Shades of the New World

Chapter 215: A safer home

'Though flying with these clothes are a bit awkward, huh?' Evin thought, careful not to make any sharp movements as he traversed the air.

Eventually he reached the Earl's mansion and landed in front of its gates. A few of the guards eyed him warily, but they seemed to be informed about his arrival, so they didn't make a fuss.

A servant came out of a smaller house located in the mansion's yard, and swiftly jogged towards Evin.

"Mage Evin?" he then asked politely to which Evin nodded.

"Please follow me," the servant said and walked in the front.

'Hmm, yep. It's definitely much secure here,' Evin thought as he walked around the mansion. Serious looking guards patrolled the mansion's premises in pairs, with the occasional mages eyeing Evin with their scrutinizing gazes.

The servants and maids also seemed to have turned to completely different people from what he saw previously. Solemnity and silence had replaced the casual, relaxed atmosphere the previous mansion had. 

'Something pretty serious must've happened while I was gone' Evin thought idly, as he looked around the building.

"We're here, the Earl and the young ladies should come a bit later. Please call one of the maids if you require anything," the servant said and opened the door to what seemed to be a large dining hall.

Evin looked inside and saw that the long table was filled with various snacks and delicacies, with a row of maids standing nearby.

'Alright, I guess I'm getting a bit of a special treatment. Sigh, I suppose I should mentally prepare for the Earl's attempts to get me married again,' Evin thought with amusement. 

There were also three people sitting behind the table already and Evin could recognize the three as the mages who met him three days ago.

"Oh, the luminary's finally come," the woman said as her droopy eyes turned into thin curvy slits. 

"Hello again," Evin said and joked as he looked around the table: "It seems the Earl hasn't forgotten about me yet, or did Bella prepare all this for me?" 

"I know, right? The boring old Earl suddenly seemed to become a completely new person when I mentioned your name," the woman said gleefully.

"Watch your mouth, Lana. The boring old man is your employer," the young man said from the side.

"Oh, bug off, Clent. The man himself doesn't seem to mind it so much," the woman named Lana replied.

The ashen-haired man seemed like he didn't want to take part in the two's squabbles, as he silently sat in his chair, watching Evin with a neutral face.

"I haven't actually introduced myself properly, huh?" Evin said and gave a short introduction of himself.

"Oh, I'm Lana, this boy here's name Clent and our boss here goes by Tsaena," the woman introduced the group.

"A Northerner?" Evin asked, wondering what the origins of this group was.

"Yep. Though he's quite few on words, so I usually have to do the talking for him," Lana sighed.

"I was wondering what do you three do? I mean, usually," Evin couldn't help but ask.

"We're basically guards for hire and we specialize in protecting big placed like this one. We also offer some other services relating to housekeeping as well. The maids and servants you see around us are also part of our little group," Lana explained.

'Then they must be a pretty capable group, huh?' Evin thought, genuinely impressed by the standard they were setting.

'But having mages as strong as them to be your guards seems a bit overkill, I feel'

"I never would've thought such services would be popular. The kingdom seems pretty safe for the most time, especially around these parts," Evin said his honest opinion.

"Says the boy who flew at an Earl's mansion covered in illusions," Lana chuckled.

"Ah, I suppose you're right," Evin laughed awkwardly.

"Ha-ha, yeah We get that a lot. But it isn't like safety is 100% guaranteed, you know? A few months ago, apparently one of the servants here was killed suddenly, leading the Earl to seriously consider the safety of his house. Later on, he found that most of the servants and guards were seriously slacking off on their jobs, which lead him to consider hiring our business," Lana explained.

"Oh."

'Oh shit' Evin thought, remembering that one time he poisoned a servant because he thought the man was looking at him funny.

'Wait, don't look remorseful. Just look shocked and amused, or something,' he hurriedly thought and assumed a pondering pose.

"How was the servant killed, though?" he asked after a pause that felt a bit too long for comfort.

"Apparently he was poisoned. At first people thought that the man died to some kind of sickness or something, which lead the case to be investigated by a mage. The mage later found out that the mage was poisoned, though he couldn't tell when exactly was he poisoned. 'Probably at night,' the mage said, which meant that someone broke into the Earl's mansion at night, poisoned someone and left without being found out," Lana narrated the story.

'Bless you, random mage who sucks at his job,' Evin thought thankfully. 

Now that he thought about it, there was absolutely no reason to kill a man over some almost baseless suspicions and to do such a sloppy job at it. Even if the man came at him later with a group of like-minded mages, it shouldn't be too hard for Evin and Rith of that time to repel them.

"I see. Was the Earl alright, though?" Evin asked in an unassuming tone, hoping to sound as innocent as possible.

"Yes, obviously, the Earl knew that whoever killed the man wasn't a mage, because, you know," Lana said, pointing at her heart: "So at first he was just searching for normal guards for hire. But lately there were many cases of foreign mages being spotted around the kingdom's territory, forcing some nobles to take the matter of security more seriously."

"Lana," Tsaena said sternly from the side, startling Evin in the process.

"Oops, sorry," Lana said, smiling like a child who was caught doing something mischievous.

A brief silence ensued in the dining hall, as Evin occasionally plucked out something from the table, gradually depressing himself by thinking of the poor servant he killed impulsively.

"By the way, could you tell me why you came to the Earl's mansion in the first place?" Lana asked, a cat-like smile on her face.

Evin wondered for a second if he should tell the truth, before deciding not to.

'But if I dodge the question, she's gonna assume I'm here for Bella' Evin fell into a slight dilemma. 

'Eh, it wouldn't hurt me too much to tell the truth' he decided, thinking of the other outcome.

"The Mage Association told me to give the Earl a little visit," Evin said.

"Ah, so that's what it was. If they told you to visit him... then it must be something remarkable. As expected of a Child of the Empress, I suppose," Lana said in a disappointed tone, before mumbling something under her mouth just loud enough to be heard by everyone: "And here I was, all excited to witness a forbidden scandal between an adult in a boy's body and a little girl" 

'?'