When Stella entered the Saint Chastille Chapel, which the Order of Wellness used as headquarters, lines of volunteers and staff received her on the side of its hallowed halls. Indeed, unlike Stella’s other charity works, the Order of Wellness was highly connected to the Holy Church. In fact, most of the volunteers were nuns, priests, clerics, and even paladin knights from the church.
The rest were made up of her colleagues from the academy. It was why when she saw the lines of the people who worked under the banner of the Order of Wellness, Stella almost half feared that they would receive her with hostility, as they might have gotten word from the pope that she was dead. Maybe the pope would even disgrace her image.
But, instead, smiles were plastered on their faces. Some even had tears and were crying with joy that their [Saint] was back in good health. A few even approached her, hugging her, shaking hands with her, and more. Suffice it to say, it lifted a great deal of worry in Stella’s chest. She was so worried that they weren’t in a good position or that they had betrayed her like the Holy Church, but there was no sign of that.
When she reached the end of the hall, there, standing, was the one managing the Order of Wellness. She was a powerful [Paladin], someone who, since Stella’s days in the academy, was responsible for protecting the volunteer groups of the order, as they always had to venture into dangerous places to give out aid to the needy. Her beauty was said to be a near rival to Stella’s, as she was a vampire from a Sordalian noble house that traced its origin to the powerful vampiric nobility of the Great Wen empire.
Her name was Alice vi Xue—and she had her right hand outstretched as Stella rushed in her direction.
“It seems that you’re back, Lady Alexa,” Alice said, her smile so warm it almost blinded Stella. “And my, it appears that your predicament hasn’t affected you. You’re as pretty as the last time I saw you.”
“You seem the same, Alice,” Stella grinned as she shook the young woman’s hand. Alice sported long pink hair, tied in a simple braid, and she was wearing a graceful white dress designed for the women paladins of the church, though Alice’s sported frills on it, which somewhat made her look more like a doll in a paladin’s uniform than a proper combatant.
Stella then looked at the vampire’s pinkish eyes, noticing that they widened upon seeing Phoebe and Marie trailing behind Stella.
The paladin placed her gloved hand on her lips. “Oho…those two are reassigned again to you?”
“Yes,” Stella smiled awkwardly. “Quite frankly, I wish the church had allowed them to stay by my side back then.”
Upon the mention of the church, Alice’s face darkened. But the pink-haired woman forced a smile on her face before hugging Stella. “Welcome back. That’s all that matters now.”
It seemed that Alice had more to say. Stella naturally just thanked Alice before the woman dragged her out of the halls, straight upstairs into the chapel. As they walked in the corridors above, Stella briefed Alice about everything that had happened to her—from her final training mission, her failure and capture, the part about Marcus saving her, and their journey back to the capital.
“And that’s how I managed to return here,” Stella finished, as she forced a prim smile on her face. They stopped in front of Alice’s office. The vampire stopped, looking up at Stella with an intrigued face. Then, she smiled.
Stella seemed confused as she spoke up instead of turning the key on her door. “You know,” Alice leaned close to Stella. “You seem to speak highly of this Marcus fellow. Perhaps even more than that.”
“W-what are you saying?” Stella’s cheeks turned scarlet red. “Of course I’ll speak highly of him. He’s my…hero.”
Stella told Alice Marcus’s name because she had permission yesterday from Marcus to do so. He told her that if Stella trusted someone with their secret—since they needed allies in the royal capital anyway, as Marcus was worried about Stella’s father and the Holy Church—he told her that it was fine for her to disclose Marcus’s name and his more basic personal information.
Since Stella trusted Alice as much as she trusted Phoebe, Marie, and Louise, she thought that she should know about Stella’s savior and their potential helping hand should they run in trouble going forward. Unfortunately, talking about Marcus to her good friend seemed to have pulled Stella off track, and now, she was embarrassed upon realizing that she indeed sounded like some lovestruck maiden as she talked about him.
“My, my,” Alice shook her head with a smile. “I suppose it’s a good idea to knight him then.”
“Alice, it’s not like that!”
“He’s a powerful man, right? He defeated multiple archbishops of the Death God Cult.” Alice turned back to the door, turning the knob after she used her key. “In my mind, that will be quite helpful. After all, the Death God Cult attempted to attack a group of our volunteers last week.”
Immediately, Stella’s blood ran cold. She entered Alice’s office with a slight tension in her steps. “Did…did someone get harmed? Is anyone in danger?”
“No, not really,” Alice grinned. “I intervened since I was close by. Quite frankly, those foolish cultists were no match for my blade, even if there were a dozen of them.”
The woman sat smugly on her seat. As if discarding her earlier elegance and gratefulness, Alice brashly rested her feet on the table, sitting in such a relaxed manner that many would gasp in fear that she would ruin her perfect posture. Alice’s office was the same. While outside, the rest of the chapel was well-organized, clean, and pristine; her office was a mess of stacked papers and plates with unfinished food on them, and Stella could see bottles of fine wine and beer on the side.
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Stella narrowed her eyes, sighing as she looked around. This was something only Stella and a few close friends of Alice knew. While in public, she was the picture-perfect example of a lady upholding noblesse oblige; in private, she was a massive slob.
“Still the same as ever…”
“Pfft, what’s the issue?” The vampire’s white teeth glinted as she smiled further. “Mind you, even if I partake in alcohol, I drink in moderation. It’s fine.”
