“…What?” I stood surprised as I watched Risa said something out of the blue. I heard her loud and clear but my brain processed it slowly.

“Huh? Didn’t you hear me?” she looked exasperated. “I said we have to kill that man!”

“…Who are we talking about?”

“Risa’s talking about William!” she sat on the king- size bed. For a moment, she seemed shocked by something but it was probably the softness of the bed. Sleeping on hard surfaces for a week wasn’t pleasant. “That man is dangerous.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t expect to meet him here,” she bit her lip. “Risa was careless but this is an opportunity.”

“Wait a minute,” I put up my hands. “Why is he dangerous?”

“He was…” she bitterly looked at the ceiling. “He was one of the humans who killed me.” What was she remembering? From the looks of it, it was enough for her to be madly serious about it as she clenched her fist tightly.

“He killed you…?” William was the greatest mage in Ergaos and his influence reached far. It’d make sense that he would be one of the people that would fight Shakna. I felt something inside of me boiling.

She gravely nodded. “Risa remembers his face well. He fought well during our battle, giving Risa a hard time killing the king. If he wasn’t there, the battle would have been in Risa’s favor.”

Shakna, one of the five witches and considered extremely dangerous, had a hard time fighting him. Didn’t that mean he was powerful? I still hadn’t wrapped around the idea of someone defeating Shakna in battle.

“You noticed his left arm, right?” she continued. “Risa was the one who did that. Risa should have severed his legs, too…” she grimaced, biting her lip as a punishment for not doing enough.

“Calm down,” I sat beside her. “I understand the situation.”

She stared into my eye. “This man will be a threat to Risa and Castella Nee-chan. Failure is not an option. We must eliminate him here.”

The first thing that came into my mind was how. “Do you have any plan?”

“Not yet,” she crossed her arms. “Considering he’s one of the Pinear Mages, he’s going to be incredibly hard to kill. Right now, Risa’s vulnerable and if he notices that Risa’s a witch, Risa will be dead within seconds.”

“Wait, he can notice you’re a witch? Then wouldn’t it be better if we put some distance between us?”

“No,” she shook her head. “His servants are incredibly talented beings. You would lose even with the meager powers Risa gave you if they find you suspicious. That’s why we have a great opportunity because we can be near him because of Fuyuki and the others.” I could see Lindwal being hard to deal with even if he looked old but Feim? There was a shroud of mystery within that maid. But that made sense. Considering I didn’t notice Feim’s presence earlier, she might even be a better assassin than I was.

“Risa will just have to play it safe. You be careful, too. For now, gather intelligence from everything. Risa wants to know how he walks, sleep, everything. When we have the necessary information, that’s when we will move.”

I nodded. I still wasn’t sure about killing a living, breathing person, and then there was the fact that I had to hide it to Fuyuki and the others. This time, I would be a lone wolf, with a help from a child. Though it would be hard, there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I’d gladly kill a person if she asked me to — especially someone who hurt her.

“I almost forgot,” I said, recalling a word she said earlier. “What’s a Pinear Mage?”

She facepalmed as she looked at me as if she wanted to locked me away in a pit. Oddly specific but that was what I understood from her cold stare. “In each races, there are indistinguishable mages, even beasts, which were known for their physical capabilities, have their own mages. A Pinear Mage represents their races in terms of magical capabilities. In each races, there are three Pinear Mages. It is said that Pinear Mages can even defeat a witch but as you’ve known from our battle, they were nothing to Risa. If Risa had to describe them, they were rats with weapons.”

Huh, I really need to learn more about this world.

“Don’t make that face,” she patted my head. “In this world, you’re still an infant. It’s only natural for you to have a limited knowledge about this world. That’s why when you question something, ask Risa and Risa shall answer it. You are like my child, after all.”

“You know you’re the child here, right?” I replied mockingly but I did understand what she was trying to convey.

She hit me in the head. “Don’t you have to meet Feim? Why don’t you start buttering her for information? Though, Risa believes she might be the toughest person to crack.”

“Yeah, Merry and I are going to meet her. But why is she hard to crack?”

“Risa knows about a thing or two about loyalty,” she huffed proudly. I patted her in the head. When it came to maids, I knew about a thing or two, too.

Still, killing one of the strongest mage of the human race? Just the thought of it made me shiver.

*

I left Risa with Kihana. Kihana wasn’t too close to William like Fuyuki was, so it was a safe bet to place her there. But how would William know that Risa was a witch? I should have asked her earlier.

Merry and I met Feim in a dressing room. As one would expect, it was full of clothes, servant’s clothes, to be precise. There were numbers of clothes for maids and butlers hanging around in wardrobes. There were also numerous materials for sewing

With all the new information coming, I hadn’t entirely notice Feim. She was a slim girl and was about the same height as Merry. Her ivory-colored hair was braided into a pigtail, emphasizing her beautiful femininity while hiding her ears and her light-blue eyes were one level down from her master.

“Come to think of it, where are the other servants?” I asked as Merry measured my sizes. She did this once, too.

“There are no other servants,” Feim said while arranging the messy clothes.

“Huh?” I tilted my head thus got scolded by Merry for moving. Looking back on it, we wandered around looking for Feim in the first place and we didn’t see any servants. “Why would there be no servants? This is a huge house!”

“It is not a problem,” Feim said coldly. “I, alone, could do the entire housework.”

“It seems like you have a competition, Merry,” I chuckled.

“Is she a maid, too?”

“Once,” I said. “Now she’s my partner.”

“Idiot, don’t say the word ‘partner so lightly,” Merry scolded me again. “As for your question, yes, I was once a maid, too.” But wasn’t she my partner?

“She’s also a half-beast,” I added. I figured since she was a maid, too, she wouldn’t belittle Merry about her race.

“Oh, you are?” Feim’s eyes bulged.

“Yes,” Merry showed her blue tail. “I hope we can get along.” Merry smiled kindly.

“How sad it is that you have a human blood,” Feim brushed her hair aside, showing her pointy ears. “We would surely get along if it weren’t for that.”

An elf…

If I remembered correctly, beast and elves formed an alliance with each other and they hate both the borgos and the humans and vice versa. If that was so, why would an elf work willingly for a human? And obviously, she didn’t like humans, either.

“I don’t need your help on anything,” she handed me and Merry’s clothes. It was a suit and a maid uniform, respectively. “Since she was a maid before, she already knows how this works but you, on the other hand, needs training. I don’t want those you making an embarrassment for Master William in front of those childish nobles.” She sneered.

I looked at Merry and it seemed she hadn’t recovered from the elf’s attack earlier. Well, it was her first time being kind to a stranger, at least from the time we’d been together.

I guess I just have to put up with this.