Waking up the next morning, I already knew the first thing I needed to do to get stronger, but I also felt the overwhelming need and obligation to deal with one or two things before I got started. Those being a few things related to Odelia’s currently unavailable state. Though luckily for me, those few things just so happened to be in the same place for me to deal with. Wanting to get started right away, I grabbed the special items Odelia kept in my room, took a bath, quickly ate breakfast with the others, received the three forged letters I requested from Shurtyrr, and then left the House with Aelthar being my daily escort today.

I beelined straight for my destination, but once we reached the gates, the Noble House’s guards pointed their weapons and shouted “Halt! Who goes there? and what's your business here?”

“Stand down, guards." Aelthar ordered, approaching them wearing ordinary clothes and without any form of weapon. "And do not point your weapons at us again.”

“C-Captain Aelthar!” The guards stammered, immediately putting away their weapons and saluting him. “Apologies, sir, we didn’t recognize you without your uniform or armour on.”

“Yes, yes, I didn’t have time to put either of them on.” Aelthar explained, leering at me since I threatened to leave without him if I was forced to wait.

“Well it’s quite early, sir, and we haven’t received any word of your expected visit today, so is there a reason why you’ve come to House Fre’Nddare?” The main guard inquired politely.

“I don’t have a reason myself. I’m only here to escort Odelia’s student—he is still unfamiliar with the city” Aelthar replied, gesturing to me hidden under my hooded cloak—with the top of my head wrapped up in a scarf underneath.

“I see…” The guard carefully examined me and asked, “Then may I ask where Lady Odelia is? She in fact is expected to visit and train with young lady Myeyl later today.”

“I’m sorry to say, but my Master was called away to attend urgent business elsewhere.” I answered courteously. “Though she did ask me to personally hand Lady Myeyl and Lord Fre’Nddare letters to inform them of her unexpected absence before she left.” Pulling out two of three forged letters from my cloak to show the guard.

“If your business here is to simply deliver letters, then I simply ask you to hand them over to us and be on your way.” The guard responded disdainfully, opening his hand and waiting for me to hand over the letters. “We’ll ensure the young lady and the Lord of the House receive the letters duly.”

“I don’t believe you properly heard him.” Aelthar spoke up, noticeably bothered by their disrespectful attitudes towards me. “He said he was asked to personally hand over the letters, by his Master Odelia no less, so why are you worthless worms denying him to do so?”

“C-Captain Aelthar, we did not mean to be disrespectful, but how could we allow this suspicious outsider to freely enter the Noble House of Fre’Nddare?” The guard nervously reasoned.

“Suspicious outsider!?” Aelthar repeated in anger, “You dare call him that after already knowing he’s a fellow student of Odelia’s, and after seeing that I have even come here myself to vouch for him!?”

“N-N-No, that’s not what I meant, sir!” All the guards cowered at Aelthar intimidating presence.

“It’s alright, Ael, there’s no need to get worked-up over some little words.” I said, putting a hand on Aelthar’s shoulder to tell him to calm down.

“But Eyes, they should be showing you—” I gave Aelthar a stern look and he took a deep breath and relaxed. He then turned back the main guard and pointed, “You, go inform Lord Fre’Nddare Odelia’s other student has come to personally deliver private letters only meant to be seen by him and his daughter.” and the guard immediately ran inside the manor to send word.

The same guard came back a few moments later and informed me he was told to escort me to the Lord’s private office. Expecting I was likely going to be staying here for a while, I told Aelthar to go back home, and assured him I could safely return to the House if I ever found myself in danger; though it did take quite a bit of convincing to force him to finally leave. I then followed the guard as he led me inside the manor of a Noble House.

Entering an enormous front foyer, it equaled the four storey height of the manor, and was just as grand and luxurious as I expected it to be. Many flawless portraits of the Fre’Nddare House were hung throughout the different levels of the foyer, with many more beautiful light-crystals illuminating and decorating the finely carved wooden walls. The space was kept absolutely clean, with not a single speck of dirt or dust left to be seen, but what truly left me utterly astounded, was the giant spherical torrent of pure magical wind floating right in the centre of the foyer. From the obvious ridiculous speeds the winds were currently blowing, one would think a tornado’s worth of force would be ripping straight through this wooden manor right now, yet there was no ounce of force or pressure emitting from the wind sphere whatsoever. Most would also assume nothing could survive being inside that ferocious cyclone without being torn and shredded apart, but from what I could see with my curiously greedy eyes, there are things unbelievably valuable perfectly hidden within its endless spherical tempest.

