Tea

"That damn old-fart! Even getting rid of his sons didn't do the trick and now those damn whore sisters. What I am suppose to do now? Everyday our family gets humiliated by those damn windmills. How did he think something so great. They have much less people and still they are called a "count-family". And me a "baron", just a "baron-family"! What does that old senile duke see in those rats? They must have stolen that idea from someone, but it's way too late to do anything regarding that. Aah."

Young man in his twenties was walking circles next to a fireplace. The room was filled with a scent of sweat and a slight odor of mold.

He took a sip from the wineglass in his hand. Few drops fell on his chin.

"Such a pain. They have always been licking that duke's ass. Those contracts are ours and that Duke just had to put his fingers in it! If my father was still here..."

The man threw the glass to the wall.

Woman appeared from the shadows. The room was illuminated only by few candles.

"Darling. I think you have drank enough."

Picture-perfect naked blond woman hugged man's back and wrap her arms around his waist. She breath in his smell and rub her cheek on him. After staying still for a while, the man seemed to calm down.

It was raining like it did almost every night at the coastal areas. Man turned to face the woman and raised his arms around her waist. A half eaten apple was rotting on a table next to a pile of documents.

As the shadows danced on the walls of the room, faraway lightning stroke an oak tree that was growing in the middle of a field. It was cut in half and set on fire. A single fox that was trying to find shelter from the rain stopped its movement and rose its head from the young crops and lick its nose as the tree burned. After a while, it continued running.

"Don't worry about the Oakwoods, I have arranged everything."

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"Hmmh. I didn't see her during the day. The rumors say that she has a curse that turned her hair black and made her bones hollow." Eleina said and took a sip from the teacup she was holding in her arms. The warm tea felt nice and nurtured her throat that had gotten soar from all the talking.

Young women sat on chairs and watched as raindrops run down the living room's window. Everyone else had gone to handle their own businesses or sleep. The window opened a huge view down to the well maintained garden. It was almost midnight and far away Mira saw a lightning strike.

"The Cloudgester's mansion is really enormous and beautiful isn't it? What do think about Johan?" Mira asked.

"He is... I don't know and yes it is, the mansion is enormous and beautiful. It's at least twenty times our home's size or even bigger... I suppose Johan is... fine. Ah, I think I would get lost if I walked alone here."

'She didn't reject him? Maybe she understands how important this is for us.'

"Umu. I agree with that. I think that it's slightly too big though."

"How so? It's duke's home after all."

"I mean with all this unneeded luxury one could create a lot money and development. Now it just reminds me of that museum or what ever that huge unnecessary building at the capital was. The royals had filled it with dead animals, artifacts and paintings. They have weird hobbies."

"Eh, I don't recall never seeing building like that and when did you go to the capital anyway?"

"You were four."

"I need to ask if we could go there someday soon!"

"I am not coming."

"Eeh, why not?"

"I don't think there is anything there, that I haven't seen. After all the seamen bring all sort of trash from the other side of the sea. You wouldn't know as all you do, is sit in that office."

"Are you mocking me?"

"I don't see stating facts to be mockery."

"Hmmmmhp. Slow-brain..."

"What did you say?"

"Hmph, nothing."

"I see."

Mira poured herself some tea. First she had thought that she doesn't need it, but since her sister was drinking it, urge to drink for social reasons rose.

"I would have preferred to talk with that strange woman myself too." Mira sighed and poured milk in her tea.

"Hmmh. I thi..."

"Eleina?"

"Ah...."

"Are you feeling well? You look a little bit sick."

The teacup hit the ground and shattered.

"Sis!?"

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That duke is such a pain. Sofia had briefly met him and explained her situation. Duke had just listened her and smiled like it was some sort of an awkward work-interview.

What came down to her bones breaking easily and her having an unnaturally low body weight, Sofia was not able to give an answer. This led all kind of rumors to spread through mansion about her being cursed or being a ghost. Sofia had plead it being a side effect of the experiment she did, but the Duke didn't bite it completely. As Sofia was also confused about the matter, it was left to be as a mystery since the real sufferer of this phenomenon was Sofia herself.

Sofia couldn't read that person at all nor did she see his level or job. That Duke had to be extremely strong, but he was old too. Duke had important quests coming from the capital tomorrow and he had a lot of things to prepare so he had to be brief with Sofia. Even though he was old, he was the Duke and thus very busy. The Duke could just speak more with Sofia later on as where could this little fragile girl go. For now he had just told her to rest and that he understands her confusion.

'Such a strong leader.' To Sofia, the Duke had felt like a mountain. Whether he was a volcano, she didn't dare to know.

