Chapter 11

The following two weeks teaching Eris while trying out various methods to hold her attention was… An experience, let's just say. Honestly, it went about as I had expected.After digging the rabid girl out of the hole I'd put her in, she behaved for the rest of the night. Seeing as neither of my mothers raised a fool in either life, when it was time for bed, I stuffed a pillow under my covers, moved a chair into the corner on the same wall as the door, and waited.I gave Eris enough rope to hang herself and she didn't disappoint.Some time in the middle of the night, as I sat quietly meditating (by which I mean playing with magic making a Roxy figurine), the handle of my door jiggled. It was locked, of course. One last chance for her to turn back.Something slipped between the door and the wall and pushed the lock up. The door opened silently and in crept a figure just a little taller than myself, with long hair in silhouette. Resisting the urge to sigh and give away the game, I waited.Sure enough, Eris raised what looked like a practice sword and began violently hammering the lump in the bed. Feathers scattered in the air and the girl stopped hitting after a minute, when her blows drew no response. She hadn't held back at all.Now I decided to announce my presence.Fire sprang to life above me, lighting the room brightly and causing the girl to wince."Good evening, miss Eris.""Ah… Rudeus. Um, hello." Caught red handed, she was surprisingly bashful."You know what this means, don't you?" I asked. Eris frowned and shifted her stance into a more defensive posture. Eris considered me for a moment before nodding to herself. Then, as expected, she charged me with the sword raised. I deflected the sword with a Wind Gust, then slapped her in the stomach with my open palm. The redhead locked up briefly before she went down with a quiet crackcrackcrack of electrical discharge from the Arc spell I'd nailed her with. She was still conscious and clearly mad, but she'd also lost bladder control and could only twitch her limbs."Ghislaine, you there?" I called."I am." The woman appeared from where she'd been snooping just outside the door, still fully clothed. In other words, like me she expected something like this from Eris.Somehow, I wasn't surprised. "You aren't going to complain about this, are you?" The woman shook her head and I said, "Then you're my witness that there was no sexual abuse involved here."The beast-kin woman nodded again. Picking Eris up like a sack of potatoes, I carried her out of the house and into the back yard—Eris screeching the whole while, demanding I unhand her, and drawing the attention of the staff. Once outside, I created an X-shaped frame of stone. I stripped off the girl's nightgown and used more stone to fix her in place, spread eagle, in full view of the house."If you apologize for the rest of the night, we can go back inside in the morning at first light. I'm trying to offer you a way to help yourself, here. So, do you want to take it this time?"Eris weakly nodded. "I'm sorry.""For? An apology without knowing what you did wrong is meaningless. Empty words.""I'm sorry for attacking you."Reaching over, I patted the top of her head. "Good girl, Eris. I mean that. Now, keep repeating that for the rest of the night."The girl growled quietly, but began repeating herself.True to my word, I let her down and gave Eris back her nightgown when the sky began to lighten. Then we went inside, where we found Phillip and Sauros waiting. Sauros frowned, seeing Eris' state. "What's going on here?!" the older man demanded."Discipline," I gave the one-word answer. "I promised a punishment if she tried attacking me in the middle of the night. She did, so I followed through. Now you know that I mean what I say, don't you Eris?"The girl grumbled quietly but nodded. "Yes."Phillip coughed politely. "Eris, go get dressed. We'll have breakfast, then take the carriage out for a ride."The girl nodded and hurried off upstairs. Sauros glowered. "It's not your place to administer discipline to my granddaughter.""Actually sir, as her teacher, it is—unless my employer says it's not. And I have permission," I gestured at Phillip, who nodded once."What's the meaning of this, boy?" Sauros demanded of his son.Phillip sighed. "Father, this can't go on. She's unmanageable. I won't have my daughter crippled later in life because we were unable get her under control and teach her the things she needs to know. I've allowed Rudeus to use whatever means he feels are necessary to do so, within reason. Ghislaine is there to supervise and report back."Looking at the big woman, Phillip asked, "Has he stepped out of line?" Ghislaine silently shook her head. "There you have it."Sauros inhaled deeply through his nose, looking for a moment like he would lash out, before he finally nodded. "Fine. Do whatever you need to.""I'm glad I have your permission to parent my child, father," was Phillip's dry response, an amused look crossing his face."Don't get cocky with me, boy!"I decided to escape the madness for the moment and slipped off to the dining room to grab a quick bite to eat. I was running on no sleep here, but that wasn't exactly unheard of. One of the 'joys' of being an on call salaried employee meant that sometimes, there just wasn't time for sleep. I could sleep tonight. …After securing my door with something that would dissuade unwanted guests. I'd like to see Eris move a few hundred pounds of solid ice quietly. If she could do that and still sneak into my room, I deserved the beating.Once everyone was ready, we loaded up in the carriage and set off—Sauros, Phillip, Phillip's wife Hilda, Eris, Ghislaine, myself, and a pair of maids who drove the carriage and would be on hand to serve everyone lunch from the picnic baskets they had brought. "When did the road out of Roa change?" Sauros wondered aloud.Ghislaine answered that. "Yesterday. Rudeus raised it himself on the way here from Buena Village."Well, to be fair, I hadn't raised the entire thing yesterday. Just most of it. When we hit the area where Sylphie and I had left off, about two hours out from the village, I'd requested the carriage stop, then got out and started making road. Then, I joined the driver up top and made a path ahead of us as we rode, Ghislaine cramming in beside me to watch with interest and talk.Sauros harrumphed, crossing his arms and looking out one of the cutouts that served for windows. "Rudeus," he finally said, drawing my attention. "I'll offer you no more than three Asuran gold per mile."I did the math on that. Roughly sixty-five, maybe seventy miles from here to Buena Village. Lowballing it at sixty, that's a hundred and