The guard grunted to get my attention and said, “Stop dawdling. We are going this way.” rolling his eyes at me.

“Oh yeah, sorry.” Quickly following him behind the sphere of wind and down a short series of hallways. I also tried to ask the guard what that thing was back there, but he simply ignored me. “Man, these guards must really not like me. Now is it because this is just how Noble Guards treat regular people, or is it because someone ordered them to?” I wondered, arriving in front of two doors at the end of this hallway.

“The Lord of the House should be waiting for you inside.” The guard begrudgingly informed me, secretly glaring back while he left the way we came.

Ignoring his obvious disdain, I shrugged and politely knocked on the door, announcing “Excuse me, Lord Fre’Nddare. I’m Eyes Ven’Thyl, of House Ven’Thyl. I came to deliver a letter Odelia asked me to personally give to you.”

“Yes, yes. I know who you are, Eyes. Please come in.” Gaining his permission, I opened the door to an unexpected sea of papers stacked and scattered throughout the room, with Zebeyeyl stuck behind his desk surrounded by more large columns and stacks of paper.

“Uh, is this a bad time, Lord Fre’Nddare? I can come back later if you like?” Feeling hesitant to give him the letters if he was this busy with work.

“No, no, this is just a normal day for me this time of the year.” Haphazardly stamping papers as he spoke to me, “And Zebeyeyl is fine, remember?”

“Right, sorry.“ I apologized.

“It's alright, come in. Have a seat.” He gestured to a chair covered in papers. “Oh, but do close the door gently please.” Gently closing the door, I carefully maneuvered around the stacks of papers, and then sat down after moving the papers from the chair. “Now, Eyes, I'm sure you're not here to become my personal vassal, so does that mean you've finally come to accept my offer to be my first student?”

“Well in a way I did come here to accept that offer, but don’t you want to read Odelia’s letter to you first?” I asked, passing the letter to him on his desk.

“A letter? From Odelia? I thought that was just some excuse you gave to the guards to come and meet me in private?” Zebeyeyl questioned, picking up the letter.

“No, she really did write one.” I blatantly lied, “She wrote it before leaving the city to deal with some urgent matters, and she said you would understand why she left when you read the letter yourself.”

“Odelia writing a letter to me, how curious…” Opening the letter, Zebeyeyl began to hum in thought as he read it to himself, though his face quickly became unamused by the end of it. “Is she joking? If she was going to leave and force me to teach my own daughter anyway, what am I even paying her for?”

I explicitly told Shurtyrr to include a believable excuse to give to Zebeyeyl for why Odelia would be gone for a few months, but I didn’t actually get the chance to read the letter myself before he sealed it up; except he did tell me anyone who really knew Odelia would understand why she would suddenly choose to leave somewhere. I then asked “Is something wrong, Lord Zebeyeyl?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Zebeyeyl dismissed, crumpling the letter out of irritation. “Odelia’s just gone off hunting for some particularly very rare monster parts again.”

“Monster parts? What for?” I inquired, allowing him to believe the forged letter's words.

“It’s in the attempt to create a bow that rivals our Master’s—she used to do the same in the past, randomly disappearing quite often to go search for rare materials and monster parts to create her bows with.” Zebeyeyl explained, mentioning “I don’t know why she goes through that trouble, she’s the one who inherited the sword, and you don’t see me trying to create a sword rivaling Father’s.”

“Odelia inherited your Master’s sword?” I repeated, only having ever seen her use her Twilight Blade before.

“She did. Although neither of us have really trained ourselves enough to be able to use Father’s Pleasant Verdant and Dreadful Oblivion.” He openly divulged.

“Huh, why not?” I queried, vividly remembering the two unique weapons Illiveyl wielded during the Elven Siege.

“In these times of peace, I believe we both just felt there was no need for us to be stronger than we already are, and simply decided to accept and enjoy living in the mundane.” Zebeyeyl reasoned. “That is also why we’ve been delaying our—”

“Father, I heard Eyes came here to deliver a letter from Odelia, is that true?” The door forcefully swung open and all the carefully stacked papers were blown and scattered everywhere.

“Noooooo!” Zebeyeyl cried out, utterly devastated by the collapse of all his hard work.

“Oops…” Myeyl said, gently closing the door, and carefully maneuvering around the fallen stacks of paper.

“I think you should’ve knocked first.” I commented, smirking at the mess she caused.

“You think?” She smirked back.

“Myeyl…” Zebeyeyl grumbled angrily.

“Sorry, Father…” Myeyl apologized timidly.

