Cursed Heroine

Chapter 23: Elven Capital

I can’t help but be wary of what my reward from the Goddess might end up being. We left for the capital on a pair of domesticated wind wolves, a magical beast that is much faster than a horse and is capable of navigating the forest with ease. They are really comfortable to ride as well. A trip that would take a month on horse at a severe pace would only take us three weeks at a relaxed pace on these mounts. I only got to spend the first day riding behind Sophia before she forced me to ride in front so that I wouldn’t be tempted to ease my boredom by feeling her up. I ended up admiring the wolf’s fur that we were riding. I’ll need to investigate these wolves a bit in secret once we arrive. Maybe it has some sort of soft fur trait I can acquire.

From what I’ve been told, I won’t be particularly welcome in the elven capital. The surrounding elven communities have plenty of beastkin trading with them, but the capital precludes them for the most part from being present by enforcing rules that disallow them from buying property or gaining employment within the city. It isn’t set this way as a form of discrimination, but to create an environment for the elves to develop their own culture without too much external influence or dependence. The only exceptions were servants under strict magical contract. My own curse more than met the minimum requirements for such contracts. When the city finally came into view, I couldn’t help but be impressed. Everything looked elaborate and elegantly put together. When you live for a long time, good planning I guess is just in their nature. Before departing the inn from a nearby community, they each changed their outfits into some comfortable dresses to look nice for meeting Sophia’s grandmother. I as well was wearing my maid uniform.

“Anything I should know before meeting grandmother?”~Sophia

“Nothing in particular, I don’t believe she will dislike you due to your father. Sending an assassin to kill him is a possibility however, once we tell her about what happened to your mother all those years ago. Lilia would be welcomed as well, mother always was partial to cute furry animals. In fact, you may have to be somewhat vigilant of...well, you’ll see.”~Ellen

“Mille!!! My daughter finally came back to me!”~grandmother

A young looking woman suddenly appeared hugging Ellen and crying tears of joy as soon as we passed into Sophia’s grandmother’s estate. When we had passed through the city gates, I didn’t get nearly the same sense of danger from the guards as I experienced right now and those guards were definitely mid stage four gauging by their energies. This elf seemingly teleported in front of us and sent my senses haywire. I’ve never seen anything near her level of power and can’t make an accurate estimate from her energy levels. Looking around the estate I think I’ve managed to figure out what Ellen had meant earlier. There are at least a dozen house cats lazing around the property that I can see from the entrance. After much hugging and crying on both their parts, Sophia finally gets her introduction.

“Mother, it’s good to see you once again. Let me introduce you to your granddaughter, Sophia. The little one hiding behind her is Lilia, her servant.”~Camille

“WHAT!! You are not nearly old enough to be making babies. A half-human? Given the recent events, why do I have a bad idea about just where you have been all these years. Oh, sorry dear. I’m not at all unwelcoming of my own blood. Let me get a good look at you. You can just call me nana if you please.”~nana

With that, nana hugged her warmly and I could see Sophia finally relax her tension about meeting her nana for the first time. My happy thoughts at seeing a family reunited plummeted when I saw that nana had noticed me while her hug put her head over Sophia’s shoulder. Nana’s eyes were glistening with a similar fanatical gleam that I had seen before. Now I know where Sophia inherited that particularity from. Just as I was about to seek a new hiding spot behind one of the others, my instinct told me to run, but it was already too late. Before I could even take my first step, I had been secured from behind firmly and my ears were being thoroughly stimulated.

“You said this cutie is called Lilia? She can stay as well. Let’s all go into the house and have a long conversation about what has happened these past years you were missing, shall we?”~nana

Nana only gave me a brief respite when she grabbed my and Sophia’s hands to guide us into the house with a giggling sister duo following close behind. We end up in the sitting room, all three of us on a long couch with me in the middle. I’ve been practically laid out on the couch between them. My ears are being mofu’d by nana while Sophia has decided to stroke my tail. I tried and failed to offer to gather some refreshments and snacks. Ellen had done so instead with the incontestable reasoning that I didn’t yet know where things were stored. She did so while wearing a smile that seemed to be laughing at my attempted escape. They talked for several hours about the things that had happened to them over the years. Somehow without my conscious notice, Sophia had scooted up next to her nana and I ended up laying face up over both their laps. Her nana had continued to mofu my ears and Sophia had switched to rubbing my belly. All while I was purring contentedly. I only noticed my new position when they finally decided to stop and rest for the night.

“You don’t need to be so embarrassed. It was actually very cute how you ended up and it’s not like you didn’t have help getting to that position.”~Sophia

“No comment! Just go to sleep.”~me

We drifted off once again in each others arms. Her nana didn’t even make an attempt to show me to a separate room. She seemed to have convinced herself that I wouldn’t need one of my own long before showing us our room and I am sure this wasn’t a topic of their conversation. She had just smiled at us like she knew something and told us that this would be our room in her house from now on and to feel free to make any changes to it that we wanted. Since I had already revealed my inventory skill to her family, I pulled out the various luxury items I already had and redecorated the room.

When we got up the next morning, I helped with breakfast preparation while managing to avoid mofu attempts other than the occasional head rub to reward my efforts. I convinced the others through Sophia to allow me to clean up on my own and that they should discuss what plans they might have moving forward since all they did last night was to talk about the past. It was decided that Sophia would need to attend the academy and that nana would guide Camille to focus on catching up on the years of missed training time during her captivity. Ellen would have to return to her post at Wynfel in a few days.

After eating lunch, we went shopping to collect the necessary supplies Sophia would need for school and to get some missing essentials for her room. The aesthetic sense of elves was exceptional, perfectly fitting the cliche that elves love art. We ended up almost completely replacing her entire wardrobe. Once again, we also ended up in a novelty shop that Sophia noticed during our shopping spree. She bought something secret again and I managed to purchase some sound isolation enchantments that would work as long as the person charging the mana understood the runes involved. It is impossible to maintain a functional isolation spell while your mind is being sent into blissful oblivion. These crude enchantments would continue to operate so long as the mana is correctly charged. We would finally be able to get some privacy. At the very least, it would no longer matter how much noise we made while having fun.

When the shopping was finally done, we stopped by the academy to register Sophia as a new student. Unlike most human schools that have age requirements, the academy only has lectures of various levels on a fixed schedule with time for questions included at the end of each. The only requirement is to pay the fees for each lecture that you attend. She took a placement exam to evaluate her current understanding and then signed up for the recommended lessons. I’m given permission to attend alongside Sophia as her servant for a small additional fee and the understanding that I am not allowed to actively participate in the lessons. The lessons she signed up for included stage three magecraft, cultural studies, introduction to magescript, and basic math. Three of those courses are exactly what you think. The one about magescript is very interesting. Magescript as they call it, is the runes being written as a language of their own, using the same shape that the runes have to create language characters that can be used in writings that represent the intent of that rune. Runes written without being imbued by magic can be seen, but not comprehended in a way that would be helpful to a mage’s comprehension and development. This is something the elves have developed as a means to more easily familiarize their young to the runes before they can even comprehend its intent as a mage. Simply brilliant! Highest level courses are purely theoretical and don’t require a large fee to participate, but do require all lower level courses of that type be completed. There is even one for enchanting theory that would most definitely be the furthest along the correct path to true enchanting that Kat had mentioned in our last chat. I can only look forward to the time that Sophia can achieve that level.