RavensDagger - Black Apron - Max Level Archmaid - Chapter Seventy-One

First chappy of the day! I'm gonna try to do one or two more!

Oh! Btw, we're number 2 on RR! Ehehe! Nice nice! Thank you, everyone that went over and followed and rated and all that! You helped a ton!

Oh, here's some WIPs:

By Mingrix and Sebastien!

***

“No, Miss Fainting, we can’t simply change your assignment. Not so late into the semester. If you wanted to be accommodated to, then you should have filed the papers earlier,” the clerk said.

Eleanor felt weak at the knees, and it was as if someone had opened her bowels up and let out all of her insides. Still, she managed to bob her head in a nod and... really, just stand there. 

There were twelve groups for the assignments this year. Not a record number, but not far from it. The year was particularly packed, it seemed, and the competition for space was at an all-time high.

So, a one in twelve chance... and somehow she’s rolled snake eyes. 

“A-a-a-are you sure?” she asked.

The [Clerk] looked up from his paperwork, entirely unamused. “You’d think you would be happy. You’re on a team with plenty of betters.”

“R-right,” she said faintly. “Thank you, sir. Um... if I don’t show up?”

“Then unless you have a reason that was approved by one of the senior educators, you’ll be given a demerit and failed on the assignment,” the clerk said. He stamped something with a loud bang that echoed through the dusty basement office. “Is that all, Miss Fainting?”

“Yes sir, thank you sir,” she replied with a pair of quick bows. She spun and scampered out of the room as quickly as she could, almost tripping over her own skirts on the way out. Clutched in her hands was the paper with the details for her assignment. 

TEAM ONE

YEAR 104BE 

ASSIGNMENT: Replenishment of Eastgate. Monster subjugation.

TIME: 1 month + travel.

PROCTOR: (Er) Diaphonus Games

ASSISTANTS: Amos Smith, Isle Bluetang

GROUP MEMBERS:

Marcia Ambury (Prin)

Daisy Bloomeyes (Ldy)

Jaydon Carr 

Pierre Coalaxe (Lrd)

Harley Eckart

Eleanor Fainting

Jasmine Greenwing (Ldy)

Tulip Greenwing (Ldy)

Clive Horn

Edwin Teng (Prin)

All members are to convene in the Mattergrove Hall the day before departure. Retinue is limited to five (5) members per person. The Academy will not provide equipment or resources for retinue. Failure to accommodate your own assistance is considered grounds for failure of the assignment.

There was more. A whole second page with notes, warnings, and extra little bits.

It didn’t matter. “Oooo,” she complained silently to herself as she kept re-reading the name at the very top of the list. Marcia Ambury. That little (Prin) next to her name was just a tag informing the others that she was royalty. And she wasn’t the only one on that list. There were all of three other students that weren't lords or ladies or some sort. 

It hardly mattered that the assignment itself sounded like one of the harder ones. Eastgate... that was all the way to the east, way past Vasso’s Fist and next to the gap in the mountains leading to that desert, wasn’t it? It was just a small outpost town. Monster subjugation? She wasn’t sure she could handle that at all.

Not that it mattered. The assignment could have been ‘pick three flowers’ set in a field of them and it would still be a nightmare. An entire month with Marcia? She even recognized some of the other names on that list as some of the princesses’ favourite hangers-on. And they’d have their retinues as well. 

She stuffed the list into her already-full inventory, then reached up and grabbed her horns. “Ooooo,” she moaned. This was going to be the worst month in her life.

She had hoped that maybe, just maybe, that Faithful Maid would show up and make everything right, but it had been well over a week since she saw that message, and so far, nothing. 

It was just her against the world.

Again.

Well... maybe she could make the best of it? 

If she quit now, she could be well on her way to starting a career as a [Street Sweeper] or maybe a [Ragwoman]?