Zebeyeyl sighed and rubbed his head, saying “Forget it. Just go and bring Eyes to the underground training hall. I’ll meet you two there when I’m finished cleaning up the mess here.”

“The underground training hall? Why would you meet us there?” Myeyl questioned in confusion.

“That’s because until Odelia returns from wherever she ran off to, I’ll be the one teaching you two archery.” Zebeyeyl revealed to her.

Leaving the office, Myeyl was even more shocked when I reiterated the news and gave the other forged letter to her. It was a letter that informed her Odelia would be away for a few weeks or months, and that she passed on the responsibility of teaching us to her Father, Zebeyeyl. Shurtyrr also included a note that when Odelia would come back, she’ll help us both make our first bows, and reading that absolutely thrilled Myeyl. She then grabbed me by the hand and excitedly rushed through the halls. We passed by many gossiping servants and guards, all questioning and judging my person and worthiness to be here. But I couldn’t care less, and it would seem Myeyl didn’t care either—though she did glare at ones we passed by to intimidate them into stopping their gossip.

Eventually we headed down a large flight of stone stairs, where we then entered a giant training hall built completely out of stone bricks—much like the one in House Ven’Thyl. There were rows of large sparring circles right near the entrance, various different weapons aligning the walls, and a long and wide archery range on the other side of the chamber. The hall was currently unused by anyone except for a few servants cleaning the various weapons and dust on the ground, but they politely left after noticing our arrival to give us privacy.

Stepping into the closest sparring circle, Myeyl asked “So, want to spar a little while we wait?” Knowingly goading me with a smug and grinning face.

“You want to spar? You do know I’ve been learning the Magic Style, right?” Humouring her by entering the sparring circle too.

“I did hear that, but surely wouldn’t back down from a challenge made by your rival student, would you?” She rolled up her sleeves and tapped her feet against the ground in preparation.

“You think we’re rivals?” Removing my cloak, and tightening the scarf wrapped around my head.

“How could I not? We’re the same age, and we’re both taught by the same teacher.” She reasoned.

“Well for starters, I think we’d have to match in both skill and power to be considered rivals. But from what I can see... I don’t think that’s anywhere near the case.” Plainly seeing the Lv.25 on top of her head—which previously was Lv.20.

“Is that so?” Myeyl smiled with a hint of irritation, suggesting “Hey, I know, why don't we have a friendly Tri-Style Competition to see if that really is the case, huh?”

“I don’t know what that is, but I wouldn’t mind having a friendly little competition before your Father gets here. Though are you sure you can handle losing?” I asked, grinning smugly.

“If you’re that confident, care to make a little wager?”

“Sure, why not.” I shrugged, “So what do I get when I win?”

“Well when I win, I want you to do whatever I want for an entire day!” Myeyl openly declared.

“Haha, sure, sure.” I chuckled, knowing there was no way she could win. “But you know it’s only fair if I get to ask for the same thing, right?”

“Of course. Then do we have a wager?” Holding her hand out.

“We do.” Though the instant we shook each other’s hands, a new Quest suddenly popped up.

Quest

She Who Can Rival:

Compete against ‘Myeyl Fre’Nddare’ in a 'Tri-Style Competition', and win at least three of the five following competitions: Arrow Manipulation, Distance Shooting, Elemental Manifestation, Ringed Combat, Speed Targeting.

Reward: The right to order ‘Myeyl Fre’Nddare’ to do whatever you desire for an entire day. Failure: Be ordered by ‘Myeyl Fre’Nddare’ to do whatever she desires for an entire day.

The appearance of the Quest surprised me, but I didn’t think much of it and simply closed the Menu. “What happens now?” I asked, curious if there was some set order to these competitions. “Do we just start here?” Gesturing to the sparring circle we were standing in.

“Haha, no.” Myeyl giggled. “Don’t you know that Ringed Combat is used as the tiebreaker, and is saved for last in a Tri-Style Competition?”

“Actually, I don’t.” Reminding her, “Outsider, remember?”

“Ah, right. Well don’t worry, Eyes, I’m sure you not knowing any rules of the competitions won’t help me in any way at all.” She said super sarcastically. “Oh, and by the way, any cheating counts as an immediate win for me, got that?”

“Hey, that’s not fair!” I argued, somehow feeling already cheated.

“Well, maybe next time you shouldn’t make a wager without knowing the rules of the game first.” Myeyl said, wearing a mischievous smile on her face.

“I’ll keep that in mind...” Knowing I couldn’t back down now, I reluctantly accepted the disadvantageous conditions, but I was now determined to show her just how outclassed she really was.