Born From A Divine Gamble

The last time they met, Vinnia was very angry at them and they had heard from Emp that she was still quite mad even now. They really wanted to look their best so that Vinnia would have less to complain about.

Most of the others had already left the house to prepare to receive the n.o.bles in the backyard so the only person left in here was Galana.

"Why are you even here!" Erin complained while she tried to fix her younger sister"s hair as best as she could.

"I live here." Galana answered with a smug smile while leaning back against the table.

"You know that"s not what I meant! This has nothing to do with you so go away."

"It does have to do with me, we went over this already. If Emp truly lets you stay and makes you his retainers, whenever you do something wrong or bad, it will make him look bad and since I belong to him, it makes me look like an idiot too."

"Ah! You said you belong to him!" Erin giggled mockingly.

"You know this isn"t what I meant." Galana scoffed back. "How is this even a mocking point miss "I blush whenever he looks my way"?"

"No I don"t!" Erin protested loudly.

Leo just looked away in an attempt to not betray her sister.

Now it was Galana"s turn to giggle mockingly.

"Oh you absolutely do! You like him because he"s the only guy that has ever been willing to give a chance to the calamity that you two are."

"Grrrr, that"s it! Leo, we need to get her before Vinnia shows up!" Erin pointed towards Galana in frustration.

Shortly after, shouts and screams sounded in the main room of the house as the sisters pursued their teacher around the room and wrestled with her. Because of it, they didn"t hear the insistent knocks on the door.

Soon, Vinnia stepped into the main room and saw Galana on the floor laid on her back with Leo crouched over her with her hands extended up and away holding Galana"s headband and Erin trying to grapple their opponent.

All three sides froze and glared at each other, all for different reasons.

"So it really is you two." Vinnia stated in annoyance.

Galana took the opportunity to s.n.a.t.c.h back her head band and push the sisters off of her. The two of them eyed Galana menacingly but she glared back with way more intensity. They knew she hated it when her slave mark was exposed.

The three of them got back up and readjusted their clothes slightly while they kept all the glares up. Vinnia watched over it all with an air close to disgust.

"Hi cousin." Erin said followed by Leo who just said "Hi."

"You need to remove your boots before you get in." Galana pointed out to the visitor on a still annoyed tone.

"Shut up slave, mind your business." Vinnia answered, not sparing a glance for Galana.

She had clearly seen the slave mark earlier.

"Excuse me?" Galana was already angry so of course she"d react like that when spoken to with so much disdain.

She had already gotten in a lot of trouble in the past for this kind of thing, she always had a hard time controlling her temper.

"I said shut up! Know your place and stay quiet until I require your input. Next time you open your mouth, I"ll close it myself and tell your master you deserve a good whipping."

The two sisters made a sour face because they knew exactly where this would go next, there was no way Galana of all people would let anyone talk to her like that. The turned deep red and ran her mouth as usual.

"Yeah? Try it you whiny dog, we"ll see who"s going to get slapped around."

Vinnia gave her an offended look before she started moving towards Galana who pulled out a set of flint and steel from her sleeves. That meant she was about to use fire magic in the house, things were clearly going too far already.

Erin hurriedly stepped in between them, extending a palm to both of them.

"Stop."

"No fighting in the house." Leo added.

Galana leered her way with eyes saying "You"re one to talk." but Leo didn"t notice because she was too proud to be the one reminding people of the rules for once.

"Erin, I know you don"t ever pay any attention to anything but this should be pretty self explanatory. A slave talks back to a n.o.ble they get punished."

She was about to add on to that but Erin just interrupted her right away.

"That"s a dumb rule and you were the first to be rude just now. Galana was just telling you that you need to remove/"

"How dare you interrupt me you insufferable pest! What is it with you two always messing things up for us? I"ll be done with her in a moment and then I"ll have you apologize for the trouble you made and drag you back home myself." Vinnia said as she pushed her index finger on Erin"s chest.

"Why are you so angry? We didn"t do anything wrong." Leo asked her older cousin in confusion.

"Which home are you even talking about? We got kicked out by dad. You want to drag us back to the alleyway we kept sleeping in? This is home." Erin said while refusing to budge from where she stood.

"This isn"t your home! Grow up and use your head! That"s a temporary shack for a really high n.o.ble. You have nothing to do here. You two have been nothing but trouble since you were little. I don"t know what sort of trick you used to get here but you"ll put all of us in even deeper trouble if you don"t stop now.

At best you"ll destroy all the efforts I made to increase the reputation of our name and who knows what could happen at worse. You"re no knights at all and you"ve got no rights to be here!"