Sofia was quite curious about the correlation between person's age and level's effect to one's strength. Could 100 year old lady who is level 100 to beat a level 50 middle-aged knight if they both were armed equally? Or did it effect the outcome that the other combatant was an old person and was there a difference between women and men in this world? She had a feeling that there was. Otherwise there probably wouldn't be as similar society structure than the real Earth had had around this time period. Or that was what she had so far witnessed.

Mostly all the servants doing lighter duties like cleaning and serving were women. The gardener seemed to be male demi-human and most of the guards were also men. There was only one female knight, but on the other hand, Sofia had only seen five knights so far. The society seemed to be resembling middle ages to some extent.

The duke didn't let Sofia leave her room too much, mostly only when she wanted to go to the bathroom and even then there was a maid on the other side of the door. Thankfully there was at least luxurious toilet there, compared to the idea Sofia had had in her mind. She had this weird feeling that everyone was afraid to touch her. Later after talking with the knights, she had finally fully understood how easily her bones broke.

She had taken a bath before meeting the Duke and had almost broken her right arm when she had slipped when stepping into the bathing room. Naturally Lisa was with her and was able to catch her before she had shattered around the floor. Lisa did suffer a slight heart attack and a bruise as she had worked as a maid air cushion.

What came to the Sofia's naked body, this wasn't an issue to Michael since he had seen Sofia's body uncountable times as they lived together. It was not uncommon that Sofia would after shower just wander around the house barely hiding anything. Of course Michael had been sometimes making dinner or something during these exhibitions, but Sofia would just laugh it off and give him a middle finger if he said something. When Michael tried to do the same, he had been screamed at and Sofia didn't talk to him for few day. He had also found his toothbrush swimming in toilet for some reason.

Also that damn maid was ordered to explain about this world to Sofia as the knights and the Duke came to conclusion that Sofia had really truly lost her memories as she couldn't tell the capital's name -- the Dragon-breath city Balaica or what religion was the main religion in this country -- The Four holy dragons. This was the main religion of all four dragon kingdoms: Red Dragon Kingdom, Blue Dragon Kingdom, White Dragon Kingdom and Golden Dragon Kingdom. Of course any dragon deity was to be praised in these countries as holy beings.

Eventually she had spent rest of the daytime listening the maid's nonstop information vomiting. Every now and then the maid would stop talking and ask some questions if her memory was getting any better. This was all new information and Sofia would have just preferred to read alone. But she couldn't say that even though her entire mind and body demanded it. The maid seemed to be taking her duty as an assigned-maid quite seriously.

'Damn workaholic.'

At one point he was thinking that the maid started to look like the Bart Simpson and Sofia understood what was the feeling behind Homer's actions when he had his hands around Bart's throat. At that time the maid said that Sofia was starting to look like a mannequin as she just stared at her. The maid had gotten really comfortable with Sofia who was emitting murderous aura. The maid had same sort of annoying, but kind aura like the real-Sofia had. She seemed to have similar energy too. Those two were like pair of Duracell rabbits. Except that the maid was a fox-demi-human. Not rabbit.

Sofia had learned that in this country only wolf-, fox-, cat- and rabbit-demi-humans were on equal ground with normal humans. Any child could have been born as a demi-human and it was seen to be fate that an animal spirit was reborn as human. The spirit being originally animal, it brought something with it to remind it where it had originated. What came to these four animals to be different from the rest was that each of them was one of the favorite meals of the holy dragons.

In some areas a demi-human could have been raised to higher status than common-born human thanks to this simple belief -- a normal human could never touch a dragon thus being its food was an honor a normal soul couldn't rival. If different type of demi-human was born, it was said to be a meal of the Unholy Black Wingless Dragon.

It was the mad Calamity Dragon of death -- the Taboo Dragon -- who was always hungry and so it had eaten its own wings and so preventing it from flying with its kind ever again. This had driven it into madness.

Someday would become the day, when it would eat the whole world and itself leaving only the ones who followed the Four Holy Dragon's alive. Then the four Dragon's would create a new world without the calamity thus making it the true paradise. When Sofia had asked how this world was created in the first place, the maid had explained that this world was a fake paradise created by all the five Dragons. Long ago in the beginning there was no calamity, but it was written that it had hidden under one of the scale's of the Black Dragon and that way slipped inside to this paradise corrupting it. Ultimately the Black Dragon would also eat the Calamity itself. That's why there was certain people who worshiped the Taboo Dragon as the Sacrificial Dragon.

The souls the Calamity Dragon ate could sometimes fight themselves out of the dragon's mouth, but because they were now part of the calamity and still wished to be saved by the holy Ones, they were left alone in between -- in the void. The beings found from this place, the dimension between dimensions, were called demons.

