The sun had begun its slow and lazy descent towards the west, dyeing the vast sky over the Northern Forest in shades of orange, copper, and purple.
The air was growing colder as the afternoon gave way to the night, a silent reminder that summer was breathing its last breaths on the grounds of the Sylvania Academy.
Bell Maya, the acting head maid of Ophelius Hall, walked down the hidden forest path with an expression that bordered on absolute apathy.
Her immaculate black and white uniform contrasted sharply with the rustic undergrowth and the dry branches crunching beneath her boots.
Hours earlier, while supervising the laundry in the academy’s temporary gardens, Bell had been forced to endure the frantic interrogation of Clara, Yenika Faelover’s best friend.
Clara, on the verge of a nervous breakdown over her friend’s emotional well-being, had whispered that Yenika was terrified of Lortelle Kehelland stealing Ed Rothtaylor’s attention.
Clara had complained bitterly, questioning whether Ed was simply a ridiculously dense person, or if he was just born a passionless idiot to not notice the spirit tamer’s obvious feelings.
Bell had answered her, in her usual stoic tone, that rather than being an idiot, Ed Rothtaylor was in a situation of extreme survival.
For an excommunicated noble who had to build his own shelters and hunt to eat, romance was a frivolous luxury he simply couldn’t afford.
However, upon reaching the perimeter of the camp and pushing aside the final pine branches, the little faith Bell Maya had in the sanity of the first and second-year students was shattered to pieces.
The scene before her was, for lack of a more professional term, an absolute cat zoo.
Sitting on a thick fallen log, Lortelle Kehelland wore Ed’s rustic and worn clothes.
The thick fabric was baggy on her, but the heiress of the continent’s largest trading company radiated a silent, territorial, and almost defiant pride.
To Bell’s sharp eyes, Lortelle looked like an energetic alley cat, sitting haughtily in front of a shop full of fresh fish, showing off her victory.
In front of the small outdoor table, Yenika Faelover held a raw meat skewer.
Her knuckles were white from the force with which she squeezed the wood, and her usually sweet eyes shot poisoned daggers at Lortelle.
But despite her immense magical power, Yenika looked like an innocent domestic kitten, trembling with panic and jealousy in front of an invading predator.
And finally, Bell looked up at the roof of the wooden cabin.
There, completely oblivious to the tension that could be cut with a knife, the most powerful archmage on the continent, Lucy Mayrill, was snoring peacefully with her enormous hat covering her face…
like a simple stray roof cat who couldn’t care less about the end of the world.
Bell Maya closed her eyes and let out a long, deep sigh loaded with absolute existential fatigue.
“Haa…” the maid exhaled, bringing a hand to her temple.
Her head was already spinning just seeing them all gathered there, marking their territory.
Ed, who was sitting near the unlit campfire cleaning the mechanism of his iron traps, looked up, expressionless.
“Why are you sighing like that?
If you’re here to complain about the mess, Bell, this is a survival camp.
Not a wing of your luxury hall.”
“No, my apologies, Young Master Ed,” Bell replied, recovering her impeccable professional posture immediately, smoothing her apron.
“Rather, what were you trying to say?
I feel like my head is already spinning seeing you all here.
I have a message for Miss Lortelle.
It’s a message from the former head maid, Ellis.”
The name caused the atmosphere to turn icy in a fraction of a second.
Ed stopped his movements completely, his gray eyes locking onto the parchment envelope Bell had just pulled out.
Ellis was the breaking point.
If she had talked too much during the interrogations, Ed’s identity as the “black veil” who had annihilated the mercenaries would come to light.
Lortelle, however, didn’t blink.
She took the envelope with a calculating, feline smile.
“I see.
You may leave, Bell.
Excellent work.”
Bell gave a flawless bow.
Before heading into the forest to return, she looked up at the roof, grabbed the sleeping Lucy by the collar of her robe with surprising physical strength, and lifted her like a sack of potatoes.
“I will also take Miss Lucy.
