Chapter 157

Chapter 157
**Chapter 157**

After so many years as a mercenary, she surely likes strong liquor. And after living for so long in a place like Count Elvester’s house, she probably hasn’t had many opportunities to drink as much as she would like. It would be best to prepare high-quality alcohol and prime meat.

“The wines of our Ravencrow region are famous for being among the best in the entire southwest of the continent. If we announce the arrival of a distinguished guest, highly regarded by the Baron, the inhabitants of the region will not hesitate to bring out the best bottles they keep in their cellars.”

“Wine is fine, but also prepare rum or other stronger distilled liquors. And she is not one of those who feels comfortable with overly ostentatious receptions; good food and good liquor will be more than enough.”

Dereck maintained his usual dry and restrained expression, but his slightly faster pace and somewhat elevated tone made it clear that he was in a good mood.

The experienced steward Delbriton caught that subtle change immediately.

Seeing his lord like this, he himself felt somewhat encouraged.

“However, given the nature of the visit, it is possible that she comes accompanied by a young lady from Count Elvester’s house…”

“Hmm, then things change a little. If a young lady from the Elvester family, the most powerful in the eastern continent, visits us, offering her only strong liquors and good food might not be an appropriate reception.”

If Katia, of noble birth, were coming alone, a frank, mercenary-style hospitality would be enough for her to have a good time.

But if she were accompanied by a powerful young lady, the situation would be different.

The servants would have to move more carefully and offer treatment in accordance with her authority.

***

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***

“Mmm…”

In the letter Katia had sent, none of that was mentioned.

However, the tone was clearly that of an inspection related to the teaching of magic, and it would be strange if she did not bring her disciple with her. Either she wouldn’t bring her, or if she did, she would likely try to hide it.

“She must have thought that if the visit was official in the name of the Elvester House, it would be too great a burden for me.”

Dereck’s assumption was correct.

Although they hadn’t seen each other for a long time, he knew Katia’s personality better than anyone.

“If she didn’t warn us in advance, it doesn’t seem like something we should worry about too much, but just in case she comes accompanied by a young girl, it is better to be prepared.”

“That is a very sensible order. I will inform the head housekeeper.”

“Good. If there is anything that requires special approval, inform me.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Dereck made a gesture with his hand to dismiss Delbriton and headed to his study.

It was his way of saying that, from that moment on, everything was in his hands.

Delbriton bowed his head with a satisfied smile.

‘If she comes through the center, following the main route that crosses Count Renouel’s territory and the Duchy of Beltus, how many days will it take? Given the distance, she will surely arrive after a few holidays have passed.’

The fact that he was already calculating Katia’s arrival date showed that he himself was aware of how much he wanted his visitor to arrive.

“You have a smile from ear to ear.”

“…?”

Dereck rarely expressed his emotions, but in Fina’s eyes, he seemed to be smiling shamelessly, which made her frown with irritation.

She had stayed in the Ravencrow territory under the pretext of imparting magic training, but in reality, she was the one supervising Dereck’s magic.

Two seasons had already passed since they formally established a master-disciple relationship, enough time to become fond of each other, but lately, seeing him like this, Fina couldn’t help but feel irritated.

“I don’t know how extraordinary this Katia might be, but even with this lady right in front of you, who supervises four-star magic, you keep thinking about another master and smiling like an idiot; frankly, it wounds my pride. You know better than anyone how valuable I am.”

“…”

“And I also don’t like that indifferent look, as if you were thinking about another annoying woman. Honestly, men are always looking everywhere. You are not worth getting attached to. It’s not worth it.”

Fina, reclining reluctantly on the study sofa while nibbling on a montblanc, sighed again and again.

“It was I who helped you reach the 4-star rank, and also I who helped you perfect that magic. Of course, I know that Katia did many things for you as a teacher, but if we talk about who contributed most to your reaching where you are now, that would be me.”

“That is absolutely true. I am always grateful for it.”

‘You speak with irritating eloquence. I know you’ve had several good teachers, but when someone asks you whose disciple you are, the correct thing to say is that you are Fina’s disciple. That is what is appropriate. Don’t forget that identity, understood?’