Sofia was quite interested about this, but the maid wasn't really well knowledgeable about the matter nor did sir Alphonse want to speak about it. In the end Sofia came to conclusion that Alphonse thought that telling demon hunter's secrets to a sorceress would only end badly or he didn't have permission to do so.

When she asked what would demon look like, Alphonse had swung his head and said that he had never met a demon. They were so rare occurrences, and he had never seen confirmed accurate drawings about them.

The Sofia's clothes were returned to her as clean as new. She was also informed that she would be given needed amount of change clothes and some pocket money and a backpack when she would departure from the mansion. Naturally she would be in debt to the duke. Sofia was sure that this had something to do with the quality of her clothes and that she had identified herself as a sorceress. It might have been a mistake as the education-torture with the maid had made her realize that those who were able to use magic weren't that common. And even when someone could use magic, being a sorcerer or magi wasn't a rank that they would be born with.

Apparently magis were people that used the mana that situated inside of them. These abnormal people were like small ponds of mana and were able to use one type of the Dragon magic along with Tier-magic. Normally they would serve as churches high ranking members. Synonym for magi was "a blessed child".

And a sorcerer was the opposite of the magi. A sorceress was an "magi" that had nothing special about his inner mana, but was able to use mana that situated outside of the caster. Normally this had given sorcerers quite bad name, them many times being extremely unpredictable and sometimes going insane from mana that flowed from outside into them. A sorcerer would use Tier-magic which was a lower rank magic than Dragon magic. Normal human who wasn't magic user, could learn tier 1 and tier 2 and in some special cases tier 3 spells, but this would take stupidly long -- learning single-low tier spell in five years isn't very good time-to-results phase.

Finally the maid had left around 6 o'clock after Sofia had fallen asleep while exploring the simplified world map. As she woke up, it was still dark outside and heavy rain was hitting the roof. Lightning strikes could be heard faraway. She had tried to silently open the Logbook, but without success.

'Now the logbook. So how do I open you?'

"Open." Nothing happened.

"Open the Logbook." Nothing happened.

'Four limbs, one torso and one head, but no brain. Master, didn't you already try those?' It was a voice inside Sofia's head. But it felt like it was coming further away than last time.

"You are the one that spoke to me at the grass plain!"

'Yes. I apologize my joke was tasteless. Good that you are alive and seems you have gained a level too, but your arm is broken. I feel so useless, haaaaah. I should go and dive into a sword.'

"Why would you do that? And how did you know I tried to open the Logbook without words. You read my mind?"

Sofia was shaking little bit. This is bad, maybe? This thing called her the master so it naturally had some information about her, but still isn't reading someone's thoughts equal to looking their bank account while they took money out of an ATM?

"So where are you and what is that master thing? You know about all this, don't you. Tell me. What happened to me? Where is my sister? Where is my own body? And don't meddle with my thoughts."

After asking this Sofia felt something breaking inside her. A single drop of salty liquid hit the blanked under her. Confused, she rub her eyes.

She couldn't stop the tears from falling. So much had happened to her and eventually she, he, had gone forward with an autopilot just surfing along the current. So confused and so scared. It was clear that she couldn't remember something, but it was locked away. To him, it has been just a while ago when the room was filled with smell of chicken and rise. Cars had honked down at the street next to the flat and he could have just ordered pizza if he didn't feel like cooking. A cosplay maid and brute knights hustling around her like flies around a pile of turd and information sea that was poured on her, it was way too much. And her body hurt, it hurt like hell all the time. Maybe most of it was the arm, but something there was also homesickness. And in all of that, there was this feeling like a hole inside her chest - a bottomless well. And he couldn't get up. A frog in the well. And on top of that, he was called The Grim Reaper. Everyone's dream job for sure.

'The logbook has a password.'

"Huh, but why? How do you know?"

'Sometimes, things get in people's heads. But it is your logbook, I can't get in. Every Grim has one that's what I know about it so far. Master simply didn't limit my boundaries so I have been here all the time. Mostly sleeping though. I woke up just a while ago.'

"I see. I am still not trusting you completely. You are not allowed to read my thoughts unless I personally give you permission. It feels like I lose my personal space, something that is me if you do so. No one belongs there except me. You are allowed only to speak to me mentally. Don't do any weird shit, I have had my cup overflowing for a while now."

'I understand.'

"Now then, the password?"

'Well that is up to you master.'

"Uh... hmmh. Yeah."

.

.

.

First answer is normally the right one. Overthinking will only lead you hesitating and eventually failing, that was Sofia's father's advice when they had talked about school one evening when the real Sofia was crying over her having 9+/10 score.

