Two days after Desmia made the most significant concession in her life as an earl's daughter, she stood alone in her lab absentmindedly dicing the silver sugar plums in her possession. On a whim she had decided to experiment with the plums as raw materials in an elixir instead of just snacking on them as they were.
In her right hand was a large cleaver almost too big for a child's grasp that she had snuck out of the kitchen without Saffron's knowledge. As her knife work could only be described as haphazard at best, plum juices and little bits of hardened silver candy coating splattered onto the surrounding counter space, ground, and old grey smock that Saffron had enforced on her.
The smock had been fashioned from a scrap piece of cloth that Lady Cattleya had once practiced embroidery on. From it, one could infer that Lady Cattleya lacked embroidery skills as the pattern of the Fairbloom family crest that she had tried to embroider over and over again, bared no resemblance to the original.
When Marysol had first seen her work, she didn't even realize that Lady Cattleya had been embroidering the family crest and had tactlessly asked her mother why she had repeatedly used the pattern of a moldy piece of bread to embroider with when she had far more beautiful patterns to choose from. How could she have possibly have known that those blue blobs that she thought were patches of mold supposed to be the blue roses on their crest?
When the silver sugar plums had been hacked into tiny pieces she stopped to stare at them with a gloomy expression.
I'm actually engaged to the Ice Block....It's only our first lifetime together and the God of Literature's stupid little "let's make them get along" campaign has already progressed to this state.
Although presently, she had more or less given up on resisting her engagement to Ferris, she still became aggravated when she thought about how the God of Literature was likely somewhere in the Godly Realm cackling at the success of his vengeful machinations.
Now that we've reached this point, what can I still do that would royally f*ck with that insidious lunatic's grand scheme?
She scraped the cleaver diagonally across the cutting board to gather the pieces of fruit onto the surface of the broad blade.
What would piss him off more than anything?
She chucked the contents on the blade into a melon-sized pot filled with water.
Let's see.....Wait a minute...I totally forgot! The God of Literature seems to be after the Goddess of Love!
She rested the pot on top of a small clay stove and lit the candle placed inside of it to begin heating up the mixture. Following which, she dipped a wooden ladle into the pot.
Sixth brother believes that these novels were painstakingly written in place of love letters for her, right? That's why he cares so much about them and that's why he flipped his sh*t when he found out we physically wrecked them.....But what if...what if I did more than just physically wreck them?...What if I wrecked the very essence of the stories themselves?
In this instance, Desmia was stirring the pot both literally and figuratively as her hand was busy stirring the contents inside her actual pot while her mind was stirring up an ingenious plan.
Yes...that's exactly it! That's how I can retaliate! I'll derail the trajectory of his sappy, melodramatic and clichéd romances and change the story to my own liking! If nothing goes the way he wrote it to be, that insidious fogey, the God of Literature will surely be infuriated!
In the shadowy recess where the stove was affixed, she snickered in a villainous way that was truly at odds with her sweet and lovable face.
All I have to do is find out how the original plot of each novel develops and then overturn it!
It was then that the mixture very slowly started to bubble. Strangely enough, the more heated the mixture became, the more its colours changed from purple-red to a deep green.
The real question is how? How am I going to find out about the novels' plot from inside the novels? Agh, now I wished I had read those back cover synopses more carefully when they were right in front of me!
Her face tensed as she wrapped her head around this dilemma.
Damnit, there really isn't a way is there? The only way for this plan to work is if I could somehow find a way to contact someone at home who'd be able to investigate the novels for me.
Her gaze abruptly shifted to the spot on her shoulder blade where her fourth brother's divine imprint would've been seen had it not been covered by her clothing.
For fourth brother to have placed a divine imprint on me, a strand of his soul has to be residing in my body right now. If I could devise a way to extract that strand from me, I might be able to use it to summon him into this world. Aside from the delay in development, spiritual arts seems to work the same way here...But damnit! I can't remember all the things I'd need to create a summoning array to summon an immortal.