Although she spoke as if she didn’t want her disciple to be seduced by another, the truth was that Katia had been his teacher before Fina.

***

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***

Even so, Fina puffed out her cheeks and kept eating the financiers the maid had baked, clearly jealous that her beloved disciple was thinking about another teacher.

“Anyway, you were destined to reach 3 or 4 stars. You were the type who absorbed knowledge and learned magic even from beggars on the street, so it doesn’t matter much who you had as a teacher along the way. What matters is who helped you reach the highest level, do you understand?”

“Of course.”

“Ugh! Even if you give me the answer I want, I’m still angry! There is no sincerity in your words! No sincerity at all!”

Fina jumped up from the sofa, put her hands on her hips, and cleared her throat dramatically.

“I’m leaving home!”

“…?”

“What is the point of teaching someone who doesn’t recognize my worth? Go learn magic with that Katia, or with coffee, or whatever! I am going back to the Tigris territory to rest!”

“Did you already get a message from your family telling you it was time for you to show your face?”

“…As insightful as always.”

Fina narrowed her eyes and sighed with boredom.

Although she had spent quite a long time in the Ravencrow territory, in the end, she was still a young lady of the Baron Tigris house.

She had chosen that territory as her home in this life, but that did not mean she was particularly attached to her family.

Still, she couldn’t completely ignore the main house.

No matter how comfortable her stay at Baron Ravencrow’s mansion was, it was inevitable that she would have to present herself before her family from time to time.

Fina flopped onto the sofa, swinging her legs as she spoke.

“It is time for me to present myself once more at the main house and also for me to start concluding my personal research.”

“…”

“Yes. I think I will be able to do something interesting with the corpse that Happy picked up last time. I feel like I am quite close to fulfilling an old longing.”

***

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***

Advanced corpse resurrection.

She had advanced considerably toward that forbidden domain she would use to revive the 6-star mage Kalimpord.

Fina adopted a distant expression, rested her chin on one hand, and smiled ironically.

“Rest is not that far away. It has been a rather ephemeral life.”

“…”

“Oh, how curious. When I complained so much, you didn’t pay attention to me, but now that I tell you this, you put on the most serious face. The truth is that men never react the way one wants.”

Despite her youthful appearance, one should not be fooled.

The woman who was smiling with her chin held high, possessing a seductive charm, was a traveler who had wandered through countless cycles of reincarnation.

She was expressive and always seemed relaxed, but if one looked closely into her eyes, what one could see was exhaustion and skepticism toward life.

She might believe she had hidden it well, but Dereck had noticed it a long time ago.

‘I see another winter.’

The memory of the day of the first snowfall, when she stood stunned, looking at the sky in front of a huge window several times larger than her own body.

Every time she showed that contemplative attitude toward the passage of time, Dereck felt it clearly.

She wished to abandon this world.

Because an eternal life was not a blessing, but something more like a curse.

“In any case, I warn you in advance: if one day I leave this world, continue to consider yourself my disciple.”

Fina stood up and adjusted her clothes.

It seemed she was already determined to return to the Tigris main house.

“It wouldn’t be bad to leave at least some proof that I existed in this world.”

“Master.”

***

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***

Dereck put the pen down on the desk and looked at her.

Will we see each other again?

Fina opened the study door and, before leaving, turned to smile at him.

“Perhaps.”

After pronouncing those words charged with meaning, Fina began the preparations to leave for the Tigris territory.

As far as Dereck knew, Fina would complete the advanced resurrection of the corpse.

And even so, she would not achieve the rest she so longed for.

Finally, she would try to seize the Tigris territory and carry out some plan, but she would be defeated by Melverot and imprisoned in the underground chambers of Gremfort palace.

He didn’t know when it would happen.

But he had the feeling that it wouldn’t be long.

Still, Dereck couldn’t do anything about it.

He understood perfectly the weight of the desire Fina harbored in her heart.

Her longing was not something that others could judge lightly as right or wrong.

