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There was something inexorably weird about talking to a girl whose Mana Source values were several times her own. Especially about a Skill with such an ominous name.

In my defense, I think she

’s cheating too.

That said… Malwine was getting increasingly confused. She stared at the panel between them, gesturing in Adelheid’s direction.

[That Which Lurks]

The more you hide, the better you hide. The longer the hiding period, the better the benefit. Improves everything.

“Just

‘improves everything’

‘Everything’

as in what?”

“I don’t know,” Adelheid shrugged, all too casually. “I think it means everything. Just everything.”

“Everything related to the Class, to hiding, to

{Missing}

…?”

Another shrug was the only answer she got.

Malwine shook her head. It felt heavy—the closest comparison she could think of would have been what happens when you try to shake wet hair—despite being perfectly fine, as far as she could tell. “Okay. Let’s go with that. Does it increase every time you ‘hide’?”

“I told it not to go up,” Adelheid explained. “But now I’m going to ignore great-grandma. So it

will

go up.”

Wait, that

’s a thing you can do?

It was almost impressive to see how much her little half-aunt had achieved so far, seemingly in no small part due to her utter refusal to overthink anything.

“Okay,” Malwine motioned for Adelheid to move forward, which the girl did without hesitation. “Let’s see it, then! If you start hiding and coming out, does it increase?”

“I think it will,” Adelheid said as her expression shifted to an adorable impression of a frown. “How many times should I…?”

“As many as you want?”

Adelheid disappeared. The act was silent, but Malwine was starting to notice a pattern. It oddly reminded her of the snuffing of a candle, imperceptible wisps of smoke trailing around where she had once been. It wasn’t something she saw or smelled, but closer to how she could see the mana in her core or feel it moving through her body—it was some other form of perception she didn’t know the name for.

Malwine had, frankly, neglected to ponder the matter often enough. It seemed independent to Skills, Traits, or Aspects—as far as she could tell, there was no need for her to get something specialized to sense mana, at least

generally

. Visualizing her core had all but come naturally, after all.

Everything else was harder to pinpoint, however. She didn’t actually have much to go on, since people around her didn’t seem to be regularly doing anything that would lead to her noticing mana. But it was almost obvious with Adelheid now—as the girl popped in and out of the room, the sensation only grew easier to identify.

It wasn’t the same type of impression she got from using

[Nosy Old Lady]

, either—it was something far more generalized. Malwine reviewed the Skill, the very same she’d used to first find out Adelheid had Affinities. She tried to ignore the slightly disconcerting realization that six months had already passed since she’d derived

{Vestige}

from her

{Missing}

[Nosy Old Lady]

Not even death could convince you to just let what is

actually

dead rest, so perhaps this might persuade you that living, breathing people can be interesting, too. You may feel any living target’s current Affinities without needing access to their core. This Skill may be enhanced by your Perception and affected by your target's Presence, but relies on your actual capacity to sense and differentiate Affinities.

Trait:

None

Aspect: [Purpose]

. Any and all Skills are thrice as effective when used for the benefit of somebody else.

The Skill description still felt like a personal attack, but reencountering that mention of it enabling her to feel the Affinities of others without needing ‘access to their core’ gave Malwine an idea. Could she improve this proto-mana sense by putting a Trait on this specific Skill? It was certainly the closest she had to a sensory Skill.

Besides, it was an Unranked Skill—putting a Trait there could lead to some utterly broken results, if

[Imitation Beyond Filiality]

had taught her anything. A part of her regretted attaching

[Identify]

[Cool Head on Your Shoulders]

, even if it hadn’t been as though she could have put it anywhere else.

Still, a Trait could… Malwine tried not to think about how unlikely she was to get a new Trait anytime soon.

“It’s up to two!” Adelheid reappeared with a grin, breaking her out of her reverie. The girl proceeded to vanish again without awaiting a response.

Huh, level 2 already?

Perhaps Malwine shouldn’t have been surprised—she’d had Skills that soared through the early levels herself.

“Three!”

Malwine nodded, almost making a thumbs-up gesture before it struck her that she wasn’t even sure whether that was a thing here?

Was

it? The worst part was that, short of going out of her way to observe people, she had no idea as to how to find out. She certainly couldn’t ask—how could she explain even knowing the gesture?—and she’d have better odds at trying to reveal a harvestable that wasn’t a restorative than learning anything useful about social norms from her family.

