Chapter 11: Fairy

A pleasant surprise.

She had only caught a trace of an unusual aura, which drew her gaze back toward her newly appointed little emissary.

It was the aura of the Demon Race.

For a being like her, such a signal required at least a small amount of attention.

Of course.

It was absolutely not because she had suddenly felt a flicker of inexplicable annoyance—

When she cast her gaze back upon the human world, she witnessed a rather interesting scene.

At this moment, Harvey was in no mood to respond to Hera.

The situation in reality was far more troublesome than the Goddess’s teasing.

Thick carpets swallowed the sound of footsteps.

The afternoon light filtered in diagonally from the high windows at the end of the corridor, yet it failed to reach the section where they stood.

Evelyn stood before the door, maintaining her posture.

The two of them were standing far too close.

Close enough that Harvey could clearly perceive the slight warmth in her breath.

She was already significantly taller than him, and since Harvey had been forced back against the door, the Head Maid nearly blocked his entire field of vision.

A peculiar, faint fragrance wafted from her, and her long hair, sliding over her shoulder, happened to brush against his hand.

It tickled.

Inevitably, the youth’s heart skipped “inexplicably” for a beat.

“…”

Harvey did not know what to say and could only remain silent.

His mind was filled with another entirely ill-timed confusion.

‘Why… is my heart beating so fast? It’s as if my body has been suddenly activated, yet my mind remains exceptionally clear.’

Harvey knew that highly concentrated mental focus would increase the intensity of magic; this was a rule written in common magical knowledge.

But he had not yet fully mastered magic.

Regarding the little emissary’s wildly divergent thoughts, a certain Goddess currently waiting in his heart expressed considerable dissatisfaction.

Honestly, he was far too naive.

He was a male who was nearly an adult, so why did he not pursue the most primitive of pleasures?

In the Underworld, she had seen countless fallen souls, the vast majority of whom were entangled in love and lust—it was quite beautiful.

Her little emissary should be the same.

The Goddess maintained her omniscient and omnipotent divinity; she could not accept this little fellow falling outside her expectations.

She looked forward to seeing if this Fairy before Harvey could open his eyes.

Unlike that troublesome and conservative woman, the Goddess of Light.

To the Great God of the Underworld.

Fallen souls were far more worth playing with.

“Little one, don’t you crave the power of magic?”

To achieve her goal, the idle God of the Underworld decided to add fuel to the fire.

Harvey was immediately intrigued. “What do you mean?”

Hmph, he actually forgot to show respect before asking, failing to address her as the “Great God of the Underworld.” Hera secretly made another note of this little emissary’s lack of piety.

“Right now, before you, lies a key to the world of magic,” she continued to entice him.

Harvey looked left and right in confusion. ‘Where?’

“…”

As a manifestation of the laws that had existed for who knew how long, Hera understood for the first time what the human term “headache” felt like.

Her tone became impatient.

“It’s the woman in front of you. She is a humanized Fairy.”

“You’ve read so many books; you should know exactly what I’m talking about.”

***

Evelyn also noticed Harvey’s lapse in focus.

For a moment, she even felt a trace of doubt regarding her innate talent.

Fairies.

Creatures created by the Demon Race.

They could generate dozens of pheromones within their bodies and could even manipulate the glands of animals to dominate them.

Humans were no exception.

And she was a humanized Fairy.

Stripped of the Fairy’s skin covered in magic patterns, she was almost indistinguishable from an ordinary human in appearance.

At most, her nails were sharper.

Ever since the Duke brought her into the mansion to care for Lady Lavia, this was the first time Evelyn had used her Fairy powers. She felt out of practice… No, this was a power etched into her instincts; it was impossible to be out of practice.

She had an innate perception of “desire.”

As long as the subject was human.

As long as Harvey generated even a sliver of that emotion, she could not be mistaken.

However, right now—

There was nothing.

Nothing at all.

Under her transformed pupils, Evelyn clearly felt that Harvey’s emotions were indeed fluctuating.

But it was not lust; it wasn’t even close.

It was more like… a thirst for knowledge?

Why, in such a scene and under the influence of her pheromones, would he produce a desire for knowledge?