One could not control a 6-star necromancer mage at will.

That was why the only thing Dereck could do was to silently accept the path she had chosen.

That was the greatest respect he could offer her.

***

Trisha was dead.

At least, that was how she felt.

When she received classes from Baron Ravenclaw for the first time, she entered the Baron’s mansion with her heart full of expectations, but the method was very different from what she had imagined.

Instead of the detailed instructions she expected, Dereck spoke directly the moment Trisha entered the training pavilion.

“The first thing you must focus on is physical endurance.”

“Eh…?”

“It doesn’t matter what you try to learn. If you don’t have the physical endurance to endure it, you won’t learn anything. Physical endurance is one of the requirements I value most.”

The elegant magic lessons she had imagined while lying on the roof of Count Renuel’s palace—following the magical resonance, reproducing the forms of the different elements—passed fleetingly through her mind.

But as soon as she arrived at the Baron’s mansion, the first thing she did was change clothes and put on comfortable garments that the servants had prepared for her.

The hell that followed was something she preferred not to remember.

“Come on! Hup-hup-ho! Hup-hup-ho! Hup-hup-ho! Constant breathing helps maintain movement in the long term!”

“Hup… hup… kuh-hok…!”

Running through the garden, push-ups, sit-ups, climbing stairs, jumping jacks.

***

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***

‘Is this… is this really a magic class? Ha… ha…’

Without really knowing how, she kept the rhythm until, without realizing it, she could no longer apply force to her arms or her thighs.

It was not just one day.

Trisha spent all three days of the holidays doing maneuver training—no, rather, physical endurance training—and only then was she able to return to the main house.

On the night of the third day, feeling the muscle pain course through her entire body, Trisha understood.

“That’s why all of Dereck’s disciples have those well-toned bodies…”

“Oh. Miss Trisha, it seems you were taking classes during these holidays.”

“Miss Ellen… ah… good afternoon. Have you been well…?”

That last day, seeing Trisha half-dead walking toward the carriage, Ellen began to sweat and swallowed with difficulty.

Dereck’s magic classes are a true hell at first.

As the first victim to experience that hell faster than anyone else, Ellen watched her in silence with a look of pure compassion.

It was a kind of hell that only those who had suffered it could understand.

An experience that had never been lived before.

For a young noblewoman raised like a hothouse flower, it was too cruel a test.

Of course, Trisha had a tenacity that even made Diella and Ellen click their tongues. She was not going to give up.

Precisely for that reason, Ellen could not help but feel moved.

“Miss Trisha, when you feel that life is full of trials, always remember the achievements you have attained until now. Although the difficulties may seem unfair, if you persevere, you will undoubtedly find meaning in everything.”

“Why… does everyone speak to me with such poetic expressions every time they see me…?”

“That is not all. If you need help with something, do not hesitate to tell me…”

Ellen’s goodwill, the true power figure of Belmierd, was worth more than a thousand gold coins to the ladies of high society.

Even for Trisha, overflowing with vanity and pride, it should have had great significance, but for some reason, that day Ellen’s kindness seemed strangely melancholic to her.

It was a complex feeling.

Rattle, rattle.

Inside the carriage that was taking her back to the Renuel territory after three days, Trisha groaned in pain precisely because of that.

Feeling the driver’s worried gaze, her eyes welled up.

She wanted to scream at that suffering so different from what she had imagined, but even so, it had not been in vain.

‘Still, I can notice that the look of the nobles of Rose Hall toward me has changed, heh hehehehe…’

Human nature does not change so easily.

As expected, since she became an official disciple of Baron Ravenclaw, the attitude of the other ladies had changed.

“Hello.”

Siern, who was walking through the noble quarter with her usual distant air and indifferent to the world, greeted her as she passed.

“Your wounds are already looking better.”

Diella, who always seemed to want to devour anyone, examined her wounds with an indifferent expression.

To a person outside the subject, it would have seemed like cold treatment, but considering her usual character, it was hard to believe.