eighty gold."Six," I countered.Sauros scoffed. "Don't get ahead of yourself, brat. Four.""Do you know anyone else who can raise sixty or more miles of road in a single day without breaking a sweat? If you want to retain my services for future road building, it would behoove you to offer a price worth that sort of speed and skill. Five and a half, minimum.""I didn't request the job in the first place! If anything, you should be paying mefor tampering with my roads!""That's fine, then. I'll just go back over it and break it up into chunks that no carriage or horse can pass and you can use the grass to the side of the road. Enjoy watching your trade caravans getting stuck in the mud come the rainy season, or the snow come winter.""You'll take five and you'll be happy with it, boy!"I scoffed, shooting the man a glare. "Only on the guarantee of future work."The old man looked away with an annoyed glare. "Very well."Yeah, I figured out how to translate to pushy old man language. Turns out, Sauros wasn't all that hard to understand. He was a whole lot of bluster and pride, and he didn't want to be seen giving in to anything. Everything had to be a fight with him. I'd known a few people like that before, so all I had to do was play along.I just got myself three hundred gold. I'm fantasy world rich. Technically. Sauros can throw that out like pocket change, because it's coming out of the taxes for the Fittoa region, what with him being the lord of the region. On a personal scale, I'm… somewhere well above a peasant, but below Paul and Zenith since I don't have any sort of title or position. Still, money is good. Guaranteed money later is better, so long as it doesn't eat up too much of my free time. Now, what can I do with it…Reinvest it. Spend money to make money. Save enough for a nest egg for when this teaching gig is done, put the rest into making more money. My tuition is covered, but if I want a place to live while going to Ranoa, I'm going to want to have a lot more money even if I am doing most of the work myself. Then there's supplies and other costs. I'd rather do the work now than have the scramble for it later.Question is, where to start. I'll have to have a look through the market soon. Gather data. Go from there."Where are we going, anyway?" Eris demanded from where she sat beside me. So far, she had been content to simply sit and ride. I assumed that was because like all kids, she was excited to be going somewhere."Yes, boy. You never explained," Sauros complained at Phillip.Phillip grinned. "Rudeus is going to put on a show for us."Hilda, sitting beside Phillip, crossed her arms over her breasts and glared at me, before turning her head away. Eris shot me a suspicious look. "What kind of show?""I suppose that's entirely up to Rudeus," Phillip shrugged.Great, now it's not just casting a few spells. I've got to put on a performance. I'm not your dancing monkey. …No, I suppose in this instance I am, if I want more money and for the whole 'impress Eris into learning magic' plan to have a snowball's chance in hell. Fine then. Dance monkey, dance.Closing my eyes, I leaned back and rested my head against the wall of the carriage. Opening my hand, I cast a sustained Arc spell and let it dance over my fingers, crackling quietly in the carriage under the sounds of conversation. My thoughts grew hazy as the carriage grew warm and a bit stuffy and I began to nod off. Something about the way the spell crackled caught my attention and I frowned, pulled away from my impromptu nap as I listened. Buzzing, buzzing, bu—crackcrackhiss—zz.Focusing on the mana in my hand, I smiled faintly as I began using it to produce something like music—as played by a tesla coil maybe. I couldn't sing for shit, couldn't play an instrument, but I had a few favorite songs and I knew magic. Maybe I can recreate them from memory? Find a way to play them directly from memory?Not something I could do right now, though.They want a show. I can do raw elemental manipulation at that level, no need for specific spells. Sure, it takes a bit more mana, but I'm close to topped up at the moment. So, how about… pyrotechnics. Some theater. Something big and scary. Shock and awe.I let my mind wander as I planned. Roxy wanted me to prove not only that I could cast a Saint-level spell, but that I could hold it up for an amount of time that would be impossible by directly supporting the spell with just mana and required combined spell effects. May as well make it something that can last.Eventually, the carriage bumped as it pulled off the road and into the grass of one of the many fields that lined the road. "I think this is far enough," Phillip announced as he got up and opened the back door of the carriage before stepping out. Looking around, he nodded to himself. "This will do nicely. Open, flat, no one around for miles, and nothing of value that could be destroyed."I waited as the others piled out of the carriage. Finally, I hopped out and stretched out the kinks from sitting in the bumpy ride for so long. Looking between the carriage and horses, and the gathered people, I hummed. "Okay, everyone move away from the carriage," I instructed. There were some curious looks, but those stopped when I raised a dome over the carriage and horses."What's that for?" Ghislaine wondered.I sent her an amused look. "Prior experience. My klutz of a former master demonstrated the Cumulonimbus spell for my exam to become a Saint-ranked mage. She tied up Caravaggio, Paul's horse, to the only tree for miles. It caught a lightning strike and the poor boy got zapped. She healed him, but he was never the same after. Doesn't like loud noises or bright flashes. I'd rather not traumatize any more horses."There were some nods from the others and I set about raising a large structure to hold them, partially open on the front side so they could see but sheltered from wind, rain, and flying debris. I added benches and directed them to sit down, after making sure the structure was semi-permanent and I wouldn't have to maintain it the entire time, like the dome. Once they had, I moved out in front of the stone booth. "Okay, let's do this," I muttered, picturing the mental image of what I wanted.The hair on my arms, and likely those of everyone else, raised as static filled the air. A mile or so out, great arcs lightning flashed as I reintroduced this world to Thor's hammer. Two strikes and a roll of thunder as more potential gathered in the air. My fingers tapped out a beat against my leg as I worked, lightning falling and thunder crashing in time. Two single strikes became four, eight, sixteen… I stopped counting when the lightning became so bright it hurt to look