That was so long ago, before the car accident...

"Open logbook, password: 16. --"

'Master, you don't need to speak it. Unless you want to tell me the password.'

"Jaha. Thank you."

'What ever you say master.'

'Open logbook, password: 16. 08. 2013'

The birthday of his sister and the year their parents had died.

Two things, he would never forget.

A list appeared in front of Sofia.

- Missions.

- Messages.

- Achievements.

- Status.

Missions:

"Tutorial, 75%:

Survive 24 hours - OK

Create sub-job - OK

Gather information - OK

Name your scythe - In progress."

"The Dark Fate, 0%:

Slay the Evil Soul - In progress."

'Slay the evil soul? If this has something to do with that Calamity Dragon bullshit I was told about...'

Logbook, Messages:

- New!* "This is a personal note that will be send to you after 24 hours of your awakening: I will wait for you until you come back. I keep you safe here so please keep me safe there. Thank you. I lo.. --."

- New!* "Notification: This is your first time leveling up. Leveling upgrades your physical,magical or skill abilities depending on how the level has been achieved. In this case the level has been achieved by taking damage. This has given your body's recovery rate and defensive abilities minor upgrade. Leveling will slow down considerably when your level increases. Have a good day and enjoy your level 2."

'She is alive! And safe... where!? What the hell was that message!? Ah, at least that one makes sense -- why my bones break so easily. I am weaker than an infant because my physical endurance is so low? No wonder I felt like my arm would rip of when I lifted that book that damn maid gave me. That's so unfair, this body doesn't look that weak at all. But I don't seem to be same as other residents in this dimension so probably that has something to do with this. Gotta think a name for that voice in my head. But my sister is alive! Just wait me where ever you are, your brother will come for you. I will get strong for you!'

Logbook, Achievements:

New!* Novice of Bullshit - You have gained passive skill - "Bullshitting" - that allows you to spout nonsensical diiba-daaba more fluently during high stress situations and your words and tone of your voice makes other people favor your story as long it is somewhat believable.

"Well that is pretty helpful. Anyway, so I need to name you miss scythe. Any suggestions? And where exatly are you? Inside my mind? But I did say you are not allowed to stay there."

'I am not inside your head. I am simply talking to you through our mental link. I am here, inside your rope. I am the lilies. I am the silver that you carry around. I need mana from you to be able to move, but that is not going to happen with your level, so I did the best I could and hide inside your clothes. Your are too weak for me to be anything else for now than speaking decorations. Thankfully you are now level two and your mana-pool has recovered. Last time we spoke, you were like an empty bucket. Now I can stay awake a little bit longer, but young master after you give me the name, I think I am going to sleep. Your mana is still barely enough to hold a conversation with me for this long, it is still the same bucket after all, but at least it was full a while ago. Would be preferable if you try to get few levels to raise your mana pool before we talk for the next time.'

'Level up!'

'Logbook, Messages:

New!* Notification: Your mana pool and physical endurance have increased 10%.'

'Master seems that using mana this heavily to keep up our mental link is already gaining you levels! I think getting initial levels will be considerable easy! Your bucket has grown a little bit!'

Sofia touched her forehead. It was burning. So this is what it means to use mana. She was like a computer trying to run too heavy software, but she manage to do it.

"Hopefully that is true. I am feeling a little bit sick. Oh god, it's coming." Sofia hold her stomach. .

'Master? Um... what is coming?'

"I am going throoooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOORG... !"

.

.

.

'I go sleep master. You don't look so good. I wait for our next time until you have rested well. Think a good name for me.'

And the scythe was gone. Sofia laid on the bed gasping for air. The meal the maid had gotten her and all the snacks that were swimming in tea were sprayed on the bed. At least Sofia's original clothes were safe inside the wardrobe.

Sofia slowly curled into fetal position and close her eyes.

'Close logbook.' What ever the "status" was, she would leave it for later. She didn't want to think anything for a while.

Staying steady helped her stomach to relax and she was hanging at the borderline of sleep and reality...

Then someone's heavy fist knocked the door two times.

The door was opened before Sofia could ask who the intruder was.

It was Tulian and an another knight Sofia had yet not met.

"Young lady Eleina has been poisoned! Miss sorceress, hurry!"

"Eleina, who?" Sofia asked as she fought herself up from the comfy of the sheets.

'Didn't they have a house-magus or something like that. Why am I needed here? Don't they see I have serious situation going on here.'

"Important person. Hurry up, we will carry you! Pecka help her up!"

"Huh?"

"Hii-op!"

"Not from the stomach! Don't... or I.."