Even the other nobles of the Elfontaine Pavilion opened their eyes wide upon seeing it.

It was inevitable that Trisha’s momentum would skyrocket.

“Ufufu… kuh-hut…”

Just a few moments ago she was writhing in pain from muscle stiffness, but now she was letting out that unpleasant laugh again.

She cried and then laughed; the driver broke into a cold sweat at such incomprehensible behavior.

‘Ufufu… yes… what does it matter to suffer a little…? I am interacting directly with the ladies of the Ravenclaw faction, and my influence in society is visibly increasing. I am Trisha of the Renuel family. I am finally starting to have the dignity that corresponds to me.’

‘Ufuf… hehehe… yes, this is it. This is the good thing about living. This is life.’

Her self-esteem, which was about to hit rock bottom, poked its head out again.

She laughed out loud, as if the whole world belonged to her.

Trisha, of the Renuel family.

Finally, she was starting to receive the respect her position deserved.

Intoxicated by that euphoria, her laughter grew louder and louder.

‘Why should I cower? Someone like me can show off all she wants! Of course…!’

Clunk!

At that very instant, when Trisha’s arrogance resurfaced completely, the carriage gave a jolt and stopped abruptly.

“What is happening?”

Startled, the driver opened the front window and replied immediately.

“I am sorry, Miss Trisha. We have entered Renuel territory, but there is congestion at the main gate, so we stopped for a moment.”

“At the gate?”

Trisha pursed her lips.

Having entered Renuel territory meant that, from that moment on, everything was entirely her domain.

As expected, the inhabitants of Count Renuel’s territory swallowed with difficulty and bowed their heads as soon as they saw Trisha.

As the daughter of Countess Rodelia, no one dared to treat her lightly, and that made her pride soar to the clouds.

This was, without a doubt, her true territory.

“It seems someone is arguing with the gate guards.”

“Ha… I am already exhausted, and on top of that, they block my path and make me waste time. Let’s see what face they make.”

Faced with the clearly malevolent expression that appeared on Trisha’s face, the driver backed away in fear.

In Count Renuel’s territory, there was no one capable of stopping an enraged Trisha.

She herself knew it well, and with her face flushed with anger, she looked out the window.

At first glance, the carriage in front of them looked old and dilapidated.

The person who was talking to the guards on behalf of the passengers looked like a ragged mercenary.

It was a woman of a certain age.

But her status was clearly low.

Although she was dressed practically for long trips, true nobles were always richly attired, no matter where they were going.

‘What kind of vulgar woman is that? I am already exhausted, and on top of that, she is blocking my path…’

Full of venom, Trisha spoke holding her breath.

“I will check it myself.”

“A-ah… if you go out, the guards will be surprised…”

“It doesn’t matter. If something bothers me, I ignore it.”

Trisha raised her chin arrogantly and slammed the carriage door open.

The driver swallowed again, his gaze tense.

Having seen her self-esteem trampled to the limit while she ran from one place to another with the Ravenclaw family, exhausted to the max.

At least in her own territory, she thought she should hold her head high and show her pride, so she walked toward the gate with a firm step.

‘Even seeing it again, that wagon is pathetic. Surely it only transports cheap luggage.’

After casting a sidelong glance, Trisha held the hem of her dress and moved forward.

‘What is happening here?’

“Please, wait behind… Ah…! M-Miss Trisha! H-how is it that you have come to this remote area…?”

“That is enough. My path is urgent. Who dares to block it like this?”

At Trisha’s irritated voice, an elderly woman with a cloak stepped forward.

At first glance, she still looked like a low-level mercenary, but the intelligent gaze peeking out from under the hood was quite striking.

With a youthful face for her age, an upright posture, and clear eyes, even though she had long since left behind the age of being an active mercenary, she radiated palpable vitality.

“I regret the inconvenience. Please accept my apologies.”

“Ha…”

Trisha laughed as if she couldn’t believe it.

After so much suffering, it almost seemed like a good opportunity.

In Baron Ravenclaw’s mansion, she always held an inferior position.

It was inevitable to want to vent, at least here.