Chapter 132: Chapter 132

What did he mean? wondered Elise.

She had appeared at the front door to what she assumed was the Gray’s new home, but with no one waiting to greet her, she took a moment to pull out her identification forms and check. When she had looked at them the first time, she was more concerned about her identity first of all being female, and second not having some absurd backstory. She realized now that he had likely used the first male identity and then the fancy title as a distraction to keep her from looking at the more pedestrian details.

White hair, red eyes… she read with a sigh. Dammit.

It looked like her dreams of a proper, normal school life were out the window. Not that they were ever in the window in the first place, given how {Subtle Royalty} couldn’t quite keep a lid on her aether. It was likely too late to change it too, as she had to show up in person for registration the next day. She considered trying to contact Oberon and force him to change things, but after a moment, she gave up with a sigh. It wasn’t worth it. The attention was just something she was going to have to live with until she managed to figure out how to hide her aether better.

Besides, at least her hair and eyes looked cool. They stood out, but she had grown a bit attached to the color combination. She would have been more annoyed if she was stuck with something weird like green or pink. At least white and red could be explained by albinism.

Still, she eagerly awaited the day she got the promised Skill Quest for an upgrade to {Subtle Royalty}. For now, even with the skill, her stealth abilities were in the gutter.

Wait, what about the Skill Recipes? she suddenly realized.

That thought would have to wait though, because while there was no one waiting for her, her arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed. She heard some thumping inside the house and a moment later, the door flew open, and before Elise could react, Sophie had wrapped her up in a hug. Following close behind her, Skitter the many-legged puppy was chugging along and joined them in their hug. Elise set her worries aside and returned Sophie’s hug while scratching behind Skitter’s ears.

“You’re here!” exclaimed Sophie. “I thought you were gonna miss it!”

“I’d never do that,” said Elise, pulling away. “Did you get taller again?”

“Yup!” said Sophie proudly.

Elise frowned. She and Sophie had been similar in height before, but now Sophie was ever-so-slightly taller. After a moment, Elise decided to use her new {Transformation} skill to make herself slightly taller. She only went up an inch or two, but it was enough to make her taller than Sophie again, and it didn’t go unnoticed.

“Cheater!” said Sophie as Elise looked down at her smugly.

From further in the house, Elise heard Nick’s voice, and a minute later, his head poked around a corner. Bianca showed up a second later wearing an apron, and she beckoned for Elise to come inside.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” she said. “Come on in!”

Elise gladly walked inside with Sophie and Skitter on either side. Dinner that night was a whole roast from some kind of cow-like monster. It was a bit fancy for a home-cooked meal, but they were celebrating Sophie getting into Jelor University—not that failure was an option with Irylax backing her—so they went all out. It was good for Elise that they did, because it meant there was more than enough food to share with her.

Irylax was already seated at the table, arms crossed and tapping her finger impatiently. She glanced up at Elise as she entered, and a flash of interest crossed her face, but she quickly returned to her previous impatient expression without saying anything. Elise took a seat at the opposite end of the table with Sophie beside her, and a minute later, Nick and Bianca arrived carrying steaming platters of food.

For a few minutes, the only words were requests for salt or pepper, or comments on how good the food was. Once everyone had finally eaten enough that they began to slow down, the conversation began in earnest.

“So, how’ve the past few months been, Snowberry?” asked Nick.

Elise blinked in surprise, then recovered immediately. She had spent so much time speaking Fey with Oberon that she had forgotten what her name translated to in Common.

“Good,” she said. “Mostly just been working. Nothing particularly interesting.” The source of thɪs content is novel·fiɾe·net

“You evolved, right?” asked Sophie. “What did you evolve into?”

“Well…” started Elise. “The actual species is a secret, but it’s Mythic, and it lets me do pretty much everything I wanted to do.”

“Congratulations,” said Nick. “What are those things?”

“Well, I can maintain this form indefinitely now,” Elise explained. “And I can change finer details like height and hair color and eye color without any external items. I can also go out in public without drawing a bunch of attention. Kind of.”

“I did notice that your presence was more subdued. A stealth skill?”

“Sophie,” said Irylax suddenly. “Use {Dragon Eyes} and look at her.”

Sophie turned to Elise as her eyes turned yellow and reptilian. Elise shuddered slightly under her gaze, but sat still as Sophie’s eyes narrowed.

“What do you see?” asked Irylax.

