Corridor

  Veronique was in a bad mood as she followed Miss Hawkings lead, she already knew the old hag was going to scold her as soon as they got to the music room and she had an idea of what the woman was going to say, after all she had been utterly disrespectful and talked back to someone working directly under the Lorens, also known as the Royal family, and the only individuals with higher rank then the Duke.

  Honestly Veronique didn’t regret it one bit, that Madame Luise clearly had some sort of superiority complex and it was clear she hated her guts from the get go, so all she did was match that energy or to be precise that she couldn’t help but do such thing.

  ‘So this anger in me was because I have too much mana?’ Veronique thought as she glanced towards Little Drag, it was following her from a distance but Handstand was no where to be seen ‘am I really crazy or are those hallucinations of mine part of a skill?’ she wondered, knowing she had a skill that she didn’t know what it was about, if only there was a way to look at her status screen without Madame Luise then maybe she could try to translate that unknown text herself to find out

  ‘Why put such an hefty limitation on a basic mechanic?’ she questioned not understanding the reasoning of the author to do such thing ‘it’s as if part of this skill system had been deliberately blocked, how does one even update their stats? Or Lvl up?’ the confusion pilled up then an hypothesis made its way into her head ‘the Duke said that in the past skills were stronger…could it be that this limitation wasn’t a thing back then? Maybe the whole system got damaged when the Labyrinth disappeared’ coming back to the present Veronique frowned

  “This isn’t the way to the music room” she had been mindlessly following Miss Hawkings and didn’t pay attention to her surroundings

  “I see Lady Veronique has been studying that map her guard gave her” the old hag simply commented, strangely she didn’t even seem mad more like focused as if she had a set objective in mind.

  ‘How does she even know about the map?’ Veronique thought, but now it wasn’t the time to ask about it and maybe it was better to stay ignorant “Where are we going? We can’t leave Rhea alone” it was more pressing to reunite with the child, who no doubt was going to get distressed once she noticed they were both gone.

  “We won’t take long, Lady Rhea is more capable then you give her credit for and there are maids watching her” Miss Hawkings declared with most certainty

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  ‘When did the old hag even set this up?’ she wanted to ask

  “If you must know I had already arranged for the pasties at the music room prior to the skill assessment as little celebration for Lady Rhea” but the woman had anticipated her question “The maids were already going to be there to assist us and promptly clean the mess when we left”

  “Wouldn’t that have spoiled Rhea’s Lunch?” they weren’t that far of from lunch time and while their meal wasn’t filling, having to many sweets before it was going to give Rhea a stomach ache

  “It was only a couple of small pastries each, we would have mostly just drank tea” Miss Hawkings reasoned

  “Aren’t you afraid Rhea is going to eat all the pastries since we are not there?” Veronique asked “I had never seen her move so fast” which meant Rhea really liked pastries and children weren’t the best at self regulation.

  Heck even adults had trouble with it.

  “Lady Rhea may have a sweet tooth but she’s got self control” the woman was sure of it as if Rhea could do no wrong

  “She’s just a child, she’s bound to do child things” Veronique tried to knock some sense into her, having such expectations on a young child was neither healthy or normal

  “What do you even know about children? as far as I know you never meet one” Miss Hawkings suddenly inquired making the redhead sweat

  ‘Oh that’s because there weren’t ever kids my age and I had to watch the little ones’ Veronique thought back to her past life ‘even if most of the time I did end up having fun myself it was exhausting’ of course she couldn’t tell that to Miss Hawkings, but that was when she started to recognize the path they were taking

  “Wait are we going to the library?” Veronique ended up changing the subject, the question came out of her accidentally and not because she was deliberately trying to…even if she would have done so in a few more moments had she not noticed where they were going.

  “Correct Lady Veronique, given your skill I thought it was best to immediately get you started on learning some harmless active skills to get your mana under control” Miss Hawkings explained

  “Did you forget that the staff there hates me?” Veronique pointed out, knowing the old woman didn’t even talk to Lucia to check her story ‘Lucia would have told me if she did’

  “I am sure you are overreacting, the library staff is nothing but professional” Miss Hawkings was so confident in the statement that the redhead couldn’t resist

  “If you are so sure about it, wanna bet on it?” Veronique challenged her, hoping she would accept simply because having the older woman owe her something was appealing

  “This time I will entertain you no need to bet anything on it, so what do you have in mind?” the old hag boldly said

  “Afraid you would lose?” Veronique taunted her not wanting to miss this chance

  “You are already trying your best, I got nothing more to ask of you” Miss Hawkings declared and unfortunately she was right

  “Ah you mean I got nothing that you want” Veronique decoded what the woman had said

  “Exactly”

  “Fine, but this would have been more fun if a bet was involved” she mourned what could have been, but cheered internally because regardless it was going to be rewarding to prove the old hag wrong.

  I could have kept the tension going and reveal it was just a fireball skill later, but then you would have all got disappointed and mad at me.

  Little Drag - the Dead with just the top half that keeps dragging itself around Veronique in circles

  Handstand - another Dead with just the top half, but instead of dragging its body it walks on its hands.