As Bryson and Lila walked through the hallways of the manor, Lila noticed a few other people walking by them. None seemed to be staff, in fact all of them seemed to be commoners.
“I thought this was private land?” Lila asked as they walked along the hallway and towards the elevators.
“It is, but since we barely ever use this place and it is a large piece of land, so father turned this into a tourist destination.” Bryson explained as they entered an elevator opened and a family exited out past them.
Entering the now empty elevator, Bryson folded his arms and leaned on the elevator wall. The door remained opened, and the buttons remained unpressed.
“You- you’re suppose press the buttons for me.” Bryson said with a disappointed sigh and pressed the buttons himself, “How are you still so terrible at this, hasn’t it been over a year?” Bryson asked.
“Hey! Uh- sorry, but I was never supposed to be the head maid for a noble and you’re very bad at giving orders. I’m surprised that you decided to still keep me around.” Lila said with helpless shrug as the door closed.
“Well, it’s either deal with your incompetence or deal with sifting through nearly a hundred candidates with an hour-long interview each.” Bryson said.
“Oof, that bad huh?” She said with a wince.
“Yeah, I briefly looked over the list in the past, there’s an alarming amount that had combat training. And for some reason, all of them were women, a decent amount were even close to my age. Which was weird, but, oh well.” Bryson said with a shrug.
Lila pondered what Bryson said for a moment and as the elevator dinged as it reached the ground floor, Lila realized the implications of what he said.
“What?” Bryson asked noticing her reaction as he walked out of the elevator.
“Oh, uh, nothing… just, explained a lot about Gareth’s relationship with some of the maids.” She said absentmindedly. Recalling just how ‘personal’ his interactions always seemed with some of them, through the brief number of times she witnessed them.
“What?”
“You’ll figure it out in a few years.” She said quickly, “Still, I’m surprised that your father decided to make this a tourist destination. Also, I don’t think I’ve seen him anywhere.” She said changing the subject.
Bryson for a second wanted to pursue the subject, but then he realized he didn’t care that much about the subject, so he chose to answer her question, “Well-” He was interrupted when a few kids bolted past him, one of them bumping into him.
Completely ignoring Bryson, the kid paid no mind as he rushed to join his friends. Bryson gave an annoyed exhale as he glared at the fleeing child. I hate people. He fumed.
Turning back to Lila he continued where he left off, “As I was saying, normally father wouldn’t. But every other noble who received land did so, so he had to follow suit.” The two then headed toward the dining hall.
“Though, it has apparently been good for business, or so my parents say. Nevertheless he and mother decided to stay in their own private home a little away from here.” Bryson said as the doors to the dining hall swung open.
“Wait, they left their children alone here?”
“Well we have the entire top floor to ourselves and have a few servants and guards around, but yes.” Bryson answered as they walked into the dining hall.
The dining hall was a large room with rows and rows of self-serving trays. Various dishes of various cultures and lands filled each and everyone of the trays. People moved about the hall, picking and choosing what they wanted before seating themselves at a table to enjoy their meal.
“A buffet? I was expecting something a bit more formal.” Lila said in surprise.
“Well, a lot of people here fall under the commoner category here, rich commoners but commoners nevertheless. So, a buffet seemed like a good idea and apparently, it’s a good business strategy.” Bryson said as he headed towards the dessert section.
Lila quickly nabbed herself a slice of wild berry cake as Bryson created himself a sundae, finding himself a seat inside the busy dining hall he began to tuck in.
“So you’re just going to laze around your room after this?” Lila asked as she took a forkful of her cake.
“I wish, but apparently mother arranged for us to attend some sort of play.” Bryson said with disappointment.
“Sounds like it could be pretty fun.” Lila commented.
“Mm.” Bryson gave an unimpressed grunt as he continued to eat his sundae. As he savoured the chocolate and vanilla combination, something in his vision nagged at him.
Blinking a few times, the nagging didn’t stop. Bryson looked over towards what he thought was the source of his irritation and saw a man with long hair and sunglasses seated before a large table surrounded by laughing women.
Aside from the innate slightly strange sight Bryson was beholding, there was something peculiar to what Bryson was looking at. The man wore fine noble attire and seemed lean and fit. In one hand he was swishing around a glass of white wine, the other hand he was gesturing as he talked with the women as they fed him.
Bryson stared at this in confusion, it was a very strange setup that was laid before him. What’s more is the fact that this place is a buffet, with children and families moving about. Yet here this strange man was, surrounded by women wearing rather provocative dresses and doing some very loud flirting.
Bryson at this point felt a bit awkward staring and was about to look away before he realized something else was wrong with what he saw. This was a buffet for families near a beach and it was the afternoon, yet the women dressed as if they were having a night out adorned with jewelry and makeup, not for the beach and scalding hot weather, plus the loud flirting, which was very loud.