at and the thunder rolled so strongly my ears and bones hurt.Then, I let the spell go, static in the air maintaining it at that level and my attention only directing when it fired off while I moved on to the next phase.Lightning had glassed the earth, and I reached out and used it. Glass erupted into great spikes, before rolling across the ground and gathering into an angular, spiked, blackened shape of a dragon the size of a skyscraper standing on its hind legs. Yes, it did in fact resemble Godzilla.I was kind of cheating here, in that I wasn't going for full detail like with one of my models—not at this scale. No, a rough outline would be good enough, so long as it was recognizable. Cheaper and faster, too. Which was good, because unlike with lightning, wind, or rain there was no way to keep this going but directly supporting it with mana.The earth rumbled in an earthquake as a second dragon, wider and bulkier burst from the ground, made of dirt and stone—this one looking more like a turtle. Well, an alligator snapping turtle. The two clashed, throwing glass, dirt, and rock everywhere as they rolled over and over along the ground, ignoring the lightning raining down around them. I could feel the vibrations in my feet every time they rolled and the sound of breaking glass could be heard in between rolls of thunder.The ground glowed red, visible from where we sat, and molten rock spewed forth as a third dragon rose from the ground—this one in the classic shape of a red dragon, made of molten rock. It spewed huge gouts of flame upon the other two dragons before joining the fray, the heat off of it catching fire to the grass that lightning hadn't already gotten to, enough that we could feel it on the breeze from here.Above us, the sky darkened and the air grew heavy with moisture and cold. Thick clouds gathered and swirled as rain, sleet, and hail began to pound the ground. Wind kicked up, twisting into a pair of massive tornadoes that touched down and danced around the three dragons duking it out, sucking up rock, dirt, glass, and fire—before they merged into a single tornado, the debris defining the shape of a fourth dragon that wound itself around the others. Between the fire, wind providing circulation, and cold in the upper atmosphere the storm I was making would put the one I'd made for Roxy to shame.The precipitation continued to fall but much of it suddenly reversed course, gathering into a long, sinuous, writhing shape—a fifth dragon made of water and ice that arched down from the sky to join the free for all. Hello Shenron.I let them go for a while, pounding away at each other and rolling over and over the land, causing small earthquakes that rattled our teeth. With the atmospheric effects self-sustaining, all I had to worry about was moving a few… hundred tons of glass, stone, dirt, and water. Breath weapons occasionally launched out of the furball. Streams of pressurized, supercooled water that cut deep into the earth for miles around. Fireballs or flame throwers that lit the sky. Stone Cannon spells, scaled up to the size of cars that exploded like heavy artillery and tore great craters in the earth. Gales of wind that threatened to strip the land down to the bedrock, picking up topsoil, debris, and glass and turning it into a giant sand blaster that shredded whatever it touched. 'Beams' of glass that created pillars and spikes of the stuff wherever it landed, which exploded into shrapnel shortly after.Finally, I decided to finish it. Time for the big finale. Combination spells, on the King-level scale.The fire dragon was the first to die, torn three ways between the earth, water, and wind dragons and swallowed. The wind effects on the wind dragon showed first as it became a sideways tornado of fire that super-heated everything in its vicinity before exploding in a wave of flames that I directed away from us.The water dragon went up next, boiling over and losing cohesion before bursting into a steam explosion that sent a fog of deadly water speeding away from it that wilted and boiled the grass that hadn't already been burned.The earth dragon was the next to fail critically, wobbling away from the glass dragon before flopping onto its belly. Its shell began to glow cherry red before the entire thing went up like a volcano, throwing molten rock, smoke, and ash into the sky, which immediately fell down as a pyroclastic flow. Huge, billowing gray clouds fell down, burning everything they touched. Again, I had to direct it away from us to keep us from ending up as collateral damage.Finally, the glass dragon turned its head to the sky to roar its triumph in a shriek of glass on glass. The lightning that had been a steady 'crack, crack, boom,' changed, becoming a near continuous sequence of strikes centered on the mass of glass—melting and cracking it apart as it broke down into smaller pieces, exploding away from the main mass in a spray of fragments and aerosolized, heated glass. Maybe not as impressive as pyroclastic flow, but still just as deadly.Finally, it fell silent. The lightning stopped, the clouds parted, and the sun shone down to reveal an absolutely devastated section of plains. Miles of land torn asunder—glassed, burned, churned up, stripped by wind, frozen, flooded, and blasted flat. My ears rang and I saw spots, but a quick healing spell fixed that. Turning around, I asked, "So, was that good enough, or should I do something bigger?"I hoped that was good enough. I wasn't sure I had anything bigger in me at the moment. I was wiped. My muscles trembled and I was covered in sweat. My breath came in carefully controlled pants. My vision was starting to go gray at the edges. I hadn't felt this weak since the first time I overexerted myself learning how to cast. I had nothing left in the tank. Completely out of mana.The only thing keeping me on my feet was sheer, stubborn determination not to look weak in front of these people—especially Eris. I had to be the untouchable King-level mage, who could throw out, by my count, about ten simultaneous spells like candy, combine them into effects that would level cities and armies, and come back and ask if they wanted more.God I'm tired. When we get back, I am diving face first into bed. Unless Ghislaine sits beside me, then I might just dive face first into her tits at this point. Use those things as pillows. Hilda's are nice too, though. Either/or, I'd be fine with it."I think," Phillip eventually managed, picking his jaw up off the floor, "I think that's good enough Rudeus.""Bigger?" Sauros muttered. "Bigger, he says." Snorting quietly, he turned away to hide a smirk.Ghislaine pushed herself out of her seat and made her way