56 Arthar Rodil

Turning around, barely a few meters from her position, the shiny letters were forming a word above the wooden door. "Library". The more she looked at her card that was visibly pointing toward it, the more Leilade was perplexed. The only one that could have done that would be the sleepy librarian, but he was not very fond of her. Otherwise, why someone like him would have convinced her to never come back, only to personally call her? Right before she passed through the door, she saw from the other end of the corridor three kids leaving a room, visibly disturbed. All their faces were very dark like they just heard a piece of terrible news.

Right at this moment, she saw the two friendly students that she previously met near the library leaving with a few books, but they didn't notice her. They were joking about the fact that they will have some maggots around their feet for the rest of the year because they will have to train the new students themselves. One was lamenting about his lack of rest that will only increase as time passed while the other was hoping that some beautiful girls will need some personal training. Because of the weird stare his companion gave him, he had to deny any allegations of being attracted by kids and only planned to make the said girl fall in love with him before waiting for her to become an adult. That didn't stop the disgusted look at all.

Following the direction that the magical arrow was showing her, she bypassed the still sleeping magician in charge of this room. Now, even the Viscount was surprised, because what was the reason for her to be here, if not because she would be trained by that lazy man. She traversed the labyrinth without any problem and finally arrived in front of the door that was locked to her. She knew that it was the one that led to deeper levels, filled with what she was looking for. All the dark secrets, the most advanced spells and devices created to this day, what was the true powers of the Dark Gods and the Heroes. Not just the regular tales that were told to the common people.

But after waiting for a few minutes, she was getting a little bit impatient. The arrow was pointing right toward the door and she already tried to use it the moment she arrived. After three tires, she gave up on the idea and guessed that the human she should meet was right behind the door. But he was visibly not pressed by the time and took his time to do whatever he wanted and not uncomfortable at making a poor and innocent child waiting for a long time.

"Remember, don't show it to anyone and absolutely don't lose it. It is only a copy, so it's not a problem if it is destroyed, but you should never lose sight of it. If something wrong happens, just destroy… oh, what are you doing here child?"

Two magicians were talking while leaving the door and one was the serious magus Arthar Rodil that she saw when she arrived. He was talking to an unknown woman that was gripping tightly a scroll but none of them expected to see Leilade standing right next to the door. At first, they were suspicious, but then, the magus smacked his head after remembering the reason.

"Damn it, you are not Istuienn? I normally called here and didn't expect her to arrive so soon. You can go Melinda and remember my instructions. As for … eh … you know what, they will explain that to you." They were visibly embarrassed because a witness was hearing their discussion, but they were not blaming Leilade for that. The woman, Melinda, even smiled at her before leaving and soon, only Arthar and Leilade were facing each other.

It didn't take her a long time before linking everything together and guessed what probably happened. The only thing that was not planned was probably her being so quick at reaching this obscure location of the library. Just the fact that she was already close to it and knew how to not get lost was not taken into account by the magus. Looking at him in the eyes, Leilade calmly said a single name, to see if she was right.

"Alexander?" The face of the calm elder changed for a fraction of seconds but after that, he broke in a smile. It was the first time she saw him doing that since it was mainly his happy twin, Artour, that laughed during the welcome ceremony.

"Yes, it was Alexander. The only thing that went wrong was the fact that we took a bit too long to find what we were looking for. Also, you are quite quick to reach this door, most students, even older ones, still have problems while roaming in the library. Anyway, even if what I said was just to prevent Melinda to be suspicious, that is still a good thing in the end. That way, I can still promote you as my pupil while doing the same with Istuienn. Let's say that I took pity of you because I still called you in the end. Do you agree?"

From the looks of it, while they were going out of their way and even started to properly train first-year students, the small masquerade Leilade was taking part of was still maintained.Whatever was pressuring the Kingdom was still a threat to the Academy, one big enough to do something like that. Not just one, but two magus were scared enough of not being able to protect a single girl with their combined powers.

"I am fine continuing your play. The only thing that will perturb what you are aiming for is the very princess herself. She doesn't like me very much if you didn't already know that. The reason was just a simple misunderstanding, but that red fool made everything worse, and the son of Alexander wasn't any better."