“Her aether is… weird,” said Sophie. “There’s so much of it, but it’s all squished and weird.”

“Does it look stable to you?”

“...Yes? No? I don’t know. Kind of?”

“Kind of is correct. It is stable… for now. Whatever Skill is being used to restrain it though is not powerful enough to properly contain it. I expect that once she levels up a few times, the Skill will simply fail to activate.”

“Really?” asked Elise.

“Yes. You have too much aether for that Skill. I presume the skill is already at the cap?”

“Then you’re in trouble. Presence-restraining skills work by compressing the aether and wrapping it up, in a way. You have so much that the wrap is struggling to contain it, and if it grows further, the wrap may simply burst and be unable to contain it at all.”

“Oh. That’s not good.”

“Well, it would force you to stop hiding like a coward.”

A brief silence fell over the table before Nick spoke.

“Exactly how much Aether do you have?” he asked. “It feels normal to me.”

“You wouldn’t be able to tell with just {Aether Sense},” said Irylax. “Her Skill is designed to trick that Skill. But if you can see the Aether, it becomes obvious. Rabbit, release your aether. Let him understand.”

“Do I look like someone who isn’t sure?”

Elise slowly released {Subtle Royalty}, letting her aether flood outward. As the Skill let up, Nick’s eyes widened more and more until they seemed to be trying to pop out of his skull. Elise originally intended to reactivate the Skill immediately, but as her Aether flowed out, she noticed that there was something strange about it. It spread out all around her like usual, but when it hit the walls of the room, it suddenly stopped, unable to go any further.

“What is it?” asked Bianca, looking at her fiance.

“It’s…” started Nick, trailing off. “It’s more than the fey king.”

“It’s not,” corrected Irylax. “He keeps his well under control, and has among the most aether in the world. You only felt what he let you feel. But still, she’s also not too far off. Another evolution or two and she will be at that level. Rabbit, when will your rune evolve?”

It took Elise a moment to understand what she was asking, but she managed to connect it back to the conversation a couple months ago with Maggie. It surprised her that Irylax knew about that. It was probably Elise’s own fault at being surprised though. She had tended to avoid the dragon out of fear and discomfort.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I thought it only happened at evolutions?”

“It can happen at any time. And once it happens, it will help to rein in your aether. It is currently wild and uncontrolled.”

“How do I know if it’s close?”

“Do you not have any soul meditation skills?”

“You didn’t get one with your most recent evolution? I thought the Rune granted that at tier 5.”

“...I only got {Aether Sense}.”

“Hmph. Stingy gods. Come to my room later tonight. I will teach you. I can’t have you spending time around my apprentice like that.”

Elise was a bit nervous, but she wasn’t about to turn down a free lesson from a powerful dragon.

After that, the conversation returned to more normal things. Elise told some brief stories about her escapades, while Sophie talked about her preparations for school. She would be attending the University with Elise, but only for a few classes. Most of the time, she would be at the Academy with kids her age. It was a compromise that Irylax and Nick had come to after a lot of debate, and while neither side was happy, both were satisfied. Sophie would get to make friends her age at the Academy, and she would also have access to the best of the best at the University. It would be a higher workload on her, but that was actually a boon in the eyes of Irylax, because of course her apprentice could handle the increased workload.

Because of that though, she had double the preparation work to do. The Academy started two weeks before the University, so she had already gone through class registration and orientation, and was now enjoying her last week of relative freedom before she began spending all her days in school.

Meanwhile, Nick and Bianca were preparing for their wedding. It was going to be a relatively grand spectacle, much to Nick’s chagrin. However, as he was a minor hero after what happened at the Blood Syndicate, the knight order wouldn’t let it go quietly, and Bianca’s family was eager to provide additional funds to help the ceremony along. It would still be a little while before it happened though, so they had until the winter to prepare.

Aside from that, nothing much was happening. Bianca was technically unemployed, but didn’t really mind, as she wanted some more time to relax, and enjoyed the home life. Nick was back to his normal knightly duties, which was mostly patrols and training. There were rumors that he was going to be promoted to some kind of liaison between the knights and Ostra members, but nothing had come of it yet.

Irylax was leeching off the Grays for the present. She had managed to visit her old lair, but chose to stay in Jelor instead. She said she planned on going to remodel her lair “soon” but “soon” meant something very different in dragon time than human time. It was more important to her that Sophie got properly settled in at school than that her lair got updated.

