Ch.566Melting Chocolate

The nobles and knights who heard about Haschal’s lecture couldn’t hide their amazement.

They couldn’t help it, as the weaknesses of elves that Haschal had pointed out were completely unfamiliar concepts they had never heard before.

Since hundreds of years had passed since humans and elves last fought, most people of the Empire had long forgotten how to fight against elves.

At that time, even the foundations of the country weren’t properly established, so few records remained.

The information that current Imperial citizens knew about elves was limited to vague notions like “they command spirits,” “they shoot magic arrows,” “fighting them in forests means certain defeat,” and “they seem to have sensitive ears.”

In such a situation, a hero of Ka’har origin, who seemed far removed from elves, not only explained elven tactics but also presented appropriate and even extraordinary countermeasures. How surprised must those who heard the lecture have been?

Questions, bewilderment, interest, and admiration swirled together.

“Where did Baron of Median, a Ka’har native, get such information? It’s as if he fought directly against elves… Could it be that elves live beyond the great plains as well?”

“Well, the Holy State borders Alvheim… Perhaps he secretly slaughtered elves there?”

“Come to think of it, I heard he brought a dark-skinned elf as his subordinate… Perhaps not a subordinate but a prisoner he enslaved and brought along.”

All sorts of rumors and speculations spread and distorted repeatedly.

Despite never having fought against elves even once, Haschal was now being treated as an elf slaughterer by all the nobles of the island. Rumors even circulated that Haschal’s appearance was due to bathing in elven blood.

—-

And, though it wasn’t Haschal’s intention, his lecture put the priests of the island in a truly awkward situation.

The concept that spirits were actually just ghosts and could be severely damaged by purification miracles was one that shook the foundations of conventional wisdom.

“Is it true that holy miracles can annihilate spirits?”

Many nobles sought advice from priests, and thousands of letters asking about the veracity of this claim piled up like mountains on the desks of each cathedral. Administrative work of the Church was temporarily paralyzed.

“We don’t know either… unless we verify it in practice…”

However, asking priests wouldn’t yield definitive answers.

To verify the truth, they would need to cast purification miracles on spirits, but unless they had elven prisoners locked up in the Church’s basement, such a thing wouldn’t be possible.

Even Perneisia, the only elf residing on the island as a special admission student, had withdrawn from the academy and disappeared, so they had no way to verify the truth.

And the next day.

In the grand hall where about four hundred students gathered just like the previous day, the second lecture finally began.

=======[ Hush ]=======

Late evening. Hush sighed as she tidied up Ophelia’s research lab, which was cluttered with books and tools.

‘I’m tired…’

Her head kept drooping. It wasn’t physical fatigue but mental exhaustion that sat like a heavy weight in her mind.

Haschal’s order was merely to take care of Claire, who was preserved in solution during Ophelia’s absence, but… Hush had somehow ended up organizing the lab, managing supplies, and even bringing meals for the two of them in place of the maids who weren’t allowed inside the lab.

She had literally become Ophelia’s personal maid.

Of course, this was entirely Hush’s own doing. Even someone as arrogant as Ophelia wouldn’t be so rude as to arbitrarily use personnel assigned by Haschal to manage Claire as her personal maid.

‘I must be crazy. Falling for the promise of being taught magic…’

When introduced to Hush through Haschal, Ophelia discovered her mediocre magical talent and offered to teach her magic if she would become her disciple.

Hush’s talent was far from genius, barely even qualifying as above average, but as a half-elf unable to summon spirits, it was an offer she couldn’t refuse.

Even mastering basic magic would greatly expand her tactical options.

Hush didn’t know.

That being a personal disciple of a mage was a completely different concept from the mentor-student relationship she had vaguely imagined.

Mages’ personalities were always somewhat twisted and distorted. This was inevitably reflected in their teaching relationships.

For a mage, a disciple was somewhere between a slave and a servant who could be used freely in exchange for knowledge.