"We do have the right to be here! We were invited! We didn"t trick anyone, we just worked hard."

"There"s no way that"s the truth, how would he even have heard of you two if you slept in an alleyway like you said? Huh?"

"I threw a rock at his head in Bêtéclair because we thought he was abducting Calla but she turned out to be his wife, she was just feeling unwell." Leo explained innocently.

This really wasn"t the thing to answer to her cousin, that was obvious to both Erin and Galana. They would have to fix that habit of hers to blurt out the worst possible thing every time someone asked her something. She always answered like a six years old even if she was now more than double that.

Vinnia was already incredibly mad at them all but hearing that her cousin threw a rock at the head of the young lord somehow made it even worse.

"You threw a rock at the head of a Muracier!"

"It"s fine, it didn"t hit and he forgave us right away."

"It"s not fine! What did you tell him so that he brought you all the way here? What sort of lie did you spout!"

"Nothing! Stop yelling at us. We didn"t even know he was a Muracier, we just wanted to apologize properly and make sure Calla was fine. We also thought that maybe he"d have a job for us because we couldn"t find any more in Bêtéclair so we tagged along."

Following that, their talks further degenerated into a quarrel and Galana was quickly forgotten by the three Porter.

They argued in circles as Vinnia reminded them of all their errors and accidents. She was even worse than Galana and seemingly remembered every little offence ever done to anyone. Not only that, she had a slew of arguments and hypothesis about what was possibly going on here, what Emp truly wanted from them and how they happened to his side.

She ignored the presence of Galana entirely and said all sorts of senseless things the sisters were quick to deny or vehemently dispute. She even dared say he might just be l.u.s.tful towards them and picked them up for his personal amus.e.m.e.nt.

Everyone else felt offended by the suggestion, the sisters because they felt it was obviously untrue and they weren"t dumb enough to get tricked this way and Galana because it was one of the most offensive things she had ever heard anyone say about Emp.

"You and your disgusting mouth can count yourselves lucky that he is so lax about slander or you"d have faced a well deserved and excruciatingly long torment." Galana said with disgust.

Vinnia just reached out over her cousin to slap her but Erin caught her arm before it reached Galana.

"Erin get out of the way." Vinnia scolded.

"No "you" back off, we told you, no fighting in the house."

"I"ve worked too hard to get up to were I am to be talked down by some harlot with a slave mark on her forehead. She more than deserves to be punished and you stand in my way. Do I really have to remind you who is the knight between us two? If you weren"t my cousin, I"d punish you as well."

"First of all, she didn"t deserve to get enslaved, she was cornered by bad people and our lord helped her. Second of all, you have no rights to punish anyone here." Erin glared. "You need to calm down, now."

Galana shot her some sort of strange look but she had no idea how to interpret it. It wasn"t a glare for once though, that was for sure.

"And you need to clean the floors too. You didn"t remove your boots and you"ve trailed dirt across the room so you have to clean it." Leo added pointing at a clear trail of dirt.

"Slaves and servants are here for that, no way I"m cleaning the floors."

"The rule here is that the one that makes the floor dirty has to wash it themselves." Erin said seriously.

"We know because we were made to wash it many times." Leo nodded proudly.

"Would you let go of my arm and stop trying to change the subject!" Vinnia snarled. "You owe me big time already so listen to me!"

"Is it about the sword again?" Leo asked with a pout. "We didn"t do it on purpose."

"As I said many times, it"s impossible to drop a sword heavier than you in well without doing it on purpose!" Vinnia objected. "Neither you two nor your parents could pay so "I" had to buy a new one and work a s.h.i.+t job on top of my training to pay it! That sword was in the family for two generations too!"

"So you"re still mad about that?" Erin asked with a disbelieving frown.

"Of course I"m still mad about that! I"m sure that in the whole world, there no one who hate someone they love as much as I do right now! Have you made it your life goal to ruin mine or what? What have I done to you!"

"We never meant to upset you though." Leo pouted.

"I know! It makes this all the more annoying for me because I feel guilty for being angry at you even though I have all the rights to be angry!"

"If its about the money, we can pay for the sword now." Erin proposed. "Will you leave us alone if we give you the money?"

Emp had given the two sister quite a bit of money in small increments over the years. He had wanted to reward their hard work and efforts with more than simply a place to sleep and Calla"s food.

For both Erin and Galana, that treatment had seemed undeserved, it was way too much for the "work" they did. Anyone else would have felt he was just spoiling them or bribing them for "something" which was clearly what Vinnia was thinking, hence her previous accusation.

