Chapter 22 – #05_Amelia Merigold (1)
#22
1.
Amelia had given Siwoo a sharp reprimand.
He repeatedly bowed his head and fled the bathroom as if escaping.
Amelia watched his silhouette disappear through the translucent glass wall and finally let out a small sigh.
A sense of relief that her clumsy and hurried excuse had worked.
And a pang of self-loathing for having lied just to get out of the immediate situation pricked at her heart.
With her nose buried in the bubbles filling the bathtub, a memory from five years ago flashed through Amelia’s mind.
It was a very boring, tedious, and ordinary winter day.
2.
“Amelia, aren’t you ever bored?”
“What is it this time, Avene?”
“I just came because I was bored.”
“You’re being a nuisance.”
Amelia replied to the raven from the Avene family, who never tired of visiting the research building.
A raven whose wingspan was almost the size of a computer monitor.
The raven, pushed away by Amelia’s hand as if she were annoyed, fluttered and perched on a stand.
She always came like this during her research to disturb her.
“Why do you live so boringly, spending 20 hours a day researching magic? You’re already two paths ahead of your predecessors.”
“It’s a great achievement inherited at the cost of my teacher’s life. I can’t be lazy for a moment.”
“Caw-caw.”
Hearing Amelia’s words, the raven blinked its white nictitating membrane and tilted its head left and right a few times.
Certainly, Amelia’s statement was different from what a typical witch would understand.
Completing the mark was a great achievement that should take precedence over preserving the life of a single witch.
It was supposed to be an inheritance for this purpose, but to express that the mark had taken her teacher’s life.
Of course, she wasn’t so reckless as to say that out loud.
Sophia knew about the relationship between Amelia and her teacher.
It was not uncommon for a strong bond like that of parent and child to exist between apprentice witches and their teachers.
“Even so, if you overwork your head like that, you’ll have to pass on the mark soon, won’t you?”
“If my resources run out, I should.”
“But you haven’t even taken on an apprentice witch.”
“Because there’s still much I can do.”
“Then why do you need to work so hard now? Looking at you, it’s like you’re a witch in her twilight years about to pass on her mark to an apprentice witch.”
Amelia sighed, watching the raven open its beak and speak. She put down her pen.
It seemed that Sophia had no intention of leaving quietly today.
“What do you intend to bother me with today?”
“A new slave has been assigned to the academy, you know?”
“So?”
“It’s a man. Two of them.”
It was something that was neither relevant nor of interest to her.
As if reading her expression, the raven spoke urgently.
A raven with an urgent expression was a bit of a funny sight.
“Amelia, this is advice from the previous Avene… would you like to hear it?”
“You’re going to keep nagging me until I say I’ll listen anyway, right? Go ahead.”
Amelia and Sophia didn’t get along well.
Sophia was a tank who pushed forward relentlessly without batting an eye at Amelia’s sharp words, which she used to avoid annoyance.
Therefore, she had no choice but to listen to avoid even greater annoyance.
“Your teacher said that the stuffiness of a room is sediment that blocks the inspiration for creation. You’ve been stuck on the part you’ve been researching for a while, haven’t you?”
“……”
Sophia, who visited almost every day, would see it.
The fact that the magic circle draft Amelia was working on had been stuck in the same place for months.
Something crucial was missing.
It wasn’t just a change in the variables being substituted, but a time when the creation of a new formula was needed.
“See? It’s because you’re doing the same thing, looking at the same scenery in the same workshop all day long. Output is directly proportional to input. Sometimes a change of pace is good, isn’t it?”
“You’re the one who’s changing pace every day.”
Sophia continued to speak as if she hadn’t heard Amelia’s words.
“You don’t even go to the modern world~ You don’t go to salons except when buying magic items~ You just take a bath and come back from the public bathhouse~ Every day it’s research building, dorm, research building, dorm, research building, dorm.
How can you come up with new ideas like that! At this point, what you need is not to keep clinging to the problem, but a new experience, that’s what I’m saying.”
Sophia’s way of enticing Amelia was quite clever and appropriate.
If she just said it was fun to play together, would Amelia, a magic otaku who stayed in her room, listen?
If Amelia hadn’t been a witch’s spirit, her butt would have been flattened from being pressed against the chair long ago.
So, she subtly mixed in advice that it was for the sake of magic.
In fact, Amelia was pretending to let it go in one ear, but she couldn’t chase away Sophia’s raven.
“So?”
“Let’s take a step into adulthood today.”
“A new experience doesn’t necessarily have to be sex, does it?”
In fact, it wasn’t the first or second time she had received such a proposal.
Unlike the orthodox Amelia, Sophia was quite a free-spirited witch.
The reason Amelia had despised Sophia at their first meeting was because of her quirk of sleeping with anyone, regardless of gender, if she liked them.
Now, through various conversations, she had judged that she wasn’t a bad woman, but apart from that, Sophia’s behavior of trying to involve Amelia in her hobbies at every opportunity was nothing but annoying.
“No. Sex is the process of a man and a woman creating a new life. Isn’t that ‘creation’ itself?
Of course, we can’t have children because of the mark, but the act itself is the noble foundation that has created billions of lives for tens of millions of years.”
From this point on, she felt disillusioned as to why she had to listen to such nonsense seriously.
Amelia, who had been listening attentively, turned her gaze away as if she had lost interest.
