169 Trolling and Familiarity

After dismissed the Salamander, Sheila stepped toward Mia whom immediately took a couple of steps backward subconsciously. She still finds it unbelievable for someone so strong to be protecting her, a mere beginner mage. As far as her background goes, she's just an orphan who got adopted to an able family, that is all. Usually, the one that required a strong bodyguard is mostly someone important that holds a position that not a mere beginner mage like her could reach even if she's given a hundred chances to do it. One that requires talent and hard work, all that she got on her is just pure hard work, but not that which is the most important of all, talent.

Without talent, no matter how much effort ones put in their job, the talented one would give a much better result at the end of it. That's why most corporate companies usually look for people with talent, the experience can be picked up, unlike the former where one is born with it. But thanks to Sheila, even a talentless people like Mia can become stronger just by defeating the monster in the Trial Tower. Although her MP is much more than average, if she can't even conjure a single spell, it's not worth it.

While Sheila's hidden in Mia's shadow, she noticed that when Adalia conjured her magecraft, the mana cost seems way higher and also wasteful. If she required 5MP for a single fireball, Adalia would cost around 10-15MP. With that much mana into her spell, one would think the spell would be powerful, right? But the way she saw it with her mana eyes, it seemed half of that amount got wasted instead. Once the spell has been constructed, there would be some leftover mana which would then dispersed to the surrounding instead of powering it up.

She can't help but thought that it's such a waste. Also, she began to wonder what's the difference between magecraft and the system's magic skill. After acquiring the skill by learning from the skill book, Sheila can conjure the spell immediately with nothing but a will. However, for magecraft, they are required to fully comprehend the knowledge of the spell, before they can do a test trial for conjuring the spell. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the spell would, one hundred percent, be manifest in reality. Almost 99% of overall students at Mage Academy would make a mistake during their first trial of conjuring the spell. 

"Umm...who are you?"

"Hmm? You didn't hear when I was talking to the assassin? I'm Shiro."

"...that's not what I'm asking."

Although she can't see the face behind the mask, Mia can somehow sense the intent in the latter's word which she assumed to be that of playful and familiarity. But she didn't remember having someone this powerful as her friend... nor have she acquaintance with one. Recently her friendslist has increased by two which is Sheila and Ria. She even noted it down in her diary, so if there's another one, she should have remembered it.

"I'm serious, who are you?"

Sheila heaved a helpless sigh.

"Fine, so be it. I am..."

Just when literally, everyone on the floor holding their breath, she paused and took a moment to observe the crowd in the distance before turning her head toward Mia and whispered. Although it's a whisper, for some strange reason, it is loud enough for the crowd to hear it even when they are far apart. 

"Your husband."

Of course, before she whispers the word to Mia, she didn't forget to change her voice into that of a man rather than keeping it neutral. As if finding her previous action is not enough to surprise them, she dropped yet another bomb. Looking at the way the people react to her joke, Sheila almost laughs out loud but she managed to hold it in by closing her eyes and think of something else to occupy her mind. Once her breathing has calmed down, she continues with her joke.

"Don't you remember me? I still remember the pinky promise we did at the Orphanage."

"...What?"

Currently, Mia's mind has turned chaotic with each word said by her. If one can see a health bar like in the game in real life, hers would have been left with only 10% because of how much damage she had received from that mental attack alone. Since her current figure looks very slim that can be mistaken as both male and female, Sheila can easily trick people even without showing her face by lowering her pitch. If Sheila were speaking with her real voice, Mia would have found out about it there and then. After all, both of them had spent a lot of time together in the Trial Tower for her training. She has become a lot more familiar with Sheila, at the very least, enough to recognize the latter if she heard her voice in public.

"I remember...it was the day where we got separated because an able family has decided to adopt you. And on that very same day too, under a tree, you also promise to visit the Orphanage but..."

"No...wait."

