Ellie was the first one to wake up.She looked at her left and saw her aunt"s sleeping face, completely knocked out as if she hadn"t had a good night of sleep in ages.
Ellie wanted her aunt to hurry up and wake up so that she could keep her promise from yesterday, the one where she agreed to teach her magic.
"Aunt Evie?" said the girl as she kept poking the sleeping woman with her finger.
"Mmmm... Mom... Five more minutes..." Said Evlin still half-sleeping.
Ellie turned around and realized that her aunt"s housemaid, Detra, was also still sleeping. She grabbed her phone to look at the time and realized that it was already eight in the morning. Ellie was shocked to have woken up before ten without the usual help of her parents, but it turns out she was so excited about beginning her lessons that her body forced her to wake up early from pure excitement.
She expected the adults to be up already but it looked like they were even more tired than her.
She took this chance to check her body again and confirm if the exhaustion from yesterday was truly gone. Ellie was used to the feeling of being tired from playing too much, but reaching the point where she couldn"t even lift a finger was something completely new for her.
She began to move her arms and legs up and down in order to make sure all her strength was back.
"Mmmm... Pepperoni..." Said Evlin while turning around in the bed.
Ellie realized that her aunt might not wake up for a little while and tried to start her lessons by herself. She sat on the bed with her legs crossed and raised her hands so that it would almost touch each other as if she was holding an invisible ball.
"Come on... Come on..." She kept repeating to herself, trying to make a diamond appear again.
Ellie kept repeating in her mind the words her aunt would say whenever she would describe the feeling of using magic. Creativity, imagination, concentration, affinity. She tried to think of anything that could help her repeat the act from the battle against the crystal man-spider.
"How did I do that...?" She said as she kept staring at her invisible ball, hoping that a diamond would appear.
"You"re doing it wrong..." Said a voice coming from someone who was on the bed next to Evlin"s.
"Ah! Good morning Detra!" Said Ellie while hiding her hands behind her back as if she had stolen a bar of chocolate and didn"t want to share it with anyone.
"Morning little miss... I see that you"re trying to copy your aunt"s magic..."Said Detra while stretching herself trying to wake up completely.
"A little bit... I think I know what I have to do... Just not sure how to do it..."
"Really? And what exactly do you have to do?"
"Well... Make the magic appear... Right?"
"...That"s all?"
"I... I"m not really sure, to be honest... Kinda wish my aunt would hurry and wake up..."
"She had a long day... It might take a while until she opens her eyes."
"Ugh... Really...?" Said Ellie in a disappointed tone.
"I was surprised to hear you managed to use magic, to be honest... You don"t have a staff or anything, do you?"
"Not really... I don"t think I ever touched a staff my whole life..."
"Of course you did." Said Detra while raising an eyebrow as if she had said something obvious.
"Eh...? I did?"
"Your aunt"s dumb crossbow... You have been walking around with that thing close to you everywhere you go for the last five years haven"t you?"
"Oh!! That"s right! The crossbow was a staff!"
"..." Detra looked at the girl with tired eyes as if she was starting to doubt her intelligence.
"But the crossbow was burned in the restaurant because of Mia... I haven"t touched anything like that ever since..."
"The crossbow was burned...? There were no pieces of it left?"
"None... They all turned into ashes and smoke thanks to the fire... I think some of it even entered my mouth... It tasted terrible..."
"I see... That"s really ironic..." Said Detra while holding her own face and leaning forward.
"Eh...?"
"Sorry, it"s just... The one time I needed that stupid thing, and now it"s gone... "
"You needed it?"
"Of course! We all do! If your aunt can"t become a full mage again, she will never defeat Mia, and the six demon leaders that I imprisoned here will end up waking up."
"Wait, I think you just said something really important... What do you mean six leaders that you imprisoned???"
"Huh!? Oh, right... You weren"t awake during the story..." Said Detra as she sighed a bit.
Ellie just looked at her confused trying to wonder if she had missed something.
"You see, my child, the truth is..." Said Detra while rising from her bed and pointing her arm to herself. "I am in fact a G.o.ddess!"
"..." Ellie just looked at the woman in front of her. A middle-aged woman with long blond hair that looked like a mess from waking up, wearing pink pajamas and with a pair of dead eyes on her face as if she was tired from the mere act of being alive. "Riiiight...".
"... You don"t believe me, do you?" Said Detra, noticing the girl"s skepticism.
"Oh, no, no, I totally believe that you are a G.o.ddess, yeah, right, totally..."
"Well... I used to be at least... That is, until your dumb aunt decided to bring me to this world..."
"..." Ellie began to sense hostility in Detra"s words. "You don"t really like my aunt, do you Detra...?"
"Who? Me! Of course, I do! Everyone loves your aunt!! Don"t you know? When the world was created, one of the laws of nature said "You shall love the crossbow-girl and hate the G.o.ddess of the east!". So of course I love her! How could I not love her?? Everyone loves her, so of course I need to love her too right?? Right??" Said Detra while walking back and forth inside the room as if she was in a trial trying to convince someone.
"Huh..." Ellie started to look worried about her aunt"s maid. "Is there something you want to say, Detra...?"
"..." Detra glared at Ellie for a second which made the girl flinch, and then started to direct that glare at Evlin who was still snoring on her bed. "Yes..."