“Four!”

Have mine ever gone up this fast? I

’m not even sur—

“Five!”

—now you

’re just rubbing it in, aren’t you?

It wasn’t as though she could bring herself to be

genuinely

mad, but watching the girl recite her increasing Skill levels while doing nothing was quite the odd experience. She stood still given that implicit expectation that she’d wait for Adelheid to be done, but there appeared to be no end in sight, and the girl had somehow gotten to level eight already.

“Maybe that’s eno—”

Adelheid kept going.

With a sigh, Malwine just gave up. This would clearly take more time than she expected.

If I were progressing a Skill so quickly, would I want to stop? Probably not

. She couldn’t really blame Adelheid for being so excited to keep leveling it. While she was at it, she might as well prepare for the third round of this Skill-sharing game they’d gotten going.

Malwine resettled in her bed and reached for one of the dictionaries in the family library, if only to confirm what that word on Adelheid’s third Skill name had been.

So it

’s like a hole? ‘The hole in everything’?

I take that back, this one worries me more than the second one.

And with the pattern so far, it

’s going to have a description that’s utterly unhelpful.

“It’s not going up anymore,” Adelheid sighed, sitting on the floor after what had to be close to an hour of teleporting in and out of the room. “I’m sad now.”

“How high did it go?”

“

[That Which Lurks]

has a thirteen next to it now.”

“Awesome!” Malwine reached over, hoping a hug would cheer the girl up. That had worked just fine before. “

You

leveled up, too!”

Adelheid Rīsanin - Human -

Level 11

It was something Malwine had noticed a while ago, but hadn’t even been able to bring up with the girl constantly disappearing.

“Yep! Now I’m…” Adelheid’s gaze grew distant as she pulled away. “It’s counting the numbers next to Skills?”

“What do you mean?”

“On the status thing… It says ‘Lifetime Skill levels’ and 14. One in

[Shadow Manipulation]

, thirteen in

[That Which Lurks]

. But why is it counting?”

“Oh. The more you have on those, the more attribute points you get per level. I don’t know all the exact points where it increases.”

“So I

should

level Skills!” Adelheid nearly shouted the revelation, looking surprisingly incensed for her age. “Great-grandma is so dumb!”

“Shh!” Malwine took a finger to her own lips and gestured for silence. “Someone might hear us!”

“No one ever hears me.”

“But we still have to be careful. To keep this secret!”

The girl’s eyes lit up in realization. “Oh! Okay.”

“Yeah,” Malwine nodded, before going on to describe the last of her own three chosen Skills. “Anyhow—

[Write Anywhere]

is a Skill and also Epic. Here’s what it does…”

It was strange. Malwine found she was having

fun

talking to Adelheid. Maybe she’d been

that

desperate for human interaction, but it felt like something more. All tied to that looming concern about how she didn’t even know who she was, not really. There had been a time when she’d simply thought of herself as the widow reborn, especially early on.

As time went on, she felt less and less sure. It wasn’t even just about her struggles with both keeping up appearances and suppressing her urges—the widow hadn’t stood at the pinnacle of maturity to begin with, but she did often wonder whether being young again was affecting her.

Nowadays, she just thought… Well, she was

Malwine

. Did it really matter in the end? She was enjoying her time here, her time with her little half-aunt—with her little kind-of-sister, apparently.

She refused to consider herself a child, though, at least when it came to this internal debate. It just made her uncomfortable—as if thinking that she was, indeed, technically an age 4 toddler would somehow be the greatest possible admission of weakness.

“It’s cool that you can write like that,” Adelheid conceded. “But what do you use it for?”

“Taking notes. You know, writing about stuff,” Malwine started, just as she grew suddenly aware of the opportunity before her. “Oh, do you know what a census is?”

“Nop! What is a census?”

“It’s like a list of people who live in a place. Their names, their ages… Here, let me show you.”

Numeration

Name

Relation to House

Age

Marital Status

Children

Occupation

Nature

Father's Nature

Mother's Nature

Bernadette fon Hūdijanin

Head of Household

Married

Homemaker

Grēdôcavan

?????

Kristian Rīsan

Husband

Married

????

?????

Thekla Rīsanin

Stepdaughter

Single

Unemployed?

Grēdôcavan

?????

