"It's about time you learn to defend yourself, Yeriel," I told the Endus woman as she sat beside me, sighing in relief.

Yeriel didn’t answer, but inhaled to calm herself. She wore a white dress and overcoat above it with a pink ribbon and her sympathetic hairpin on her hair, which mostly laid unbound on her back and shoulder. It was simple clothing, but this girl was beautiful in anything. I wondered if she realised that or not, and learns to defend herself, or she will suffer wherever she goes.

Then suddenly a thought hit me. In the book, Yeriel's nature never changed. She was always gentle, and Edward had to defend her many times until she died. But there was no Edward. While the kid, Elinor, was busy dealing with her own stuff.

My thoughts drifted off further on to how she died. My resentment towards the Author rose again. Like why was he so good at killing girls? Was he a sadist that likes to see men break into tears? Giving motivation to characters is good, but there were many other ways to do that rather than just killing their loved ones. He did it with both Scar and Edward. Just thinking about it made my teeth gnash.

Holy hell, I don’t think there isn’t any lead character that isn’t suffering from PTSD.

I calmed myself, thinking that day was still far away, and I was doing everything in my power to not let any of that happen. Looking at her face, my resolution rose again; another reason for me to become strong.

"You should be reaching the rank of a Magus, no?" I asked. "That itself does not lose out to many nobles." Despite the prestige of a single magus was far below any princedom, she should have the self-esteem to refuse anyone with her rank.

"Healer," Yeriel corrected me.

"Same thing," I said. After all, healing is a lot harder to learn than the arts that harm people. “Or do you think healing is inferior to destructive arts?”

Yeriel snorted at my smug face. Well, I did use her own words against her, so there was that.

"Where are you going?" she asked as her eyes drifted off towards the book I was reading. It was something she recommended, while I already stashed my secret notebook.

"Victoria," I said. "I have taken on a mission there and there’s also some other business."

And that other business takes priority over the mission, however, I could not abandon the mission, or else things would get a little unpleasant for my aunt. She had misused her position to give in to my interest. It would look bad if I abandon that without even trying.

It was actually a simple mission, but not easy. I have to search for the tracks of a warlock and that needs a lot of groundwork for it to complete. Or else how could I take a leave of absence for a month so easily?

"What a coincidence," Yeriel said. "I'm going there as well and that too on a mission, though mine is healing a couple of people."

"I see," I said, nodding. Even though Yeriel learned a few spells about harming, she never takes missions that require her to fight on her own. She mostly works as a healer. "By the way, that gang, are they with you on the same mission?"

Yeriel's eyes drifted towards where the group of Althan and his underlings were sitting. She shook her head, saying, “Does any one of them look like a healer type? Their number looks like going for a hunt or something."

“Then they were probably stalking you,” I added.

Yeriel shook uncomfortably, but didn’t say a word. While I got back to my reading. It would take us about six-hour or less to reach my destination, so I will find a lot of time to converse with her.

The train left at the promised time, and I had to close the window to not get the chills from the stiff wind. The wind and the place I will be going are even more awful than this. Just thinking about it makes me sick.

. . .

Victoria station was lit in the luminescence, as I came out from the train. Behind me was Yeriel, who had even another sweater on her, while I wore a thick cloak. It was not that late in the night, but half of the stalls were already closed on account of the cold.

Victoria was on the other side of the Starlight mountain range, so there was nothing to stop the icy wind coming in from Frostlands, bringing its temperature to the low extremes. Just thinking about climbing the mountain that was full of the savage beast and chilling cold gave me a headache.

Even though Victoria was under the Regime of the empire, the situation was a little different. It was a free nation not long ago, where house Wintermoon held all the positions of its monarchy, however, things changed in the beast surge sixteen years back, when Victoria couldn’t just get by with its own resources. They had to lean on both directions of the empire as well as the Academy, whoever give them more security and less scrutiny.

Well, on the brighter side, the empire didn’t take control of Victoria as it did with Kazir. Mostly, because it would be inefficient since Victoria was covered with snow all year, and under the threat of the beast surge quite frequently in each fall. Besides, it was the homeland of a few powerful magus families such as Wintermoon, my maternal house Earther, Prinson, and also, Grand Magus Ranyan was born here, though that held nothing currently with the professor’s terrible condition.

