Chapter 17

„Too slow!"

„Weak!"

„Predictable!"

„You have been lazing around too much, haven't you?!"

„Your punishment will be an additional 2 hours of training a day!"

Groaning, Cilia could only endure the harsh scoldings from her teacher, who had once again transformed into a devil the moment her training had started.

Usually Lusha was polite and would dote on Cilia, however it was exactly the opposite when they started training.

It was as if she wanted Cilia to suffer as much as she could possibly could and let her swim in exhaustion each day.

However she couldn't complain, as she would indeed learn a lot while doing so, making it impossible to find any valid points to get her teacher to give her time to relax.

Cilia was once again reminded, where her teachers nickname, 'falling angel', had come from.

Although she had been learning from her teacher since a few years and had witnessed this sadistic side of her multiple times, the training in the previous weak was so intense, that she would almost always collapse as soon as she had finished everything.

Her two week vacation was already at an end, as Cilia was scheduled to return to Jamie's Mansion the next day.

Her teacher had canceled the training for the day, as such Cilia was able to comfortably get send of by her friends and family.

She had enjoyed the first weeks of freedom in that long of a time but knew she had to return to serve her lord. Though she had aa feeling, that there was something wrong in the back of her mind.

***

„I am back my lord."

Jamie felt that something had gone wrong, „I am your owner, call me Master."

„I'm sorry, but I can't, I already have a Master. She has taught me anything I know about magic. Feel free to punish me however you like."

Had he known this would happen, Jamie would have never allowed Cilia to ever visit her family again.

'Calm down, you can't kill them yet, if I would do that Cilia wouldn't be controllable anymore.'

After taking a few deep breaths to calm down, Jamie stared at Cilia, who was standing a few meters from him.

Coldly, he commanded her to sleep in her prison cell for a month.

Yes, Cilia would more than often disobey orders, which she was uncomfortable with and would thus be imprisoned quite often.

***

Today was the meeting of the council, which would be attended by each important individual of the human race.

Jamie had already arrived with Cilia acting as his bodyguard… or maid, depending on whom you would ask.

The meeting was long and tedious and multiple important and unimportant points were discussed.

This included the continuous assassination attempts on multiple humans by an unknown group of attackers and suspicious movements from the elves as well as some human criminals.

Though officially Cilia had also been labeled as a criminal, if not the complains about her treatment would explode from the enemy's factions much more severely.

This wasn't because they cared about how she was treated, at least only a few did, it was because they wanted Cilia to slave away for them instead of their political enemys.

After the meeting ended, Cilia was commanded to return, where she started her daily routine, which consisted of training, taking a bath as well as preparing and making food.

This was not all she had to do, as she was swamped with work.

Before her vacation, Jamie would continuously overwork her, which made her collapse into her bed everyday.

Unfortunately she would also have Nightmares daily, which prevented her from recovering, making her lethargic and continuously lowering the time she had for herself.

At one point she would fulfill her duties and complete her training regiment, before dropping half dead on the grounds and fell asleep.

That week, she would sleep on the ground for hours, until Jamie woke her up. She would then, drenched in sweat from the especially extreme Nightmares, return to her room and collapse once again.

Two weeks had gone by, as Cilia was ordered to continue her job as Jamie's Bodyguard. She didn't know why, but somehow the assassins, which were after Jamie would rarely attack if she was close by.

This resulted in her accompanying Jamie everywhere without doing her job. Jamie instead used her to serve himself tea and act like a maid.

At one point he even got a maid outfit, which she was forced to wear, before she could wear normal clothes again after two days.

***

The sky today was dark, as gloomy clouds covered the sun. Cilia was currently sparring against Jamie. Both of them were in the upper half of humanities strongest and thus the fight was quite intense.

However due to the nature of a duel, Cilia with her bow was naturally disadvantaged against Jamie.

Both of them were already exhausted because of them using approximately the same strength.

However Jamie was shocked to notice, that Cilia had stopped defending and was instead raising her knife towards her left.

Using all his remaining strength, he barely avoided hitting Cilia but only for him to lose control and charge into a wall.