Ellie began to think she might have opened a can of worms.
"Yes, I hate her ok?? I hate her, I hate her, I hate her with all of my hate!!"
"Huh..." Ellie wanted to say something but she felt it would be better not to interrupt her.
"If it wasn"t for this stupid girl and her stupid crossbow and all of her stupid friends I would still be ruling as a G.o.ddess in the other world, I would still have a champion working to make me the next superior diety, and most importantly, no one would ever have discovered about terminal energy and be trying to release the six demon leaders that were imprisoned here!!"
"..."
"Everything I worked for, everything I planned! This woman just showed up out of nowhere one day and ruined everything! And now? Now I"m stuck here with all of you in this doomed planet, just waiting for Mia to finish her plan and kill us all!!"
"..." Ellie was starting to get scared.
"I mean, all I did was try to keep things balanced, trying to stop the demons from rising to power again, trying to stop the wrong power from falling into the wrong hands... But did anyone care about what I wanted? No! Of course not!! Because I"m the big, bad East!! Everything I do, I do it for eeeeeevil!!! So of course I needed to be stopped and placed in this ridiculous position as a housemaid serving one of history"s biggest morons!!"
"Wait... East? You were the G.o.ddess of the East?? That G.o.ddess??"
"YES!!!" Said Detra, now enraged as if Ellie had just poked an old scar by making her remember all that she had lost. "I used to have power! Followers!! A dream! A mission! I was gonna make the world a perfect place!! But then West, Marceus, that stupid lion-boy, and... And..." She glared at Evlin once again who was now drooling on the bed "And her...".
Ellie watched Detra approaching her aunt with eyes filled with hate.
"If only you didn"t exist..." Whispered the maid while slowly raising her hand towards Evlin"s neck.
"Hey!!!" Screamed Ellie while waving her arm as if she was about to jump to stop Detra, but before she could, she accidentally released a small blue diamond that smacked the maid in the head leaving a red mark.
"Oooouch!!!"
"Ah! I... I did it again!!" Said Ellie while looking at her palms.
"Ugh... Good for you..." Said Detra while rubbing her forehead, trying to make the pain go away.
Ellie started to glare at Detra. She never had a problem with the woman during all the years they have known each other. She always a.s.sumed Detra was a little grumpy, but overall a nice person. But now, finding out that this woman was the one from her aunt"s tales, started to put Ellie into her "Must-protect-my-aunt" mode.
"I don"t know what your deal is... But don"t even think about harming my aunt, ok??" Said Ellie.
"..." East simply looked at her and continued to rub her red mark. "Sure... Just like always... Everyone loves her, and hates me...".
Ellie looked at Detra"s face and realized that she looked like she was about to cry.
"Hey... Are you..." The girl said, trying to extend her hand to Detra.
"I"m fine!" Said Detra while slapping Ellie"s hand away. "This is just how it has always been..."
"Mmmm... Wha... What"s all that noise...?" Said Evlin while raising her body from the bed while looking at the scene. Her housemaid crouched on the floor rubbing her head while her niece was standing up looking at her. "Huh... What"s going on...?"
"..." x 2 Neither Detra nor Ellie were sure on how to respond.
"..." Evlin noticed their silence and simply decided to leave them be. "Ellie since you"re up, go take a shower... We will start your lesson after breakfast."
"Ok aunt Evie..." Said Ellie while giving one last look at Detra, still on the floor.
The girl picked a change of clothes and pretended to leave the room, only to hide behind the door to peek at what Detra was going to do.
"Everything ok...?" Said Evlin while looking at Detra"s red forehead.
"I think your niece hates me now too..." Said Detra while returning to her bed. "Just like everyone else..."
"..." Evlin looked at Detra for a bit. She then picked her wooden bracelet, approached the woman, and applied a bit of healing magic to remove her red mark.
In a matter of seconds, Detra"s head had stopped hurting from Ellie"s diamond. The woman then looked at Evlin confused.
"You know, East... You asked me once if I hated you when we first met... And I said that I didn"t..." Said Evlin while putting her bracelet back on a bag that she had bought. "And I still feel like that... I never really hated you...".
Detra looked at her with a little disbelief.
"Don"t know how much that means to you... But it"s how I truly feel..." Said Evlin while walking towards the window to look at the morning sky.
"..." Detra looked at her and responded with a low voice so that Evlin wouldn"t hear her. "As if that made any difference now..."
Ellie continued to look at Detra for a little bit and finally decided to leave for good. She started to wonder what kind of monster Mia really was if her aunt could forgive an evil G.o.ddess but not forgive her, as well as wondering if she herself could ever be so forgiving.
While walking in the hotel"s hallway, she spotted Marcus coming out of his room.
The lad saw her as well and began to twitch wondering if she would try to point a diamond at him again. "Huh... Good morning Ellie...".
Ellie once again began to feel a pinch of anger due to Marcus"s history with her aunt, but she managed to hold it back for a bit.
"... Morning..." She managed to say while rus.h.i.+ng away from him, much to his confusion.
Marcus just looked at her confused. Ellie then stopped running, turned around, and released a small glare at Marcus.
"I still hate you though!" She said all the way from the end of the hallways before really leaving for good.
Marcus just looked at her as she left, now even more confused.