Polymath Redux – Enter! The clumsy maid and the devilish butler
Chapter XI
As the morning sunlight, accompanied by the chirping of early birds flooded into the room of a small inn located on the corner of the city, a single man sat on his bed in deep contemplation. His eyes furrowed upwards and dark lines were drawn under his eyes, Mordred, forgoing sleep, he had stayed up all night just thinking about his next movements and how to deal with the obstacles at hand.
He had been wearing his usual attire of a white overcoat and vest, though he would only do so inside the Vardis inn. When leaving he would change into his slightly damaged suit of armor.
“Dragon King… Hywel Knights…. OMEGA ranked adventurers…”
Last night his familiar had come to report on what she had witnessed during her trip to registering as an adventurer. There was also the fact that she asked for permission to burn the place down, which he immediately forbid, but as he had expected it may have been a bit too hard for Irina to work solo on this. However there were no other choices, she would have to deal with it.
In any case Mordred had repeated those three things all throughout the night, just thinking of ways on how to deal with them. Whilst right now they posed no direct threat to him, that would surely change the moment Irina and Morgana stepped up to the public stage. When that time comes it was a good idea to prepare countermeasures for potential threats.
The biggest problem for him right now was that he had no information on them. Not to mention, just from the name alone ‘Dragon King’ sounded like a tough opponent. However what interested him more was that the adventurers had commented on about how the Dragon King had recognized the group known as the ‘Hywel Knights’.
This told him two things, the first being that the race of Dragons weren’t hated as much as the demon race was and the second being that the Hywel knights were a bunch to be weary of. In fact, it should be noted that all OMEGA rank adventurers should be kept an eye on, he needed information on how many there were and how strong each individual member was.
Perhaps it was necessary to ‘test’ the strength of these adventurers. Apparently there was a ‘quest request’ system where normal citizens could put up jobs on the quest board and adventurers can choose to accept them. Of course this meant that the requester had to pay for the reward of the mission and some of the money would be sent to the Adventurer guild as well as a form of tax.
Naturally the more difficult the job the higher the rewards had to be. Nonetheless merely that amount wasn’t too much of a problem for Mordred as he had ample of rare equipment, precious gemstones, gold or whatever that he could put up as a reward.
“I guess I have no other choice then.”
Whilst he wanted to join the Xagontetian military as soon as possible, it was better for him to learn more about his surroundings before doing so. As he was thinking there was a small knock on the door.
“Yes?”
Mordred asked.
“Ah, it’s Rena, I was wondering if you wanted to have breakfast.”
A soft voice came from beyond the wooden doors.
“Yes, of course I will be down soon.”
“I understand then I will get everything prepared.”
There were technically only three people in the inn right now, Irina had gone off to the Adventurer’s guild early in the morning to avoid the hustling of people. Apparently she hated associating with them that much that she tried to pick an off peak hour to accept jobs. Though Mordred wanted her to operate at the time with the most people for maximum efficiency in gaining fame he didn’t particularly want to force her that much.
Yda on the other hand was noisily sleeping in the next room. All throughout the night Mordred could hear her constant snoring, to the point he had wanted to smother her but he decided against it. Despite all of her protests about her current lifestyle she was forced into she had gotten complacent extremely quickly.
Rena was also fairly busy preparing food and what not.
Morgana had been unsummoned but now that morning had come up it was time to summon her again. Though it didn’t take much effort to keep her summoned, in fact it didn’t take any effort but Mordred liked to keep things simple and turn off the lights when he wasn’t using them.
Once more Mordred’s shadow expanded and a doppelganger was summoned with Morgana’s appearance. Her appearance was as impeccable as always and the refreshing smile she gave him while twirling around and gracefully bowing only made her that much more precious. Though she was still a part of him in the end so he didn’t feel anything beyond amusement.
“Good morning.”
She spoke out.
“Morning.”
It felt a little odd, kind of like talking to oneself through the mirror. All of her movements were natural as though they were from a fully sentient being, she reacted intelligently to outside stimuli and even answered questions in the most appropriate manner without even being ordered to. Almost like another person entirely, the only reason why Mordred didn’t consider her another entity was because he could constantly feel the connection he shared with her. It wasn’t something anyone else could understand except him and his doppelganger.
