Brutes and amnesia

Alphonse rode back slowly with unconscious young black haired girl leaning on him. He descended from his horse and tackled the lady near the cliff as she didn't respond to his commands.

"Brother Alphonse what did you just do to this young lady? Her nose is bleeding."

It was sure that this person Alphonse was carrying was someone important. She had quite a lot silver on her clothes and parts of them where made of silk. If Tulian had to make a guess, he would have said that she was either a magi-apprentice or some noble house was missing their daughter or simply both. Such a strange aura was surrounding the girl as if the air itself got colder around her.

"You saw it yourself. I simply lightly tackled her or did you wish her to jump?"

"No, no, of course not, don't get me wrong, but just look at her. You broke her arm."

"What!" This was Mira.

"I said they are brutes..." Eleina murmured, but only one who heard that was her big sister.

Mira went to check the woman.

"Indeed my dear sister, this time I do agree with you. It's broken. Huh, even without touching you can see it. Human's arm should not be like this. You used way too much force sir Alphonse, you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Um.. I..."

Alphonse was starting to break a sweat. If it's a noble woman, no simply the fact that this is a woman, was frightening. What sort of rumors would be spread if common folk heard him breaking bones from an innocent woman. Oh the horror! Common people had a bad habit to exaggerate things. A rumor like this would spread like wild fire and eventually the whole country would hear about the "Ogre"-knight. At that point he could just dive into a sword.

'The ogre. The woman eater. The troll. I don't want a nickname like that.'

"Tulian, could you carry her inside? And try to not cause any more hardship to this young lady. I think sir Alphonse has already given a fair amount."

"You don't need to worry lady Mari. I wouldn't dare to do such a thing."

Tsck*

Alphonse clicked his tongue.

Tulian descended from his horse not caring about his battle brother's bad manners and took a gentle grip around the woman who Alphonse was passing to him. The woman's whole weight fell on his arms.

'She is like a feather. Is there something wrong with my arms? How is she this...'

Snap*

He had only used enough force to pull the unconscious woman down from the horseback to his arms and then secured that she couldn't accidentally slip from his arms. But that sound, Tulian had heard it many many many times during his training as well as had Alphonse.

"What was that!" It was Mira again.

"I can't be certain lady Mira, but my wild guess is that it was a bone."

"Hah!"

Tsck*

Tulian clicked his tongue.

"We are going to settle this matter later brother Alphonse."

"I agree with you on this brother Tulian."

This was unheard of. Did that woman have a decease or a curse that made her bones so fragile? They all had same thoughts except...

"Just a bunch of uncivilized brutes."

Mira hastily spoke over his little sister's comment suffocating it. These two men were still knights no matter how badly they behaved and the sisters weren't their masters.

"She might have a curse or a decease perhaps, but I have not heard of anything that would make your bones snap like dry branches. We should take her carefully inside the carriage and check anything that could give us a clue who we are dealing with. I assume it wouldn't cause too much problems for lord Duke if young lady like her would take shelter under his arm?" Mira was watching directly into Alphonse's eyes.

"N-naturally."

'That woman's gaze could melt steal beams.'

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Lord Duke's eyes didn't show any ill emotions nor was he surprised when the young black haired beauty was raised from the carriage. The duke was an old man who had turned sixty-two just few days ago. How he looked that woman was similar how a father would look at his daughter. This was a shock to Eleina who had seen how the "brutes" had "slaughtered" the poor defenseless woman on the field.

How could someone with those kind and sad eyes have such barbarians serving under him? And why did he look that woman like that, the knights surely would have recognized the woman, if she was part of Duke's family. It was almost like that Duke had a faint pity in his eyes.

Something struck Eleina's heart. Was she wrong about the Duke... no, she was never wrong! She had seen the Duke hit a maid nine years ago when she was visiting this place for the first time. This was her fourth time visiting Duke's family. She had tried to avoid the Duke's family.

Eleina used to work inside an office with her mother as an accountant-apprentice, she had never done any work that forced her to dirt her hands. Naturally cleaning was also done by house maid they had. Eleina was the sheltered child and Mira was the one running around places and organizing the macro-business with their father.

