Two faces appeared in my mind. A woman with messy brown hair and a smile that lit up the room. A man who worked so hard to make himself look prettier than even the women around him. Sitting across from me as we laughed and talked about work.
I didn’t let it ruin my mood, but the sadness that came with it dragged down the rest of the table, I could tell. We ended the meal soon after and I headed back with Porter and Cal.
“You doing okay, kid?” Porter asked, nudging me with an elbow.
I blinked at him, “Kid?”
He chuckled, “I am about twice your age, and you don’t look like a noble lady at the moment. So, kid.”
Cal looked back at us, “Don’t let that excuse fly. He tried it with me too, even though I’m closer to his age than yours.”
Porter feigned a hurt expression, “Don’t do that to me, my lord. Such wounds still bleed.” He couldn’t help snickering after he said that, then sighed happily. “We should go to another play sometime.”
Cal considered it, “Could be fun. What do you think, Dani?”
I was honestly still confused by the little nicknames. They never talked like this in the manor, “Uh… sure?”
“Excellent!” Porter exclaimed happily. “We’ll just have to find one where Fallis is playing and then…”
“Oh, that’s why you want to go.” Calmar stepped back to walk closer to Porter, “Want to see the girl you have a crush on.”
Porter groaned, “Come on, I told you that in confidence. And it’s not like I’ve got a chance. We’ve never even talked.”
“Does she attend any parties or balls we have to go to?” I asked Cal, liking the idea of trying to set Porter up with someone.
Cal tapped his chin with his finger, “She might show up to Lord Germaine’s party. Whenever he gets around to announcing it.”
“Should be next week for the announcements and the week after for the actual, right?” Porter asked Calmar, more serious now.
He nodded, “Sounds right. Unless he’s… himself and decides to throw it the week of his announcement like he did when he got the shipment of purple silk.”
“Purple silk?” I asked, curious. “How much Grave Silk did he use?”
“Hm? Oh, none.” Calmar responded. “This was from the Nurmor City-States. They’ve got these massive insect dungeons and apparently someone found a way to harvest it from the spider monsters. Though apparently there’s also another bug that makes cocoon’s of the stuff and that can be used as well.”
I blinked, “Wow, that sounds interesting. I wonder how they did it.”
He turned to look at me more closely, “I suppose it is.” Calmar went back to looking forward, deep in thought, “I wonder if I have a book on it somewhere, or if father took it with him.”
We walked in silence for a while until we got back to the manor. Porter went with Calmar to wherever they needed to be. I went to the training room to meet with Grimoire.
Since I had appropriate clothes now, and a number of new weapons to try out, we spent the next several hours trying things out. I’d been right about the tonfas being something I was good with. I mostly used them defensively and responded to blows with strikes, though I managed to finally clock Grimoire in the head when I spun one of them by the handle.
That had been a mistake.
He had me put on a set of weights and start running laps around the perimeter of the manor until I couldn’t anymore. That… didn’t take long. Then I got up, healed myself, and kept going past when Grimoire had said, wanting to finish the lap.
That was, apparently enough for an alert to push through all my presets:
I collapsed and lay on the grass for a while, too tired to move. Was it just the running, or was it everything I’d been doing till now? I couldn’t know without more stats growth.
As I lay there, I took the opportunity to go through my notifications, finally.
Endurance from 10 to 11
Assessment Tier 1, Rank 5 to Tier 1, Rank 7
Unarmed Combat Tier 1, Rank 5 to Tier 1, Rank 6
Cheap Shot Tier 0, Rank 2 to Tier 0, Rank 3
Speed Reading Tier 0, Rank 3 to Tier 1, Rank 0
Deception Tier 0, Rank 1 to Tier 0, Rank 2
Staff Combat Tier 0, Rank 3 to Tier 1, Rank 0
Heal Spell Tier 0, Rank 3 to Tier 0, Rank 4
Skill: Tonfas gained
Tonfas Tier 0, Rank 1 to Tier 0, Rank 3
Skill: Two-Weapon Fighting gained
Two-Weapon Fighting Tier 0, Rank 1
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Speed Reading has gone up to Tier 1
Speed Reading
You read faster than normal. Understanding what you read isn’t the purview of this skill.
Tier 0: Mildly increases reading speed
Tier 1: Speed is increased based on Intelligence and Perception by a minor amount.
+1 to Intelligence
+1 to Perception
Staff Combat has gone up to Tier 1
Staff Combat
Every mages best friend and the stick many monks will use to crack your skull. This skill helps you channel mana through your staff and adds increased damage to blows with the staff.
Tier 0: You can wield a staff without tripping yourself. Mostly
Tier 1: You can channel a small amount of mana through an appropriate staff and use it to cast from with a minor increase in power based on Mana Power.
+1 to Dexterity
+1 to Mana Power
I blinked in surprise at the sudden rush of power from the tier ups. The bonus to staff combat was particularly surprising. Why didn’t Grimoire mention it? Is he waiting for me to?
I hated having more questions than answers. It’s always more questions.
Eventually, I got up and removed the, admittedly light, weights and carried them back to the training room. I then retreated to my room and took a shower changing into another set of clothing.
I then took one of the book on Ethics of Commerce and found the study that Calmar was using for whatever he was doing. I found a comfortable couch and started reading, after asking Calmar if it was okay.