“I’ll be downstairs, call Yda and come down.”
As naturally as he could, if you could call talking to yourself ‘natural’, he issued orders to his doppelganger. Morgana smiled and bowed once more as Mordred left the room to wash up and head downstairs for breakfast.
…
“Yda… it’s time to wake up.”
Morgana had entered Yda’s room and gently tapped her on the shoulders. Yda made a face that seemed to say ‘five more minutes’ but after Morgana called out her name once more in a soft ‘Yda…’ voice, she woke up willingly.
“Mmm~ Mistress?”
For some reason Yda had taken to calling Morgana, ‘mistress’, though she didn’t show any inclination of calling Mordred ‘master’. Though in the end that may have been Mordred’s goal all along.
“Good morning Yda. It’s time to wake up, we’re about to have breakfast.”
Morgana answered with a soft and womanly smile. The glistening rays of the sun pouring onto her as it accentuated her womanly charm and posture. It stunned Yda for a few seconds as she gazed into her light blue eyes in wonder, before snapping back to reality and noticing her face becoming blushed.
“A.. ah, okay mistress. I’ll just wash up and come down.”
“Fufu~ that’s good then. Mordred and I will be downstairs.”
As Morgana left the room, Yda couldn’t take her eyes off her and stared at her exiting figure. She could feel her heart beating faster than normal, ‘odd’, she thought considering she hasn’t been moving at all.
…
“Umm… where is Irina?”
Yda asked as she came down to the lower floor for breakfast. The first thing she noticed was Morgana’s womanly figure sitting at the table, followed the smell of delicious food then by an absence of the greatest guard dog.
“She went to the Adventurer’s guild.”
Morgana answered her.
“So early in the morning?”
“Yes.”
Though Yda wanted to ask more questions on why she felt like she shouldn’t or rather she felt as though the answer wouldn’t be conducive to her heart.
“Good morning Miss Yda.”
Rena greeted her with a smile. Yda wasn’t particularly bad with the demon race as most people were. Honestly, up til now they were also just targets as much as other people. Well, there were times when she felt pity about how they were being antagonised by the people, especially the lackeys of the church. Outside of that however, she viewed them as just ‘other people’.
“Good morning Rena.”
Yda responded and breakfast had continued on in that peaceful manner.
…
“You needed something from me?”
After having breakfast and Yda helped with cleaning up, she was summoned up to Mordred’s room. There Mordred sat on his bed with his ever-so arrogant smile and posture, with Morgana sitting on a chair in the background.
“Yes. I want you to use this.”
Mordred went through the motions of rummaging through his trouser pockets and took out a small egg from his [inventory]. The egg was silver, as in the metal, and had a magic circle engraved on it.
This was an [insignia] a similar kind to what Mordred had used to summon Irina. Since one person could only have a single familiar at a time, Mordred was naturally unable to summon a new one, thus he decided to use Yda and make her summon one in his stead, though it wasn’t quite known if it was possible for the residents of this world to use [Hellgana] items.
Of course the main problem was even if it she was able to summon it, since her level was so low it would only serve as an extra hand. For this reason Mordred had to choose a familiar with naturally high specs to make up for the difference in levels.
Yda stared at the small metal egg in her hand, it was adorned and decorated with an elegant design yet she knew that nothing Mordred ever gave her could be good. She lightly remembered the collar that was still on her neck and stared back.
“Don’t worry, this isn’t anything dangerous.”
“You say that…”
Mordred couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. At the very least she was learning to not trust people so readily, that kind of quality, the kind that could make decisions for themselves is the kind of person Mordred wanted his subordinates to be.
“Well I won’t be so cruel, if you don’t want to use it, you don’t have to. I won’t force you but using this would probably make your life a bit easier.”
Yda stared down at the egg.
“… What is it?”
“It’s called an [insignia], it’s used to summon beings to become your familiar.”
“Wait, does that mean Irina was also summoned using this?”
“That’s right.”