The knight grabbed the face of her cousin and pressed down on her cheeks hard as she shook her head.

"Erin! That"s got nothing to do with the money even though I"d very much like you to pay for our family sword, yes. Why is it so hard to make you understand? We"re worried about you two and I"m worried about what you two could do to the family by accident. Just stop and come back home already."

Erin was surprised to hear her say those things. Honestly, she didn"t think Vinnia really cared about them, she didn"t think her father cared either. She wondered if this was the truth.

If Emp had been here, he would have known right away, Leo and her weren"t able to lie to him even once, he could always guess. She had no idea how he did it but she wished she could do the same.

At the very least, she could tell that her cousin didn"t seem all that worried, well, aside from the hysterical way she was conducting herself... Fine, maybe she was worried after all.

However, she didn"t want to go back to how things were before.

She lived well here with Leo, attacking Emp by mistake was the luckiest thing that ever happened to them. Everything had been going well since then.

They did get in trouble regularly like they used to but those trouble didn"t end up costing them all their food for the day or an opportunity they desperately needed. Most of the time, Emp and Calla would just laugh it off and when not, Emp put them to work fixing whatever they broke.

They didn"t go hungry almost everyday anymore and Calla"s food was very good too. She didn"t have to be afraid that Leo would starve all the time anymore and Emp had thought them how to get their own food in the woods if things turned out wrong somehow.

They weren"t treated like a nuisance by everyone they knew either. Back in Bêtéclair, everyone would sigh and scold them at the sight of their faces so they kept having to scurry away even when they did nothing wrong at all. Here, they had a lot of friends including Svae and plenty of new ones, Leo was smiling all the time and they had a lot of fun.

More importantly, Emp was willing to trust them and give them a chance even though he knew that most of what they did ended in some catastrophe. He had even put them in charge of protecting the wolves and the angry lady where her own mother wouldn"t have left them in charge of watching the soup for half an hour.

With years spent here with everyone, it had truly become her home, she didn"t want to go back to people who didn"t truly want her there. She wouldn"t even consider going back, she shook her head at her cousin, trying to have her let go of her cheeks in order to speak.

"You got it all wrong Vinnia. We don"t want to go back and we don"t have to. Why did you come all the way here? Aren"t you a knight?"

"Of course I"m a knight! Something you aren"t, which is why you shouldn"t be here!"

"Who"s your lord Vinnia?" Erin asked with a frown.

"My great lord is the crown prince Jonace Artefine." She said proudly. "What does that have to do with anything."

"He didn"t come all the way here with you, did he?" Erin said.

"No, of course not."

"Aren"t knights supposed to follow their lords to protect them of all things? You have to keep the peace, make sure the law is upheld and protect your lord. Why aren"t you with him instead of here?"

Erin and learned a lot about n.o.bles, knights and soldiers from the many women here and Emp himself. From what she understood, Vinnia shouldn"t be here. She should be waiting for orders near that Jonace guy.

"I came all the way here to help you of course and stop you from messing things up."

"But we don"t need a rescue and we"re doing nothing wrong. You"re the one making trouble here. We"re fine." Erin insisted, watching her cousin frown in a mix of disbelief and curiosity.

"You"ve changed a bit." She said.

"Of course we"ve changed, it"s been years!"

"We"ve trained a lot." Leo added with a smug smile.

���No that"s not what I mean, you... "sound" different."

"I sound different?" Erin asked with a deadpan look.

Vinnia stared straight into her eyes without saying a word and Erin held her gaze. She tried to guess what she was looking for but she was unable to. Whatever was happening, Galana behind her seemed to think that this was really funny, she could hear her giggle.

In the end, Vinnia let her go and after letting out a long sigh, she looked around the room and all over the sisters again, less in a hurry this time.

"You"re calmer." She said. "You look like you know what you"re doing, for real this time. Usually, you pretend that you know what you"re doing and then everything falls apart."

"I"m not sure if its a compliment or not."

"And I"m not sure that everything won"t fall apart anyway."

"Why can"t you trust us?" Leo said from side.

She looked really miffed about their cousin constant nagging.

"Because I know exactly what always ends up happening when you"re around. You"re going to end up driving a knife in his eye somehow and get yourselves executed. Even if you sound more responsible, for the safety of everyone, you should come back with me to Bêtéclair. I"m sure we can find you something to do there. What is it you"re doing here anyway if you"re not warming his bed?"

Erin was getting really annoyed with this idea. Why was that the only thing in her cousin"s head!

"Stop it with that! How dare you badmouth all three of us like that! You might be family but if you speak that way again I"ll force you to apologize"

"Really? You"ll force me?" Vinnia almost laughed which really irritated the two sisters.