Only after licking the master’s toes and serving with slavish devotion could one receive even basic knowledge. Sometimes it required abandoning one’s dignity.

This was why young people with dreams of becoming mages were desperate to enter the academy, even at the cost of binding themselves to the Imperial Tower.

Because once admitted to the academy, they could receive unlimited education in all kinds of magic as long as their talent supported it.

Of course, this only applied to aspiring mages of common birth. If one was from a noble family, they could simply hand over a chest of gold to their family mage and demand teaching.

For those from families of mages like Ophelia, learning magic wasn’t even a right but almost a duty.

Anyway… that was why Hush ended up being Ophelia’s maid.

Unless Haschal had ordered it, there was no reason for Ophelia to teach Hush for free.

Ophelia must have felt like she’d caught a big fish with a casually cast line. She had needed an assistant, and the perfect person had walked right in.

—-

‘Sigh… should I have never offered to learn…?’

Hush grumbled inaudibly while organizing the lab, but in truth, she was receiving the best treatment possible as a mage’s disciple.

At least Ophelia didn’t use her disciple as an experimental subject or drag her to the bedroom like other mages.

Of course, this wasn’t because Ophelia was sexually modest.

It was simply because her desires were focused on just one person, so she had no reason to look elsewhere.

“…Hnngh, aah. Sister…hnnk! Wait, Ophelia sister…! That place…!”

“Hmm? That place? Which place do you mean? Say it directly, Claire.”

Hush frowned. Heated voices leaked from the bedroom inside the lab. It was obvious what they were doing.

‘…Crazy woman.’

She had thought they were lovers playing some kind of “sister” roleplay since they were being intimate all day, but the truth was far from her naive assumption.

How shocked she had been to learn they were actual sisters.

Cutting off her own sister’s limbs, regressing her to infancy, imprisoning her in the basement, and sexually training her—this woman was beyond merely insane.

And she was wrapping it all up as “love.”

A different kind of madness from the violent thugs she knew. Even in her days roaming the back alleys or after joining the Council of Dream Utopia, she had never seen such a deranged pervert.

At least she cleaned the bedroom herself; otherwise, Hush would have given up on magic long ago.

—-

Even after finishing her daily tasks, freedom didn’t come to Hush.

“Huuuush! Let’s have a driiink-!”

A woman who might be a forest elf or a drinking elf barged into her room every day with bottles of alcohol.

Though Hush was a half-breed, she disliked the elves of Alvheim just the same, but this woman forcibly clung to her claiming they were comrades, making it impossible to shake her off.

If she were weak, it might have been different, but astonishingly, the woman who staggered around pouring hard liquor into her veins was one of the elf guardians.

Blessed by the World Tree, she was a powerful figure who moved between Master and Hero levels. Even in her alcohol-soaked state, she wasn’t someone Hush could handle by force.

“If you need a drinking buddy, drink with someone else…! That Ka’har man, or the maids, there are plenty of people!”

In the end, all Hush could do was voice her complaints.

“Them? They won’t dooo. They pass out after a few drinks… heheh.”

Of course, her words had no effect.

Unlike humans who struggled to keep up with Perneisia’s drinking, Hush, though only half-elf, was the only one who could somewhat withstand the near-pure alcohol that Perneisia drank.

She would still pass out if she drank it all at once, but if she sipped slowly, she could empty one or two bottles.

Eventually, that night too, Hush was only able to fall asleep after throwing the drunk Perneisia onto the sofa in her room, holding her dizzy head.

It must have been an exhausting day, making her feel like her body was melting.

‘Well… still… better than worrying about being attacked every time I fall asleep.’

Though she complained about how hard it was, Hush was actually quite satisfied with her current life. During her time with the Council of Dream Utopia, it had been impossible to relax and fall asleep.

And so her day came to an end.

“Mnya… those elder bastards… need to burn them…”

…Though it took some time to fall asleep because of the snoring elf’s sleep-talking.