over, planting a hand on my shoulder. When it nearly sent me to the ground, she surreptitiously grabbed my shirt and kept me on my feet. "I would say that qualifies as King-level.""Thanks," I nodded as she took my elbow and hauled me towards the carriage, holding up most of my weight herself but making it look like we were simply walking side by side.As we walked, Ghislaine tensed against my side. I frowned, looking up to her face to find she was looking ahead—past Phillip and the others, at an angle behind the shelter I'd made from them and cut off from their line of sight due to the walls. Following her gaze, I found a man standing not terribly far away. He wore armor and a cloak that could only be described as resplendent. His hair was long and white, his jaw square and manly, with an impressive but neat beard. He was big, too—tall and muscular in a large way, unlike Paul's more lithe build. A man whose size made Ghislaine seem proportionately sized as a normal woman by comparison.He eyed me in silence as we walked. Feeling cheeky, I raised my free hand into a wave and sent him a friendly smile. Our voyeur nodded before turning away and disappearing in a flash of oddly colored light.Who and what the fuck? I wondered, turning to send a curious look at Ghislaine. The woman simply shook her head. No one else seemed to have noticed him watching, so I let it drop for now.Eris was strangely silent as I dropped into a seat beside her, staring at me with wide eyes, before her gaze darted back to the field, then back to me. This repeated several times.We ate our picnic lunch, the beast-kin maids occasionally casting glances my way as they worked. They seemed oddly attentive of me, but I was too tired to try to figure it out. Instead, I focused on stuffing my face (politely). At one point I caught Phillip pulling them aside and speaking quietly to them, getting quick nods from both women, before they rejoined us. Even if my curiosity made me want to snoop, I didn't have the juice at the moment. I'd pass out of I tried it.When we were done, we loaded back up and made our way back to Roa. Conversation was stilted when it happened at all, as everyone there clearly had something on their minds. Once we arrived, Phillip confirmed my pay raise and everyone went their separate ways for the day. I went to my room, cleaned myself up using magic, and collapsed into my bed. I didn't even make it down for supper.Eris was… subdued for the following days.Once she realized that fighting me not only wasn't an option but that I had gone entirely easy on her, and that I was dead serious about enforcing any warning I gave her, she settled down. As I expected, she attended my classes and did the lessons, but her heart wasn't in it. Over that time, I tried everything we had come up with.Bribing her with magic? She was interested, but only in magic and wouldn't put in any effort outside of those lessons. Which meant that I refused to teach her magic at all, because I had promised I would only teach her magic if she worked hard at her other studies.Getting Ghislaine to relate to her why she, as a former adventurer, was interested in learning the lessons at hand? Eris stubbornly clammed up and refused to cooperate. The girl clearly loved hearing the stories, but I think at this point she was just being stubborn out of either spite or habit. I remembered doing similar when I was a kid, but I knew from experience that she was probably close to breaking and just needed a little push to encourage her. The problem was finding that push.Threats or punishments? Eris took whatever I doled out. To be fair, since she wasn't acting out much and just refusing to cooperate, the punishments weren't anything like that first day.And so the list went on, but nothing seemed to work so far.She seemed to respect me a little, or at least my strength, but she made no effort to do anything with me outside of lessons. That was fine, though. I figured something like this would happen. She needed a hard reset, a break from her violent ways. So of course she was going to resent me if I was the one forcing it. And I had just shown her exactly how far above her I was, in terms of magic, despite being two years her junior—so I wasn't surprised that she was being a little difficult.Sometimes, change had to come from within. A child could be broken of bad habits and trained to do better, but it always worked better if they wanted to do better for themselves.That's where external pressure came in. She needed something to convince her that I was not just her teacher but her ally. Someone she could rely on, when things got bad. And she needed to realize just how large a weakness illiteracy was in this world. How weak it left her. The problem was, I had nothing but the idiot plan for that, and I wasn't done trying things yet.Two weeks after being introduced to Eris, Phillip let me know the plan was ready and the kidnappers were in place, but we were holding off. I still had things to try and the more I thought about it, the more I really didn't want to have to resort to the idiot plan, and its multiple layers of potential points of failure.So, we tried the latest scheme. Ghislaine and I spoke with her other tutors and they agreed to give us two days to take Eris out of town and go camping. During that time, I would be working for Sauros, raising a road over to the next town while I tried to teach Eris. A quick ask of the butler got us some meals packed away for our travels and we were good to go.Eris was somewhat enthusiastic about getting out of the manor, but when we got into the carriage and started moving, her attention waned. I spent a whole day teaching her and Ghislaine, using fire spells to write out numbers and letters so they could read them as we rode, all the while I raised a road beneath us once we left the area I'd already covered. Ghislaine was dutiful as ever in her lesson, but Eris clearly wasn't interested.That night, we stopped at the next town over and rented an inn room. Ghislaine went downstairs to order while Eris and I waited in our room. The candles abruptly went out and someone yanked me off my feet, shoving a wet cloth over my nose and mouth. Holding my breath, I used water magic to strip the liquid from it, followed by detoxification magic and took a few experimental breaths as I allowed my body to go limp. From the corner of my eye, I saw Eris likewise being trundled off right alongside me, out the window and into a back alley.Damn, these guys are good. I don't even see Ghislaine. And who knew they had something like chloroform? Something to watch out for. What I'm wondering is, who gave the go ahead to the idiot plan?I closed my