Mira saw her sister watching the Duke and had a clear idea what her little sister was thinking -- "brutes". Eleina used to call anyone who didn't act like the prince of her dreams with that word. Not a single day had past without Mira thanking her parents in her mind that she was the one who was given birth first and being the one who had to take responsibility over her siblings. If her destiny had been to become as spoiled as Eleina, she would have preferred to lay her head on the block or dive into a rusty blade.

Mira and Eleina were daughters of a noble-merchant family and company called Oakwood that belonged to the neutral noble faction. Naturally being merchants, their family preferred to stay away from politics unless it was done somewhere hidden in secret and safe from hungry-ears. This was one reason they were quite tense when dealing with normal nobles who had an tendency to do the exactly opposite.

Despite their family being extremely small, their house had been given noble-merchant title twenty-two years ago as thanks to their father from bringing great fortune upon the Blue Dragon Kingdom with his inventions.

In noble-merchant hierarchy, ranks were as follows starting from the least important:

baron-family, count-family, earl-family and marquess-family.

The noble-merchant same as noble-magus families followed this rank system and were separated from normal noble families having their own special structures. The rank was set upon the house and thus from it on every member of the house. This way all the family members of the house were to be counted as equal to the rank of the house itself and same way their actions were counted as actions of their mother house. A noble-merchant family resembled more a company than an actual noble family. This was a way for the royal family to give credit to important common people without meddling too much with faction-equilibrium while also securing the loyalty of these families and what they had to offer.

Oakwood was a count-family thus making Eleina and Mira worth of a Countess title. Though as neither of them was the head of the family, the title was not required to be used when spoken to.

The Oakwood's income relied on special services and inventions -- product development. The company worked mostly inside coastal city of Taninburg and its daughter towns Greenwood and Basketon.

Basketon was specially important to Oakwood as the Duke had given Oakwood-family rent rights over half of the salt mines located next to the town. This way Oakwood had a reliable income while still not taking too much from the Duke -- the rent was quite high but manageable. Now the Oakwood-family had constant funding and was also expected to make results.

Lord "Salt" Duke Richard Rei Sortence Cloudgester was in charge of Blue-Dragon kingdom's southern and eastern coastal defenses and finances. And that eastern coastline was long. The Blue-Dragon kingdom was an Island country that continued like a snake up to the north so far that men there could see their piss freezing before it hit the ground. As being old already the Duke himself preferred to stay here at the south. From his Mansion, it would take four days to Taningburg and seven days to Basketon. Greenwood was a town between the two that specialized on producing all sort of products out of wood. Whatever it was that you were looking for, if it had something to do with wood, but couldn't be found from Greenwood, then it probably didn't exist at all in the whole country.

Duke's fourth son had set his eyes on Eleina, which was the main reason of the Oakwood's visit. Like the opposite of the Oakwood, the Duke's family was enormous. This was important chance for the Oakwoof family to strenghten its connections with the Duke. Mira would have herself married the Duke's son if it was for her family, but she was a widow right now. She didn't have same "brute"-mentality towards Duke's family than her sister after all.

The last war two years ago had cost Oakwood many capable men, including Mira's husband and the first son. It was a taboo to marry another person before five summers had past. All the cards they had were down to one -- Eleina.

During marriage ceremony an ancient tier six "red"-magic type curse spell "heart-shackle" would have been cast upon both parties. The magic was flexible in terms of the oath, which was normally build between the parties themselves, but the effect of breaking the oath set upon both parties was death. Oath breaker's heart would stop which meant common people made small flexible oaths when married and nobles used the marriage to secure their standing in the society. It was normal to settle bloodshed between countries by marrying some of their high ranking nobles with each other.

(There was even a torture-execution where criminals would be bound together with a marriage. They were locked inside an empty room with one small window for an entire year. The oath would demand that: "Killing is forbidden, eating human meat is forbidden and letting the person of your affection to commit suicide is forbidden." Normally this execution would include minimum of three worst case criminals and it was not common, but still in use. In reality, most of the rooms where opened after several years after the promised day.)

