuyuki with his azure eyes, as clear as an unclouded sky.

As I looked at William, someone held my clothes strongly, the fabric of my clothes almost ripped apart. I looked over and saw Risa’s face filled with a worryingly grim expression. Of course, nothing was out of the ordinary, she looked at humans as if they were rats that could talk but she stared at William, her crimson eyes filled with emotion I’d never seen before. Did she ate something bad?

Looking back at William, I noticed his left arm, if you could call it that. Sunlight reflected on William’s mechanical left arm. It was made of grey metal and it was sturdy, too. It was my first time seeing prosthetics, so I was a bit surprised. Fuyuki didn’t tell me he was like that.

“It is wonderful to meet you again, Fuyuki.” William held Fuyuki’s arm and gave it a tender kiss, his ashen-colored hair lightly fluttered.

“This is why I don’t want to meet this bastard,” Takana sighed heavily.

William smiled. “It is wonderful to meet you, again, Takana.” William’s gentle face pierced Takana, provoking him to look away, his face filled with annoyance.

Then out of nowhere, there was a dagger pointed on Takana’s throat, a droplet of blood fell smoothly along with his sweat.

“Hey, Feim, is that you!? Stop that!” Takana squirmed.

“Shall I kill him, Master William?” the maid I saw earlier looked at Takana like a worm as she easily disabled his arm behind him. That took me by surprise. Where did she come from?

“Let him go, Feim, that kind man is our guest for today,” William put up his hand. The maid obliged and released Takana’s arm. Takana groaned as he stretched his arm. I took a glance at Merry and wondered why maids were such strong people.

“Damn, Feim, where did you come from? That’s not how you treat an old friend,” Takana grinned. It seemed they knew each other.

“I was merely trying to eradicate a pest that came in to my master’s house, and please don’t assume we’re friends, it’s revolting.” Her cold gaze reminded me of Merry. Again, I took a glance at Merry, this time she noticed it, so I quickly looked away. Now, why all maids that I met were cold? Was that a trait they had in common? “Lady Fuyuki, Lady Kihana,” she bowed fluidly, lifting her knee-length deep blue skirt.

“Why don’t I get any of that?” Takana furrowed his brows.

“I already showed you my generosity, didn’t I?”

“Now, now, it’s a bright day,” William looked at Kihana. “Of course, how can I forget about Kihana?” instead of kissing her hand like she did with Fuyuki, William bowed elegantly.

“Hello to you, too, William…” Kihana gave her best and smiled.

Merry, Risa and I stood there silently as they had a joyous reunion. We couldn’t interrupt their reunion, right? Though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel uncomfortable standing there.

“My apologies, it seems you have companions with you.” William seemed to have finally noticed us.

“Yeah!” Fuyuki replied happily. “There’s so much to tell that I don’t even know where to start! But to start off, this is our leader, Terrin!” Fuyuki introduced me extensively as she shake her hands like a cheerleader introducing their own team. I smiled timidly.

“I-I’m Terrin, nice to meet you, sir.” I bowed, hoping I did the right action.

“It’s my pleasure to meet you, Lord William. I am Merry, a humble commoner.” Merry bowed as elegant as Feim. Was the last part necessary? Well, a few of their cultures and traditions were the same from our world.

William nodded as if hammering a pressure to me. Nobles sure did give off a predominant ambience. William crouched to the level of Risa. “How about you, young lady? I would like to know your name,” even though his smile would probably make any children happy but Risa wasn’t any children as she looked at him coldly.

“Risa.” She replied in the briskest way possible. It wasn’t the same when she introduced herself to other humans or to Takana. This time she was holding herself back from something. What was wrong with her? Even her big brother couldn’t figure it out.

“A lovely name for a lovely maiden,” William stood up. “Let’s talk about your journey here as we eat lunch.” He signaled Feim to prepare lunch.

“As you wish,” as quickly as she showed up, Feim disappeared to the heart of the house.

“Please follow Lindwal, I’ll be with you shortly,” William went back to her room.

*

We entered an unbelievably spacious dining hall. It was so spacious a hundred people wouldn’t be able to occupy this entire room. Though, few furniture seemed amiss. Actually, the only furniture here was the long table in the middle of the room. In addition, though there were many rooms, the hallways of this house were as empty, though there were flower vases here and there. Maybe William was a minimalist.

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The room had large windows in which the light came in, staining the room with tinge of darkness and abundance of light. We sat on a lavish chair. As I sat, I felt the comfortable softness of the cushion of the chair, one that I hadn’t felt in a long while. The table in front of me was made of glass with intricate patterns, when I put my hand on it, the glass felt like it was going to shatter. There were few furnitures but William didn’t spare any money for them.

“I am Archduke William Colinus Borin, from the House of Borin and one of the Pinear Mages, at your service.” William introduced himself, now wearing a long- sleeve uniform made of pristine silk and quality leather, his arms covered with white gloves. On the right side of his chest hanged a small emblem the same one that Chance received from Lindwal earlier. He looked like a proper noble compared to before.

William easily dropped a bunch of words that made my head spin. Archduke? House of Borin? Pinear Mages? These were all unfamiliar words, though Merry seemed to know about it and by the looks of it, these words were extremely important.

“You didn’t have to dress up like that, it’s just us here!” Fuyuki exclaimed.