eyes to a bare slit and watched as we were bundled into the back of an enclosed wagon, where we were tied up at our wrists and ankles. The kidnappers opted to ride in front, so I had the back pretty much to myself seeing as Eris was out cold.I laid back and kept track of time, as well as I could anyway. Note to self: buy a pocket watch.It was well into the middle of the night and I was starving by the time we got where we were going. By my count, we had passed through two towns on the way here counting the one we had originally stopped in, from the noises outside the wagon. Given the time traveled and the average speed of a horse drawn carriage from prior experience (about 10-15mph) and the fact that we had to occasionally slow or stop to rest the horses, I estimated we were about sixty miles from Roa.Another thing I need: food. Non-perishable, or at least less-perishable. You can conjure water, but some emergency rations would be nice in an emergency. Hardtack and jerky, maybe some dried fruit. Could use magic to dehydrate some things, salt it, can it with brass or tin, and make homemade MREs. Yeah, let's do that.Also, really need to dig up maps. All the maps. I can use water magic to copy them and make myself a damn book of maps. Sounds like I'm going to be making a day pack or bugout bag. I can pick up a small leather backpack for that. Put things in it that I can't easily replicate or replace with magic. Take it with me any time I leave the damn house, just in case shit like this happens.Paranoid? Maybe. Better to have it and not need it, and adventurers pretty much carry everything they own with them anyway, so I'd really just look like one of them.I can make water, fire, cutlery, cooking implements, shelter, and so on with magic so we can skip those. A few days worth of food, maps, the scope, money, some soap, a change of clothes, rope, bedroll, maybe a coat or cloak, pens, and something to write on. I can use stone for most things, but maybe I should carry a little metal just in case—there are a few things I can think of where metal, even just a little, would be better than stone. If I'm canning MREs, I can recycle the metal in those.Eventually, the cart came to a stop and I paid attention to my surroundings. We were picked up like sacks of potatoes and hauled down into a musty stone basement, where they tossed us down and left us. I checked Eris and found she was fine, just out. Does chloroform last this long? Get some sleep and deal with it in the morning. If she's still out by then, I'll use detoxification magic to get her going.My course of action decided, I used fire magic to carefully burn through the ropes holding my hands behind my back. Making myself comfortable, I cast an earth spell on the corner of the door, creating a thin rock protrusion from the stone floor. It wouldn't hold at all when someone tried the door, but it would make noise.With that taken care of, I allowed myself to drift off into an uneasy, light sleep.I woke with first light. Well, it would be more accurate to say I gave up trying to sleep. I listened to the sounds of the building and heard nothing—no conversations, no creaking of floorboards, no footsteps. It was likely the building was unoccupied save for us, but I doubted it. I kind of figured they'd leave a guard to make sure no one got it in their heads to kidnap us for real if someone had seen us being taken.Wonder why they went two towns over though? Seems excessive, considering we were already out of Roa. Maybe this is where they own an unused property though. Still, I don't like this. Phillip agreed we'd only do this as a last resort. …Maybe he didn't tell me he changed the plan so I would be legitimately surprised?Somehow, I doubted it. Phillip didn't seem like the type to go off half-cocked. Dismissing the oddity for the moment and making a mental note to ask Phillip, I sat up and looked around. A bit of fire burned through the ropes around my ankles and I hopped to my feet. Conjuring a small fireball in my hand, I looked around our accommodations. It looked like a stone room, full of dust and cobwebs, with a pile of armor and corpses most of the way to becoming skeletons in one corner. Also, rats. The place reeked of rat shit and piss.There was one door and a single window that let in faint light. Moving to the window, I found it barred, but the bars were sunk into the stone of the wall so I could have those out in about two seconds. It was just the right size for a child to squeeze through but an adult wouldn't have a chance, so we should be able to use it for our escape.I took a moment to create a stone jar and relieve myself, then sank the jar and urine into the floor before allowing my magic to dissipate. Dropping back into the spot where they had thrown me, I carefully arranged the ropes on my ankles and prepared the other set of rope to hold around my wrists if they checked us. Feeling a bit thirsty, I conjured and water to drink and settled in to wait.Eventually, I heard a door open upstairs. I dismissed the noise maker I'd put in front of the door and laid down in roughly the same position I had been in. An air spell brought the sounds from under the door to my ears to better hear what was going on so I'd know when it was time to wake Eris up for the main act.What I heard, however, was the sound of two men talking about selling us off. Me as a slave out of the country and Eris to some noble who wanted to abuse and mind break her, like the plot of a bad doujin.Either they're in character because they suspect we could be listening, or something happened and these guys aren't actually working with Phillip. Alternately, could be a double-cross. Who knew about the plan? Me, Ghislaine, and Phillip. I didn't arrange it, nor did Ghislaine. That sort of only leaves Phillip. But what motive would he have to actually get rid of his daughter? Social pressure? Moreover, he knows I'm a King-level mage and that if he actually tried to double-cross me, I could kill them all before Ghislaine was even aware of the potential threat. The benefit of mages over swordsmen—sneak attacks from range. Can't defend against what you don't see coming… unless you're so strong that it doesn't matter.Wait. No. The butler. What was his name? Thomas? The butler was there when we talked about it and he may have had a hand in the planning. Could be a classic case of "the butler did it." The guy did look kind of shady, but I thought it was just looking at it through the lens of tropes. I mean, come on! It's so fucking cliché it hurts to even consider it seriously.So, let's put him to the test. Motive? Money. He's a butler, they probably don't make a lot and more money