It didn't need to be said but Desmia did not have too much experience with summoning. Like most immortals, she had been able to conjure up an image of a mighty beast with an incantation for fun or in battle, but those images were merely physical manifestations of her spiritual power. They did not "exist" prior to her bringing them forth. This was opposed to real and tangible summoned beings and creatures possessing spiritual consciousness that would've existed prior to her calling for them and would continue to exist once she sent them back to whence they came.
An authentic summoning required the use of a summoning array, an elaborate magic circle created by placing magical artifacts and materials in specific formations. Summoning was tricky because there were as many arrays as there were living things in the Mortal and Immortal Realms and a summoning would fail if even the slightest of errors were to occur whilst the array was being laid down. However, for humans, summoning was highly regarded because even a mortal without spiritual aptitude could become a summoner. Summoning only drew magic from the arrays laid down by the summoner, not the summoner themselves.
Two centuries ago, Desmia had once summoned a baby unicorn to the Underworld palace against her ex-tutor's objection because she had found a pill recipe that called for the tears of a unicorn.
When the unruly baby unicorn refused to shed tears for her, she had resorted to bullying him to achieve her purpose. She did this by convincing the unicorn that his family had sold him off to the Underworld royal family as a pet because his horn, the source of pride for a unicorn, wasn't as sharp or as shiny as his siblings.
Her bullying had worked splendidly as the poor baby unicorn had ended up not just crying, but sobbing and profusely at that. He sobbed so grievously that her entire private residence had flooded. This not only resulted in the washing away of some of her prized medicinal herbs but also a formal complaint later filed on behalf of the entire unicorn clan to her parents. No one was surprised by this development since it had long been known that the unicorn race as a whole was extremely protective of their offsprings.
To appease the unicorn clan, in addition to Desmia being punished with writing reflection letters for an entire year, the Twilight Goddess had also confiscated all of her summoning books and forbade her from summoning anything ever again.
Despite her mother's prohibition, as she still held some interest in summoning after the year, and as she honestly felt some guilt towards the baby unicorn and wanted to make it up to him, Desmia found a way to secretly gather the materials needed to summon the baby unicorn again.
Sadly, as she had arranged the array incorrectly from memory, this attempt went wildly astray and she ended up summoning a ferocious and gigantic winged serpent instead. As if that wasn't bad enough, the winged serpent even fell in love at first sight with both Laelynn and Raewynn and tried to kidnap them to become his brides.
At the conclusion of this second incident, the Twilight Goddess made it pointedly clear to her daughter that if she were to catch wind of her even thinking about summoning in the future, she would personally set her treasured elixir and pill storage room and everything inside it, ablaze. She then sentenced Desmia to two years of kneeling inside the infamously decrepit and desolate Hall of Eternal Repentance at the edge of the Underworld.
Desmia found out later that had it not been for her father and siblings desperately pleading her mother for leniency, she would've been sentenced to twelve years of kneeling instead of just the two. The Twilight Goddess had been that furious.
She also belatedly discovered that due to her parents' tremendous power and influence in the Underworld, no outsiders eventually found out about these two incidences.
While Desmia didn't forget her mother's explicit warning, she believed that summoning in the world of a book was a bit different than in the Immortal Realm and thus would not spark her mother's fury or jeopardize her preciously stored "babies" at home.
I know that a Heaven Splitting Mirror needs to be placed in the center of the array as the pillar but besides that I really can't remember. I'd have to consult a book or a master summoner to be sure.
"Ack!" Looking down she at last noticed that because she had been distracted, the mixture in the pot had long thickened and overflowed.
In a rush, Desmia put out the candle's flame. As she didn't have a cleaning cloth on hand, she carelessly used a corner of her smock to wipe at the syrupy green residue on and around the pot. As a result of Saffron's relentless nagging she had developed a habit of occasionally cleaning up after herself but only when she could be bothered.
Ah...what a waste. If I remembered correctly one of those tins would've cost maybe 40 silver pieces? Such a waste of ingredients.
She became somewhat dejected as she considered her plight.
God, being poor really is so dreadful. Since when did I ever have to care so much about the price of things?. I guess I should focus on what's in front of me before I can begin to plan my counterattack on that fogey huh. I really need to develop a moneymaking item that's just as good or even better than these candied plums.