It is getting late and she must return to the temporary dormitories.”
Shortly after, Yenika, cursing internally at the strict curfew for regular students, had to say her goodbyes reluctantly.
After shooting one last warning glare at the merchant, she ran towards the campus, leaving Ed and Lortelle completely alone in the clearing.
The chill of the night descended quickly.
Ed piled up wood and lit the campfire.
The orange flames crackled, illuminating both of their faces.
Lortelle broke the wax seal on Ellis’s message and read the contents with overwhelming analytical speed.
“Ellis’s hard work never ceased,” Lortelle murmured, her voice stripped of mockery, replaced by a raw tone.
“Even though her health was rapidly deteriorating, the school never listened to her or paid her any attention.
Eventually, she wouldn’t be able to work and wouldn’t be able to take responsibility for the orphanages she was secretly in charge of.”
Lortelle traced the edge of the parchment, passing the sheet to Ed so he could see it.
“It seems no one recognized she was cornered.
At least those who follow Ellis had some understanding of her situation and psychological state.
In the end, she bet her entire life on my father’s plan.
And since my victory was somewhat assured up to a certain point, she tried to come back to my side.
It’s just that…
it’s difficult to regain trust now that it’s already been lost.
This is what they sent instead of a threat.”
Lortelle looked at Ed through the flames, her expression turning to stone.
“There is no such thing as ‘sympathy’ in the world of merchants.
If you make a mistake like that, you will most likely be treated as an idiot.
She must know that better than anyone else.
Well…
from my position, there’s been no harm done.
So let’s play along.
Because there’s no such thing as an eternal enemy or ally.”
She reached out and dropped the parchment onto the embers.
The fire devoured the list of orphanages and Ellis’s secrets in seconds, turning the evidence into black ash that floated towards the starry sky.
Lortelle had bought Ellis’s absolute silence by guaranteeing the funding of those orphanages with her own wealth.
Ed stared at her.
Even considering that cold and calculating monologue, Lortelle looked quite relieved, almost at peace, to have been able to save the future of those orphans without having to shed any more blood.
“I’ll be leaving soon,” Lortelle said, her tone changing drastically to a much softer, sweeter, and playful one.
“You will go to the company’s local branch this week to sign the contract, right?”
“That’s right,” Ed replied, nodding.
Lortelle stood up from her log and walked slowly around the campfire, closing the distance until she was standing right in front of him.
“Take this.
It will last for a while.”
Ed took the torch, but Lortelle didn’t step back.
In fact, she took another step, deliberately invading the boy’s personal space.
“…?” Ed looked at her.
“What are you thinking about?” she murmured, leaning forward, looking down at him with her large eyes shining under the firelight.
“No…
it’s just that you’re taller than I thought, senior,” she answered herself with a smile, closing the distance even more.
“What are you saying all of a sudden?” Ed asked, maintaining his perfect mask of apathy.
Lortelle let out a crystalline laugh.
She raised both hands and, with tremendous audacity, began to adjust the knot of the rustic tie Ed wore under his coat.
“I think this might be a bit rushed.
However, if I want to surpass that girl…
Maybe I should do something a little extreme…
Did you know, senior?”
Lortelle continued fiddling with the fabric of the tie.
“Laziness makes you constantly relate a place to the tug-of-war.
Like this knot.
Look how completely twisted it is…
Why would you wear something so uncomfortable when no one sees it?”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with always staying neat,” Ed replied, watching her hands, waiting for the merchant’s classic psychological game.
“We are Sylvania students, after all.”
Lortelle smiled, a smile loaded with seductive danger and anticipated victory.
She firmly grabbed the lapels of Ed’s shirt.
“What…
huh?!” The exclamation left Ed’s lips when Lortelle, with a quick and surprisingly strong tug, pulled him forward.
The distance was reduced to zero.
“The raspberries we had for dinner were very good, weren’t they?” Lortelle whispered, her breath brushing the boy’s lips.