is always better. Means? Contacts gained through employment by the Boreas Greyrat family. Opportunity? Obviously. I handed it to them on a silver platter with this little outing. Hell, I spoke to him right before we left, so he knew we were going. Definitely a possibility, but if it's not him then who?Crime of opportunity maybe? No, they came into our room. Which means they knew we were there. That they waited for Ghislaine to leave means they were aware of her presence and potential danger. So unless they spotted us in town and decided they just had to have us, it's more likely that someone we knew was in on it. Which brings us back to the Boreas household. And we're arguing in circles.It didn't really matter at the moment who had made the call, what mattered was the fact that we were in very real danger now. We could sort out the whodunnit later. Colonel Mustard, in the drawing room, with the pistol.Making sure the kidnappers weren't approaching the door to check on us, I reached out and poked Eris, hitting her with detox and heal. Then, I pinched her side. I had just enough time to get back into place and feign sleep before she started screaming her head off."Ghislaine! Help! Ghislaine!"The reaction was immediate as one of the kidnappers rushed downstairs and burst through the door. "Shut up, brat!"I watched as he kicked her in the diaphragm, then the stomach and ribs. With a final kick to the face, he turned away from her. Through the slits of my eyelids, I watched him approach me before hauling back and kicking me in the ribs. I rolled from the force of the blow, feeling something crack painfully."What the fuck was that for?!" I grunted around the pain. I got another kick for my trouble."Keep your friend quiet, or else."With that, the man departed, leaving behind a miasma of stench that smelled of body odor, unwashed ass, alcohol, and tobacco. Quickly healing myself, I let out a quiet breath of relief and used a wind spell to clear the air in the room so I wouldn't have to breathe eau de kidnapper."Eris, you okay?" I hissed out just above a whisper."Hard to breathe," she whined.I considered the girl. Eris, hardhead that she was, would definitely start screaming again. I didn't want another kick, but… But this was an opportunity for negative reinforcement that I couldn't give her myself and still befriend her. Everything I had done so far—burying her, stringing her up naked—could eventually be forgiven. But actually beating the shit of a child to make them see that there was always a bigger bully? It would leave a long-lasting grudge I'd never get rid of.All I really had to do was give Eris enough rope to hang herself and she would, until she learned to stop doing it. So, I began doling out rope. "Alright. I'll heal you, but we have to stay quiet and work out a way out of here. If you yell, they're going to come back and kick us around again."There. You can't say I didn't warn you. My conscience was clear here. Whatever she did from this point was on her own head."Okay," the girl agreed.I scooted close enough to reach out and touch her before casting heal. Eris took a couple of deep breaths before sucking in a lungful of air."GHISLAINE! HELP! I'M IN HERE!""Eris, shut up!" I yelled loud enough that the guards would hear."HELP!"I tucked my hands behind my back and held the rope in place as the same kidnapper from before rushed in. This time, he didn't stop with a few kicks. He beat on Eris until she was bloody and her jaw was clearly broken, leaving her a sobbing mess.Quietly sobbing.The kidnapper turned to me with a glare, his intention clear. "I warned her to shut up. It's not my fault she doesn't listen to anything anyone says," I took the opportunity to rub salt in Eris' wound, because it wouldn't change what happened next.I'd taken some beatings in my previous life, but nothing like this. It took everything I had not to drop the act and kill him on the spot as he kicked and punched me. It seemed like he aimed for all the weak spots, too—stomach, diaphragm, floating ribs, and even my nuts, while taking care to avoid anything that could be lethal.Yes, I cried. If you think you can take a beating in a child body from a grown adult and not, you're full of shit.When he left, I healed myself and collapsed on the floor, taking a moment to just breathe and collect myself. All for the plan. Don't kill them yet. It's all for the plan. …But I swear to God, if I get the opportunity, that cocksucker is a dead man.I rolled to my feet and kicked off my ropes. Making my way over to Eris, I freed her from her own bindings but didn't heal her yet. "If you scream again, I think they're going to cut their losses and just kill us, because there's no way they won't figure out that one of us is a mage. You have to be quiet and do as I say, so I can get us out of here. Got it?"Eris nodded weakly and I reached out and healed her, but I left her enough bruises to remind her what would happen if she opened her mouth. Quickly standing, I moved over to the bars on the window and shifted the stone they were buried in to mud. Pulling them out of the window, I set them down quietly on the floor before motioning Eris over.I helped the girl through the window, then climbed through myself. "Okay, let's get to the coach and—""I don't have to listen to you!" Eris screamed, hands balled into fists at her sides and her face red. She had apparently hit her breaking point and couldn't take any more. Having someone younger than her order her around was too much, on top of being kidnapped then beaten twice.Eris is not a quiet person and we were still right beside the building we had just escaped from. The kidnappers heard her immediately."Is that the bitch?!" One yelled. "Check the cellar!"We heard the door crash in through the open window. "They're gone! Find them, you idiot!"Eris' eyes went wide as she realized she had just fucked us both.Now, to really hammer it in. I proceeded to disabuse her of that notion. She had fucked herself, not me."Well, I can't say it's been nice knowing you. Have fun dealing with those idiots and being sold as some noble's sex toy, I'm heading back to Roa. See ya."I saw it the moment it truly sank in. That she had successfully pushed me away and now she would have to deal with this on her own. She was alone, against people who could overpower her easily, and who meant her harm.Eris reached out and grabbed my hand as I turned my back on her and started walking away. "No, please! I'm sorry! Please don't leave me, Rudeus!"I heard the guards running up the stairs. They would be on us shortly. Still, I gave her enough time to start to think I really would cut my losses here and leave her. "You'll do