Chapter 86

When I left the headmistress's office, it was still the nighttime, with at least two hours until dawn. So, I expected Oeyne to sleep. If it wasn't for the impending visit of the mysterious oldest princess of the Empire, I might have refrained from waking her up, but that discussion already forced me to reveal some of my cards.

Compared to that, breaking her wards to visit her without permission was not a big deal.

The doors of the Hall of Craft was closed to the visitor during the night, but since they had many apprentices and servants bustling around to clean and to replenish their material stocks, I managed to sneak in without even skipping a step, as easy as I was entering my own room. Though, with my current abilities and the latest boost I received, breaking into Oeyne's room only took a moment's concentration, a complicated flaring of my mana enough to unravel her whole protection scheme.

[+1 Arcana]

[-16 Mana]

I was expecting to find a silent room, maybe with a soft snore if Oeyne had indulged in too much alcohol. Instead, I found her on the desk next to her forge, a huge pile of papers in front of her, with another pile of bottles next to her that rivaled the papers on the side. My eyes widened as I measured the size of the pile. No wonder she was feeling hungover in the mornings even with her supernatural endurance, if that was her casual consumption. She wasn't drunk, as she was still clear-minded enough to work on her complicated smithing schemes —though double-checking them after sobering was likely a good idea.

I walked without bothering to hide, but she was far too focused on her task to notice me, even when I stood behind her and read her work over her shoulder.

[+2 Craft]

The notification surprised me quite a bit, so I decided to make a small game out of waiting, curious how long it would take for her to notice me. However, after a couple of minutes passed, I had to admit that it was very unlikely for her to notice me, at least not until she noticed my presence. However, the bigger disappointment came when I looked down at her cleavage to enjoy the other benefit of my position.

[Level Difference of five or more! No Experience]

I sighed disappointedly as I noticed that particular detail, as realized I had overgrown yet another source of experience. Yes, there was still the experience I could gain from the companion process, but I wasn't willing to progress that with Oeyne yet, not until I could get a better handle of her relationship with the princess, and the possible implications of her visit. I had already pushed my luck too far by my trick with Titania, but at least, the headmistress needed me, enough to come up with an offer of empowerment —both to increase my value and to control me, but there was a general understanding between us.

At least, I hoped that was the case...

With the princess, things were a bit different. I didn't know anything other than a few nuggets I had managed to extract from Oeyne and Titania, and neither was the embodiment of political awareness. Moreover, from what I understood, the princess' position was weak enough to actually use my existence as a bargaining chip against her rivals —I still didn't know how rare was my abilities to give extra powers or assess them directly. The headmistress also had them in some fashion, which meant they weren't completely unique, but the headmistress was one of the most mysterious characters in the Empire, therefore not the best benchmark about the rarity of an ability.

Luckily, I had many ways of enjoying our time without triggering the process of the Companion Process further, and the simplest one was enjoying the look of her spectacular body.

Her caramel skin looked even better under the murky shadows of the room, illuminated by a solitary crystal on her desk and the ever-glowing coals of her forge, adding a flickering pink tint to her light brown skin, which made her look even more luscious. And considering how she looked like sex incarnate without paying the slightest attention to her clothing and posture thanks to her bountiful curves and perfect body, it was a considerable achievement.

Her current clothing also enhanced her sexiness quite a bit. As usual, she wasn't exactly dressed to impress, rather, just wearing the stuff she wore when she slept in her lonesome. Thanks to her curves, however, a shirt old enough to lose most of its color, with several small burn marks littering revealing the glimpses of her more intimate parts of her body including her lack of a bra, worked like a wondrous piece of clothing rather than garbage only fit to be used as a rag.

The shorts that were responsible for covering her bountiful ass was in a better condition, but that didn't affect her sexiness, especially since her shorts were both tiny enough to reveal her toned legs, and clingy enough to reveal the curves of her ass. The soft material looked comfortable, but without detracting it from her sexiness. So, splitting my attention between the schematics she was working on, and her body, wasn't exactly a chore, even without the benefit of some extra experience.

[+7 Craft]

Still, I decided to act when the skill acquisition started to slow down, because the blueprints she was scribbling were too complicated to understand, especially since I didn't know their ultimate aim. Still, from the details of the magical aspects, which I was very well-versed in, I could see many errors, some of which she managed to fix with each iteration, but only through making even more major changes.

If the smithing portions of the calculations were as riddled with the mistakes, no wonder I couldn't understand what she was trying to do...

"How about if you link the secondary structures together directly-" I started, a smirk on my face, only for her to swing her arm in panic. Understandable, considering I had startled her completely.

Her punch flew threateningly, cutting through the air at a scary velocity even when she was unprepared. Her strength was not a joke. I had no doubt that if I let her hit a wall with minimal magical reinforcements, she would punch through, even when she was unprepared and poorly balanced.

Too bad that I had enough strength to catch the said threatening punch without flinching. Her expression of shock was beautiful, flaring at first because I caught her punch, only to burn even thicker when she realized my identity. "How have you been since we last met, Oeyne?" I said with a smirk, like the situation we were under was by any means normal.