“You sinful paladin.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Stella took a deep breath before taking her seat in front of Alice’s table. “So, you said that you’re running out of money to run the order, and now, we’re being attacked by cultists?”
“Mhm. Bit of a headache, is it not?” Alice said, as she picked up a bunch of papers lazily from a cabinet below her desk and tossed it lightly close to Stella. “Have a look. It’s quite the situation.”
Stella ran her eyes through the documents. She felt like fainting, as it was essentially a bunch of notices from the Continental Bank to, in their words, ‘pay up.’ There were already fourteen notices, and they were issuing one each week, it seemed. The debt that the order piled up was so high that Stella also felt like vomiting.
“I’m really going to have to find a lot of financiers,” Stella said. “Right. I have a good idea. My healing powers should get a lot of nobles on board with me for favors.”
Strength, after all, was currency in this world, and the ability to end any and all illness, injuries, or whatever else, even for people at the verge of death, was something Stella imagined was major leverage on her part. Any noble thinking about their future would finance her if she promised that they would get the finest healthcare, personally given by her magic, should they catch something life-ending.
“I’ve tried asking the church about it,” Alice said, as she began lighting up the tobacco on the pipe that she placed on her pink lips. “I politely said that we need money to keep your personal project running and that you gave us approval to dock your pay and rewards to keep funding us, but they were like, ‘A tragedy has befallen Her Holiness, and we’re utilizing all of our resources to save her,’ blah blah blah, a million excuses as to why your money can’t go to us.”
“I…well…”
“That and,” Alice lowered her feet and leaned close to Stella as her eyes darkened. “I think that they’ve already given up on you. They were searching for the next saint. And this is not hearsay; I saw it firsthand when I visited Olstadt. The damned bastards threw you to that mission to replace you, Stella.”
Suddenly, as if overcome by uncontrollable rage, Alice slammed her fist on her table. “I am not lying or joking about this. Those backstabbing bastards, we should have seen this coming!”
So she came to the same conclusion as Marcus did.
Stella sighed.
“I…” Stella mumbled to herself. “As much as I don’t like or don’t trust the church anymore, I wouldn’t immediately presume that. That’s…the worst-case scenario.”
The idea that the church tried to kill Stella to replace her was something that was enough to make her rise out of bed at night. Ever since Marcus told her of that, she felt her world shatter, and even now, she felt like she was still trying to run away from that fact.
“In any case, you should keep that in mind. Anyway, I trust that you’ll fix the money problem soon. As much as the bank hounding me is a pain, those cultists attacking the order are the worst of my headaches,” Alice said. “...Hmm, I don’t mean to be too demanding, but do you think your good knight in shining armor can help us out here?”
Stella sputtered.
“Of course, but, please don’t call him that way!”
[Ultimate Universal Dispel].
Upon waving his wand, Marcus sent out a pulse of bluish light in front of him. His target was a bunch of swords that was enchanted by Siris’s magic for his training session today. After spending hours learning the spell design of [Ultimate Universal Dispel], testing it out, and doing various other studies, he was now honing his mastery of it.
Unfortunately, that was harder said than done. The spell he sent did manage to rattle the swords ahead of him in the courtyard, and many of them lost their intricate glyphs and inscriptions that gave them magical properties. But, when Siris flew close to inspect it, the kitsune merely shook her head.
“You’ve barely stripped the mana of half of these swords,” Siris said, placing a hand on her chin. “What’s your mastery of the spell?”
Marcus opened up his stats to give a quick glance at his current progress.
[Name: Marcus Lieberman]
[Age: 18]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Hell Ranger (Lv 100), Mage (Lv 22)]
[Rank: Diamond]
[Strength: 315 + 198]
[Vitality: 308 + 198]
[Magic: 318 + 112]
[Perception: 327 + 518]
[Speed: 320 + 518]
[Dexterity: 315 + 112]
[Class Skills: (Hell Ranger: Swift Blade, Absolute Blaze, Hellfire Aura, Blink Step, Healing Aura, Pinpoint Hardening, Mass Surveillance, Unseen Veil) (Mage: Basic Elemental Magic, Magic Missiles, Dispel)]
[General Skills: Diamond Mana Core, Identify, Deception, Levitation, Advanced Equipment Repair]
Indeed, all his training with spellcasting, including this day, started to pay off, and he was now rising quickly from his previous levels. Most of his stat increases were in his [Magic] and [Dexterity] stats, as they were the ones he kept honing and training. After checking through all of it, he used [Summon Grimoire] to check his spells.
He began flipping through its pages. He went straight to the last page, where [Ultimate Universal Dispel] was placed. The current spell design he had was still rudimentary at best, and in comparison to Siris’s spell design, it had a multitude of errors in it. He did manage to patch it up now that he had a few tries under his belt to adjust it, but…
“I’m still only at 33% mastery,” Marcus said. “Yeah, I guess that’s why it’s not yet dispelling half of the enchantments there. Still, it is working so much better than [Dispel].”
“Of course it’s doing better than that,” Siris smugly said as she raised her chin. “You keep practicing this, and I assure you, most spells and rituals in front of you will be easy to dismantle. Of course, do keep in mind that many of the most complex ones can resist, but…”
“I know, I know.” Marcus readied his wand again. “Regardless, I want to master this one.”
After all, I can’t rely on Stella and Siris alone when it comes to dealing with magecraft. He steadied himself. I need to be capable of threatening that cockroach alone.
