Chapter 87: Insecurities issuing a Challenge.

Four human men were anxiously wriggling around on the ground, struggling to free themselves from their bindings. They wore plain tunics with leather jerkins, thick trousers, knee-high leather boots, leather bracers, leather gloves, and finishing the outfit, they had winter-thick hooded cloaks. Over their shoulders.

Under their hoods, the men looked like the type of guys who would intentionally make themselves look gruff and tough, with wild hairstyles and stubbles on their faces. Thankfully, they weren't filthy like the bandits.

Considering they should be working for the lord of these lands, a noble, I guess they had to groom themselves properly. The lack of a strong scent was probably to help them sneak.

“Pardon me,” Saori said as she looked at the captured spies with calm, but serious, eyes. “but those are mana threads. As long as I can supply them with mana, it would be very hard for you to break through them without sufficient strength. I would ask you to stop struggling.”

They looked at us with defiance, unwilling to speak as they shuffled their eyes around to look for an opening to escape. Sweat was moisturizing their faces, clattering their teeth at the sight of the saurians.

“Grrrr,” Akast growled, having been awoken from their fear of him.

"Please, be at ease," I started out, attempting to diffuse the situation and calm the men down enough to speak to them. "We have no intention of harming you. Your little surveillance job was becoming a bit of an annoyance, so we wish to resolve a few things with you."

“Ashlak’leel sa’got toth zacotl,” Mister Kushlek’zar greeted them in the saurian’s tongue, bowing in a prayer pose. “we are faithful servants of Plesia, us saurians. As members of the Tide Watchers, I swear on our faith to our Goddess that no harm will befall you, on the assumption that you have no ill will against us.”

“You heard him,” I continued. “I’m not technically a priestess or shrine maiden, as I admitted many times, so I can’t promise to Goddess Aurena. Nevertheless, my party also wishes to stay peaceful with Lord Helvas, as we have plans to stay in Carine village for winter.”

The spies stared at each other, discussing with their eyes until the eldest looking guy spoke, "…We can’t say anything, my Lady.” He directed his brown eyes to the ground as he said that, raising them to us with a glance of anxiousness.

Curiosity was tempting me to look at his profile, but he was neither an enemy nor did I really need to look at it. Politeness was important, so looking at other people’s private information was a no go for me. Besides, even if these guys tried to look into mine, chances are low that they could break through my [Identity Blocker Lv. 10].

A bit reassuring that I didn’t waste 1750 SP for nothing.

“I understand you have your orders, but I believe you owe us answers,” Saori stated, picking up her cup of tea to drink from it. “Ever since the morning of our first day in the village, I have been able to detect six men skulking around the village, keeping watch of our house and following each of us. You should understand that our wind elf friend is not a fan of people disturbing our Lady’s peace.”

Although I was ignoring it, Tasianna was exerting a chill. Her [Terror Aura] wasn't high level but it was enough to scare the captured men, all far low-leveled than her. She hasn't diverted her gaze once since the men came into sight.

“I suggest you come clean. There is nothing productive you could do by silencing yourselves,” Saori suggested, freeing the men from their binding.

Their confusion was expected but none of us gave it a second thought as Grazlahta, Krim-Slak, Akasht, and Tasianna went back to their lunch. Saori began pouring tea into cups that she took out from her storage and offered it to the spies. Once she was done, we started the interrogation with Mister Kushlek’zar, Saori, and I.

Showing them a friendly smile, I hoped to thaw the ice between us, “I believe you should know enough about us, especially from Chief Colwyn’s report, correct? So, let us skip our introductions and go to yours.”

I never saw Colwyn or his family hand in the report, nor did they tell me about it, but I would be a Dummkopf to not assume it. Considering they were responsible for the management of the village, whose ownership belongs to Count Helvas, it was only normal for him to do so.

I also heard from Colwyn himself that he had to request Count Helvas about our stay. Apparently, moving into a village wasn’t so easy as to just ask Colwyn for it. As it was his fief, his possession, Count Helvas himself had to give Colwyn the ok in the end, to legitimize our stay in the village for an extended time.

