A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 440 The Beginning of Something Powerful - Part 4

If they were anywhere else, Oliver would have let his tongue slip. The line "what the hell is this?" demanded that he ask it, but with a great effort of will, he bit it back.

"I didn't know that we were allowed retainers..." he said instead. These retainers were clearly other students as well. If one was to have a retainer, he figured they'd have brought along a servant from home or something.

Blackthorn tilted her head in surprise at that. "Really? Mm... Could it be, that you're kind of stupid? It would make sense... You did punch a professor yesterday."

Oliver's eyebrow twitched. Despite clearly being horrified by their Lady's talk, her retainers seemed to share the same shocked sentiment, as though nothing could be more self-evident than the fact that a noble student would have retainers.

"Is that something else I'm meant to know, then?" He murmured, half to himself. "I suppose when you've got the coin for it..."

"Pardon, Ser Patrick, but we don't serve our Lady Blackthorn for money," Pauline said, rather fervent in her tone. "It's our honour to serve a member of the Blackthorn family, just as our parents serve her father."

The other retainer, Amelia, nodded quickly at that. Oliver saw no deceit behind their expressions. He found that surprising.

"So, she doesn't pay you?"

"Well, no, uhh... She does, but we don't do it for that. Plenty of nobles are looking for retainers with the offer of payment – but it's a much bigger deal than just a job. To be honest, Ser Patrick, I'm stunned that you don't know this," Pauline said.

"As am I," Lady Blackthorn herself put in, as though he was the strange one, when she was still blocking his way with her outstretched arm.

He'd pegged the blonde girl as shy, but he realized that likely wasn't true. She was just awkward, and as afraid of him as everyone else.

"What is it? Are you going to use force to restrain me now?" He didn't bother to keep the edge out of his voice, fixing her with a similar glare to what he had shot Gras yesterday. The girl visibly flinched, but she didn't take a step back, not like the boys had.

"No... Of course not," she spluttered, losing track of her intentions, as she searched for the right words. He was sure she would scramble away, just like the others had, but she bawled her hands into fists, oddly resolute for the strangest of reasons. "Don't you think that, everyone glares at you because they assume you're like this... Ser?"

It was a rather harsh statement, but she still managed to get in a perfunctory 'ser'.

"Like what?" Oliver asked.

"Difficult to approach, scary... And frankly, mean."

"Mean?" Oliver asked, incredulous. "You've had one conversation with me, girl. You have no idea who I am. Which might I say, frankly, applies to the rest of this Academy."

"So? We judge you based on what we've seen of you, and what we've heard of you. And now, seeing you, you seem mean!" Amelia said, unable to keep her voice from rising.

Pauline rushed to her side, her face a ghastly shade of white. "Ameilia... No matter what you think, you can't raise your voice like that to a noble," she hissed, the urgency in her voice quite clear. She eyed Oliver out of the corner of her eye as though he was some vicious lion, with a guillotine aligned at her neck, ready to drop the second he gave the command.

"That's insane," Oliver said, absolutely flabbergasted by Ameilia's outburst. He'd spent the night enduring the Three Trials, and he'd spent the morning receiving shocked remarks that he'd even survived them. Verdant – who seemed to believe him more capable than the rest – was just as awed by the fact that he'd decided to continue going to class as though nothing had happened.

"Do you know where I spent the night? Why is it that you expect a saintly patience from me after a night like that, walking out of my room to find it barricaded?"