The Duke had agreed to shelter the dark haired beauty and so she was carried carefully into one of the quest rooms.

The guests were offered to have late evening meal with the Duke and his family.

--------------------------------------------------------------

'Soft. Hmmmh.'

The woman stretched her legs and yawned.

'Piiip piip!'

'The alarm clock = the morning = work! I need to get up for work!'

As she opened her eyes a red message popped up: 'You got mail!'

"YYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAA! What the fuck!?"

After blinking red three times the text vanished. Deep pain struck her left arm as she tried to get up. Her left fingers did not follow her commands, and metal supports and white clothes surrounded the arm.

"Aaah! What is this!"

'They had captured me! But maybe this isn't as bad as I thought.'

She remembered how awfully she had acted. These aliens hadn't done anything to her and even seemed to be taking care of her. One thing was sure now -- this is real. One thing that caught her attention was the weight of her body. It was way too low, like some of the mass didn't even exist anymore. Maybe she was a ghost or some kind of spirit.

Last time Michael had broken bones was five years ago during a car accident, but this time she hadn't been given any painkillers. Luckily the arm looked like it was taken good care of, but pain still kept pulsating from it and while she was at it, something was stinging inside her left ribs.

'My rib! I knew it! Is there xenomorph inside me!?'

Under her white shirt, there was bandages around her torso.

'My body's made of glass or what?'

While she was narrowing her eyes and nearly bursting into tears, the door opened and a figure entered the room. It went to the window and slowly opened the curtains. Light filled the room. It was either morning or midday.

The room was simple, but elegant with a huge bed, a nightstand and a small table next to the wardrobe. Everything was made of wood and looked like handiwork of a master craftsman who put extreme dedication to his art.

Before Michael was a young woman wearing a maid outfit. She was smiling gently, but as a part-time worker that smile didn't fool Michael. It was definitely the "would you like me to help you with that"-smile into which any sensible person would say "no thank you, I am just watching". And it had those ominous party-hat-ear on it. One of them wiggled and something moved behind her.

'She doesn't look particularly different from a normal human as watching this close. She is quite cute except... Is this the time of the month, the red sun rising of the Rohirrim or what is wrong with that smile?'

After room was filled with awkward silence, the maid spoke with polite, but cold tone: "My name is Lisa. I am a one of the lord Duke Cloudgester's house maids. I have been assigned to look after young lady's well-being. Could I know thy name?"

"Mi--"

Michael was going use his old name, but he had turned into she now thus shutting her mouth.

"Young lady?"

'This is Sofia's body, like it or not. What do I do?'

The maid didn't feel hostile, but she wasn't happy either. Slowly but surely as long as the silence continued the room's temperature felt decreasing. It would be strange if Michael used his name from another world, a man's name, and so she decided to go with the best alternative she had.

'There was no doubt the maid had heard my screaming earlier. Well the first impression is already ruined. This is fairly awkward. I am sorry sister. Here I go.'

"Ah. Yes. Umm... My name is Sofia. Sofia Amanda Rivermore. Thank you for looking after me. I must apologize for all the inconvenience I have caused. It seems to be that I have lost some parts of my memory."

Silence. The maid looked like she was scaling the trustworthiness of the answer.

"Umm... Lisa?"

'I think it went fairly well though.'

"Miss Rivermore the thanks and the apology are something you need to give to the Duke himself. Also there is no need to be so tense, I am not going to bite or anything."

'Was that suppose to be a joke. I am not fucking laughing you little raccoon!'

"If you can remember where you are from, could you tell me please? In all honesty, my lord is extremely confused as he does have almost perfect face-memory and he was fairly convinced that he would remember someone as gorgeous as young lady. Actually... ah um... the whole house is slightly confused at the moment since someone wearing clothes as expensive as young lady's, should be someone we could find information of. And it seems that young lady is speaking absolutely fluently too. I have to confess that I had my doubts if young lady was from Arka Empire as many of young lady's facial features are more common in that country. And ah... my apologies, my actions earlier where terribly rude, forgive me. Teheehee."

