Chapter 9: Midlife Crisis

It’s been a few days since Leena joined. The news of dissolution of her engagement with the prince has reached our village and the looks she is given are different shades of pity, contempt or cold indifference.

The person as usual doesn’t give two shits about the way the people see her as. She is probably one of those people, the ‘I don’t care what others think about me’ type. Straightforward and pure who still believes the world to be fair place and all… Haaah. (sigh)

The naivety of the young… In a way it is refreshing to watch her who has yet to be tainted by cruelties of the real world.

I did some deeper digging and found that the scholarship student who probably orchestrated this whole farce had not only has the crown prince with her, but also son of the Knight Commander, son of the Prime Minister and the current prodigy of magic research as her lovers.

What a wonderful harem.

Polyandry and polygamy are not uncommon, and to successfully gain the hearts of people with high authority while being a commoner; it seems rumors of her possessing both Enhanced Intelligence and Enhanced Charisma are true.

People with Enhanced Intelligence has a bad reputation among others, mostly because the commoner’s lesser developed brains are not able to accept the decisions we make, that sometimes like when we are handling situation which can decide the fate of thousands, especially during wars, it’s better to treat the soldiers we are looking at as pieces of a board game.

They tout we don’t value human lives and disregard our advices, only to face much larger destruction and larger loss of lives. I’m speaking from personal experience, by the way.

I never understand why they were so reluctant to use their heads… Beasts are better companions that idiots, at least they don’t harm others due to the lack of brains.

Probably fed their brains to the dogs. Fuck those stupid arrogant assholes.

So in conclusion; smart people manipulating their lesser brothers and sisters is natural. The contempt of these people with enhanced Intelligence harbors towards their peers ends up being arrogance and blinds them and end up stumbling. Some idiot would with half a brain will discover their mistake and confront them. The others join the marginally better idiot and finds out they too have been manipulated and voila, everything comes crashing down. This is how the bad reputation originates.

My bad habits were nipped in the bud by my late mother and I was raised to be a fine man. So don’t consider me part of their group, who think themselves better than others because they were a little smarter. Still idiots though. A slightly bigger bug is still a bug.

I went off on a tangent again.

SO! Basically what I am saying is that I have two choices.

One, I can trick her into giving me what I want like any normal succubus should. With how low her social interaction skills are, it would be like taking candy from a child.

Two, I can approach her with honesty and get her to accept me as disciple in return for payment or future payment.

The choice between those should be obvious right?!

But it’s not! I’m stuck on what I should do and what I have to do!!!

Aaarrgggg!!!!!!

I think I’m having a mid life crisis… I’m only 12 you know?

Ah! You still don’t know what I want from her right?

Well it is not a big secret anyway, so might as well tell you.

I want to learn swordsmanship.

Now, before you retort, you must understand that without anything to do people would be bored, which leads to different effects on different people. Ranging from depression or insanity to some outright killing themselves, though people who actually reach that state of being bored is very, very rare. There was a man who went around challenging others in chess till he became the undisputed champion in the whole world(Excluding the demon’s side of course). After he was crowned the title, he lost all drive and started hating chess; after ignoring all other professions, he was pathetic at any work he did and ended with him hanging himself. Pretty sad right?

As the former hero, my skills with longsword are the best. So I wanted to try out a different weapon this time. I was leaning towards a scythe, probably due my new nature as succubus and all, but it is extremely unsuitable for battle.

The scythe is an agricultural implement, not a weapon for murder! Goddamn it! These succubus instincts are taking over me!

Plus with the image I am trying to maintain, carrying a big-ass scythe around is a good way to push away my future slaves.

…Maybe I will learn it when I have very high Charisma stat.

So I have decided on the best weapon I have decided to use. It would not only go well with my Enhanced Agility, it would also put my improved flexibility to good use. Which is…*drum roll*… Dual swords!

Isn’t dualswords also swords you ask? Heh, this is why you are all amateurs. There are absolutely no similarities between Long swords and dual swords.

I’m not joking, there really is big difference. I’m planning on dual wielding scimitars; It is a weapon more focused on slashing and slicing with nearly no thrust or hacking type moves which dominate the normal sword techniques.

And Keizer household passes down one of the finest scimitar techniques.

Alysha Keizer who was the vice commander of the knights during the war (600 years ago). She was a wonderful woman who believed offence was the best defence and always charge head first into combat. I seen her fighting and honestly it was more like she was dancing with the enemies rather than fighting to kill each other.

I admired her during the early stages of the war… Sadly she had a husband and was not the type to have affairs… Damn it.

So what I’m saying is that I want Leena to be my teacher. That’s where we come to the real problem.

Her being my teacher means, I am placing her above me. That implies I need to respect her. Which also implies neither can I lie to her nor deceive her.

If I were to do so, the skills I learn will not only falter me when I need them most, it could also lead to my death; my late mother’s words.

She was a wise woman and her words have kept me alive and led me on to the right path whenever I found myself lost.

Believing the swordsmanship I learnt by tricking her will fail me is not logical, but the world never gave two flying fucks about logic anyway.

And right now, her words have made me lost.

I need advice.

Never be averse to relying on others, it is impossible for a man to live by himself. But it is important to choose to rely on a person who doesn’t have ill-intentions against you.

So obviously the person I rely on is Margaret, my new mother.

…Loving someone isn’t all bad afterall.

At night, inside the head sister’s room.

“Oh! Lily! You are already here. You hated sleeping early. What happened? Was training too hard today?”

She said as she pat my head… yep, a mother’s love is relaxing. A smile crept on my face.

“It was alright, I just wanted to see mommy.”

“That makes me happy.” She said giving me a kiss on my forehead. “Sleep early, wakeup early for good health. C’mon, get in.”

She blew out the candle before lying beside me and bringing me to her embrace like usual.

“…Mommy, I have something to ask.”

She looks at me to continue looking a little surprised. I don’t act so meek in front of anyone. She understands this is a serious matter.

“…There is something you must do, should do as a member of your race and then there is something which you want to do. Both methods achieve the same result, albeit with a few differing side results. Which do you think I should choose?”

She noticed when I said the word race. Though she wouldn’t ask on it as she knows that I have my own secrets and she respects them.

After contemplating on my words a bit, letting it sink in, she said.

“I believe Lily should do what Lily wants to do. You have never harmed anyone and despite your detachment to others, you take them into consideration. I have faith in Lily’s decision and believe what you desire would not be wrong.”

“We won’t know if what we did was right or wrong as more often than not there is no ‘right’ answer. So it’s better to do what you want to do whenever you can. You can only deal with the consequences later. Whatever happens mommy will always be your ally. So don’t be afraid.”

She said before giving another peck to my forehead.

Aahhh. This woman understands me. She truly is my mother.

I give her a kiss back and hug her tightly before saying

“I love you mommy.”

“Ufufufu. Mommy loves Lily too. Good night Lily.”

“Good night mommy.”

Note from author: I'm reediting my chapters before uploading.(I once received a reviews stating it was painful to read because of grammatical mistakes >.<) So it would take some time to re upload the chapters because of engagements in real life. Also, for those who care, I crashed and burned in my midsems...