That Time a Bookworm Got Ascended in Tensura

Ch.48

Tuuli's pov: 

Arnaud stared at me for a moment with a small raise of his brow. I had seemed to peak his interest for a moment as he did not take long to question this, "why would you like to know?" It seemed a few of the other knights were focused on me now, as if I had just said something important. 

I didn't need to question that, I just had to change the wording. "To protect Lady Rozemyne, for as long as I possibly can." I focused my gaze back at him, parroting the serious importance in the statement. 

Arnaud seemed to sigh for a moment, then looked off toward the table where Hinata and Rozemyne were sitting. It seemed another person had joined the table recently, but I didn't mind that. I simply waited until he responded, "There are two ways to do that. I am not fully sure I should be telling you, that being said I do like you." He smiled a small bit discretely. 

"Then tell me." I didn't want to play games with it, and just waited for a response while maintaining my gaze. 

"Fine fine, the ways I know of are bonding with a high level spirit, and a second way Hinata-sama used. I am not sure on the details for her, but I do know she had visited the dwelling of spirits." Arnaud explained, keeping the details vague. He gave me everything I needed, though. 

"Thank you." I realized that there was a bit of spatial distortion around us, and that the others could not have heard what he just said. 

"Now, I got a request for you. Since I told you that, I want you to come to Ruberios. When it is convenient, as long as you can promise you'll come." He seemed to approach this request in a bit of a vague way as well, I could not quite understand why he'd want me there. 

I took a moment to think something out, then responded. "I could ask Lady Rozemyne, and come when convenient for her." I responded while thinking through how to approach her about it. 

"You know you can just call her your sister? I'm sure you have noticed they can't hear us." He seemed to almost laugh for a moment while saying it. He did know, I assumed he had been forced to be tight lipped about it, though. 

"I won't let my guard down in public." I replied then nodded to his request, "That is my answer, now I think I've heard everything." 

He nodded back and I could see Lamprecht had seemingly been trying to get my attention for some time, I looked to him and asked, "What is it?" I looked around the room shortly after. 

"Hakurou-dono is going to be cutting that fish, it seems. Do you know what is going on?" He asked while glancing at me with a bit of concern on his face, it seemed he was a bit frightened by the fish in particular. It was a massive beast fish from the ocean, which were normally nearly impossible to kill. 

My gaze focused on Hakurou and I just smiled, getting a little  excited. "He has never made sashimi with a fish like that before, it is so good!" I exclaimed while getting a bit more focused now, and decidedly ignored Lamprecht for a moment. 

He seemed to be a bit annoyed and asked for me to explain again, a few times. 

I turned to him and finally did so, "Sensei is preparing it to be sashimi, it is a type of food made of raw fish sliced and dipped into sauces." I explained while still focusing on Hakurou's expert display, cutting the fish with a grace I could only hope to match some day. 

Lamprecht seemed confused by this for some time, incredibly confused. "Raw?" He waited for an explanation, but I would not explain at all. It was something one simply had to taste to understand. 

It did not take very long for Hakurou to finish, his speed with a sword and knife was incredible, and he had finished the entire fish in less than a few minutes. It took some time for anyone to take up the offer of the fish, finally it was a pair of people walking up to the Hakurou's  table at the buffet. The pair was King Gazel and Aub Ehrenfest, I wondered how long I'd need to wait. Though I saw Hakurou give me a glance the moment after Gazel and Sylvester assured the audience of the quality of the fish, he gave me a small hand wave to come over to him. 

I stood immediately, to a bit of surprise to the people near me and completely thoughtlessly went to Hakurou. "Yes, sensei?" I asked the moment I was standing in front of him. 

"Ohoho. You can never relax, can you?" He laughed at the jab, that I was fairly certain he knew was completely his fault. He then presented a tray to me, and gave me a wink. "I knew you'd want one of these, so take this tray to that table with you."

I smiled the moment he explained and excitedly took the tray into my hands, then immediately turned to walk back to the table. 

"One moment, to spare a comment. Don't get too comfortable with the boy until you know he can live as long as you." I had not even thought of that, and had in fact been suppressing all those thoughts, I suppose he just had to voice them for me.

I ignored it for now, though. I'd have plenty of time, and he had more magicules than me, so I was confident. "I'll think about that later." I replied, though honestly I was even unsure of Lamprecht. He was a noble, after all, from what I could tell a pretty high ranking one. 

Following this it did not take me long to get back to the table with the other knights, once there I set the plater in the middle of the small group. Arnaud looked at it greedily, which immediately alerted me I'd have competition. Though for now I had a good excuse, I'd need to poison test it for the rest of them. As technically I was the lowest ranking person at the table, though I was sure the sages had resistances to poison and would not be that effected. 

I stated this immediately upon sitting down, and smiling wryly at Arnaud. "I'll need to poison test it, won't  I?" I made sure to press the words down a bit to make it clear I thought it was hogwash, but also knew he'd have no response. 

Arnaud rolled his eyes and gave a small glare, Fritz accompanied him from the other side of the table. "I suppose you do, be quick about it." I'd love to do this more often. 

I quickly took a dish from the platter and took one of every cut, I'd think I'd be satisfied with that. I certainly was not as gluttonous as Rozemyne or Rimuru. Those two ate way too much, it was very wasteful. It was especially annoying from the perspective I knew neither of them needed food in the first place, I had seen Rozemyne go whole days without eating and just reading. 

Arnaud scoffed a bit at how much I took, but seemed to be able to still split another part of the platter between him and Fritz before anything could change. He then waited at me, staring and playing along with my ploy. 