"Hohoho, he told me that you were cold and not really a child, but from the looks of it, it is just underestimating the situation. I won't ask you what happened to you and apparently, it won't be a problem in the future. The princess is a special situation, and unfortunately, I am not even qualified to force her to do anything. No one in the entire kingdom is qualified in truth. What I just told you is a secret, so don't say that to anyone else. From what I can see, it won't be a problem, but I had to warn you. And the reason why I am saying this is for you to do what I can't do."

From whatever reasons, Leilade was absolutely certain that an evil light was present in the eyes of the magus. Especially when he said the last sentence, his smile turned into a grin, one that some torturers that enjoyed their work had. At the same time, she was perplexed by the entire ordeal with Istuienn. It couldn't be only because she was the daughter of the Saint Sword, something else was the cause. It was at that time that she also noticed the thin membrane surrounding them, even when she was certain that Arthar didn't cast any spell.

"I hope that you will try your best to make her work harder. From what we saw, she is still as empty-headed and naïve as ever. We already made that bad influence go away but now, she needs to truly want to study and improve herself. Remember this, she needs to want it, you can't, absolutely not in any possible case, force her to do something. It is imperative, do you understand what I said?"

He suddenly grabbed the shoulders of the little girl and was looking at Leilade very seriously. Even if his words didn't really make any sense, Leilade could feel that he truly believed it was of utmost importance to follow them and she logically nodded. Arthar sighed and relaxed himself a bit, then, when he looked at the kid in front of him, he thought that maybe he was too harsh. He smiled a bit, to reassure her, but the lack of emotions on her small visage prevented him from doing anything else.

"Great, so, now you should wait outside for the arrival of Istuienn. This little play that we just did will be made once again because Melinda won't come back anytime soon. By the time she came back, she will have forgotten that incident and you will just be a lucky kid that was pitied by me. And if you think that Alexander played with you and made your life miserable, don't. He may be arrogant and likes to act all mighty and strong, but he truly cares about every student here and this is truly the best for you. Otherwise, Sarah wouldn't have allowed him to maintain this façade until now. Now go."

She obediently left the room, passing by the now awakened librarian. He looked at her with a peculiar gaze, like he knew what just happened. Another thing that the magus probably didn't expect, especially since he was usually sleeping deeply enough to not be awakened by people putting books on his desk. But that was not really her problem, for whoever will try to do anything to her will realize that she was definitely not the innocent lamb ready to be slaughtered.

After getting outside, she saw the trio in the corner of the building, discussing vehemently something. They were not very loud, but Leodagan and Jorien were visibly arguing a lot, accompanied by a good number of gestures. The moment she got close enough to finally understand something, Owen stopped the discussion because he noticed her approach.

"It is too exposed; we still shouldn't be talking about that outside. We should go to your room Leodagan." The two others agreed, but had their backs facing Leilade, so they never saw her. Looking at her one last time, Owen followed his sister without doing anything else. Feeling wronged for no reason, the Empress of the Underworld had suddenly nothing else to do. She was not really ready to lose intelligence while listening to the gossips and rumors that the little girls were sharing between each other and the training dummies were what they were, just dummies.

In the end, she reluctantly just waited near the entrance of the building, trying to uncover every enchantments and spells that was on it. It didn't take her a very long time since it was only the most obvious and basic ones. One to prevent vegetation to grow on it, another one to reduce the erosion of the stone and reinforce the walls, all in all, some standards procedures. Unlike what she did with the stone platform, she just studied them, without stealing any mana in them. The bountiful meals were sufficient enough for her to progressively regain her power.

Finally, after nearly an hour trying to resist the urge of modifying some true aberrations from her point of view, since she had nothing else to do, she saw her target on the move. Following the sunny hair, a red spot was also moving, it looked like he was not already dispatched elsewhere. The cumbersome boy was tagging along for the moment and had no visible intention of leaving. Following at a safe distance the pair, she saw the two climbing the stairs and heading toward a new location. Looking at her own arrow, she saw it pointing toward the ceiling and therefore, she obliged.

They climbed two sets of stairs before finally having their arrows at the horizontal. Because it was already the middle of the afternoon, a lot of people, students, and proper magicians were leaving and entering the numerous rooms on this floor. Some were carrying some weirdly shaped components and shouted at the two lunatic kids to watch out. Fortunately, there was no problem besides the leech that was still stuck at the princess. Even when she was opening the door leading to her destination, he still was there, watching her. Only when a cold voice ordered him to get out did he reluctantly left her side. And when he did, he noticed the small Leilade right next to him, her small eyes looking at him.