After the meal, Elise got a house tour. The house was fairly ordinary on the surface. It was large and comfortable, but nothing that Elise wouldn’t expect from an upper middle class family. However, under the surface, there were quite a bit of unusual features. In additions to the enchantments running through the walls to contain aether, there was also a very impressive assortment of defensive enchantments set up by Irylax herself that protected the entire property.

The most interesting part was the basement. It reminded Elise a lot of the orphanage basement. Most of it was taken up by empty shelves for storage and a few other miscellaneous things, but there was also a hidden door that led deep underground, apparently to another tunnel that would take Elise to Ostra’s headquarters. Of course, this was a security risk, so Irylax had enchanted the hell out of that entrance, and it was a somewhat involved process to get Elise keyed in so that the defensive enchantments wouldn’t trigger when she entered.

With the house successfully toured, they then went to the sitting room, where everyone unwound and most of them read books. Elise found an interesting nonfiction book about an ancient order of knights while Sophie read something that looked world’s version of YA romance, and Irylax had a very serious expression as she read a book titled ‘The Savage Duke.’

Around 9 in the evening, the dragon suddenly slammed her book closed and walked out of the room.

“Rabbit!” she said as she left.

Elise hastened to close her book and follow Irylax upstairs to her bedroom. Despite technically being a guest, Irylax of course claimed the master bedroom. It seemed that Oberon had foreseen this and made sure the house had two master bedrooms, but Irylax’s was still bigger than Nick and Bianca’s. Irylax also had a throne-like armchair that she sat down in like an empress.

“Sit down,” she said, pointing to the ground. “I don’t have all night.”

Near the top of the highest tower in the cathedral of the Church of Light, a young woman sat on a windowsill looking out over the city. She was lost in thought, so much so that she didn’t even notice when someone else had entered the room.

“Why are you not in bed?”

“You need your rest.”

“I’ll rest when I’m tired.”

“You need to rest now.”

The saintess looked at her maid, wondering if it was worth arguing back further. After a few seconds, she sighed and stood up.

“Alright, I’m going to bed. Happy?”

“Nothing makes me happier than being able to serve the Saintess.”

The Saintess trudged over to her bed and flopped into it before sloppily pulling her sheets up to cover her body.

“I’m in bed. You can go now.”

“I’m sorry, Saintess, but I have been instructed to watch over you until you fall asleep.”

“Of course you have,” muttered the Saintess.

Reluctantly, she closed her eyes and tried to get to sleep. That didn’t work. For the first time since she had been taken in as the Saintess, she would finally be able to move somewhat freely. She would still be surveilled, but she would at least be given a small degree of autonomy while at the University. Most importantly, she would finally be able to talk to people other than the stiff Light worshippers. They weren’t necessarily bad people, but they were suffocating to be around, and she was more than ready to finally be able to spend time around ordinary people.

She tossed and turned in her bed, and eventually gave up on trying to sleep and opened her eyes again. The maid was still there, noiseless and motionless, but the Saintess couldn’t care less. The maid wouldn’t do anything to her other than reporting to the Bishop, and she could handle that. She needed something else to occupy her mind, so she pulled up her Status window. Nothing had changed, as usual, but she still found herself pulling up the description of her most mysterious skill.

[ Mark of Fate, lvl MAX: A mark granted by !@#$%^&* ]

According to the Bishop, if she devoted herself to the Goddess of Light, the truth of the mark would be revealed, but a year and a half of devotion had resulted in nothing. The Saintess suspected that might have been related to the sincerity of her devotion though. Regardless, as soon as she managed to do that, she would be officially announced as the Saintess, and once that happened, she would also have a bit more freedom. It would also be supervised freedom, but apparently, once the “divine power settled into her body” or whatever was supposed to happen, she would be more stable, and would be in less danger when going out.

If not for the prophecy that she had received recently, she wouldn’t have been allowed outside the cathedral at all. After hearing that prophecy, for the first time ever, the Saintess had sincerely thanked Lucena, the goddess of Light. She had also made a sincere request, a request to make the prophecy less confusing. It would let her out of the cathedral, but what the heck was the “white rabbit” and why did she need to look for it?

Her mind wandered as she speculated on what it could mean, and soon it wandered into speculation about her upcoming school life. As she grew drowsier, her thoughts became more whimsical, and her mind was taken by food. She was tired of temple food, and wanted some good, simple food like what she grew up with.

I wonder if they have vegemite here.