Black Heart Chapter Four

"There's no need for you to attend dinner today. You must be exhausted, miss Malicia." the butler said, almost managing to feign kindness. "Wash up and head right to bed. Ah. And for breakfast..."

With a smile, he dropped a small cloth pouch in Malicia's hands. The thing felt like it was filled with smaller, hard objects... nuts, still in the shell.

"A healthy alternative to sausages and eggs. You are becoming a bit large for a proper noblewoman, after all." he chuckled, shutting the door behind him as a spike of indignity rose.

Malicia was tall for her age! Not fat, tall! The man had deliberately selected his words to be vague enough to imply both, but her belly was fine! Narrow and lean like the rest of her body, and... and she really could do with being a little shorter, if it would round her out in certain places, but...

Malicia grit her teeth, tossing the pouch of nuts to her bed as she stalked over to a washing basin.

She'd calmed down a little by the time she finished scouring the dried blood off of her skin and dropped her soiled clothes into the waiting bin for them to be taken away. There was a simpler replacement outfit waiting for her.

That was also frustrating, that she kept getting pushed to ruin perfectly decent outfits, probably wasting quite a bit of money, because she wasn't allowed to change her clothes before training. Oh, but when she was being sent to her room without supper for fighting too well, then it was fine to put the simple stuff out in advance.

That damn butler.

He was deliberately provoking her, trying to twist at her mindset, and to what final purpose Malicia didn't know. It seemed likely that he simply didn't approve of her adoption at all, and despite following instruction on the matter he was making it quite clear that she was unwanted here. But she didn't know. Not for sure. It could very well be that, as a good butler if not a good person, he was simply carrying out the dictated instruction of the elder Ravensworths. Either option seemed plausible, and it could just as easily be something else that Malicia simply hadn't thought of yet.

Why make her ruin the good dresses? She'd never worn anything so nicely made before she was brought here, and it had felt like she had been cut when the first one had been burned because she hadn't been able to keep it clean of blood while practicing.

Malicia couldn't even rule out the possibility that it truly wasn't anything personal, and she was simply expected to be able to learn how to treat messy injuries without getting a single drop of red onto a pristine and elegant outfit. That damn butler certainly managed, somehow. He could rip a chicken clean in half with his hands if he wanted, and not get a single drop of anything anywhere except precisely where he intended it to go. Usually, in a warm and coppery splatter across Malicia's face.

Reflexively, the tip of her tongue moistened her upper lip.

The following pang in her belly prompted Malicia to open the pouch, remove a nut, and crush it in her hand. Doing so revealed that these were small nuts housed carefully in large shells. The crunch of it between her teeth as she tossed the shell aside, into a disposal pail, was... less than satisfying.

She still refrained from eating the rest. Having been an orphan, she knew quite well that one missed meal definitely wasn't going to kill her, and she would still be hungry in the morning.

So... why choose to punish her in that way? Was it a matter of discretion, of it not really being that important, or was it just a matter of following the trend of giving Malicia nice things specifically so they could be taken away again?

It was a frustrating question that she couldn't answer. But... it was starting to become clear why the potential future-Malicia in Sophie's journal might have developed an obsession with Saint-hood.

If. If Malicia had had... expectations, if not hopes, for the future when she had been adopted? If she felt like those hopes could be achieved if she just worked harder, tried to fit her appointed role a little better?

If.

She could see that happening, potentially. She just had to think about how she might have responded if Sophie had decided to act with her words instead of a knife, and... she could see it.

Malicia tossed the pouch onto an end table, flopped back onto her bed, and stared at the ceiling for a few moments as she breathed.

"Show me." she said, as the sun began dipping low outside.

In response, a flat pane appeared in front of her. It seemed almost luminous, but that was an illusion... it didn't cast any true light, and while a person could read from it in the dark it would neither light up a room nor would it be possible for another person to read it in those conditions. It was a very personal record, displaying an individual's status and condition.

It had already appended the Ravensworth name to her own, in whatever manner that such things were decided. Her age was displayed, various other points of data... though not all of them. If she really had an ancient Heritage, then it would remain unlisted until it was naturally discovered. An imperfection in the thing, but altogether it was already too convenient for that to be a large issue.

It was because these 'simplified' informational panels could be called up at need that there were so few persons in the Empire that were completely and utterly illiterate. At the very least, a person could always check the panel to see what their name looked like when written down, as a reminder if needed.

Beneath the biographical lines was the Status readout, and while it would differ between persons in some cases, it was for the most part the same. First, it would show the four Primary Status. Two physical, and two magical. Strength, Endurance, Potence, and Resilience.