Although I thought Colwyn's family had the status of a serf, a villein, they actually were wealthy enough that they bought their freedom from their lord. They were considered yeomen, or freemen, and were actually employed as official caretakers of the village. That explains why that family was so educated.

Baffled at their freedom, the spies remained silent for a moment until the man with the brown eyes spoke up again, “…Jecht.” He said, acting the representative of the group.

“Well, a pleasure to have met your acquaintance, Mr. Jecht,” I responded.

Widening his eyes in surprise, Jecht’s jaw slacked as he repeated, “‘Mr. Jecht’?!”

“Is something wrong?” I tilted my head. “You’re obviously older than me, so addressing you with ‘Mr.’ is the polite way to do.”

“M-My Lady, I am a simple servant in the service of Lord Count Helvas. There is no need for you to show me this amount of care,” he answered flustered, astonished of what I said.

It should be obvious by now that they think I was a noblewoman of some kind. My education might have been enough to pass me as an authentic noble, but I have no idea how the aristocracy actually worked. Not a big fan of being treated differently…

“Hmm, revealing your allegiance as a spy isn’t very professional,” Mister Kushlek’zar dropped, unnerving him even further upon the realization that he made a blunder. “Once again, we bid you to give us answers. Being observed is one thing but knowing that we are being observed and pinpoint each member successfully is another. As a former scout, I find it frustrating to see that no improvements have been made over a week of surveillance.”

The brash criticism of the spies’ skills and abilities clearly agitated everybody besides Jecht, willing to speak back, but any attempt was prevented with a swift punch to their stomachs from the man himself. Jecht’s prudence seemed to have increased after he unwillingly revealed the fact that he was ordered by Count Helvas to spy on us, a fact that we already guessed.

As the silence continued, I eventually got fed up by it as I sighed, “I guess we can’t get anything from you if we don’t resort to torture.”

The word “torture” made the men tremble for a second before returning back to their aloof attitude. They might not be bonded by Saori’ mana threads anymore, but they made no attempts to run away, knowing that if Saori was able to find them in the first place, then she would be able to hunt them down in no time.

Instead, they accepted their fate. Spies were always in danger of being found out and captured by an enemy force, so the idea of escape was usually dime if they hadn’t gotten the skill to do it themselves. Torture and death was and should be expected, so these men had to have the training to not talk under duress, not show their fear, as that could lead to the downfall of their lord.

Well, at least those loyal to their lord. Spy flicks always make sure to explain this to their viewers, heh.

Seeing Mister Kushlek’zar and Saori nod made the men click their tongues simultaneously, grimacing as they held their heads low, “Well, we’re done here. You may go, goodbye.”

“Huh?” burst out from the four spies, mouth agape as they looked at me incredulously, prompting Mister Kushlek’zar to speak, “I swore to not harm you if you show us no ill intents. As a follower of the Goddess of Water, I keep my word.”

“I believe my Lady has made it clear that we wish to not create any problems for Lord Count Helvas,” Saori continued.

“However, could I request you to call off the surveillance? This should be enough goodwill to show that we aren't enemies, correct?" I requested to the still dumbfounded spies. "Oh yeah, please also do us a favor and relay to Lord Helvas that if he wished to speak with us, then we are ready anytime. I have something to talk to him about.”

With a lady-like smile, I waved them goodbye as the spies slowly slinked back into the woods, disappearing after a certain distance. However, although our vision couldn’t find them, our skills and senses were still sharp, easily tracking them as they fled.

“Hmm, I didn’t know you wanted to speak with the lord of this fief, Hestia,” Mister Kushlek’zar stated with an intrigued voice. “You are royalty from Kargryxmor, so I presume you know how to deal with them, nevertheless, I hope you will ask Chief Colwyn for advice. People from the mercenary guild always advise members to properly respect human nobles as they are quite fickle, prone to take offense and act on their privileges as superiors to commoners.”