what I tell you? No arguing, no fighting?""Yes!"Nodding, I squeezed her hand and pulled her into a run down the street, before turning off on the nearest side street. I yanked her close and put my arm around her. "Hold on tight!"That was the only warning I gave her before I used Air Running and launched us above the rooftops. Eris screamed, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, before I fell into my usual spell per step rhythm. She cracked her eyes open and looked around, her eyes going wide as she realized we weren't falling."We're so high," she murmured. It would have been lost to the wind if she wasn't practically in my pocket.Surveying the city, I found the wall and the gate. I changed direction and took us that way, dropping down out of sight of the gate and hauling her outside to the carriage."Okay, looks like we're two towns over from Roa. Unfortunately, it looks like we wouldn't make it back if we left now," I told her after checking the board. "How much money do we have?""I have a few silver," Eris supplied, pulling her money out of her pocket. "Can't we just go?""No," I denied, taking her money and leading her away. "The coaches will be the first place they check. They'll probably ask around and confirm that we've been here. If they're smart, they'll take a horse ahead of us and go to Roa, then wait for us to get there so they can recapture us. It's what I'd do if I lost a target I wanted but knew where they were going. Instead, we're going to hole up here for today."In this case, I meant 'hole up' literally. I found a patch of bushes abutting the wall and used earth magic to tunnel under it. Then, I created a hollow in the wall itself and made a small room. I gave it some ventilation holes to make sure we wouldn't suffocate, then made a patch of smooth ground soft enough to lie on comfortably.Dropping down into the dirt and summoning up a fireball for light, I pulled out my pocket money along with what I'd taken from Eris. "Did you catch the prices on the carriage?""N-no," she murmured, looking away, blushing in the dim room. I took that as admission that she couldn't even read the prices before rattling them off for her, since I'd memorized them. "So we have enough money."I waved my hand in a so-so gesture. "You're forgetting food. And an inn, if we don't want to sleep in a hole in the wall tonight."Eris frowned at that. "So what do we do?""Wait for the next coach, make sure the people after us aren't watching it, then head to the next town over. There, we'll get some food and a cheap room at an inn. We'll have to keep our guard up while we're there, too. They might figure out we'll stop there for the night and try to capture us. But with any luck, Ghislaine will be waiting for us there. If not, we'll keep going to Roa."Eris bit her lip, looking frustrated, but nodded. "Fine. What do we do until then?""That's easy. You stay here. The room is secure and stable, so no one will find you. In the meantime, I'm going to go back to where our captors held us and see if I can find anything useful." By which I meant, engage in the time honored tradition of looting absolutely everything of value from your enemies.The redhead looked alarmed. "You'll be back, right? You won't leave me, r-right?!"Just like that, I felt awful for manipulating her the way I had. And then I promptly justified it, metaphorically dragging that feeling of guilt out back and putting two in the back of its head.Bad feels or not, something needed to happen to open her eyes. Otherwise, she'd be a bitch forever and I'd never get the money I need to get Sylphie into school with me. Sorry Eris. Fuck your feels, I've got plans.With that decided, I smiled as I reached out and gently patted her head. "No, Eris. I'm not going to abandon you. I promise.""Okay," the response came surprisingly quietly.Well, she is shaken up. Can't really blame her. For all her bluster and attitude, she's still just a kid."I'll be back soon."I tunneled my way out and back into the city, closing up the hole behind me and marking the ground and wall near the hidden room so I could find it again later. Once that was finished, I used Air Running to get up above the buildings and retrace my path to the place where we had been kept as hostages.Deciding to skip the quiet infiltration route, I blasted the door in with a modified stone cannon and walked in. I immediately wrinkled my nose at what I found—a man on the other side of the door. Or the remains thereof. The stone cannon spell had exploded him and everything from the rib cage to the hips was splattered in chunks of various sizes across the walls, floor, and ceiling. The stench was unbearable and I stumbled back, gagging as my eyes watered. I had gut-shot deer before, but this was so much worse."Jesus fuck," I groaned, before casting a water spell to hose down the entryway and send the remains down to the cellar.With that done, I cleared the rest of the building, which had three floors counting the cellar and an upper floor. I found no one else inside, so I began looking around for evidence. And loot. I found nothing of interest on the ground floor, but upstairs I found an office. Within that office, I found a locked chest. Earth magic broke the lock and I raised an eyebrow at what I found there.Correspondence. Letters, specifically. Leafing through them, I found one in particular giving the time and place to kidnap two targets from Roa and a description of myself and Eris, along with a reward for our capture and Eris' delivery to 'the handler' in 'the usual place.'Additionally, I found what looked to be an up front payment of half of the agreed upon sum in a leather coin pouch. It was more money than I had seen in one place in this world (but only because Sauros hadn't gotten me the money he owed me yet). All in gold—twenty-five pieces, in fact. A veritable fortune. I had previously worked out the money system and one gold coin was worth about $1000—so this chunk of change was worth roughly $25,000, give or take.I secured the pouch to my belt, claiming it as spoils. Gathering the letters up neatly, I tied them up with some twine laying on the writing table nearby, then made my way downstairs.Finding a mess in the cellar, I opened up holes in the floor to drain the water and sink the body into. Then, I used fire and wind to burn the body down to charred bones and buried them there beneath the floor. Before leaving the room, I took a moment to examine the pile of armor in the corner.Waste not, want not, I mused. I had a project in mind that would require metal resources anyway, and this stuff looked like decent quality steel, even if it had a few holes in it and a little rust. A