Not only did the monster flat-out refuse despite Draklim’s–Or rather–Milkard’s best efforts, but she also made sure that everyone ate their meal in full. Nothing was left of the goblin heads apart from the skulls and teeth.

  Everything else was force-fed to the knight trainees, and the person who tried to resist got one of their thumbs severed and then fed to them without delay… It was safe to say that no one felt like opposing the master of this place.

  Not like it was possible, the young noble could tell with just a glance that she was way too strong for them to handle. By all means, they were still mere regular humans overall. They hadn’t developed any strength relating to any way of power, none of them even knew how to properly circulate energy… Well, everyone apart from Milkard, that is.

  As a high noble scion, he had naturally received teaching pretty much from the moment he was born. He had been raised in an environment that favoured the development of magical capabilities, on top of receiving a diet that had nourished him to the point that it wouldn’t actually be false to say that he had very little to do compared to a human peasant at this point.

  But still, he was young and inexperienced. Not to mention that his talent in energy manipulation was not that great. He could circulate his inner mana just fine, but when it came to actually wielding it, he was nothing more than a beginner who was liable to mess up the simplest application.

  He would laugh if the situation weren’t so grim. He had run away from home to join a knight establishment because he admired his knightly ancestors, but his parents were more interested in raising a mage than anything else. Nowadays, everyone seemed to favour the typically feeble-bodied casters over the physically powerful, preferring to strike from range and with high power.

  It was well known that energy-based attacks penetrated defences with ease, so the durable body and armour of a knight, which had been forged through relentless training and tempering, but whose creation had not involved any sort of energy, was surprisingly vulnerable to magic.

  So the Vomhargon family, known for its lineage of powerful warriors, who had given several champions or heroes in service of Rootriska, desired to follow the current vision of combat and warfare, and produce a powerful mage.

  None of the current children were showing promise, however…

  And now, Milkard found himself in a situation where he was outmatched completely on the physical scale. Only magic would be able to save him, but he was incapable of using it.

  Was fate perhaps playing a trick on him?

  As he thought, he did not notice the monster’s approach until she got right in his face.

  “Mmh~ Is this… Is this sweet, sweeeet despair that I feel from you?”

  Milkard swallowed his saliva, not knowing whether this was just a figure of speech or if she was literally sensing his emotions. It could frankly be anything.

  “You… You have a beautiful singing voice, Miss…”

  He said with a wry smile, at the point things were at, he might as well try compliments and praises to get himself out of this sticky situation.

  The monster grabbed the young noble’s head. Her hand was huge, easily wrapping right around his skull. The touch of her metallic fingers was cold and oppressive. A single twitch, and Milkard’s eyes would pop right out of their sockets.

  “A–Are you implying that my regu–lar–lar voice is not beautiful?”

  Milkard felt outraged by the rather twisted interpretation she was making out of what was supposed to be a compliment! But he maintained his wry smile.

  “N-Not at all, I was merely noting how much of an incredible singer you are… May I… May I ask for your name, Miss?”

  He had no idea if a monster would have a name, but he had to try something.

  “My–My name? My na–name is Mara Nebulo, ever heard-eard of it?”

  “Mara… Nebulo?”

  Milkard knew that last name. It was rather famous throughout Rootiska and even beyond! But the only person he could think about who bore this name was a most human man, not a female monster… It was the name of a genius who had basically invented a way of power using a method that remained secret to this day.

  First of all, he had first gained notoriety by vastly improving upon the entertainment automatons. Turning these mechanical creations into incredible entertainers, and making their creation so simple and widespread that even some small towns had places featuring them.

  Some of the characters that had been invented through the use of automatons dressed in suits are widely known nowadays. Some court jesters had even been replaced entirely by more advanced versions.

  But that had only been the beginning. Although Milkard wasn’t clear on the details, Nebulo had invented many more devices, but they were tightly kept under wraps so as to prevent the technique of creating them from being leaked to other nations.

  In short, this man had revolutionised several areas of crafts, entertainment, and even warfare. Anything mechanical that he created was simply incredible, and try as some might, no one was able to reproduce his creations. It was as though an ingredient of his genius was simply innate and inseparable from him.

  Milkard thought hard to figure out who this ‘Mara’ Nebulo might be. Was it a coincidence that they shared the same name? Had she just decided to use the same name as him for some odd reasons, or was it…

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Within noble circles, there was one incredibly prominent activity. Namely, gossiping about other nobles.

  The upper echelon of society just loved rumours, scandals, and slander. No one was spared, and even the most ludicrous of rumours would spread like wildfire, growing more and more insane with every person who repeated it.

  Apart from rumours about a rather unexpected marriage, there was a common thing that often came up about Mister Nebulo, and it was that he used to have a sister who simply went and vanished one day.

  It had been more than twenty years since that supposed sister had disappeared, but the rumour refused to die down because of one simple fact… Just before her disappearance, she had been entangled in a rather sordid affair, and although the evidence against her had apparently been as unsubstantial as possible. The simple fact that she went missing afterwards was incredibly suspicious.

  Was Milkard tied to a chair, stuck with a murderous woman who had somehow turned into a monstrosity?