“Lady Hestia would have no trouble with that. What is a lowly human noble to dragon royalty?” Tasianna commented with pride. “Regardless, I know we must do this, Lady Hestia, but I do want to mention that dealing with any humans will only cause trouble for us. The less we must interact with humans, the less we must be wary of them.” Tasianna ended, showing contempt towards the direction the spies fled to.

“It cannot be helped, Tasianna,” Saori responded with exasperation at Tasianna’s behavior. “we need support if we want to enter towns. We rejected the money from Chief Colwyn, to have our house built. Most of the villagers had little coin left after the raid, so we cannot sell them our supply of rations. The villagers must rebuild their houses, so work is limited to construction, and even with Hestia’s magical help, she is being paid with fresh eggs and milk. We have zero funds to our name.”

“If that is true, then the town guards won’t allow you three entry,” Mister Kushlek’zar added. “Entry to towns and cities are strict, to keep unwanted visitors from entering that lord’s domain, so you either must show your IDs or a recommendation from an influential person. In the worst-case, you may apply for a temporary ID as most adventurers do if they lost theirs, but that will cost Davi.”

“I don’t want to deal with nobles if I can help it,” I stated with a frown. “but we need more than normal IDs. You said it yourself, Mister Kushlek'zar, we need those more advanced IDs where we can hide certain information more securely. Also, Tasianna, I won't abuse my [Princess] title, just saying. I’ll just do want Chief Colwyn says.”

I’m currently acting on the assumption that Colwyn would ask Count Helvas to do us a favor, considering we did just eliminate a troubling bandit group and rescued his subjects and returned their winter rations. If the man was a benevolent noble, then we won’t have any problems.

However, our party wasn’t naïve enough to think that it would go according to the plan entirely. Nobles were like politicians and businessmen, always seeking to further their influence and gain benefits. He will try to take advantage of us and that is something we have to make sure we understand once we accept his invitation.

…I hope his politician talk, or noble talk in this case, won’t be too hard. I’m not the best when it comes to reading between the lines.

With that resolved, lunch was over and we resumed training. Whether it was furthering our literacy or working on custom spells, we did everything you would assume in a magic theory lecture. Even if I wasn't making too much progress with gaining the last two advanced magic casting types, the training still benefited me as it increased my Mana slowly through effort.

Learning how to write and read would become more effective when I actually do some proper reading. The church of Aurena’s bible was a good help but reading it over and over again was boring. It has been a long while, but I finally took out a few of the books I found in the Belzac forest in that elven shack to read.

Now that I think about it, paper was nonexistent, huh? I mean, I should have expected that as it was a medieval world, but looking at the bible and these elven books now, I think I kinda forgot about it.

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The Quest paper Colwyn showed us was made out of parchment, the books are from vellum, a higher quality parchment, and what we were documenting our experiments on were wooden tablets or slabs. The Quest paper and books clearly were written with ink while we had to use coal we made ourselves to write on our tablets.

I guess the reason why I hadn't realized it until now was that I didn't think too much about it. It was irrelevant in my life in the forest and would have just been a waste of brain cells. Now that I had to read and write again, my want to write down a diary came back, but I pushed that childish thought away, embarrassed.

My second life was different from my past, and my reason for starting one in the first place doesn’t exist anymore. Aside from how frustrated I am about my decaying humanity; I didn’t have much to reflect too much about. I wasn’t a victim of bullying, I have two great best friends, I regained my courage to perform, and my first Idol concert was coming up soon.

The villagers would have people to make parchment and wooden tablets, something I heard from Colwyn, but currently, we had to make our tablets ourselves. None of us actually wanted to make them, so our tablets were limited, and I was too lazy to make more for my diary. My thoughts were good enough of a diary, right.? Heh heh.

Anyway, forgetting about those talks, I think I should start reading one of these books. The first one was titled “The Wedding in the Dark: The Birth of our Relatives”, a book about the marriage of the God of Darkness Marsven and the, now, Goddess of Monsters and Fertility, Edna.

