Chapter 145: Other People Are Important

- Abelis Academy City, Academy Servant’s Quarters - Annabelle's POV –

My day started early. Beginning several hours before sunlight I began by taking down the Young Miss’ clothing that was hung to dry the night before. When I’d first began taking care of the young lamia several years ago my skills in most household duties had been… shaky, at best. Over the years however, with a lot of training and help from other professional maids, I’d gotten to the point that such things were trivial.

[Hmm hmm hmm… Hmm? A hole?] – Annabelle

It happened as I was spreading out each article of clothing to iron before putting them in their proper place. As a former assassin I’d never really bothered to learn magic related to day-to-day life, but it was surprisingly satisfying. It also made it easy to tell when a piece of clothing had reached the end of its life since I had to deal with each one-by-one.

The problem was the clothing in question.

[It looks like it’s finally reached the end of its life huh… But still, it was this skirt, was it?] – Annabelle

The skirt, one of the first that Rose had been convinced to finally wear, had been let out gradually over the years rather than wasting money buying a new one whenever the fast-growing Lamia had outgrown her earlier clothes. Beginning with way more fabric than was needed for its size it had quickly reached the end of the available fabric and wouldn’t have been able to be resized again regardless, but it seemed that its death had come a bit sooner than expected.

Made from the silk of a particularly dangerous spider-type monster, the durability of the fabric was almost the best that money could buy, so much so that even as with the budget of a Ducal house they couldn’t go out and buy a new one every year. Even so it seemed that the large amount of wear and tear had finally caught up to it.

Holding it up to the light as I stuck a thin finger through the minute tear in the fabric, I noticed a few other threadbare areas as well, the light shining through the fabric illuminating where it was getting a bit thin. It was…

[Unfortunate. Seems that even that little girl can’t stay the same age forever. Just like this old fabric she’ll continue to grow older. Until eventually…] – Annabelle

I can’t say that I wouldn’t have thought it strange to be this melancholic about a piece of cloth 10 years ago, but I couldn’t say I didn’t understand it now. This skirt, one of the first I’d ever dressed the Young Miss in, was just as much a part of my memories as those with the person herself. The thought that not only would the Young Miss continue to grow older, but she might even eventually throw her away just like she was going to have to with this old clothing was a sad one. She’d never have thought of it before she became the Young Miss’s personal maid, only searching for something to occupy her back then, but she’d grown attached to the young lamia, even viewing her as a member of her own family at times.

But still, it was only a piece of clothing, and the Lady would be awake soon. She needed to finish her morning routine before even a stirring of an eyelid happened. Otherwise, she’d be a failure of a personal maid.

[Let’s set it aside for now. We’ll frame it later.] – Annabelle

- An Unknown Location in Anguis, Black Guard Training Facilities - Moon's POV –

It had been several months since the incident in Academy City, since I nearly lost my kids to that horrible tragedy. To be honest I’d even been a bit afraid of humans since then and, when I learned that a few of the recruits I’d be training with in the Black Guard would be human, I nearly quit right then and there. It was the intervention of my newest Rabbitkin friend Judy as well as the thought of the better life that I’d be able to provide my kids if I succeeded that stayed my hand. And as well it did because I’d quickly risen up the ladder and was tasked as the de facto leader of my little group of fellow recruits. Well under the actual commanding officer of course since I had no actual rank yet. Speaking of which…

[Come on! I know you can do better than that! Are the lot of you wimps that are unable to keep up with a bunch of senior citizens?!? Get up maggots! No! Not even maggots! Worms! Eaters of dirt! If you want to graduate from worms to being maggots, then GO FASTER!!!] – Beryl

[Hah… Hah… Hah…] – About 20 Recruits

[C-Come on guys! We only have another 3 laps! Let’s push through this last part in one go so we can rest! Let’s go!!!] – Moon

[Pfft!] - Judy

Beryl, the commanding officer in charge of whipping the latest batch of recruits into shape, was just as harsh as she’d been warned to be by my b-beloved Prince. Despite her protests to the contrary, as well as her cute looks, the woman herself was extremely strict and unyielding. Although not overly so.

In the short time since I’d joined the Black Guard, I’d noted that, while the woman was strict, she was also fair. When she asked you to do something it was likely that whatever it was it would stretch your capabilities to their limits, despite this, however nothing she ordered you to do was impossible or beyond your abilities.

On top of this she also got along with children extremely well. None of us had said anything, or alerted her in any way, but each of us had seen several instances of her interacting with young kids in the cutest ways when she didn’t think anyone was looking. The local school, created to deal with the children of any of the Black Guard that needed it, was a frequent stop for the critical XO when she clocked off at the end of the night. It seemed that, according to the teachers that watched over such scenes with an overt fondness, that the woman loved to unwind by playing with children. They all guessed that she wanted some of her own but, regardless, it caused a few of the recruits to call Beryl the Cute Drill Sergeant when they didn’t think she was listening. Her age may have had something to do with it though as some of the recruits were actually older than she was.

