She looked incredibly young, like a fragile fourteen-year-old girl. But despite her youthful face, the girls knew she was probably much, much older than all of them combined.
Elves had incredibly long lifespans, and their physical bodies grew at a drastically delayed rate. Her true age was a complete mystery—a secret she never revealed to anyone aside from Kian.
While the others stared in awe at the rare demi-human, Brielle suddenly tensed up.
The Thief stopped walking, her eyes locking onto the blonde elf. Brielle didn't understand what was happening, but a sharp, sudden chill ran straight down her spine. Her Thief instincts, which naturally read the Life Force of living creatures, were acting up again.
When the pink-haired girl walked past them at the door earlier, Brielle had felt absolutely nothing. It was like looking at a ghost. But this elf was the exact opposite. Brielle could clearly feel the elf's Life Force, but it felt entirely wrong.
It didn't feel like one person sitting in a chair. It felt strictly divided. It was as if half of the elf's mind was sitting right there drinking tea, while the other half was completely locked onto something far away on the upper floors of the mansion. It was a terrifying, unnatural presence that made Brielle's hands sweat.
"Brielle?" Elen whispered, noticing the Thief freezing up again. "What is it now?"
"That elf..." Brielle muttered, unable to look away. "I'm feeling something really weird from her."
Before they could quietly argue, the Vice Clan Master walked past them and approached the elf's table.
"Celia," the Vice Master called out softly.
The blonde elf slowly turned her head. Her expression was calm, almost completely blank, but her eyes held a deep, sharp focus.
The Vice Master leaned down and whispered something quietly to Celia, gesturing slightly toward Aria's group.
Celia blinked, looking past the Vice Master to study the five girls standing awkwardly in the aisle. Her gaze lingered on the silver pendant resting on Aria's chest.
Celia stood up from her chair. She moved with a strange, flawless grace, her white robes rustling slightly across the polished stone floor. She walked straight toward Aria's group.
Aria quickly wiped her eyes, trying to stand tall and look presentable as the elf approached.
Celia stopped a few feet away. She offered a small, polite smile that felt welcoming but carried a heavy weight.
"Hi, I'm Celia," the elf said, her voice soft and clear. "I am a member of Feeble Soul. Do you mind having a tea with me?"
"I'll prepare the tea myself," Celia said with a polite, gentle smile. "Please wait here."
She turned and walked quietly toward the clan house's kitchen area, her white robes dragging slightly against the floor.
The moment the elf was out of earshot, Brielle slumped into her chair. The Thief crossed her arms, completely unable to hold back her frustration anymore.
"I can't believe this," Brielle whispered fiercely, glaring at the empty space where the Vice Master had stood. "We traveled so far. Six months on the road! Aria, you are the Sword Prodigy. You are the absolute prettiest girl in the Kingdom of Aethelgard. Every single Adventurer back home looks up to you. The merchants throw money and presents at you, begging you to just hold their products for a day. The young noblemen were literally fighting each other, begging you to become their fiancée!"
Brielle leaned across the table, her voice shaking with heavy anger. "And now we are here in the Imperial Capital. You, the most valued person in our entire country, practically threw yourself at that man. You offered to give him absolutely everything you have. You promised to dedicate your entire lifetime to him, only to get completely rejected? I can't believe that guy! Who the heck does he think he is?"
Aria stared blankly at the wooden surface of the table. The sorrow in her eyes hardened into something sharp and dangerous.
"Stop it, Brielle," Aria said. Her voice was freezing cold, completely empty of emotion.
Elen, the Healer, heard that dead, flat tone. She dropped her hands beneath the wooden tabletop. She frantically channeled her mana, quietly pooling a dense, localized anesthesia spell floating on her trembling fingertips under the table.
Sitting across the table, the Mage heard the sudden drop in Aria's voice. She looked to her side and saw Aria's green eyes go completely blank. Recognizing that expression, the Mage started moving her lips, skipping her next breath to force the mana out from her palms.
The Archer slid her boots backward. She dug her heels into the floor, tensing her calves like coiled springs under her chair.
"No, it's true!" Brielle argued. She completely ignored the warning signs. She was too fired up, too fiercely protective of her best friend to back down. "He's a jerk! He didn't even give us five minutes to just say hello. He completely ignores all our effort and your feelings. He's just a stupid man who—"
A terrifying, blinding silver Aura violently exploded from Aria's body.
