The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 40 - Sealed Correspondence and Masked Conscience

Chapter 40: Chapter 40 - Sealed Correspondence and Masked Conscience

A certain young miss of the Goltbred family packaged up the last of her final monthly side-work. Then she sat down at the table in her dormitory to write a number of letters. The first remained focused on business matters, even though she would prefer to prioritize the ones for Qat. She wrote it to the leader of the Silver Sky merchant group, her ostensible boss that would be receiving the package.

’I need to make sure he understands how my samples should be used.’

During the downtime she had while ’training’, Elua had devised three different rituals. All of them were related to agriculture and none of them were for making money off of, exactly. The two she was ’selling’ were essentially to be done so at material cost, with a very minor upcharge to account for the fluctuation of these costs in the near future.

Part of the reason was that she felt... that she *should* feel bad.

Looking at the prioritization of her own safety and her intentional future machinations behind making Qat the hero of the war, she wouldn’t classify herself as a very *upstanding* person. The brunette had on multiple occasions even stared blankly at the many pages of paper she was writing on to the Yecine in the months since she revealed the secret of her memories.

This feeling persisted no matter how much she easily convinced herself with the logical *consequences* of her over-involvement and protection of the many mortals and unfortunate cultivators that must go through the Descent. Even if the people didn’t turn on her and her family for her aberrant level of ability and knowledge, dealing with everything too ’handily’ would just make the future cycle worse for the regions.

The protocols of the Voidlings would mark the area as capable of dealing with higher levels of forces and they would ravage the region if she didn’t stay to handle that - and she certainly didn’t hope to stay stuck in this place another 18 years. She wanted to travel with her ’fortress’ to places that could help polish her gem of an eventual lover even more!

So she had wavered whether to ask the other girl what she should do. If the reborn cultivator should be doing more. She felt she knew what they would think, but she also really didn’t. Qatrand had always reacted just a little out of her expectations when it came to herself.

’Maybe I’m not as good at reading people as I always thought.’

The Goltbred considered inwardly after finishing the instructions to the merchant. Before she began making the tools en masse, she needed to see if he could get them distributed as secretly as the jewelry - as well as at volumes much, much higher. There would be no hiding the similarity in their work, but she still hoped to throw off people tracking the origin of the complex and tiny sigils.

’Should dad or mom be next... we’ll go with him to get it out of the way.’

Her father had been steadily sending her letters every week and keeping her apprised of things going on in the Goltbred’s home city. She usually responded perfunctorily, but occasionally he would mention Qatrand and she would extend her written niceties notably longer. Part of it was uncontrolled desire to gush about her fiance and part of it was to mess with the man.

In any case, she was grateful. He had continued to extend invitations for the Yecine to visit the baby sibling when she felt like it. He never wrote about it in his own letters, but Qat was more honest on this front in hers. That’s why she decided to start talking about being ’homesick’ and being ’excited to return soon’.

She also didn’t forget to give a lot of details about her happiness and expectation for the wedding ceremony to happen a couple months after that! Being appreciative did not at all oblige her to stop pushing his buttons about ’losing his little girl’.

"Besides, he has a new little one that should start showing child-like love to him like I did."

She spoke out loud for the first time in a while that day and then *giggled* at that realization - and the tone her facade had used. To think she would be the slightest amount ’bitter’ about it!

’I guess absence can make the heart grow fonder...’

The daughter stamped the seal with a soft touch and pat the letter. She felt he would enjoy this one - until he thought about her wording in parts, at least. Then she moved on to writing to Yatrel. First she explained the little wordplay trick she had inserted in the one for her husband, so that she would be prepared to deal with it. She wasn’t heartless!

Then she began to explain about a few things. Specifically, she wanted to let her know about the two tools she was going to circulate after the war was over with as well as the ritual she had worked on with her mother in mind. Because the woman worked in the Earthen Fellowship and also had the - rather valuable to an organization of builders - Earth Element, the heiress had decided to imagine something that could increase such a person’s capability to do a *certain thing*.

In short, it was a ritual-chain to more quickly and ’cheaply’ dig wells for irrigation water. It would be faster than doing it by hand, more efficient than doing it through raw essence control, and less tiring on the essence practitioner’s attempts to control the process. She would mostly have to make sure the sigils were set up properly and then just stand there for a bit while acting as a kind of catalyst.

