#Tizmilly’s training
Since she started living with the Roost Family, Tizmilly had never stop training with her sword every afternoon. Today was not an exception.
"Hah! Hah! Hah!"
Swing after swing, thrust after thrust. She moved around the small yard of the Roost Family’s house like a little fairy who was doing a fiery dance.
The mory of her fresh defeat against the Rain Serpent kept resurfacing in her mind.
’What if I did this instead of that? What if I was not too nasty in launching a finishing attack? What if...’
She never stopped thinking about how to improve herself. She didn’t want to lose anymore. She didn’t want to show Theo her vulnerable state anymore. She wanted to beco stronger. More, and more.
Sweat covered her entire body, making her clothes felt uncomfortable. Tizmilly endured it. She tried to control her breathing and refining her movents to lessen the exhaustion and the stain her body had to endure when she was moving.
She also tried to use her magic while she was moving. However, she kept failing to do so. When her focus was split, instead of gaining a complex combination attack of sword and magic, she ended up as having none of them. Her swings beca unstable and weak, while her magic failed even to be executed properly.
Tizmilly had identified the reason, of course. It was due to her lack of training. She had never trying to push herself this hard before.
It was not that her previous training regi back in the days when she was not yet disowned by her Family was easy or soft. It was equally hard and testing. However, she trained for a sole goal of getting stronger, without any concrete goal of her own like she was now, which made the training felt like a duty than a road to attain what she wanted and need to be.
She wanted a change.
A change in herself, and her world.
What she had to do was still the sa: kept training. However, the goal was not to beco stronger alone, but sothing after that, sothing more important.
#Gyllena’s sleepless night
Inside her personal room, she was supposed to feel safe. It was her sanctuary, the place she was born and grow up with.
However, that night, the room she stopped seeing the room the sa way she did before.
’Was the mansion already filled with those robed people? What would I do if they tried to do bad things to ? What if even my servants were in their control?’
Questions filled her head, overthinking naturally caused after the shock that shook her just now.
The blanket that she used to separate herself from the world was visibly trembling. Not because of the cold air, but because of the fear of unknown.
People she didn’t know were doing sothing suspicious, even dangerous at her yard. And none of her knights were able to see them, even though they were just before their own eyes. The thought of it alone terrified her.
There was no way that they were rely a group of insane people. Sothing about them unsettled her. They felt.. out of the world. Like sothing that wasn’t supposed to exist. Her instinct never stop warning her—telling her that she was in danger.
’I needs to et him, that man who warned about them before!’
Her briliant mind had formulated the solution for the matter. However, the night was still early. She had to wait until the sun returned. With her heart never stopped beating her ribs, which made her can’t sleep.
#A particular Maid sees it
Carole’s life was harsh and had no future.
At least that was how she believed before she t Theo and Tizmilly, her and her little brother’s saviors.
After they destroyed The Rats, she started working as a maid in the Tiz & Roost, her saviors’ restaurant. Timmy, her little brother, also worked there because he was just... There. His role in the restaurant was a bit complicated. Sotis he would beco a waiter and helped her serving the custors, while the other tis, he beca the cashier, and etc.
Theo paid him properly, so Carole and Timmy never complained about it. However, Carole still felt that her little brother had beca a multi-roled person in the restaurant, which was too confusing for her uneducated brain.
Her job was exhausting. So custors were a walking trouble, constantly complaining about irrelevant things, never satisfied, while others were never complain about anythings that she started to pondering whether they were actually satisfied with her service or just felt too awkward to speak up. Facing them had beca her daily wonders, while also beca her daily fears.
Her only wish was to et more normal custors.
"Carole, a mont..."
One day, one of her saviors, Tizmilly, called her out when she was resting in the employee rest room. It was after the day both Theo and Tizmilly taken a day off just the next day after Gyllena showed up to hire the Tiz & Roost.