bit of Earth manipulation had it stripped away from the leather padding and reshaped into a couple of bars that I stuck in my pockets.Leaving the building after collecting the letters, I wrinkled my nose at the smell and used magic to wash myself off. Finally, I set the place on fire as I went back to Eris. Never leave resources your enemy can use behind, unless you're trying to be stealthy. In this case, I wasn't, so resource denial it was.Two days later, we arrived in Roa in the evening. I hadn't told Eris what I'd learned from the letters, telling her that if she was so interested in reading them, she should have paid attention when I was teaching her. I had reiterated the possibility that the kidnappers were waiting for us, but to be honest I wanted to see if the lessons stuck and she heeded my warning. Eris immediately let her guard down the moment we got into town and stepped off the wagon.I had my head on a swivel and it didn't take long to spot the kidnappers watching us from an alley. And there's fuckface. Hello, fuckface. Please, try it. Give me an excuse. Your ass is grass.I let my gaze pass over them as though I hadn't seen them, but I began channeling for Air Running and a pressure steam. Water Lance? That works. I lead the way, keeping Eris engaged in talking as we walked towards the center of town and her family's home. I didn't hear the men approach, but it was pretty obvious when Eris cut off mid-word. I turned on my heel and found them running into an alley.Air Running had me up and over the building. Fuck it, I'm done with this. Not dealing with a hostage situation or trying to negotiate with idiots.I channeled a Bolt and as I cleared the alley and spotted the kidnappers, I lead my targets and opened fire. The Bolt lit the sky as it flashed between me and the kidnapper holding Eris. The Water Lance went lower than I was expecting as the second kidnapper turned at the sound before it could clear the space between us. He raised his sword, but the angle was bad and instead of putting him down it cleaved through his arm. A followup Bolt put him on the ground as I landed. A final Water Lance finished off the one holding Eris.Turning my attention to fuckface, I strolled over and kicked his sword away from his hand. His eyes rolled in his head before locking on me in a glare. I didn't waste breath on words. He knew what was coming and why, and that was good enough for me. I just wanted him dead.Lightning crackled as it jumped between my hands before I hit him with another Bolt. This time, I held the spell, watching him dance as his body began to smoke. Deciding that was enough, I tripled the mana going to the spell and he caught fire.Yeah, he's toast. But just to be sure, I punched a pretty little hole through the remains of his head with a Water Lance. Then, I went to check on my charge.Kneeling beside Eris, I found her conscious but shaking from the aftereffects of catching a partial Bolt. Hitting her with a healing spell, I helped her sit up.Not a moment later, the familiar form of Ghislaine dropped down into the alley. "Eris! Rudeus!" She rushed to her charge and began checking Eris over. "What happened and who are these men? Did you do this, Rudeus?""In order," I began, kneeling next to the first dead kidnapper and rifling through his pockets as I performed the time honored task of looting the dead, "we were kidnapped by these idiots when you went to get food. No idea who they were working for, but I've got a few letters I recovered from where they took us. Not seeing anything on them that says one way or another. And yes, I did this."Ghislaine took in the kills before nodding. "Good work, Rudeus."I finished checking the only un-burned corpse, pocketed the few silver he had on him, then stood to look at Ghislaine and Eris. "Let's get home."Phillip was pleased to see his daughter returned, but much less pleased when I told him everything that had transpired and my suspicions on who had decided to take advantage of the situation. He was, however, slightly more pleased when I produced the letters.I was honestly expecting more questions directed at me for my methods, mostly by Phillip. I was surprised when the murders of three men by a seven year old were treated so… cavalierly.Life really is cheap here, I quickly realized. I may not be an adult yet, but my rank earned me a lot of latitude, especially given the situation. Namely, the fact that we were children and that Eris was a noble. Of course, the fact that they beat the shit out of Eris and were planning to have her mind-broken might have had something to do with it. Sauros looked livid when they learned that and even Phillip barely held his composure.Ghislaine put it best. "As far as I'm concerned, having a competent mage to help safeguard Eris can only be a good thing. Rudeus has already proven himself."The matter of the true culprit was quietly put aside for the time being. The letters were kept for later use, likely as leverage, but they were all vague enough as to not directly implicate someone. The Boreas Greyrat family had a house cleaning, starting with the butler. I know they interrogated him, but no one was telling me anything about what they learned.As for me, I settled into my new cushy teaching position. Five days a week of trying to pound sense into Eris' thick head. Well, it was worth the money.Not really. It was worth the tuition, I should say. And the fact that it put me in Roa, out from under Paul's thumb, where I could begin making money for myself. Maybe I should look into making something that will continue making me money over time as opposed to one-offs…Eris lost a few points of tsun (towards me) and gained a few points of dere, and she started earnestly trying in her classes. She also demanded I teach her magic, since I had refused on the grounds of our earlier deal. Well, no. Not quite. She asked Sauros, who asked me, and when I pointed out that she should ask me herself…I learned entirely too much about the Boreas Greyrat family and their beast-kin fetish, and let's just leave it at that. Almost at that. I'd be using their method of 'asking for something' as future blackmail material later on down the line. Give her a few years and that'll go from cute but amusing blackmail material to sexy.Seeing a potential test for silent casting and mana growth, I agreed to teach Eris magic and met with Ghislaine and Edena to work out a more effective schedule between the three of us—for Eris' benefit and our own. The taming of the tsundere was by no means complete, but it was a good start.Now, if only they had hot running water, a shower, and a flush toilet."Hey, Phillip, I'd like to run something by you…"