"This is goodbye for now," Yeriel said and I nodded.

The direction we would be moving was the opposite. She had to go move into the capital to the house of a highlord to cure the illness of his spouse and child while I was supposed to check in at the enforcers’ office on the outskirts. It was quite close to the station.

My aunt told me to make time to visit my maternal home, which was in Victoria City, however, I am not entirely sure if I would go visit or not.

"Thanks again for helping me," I said as I watched her go. In the journey, she helped me with her understanding of Thaumaturgy, and it helped me quite a bit.

I hit the road as well, forgetting that Althan and his underling should be leaving now as well.

I was planning to look for an inn nearby first, but felt a tuck in my shoulder.

"The enforcer's office is in the other direction," said a woman, tucking my shoulder. I looked to find it was a woman wearing a blue sweater and matching gloves, hat, and boots. The woman was in her early twenties, or in the mid-twenties, with white skin and clear eyes. Somehow I think I knew this lady, and then the resemblances hit me together.

"What? Why are you staring at me like that?" the lady said again. "You don't recognise your aunt?"

I was right. This really was Shailyn, the youngest of my aunt. She had pretty resemblances to Rosalyn, though Shailyn was not of the quiet type. Unlike my other aunt, Shailyn was not made for teaching, so she worked in Victoria as an arbiter magus among the academy, empire and the capital.

"Of course, I recognised you," I blurted. "I was just surprised to see you here."

"Of course I would be here. This is my city," Shailyn said, wrapping her arms around my shoulder, though she could not do that entirely as I was close to two metres tall, while she was tall for a woman, but didn’t reach my neck. However, only a glare from her made my spine bend. "Sister called me, saying you would arrive for a serious mission. She was worried about you, so she told me to take care of you."

And you’re already doing a fine job of it, letting me walk like a standing turtle.

“That’s very much like aunt Rosalyn,” I said, “but I wondered why she didn’t tell me everything.” These actually complicated things. 'Looks like I have to deal with Shailyn first before leaving for the mountain.’

"Seeing you, I'm really surprised," Shailyn said. " Rosa did mention something, but your behaviour seemed to have changed a lot since the last time I saw you at the festival six months ago. You were awful back then."

I smiled awkwardly, not knowing what Scar did to her back then. Probably yelled at her, or threw stuff. I was about to apologise for it when I heard her again.

“Well, you don't look awful now, but I still have suspicions. If I saw anything like that again, I won't be gentle like the other time. I will beat the crap out of you until you will feel sorry for yourself."

"I believe you," I said, swallowing. "But you have nothing to worry."

She escorted me to the enforcer's office then and mentioned she had already prepared a room for me where she stays. Her home was in the city, which was still an hour or more from here on a carriage, so she stays in a rented-place with a few of her colleagues. I could not find a proper reason to reject it, and it would be difficult to find a good one in this hour, so I went with her.

"So, why did you take on such a difficult task for your level?"

"Aunt, I know you graduated with a high score from the magic division," I said, smiling. "But you should not underestimate me."

"Oh really," Shailyn snorted. "Looks like someone found their confidence back. I would like to see what you have tomorrow.

"Nevertheless, you should not look down on your mission. Unlike you, who only learn and have never gone through the hardship of battle and war, the warlock we are against is someone vile. You don't know how far they would fall to get their goal."

I raised an eyebrow. "Aunt, can you give me more details about the task?" I asked. “I only know its Investigation mission with a 3 star difficulty"

"Let's finish our business first," Shailyn said. "Just know this, we are not just after a single Warlock, but a group, who called themselves Dark Deer. Weird name, right? But apparently, they are the real deal. Sister only let you have this mission because I was in charge of this part of Victoria. She also mentioned you have something to do here and attacked her tender spot that she could not dismiss you. You’re really cheeky with Rosa, but I would be damned if I will let you have your way that easily. I will watch over you every second."

"Great," I said, gritting my teeth, though the name of the group, Dark Deer, did not go unnoticed in my ears. Looks like the lines always align.

"By the way, how's Ciara?" my aunt asked again. "That girl left even earlier than the time to attend the academy. Did you clear everything with her?"

I smiled awkwardly again. It appeared the relationship between the two families has not gone too sour as yet.

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