***

Pepper knew that something was up the moment Eleanor walked into their dormitory. It wasn’t just that the useless goat was making that noise she always made whenever she was stressed--she was always stressed, so the noise was like... wind in the trees, an easily-ignorable fact of life when standing close to her--but Eleanor was also walking with more of a slump than usual.

She considered getting up to comfort the young woman but she was also lounging comfortably, and for once she was actually ahead on some of her assignments. She could practically feel the next level coming on, and it was going to be a big one. 

When Pepper arrived at the academy she was nearing the end of her job as an [Apprentice Mage] and now she was nineteen levels into her [Red Mage] job in only two years. Her goal was to really push herself in her last two years here, and if she did particularly well, she might be a third-tier by the time she was done. That would be damned impressive, but it was the advantage that came with studying in a place like this. 

There were issues with the academy, but the quality of its education wasn’t one of them. The speed of her growth here was nearly impossible to match anywhere else.

It was why her family had spent so much to get her here.

They would have preferred if she went all-in on being a [Merchant] but she had some older siblings that took on that role. Besides, she’s spent three years as a [Merchant’s Apprentice] and hated it. 

Magic was her true calling.

Magic, and figuring out what was wrong with that idiot goat.

She could hear Eleanor whining in her room... now she wouldn’t be able to study. Urgh. Pepper stood up, leaving her books and notes in place. She brushed down the front of her skirts, then stomped over.

She didn’t like Eleanor. The girl was a wet mop with all the courage of a particularly flighty squirrel. But she liked... bullying Eleanor.

Pepper couldn’t help it. No one should look that pathetic. With big pinchable cheeks and those little sounds she made all the time. It was like the gods had looked down upon all of their creations and mashed the most innocent and triggering parts of them together to create the perfect specimen for a bit of torture.

Pepper would have been more than happy to be the one to vent her stress out on the pathetic creature. But no. That dumb idiot Princess Marcia (words she would never utter aloud, because she wasn’t an idiot) had staked her claim first. 

Utterly unfair! Just another sign of Aerie’s nobility overstepping.

She didn’t even knock, just entered Eleanor’s little room and stood there with her arms crossed. The pathetic goat was on her bed, face stuffed in her pillow and legs splayed out. “What is it this time?” Pepper asked.

Eleanor made some pathetic noise again.

“I don’t speak loser,” Pepper said. “Elaborate.”

Eleanor sighed. Then she pulled a piece of paper from her inventory and left it on the edge of her bed. Pepper moved over and scooped it up. She was only one name in when she saw the issue.

“You moron. Didn’t I tell you to sign up early? Honestly, this is exactly what you deserve.”

“Ooooo.”

“Yes yes, you’re very sad,” Pepper said with some snap. “This is a mess. A month with her... she’s going to make you even more pathetic by the end. Wring you up like a wet towel.”

“Oooo.”

“Mhm. What a bitch. Well, you’re screwed. That is, if all you do is lay there and cry. Why are you laying there and crying? Do you want to be the princess’ plaything? Come on, up! You’re wasting my time with all of this patheticness. Come on. There are others on this list.”

“Yes?”

“Yes!” she snapped. She rolled up the paper, and when Eleanor looked up, she smacked the goat between the eyes with it. “Go look for them, idiot! You’re going to need friends, or at least allies, to survive this. If you go off and die on your assignment because you had the charisma of a dirty sock I’m going to be exceptionally cross with you.”

“Oh...”

“Yes, oh. Wipe your face, dammit. If you have time to cry, you have time to study. Why aren’t you in the library looking up the assignment? Or talking to the proctor, or at least his assistants?”

It took some effort, but soon enough she had bullied the idiot out of her dorm room. 

Pepper stood there, shaking her head. Then she looked around and scanned the room. It was neat and relatively tidy. Moreso than some other’s rooms, especially given that Eleanor didn’t have any help. There were stacks of books on several desks, and maps pinned to the walls. 

“Hmpf.”

The girl might have been a wet rag, but she wasn’t entirely stupid. She was just pathetic.

***