She wiped her sticky fingers on an unsoiled corner of her smock.
I wonder what they use to make these anyways? I mean what kind of compound turns green after it's been heated? I should experiment with these more when I get the chance. Would they have written anything about the creation process on a little card and stuck it somewhere on the tin? I know a lot of handmade artisanal products from town tend to have those.
Desmia went to retrieve the empty tin from the countertop. Out of sheer laziness, she had never actually removed all of the wrapping paper from the tin. Now that she wanted to inspect the tin, she finally decided to tear the wrapping paper off.
Surprisingly, when she did so, a palm-sized envelope made of expensive looking paper gently fell to the ground.
Wow, they put their little information card inside a fancy envelope and even wax sealed it? My, my, aren't we pretentious?
She lowered herself slightly to retrieve the envelope.
When she held it up in her hands she saw that someone had printed "Big brother Rhys" in neat but still evidently childish handwriting on the front of the envelope.
Don't tell me...
Using a bit of strength, she unsealed the envelope and took out a folded letter from within.
After flattening out the folded edges, right away she noticed that the short message on the letter was written in the same handwriting that appeared on the envelope.
Dear big brother,
I know this gift is small but I really hope that it can make you happy, even if it's just a little bit.
Thank you for saving me.
Thank you for not being afraid of me.
Most of all, thank you for not hating me.
Yours faithfully,
Ferris
Even after reading the letter over a second time, Desmia wasn't sure how to feel.
Tucking the letter back inside the envelope, she unconsciously sighed. I was right. That brat actually wrote me a letter and it was one expressing his thanks at that. This is all too unfathomable.
In fact, while Desmia regularly received all sorts of letters and gifts from her family members in the Immortal Realm, she interacted with too few others to have ever received a letter sincerely expressing gratitude.
This kid is way too easily moved. I mean it's not like I purposely even meant to save him. He just happened to be there while I was seeking revenge for my fallen meat skewers. Yet, he even went as far as saying he.....likes..... me....... It's so unlike an ice block. Is this incarnation of him just that different from how he usually is or were all those rumours about him in the Immortal Realm all lies?
In that moment, she recalled Ferris' comment about truth and lies.
"Hm, "If many people believe in something then it becomes the truth even if it's not actually true," was it?"
Suddenly, Desmia had an epiphany. It was if everything around her just decided to perfectly fall into place.
The irrelevant truth. The concept of liking someone. A moneymaking gimmick. Altered colours. The Goddess of Love. The family crest. Lady Cattleya. It all comes down to this! I know what we can sell to get rich!
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After Desmia worked out what she might've needed to develop her new product, she speedily went to collect them from around the estate.
In the next week and a half, she spent almost all of her waking hours in her laboratory experimenting.
On the eleventh day of this, looking slightly haggard but utterly triumphant, she emerged from her laboratory with her completed creation.
Without washing up, she sprinted to the dining room where everyone was currently gathered for the morning meal.
As they considered their four remaining servants to be part of their family, unlike most noble personages, the Fairblooms had their meals with their servants at the same time and at the same table. Although the servants had vehemently refused this arrangement initially, after the earl sorrowfully confessed that he had troubles eating because he missed the feeling of having more than just two people at the table, they could bear to refuse no longer.
Before anyone could open their mouths to greet her "good morning," Desmia hid what she had been carrying behind her back and proudly announced, "I've finally done it, everyone!"
Almost immediately they all exchanged fretful looks as if they naturally assumed she had caused trouble.
"Um, what exactly have you done, young mistress?" inquired Kale.
A wide smile stretched across her tiny face. "I've found a way to get us out of debt!"
"........What?"
"Heh, you're so awed by my brilliance you can't even speak,right? Alright, alright. I won't keep you in suspense any further." With a flourish, she revealed her mysterious creation to everyone in the Fairbloom household.
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[Small Interlude: Flashback]
Clove: *Looking at all of the crumpled papers surrounding Ferris* Um, what are all of these, second young master?
Ferris: *Busy writing* Drafts...
Clove: For what?
Ferris: A thank you letter...
Clove: Who is it for?
Ferris: ・:*(〃∇〃人)*:・...A person...I really really like...