56 Arthar Rodil (2/2)
”Hohoho, he told me that you were cold and not really a child, but from the looks of it, it is just underestimating the situation. I won't ask you what happened to you and apparently, it won't be a problem in the future. The princess is a special situation, and unfortunately, I am not even qualified to force her to do anything. No one in the entire kingdom is qualified in truth. What I just told you is a secret, so don't say that to anyone else. From what I can see, it won't be a problem, but I had to warn you. And the reason why I am saying this is for you to do what I can't do.”
From whatever reasons, Leilade was absolutely certain that an evil light was present in the eyes of the magus. Especially when he said the last sentence, his smile turned into a grin, one that some torturers that enjoyed their work had. At the same time, she was perplexed by the entire ordeal with Istuienn. It couldn't be only because she was the daughter of the Saint Sword, something else was the cause. It was at that time that she also noticed the thin membrane surrounding them, even when she was certain that Arthar didn't cast any spell.
”I hope that you will try your best to make her work harder. From what we saw, she is still as empty-headed and naïve as ever. We already made that bad influence go away but now, she needs to truly want to study and improve herself. Remember this, she needs to want it, you can't, absolutely not in any possible case, force her to do something. It is imperative, do you understand what I said?”
He suddenly grabbed the shoulders of the little girl and was looking at Leilade very seriously. Even if his words didn't really make any sense, Leilade could feel that he truly believed it was of utmost importance to follow them and she logically nodded. Arthar sighed and relaxed himself a bit, then, when he looked at the kid in front of him, he thought that maybe he was too harsh. He smiled a bit, to reassure her, but the lack of emotions on her small visage prevented him from doing anything else.
”Great, so, now you should wait outside for the arrival of Istuienn. This little play that we just did will be made once again because Melinda won't come back anytime soon. By the time she came back, she will have forgotten that incident and you will just be a lucky kid that was pitied by me. And if you think that Alexander played with you and made your life miserable, don't. He may be arrogant and likes to act all mighty and strong, but he truly cares about every student here and this is truly the best for you. Otherwise, Sarah wouldn't have allowed him to maintain this façade until now. Now go.”
She obediently left the room, passing by the now awakened librarian. He looked at her with a peculiar gaze, like he knew what just happened. Another thing that the magus probably didn't expect, especially since he was usually sleeping deeply enough to not be awakened by people putting books on his desk. But that was not really her problem, for whoever will try to do anything to her will realize that she was definitely not the innocent lamb ready to be slaughtered.
After getting outside, she saw the trio in the corner of the building, discussing vehemently something. They were not very loud, but Leodagan and Jorien were visibly arguing a lot, accompanied by a good number of gestures. The moment she got close enough to finally understand something, Owen stopped the discussion because he noticed her approach.
”It is too exposed; we still shouldn't be talking about that outside. We should go to your room Leodagan.” The two others agreed, but had their backs facing Leilade, so they never saw her. Looking at her one last time, Owen followed his sister without doing anything else. Feeling wronged for no reason, the Empress of the Underworld had suddenly nothing else to do. She was not really ready to lose intelligence while listening to the gossips and rumors that the little girls were sharing between each other and the training dummies were what they were, just dummies.
In the end, she reluctantly just waited near the entrance of the building, trying to uncover every enchantments and spells that was on it. It didn't take her a very long time since it was only the most obvious and basic ones. One to prevent vegetation to grow on it, another one to reduce the erosion of the stone and reinforce the walls, all in all, some standards procedures. Unlike what she did with the stone platform, she just studied them, without stealing any mana in them. The bountiful meals were sufficient enough for her to progressively regain her power.
Finally, after nearly an hour trying to resist the urge of modifying some true aberrations from her point of view, since she had nothing else to do, she saw her target on the move. Following the sunny hair, a red spot was also moving, it looked like he was not already dispatched elsewhere. The cumbersome boy was tagging along for the moment and had no visible intention of leaving. Following at a safe distance the pair, she saw the two climbing the stairs and heading toward a new location. Looking at her own arrow, she saw it pointing toward the ceiling and therefore, she obliged.
They climbed two sets of stairs before finally having their arrows at the horizontal. Because it was already the middle of the afternoon, a lot of people, students, and proper magicians were leaving and entering the numerous rooms on this floor. Some were carrying some weirdly shaped components and shouted at the two lunatic kids to watch out. Fortunately, there was no problem besides the leech that was still stuck at the princess. Even when she was opening the door leading to her destination, he still was there, watching her. Only when a cold voice ordered him to get out did he reluctantly left her side. And when he did, he noticed the small Leilade right next to him, her small eyes looking at him.