’An oversimplification, but I think she will understand that quickly when she gets to try it.’

The purpose of it was to pair with the items she would be producing a large quantity of. The first of those were for repulsing common pests using sound. It ended up being something small that could be installed on the corners of a field and every forty feet to achieve proper overlap, until you had a nice box of them keeping creatures that wanted to eat the crops away. Whether it was foolproof or not remained to be seen.

She had needed to experiment a little with this to get it right, but in a guild filled with sigilists there was a lot of research published in their libraries and a few librarians more than willing to try and gain her favor. They could recognize a high achiever and sought out her coattails like they were a magic ride to the top. It wasn’t something that she liked, but it did make better use of her time to not be locating what she needed on her own.

The second tool was to be mounted inside a large box and its purpose was to make composting a little quicker. Using some memories related to a past cultivation rival, she was able to create a zone that increased the rate of Rot by about one-sixth. The tricky part seemed to have been making it less powerful than the sigil formations she recalled, as the mint-eyed girl had only met the woman in her past life when they were both Defiers.

Watching a dead rat putrefy in only an hour that first time had been very concerning. The continent already seemed to have access to the masking tool that used to be the purview of assassin-focused Guilds... she did not want to be responsible for also introducing a fast way to get rid of evidence of murders!

Elua placed down her pen for a bit. The final line she wrote had been promising to explain more about why she knows how to do these things at a later date. While she really didn’t trust anyone but her Qat to know every detail of her past, a basic explanation that she had some memories of a past related to sigils would suffice to prevent the mother she trusted second most in this life from turning on her - she hoped.

’As long as it doesn’t hurt her husband, anything I do is probably fine!’

The Dame Goltbred felt much the same about her daughter and Qatrand er Yecine, which is why she constantly prodded her husband to invite their future son-in-law to see the baby sister. As long as it was good for that girl’s spouse, anything she did was fine~ and she always wanted a daughter to learn the art of the sword.

It was a shame that the one that shared her mint eyes was so ’averse’ to combat.

---

At the scheduled day, such a ’pacifist’ met with an older woman who liked to wear a dusty cloak.

"It seems this is our last delivery. It really is a shame... it had been pretty easy work for the money"

The courier complained while looking at the very young *secretary* - who was also a member of a prominent house, was famous among other children her age, worked more jobs before joining a guild than necessary, and had become a talked about in rumor member of the sigilist Guild while still in her training period.

"I’m sorry you’ll lose the money, but I’m glad that it means I’ll be going home next month."

The brunette smiled at her pleasantly enough. One could even say it was adorable and charming. Yet Sevra had held a suspicion for a long while that something was behind this string of fame in the life of the girl she once chatted with at that Shadow Whisker branch. She had recently discovered a link between an exiled old Wing & Talon Enclave member said to be involved in some sort of black market trade... and a mysterious girl who hadn’t visited him in *about five months*.

The loose lipped old lady that was apparently bedding the elder was quite free with the information after a few drinks at a tavern. She had never seen the girl directly as she was always told to stay in the tea room, but the man had revealed that she was his contact and source for the traps with the strange sigil work.

"That reminds me, don’t you have a fiance?"

"Oh, you remembered. It’s one of the reasons I’m happy my training will be over. Our ceremony will be happening before the Descent."

The young girl just seemed to be so *pleased* telling someone this. As if getting married before a war started was the best thing possible. Combined with what she had been thinking lately, it made the woman uncomfortable.

"If I’m in the area, I’ll visit to wish you well. It’s been a pleasure, Little Shadow."

Even though she could see all the little changes in the Senior Sister’s spirit, the Goltbred girl didn’t think much of it. The woman had always been kind of ill at ease since the day they met and she learned that Yatrel was her mother. Most people were!

Which is why she didn’t even think that a supposedly respected member of the Sorority she had once worked as an assistant receptionist for would go against the delivery contract... and take a peek at the contents of the package going to the Silver Sky group.

To confirm her suspicion that Elua er Goltbred was the prophesized reincarnated cultivator that her missing family elder had told her *terrifying* bedtime stories about.