"Emp said that he"d make us his retainers if we did good enough." Leo bragged.

Vinnia clearly didn"t believe a word of it so she completely ignored them. She focused on the name instead.

"I feel like I heard that name before, it"s the name of the Muracier? Shouldn"t you be calling him lord instead of simply his name?"

Emp didn"t really care about t.i.tles at all. The people he knew could call him whatever they wanted just like how Galana always called him idiot.

"I don"t really mind either way." Confirmed the voice of the man himself from the door.

Emp walked in the house, removing his boots before stepping in the main room. Vinnia made the connection in her head while Emp was looking over the floor with a frown. She was just realizing she travelled with him for all this time.

"Who didn"t remove their boots before stepping in? Is it you again Leo?"

"No, it"s Vinnia!" Leo ratted out her cousin instantly, making her flinch.

Vinnia"s eyes grew much wider as Emp turned his gaze to her. She was just registering all the things she said about him, right in his face along the trip.

"I"m sorry miss Porter but here in my house you"ll have to follow my rules. Go remove your boots and clean up the floors you dirtied. I don"t want my wife to get her socks full of dirt."

"I-ehhhh- O-Of course sir! Right away!" She stuttered.

"Sorry Vinnia, we warned you. I"ll show you to the broom." Erin told her cousin.

As they were moving back towards the door so Vinnia could hurriedly remove her boots, Galana asked him what he was doing here.

"I thought you wanted to leave this to the sisters."

"I do, I just came in to get some things for Calla. What are you doing here by the way? Why aren"t you outside with the others?"

She twisted her head to side and took a guilty air.

"Nothing in particular..."

Emp gave Galana his scary face. She would always obey when he did that, he didn"t need a slave mark on her at all.

"Fine, I thought I"d have fun watching the sisters get scolded but the cousin is even worse then them."

Shortly after, Emp had taken some things in the cellar and was dragging Galana outside. Vinnia glared at her for being called worse than Erin and Leo but dared not do anything in front of Emp Muracier. At least Galana didn"t tell Emp that they almost fought or Vinnia would have brought Emp"s anger on herself.

Galana was frustrating most of the time and the sisters couldn"t get along with her but at least, she wasn"t bad for the sake of being bad. She knew Emp would side for Galana if she fought Vinnia but she also knew it would upset the sisters so she kept her mouth shut even though Vinnia had been really rude and menacing with her.

Leo, Erin and Vinnia were left alone to clean up the dirtied floor. Since they were still in the middle of their talk, Erin decided to help her cousin clean everything up as they spoke. Leo on the other hand sat at the table and looked overly satisfied to watch her cousin scrub the floor.

"I can"t believe the lord would actually make us do this." Vinnia complained.

"Not us, just you. I"m helping only because it"s you." Erin answered.

Now, she just needed to convince her cousin that she was perfectly fine here or at least, convince her to leave. She expected this to be harrowing but she would not let her cousin have her way. Erin and Leo belonged here and wanted to be here, nothing Vinnia could say would possibly make them change their mind and she was willing to defend her place with her own hands if it came down to it.

*-*-*-*

Meanwhile, outside, Emp was sat at a pair of ma.s.sive tables, enjoying a drink with all the ladies, Galana and Calla.

He glanced at his ring to make sure the two sisters were fine inside and asked his friend what she thought about this.

"So Galana, what do you think I should do?"

"About what?"

"My retainers." He precised.

To be technical, they weren"t his retainers, they were only candidates but they would soon be if Galana and Calla gave their approval.

To be perfectly honest, Emp would love for at least Erin to be his retainer. She had a strong sense of justice and the will to do what needed to be done when a challenge arose. She had the instinct to fight instead of flee and more importantly, she made enormous progress. She came from nothing at all and now she had grown into someone reliable, or at least he felt it was so.

Galana let out a long sigh and made a really bothered face.

"I hate to admit it but their cousin Vinnia is right, Erin is way more responsible now than how she was at first. She called you her lord as if that was obvious, defended me against her cousin and got extremely upset when your honor was put into question. At the very least, I think she will do her best to not disappoint you in front of anyone."

Emp nodded in understanding but also urged her to speak more.

"That"s good to hear but I"d like to hear your own opinion of them too. Do you think I should take them as retainers or not?"

He had promised the two sisters he"d give them a black tulip of the crystal spring elixir if they could make Galana say that she could accept them. Reluctantly giving in to his impulse wasn"t the same as actually agreeing.