“I’ve listened to everything, so go now.”
“Ah… ah…”
Amelia didn’t listen and picked up her pen again.
From now on, she would probably ignore whatever Sophia said and scribble meaningless calculations.
When the big fish that had bitten the bait escaped, Sophia decided to use another tactic.
If Amelia’s first tactic was ‘relate it to magic,’
the second was ‘gently scratch her pride.’
“Well, I can’t help it. I think you should be more proud of your appearance.”
“……..”
“You are beautiful and attractive enough. Even if you don’t have a feminine body like mine, there won’t be many men who can be indifferent to you.”
“………”
“It’s understandable that you might feel awkward and scared since you’ve never had a conversation with a man, let alone love. But everything is difficult the first time.”
“……..”
Sophia, with a sly grin, began to deliberately provoke Amelia, who was completely ignoring her.
She arbitrarily interpreted Amelia’s reasons for not dating men as “lacking confidence in her appearance” and “being too timid.”
As expected, it worked.
Amelia’s eyebrows were twitching in real-time.
The key was balance.
It was best to stimulate Amelia’s competitive spirit just enough without overly touching her pride, which was as stubborn as her predecessor, Merrygold.
“You have a surprisingly childish side to you. You could actually be loved by men by appealing to that. You’re cute, even to me, a woman.”
If she subtly mixed in the keyword “childish side” here, Amelia would take the bait.
She was so easy to manipulate.
Amelia threw her quill back onto the desk and glared.
It seemed like a threat in her own way, but it was just cute.
“Who are you calling childish?”
“Oops! Sorry. I apologize if I offended you.”
“What I learned from my teacher wasn’t just magic. It was also the manners a lady should possess, the etiquette of a noble. All of this has a depth in Aveneu that is incomparable to a pseudo-noble like you.”
Amelia declared solemnly.
The crow, which had fluttered down from the stand, rubbed its cheek against Amelia’s hand, expressing its apology.
“Sorry, don’t be angry. As your friend, I just wanted you to have more experiences. I also want to see a more mature Amelia.”
“Haa…”
Amelia sighed and got up from her seat.
Sophia’s crow, excited, cawed and flew in circles above Amelia’s head.
“I’ll make you realize you were wrong. So, don’t bother me again.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Amelia spoke to Sophia, who was pretending to be clueless.
“Do you think I’d fall for the same trick every time, after all this time? I know you deliberately tried to make me angry.”
She seemed quite upset for someone who knew…
Sophia kept that thought to herself.
“I cannot agree that the pursuit of mere pleasure is the inspiration for creation. Nor do I intend to engage in such acts. I got up only to prove that you are wrong.”
“What did I say…?”
“That I lack confidence and am therefore afraid of talking to men. That’s wrong. I simply haven’t felt the need to do so.”
Men were inferior beings who couldn’t even use profound magic.
“Lead me to where the slaves are.”
Amelia, shaking out her tied-up hair, began to walk with a confident stride.
2.
“But isn’t it too unfair to seduce a slave? How can a slave refuse a witch’s command?”
“You’ll know whether they’re coming reluctantly or not just by their reaction.”
Guided by the crow, Amelia walked through a brightly lit corridor to a dimly lit library.
She had been informed that one of the slaves assigned to her two days ago was here.
As soon as she opened the door, she saw the slave in the middle of organizing the library.
This slave would be working as a city hall slave for the next six years, managing the Trinity Academy.
She would also use him as an assistant from time to time, but that wasn’t a particularly important issue.
Seeing him still working even though his work hours were long over, it seemed like he hadn’t adjusted properly yet.
Or maybe he was just a bit slow.
“Manager Shin Siwoo.”
“Yes! Witch!”
-Thud!
With a vigorous reply, the slave fell off the ladder.
He got up from the dust pile and rushed to stand before Amelia with a stiff expression.
If she could show Sophia how she could seduce a man with just a few words, Sophia, who was sitting on her shoulder, would be convinced and leave her alone.
Then she could focus on her research without any interruptions for a while.
Actually, seeing him staring at her face as if he were half-hypnotized, she didn’t think such verification was even necessary.
“Come to my chambers when your work is done.”
Wasn’t he already completely smitten?
Well, Amelia had never been dissatisfied with her appearance.
Her soft blonde hair, as if spun from glittering gold, and her eyes, like the blue sky.
She had always been praised by her teacher for being beautiful.
And that wasn’t all.
The grace and etiquette she had learned through years of education.
Even the charisma that a witch should naturally possess.
She was confident that she had a charm that was incomparable to a phony witch like Sophia.
“Then, I’ll expect you…”
Judging by his reaction, there was no need to hear his answer.
She was about to turn around and walk back to her quarters.
This dazed man would be having all sorts of lewd thoughts and come to her quarters, but he wouldn’t be able to do anything.
She wasn’t a promiscuous woman who would sleep with a man she had just met, and his purpose was simply to prove her charm to Sophia.
“I’m sorry!”
And then, unexpectedly, the man spoke.
He bowed so low that his head almost touched the floor and apologized.
“Caw caw caw!”
Amelia’s crow, perched on her shoulder, flapped its wings wildly and burst into laughter at the unexpected situation.
Her face flushed red.
Amelia, who had never imagined that she would be rejected by a slave, felt her mind go blank.