I took a small bite of each cut, giving him some small amount of mercy and then smiling over to him. After that I spent my time slowly savoring eat cut separately. I made sure to dip the cuts in their respective sauces, to help improve their flavor. What was the weirdest part was the stares I was getting with the dexterity I had learned to use these chop-stick things with. 

"How do you even do that?" Eckhart was looking around them and tilting his head a bit to make sure I was not using a finger between the sticks to pivot them, which I was not. I had learned how to use them from Rozemyne, and had since improved beyond her poultry skills with help from Hakurou. 

"Just try it, it's fine if you need a finger between them at first. Though I would say not to do that, they become faster to use without that." I explained, I also glanced over to see how Lamprecht was reacting.

He seemed to just be staring at the plater with a bit of a mixed expression. Not quite ready to go into it yet, so I decided to intervene. 

"I will challenge you to another public duel if you don't try it." I said simply with a small grin, and a look over to see his face turn a little pale. "Spare yourself the embarrassment." I had managed to finally feel like myself again, around them. Really their magicule capacity was a lot less scary than it was before, especially now that I knew none of us were all that important in the grand scheme of things. I mean, did you see what just happened to Rimuru? 

Lamprecht picked up a small dish from the platter and grabbed a single cut, it was a rear cut. I assumed he was most interested in it for the color, although at least in my opinion it was not as good as the fillet cuts. A lot less flavor, and it is more salty. I decided not to comment and instead watched in amusement as he awkwardly tried to use the chop-sticks while dipping the cut in soy sauce. It did not take that long for the cut to get to his mouth, and he seemed to savor it for a moment after first tasting it. Though he also seemed to struggle with the salty taste for a moment, as his lips puckered slightly in distaste after a moment. 

"Seafood was a hard sell my first time trying it too. You'll get used to the salt." I said when he finished, I had already finished, though I wanted one more fillet cut. 

I glanced over to see both Fritz and Eckhart reaching for it, while seeming to glare at each other. Had Eckhart already tried it while I was focusing on Lamprecht? Guess he enjoyed it, that wasn't important now though, that cut was mine! 

Shooting my hand forward with my chopsticks, while lightly touching the hilt of Nahenlicht with the back of my palm. I immediately extended out my aura to stun Eckhart, and made a small flash of light in front of Fritz' eyes. This allowed me just a long enough window to grab the cut, though before I could pull it away, both of them managed to get ahold of it too. 

Fritz shot me a glare, and Eckhart seemed disappointed for a moment. Though, this seemed to just lead to the three of us making a small standoff. My hopes were dashed though, when Arnaud made a comment. "Don't you need to let us eat first? We all do have a higher rank than you." Damnit, he caught me, joining the standoff and stealing it from the three of us before giving me a devilish smile. "I believe I have the highest rank here." 

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Rozemyne's pov: 

'You know Rimuru-san is an otherworlder, and what one is, right?' I posed the question to Florencia first, just to see how much I may need to explain. I was not sure what her background on this was, though from what I had seen so far, she was primarily at work in entertaining visitors and formal occasions. 

It took one moment, while Florencia was looking over the menu from a hobgoblin. Though she eventually responded to me, and seemed a bit dismissive on this one. 'Of course, I've met several. Though they tend to lie about it, for their own safety I presume.' I supposed she knew more than even Ferdinand had, which was refreshing. 

I kept silent for a moment and considered what she said carefully before responding, since I was not yet as comfortable with her on this as Ferdinand or Lutz. I finally came to an idea of how to say it, though. 'What would you think if I was one?' I posed the thought to her while looking away, trying to seem just as dismissive. 

She seemed to almost huff for a moment out loud in a small break of character, before responding with a thought. 'You are really bad at concealing your feelings. Alright, so you are from another world? I presumed Japan like Rimuru, considering how comfortable you seem sitting this way.' I suppose she knew a little bit too much about formalities for me to be completely safe in these situations around her. 

I sighed out loud, which got a small glance from her to tell me to stop. I responded by sitting up straight again and pretending as if it did not happen. I then continued to speak to her in our minds, 'The answer is yes, I suppose you are right. I do need help. Yes, I am from Japan.' I responded in a bit of a resigned way before listening for her once more 

'I see, well I see no problem with that. From what I can tell the knowledge will be useful, though honestly your type are oddities.' She seemed to poke fun at us for a moment with a small jab, but otherwise her thoughts were as I had expected, so far. Of course there is always an exception to that, 'I'd like to learn about the music from your world.' That one was a bit out of left field, and it felt really genuine for a moment. 

'Oh? I guess I could give you some things, though that is a better question for Rimuru-san.' I responded with a bit of a surprise apparent in my inflection in my mind. I then thought of something for a moment, and had an idea of something to ask. 'Why did you initially agree to entertaining the idea of adopting me?' 

'Oh, I'd be lying to say I wasn't bribed. Ferdinand offered me several bottles of that new Rinsham stuff from the lower city, and even offered to buy all my food in Tempest.' She explained like it was sort of obvious, I guessed nobles did things like this all the time. Though I wondered why Ferdinand had offered her Rinsham, was my shampoo really that popular? 

'I see, that is a bit disappointing.' I thought back after thinking about the implications. 

She pursed her lips just lightly for a moment before sending me a thought again, 'Don't worry about that, it was all before I saw their memories. I do like you, I'd not have been sincere with you if it was just the bribe.' She replied quickly to calm my worries. 

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--2519 words-- 

--Tuuli's aura has a range of approximately 5 meters for full strength, a massive improvement from her previous spell casting range.-- 

(AN: Am getting back in the groove, and it feels great, managed to pump out the second half of this chapter in less than an hour by setting a timer for myself and listening to music with wattpad in fullscreen mode.)