It retold the tale of how the origin gods suddenly appeared in the world, and how they slowly established themselves as the rulers of Peolynca through the System. Unfortunately, it didn’t go too much into the myth, as it immediately focused on Edna when she was still a mortal high elf.

The woman that will one day ascend to godhood was a monster tamer in her lifetime, a capable and reputable one. While her own prowess in battle wasn’t anything to talk about, her ability to tame and command beasts of any kind through a supernatural charisma empowered her as monstrous wolves, hydras, wyverns, and many more monsters would protect her with their lives.

Eventually, on a typical day where the elf would pray to the new gods, Marsven appeared before her as an elf with blue-purple skin. Unbeknown that he was Marsven, Edna began dating him, spending time with each other, and fighting side by side.

However, this time eventually ended due to a debilitating toxin that Edna received after her most recent successful tame. She might have tamed the beast but the cost was too high.

The high elves at that time were still experimenting with the System magic of the Origin gods, trying to create new, magnificent custom spells. Even the magic that they used prior to the arrival of the Origin Gods weren’t effective against the venom of this unique monster, unknown at that time as it was the first of its kind.

The toxin would have ended Edna's life, extinguishing her existence from this world, if it wasn't for Marsven himself. Unable to accept the death of his lover, the God of Darkness used his authority as an Origin God to appoint Edna as his first subordinate god, granting her the divinity to purge the impurities inside her body, saving her life.

But little did they know at that time that Edna was pregnant with Marsven’s children. The ascension of its mother and the divinity of its father made it so that the child born was a true god, possessing the blood of an Origin God and Subordinate God.

That first child was born as the first dark elf in existence, the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, Illsaphone. Whether it was due to the influence of her mother’s looming death or her father’s elemental affinity, the child possessed the ability to command the dead.

Although at first hated for her power over the dead, considered a sacrilege to the dead, eventually the goddess was accepted into the lives of mortals, as the one you would pray to if you wished your loved ones to enter the afterlife, peacefully.

However, even with one child, the Goddess of Fertility didn’t stop there. They conceived two more girls. The first of her kind, the Goddess of Vampires, Vivachel, the second child. And the third child, the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges, Kronnaz, the progenitor of all grimgarians.

Inherited from their mother, the three goddesses acted on their horniness and started conceiving children. Knowing that this would cause great harm to the world if demigods began appearing too rapidly, Plesia ordered Marsven to weaken each child, stripping them from their divinity so they may live the life of a normal Peolyncian child among their fathers.

The balance of powers wasn't disturbed due to this decision, as all three new races were able to adapt to their new existence on Peolynca. The population grew so quickly that even towns could be populated by one of these races alone.

And that is where the book ended.

…Holy shit, this sounds like some fucking fiction. Romance novel at the beginning, but mythological stories about how horny these goddesses were in the end. It honestly felt like I was reading some Greek pantheon stories, wow.

“So, how was it?”

“Bwuh!” I shrieked out as somebody tapped me on the shoulders, waking me up from my thoughts.

“Oops, sorry about that, Hestia,” turning around, I could see Saori’s apologetic expression. “You were so engrossed in your reading that nobody wanted to interrupt you, however, the sun is about to set. We should probably end it for the day.”

“Oh, is that so?” I responded as I looked up, witnessing the sky slowly turning black. “Well, I just finished this book anyways. Saori, you should probably read it when you have the time. You like Greek god stories, correct? You would like this one, I think.”

I handed her the book, invoking a smile from her, “Once we return home, let us take those books out and categorize them. I honestly want to immerse myself into as many of them as possible.”

Packing up our stuff, we were about to leave when Mister Kushlek’zar stopped us, “Wait, I think you forgot something, Hestia.”

I looked at him with confusion, prompting him to continue, “Well, did you forget about your evolution? You wanted to evolve today, correct? Your evolution only requires a day and I wish the honor to watch, if I may.”