Since there was no real difference between a summoned monster and a normal monster, there really was no point to her surprise. Perhaps it was surprising to her that such a high level monster could be summoned to begin with. She gulped as she glanced once more at the egg in her hand.
‘With this I can have my own familiar?’ Yda thought to herself. Though she had practically ended up as a slave, she herself never really thought about being a master to something but she couldn’t say that the prospect didn’t interest her.
“Just what kind of monster am I summoning?”
She asked for confirmation.
“A ‘Devil’.”
“Eh? Wait… aren’t devils one of the strongest demons in existence?! Actually isn’t the demon lord himself from the devil race?!”
Yda screamed out in panic, she felt extremely bad even holding such a egg, was she even worthy to be holding onto such a precious egg that could summon a goddamn devil?!
“I’ve no clue what race the demon lord is, but yes. devils are indeed strong.”
Even in [Hellgana], there were enemy NPCs that were of the devil race. Indeed just like Yda had said, devils were one of the stronger of demons. In fact the [insignia] that Mordred had just given to Yda, the [Insignia of the Silver Devil King] was actually a mid boss of a dungeon.
Unlike Irina, the silver devil king wasn’t a unique monster so it was possible for normal players to obtain this familiar. However since this monster only spawned once during the dungeon as a mid boss and coupled with an extremely low drop rate for the [insignia] it took literally months for Mordred to obtain it. After many attempts at the dungeon had finally obtained it, so it pained him a little to be giving it out to Yda like this.
However this was the best choice as the silver devil king had two classes unlike normal monster familiars who only had one. Those classes being [magician] and [Puppeteer]. Even with his level being weak it should have a myriad of skills to overcome that particular weakness and at the very least would be on par with an OMEGA ranked adventurer.
“Umm, so how do I summon him?”
Yda asked.
“Just concentrate hard enough on summoning him.”
Mordred answers vaguely, leaving Yda in a confused mess, but she closes her eyes anyway tries it out. Soon the egg engulfs the room in a bright light and a harsh wind circulates them, prompting Yda to think that they should’ve done this outside. After a while everything calms down and Yda’s shadow starts expanding. Appearing before them from her shadow is the silver devil king.
Smooth black hair, thick curved ram horns, ruby eyes hidden behind elegant small framed silver glasses, a slightly muscular figure that’s hidden behind shadowy robes and a thin black tail. Its bat-like demonic wings and gloves aligned with silver coating. It bows forward seeing its new master.
“It is an honor to serve you, my master.”
It bows towards Yda.
“Eh? Me?”
“Yes.”
Yda looks towards Mordred, she had thought that it would serve Mordred and not her since she was like a slave to him. However this devilishly handsome and powerful looking… devil who was also taller than her had called her his ‘master’. She felt exhilarated at this fact and had a dumb smile on her face.
“You should give him a name.”
Mordred told her, looking a little disinterested but also a little said that he had given away such a rare item. That being said, he was probably never going to use the devil’s [insignia] since he already summoned Irina. He had tried to quell his hoarder spirit as best he could.
“Yes, I would be most honored to receive a proper name from my master.”
“Oh, okay then… how about… ‘Grimal’?”
She asked.
“Yes, I shall accept that name, from now on I shall be known as Grimal. Thank you for this glorious name.”
Yda turned to look at Mordred but all he gave was a shrug.
“Well I guess that’s fine. In any case, you two put these on.”
Mordred threw at them two sets of clothes, Yda didn’t even know where or how he took them out. One of them was an elegant black butler uniform and the other was a slightly frilly and pretty maid uniform.
“Where did you? I mean why do you have this?”
“It was from an event. Anyway just don’t question it and wear it.”
Grimal accepted the uniform and wore it without hesitation, ending up as an extremely capable looking butler. He had to hide his wings and tails using magic to look more ‘human’. As for Yda she also did the same, though she did feel a little embarrassed about stripping in front of them but Morgana came and helped her out.
“What’s this for anyway?”
Yda asked as she finished dressing up.
“That is, you two will be assigned as Morgana Daltress’ maid and butler.”
Rebirth Online World 