Anselm Rīsan

Stepson

Single

Unemployed?

Grēdôcavan

?????

Kristoffer Rīsan

Stepson

Single

Unemployed?

Grēdôcavan

?????

Alaric Rīsan

Stepson

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Matilda Rīsanin

Daughter

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Grēdôcavan

Paul Rīsan

Son

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Grēdôcavan

Adelheid Rīsanin

Daughter

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Grēdôcavan

Benedikt Rīsan

Son

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Grēdôcavan

Johann Fastēn

Employee

Single

Antiquarian

Grēdôcavan

'Veit'

Employee

Single

Forester

?????

Anna Franziska

Employee

Single

Cleaner

Grēdôcavan

Maria

Employee

Single

Cleaner

Grēdôcavan

?????

Friedrich

Employee

Single

Cleaner

Grēdôcavan

Helga

Employee

Single

Cleaner

Grēdôcavan

?????

Maria

Employee

Married

Cook

Grēdôcavan

?????

Johann

Employee

Married

Cook

Grēdôcavan

?????

Maria

Employee

Single

Cook

Grēdôcavan

?????

Franziska

Employee

Single

Gardener

Grēdôcavan

?????

Gretel

Employee

Single

Chef

Grēdôcavan

?????

Hilda

Employee

Single

Attendant

Grēdôcavan

?????

Margreth

Employee

Married

Attendant

Grēdôcavan

Anna Maria

Employee

Single

Attendant

Grēdôcavan

?????

Klaus

Employee

Single

Attendant

Grēdôcavan

This needs corrections. I’d almost forgotten.

“Oh! I’m there!”

“You are. The ages might not be perfect since people might have gotten to a full year since I made that. I’m also missing a lot of people…”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you missing people?”

“I got most of the names from talking to this maid in the kitchen, Anna Franziska—she’s on the list, too—but she didn’t know everyone’s names or their facts. Plus I think I was starting to worry her with the questions.”

“In the kitchen?”

“The part where they bring the food out. She’s a maid and she was cleaning around the table when I asked her this stuff.”

“Okay,” Adelheid said with surprising seriousness, turning to the door. “I don’t like it when things are missing—”

That certainly sounded ironic to Malwine, considering the name of the girl’s seemingly main Affinity, but—

“—so let’s go!”

For a moment, as Adelheid gripped her arm, Malwine thought the girl might have been about to pull her towards the door. That’d have been acceptable enough—maybe if she kept going up and down the stairs, she might get her Endurance to go up a little more, pointless as it would be.

Instead, the world blurred. The sensation returned, but magnified, now bordering on disorienting. Instead of getting an impression of a candle being snuffed out, she momentarily

felt

like wisps of smoke going up. It passed blessedly quick, and the sensation faded even from memory.

The disorientation was another story.

A giggling Adelheid held her arm still, and they were next to… chair legs? They were in the dining room again? Indeed, as Malwine oriented herself, she recognized the chairs she—and Adelheid—used whenever they ate here.

“It worked again!”

Malwine was too busy making sure no one had been around to see them.

’m not even going to question the fact that she can do this.

Why would she be surprised? Adelheid clearly operated on a different version of logic.

Anna Franziska exited the kitchen just then, trusty broom in hand. She was smiling—said smile practically melted off her face the moment she noticed them. The maid was looking at Adelheid as though she were a cryptid. “The child!”

“Hi, Anna Franziska,” Malwine greeted her, only slightly surprised by the same maid being present cleaning the area. Maybe they

did

all have assigned rooms or something, and Malwine had simply neglected to notice prior to forcing herself to learn their names.

“Hello?” the maid gave her greeting a questioning return, still focused on Adelheid. “How did you… get the child to stay around?”

“I still haven’t learned everyone’s names,” Malwine said. “And I told her about it, so she wanted to help.”

“Yes!” Adelheid nodded emphatically. “We can’t let the census be missing names.”

Anna Franziska blinked. “…

The census

?”

“I read that word somewhere.”

Adelheid was ready to back her up. “It means list of names!”

“It… I see,” Anna Franziska spoke slowly.

Seriously, what is it with people and acting like Adelheid is a mirage they could stop seeing at any time?

“So, Anna Franziska,” Malwine smiled, her hands folded behind her back in the best impression she could make of propriety. “Could you

please

take us around so I can learn more people’s names?”