Tizmilly brought her to the back yard of the building. Once they were there, Tizmilly imdiately turned to look straight at her eyes.
"Can you stop... Getting too close with Mr. Roost?" Tizmilly asked, her voice beca a whisper at the end.
"Eh?" Carole’s mind went blank.
’Did even I close to him?’ Inwardly, Carole asked herself.
She believed that her interaction with Theo were always professional. Normal interaction between an employee and an employer. Nothing more, nothing less. So why did Tizmilly said that to her? The maid pondered.
Her eyes scanned Tizmilly’s eyes, her face, and everything. She bit her lower lip: a sign of nervousness or uncertainty. Her cheeks, after being looked closely, was redder than usual: she embarassed. Her hands, which were positioned close to her chest, trembled slightly if observed well enough: a sign of desperation, or undecided action.
Suddenly, everything clicked in her mind.
’Ah... I see.’ Carole thought.
She smiled, then grabbed Tizmilly’s hands. She looked at those upturned eyes.
"Don’t worry, I won’t steal him!"
#Two Guards gathering mushrooms
While Theo and the others were asking Jahreon, Invandel and Karr were still on the back garden with the servants and the knights.
After two years of tireless efforts of everyone, the work was almost done. Though still far from its past wonderful state, the back garden finally seen its greatness back. However, that day, their hard works wasted. Not by soone’s mistake. But by a strange natural phenonon.
Karr gritted his teeth while he was plucking the mushrooms from the ground. "It’s must that Noble lady’s doing!" He growled.
Ivandel, who was also plucking the mushrooms not too far away from him, looked at him strangely. With so level of certainty in his voice, he replied. "She is just a normal person. No way she is able to do sothing so drastic."
Karr reacted drastically to his words.
"You don’t know a thing about nobles, Ivandel!" He said, his eyes filled with hatred and disgust. "They are the most disgusting person can becos!"
Ivandel tilted his head, confused. "Disgusting?"
The shorter man nodded solemnly.
"That’s right! They are the kind of people who will do anything to satisfy their egos, their lust, and their greed!" He raised a small mushroom before the blonde man’s face, then crushed it. "If you are weak, then they will use that weakness to destroy and pull you down."
Ivandel was still looked skeptical. "I don’t think they are that bad, Karr."
Before Karr could say anything to refute his words, Ivandel stood up and placed his hands on his waist, with a big smile on his face. "I had t with a lot of nobles while I was traveling with my Master, you know?"
Karr blinked, catching the unfamiliar figure that Ivandel had ntioned. "Your master?" He asked.
"That’s right!" Ivandel nodded, before imdiately started explaining. "So of the nobles are indeed fit into what you have descriped. But they are only the ones who lacked in the heads. Those who are the true nobleborns, the true lords, are different. Even commoners are the sa, right? There are the ones who is bad, and there are the ones who is kind, or simply neutral, neither bad nor kind."
Karr widened his eyes. Being born in the slum, his view of world was always limited. He never had the chance to think in such a complex way, at least not complex enough for him to start pondering a fact from various types of point of views. Now, Ivandel’s words had opened his eyes. He learned that even the nobles were the sa as them, the commoners. They varied, so were like that, while the others were like this—never completely the sa.
"At least that’s what my Master said to !" Ivandel laughed.
Karr lowered his shoulders, sighing. He suddenly realized. That talking about this matter was pointless if the one he was speaking to was this blonde man.
He slowly rose from his squatting position, patting his dirty pants. He turned to look at the vast carpet of mushroom. With a tired chuckle, he said. "Anyway, let’s continue. We had to finish everything before the end of the day."
Tomorrow was the day of the engagent party. They didn’t have much ti left.
"But why does we have to pile the mushroom near that old cottage?" Ivandel wondered while he was gathering mushroom after mushroom into the basket on his back.
Karr shrugged. "Who knows? I bet they will use them for so suspicious ritual or so nasty things."
Ivandel could only chuckled in response.
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