'Gorgeous? Young lady? Expensive? Teheehee?'

The maid bowed.

Sofia was watching maid's face. She seemed to be able to change her mood brilliantly in a blink of an eye. The maid now had kind and warm feeling around her. It was such a display that Sofia felt a bit overwhelmed. That maid was an actress or something?

This had to be a part of woman's intuition or why was she able to read that maid's mood so easily. The part of Sofia that was a man, didn't fully keep up with this change. Maybe it was something to do with her brain. Sofia was quite a lot more clever than Michael. Maybe it was not that the driver was better, but that the car was not an Opel anymore, but a Ferrari. Or then this aura she was able sense was something else completely. Their eyes met and bluish text appeared next to the maid.

'Name: Lisa

Job: Maid Apprentice

Level: approx. 10'

"Young miss is there something wrong?" Lisa tilted her head.

'She is level 10 and I am just level 1. I must assume that she is not able to see my level or she would have probably said something about it. Feels so weak.'

"Ah, no, yes? Don't mind me. Could you tell me where I am right now? I am quite confused. And... what is the Arka Empire?"

"A.. well.. um.. hmmh... Either young lady is fooling around or has actually really lost her memories. This is lord duke Cloudgester's mansion. He is the reigning king Antonie's uncle. Um.. ah... you see... these are quite important people after all. And the Arka empire is the one that the Blue-Dragon Kingdom fought against two years ago. It was a quite an awful war. People related to Arka Empire are easy to recognize as their language is so different from ours. That combined with their unique face features makes it easy to say if someone is Arkanian. I am sure young lady has had her problems with suspicious people. Does young lady really remember nothing? "

"I am sorry, but it feels like this is the first time I am hearing any of this. And um..."

"Oh my. Maybe I should have asked this earlier, but what is young lady's last memory?"

"Some monster jumped on my back and from that point everything is just nothingness until now."

"Monster? Did you hear that. Hahahaha, she hates you now." Man's laughter could be heard behind the door.

Maid bowed again.

"I am really sorry young lady. They are here for security and I think they have some things they want to discuss with young lady too."

Someway Sofia was starting to calm down and understand her situation even though it broke all her understanding of the world. Only thing she could think of as an answer, was that she had been swallowed by a wormhole or some sort of multi-dimensional space time god had its eyes on her. But when she tried to recall what had happened after she had fallen asleep in the original world, all it did was make her squint her eyes as waves of pain went through her entire body starting from her head and ending at her toes. There was no way that she could end at ... what ever place this was, by simply sleeping in her apartment on her own bed.

"Could I have something to drink? I am feeling a little bit dizzy. And I don't really remember when I ate last time either. Um... Sorry."

"Hmmh. Well it has been already one and half days since miss arrived here. The day before yesterday when the young lady arrived, we tried to wake the young lady, but our efforts were in vain. I have only tea and some snacks outside the door on a cart, but um... I could go and catch something from the kitchen for the young lady. It might take a while though."

"If you can, I would be grateful. In any case, weren't those gentlemen at the door going to come in?"

'Eh, what... I have been unconscious for over 36 hours or something? And here comes the second wave! I have never been interrogated, but if it was like this, just laying on bed minding my own business, I should have done much more crimes at home.'

At this point there was so many things that flew over Sofia's understanding of the world she lived in, that she started to become quite dull and just take all the information in without questioning mostly anything -- an dimensional hocus-pocus culture shock. And this state of mind would last for a while.

The men at the door knocked and came in after the maid left. Another one had wolf like ears -- the "monster" had appeared.

'Those are the bone breaker brothers!'

"Eeh. You..."

"Good morning young lady."

'Don't demi-humans normally have tails or something? Is he hiding it somewhere? That maid looked like she had something under her skirt... so they do have tails.'