“It would be rude to dress casually especially with new visitors,” William explained. “I want my guest to feel they are welcomed.” William smiled towards us which prompted me to smile awkwardly.

The door to the dining hall opened. Feim entered, pushing a huge cart with our meal on it. One by one, like a true professional maid, he smoothly placed our meal on the table. Three silver-colored plates, along with various utensils surrounding the said plates, grandly complimented the food on it. The foods in question were rice, chicken soup, bread, meat and pork. It was like a feast.

“I’m very sorry,” Feim bowed and apologized. “This is all I could prepare in such a short notice.” Short notice? She literally had less than half an hour to prepare this. Who was this maid? Merry’s title was in jeopardy.

We started to eat. All of them knew how to use the utensils around them, even Risa. I chose the safe route and picked up a spoon and fork. The one food I was happy to see was rice. Ever since I came here, I hadn’t eaten any rice. Maybe rice wasn’t popular in Ergaos but rice did exist here, Hashi almost won it once.

All of a sudden, William cleared his throat. “I haven’t seen Hashi, where is he? It’d be a pleasure to meet him again.”

It was only a few words and yet, it made us stop moving. We had moved on from the past but hearing your deceased friend’s name brought back the memories. Nobody answered as we all knew who should answer the question.

“Hashi died,” a bittersweet smile formed on Fuyuki’s face. Her smile never ceased to amaze me. Fuyuki was indeed a weird being, some might even call her an alien from another world but when it came to her friends, I believed she was normal on that part. Well, there were many more but I was busy looking at the rice.

“Is that so?” everybody fell silent. “Well, I won’t push any further,” William said.

“Don’t worry, William! I’ll tell you about it later! For now, I’m hungry!”

William nodded. “So, what did you came here for?” William asked.

“I told you we’re here for a visit!” Fuyuki said she then ate a bread and continued. To be fair, the bread that Feim made was great. It was soft and you could easily taste it. “Also, we’re going to bring that girl over there to her father.”

“I see. So where is this place?”

“Where was it again?” Fuyuki tried her best to remember it. Now that I thought about it, where was it again? “You know the town where Castella lives?”

“Of course,” William’s eyes sharpened. “It’s Cugnas. Gyoro and the others are there.”

Gyoro and the others?

“He isn’t in the capital?” Takana asked, a crumb on his cheeks. He’d been quiet all along because of the food in front of him. Life was easier with good food.

William nodded. “Our king is very impatient, isn’t he?”

“Your king,” Takana corrected with an angry look on his face. “I want nothing to do with that piece of shit.”

“Blunt as usual, Takana,” William laughed, it seemed he was having a good time. As for me, I barely kept up with what they were saying. “But if you’re going there, you would have to meet them, no?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when the time comes.” Takana shrugged as he went back to eating.

“Of course, Of course,” William smiled. “Do you have any place to stay? It’d be my pleasure to offer you one of our rooms.”

“Really!?” Fuyuki’s face beamed with light but the light faded as quickly as it appeared. “Oh, but it’s really not my decision to decide that.” She sheepishly looked at me. What was she getting embarrassed for?

“My apologies, I should be asking the leader,” William looked at me.

I was a bit reluctant by accepting the offer. I knew there wasn’t a catch but living in a big, empty house reminded me of my home before.

Risa pulled my clothes. “We’ll stay.” She said, her voice heavy. Risa staying in a human house? Something was wrong.

I ignored it and looked back to William for now. “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with that,” I said, trying to keep my voice loud and my posture straight. Being looked upon by someone higher in every aspect of my life made my heart beat faster.

Fuyuki shouted in glee, Kihana smiled and Takana grimaced. Merry seemed too occupied with the food in front of her and Risa was as silent as a good child. “But it would be too imposing of us if we don’t repay you.” I said.

“It’s fine, I trust that you don’t have anything that would intrigue me.” well, he was not wrong. But in the corner of my eye, I noticed Feim.

“Well, we’d like to help Feim with some of her household chores.”

“I’m sure Feim would consider you more as a nuisance rather than help,” William said.

“I couldn’t have worded it better, Master William.” Feim said respectably. She then looked at me, a familiar disgust in her eyes. “Especially from a human boy.”

Human? She spoke just like Merry when I first saw her. Another similarities.

William smiled, I saw a hint of mischievousness. “But why not? It is a good example for young people like you to know that not everything is free.” William mused and then nodded a couple of times. “Yes, yes, I shall allow it.”

“Yes, as you wish,” Feim bowed her head a bit.

“Men, I don’t want to do something like that,” Takana complained.

I looked back at William again. “Can it be just me?” William nodded. This made Takana sigh in relief.

After we ate, Feim led us to our room. I had no idea how Feim could memorize such a complex house. Since there were probably a hundred rooms in this house, we each had our own room. Our rooms were besides each other, so that was assuring. Risa would be sleeping with me as usual. Our rooms had many furnitures in them as if someone was living her, and of course, a huge king-sized bed. Damn, what a big bed.

As I lay down our stuff and admire the bed we would be going to sleep in, Risa stood there motionlessly. Her cute childish face was gone and replaced by a grim expression she’d had ever since we met William.

“We have to kill that man.” Risa said. Maybe it wasn’t monsters I was going to be fighting here but a kind, well-renowned, strong noble. If Risa asked for it, I had no choice but to do it.