Putting all of that aside though it only proved how talented the woman was, and, even as she elevated my own position, made me work all that much harder to prove that she hadn’t made the wrong decision. Unfortunately, a certain, scarred, bunny thought my motivational speech was funny. I’d have to teach her a lesson later…

- ??? - ???'s POV –

[I think that some of the sharper councilmembers have suspicions of my having outside sources. It’s probably a good idea for me to hold off on any overt actions for at least a little while.] – Lord Shou, Lolianne’s Big Brother

[Hah… Whatever. We’ve already determined what we’ll do about the anomaly. For now, we want you to hold off on contacting us. If we believe that enough time has passed, WE will contact you instead. Do not attempt to communicate with us nor should you do anything to draw any more scrutiny. Am I understood?] - ???

What a fool. Given all of the resources we were willing to spend on this fool you’d think that he’d be able to actually deliver on an assignment as simple as the one we’d given him. Investigate a child without being suspected to see whether she was a potential threat or ally to our cause. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.

Putting aside the fact that he’d clearly alerted his fellow politicians to the fact that there was something going on, he’d even drawn the attention of another of the group that we’d rather not have looking into our affairs. That monster at the top of the Adventurer’s Guild had noticed the increased scrutiny of the target and, while they were currently unaware of the idiot youngling’s connection with our group it was only a matter of time before they took action to pull the thread that he had revealed when he fumbled so stupidly.

The thought of the quality of our current informants in was disheartening. We’d even lost contact with multiple seers within our grasp, their last communication’s all being something about a great darkness swallowing the continent. Even I, with my long life and many interactions with future seers, was unsure of what to take away from such a blatant sign of some major event approaching. If such signs pointed to our goal succeeding, I’d be overjoyed but the timeline of our goal and the so-called great darkness were incompatible with each other. Given my long experience with interpreting the vague prophecies given by soothsayers it seemed unlikely that the coming darkness was beneficial to our cause.

Even so, it would serve us better to allow the situation to calm slightly before using up the increasingly useless pawn currently trying to make excuses about his failures before me. With the loss of THAT family nearly 100 years ago our selection of skilled spies has fallen so low so that even a defective piece like this was still not worth throwing away just yet. And it wasn’t worth losing even more pieces to continue to pursue aggressive action against a piece that had yet to be proven a detriment to our glorious goal. At least until that Beast turned his gaze away…

- An Unknown Location in Anguis, Dracas Sand Sea – Richard de la Anguis's POV –

A guild mission. It had been dozens of years since mine and my wife’s retirement from the Adventurer’s Guild and our appointment as Myth Rank Adventurer’s only given to those that fulfill a certain amount of power. We were, technically, both the youngest and weakest members of the hidden rank and as such we weren’t really expected to do much to assist the guild. In fact, we’d only been called into action once before since our official retirement and that had ended with the destruction of an entire island. Although I couldn’t say that we were the only ones that had anything to do with that as the one we’d been paired with had done most of the damage.

Regardless though we’d made it clear the last time that we wished to stay retired this time and to only act if all other options had been exhausted. That person had made it clear that he also understood our desire to distance ourselves from dangerous work like that, we had too much to lose after all and he knew that.

However, this current mission was something different. When that man had gotten ahold of my wife and I we’d been ready to reject him immediately and to hang up on his Image Stone, but his next words had stayed our hands. Which is why both of us found ourselves somewhere in the middle of the Sand Sea searching for some mythical city that neither of us really believed was out here.

If it had been for any other reason, we’d have refused him and ignored any subsequent calls, but this had to do with our grandbaby. Our baby girl was increasingly drawing the eyes of powerful people, understandable considering both her identity and incredible, for her age, power. The problem was that the type of eyes had sharply changed lately, and the old bastard believed that “they” were the ones behind it.

At first the trail had been easy to follow, leading to some puffed-up politician in the Dwarven Kingdom of Kel. The bastard that had been eying our grandbaby was more corrupt than even the Merchant Lord’s of the Crossroads. Regardless though we’d moved on quickly when it became clear that, while he was obviously in contact with “them” he had no actual understanding of who it is he was involved with. The trail afterwards had led through several countries before finally leading off into the Sand Sea and the supposed Mythical City and the Elders. So, we found ourselves deep in the desert with absolutely no idea which way we needed to go to find the next marker that we’d been told would lead to where we wanted to go.

Hah… at least Daisy’s sweat-soaked clothing looked beautiful though. Silver linings and all that…