“Now that I think about it again, it was quite good.”
And without giving him a fraction of a second to process her words, Lortelle closed the remaining millimeter and pressed her lips against his.
It was a fast, bold kiss, loaded with vibrant warmth and an absolute territorial challenge.
Ed’s mind, meticulously trained for war, strategy, and survival, suffered a monumental short circuit.
His combat instincts as King Grey, which could detect bloodlust and lethal danger from miles away, had completely failed him in the face of an astute teenager’s romantic ambush.
Since he didn’t detect any killing intent or magical threat, his body simply didn’t react to block her.
For a couple of seconds that seemed to stretch in time, Ed sat paralyzed, feeling the pressure of Lortelle’s lips under the star-covered sky.
When Lortelle finally broke the kiss, pulling back an inch with a triumphant smile and slightly ragged breathing, Ed blinked.
He didn’t push her away coldly or look at her with contempt, as she might have expected.
Instead, with a slightly clumsy movement, very different from his usual lethal grace, Ed raised his hands, grasped Lortelle’s wrists with extreme gentleness, and removed her hands from his lapels, breaking the grip.
He maintained his composure, but an undeniable blush appeared on his cheeks, and his gray eyes betrayed a mixture of surprise, disbelief, and a clear tactical embarrassment.
“You…” Ed let out a sigh, running a gloved hand through his hair, visibly embarrassed to have lowered his guard in such a rookie way.
“I got overconfident.
I suppose underestimating women remains my weakness, from what I see.”
Lortelle looked at him, her feline eyes shining with pure fascination.
She had achieved what gold, power, and fear could not: she had made the unbreakable Ed Rothtaylor show genuine emotion and feel nervous.
Ed cleared his throat, recovering his posture.
“Don’t cross the line like that.
You’re bothering me.
If you pull or push too much, you won’t be popular at the academy.”
Lortelle let out an enchanting laugh, turning around to walk towards the cabin.
“Next time, I’ll make three of myself, senior.
I’ll have to practice giving slack too,” she winked, radiating absolute confidence.
However, the moment Lortelle turned around and took her first step into the darkness, her right leg trembled violently.
Her knees seemed to lose all their strength for a second, forcing her to stumble and lean awkwardly against the wooden doorframe.
Hidden in the shadow that obscured her face, Lortelle was completely red, breathing heavily with her heart beating so fast it threatened to break her ribs.
She had acted with tremendous audacity, but internally, the embarrassment and nerves of what she had just done were eating her alive.
She quickly composed herself, pretending she had just tripped over a root, and locked herself in the cabin with a slam of the door.
Ed was left alone by the fire, rubbing his temple in frustration.
«I almost panicked over a kiss…» he thought, feeling strangely human.
However, before he could flagellate himself any further, the system integrated into his soul activated.
A blue holographic screen materialized before his eyes.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[Hidden Quest Completed: The Backing of the Golden Daughter.] You have positively altered the fate and affinity of a main character (Lortelle Kehelland) by securing her position of power.
[Generated Rewards:]
1.
[Item: Ring of the Ice Matriarch] An ancient artifact that passively absorbs ambient mana.
Automatically deploys an absolute shield that blocks one lethal attack.
Cooldown time: 72 hours.
2.
[Attribute Awakening: Ice Magic (Deviant Affinity)] The perfect combination of Water and Wind magic.
Grants molecular control over temperature.
Ed felt an absolute chill run through his veins.
His tactical understanding of water and wind had just merged, giving him access to a brutal element for defense.
Simultaneously, the silver ring materialized in his palm.
He slipped the ring onto his index finger.
His blush completely disappeared, replaced by the cold logic of a strategist evaluating his new resources.
He had obtained an indispensable defensive lifeline for the battles to come.
«I tried to avoid getting involved with the main story characters more than necessary,» Ed thought as he walked through the forest days later.
«However, as I expected…
things didn’t go the way I wanted.»
The stars in the sky were as beautiful as ever, and the moon was bright.