No matter what, these four Status items would always appear in a simplified panel. They were the most important for an Adventurer or Mercenary to know at all times, after all. Malicia's fingertips drifted across the intangible panel.

Strength and Endurance... A. For all the good that had ever done her.

Potence: F.

Resilience: D.

These were... They weren't the worst... They were pretty terrible Status to have for an intended healer, honestly. There were ways, with focused effort and typically also with great expense, to raise a Status' Growth Potential ranking, but if it was already low to begin with... for what reason would someone try to raise F to F+, or the distant dream of E?

It was fortunate that as a Monk, her healing wasn't driven by Potence the way another healer's magic might be. She wasn't sure what, precisely, it did operate from... there hadn't been a significant examination of the uncommon class to determine that, as it happened, and it wasn't obvious the way a magical attack drew intensity from a Mage's Potence. It was possible that it was just one of those Class abilities that wasn't particularly altered by Status in any meaningful way

Resilience, at least, didn't just affect how often spells could be cast by persons who could use them until exhaustion set in. It also offset how bad the results of being attacked with magic could be. Not that Malicia had any intention of being hit by magical attacks if she could avoid it at all, of course, but...

Well, many people lived their whole lives unimpeded by the fact of having no Primary Status over a D. It only really changed things for people who would regularly face combat, either by delving into a dungeon or otherwise. What need did a banker have of S-ranked Potence that would never be used, after all?

Usually, that was it for Status in the simplified panel. Oh, there were certainly more to be found, pieces of information to be tallied up and totaled out to determine the sum total of what a person was... but they usually didn't appear without a specialized investigative skill or analysis tool to show them.

But, while 'usually' was true more often than not, it also wasn't a guarantee. It wasn't uncommon, either, for one of these less important Status items to find their way onto the simplified panel. When one or two of these at most did appear in the panel, they were termed 'Extra Status'.

For what reason they did and how this was determined... nobody knew.

It wasn't a matter of Class... one might think that the Faith status might be important to know for a priest, enough to merit its appearance. However, Malicia couldn't recall ever hearing about someone being born with that Class and Extra Status combination. Which wasn't to say that it hadn't happened, but she would have thought it would be an example to point to, if so.

It wasn't a matter of the status meriting appearance due to an abnormally high value, either. Even when they showed up, sometimes they would have ranks of E, or F, begging the question of just why whatever system had made the decision to show them had bothered when an analysis tool would often show Status by far that one's superior which had been disregarded.

The best guess anyone had, as far as Malicia knew, was that the Extra status items were something that happened to be uncommonly important to defining an individual, regardless of whether that was in a good or a bad way.

Sophie's... Malicia set the thought aside and nudged the panel slightly, moving the text upwards.

Instinct: C.

C was already a rank that wasn't bad, for a Status. It wasn't attention-grabbing, the way people took note of ranks that were higher than that, if only to snort at the mismatch to a person's Class, but it also wasn't terrible.

But just what did a ranking in that Extra skill mean for her?

Did it have something to do with her hardly needing instruction about her chores at the orphanage?

Did it have something to do with how she had worked out a way to fight with bulky and cumbersome 'weapons', and to win a match she shouldn't have been allowed to?

Did it have nothing to do with any of that, and mean something else entirely?

Unlike the Primary Status, which were simple and clear cut in what they did and what benefit they offered, underlying and Extra status were... There was no intrinsic explanation of what they did, why they did it the way they did, or what benefit they produced. It was in large part guess-work, and some very intelligent people had had very strongly-worded disagreements on the subject over the ages.

Below that line, the simple panel would continue on to show Class and Extra Skills, but... Malicia didn't feel like looking them over.

With a disgruntled sweep of her fingers through the panel, she dispersed and swatted it aside before turning over and ignoring her belly as she went to sleep.

...

Malicia began to wake in the morning to the sound of the housekeeping maids going about their business. Unlike the actual by-blood children of the Ravensworth household, they did not need to wait for her to rise and go about her day before entering to invisibly clean and tidy up while she was away, they could simply enter while she was still sleeping to clear out garbage and bring deliveries in.

By the time she brought herself to full awareness the maids, ever quick about their business, had finished their work and left.

With a yawn and a pang in her belly, Malicia reached to the end table only to find it empty. A check of the drawer also revealed nothing.

Ah.

The pouch of nuts had been neatly cleaned away without comment, taken as a discarded and unwanted bit of clutter.

Accident? A tiny stroke of additional cruelty, either on the spur of the moment or at that butler's orchestration? Malicia didn't know, and could only grimace a little in response to it.

Well.

She also wouldn't die from skipping two meals, in any case. Though she would have to take care when she ate again, since being hungry was no excuse for poor manners at the table.