I didn’t know how long I’d been reading before Porter tapped me on the shoulder and we all went downstairs for dinner. Calmar seemed like he was in a better mood than yesterday, which made me happy. I guess all he wanted was knowing I didn’t hate him. Or to know I was fine being around him. Managing someone else’s emotions was tiring.
After dinner, I retreated to my room and turned in early. I was feeling tired and wanted to try sleeping again without the sleep aid.
Which was a mistake.
I didn’t wake up attacking someone, but my pillow was wet, and I felt miserable from the barely remembered dream.
Rather than make a thing of it, I got dressed and went down for breakfast. The weird looks and morphed into something more… concerned. I guess I wasn’t quiet. The internal battle I had against sighing was lost as I let out my frustration in a rather deep one. I didn’t like how I’d felt waking up from the sleep aid, so that wasn’t an option.
I asked one of the maids about a tea to help with sleep and she smiled sadly at me before telling me it’d be ready when I went to bed tonight. I guess it was fine, if they were treating me more like a hurt child than a dangerous animal.
It’d normalize sometime soon, I was certain.
The day was pretty boring, all things considered. Light training with Grimoire than didn’t increase any of my skills or stats, but put the previous night out of my mind. I learned a bit more about the city as well.
Apparently, if it wasn’t for the cotton export, the city would have died out long ago. Even still, it was the smallest in Greathall. The three dungeons nearby helped as well, but the difficulty had kept increasing to the point where it’d take three or four dedicated adventuring parties to clear out the early floors. It’s been a point of concern, and study, but it was only in this region.
Which was immediately suspicious to me, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I just filed it away for later.
I looked briefly at the Shop menu again and there still wasn’t anything I could use. I did find Toren’s Speech to Text, which was 50,000 EXP for me. Maybe his class gave it to him? Or he got a discount?
It didn’t help me with my reading, and I spent most of the day consuming the books I still had left to read. The History of Cotton Rock was… pretty boring honestly. It was mostly: They found a weird rock that produced cotton. It kept producing cotton every day. They built a village around spinning it into thread. More people joined. They made a city.
There was a lot of names and dates and accounts that sounded embellished but I couldn’t be certain. Finishing it had taken most of the day, and I considered it wasted. Speed Reading didn’t even rank up, though I did notice a small boost that I couldn’t figure out was my own ability, or the skill helping.
The next day was more of the same, though I didn’t bug Calmar as much while I was reading. If anything, I spent more time tossing my knives at a target Grimoire setup than anything. Surprisingly, Samuel joined me, bringing his own target to practice a Mana Bolt spell. We talked about what was going on.
He almost had enough to level again, which he was really excited about. I told him about the thug and my trip, telling him I’d let him see my party outfit when it came in. It was actually nice around him, since there weren’t any expectations.
There was a bit of awkwardness when he asked about the incident when I told him I didn’t want to talk about it. That was cleared up when I told him I’d come with him to watch the guards sometime. It was funny watching him blush, but it wasn’t directed at me so I was glad.
It reminded me to look at some of the books I’d had on my shelf. I’d mistakenly brought one with me when I read in Calmar’s study, and he immediately knew what I’d been reading when he saw how red my face was.
The Claws of Passion was not subtle about it’s content. There were scenes at the start that involved knotting, which when I asked Calmar about he’d choked on his drink before telling me maybe those books were a bit much for me.
He then sighed, “That unfortunate topic does remind me. Your bethrothed will likely be by tomorrow. He’s been sending letters everyday since we found you and… he’s not happy.”
“Why?” I didn’t understand, “And bethrothed… he wants to be my husband?”
Calmar didn’t look happy about my basic explanation. “Will be, if his father has anything to do with it. There’s a tentative agreement and you were rather enthusiastic about it in public.”
“And in private?” I asked.
“You were… a little irritable about it. I don’t know why, but you’ll need to deal with him somehow. I can’t help with this.” Cal said as apologetically as he could.
Considering it for more than a moment, I shrugged. “We’ll see what happens. I’ll likely call it off though.”
He seemed relieved, “That’s probably for the best.”
We had dinner and I went to sleep, not looking forward to meeting someone from Danielle’s life before.
Name: Danielle Rosecrest
Age: 17
Race: Human
Class: Noble 4
Class EXP: 834/800
Experience Bank: 0/1000
Unspent Attribute Points: 0
Statistics
Physical
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 13
Agility: 13
Endurance: 11
Constitution: 10
Mental
Intelligence: 20
Insight: 12
Charisma: 13
Perception: 12
Magic
Mana: 4
Mana Control: 2
Mana Power: 3
Skills
Assessment: Tier 1, Rank 7
Unarmed Combat Tier 1, Rank 6
Cheap Shot Tier 0, Rank 3
Mana Sense: Tier 0, Rank 1
Speed Reading: Tier 0, Rank 3
Deception: Tier 0, Rank 1
Staff Combat: Tier 0, Rank 3
Mathematics: Tier 2, Rank 13
Throwing: Tier 0, Rank 1
Tonfas: Tier 0, Rank 3
Two-Weapon Fighting: Tier 0, Rank 1
Traits
Noble Birth
Experience Conversion
Experience Absorption
Moderator’s Veil
Second Chance
Spells
Healing: Tier 0 Rank 4
Scan: Tier 0 Rank 2