Her eyes went completely dead. Pure instinct hijacked her mind. Aria's right hand shot downward. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of her sword. She was ready to draw the blade and cut her best friend down.
But...
She never got to draw it.
The three girls had reacted to the chilling shift in her voice a three seconds earlier, moving before Aria's momentum could even begin to build. By the time her hand touched the hilt, their interception was already executing.
Elen slammed her hands directly onto Aria's right wrist. The spell triggered instantly. She forcefully channeled the high-density painkiller technique straight into Aria's nerves, paralyzing the muscles in her forearm.
At the same split second, the Mage finished her silent chant. She thrust her hands forward, blasting a dense pocket of atmospheric pressure across the short distance. She had actively calibrated the spell to be weak. A full-power blast wouldn't break a Level 5 Swordsman's bones, but the sheer kinetic force would have launched Aria entirely out of her chair and across the room. Instead, it was a blunt, heavy shove. It slammed hard into Aria's shoulder, dragging her upper body awkwardly backward just enough to ruin her drawing posture.
From across the table, the Archer launched herself. She dove straight over the spilling teacups. She didn't use an Aura. She used raw, desperate gravity. She threw her entire upper body directly over Aria's scabbard. She pinned the leather sheath flat against Aria's thigh with her full physical weight, locking the weapon down before the blade could clear the opening.
If Elen had been late by even a single millisecond to paralyze that wrist, or if the party's Mage did not deploy the pressure spell on time, or if the Archer hadn't trapped the scabbard at a physical dead angle to negate that brute force, Brielle would have been instantly cut in half. Even a fast, highly trained Thief like Brielle wouldn't be able to escape the striking speed of a Level 5 Sword Prodigy at point-blank range.
The three girls rapidly burned through their energy, straining violently against Aria's underlying physical strength to keep her pinned.
The intense silver Aura surrounding Aria suddenly vanished. She blinked hard, her vision clearing as her rational mind rushed back. She looked down at her own hand, clamped tightly to the sword hilt, held back by Elen's shaking fingers. She saw the Archer sprawled across the table, breathing heavily.
Aria gasped. The horrifying reality of what she had almost done crashed down on her.
She ripped her hand away from the sword as if it were burning coal. She stood up quickly, pushing her chair back, and bowed her head deeply toward the Thief.
"I'm so sorry, Brielle," Aria pleaded, her voice shaking with absolute guilt and horror. "I just... I apologize. Please forgive me. I don't know what I..."
Brielle sat completely frozen in her chair. All the color had drained from her face, leaving her pale as a sheet.
As a Thief, her instincts were sharper than anyone else's. In that split second when the silver Aura flared, Brielle had felt the heavy, crushing pressure of absolute death wrap tightly around her neck. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she should have died right there.
Taking a slow, shaky breath, Brielle slowly recovered from the shock. She uncrossed her arms and gripped her knees to stop her hands from trembling.
"It's okay," Brielle whispered, her voice barely working. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have said those things. I didn't mean to..."
Elen, the Archer, and the Mage let out a massive, collective sigh of relief. The Archer slowly pushed herself off the table, wiping spilled water off her tunic.
"Did something happen?"
All five girls jumped.
Celia was standing right beside their table.
The blonde elf held a silver tray carrying a steaming teapot and six delicate porcelain cups. She tilted her head, her calm, sharp eyes looking at the messy table, the shaken Thief, and Aria, who was still standing and bowing.
"Nothing happened!" Elen and the Archer blurted out at the exact same time, both waving their hands with awkward, nervous laughs.
Aria quickly stood up straight, hiding her trembling hands behind her back. Brielle scrambled out of her chair, her face still completely pale.
Celia did not push the issue. She simply looked at the spilled water dripping off the edge of the table. Without losing her polite smile, she turned and flagged down a passing receptionist, asking for a dry rag to clean the mess.
"Let's move to a dry table," Celia suggested gently.
The five girls quietly followed the blonde elf to a larger, much more comfortable table near the huge glass windows. They all sat down in silence.
The tension from the near-fatal argument still hung heavy in the air, but the calming scent of the southern tea Celia poured for them slowly started to wash it away.
Sensing the deep awkwardness of the atmosphere, Celia decided to initiate the conversation.
"Let me introduce myself properly," the blonde elf said, setting the teapot down. "I am Celia Oakheart. I am a Level 7 Healer. The Adventurer's Association gave me the alias the 'Perpetual Saint'. I am a core member of the party named Feeble Soul. Our party leader is Thousand Strings, the Clan Master of this building."