"Urgh, fine." She mumbled. "They aren"t as bad as they seem, they could potentially be useful I guess."

"What she really means to say is that she changed her mind on them after she saw how serious they could be about this whole retainer thing and she likes how devoted to justice they are, even though they"re too energetic for her. Also, she likes to tease them a lot." Maria Starbeetle intervened from the side.

"How dare you c.o.c.kroach say I like them? As if I"d ever acknowledge the little jumpscare and the shadowknight!"

"See? She"s even giving them cute nicknames, she"s just too stubborn to admit it." maria insisted.

"I"ll set your skirt on fire!"

"What, are you turning into a pervert now, you want to leave me in my underwear, what a naughty librarian." Maria mocked her with a smug smile.

Those two almost never stopped. Emp had to raise is hand up to have them stop and ordered Galana to be honest. She hated it when he did that but truly, with her, it was almost unavoidable.

"Galana, I order you to tell me the truth clearly. Do you think they are retainer material and would you trust them to a.s.sist me?"

"Yes I do and I think so." She said while gritting her teeth to the hilarity of her roommate.

"There, thank you Galana for your opinion. Are they done with your teaching too?"

"They are. Leo makes a bunch of spelling mistakes all the time but she won"t improve no matter how many times I scold her anymore. As long as Erin writes for her, everything should be fine." She admitted begrudgingly.

Emp nodded in satisfaction and turned his head towards his wife while Galana glared at Maria. They"d be fine, they were always insulting each other but always left with big smiles, Emp didn"t understand their way of socializing.

"Calla, what do you think about this?"

She was the one who met them first and Emp let them follow because Calla asked him to do it. Effort-wise, it was him that was the most invested because of how much time he spent teaching them combat and survival techniques. However, she was the one who was the most invested in them emotionally aside from Svae.

His wife leaned in and spoke right next to his ear in order to let him hear her small voice properly.

"I think they are sincere and that they won"t betray us."

She looked hesitant to say something more but in the end, she chose to stay quiet and left it at that.

"So I should give them the position of retainers like I said I might do?"

She answered with a clear nod.

"Would you like to keep them here or should I bring them with me in that case?"

"Let them go with you." She answered with no hesitation. "I"m well surrounded already and Erin would like to be invited I"m sure."

"Alright."

Emp agreed with her words and gave her a warm hug. She knew everyone best after all, if she said Erin would rather go with him then it must be true.

Next, he turned his attention to the other girls around the table.

While the meal was slowly cooking, all the girls gathered to help Emp take a decision on the two Porter sisters. All of them had an opinion and they seemed proud to be allowed to share it with him. He took all their words seriously.

Lea Duchêne was the only one that didn"t share her opinion since she wasn"t there. Then again, she was never there, she was hiding in her room again.

The various opinions of the others were rather similar all things considered.

Bailey Sorenthal was fond of them on account that they protected her precious dogs. They did catch Vesa"s mother once trying to get to the dog at night, proving to him that they could complete an a.s.signment properly.

Destiny and Victory thought they were really fun girls and felt that they"d get along really well in the future so they recommended that he should take them as retainers as well.

Kaisla, Lanavera and Sarissa all agreed that the two Porter were fast learners and talented in many physical skills, even outside of combat. Kaisla said they"d be great a.s.sets in the future while Lanavera said she"d like to fight side by side with them. Sarissa said it might be risky to send them anywhere dangerous because she feared they might be too eager and cause trouble.

Lusine didn"t know much about their skills but she did point how how much respect they showed Emp and Calla. She felt that loyalty was more important than skills and that they had plenty of that. Plus, they knew how to remain out of sight and would make for potentially great spies or a.s.sa.s.sins.

Emp didn"t think he"d ever need a.s.sa.s.sins and didn"t know why it was the first thing that came to Lusine"s mind but if she said so it must have been true.

The only thing Maria had to say about them was that as long as everyone remained honest with them, everything should be fine. She noted that they tended to get very upset when people lied or hid things from them so it might cause problem later depending on who they"d have to deal with when working for him.

That was an interesting point, he remembered how upset they got at his brother in law when he tricked them about the old woman reading the future, he"d keep it in mind.

Svae made a point of reminding him about how clumsy they could be and told him that if he did take them as retainers, he"d have to remain comprehensive with them and their strange misfortune.

With all of that said, Emp believed that the advantages of giving them the position he had proposed to them earlier outweighed the disadvantages and risks by far.

Those could be controlled by what he asked them to do exactly and their originality might provide him some good ideas in the future just by them speaking their minds over a problem or another.

His decision was made. He would truly make them his retainers, as long as they were willing of course.