Well, it was true that I needed a day to evolve, but that would mean that I would awaken during the same time tomorrow. If Count Helvas invited us to come tomorrow, then we couldn’t exactly deny it as I did say that I wanted to meet him.

“We cannot do that, Mister Kushlek’zar,” Saori said, figuring out the problem. “If Hestia were to evolve now, it would be a problem for us if Lord Helvas were to summon us. We cannot do it today.”

“Oh, I have forgotten that in my excitement. I apologize,” the saurian priest admitted, apologizing. “Then, should we plan this on another day?”

“Actually, I don’t think we should go through with it,” I unexpectantly stated, shocking everybody to ask me what I meant with that. “I mean, that I don’t want to evolve. Not now, at least.”

“W-Wha?!” Mister Kushlek’zar’s slacked his jaw, displaying the razor-sharp teeth in his mouth.

“Hestia, what is the meaning of this?” Saori asked. “Wouldn’t evolving be better?! You cannot level up anymore, so you cannot improve your stats. The only way you can become stronger is by leveling your skills at this point.”

“I know,” I said, scratching my cheeks as I forced myself to answer her question. “But…the thing is, I don’t want to become too strong, you know?”

“You…don’t?” the incredulousness in Saori’s eyes told me enough that she still didn’t understand anything.

“Yeah, I know I sound pretty stupid, right now, but think of it from my perspective, Saori,” I then looked into her eyes, glaring into her red-blood irises apologetically. “You aren’t strong enough. You too, Tasianna. I don’t want to evolve right now when I’m not sure that you two could handle my berserk state. I don’t want to hurt you two, and I definitely don’t want to isolate myself. This is my way to solve the problem.”

I shrugged as I said that. Frankly, doing this was frustrating for me to no ends, but I decided on this after the bandit Quest. I couldn't afford to evolve now, not before my two companions were strong enough to stop me if I ever rampage again.

It gnawed at me. I wanted to protect my friends, and the best way to do so would be to evolve, gaining more strength while allowing me to earn more levels and SP. Stagnating like this was infuriating. If I weren’t improving my magic skills and learning how to use my new skills and body, then I really was just lazing around.

“I’m sorry, Mister Kushlek’zar. I know you were excited, but I don’t think I can do it while you are still here. However, I could still show my-!” while I was apologizing to the elder scale, a sudden chill ran down my spine, giving me goosebumps as I turned my head towards this hostile aura. “S-Saori?”

“‘A, educator’s job isn’t to teach students about what would come on the next quiz, our true duty was to help them flourish, help them to grow into responsible adults’,” Saori suddenly cited, as a dark aura cloaked her body. “That was what my sempais, the senior teachers, taught me when I started out.”

She clenched her fist, grinded her teeth together, glaring at me with a frown as red mana mist exuded from her eyes, "'I am holding you back'? I know that. I know that very well. Nothing was more anguishing then watching you suffer due to Danterno’s influence, helplessly watching Mister Kushlek’zar being the only one who could stop you. I was only able to support everybody, I couldn’t prevent your torment.”

Her eyes started to wetted, but she pushed it all back, “I want you to evolve, Hestia. I am not your teacher, but I am your friend. As your friend, I will not allow you to obstruct your own growth!”

Frustration grew inside me as Saori’s stubbornness smacked my consideration down, “Saori, I know you want to help me but-”

“Fight me, Hestia.”

“H-Huh?!”

“If you don’t think Tasianna or I can contend with you, then let’s fight. Our usual spar, same rules, no need to hold back,” her challenge flustered me, simultaneously causing Tasianna to release her chilly aura, showing me that she wasn’t backing down. “I understand why you underestimate us, Hestia. We haven’t proven ourselves and you keep becoming stronger. However, as your companions and retainers, that is an insult.”

“Please, excuse me for issuing this challenge, Lady Hestia. However, I request you, from the bottom of my heart, to grant me the chance to display what I can do,” the usually timid Tasianna uttered with complete confidence.

Shadows began hugging Saori’s body like armor, “Let me show you how far a teacher will go to help her students.”

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