If Adelheid was going to throw her off the deep end here, she might as well get that census done. Sure, it was bound to have some inconsistencies thanks to future entries corresponding to a different month, but Malwine’s answer to that risk remained the same as it had been to the possibility of Anna Franziska being wrong about things—she did not intend for this to be the last or only she made, so there would always be room for improvement in subsequent versions.

“…That, I can do,” the maid replied, after a pause.

From the glances she kept sneaking at Adelheid, Malwine suspected Anna Franziska agreed to it only for the sake of watching the girl. Whether it was because the staff were under some kind of order to keep an eye on her if she showed up, or out of curiosity, Malwine didn’t know.

Just going through the kitchen alone, she finally got to see the faces of three of the other people Anna Franziska had mentioned the first time, the cooks—specifically, the married Johann and Maria, as well as the other Maria.

It was with that Johann that the census—which Malwine kept updating in its hidden panel—finally started to grow again. He was acquainted with two caterers Anna Franziska didn’t know, the both of which were currently on leave. They’d been on leave for a while, actually.

Johann was slightly concerned about their wellbeing, but this wasn’t Malwine’s problem to solve.

He was also able to shed some light into something Malwine had wondered more than once—

just why the hell did this estate employ so many people?

The answer, as far as she could tell, was that they had a lot of people on standby as ‘support’. It supposedly had something to do with the property’s original territory and its quirks, which enabled Bernie to hire people and change their positions on the fly so long as they were qualified. The same went for assigning tasks, with the same requirements.

It did make Malwine a bit curious as to how the system worked as far as properties went—Johann made it sound like these were all system features, after all.

The next interesting tidbit she learned was that most of the household staff was organized not by Bernie, but by a butler who rarely showed her face. Apparently, she was the widow of someone who served under the Hero whose party Kristian and Katrina belonged to. She was also

ninety-three

Neither Johann nor any of the other staff present could tell her more, but apparently, the woman had been in that position before any of the others got here, and seemingly intended to be there for the rest of her life.

There were some other interesting cases, such as a staffer whose mother was Grēdôcavan, but whose father was unknown, as well as two dedicated snow-shovelers, presumably for all the snow that didn’t get anywhere near the estate thanks to the wards.

Oh, and Malwine couldn’t forget Karl—whoever that was, he worked alongside the housemaids, and they refused to give him any title other than, well, housemaid. It resulted in an entry for her census that Malwine was sure would likely look positively hilarious to anyone looking at it without this context.

Even with it, probably.

The flood of Marias and Annas—plus a bonus Anna Maria—refused to end, and Malwine was mostly used to it by now. It was the same as the Johanns, really. She had already accepted she was in for a lifetime of having to distinguish people by their positions or other distinguishing features, because anyone who didn’t belong to a house appeared quite stubborn about not using any surnames, even when Malwine found it unlikely they didn’t have

literally anything

they could have shamelessly lifted from further up on their family trees.

Things went well, all things considered—even if Malwine knew all too well that she wouldn’t have remembered any of these names with only a single mention, had it not been for

[Write Anywhere]

Not to mention, absolutely everyone gaped at Adelheid the moment they saw her, and few stopped even after it became clear the girl was not about to disappear.

Numeration

Name

Relation to House

Age

Marital Status

Children

Occupation

Nature

Father's Nature

Mother's Nature

Bernadette fon Hūdijanin

Head of Household

Married

Homemaker

Grēdôcavan

Kristian Rīsan

Husband

Married

????

?????

Anselm Rīsan

Stepson

Single

Unemployed?

Grēdôcavan

?????

Regnąfelsian?

Thekla Rīsanin

Stepdaughter

Single

Unemployed?

Grēdôcavan

?????

Regnąfelsian?

Kristoffer Rīsan

Stepson

Single

Unemployed?

Grēdôcavan

?????

Regnąfelsian?

Alaric Rīsan

Stepson

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Regnąfelsian?

Matilda Rīsanin

Daughter

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Grēdôcavan

Paul Rīsan

Son

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Grēdôcavan

Adelheid Rīsanin

Daughter

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Grēdôcavan

Benedikt Rīsan

Son

Single

Dependent

Grēdôcavan

?????

Grēdôcavan

Johann Fastēn

Employee

Single

Antiquarian

Grēdôcavan

'Veit'

Employee

Single

Forester

?????