"W-what are you doing here?" she whispered, shocked.

"Huh," I said lazily even as I let her hand go before pulling a chair for myself. "And here I am, expecting you to be curious about how I entered without alerting you." It was a trick I had leveraged several times to disrupt my opponents, the more casual I looked under dangerous circumstances, the more they panicked. And for the purposes of the conversation that was about to happen, Oeyne was definitely my opponent.

"How-" she stammered, only to cut short, her body alert. "What do you want?" she asked, alarmed.

"We need to talk about the upcoming visit of the princess," I said.

"I know I shouldn't have told you that," Oeyne looked at me, alarmed, her fingers twitching. She wasn't as bad as Aviada, but she was a straightforward person, so wanted to solve the problem directly. Still, she was reluctant, which was the whole point of the trick with the punch, telling her that I was more than I had revealed during our earlier talks. "Who are you?"

"For the purposes of the discussion, you can think of me as a patriotic citizen concerned with saving the life of a royal," I said.

"Are you threatening-" she started, only to be cut short by a silencing spell.

[-5 Mana]

"Don't talk nonsense," I said lazily. "If I had any intention of harming her, I wouldn't be here, talking to you," I said.

The spell I used was rather simple, so it didn't take much for her to break it. "Then, why are you here?"

"We need to make sure to arrange her security. First of all, is there a chance for her to still change her mind and cancel her visit? It's really dangerous for her to be here."

[+2 Speech]

Oeyne looked conflicted, but her drinking habits worked to my benefit, making her less cautious. Combined with her adrenaline rush, and the confusing pattern of discussion I had applied, she lost control of the talk.

"Not a chance," she murmured. "She is already in a shaky position, and she barely arranged this visit. It's impossible to cancel. One of her subordinates had discovered an old artifact that has the potential to rival some of the best weapons in the private armory of the Emperor, but only if it's properly repaired. And she can't trust anyone in the Capital, as if discovered, one of his brothers could stake their claim on the sword instead, leveraging their relative power. Royal politics are more complicated than I can understand."

"I see," I murmured. "So, we're talking about a really important weapon. What's that, a sword?"

"No, a spear," Oeyne corrected.

"Still, is it really this important. There's a high chance that she would die if she visits. The life of a princess should be more valuable than a spear. Is there really no way to cancel the trip."

Oeyne stopped for a long breath. "Probably not. The task here is too important to delay, and her position is too shaky to hope for a reprieve." She stopped for a moment for another breath. "But with her guards, she has the power to detect and avoid any ambush too big for her to defend against, and she should be secure once she steps into Silver Spires. No one would dare to attack a royal under the protection of the headmistress," Oeyne explained, only to freeze when she saw my expression. "Right?" she continued, but her voice was much more vulnerable, asking for confirmation.

"Not if the headmistress is busy defending against several monster hordes and a huge undead army at the same time, while possible traitors launching an attack from inside the wards."

"Impossible," Oeyne murmured, but still, she obediently listened as I gave a breakdown of the major points, without revealing anything concrete like the location of the undead base or such, instead of leaning heavily onto the headmistress' and Titania's reputation, prompting Oeyne to ask them if she wants confirmation.

It took quite a while for her to process that, then she went in a different direction. "So, you're a member of the headmistress' inner circle, then," Oeyne said. "A secret knife to the librarian's sledgehammer of light."

It was a good assumption, and for a moment, I was tempted to accept that, as it would make my job easier in the short term. Considering the limits of the circumstances, accepting that would be certainly convincing for the princess. On the other hand, it would completely cut any chance of making inroads to the princess without the involvement of the headmistress, as the princess would rightfully assume that the real decision-maker was the headmistress.

No, I decided. Staking my independence was the better option. "Not exactly," I answered Oeyne. "I don't belong to any power block in Silver Spire, or even in the Empire. We're more like a group of loosely aligned allies, supporting each other in our missions, and the headmistress is a remote, but welcome ally. I'm actually in Silver Spires for a completely different reason."

"Is this about the princess?" she asked.

"Sure," I said. "If I could project the princess visiting two years in advance, of course." She chuckled at my response. It wasn't the best joke, hell, it was barely a joke, but the moment was tense enough that even the barest joke was a relief. "No, I'm here to do some research into the past, some other aims. I come to find you because I genuinely need better gear, and you're the best unaffiliated blacksmith," I said, then grumbled playfully. "Or at least, you were supposed to be, this royal visit complicates things a bit. Maybe I should properly punish you for that," I added suggestively.

"Maybe you should," Oeyne countered, her smile no less delicious.

[Level: 30 Experience: 441500 / 465000

Strength: 36 Charisma: 51

Precision: 33 Perception: 35

Agility: 33 Manipulation: 38

Speed: 32 Intelligence: 42

Endurance: 30 Wisdom: 44

HP: 4920 / 4920 Mana: 6300 / 6300 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [97/100]

Master Arcana [91/100]

Expert Speech [68/75]

Advanced Craft [40/50]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 17/25]

[Helga - Level 13/17]