The knights introduced themselves as a knight of the Blue-Dragon Kingdom Tulian Rei Bravehall and Thermanian-Silverclaw-Knight Alphonse Kalaka Musarami who was temporally serving under the Duke. Sofia couldn't see their levels and Alphonse's job seemed to be actually not "knight", but "templar".

"Anyway there is few things we wish to verify now miss Rivermore. During investigation, from your possessions duke's house-magus found quite strong mana-traces, could it be that young lady is actually able to use magic?"

Sofia stared at the Alphonse's eyes and gulped. Did he mean the voice she had heard back then at the field, because so far the real Sofia hadn't been flying above chimneys with her broom at any point of her life... maybe. To the brother-Sofia of this moment, even that idea started to sound believable.

'Is my sister the next generation Mary Poppins or what the hell? Even if it was going to start raining cows at this point, I could just take it like a man. Just an another cow-storm, nothing to see here.'

"Miss Rivermore? Miss...?"

"Yes, yes. What? Probably..."

She had the job "The Grim Reaper" so it would make sense to be able to use magic. Maybe it was a decent road to go as she had a feeling that playing a face card would just cause her more problems in the future. Maybe just being a casual sorceress she would not stand out so much. She could just lie her background as a nobody, but as a noble she would need documents eventually.

'Here I go sister! Witness me!'

"Sorceress. I am a sorceress! I remember that I was doing an experiment and something went wrong eventually leading me wandering to that grass-plain. I am sorry, but most of my memories are in disarray or missing. What comes to my clothes, they were a parting gift from my recently deceased master, I think."

"Umu. Considering that we found mana-traces on your equipment... hmmh. This seem believable. But still what were you doing so close to lord duke's mansion?" Alphonse asked.

"Ah, I am really ashamed of myself. I must have wandered quite a long time so my home is probably far away. But still who knows what kinda of experiment this was since I cannot recall that. Though it seems that its negative result was extremely powerful amnesia. If I would make an experiment with magic this dangerous, I would try to get close to a town or a city, but not too close, just that I would not be left alone in case of an emergency. In this case, the experiment must have taken place somewhere near at the closest village near lord duke's mansions or something similar. I am extremely grateful for looking after me while I am in this state."

Tulian scratched his forehead.

"I see, I see. In all honesty, I have no idea how you magic user's do your things and that is that. Ah, yes, brother Alphonse as you are a silverclaw, what do you think?"

"Umu. Sounds exactly that sort of extreme actions a sorceress would do in the name of magic research, but you still need to explain this to lord duke himself. He demands to meet you, but right now he is occupied. We think it would be preferable if miss sorceress stays here until your injuries are healed. Maybe your memories come back and you could give us a proper explanation."

'Piip piip!

Nickname earned: The novice of Bullshit.

Sub-job activated: Novice-sorceress.

You got mail!

Level up!'

Pain inside Sofia's ribs faded away.

'I need to look into that "logbook"-thingy. It's getting irritating.'

"So um, sir Alphonse... could you tell me what is a silverclaw again?"

"Umu. A faction of the templar knights."

"Ah, I see, I see. What is templar exactly?"

"A Demon hunter. And now it's my turn miss Rivermore."

"Y-yes?"

"I must apology for this, but we need to know. Are you cursed or do you possess some rare decease? Does it spread?" It was Tulian this time who spoke with slightly concerned expression on his face.

'Sofia had some asthma when she was really young, but it hasn't been bothering her for years now. Such a bold question. Why are they looking me like that?'

Sofia's cheeks were hot and her back was covered with cold sweat. She was the Grim Reaper. Whatever that meant, it did not sound something that would go hand in hand with this demon hunter job.

"Eh, not as far as my knowledge goes. Why are you asking something like this?"

"We are simply wondering why young lady's body is so fragile. And finally. I, Alphonse Kalaka Musarami, ask for your forgiveness for breaking young lady's body. We don't need to know why young lady was doing what young lady did, but for lord Duke's heart's sake, stay away from such actions from now on."

Alphonse and Tulian bowed deep down.

'Such actions? Eh... oh... OH!'