Cilia, who had just barely escaped death suddenly jumped backwards, as knifes began hitting the ground, where she was just standing a second ago.

From a few meters away, Jamie was barely able to see Cilias knife parry an arrow before being corroded by the acid that the arrow had been coated with.

He paled as he realised how close of a brush with death he just had.

Cilia, who had already taken out her bow and started slaughtering the incoming assassins while trying her best to prevent any from attacking Jamie.

Mesmerized by Cilias appearance, Jamie was too late to notice the arrow, which had arrived just a few meters away from his face.

It was already too late to dodge. Mustering up his strength, Jamie tried his best to get his sword high enough in this short of a span of time to reflect the arrow away.

Hearing the arrows impact on flesh, Jamie saw his life come to an end. However he soon realised that there was no pain.

Lifting his head up, which was slumped down duo to the his exhaustion, Jamie felt his heart being pierced as he stared at the scene in front of him.

Cilia, who had always been standing proud and undefeated, even when working under him had taken the hit of the arrow. It was stuck on her arm, making it unusable.

That was however not the worst, as she had jumped into the path of Jamie's sword, which had left a huge wound from her stomach to her chest.

Although she had frozen her body with Ice, it was only a temporary measure. Unfortunately these wounds were almost always fatal in this world, as the technologies for modern medicine had not been restored yet.

Jamie froze, unable to comprehend what had happened at all. His brain stopped thinking and his mind was blank.

Luckily his guards were quick to arrive or else not just him, but even Cilia would have died for sure.

***

Funeral glocks rang, as everyone in the capital city paid a minute of silence towards the deceased.

Although death had become a regular occurrence since arriving here, her death was still unpredicted and few were unable contain their tears.

Many people had not made it into the new world, as they died while being transported. This was what people usually called the selection process.

However this meant, that only few old people made it, as the pressure during the transition had killed most of them.

Her death, signified the death of the first human to die of old age in the new world.

But it didn't matter how you sugarcoated ones death, it was still a death.

As the funeral progressed, Jamie was busy in his home.

Since the accident a few months ago, an additional room had been build, which was adjacent to his.

It was equipped with high tech medical equipment, powered by magic, which he had acquired for a high price from the dwarfs.

On the bed, encompassed in Ice, was Cilia, who had fallen into a coma after being fatally injured in the attack.

Since then Jamie had tried almost everything to heal her but to no avail. Just the act of damaging the Ice she was enclosed in could kill her, not to mention breaking it.

The only choice was to wait and hope for her to recover.

It was ironic, he had even tried to influence her mind to release the Ice, but it didn't help. It made things even worse, as Cilia had almost died multiple times because of it.

***

Another month went by, as Cilia slowly showed sign of recovery and on the 79th day of her enclosement in the Ice, cracks started to form.

Jamie, after seeing this phenomena, didn't move away from her even once until the Ice finally shattered and Cilia woke up.

Although Cilia was unconscious for a major part of her recovery, she had been wide awake for the last 30 days. As such she was well aware about Jamie being there for her.

„I'm sorry for worrying you, master. I will accept whatever punishment you have in mind for me."

Jamie was shocked as Cilia had suddenly gotten up and knelt on the ground. However he soon realised, that his mental connection with this woman had strengthened to a frightening degree.

The process, which should have taken at least another 2 years had been reduced by almost half a year. And Cilias obedience had thus increased quite a lot.

Having thought about all that, Jamie told her to get her punishment from another subordinate of his, which he would later instruct about what to do.

Originally he didn't want to punish her, but due to Cilia being adamant on getting punished for taking her Masters precious time and some speculation of his, Cilia received a punishment.

After telling her to leave, Jamie continued contemplating Cilias issue and instructed a subordinate to deal with it.

In the coming month, Cilia would arrive at deaths door multiple times before being saved by Jamie once again.

Although it stopped after a few weeks, as the effects reduced, Jamie still ordered for Cilia to be tortured once a week.

The employees, that had been instructed to do this to her had grown complacent and would find joy in bullying Cilia all the time, to validate their meager existence.

They were nothing but jealous, that Cilia was more powerful than them. Though they didn't even try to work as hard as she was.