Anna Franziska

Employee

Single

Kitchen Maid

Grēdôcavan

Maria

Employee

Single

Kitchen Maid

Grēdôcavan

?????

Friedrich

Employee

Single

Kitchen Maid

Grēdôcavan

Helga

Employee

Single

Kitchen Maid

Grēdôcavan

?????

Maria

Employee

Married

Cook

Grēdôcavan

?????

Johann

Employee

Married

Cook

Grēdôcavan

?????

Maria

Employee

Single

Cook

Grēdôcavan

?????

Franziska

Employee

Single

Gardener

Grēdôcavan

?????

Gretel

Employee

Single

Chef

Grēdôcavan

?????

Hilda

Employee

Single

Attendant

Grēdôcavan

?????

Margreth

Employee

Married

Attendant

Grēdôcavan

Anna Maria

Employee

Single

Attendant

Grēdôcavan

?????

Klaus

Employee

Single

Attendant

Grēdôcavan

Kaspar

Employee

Single

Caterer

Grēdôcavan

Edith

Employee

Single

Caterer

Grēdôcavan

Hildegard fon Werruin

Employee

Widowed

Butler

Grēdôcavan

Gerhardt

Employee

Single

Groundskeeper

Grēdôcavan

Theresia

Employee

Single

Groundskeeper

Grēdôcavan

Veronica

Employee

Single

Scullery Maid

Grēdôcavan

Anna Wilhelmina

Employee

Single

Scullery Maid

Grēdôcavan

Dorothea

Employee

Single

Scullery Maid

Grēdôcavan

Sophia

Employee

Married

Housemaid

Grēdôcavan

Selma

Employee

Single

Housemaid

Grēdôcavan

Karl

Employee

Single

Housemaid

Grēdôcavan

Maria

Employee

Single

Housemaid

Grēdôcavan

Ursula

Employee

Single

Chambermaid

Grēdôcavan

Kornelia

Employee

Married

Chambermaid

Grēdôcavan

Erna

Employee

Single

Chambermaid

Grēdôcavan

Ingebjørg

Employee

Single

Chambermaid

?????

Anna

Employee

Single

Chambermaid

Grēdôcavan

Klara

Employee

Single

Laundry Maid

Grēdôcavan

Irma

Employee

Single

Snow-Shoveler

Grēdôcavan

Fritz

Employee

Single

Snow-Shoveler

Grēdôcavan

Alina

Employee

Single

Parlour Maid

Grēdôcavan

Nina

Employee

Single

Parlour Maid

Grēdôcavan

Therese

Employee

Single

Parlour Maid

Grēdôcavan

Karina

Employee

Single

Still-Room Maid

?????

Anna

Employee

Married

Still-Room Maid

Grēdôcavan

Gottfried

Employee

Single

Houseman

Grēdôcavan

Eilhard

Employee

Single

Houseman

Grēdôcavan

Bernhard

Employee

Single

Houseman

Grēdôcavan

Dagobert

Employee

Single

Page

Grēdôcavan

Peter

Employee

Single

Page

Grēdôcavan

Klemens

Employee

Single

Page

Grēdôcavan

Tilman

Employee

Single

Footman

Grēdôcavan

Rainer

Employee

Single

Footman

Grēdôcavan

Thomas

Employee

Married

Painter

?????

John

Employee

Married

Painter

?????

Carlotta

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

?????

Grēdôcavan

Martin

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Anna

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Simon

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

?????

Karl

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Marlene

Employee

Married

Support

Grēdôcavan

Maximilian

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Bianka

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Ludwig

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Astrid

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Wilhelmina

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Hilma

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Lorentz

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Niklaus

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Irmingard

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Rembrandt

Employee

Married

Support

Grēdôcavan

Anthon

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

?????

Gunda

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Winfried

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Philipp

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Leopoldine

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Maria

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Lukas

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Gretel

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Johann Maria

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

Xavier

Employee

Single

Support

Grēdôcavan

The only thing she was missing was an age for Veit, and while she couldn’t outright show the census to Adelheid with Anna Franziska around, the girl had clearly noticed that last remaining tidbit, as she remained alert, almost expecting Malwine to do something.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from NovelFire. Please report it.

…

Why do I get the feeling this is going to be a headache?

Chapter 63