The way Sheila muttered solemnly like someone having experienced a painful heartbreak makes those who didn't know about them to believe her lies to be true. She also has the thought of removing the mask before disguising her face into a real man for a moment but decided against it. That might takes thing too far even as a joke, after all. But on a serious note, the disguise skill is truly fearsome as, if someone with the expertise in spy and stuff were to learn of this skill, that would definitely make them a dangerous opponent. Though even if they somehow managed to learn it, they might not be able to use it if they didn't have enough MP to maintain it like her.

Sheila drops down to her knees before looking up at Mia and resumes her performance. Looking at her panic and shock expression, she's on the verge of laughter but managed to reign it in. It might have been because of her performance feels like roleplaying a game character, she can somehow restrain her emotional outburst, thankfully. Or possibly she got the talent for acting? No, that isn't possible. For some odd reason, Ria could seethrough her acting mile away before she even begins. Is it something like this, you can recognize the difference between acting and their true self because you're already familiar with them? Or maybe it's just Ria have awakened to some strange power that only works on Sheila, that might also be a possibility.

"Have you truly, forgotten about it? I guess it makes sense considering how long it has been since then. But now that I have become powerful enough to protect you, you'll allow me to stay by your side, right?"

It seemed her acting was too real for them that some girls in the crowd were now in tears when they look at her. Even Mia began to doubt herself if she had forgotten about someone. 'What if everything of what he said is true? As far as I can tell, I don't remember much about my time in Orphanage, at most, the only memories I had is that I was too focus on studies.' thought Mia. Because her mind still messed up, she's unable to think straight and immediately assume everything that Sheila said, might hold a bit of truth in there. However, just as Mia is about to open her mouth to inquire Sheila about it, suddenly, everyone on the same floor can detect many footsteps from a distance where the elevator should be.

"Isn't that group of people...the nobles family that supports our academy when it was build or something?"

"Why are they here?"

"Is it because of the guardian's death that brought them here? That's the only plausible conclusion I can think of at the moment."

The crowd started whispering to each other upon seeing the group that had just stepped out of the elevator. Within the crowd, a few of them quickly hidden behind their classmates or friends as if they were afraid of being punished by the nobles for some absurd reason. After all, most of the students here were people born as a commoner. Also, a few of them had a bad experience with the young masters. No matter how much effort they put into their studies, there's still one thing that can't be changed, which is their bloodline. Once a commoner, forever as one.

Although the academy looks good on the surface, once a naive sheep decided to enroll in it without having any powerful backup behind them, it isn't that hard to imagine what their fate would be. It would have been fine if they become a servant for the nobles, but at worst...it might be better not to mention it.

'Hmm, they finally come out from their meeting room. I have been buying time for them... I'm glad that my effort didn't turn out to be a complete waste. I didn't forget to spread my awareness into the whole building the moment Mia stepped inside. Of course, there's some floor which no matter how hard I tried, I can't penetrate it like the other. I think it must have been the work of a strong barrier installed there, protecting some kind of secret that they didn't want the others to know, I guess? If I didn't feel their presence earlier, I might have gone into those secret floors to fill in my curiosity, too bad.'

Sheila gets up on her feet once she senses them before glancing at the crowd, noticing that some of them are trembling after seeing the group of people in neat clothes make their entrance. She didn't need to think further on what sort of people this group is, based on the reaction from the crowd. They have to be someone important that's for sure, but how high is their actual position is the real question. Sheila decided to go with a wait-and-see approach while also preparing herself in case things went downhill.

When the group makes their entrance, the first thing Sheila noticed is the emotionless woman at the front. She didn't know why, but she can sense a bit of familiarity in that woman, despite never having met her in her entire life. But that strange feeling immediately disappeared the moment she tried to look deeper into it. Sheila frowned and thought, 'Just what is this woman's identity? Even with my Photographic Memory, I didn't see anyone like her after looking through memories, yet that feeling... I'm sure it isn't just my imagination. And here I thought there won't be anything interesting in the branch. but it seemed my guessed has proven me wrong. Before I took my leave, I need to dig a bit of information about that woman, the others didn't matter to me. Otherwise, I won't be able to sleep properly tonight.'