But despite everything, no one working there seemed to pay them any mind. Bryson recalled that this was never the case before, and it was unlikely that father would have allowed something like this. So why is he allowed to do this? He thought.
“Frost, give me your opinion.” Bryson asked Lila.
“Opinion on what?”
“On that, don’t tell me you didn’t notice that mess.” Bryson said pointing at the group.
Lila stared at the direction at where Bryson was pointing, “What? There’s noth- wait.” Lila said blinking a few times. Her expression changed at it seemed as if she noticed the man and women for the first time.
“Woah, okay. That is weird.” Lila said nodding. Looking around in bewilderment she asked, “Wait, why isn’t anyone else noticing them?”
“Same reason why you didn’t notice them until I pointed them out, magic.” Bryson said.
Focusing on it now Bryson could see it. There was a thin veil surrounding where the group was dining at. If it wasn’t thanks to his eyes, he would have missed them like everyone else. There was some sort of illusionary magic that allowed this, though it was pretty simple, once seen it couldn’t be unseen.
“So some weird-o is using magic so he can fool around with his girlfriends?” Lila asked.
“No… there’s something more about him.” Bryson said squinting at the man as he paid him no mind, “He himself is… funny looking, it’s not exactly just magic and the women… they’re a bit off.”
“How so?”
“Not too sure, if I activate my glowing eyes, I might be able to tell, but don’t really want to here.” Bryson said looking around the busy dining hall.
“He’s moving.” Lila said.
Turning back at the man, Bryson saw that he had sat up and proceed to leave, all the women seemed to watch longingly as he left.
“Wait here.” Bryson said as he got up to follow the man. He didn’t get far however, as he was walking forward, someone collided into him.
“Gah!” Bryson cried out as the entire contents of two milkshakes and a massive family size portion of salad fell on him.
“Oh! Sorry kid! Didn’t see you there.” The man who bumped into him apologized profusely.
Through the milkshake and salad dressing Bryson glared up at the man. He was a young man, around the same age as Nico and looked genuinely sorry. Wiping away some melted ice cream from his eyes, he was able to get a better look at the man.
The man was tall and fit, he had short curly black hair and a five o’clock shadow. He wore casual clothes and seemed relatively harmless. Except for the fact that it seemed as though he was covered with magic.
Damn it, I still can’t tell which magic is which. Bryson thought, while Primrose was able to teach him how to differentiate between certain types of mana, he still had trouble telling the differences in specific magical things. Not to mention that without his eyes glowing, studying magic was far more difficult.
Bryson also began to feel the eyes of those around him stare at the commotion that the man and Bryson had caused. Oh, so now they notice. Bryson thought angrily looking back at the man who was leaving, he was gone and the women seemed to be looking at one another in confusion.
Oh come on! Bryson was getting angrier and angrier every passing second. From the fact that his magic reading abilities were lacking, to losing sight of the weird man to the current salad dressing soaking into his shirt.
Lila seemed to feel Bryson’s growing tension and she quickly approached and guided him away before something broke. “Excuse me.” She said sweetly and guided Bryson away from the man.
Once they moved to a far more quiet place she tentatively asked him, “Are you alright?”
“No.” He said gritting his teeth, “He got away.”
“Yeah, that’s some bad luck.” Lila said as she began to wipe away Bryson’s face with a handkerchief.
“It was more then that.” Bryson said staring off in the distance thinking.
“Huh?”
“That guy was covered with magic items. Most people with wealth would walk around with one or two trinkets, he was practically coated with them.” Bryson said.
“So he purposefully stopped you from following the other guy?”
“Probably.” Bryson said shaking his head in frustration.
“Hey, look.” Lila said, patting on his still dry shoulder, “You lost him and that sucks, but you can worry about this later. Right now let’s head back and get you ready to join up with your family.”
Looking Bryson over she commented, “Honestly, if we don’t clean you up, I think I might get killed by your mom.” Making a face she added, “Though, I’m not sure if I can clean this in time.”
Bryson gave a frustrated sigh as he ran his hand through his hair. In a blink of the eye, his clothes and hair instantly became dry, the stains instantly disappeared.
Lila’s mouth hung agape witnessing the magic, “Since when did you learn that?”
“A few months ago, Primrose mentioned how very useful spells mages tend to overlook for more combative spells. This was one of them.” Bryson replied.
“So why in the world do you still have me do your laundry?” She asked while stashing away the handkerchief.
“Because it stills takes mana and effort.” Bryson replied.
“Didn’t look like it took much effort for you.”
“Well that’s because I’m pretty good.” Bryson said plainly, “Besides, I’m paying you for a reason. Now come on, I have a show to attend in a few hours.” Bryson said.
As Bryson lead the march back to his room, Lila gave a small smile when she noted that his mood seemed to have improved quickly. Giving a small shrug she followed behind him.