The chirping of the insects persisted, and the sparking campfire remained the same.
But Ed felt that the path of the story was only going to continue changing.
Regardless of his will, he felt anxious, as if he were beginning to be sucked into the center of the story while trying to act only when necessary.
That plan of action seemed too simple, but he would begin to realize how stupid and difficult that challenge was, in the not-so-distant future.
Summer passed just like that.
And Autumn had arrived.
In a sunny clearing, far from the camp, Yenika Faelover was sitting at the foot of an ancient oak tree.
Her spirits fluttered around her after returning from spying on the camp.
The fire fox spirit wagged its flaming tails.
“The fire fox kissed Young Master Ed.”
Yenika froze.
“W-What?!” she shrieked, feeling like the world was spinning around her.
The blue panther yawned and stretched lazily.
“You can’t leave things like this, Miss Yenika.
Wait a moment, what did you just say?
They kissed?
I saw it too, it was quite passionate.
That vixen knows how to play with a person’s heart.
But what are you talking about?!
What about Ed?!
What was his reaction?!
Oh, a straight-to-the-point question, huh.”
The panther continued its monologue in front of the pale girl.
“When I looked at him, it seemed he kept his distance.
Even though she kissed him, his expression didn’t change a bit…
I was quite surprised by what I saw.
He took it very coldly.
Just looking at him gave me secondhand embarrassment.
Uh…
it must be one of two things: The fallen noble is a eunuch, or he doesn’t see her as a woman at all.”
Yenika dropped her hands from her hair and let out a long, deep, and shaky sigh of relief.
“Haa…
t-that…
is a relief…”
“Normally, guys like him are good on the offense, but weak on defense,” the green bird advised her, swooping down.
“In my experience, that vixen is the type who gets obsessed the more she is rejected.
If you don’t do something, he will be taken away, Miss Yenika.”
Yenika frowned.
“B-But even so…
you said Ed’s reaction was cold…”
“Are you willing to let that vixen take him?” the fox asked.
“I heard he agreed to teach you some spiritual energy.
You shouldn’t waste this opportunity!
At the very least, you should start making your move when you are alone.”
“Don’t listen to Tarkan’s words,” the bird interrupted.
“After all, you are the most charming when you are yourself.
Haa, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to use a more innocent and refreshing approach.
You must have also imagined doing something exciting and fresh with him…
Have you ever experienced a situation or scene like that?”
Yenika’s face flushed a red so bright it rivaled the color of the fire spirit.
“F…
Feeding each other…” Yenika murmured, pressing her index fingers together.
She imagined the perfect scene: the autumn sun filtering through, her holding a bowl, and Ed, breaking his usual stoic facade, saying: “Say ahh~”.
Meanwhile, in the Northern Forest cabin, Ed Rothtaylor held a steaming spoon in front of a small figure sitting on the floor.
“Say ahh~” Ed instructed.
“Ahh~” Lucy Mayrill responded, with her robe wrapping her small body.
Ed placed the spoon with the survival broth he had just cooked into the archmage’s mouth.
Lucy closed her lips and swallowed.
For a second, there was a deathly silence.
Suddenly, Lucy’s eyes opened wide, her pupils dilating to the extreme.
Her irises glowed with an intense magical purple color.
A violent shiver shook her small body.
“URGH-!!
GROSS-!!” Lucy screamed with all her might, her voice shattering the peace of autumn.
Ed slowly lowered the spoon, blinking with his stoic expression intact, wondering if the start of classes would leave him enough time to improve his culinary skills before someone died of poisoning.
[Author’s Note] Hello everyone!
Just dropping a quick note to clarify a small timeline detail.
I know in a couple of previous chapters I mistakenly mentioned that it was already Autumn.
My bad!
I didn’t remember the exact canon timeline perfectly when I wrote those.
Let’s consider this chapter the official transition into the Autumn season.
Also, stay tuned because there will be another chapter dropping later today!
Thanks for reading and supporting the story!