#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 memory 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 become 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 movements 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 became 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 regime 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. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

A change in herself, and her world.

What she had to do was still the same: kept training. However, the goal was not to become stronger alone, but something after that, something 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 same 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 me? 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 something 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 merely a group of insane people. Something about them unsettled her. They felt.. out of the world. Like something that wasn’t supposed to exist. Her instinct never stop warning her—telling her that she was in danger.

’I needs to meet him, that man who warned me 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 met 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. Sometimes he would become a waiter and helped her serving the customers, while the other times, he became 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 became a multi-roled person in the restaurant, which was too confusing for her uneducated brain.

Her job was exhausting. Some customers 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 became her daily wonders, while also became her daily fears.

Her only wish was to meet more normal customers.

"Carole, a moment..."

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 immediately turned to look straight at her eyes.

"Can you stop... Getting too close with Mr. Roost?" Tizmilly asked, her voice became 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 someone’s mistake. But by a strange natural phenomenon.

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 some level of certainty in his voice, he replied. "She is just a normal person. No way she is able to do something 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 becomes!"

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 met with a lot of nobles while I was traveling with my Master, you know?"

Karr blinked, catching the unfamiliar figure that Ivandel had mentioned. "Your master?" He asked.

"That’s right!" Ivandel nodded, before immediately started explaining. "Some 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 same, 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 same as them, the commoners. They varied, some were like that, while the others were like this—never completely the same.

"At least that’s what my Master said to me!" 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 engagement party. They didn’t have much time 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 some suspicious ritual or some nasty things."

Ivandel could only chuckled in response.