  He wanted out. Now.

  “Isn’t that… The name of a killer?”

  A trainee decided to go and make a very unwise remark aloud. What sort of fool would say that in the face of the killer? Especially when you were at the mercy of said person!

  Mara Nebulo turned to the unfortunate speaker, and with a frightening burst of speed, got right up to them, maw wide open over their head.

  “WAIT, WAIT! I DIDN’T MEAN TO-”

  “Ah… Little idiot–fool, I am just mess–messing with you”

  Everyone heaved a sigh of relief as the monster retracted its jaw, but just as the unfortunate speaker seemed to relax, their head was crushed. Blood was projected all over the place, and a sharp shard of bone was even sent flying with such speed that a bloody cut appeared on Milkard’s cheek.

  “This. Is how I mes–mess around”

  The monster laughed like this was the most hilarious thing in the world, leaving the now headless corpse to spurt blood as she went back to sit down.

  “N–Now… Let’s play a game. You will all hold your breath, and the first to inhale, exhale, or fall unconscious, will die”

  She clapped her hands, and immediately, the atmosphere got even worse. No one dared not do as she asked, and as such, everyone began holding their breath as instructed.

  It only took a minute before someone failed, and subsequently had their head ripped off.

  “Next… Ho-How about I kill the one w-who gives me the worst compliment?”

  Not only was she a murderous creature, but she was narcissistic as well. The ‘games’ she forced her captives to play either guaranteed that someone would be killed by the end of it, or involved forcing them to praise or worship her, and she would still murder someone at the end of those.

  By the end of it all, blood had been sprayed on just about every surface possible, and torn-off limbs decorated the room… The last one remaining mostly unharmed was Milkard. Not everyone was dead, but the others included someone who had had one of their arms separated from the rest of their body, another whose spine had been partly crushed, and then someone whose intestines were experiencing the outside world.

  So effectively, they were as good as dead and weren’t going to be of this world for much longer.

  “Alright, B–Buddy. Why don’t you te–tell me why a noble is mingling with low-lives like th–these?”

  She leaned back in her chair with her legs crossed, which definitely did not look right at all… The atrocity was behaving like she wasn’t an abomination of steel, but a most beautiful and well-educated woman, and the weirdest part was the five ghostly girls who were trying to mimic her.

  “I… I merely wished to instruct myself in the ways of knighthood. My parents wish me to be a mage instead, but that is not my true calling, so-”

  “Blablabla… All I hear is stupid non–non–nonsense! You are lying to ME! You–ignorant–little–twat! You–think–I–never–dealt–with–your–kind–before?!”

  “Peasants, bourgeois, and FILTHY p-peasants alike lined up for a chance to have a word addressed to them–them. Next to me, the–the princesses and noble beau–beauties were nothing. I he–held all the charm. The pan–pants men wanted a way in were mine and no one else's”

  “What?”

  Milkard was genuinely confused, not only by the rapid firing of words that came out of nowhere, but also by what the monster was spouting. Could one really be so egotistical?

  “Do no–not ‘What?’ me. What I am say–saying is th–that I know when a man lies to me in cer–certain circumstances. YOU, My Frien-Friend… You ran away because of a girl”

  “This… How do you know that?”

  “I litera–literally just explained how, you dim–dimwit! Do explain, if you stor–story is funny enough, I might–might just consider letting you go without only two broken arms and without your teeth and tongue”

  A cold sweat coursed along the noble’s spine. He really had to be in a bad situation for the terms she just enunciated to actually sound pretty good. Being alive certainly sounded better than the brutal, or excruciating death his fellow trainees had to go through.

  And besides, he was from a great noble family. He could find a competent healer to mend the damage.

  He cleared his throat.

  “I did not wish to go through with an arranged marriage”

  “Boring”

  “I… I can elaborate… I should still have a picture of the girl I was supposed to marry in my front pockets over here”

  He motioned with his head, and a translucent ghost reached out to grab what seemed to be an image captured using magic. Many remembered when those became prominent. Many nobles preferred the time when they used drawings, as it allowed them to beautify the heir they wanted to marry off.

  Images made this way, however, could hardly be falsified, and unlike a drawing, you couldn’t blame the differences with reality on the artist you had hired.

  Mara Nebulo and the five spectres all looked at the picture.

  “Are you ma–making fun of me?”

  “No, why do you say that, Miss Nebulo?”

  “Look at this, this g–girl… I might consider myself the m–most beautiful, but I can relent points in other areas of attract–attractiveness”

  She spun the picture around, pointing at the girl depicted.

  “This girl is so absurdly–obscenely cute… Even I would hesitate to tear her limb from limb! Th–There is literally nothing wrong with her!”

  “Wha–What? Does she have a fo–foul personality? It shouldn’t matter, you–you are the man, you’re supposed to tame her–her”

  “Well… No, she is very nice and sweet too…”

  “WHAT. THE. HELL. IS. IT. THEN?!”

  “I am not in love with her, is all”

  “This isn’t funny at all, Buddy. I–I am going to carve out your HEART and EAT it”

  “Wait! Please wait!”