Was he not a human male?

Evelyn couldn’t say what she felt at this moment.

Instead of confusion, it was likely more of an irritation.

Because of her sudden movement, the atmosphere between the two had become somewhat awkward.

A trace of hesitation flickered in Evelyn’s heart.

Should she stop? Or continue?

If she directly withdrew her hand, she would have no way to explain her reasons.

‘A Fairy?!’

Harvey’s eyes widened, and he shouted in shock within his mind.

That was a race that existed in the Mythological Era.

Records of such mythological beings in books were incredibly scarce.

And now.

The Goddess was telling him that the Head Maid standing before him, someone he had worked with for years…

Was a Fairy.

‘No, impossible. How could the Head Maid be a Fairy?’

Harvey immediately denied it. ‘It’s impossible for a Fairy to live in human society. That’s a race that holds an ancestral grudge against the Elves!’

Daring to question a God’s judgment—who said her little emissary was a coward?

Was he not quite bold?

Harvey did not notice Hera’s silence, nor could he feel the Goddess’s annoyance.

He was indeed shocked that a mythological being had suddenly appeared before him.

But more than that, he was skeptical.

It simply didn’t make sense.

According to the history of the Academy that the Eldest Miss attended, the Royal Academy of Magic of the Kingdom of Rune maintained contact with the ancient Elves.

Since Elves might exist within the kingdom.

Then it was even more impossible for a Fairy to be here.

Harvey didn’t even dare to imagine the scene if the two ever met.

They would absolutely fight.

Two mutually hostile magical lifeforms, with just one spell, would be enough to destroy the Royal Capital of Rune.

“Why is it impossible?”

Hera said faintly, “Are humans not the race best at crossbreeding?”

Her tone carried a hint of nonchalant mockery.

“You can intermarry with Elves, with Dwarves, and with Orcs. Humans are even willing to touch things like the Undead and skeletons.”

“She’s just a humanized Fairy.”

“Is there a need for such a fuss?”

Harvey opened his mouth, momentarily unsure how to argue.

He knew the Goddess had to be right.

But something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

Undead… skeletons? Who would marry a semi-living entity that might not even be alive?

Harvey’s mind was a bit dazed.

From the books he had read, Fairies were almost always symbols of calamity.

Cunning, cruel, and capricious.

Whenever they appeared in human records, it usually signaled the beginning of a disaster.

‘Aren’t… aren’t Fairies all cruel and evil?’ Harvey asked hesitantly.

But the Head Maid clearly wasn’t that kind of person—no, that kind of Fairy.

Though her personality was cold, she was actually warm-hearted underneath; everyone in the Duke’s Mansion knew this.

Just now, it was also the Head Maid who had helped him so he wouldn’t fall onto the bedroom floor.

The gap between her and the records in the books was simply too large.

Hera let out a seductive laugh in his mind.

“Books?”

“Human books are written for you humans to read.”

“You possess the largest individual population on the continent, and only you and your close relatives, the Dwarves, use books to record knowledge.”

“But you have also destroyed many races. If they could write books, humans would likely be recorded as greedy, foolish monsters with terrifying reproductive rates.”

Speaking to this point, Hera’s tone suddenly became meaningful.

“However—”

“To you, this Fairy is indeed quite dangerous.”

In a sense, she was a good candidate for enlightenment?

Fairies were a short-lived race, having only about a 40-year lifespan.

Since there were no males among Fairies, they relied on mating with other races to reproduce, and their offspring were guaranteed to be female Fairies.

In other words, this perfectly humanized Fairy—her fertility far surpassed that of a human woman.

She wondered if her little emissary could handle it.

At the same time.

Evelyn, who was just about to break the silence, noticed Harvey’s sudden change in expression.

After just a brief moment of proximity, he seemed to be developing the emotion she had once worried about—

Had the pheromones taken effect with a delay?

No, that didn’t seem right.

Looking at the eyes shining toward her from beneath those heavy bangs, the usually cold Evelyn felt her heart tremble.

The youth who had been harmless just a moment ago.

Now possessed a trace of agitated thirst.

That aura made Evelyn instinctively take a small step back.

She suddenly realized—

Was she actually afraid?