The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son' Chapter 152 - Your Name Must Actually Mean ’Beautiful Guts’.

Friendly Author Trigger Warning: Contains ’Pushed Onto A Train Rail’ Terror/Trauma/Threat (No actual death or gore... despite the title.)

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Dima had received her reassignnt orders just yesterday morning. The confusion about being moved from her comfortable position as a liaison with the Coiled Serpent Guild’s main headquarters had only grown after reading through the docunts multiple tis.

’A Branch Manager position. In her city of all places.’

She drumd her well manicured fingers against the train window while watching the landscape blur past. The lovely early morning sun did little to improve her mood. Her superiors had been oddly evasive about the exact details of her transfer - only emphasizing the ’great opportunity’ this represented.

She couldn’t help feeling like they ant *their* opportunity and not her own.

The woman’s lip curled as she recalled the na of her ’subordinate’. Elua er Goltbred was unofficially, but might as well be, the real manager in their eyes. That precocious trainee who had waltzed in with sigil modifications to long used designs.

And who had a perfectly handso fiancé.

Had because the girl younger than her was now married! She had heard rumors of the wedding spread by the attending Guild official. The sa small girl who had caught her sigil idol’s attention and beca his disciple had one-upped her yet again... in life as well as profession.

’He probably doesn’t even know my na after all this ti...’

Her thoughts about missing out on becoming a disciple stuttered to a halt as the train rounded the last bend. She had been to the city a few tis - it was the headquarters of the Ironclad Order after all. As a traveling liaison, lots of varied sigil work needed to be discussed from ti to ti with them.

Which was why the thing erected in her line of sight seed even more ridiculous.

Rising far above the nearby buildings, like it had been sitting there for months, stood an elegant stone structure with the Guild’s serpentine emblem carved in relief - and expertly painted to make it stand out even further. The architecture was flawless for a *re* branch. The construction materials looked expensive... for a re branch.

Most concerningly, the placent was perfect for foot traffic and carriage goers alike. Which ant the plot of land must have been nearly as costly as the rest of the structure combined.

"Impossible. The permits alone should have taken them months. Did I miss seeing the construction starting? Was I too distracted to notice it?"

Dima found herself biting her thumbnail as she waited for the train to pull into the station. She stood up quicker than she felt was ’beautiful’ and cleared her throat nervously before exiting the vehicle in a perfectly calm and collected manner. On the outside.

Yet as she approached on foot minutes later, there was no sign at all of any recent construction. No debris, no workers, not even freshly disturbed earth around the foundation. Just a fully ready to be operational Guild branch that seed to have materialized overnight.

"Ah, you must be Dima. I do apologize for not bothering to ask your na the first ti we t. I honestly didn’t care at the ti."

The voice was sweet, painfully young, and terrifyingly familiar. The last ti she heard the false tones was when she was explaining in very vague ways the concept of faithfulness and what often happens to people that intentionally test it.

While waiting for the train back then, she had been ’cornered’ much, *much* too close to the tracks while the brunette kept glancing to see if the fast moving vehicle was about to arrive. It was only as the realization of unvoiced threats set in that their positioning started to feel *dire*.

’I dreamt she pushed into it for a week.’

Those nightmares had started the very next night and the scenario played out differently each ti. Sotis she was pushed by the smiling brunette. Sotis she stumbled on her own. Occasionally, she even jumped away in terror to avoid the small hand she was certain was reaching for her back to do sothing far worse than the train would.

But always... *always* those mint eyes glowed and watched as the clattering vehicle approached her on the tracks. Watched her unable to move as if pinning her down with that young and hideously ’innocent’ smile.

The worst part was just how much she had worked to convince herself afterward that she was being ridiculous. That she had been letting a child - an adult only by Guild standards! - get under her skin.

That the positioning near the tracks had been coincidental and the glances toward the approaching train rely casual observation... or that there was an infuriating potential for the heiress to have been making sure the *opposite* of her dream did not happen. That she did *not* stumble or jump in reality. That she might be pulled back quickly before it ca too close.

Elua er Goltbred stood in the doorway and her ’annoyingly beautiful’ mint eyes were filled with sothing that might have been amusent as she watched the woman change colors faster than a squid... all due to the horrendous ’prank’ she had played back then.

Dreams were not really caused by the five senses as one slept... but making the sixth - her spirit - think of that mont enough to dream of it was simple. The tiny illusive fragnt flashing images just fast enough for her subconscious mind to catch it happening allowed the potential nightmare to enter her psyche ’organically’.

The rest would be handled by her own psyche, fears, and guilt.

"Welco to our new branch. By the way, ’Inner Beauty’ is a lovely na your parents have given you. They must have studied the ’old tongue’ to find such a well deserved aning."

The illusionist knew that those sa ntal traits would probably do wonders for her kind words, as well... turning every one of them into a vicious barb that she *truly* didn’t have the capacity to ’care’ about delivering on her own.

Besides, even if she could be chilly in business or professional in work... her ideal in this life was still ultimately soone ’sweet’. It hadn’t drawn as many enemies as she expected it to when she was very young. But that hardly mattered to her anymore.

"I do so look forward to working with you, manager."