The Northern Noble is a Grinder (Volume 2: Chapter 2).

The Northern Noble is a Grinder (Volume 2: Chapter 2). … Commissioned by Sivantic … “Sup.” One word, and I froze immediately as I realized L

The Northern Noble is a Grinder (Volume 2: Chapter 2).

…

Commissioned by Sivantic

…

“Sup.”

One word, and I froze immediately as I realized Lord Trelawney was present in the hallway I was walking through.

Chloe and Alice almost went still too, but they forced themselves to look in the direction of his voice.

I almost feared that the enemy cast some curse or illusion upon us, until I looked myself.

Lord Trelawney was dressed like a scullery boy, complete with a white cloth cap, apron, and pinstriped shirt and shorts.

“Got your dinners for the night. Let’s go ahead and talk while you eat.” He tapped the cart he was pushing with his foot before going ahead to push it. There was a large cauldron on the bottom level, while the top was laden with steaming flatbreads. “C’mon, are you guys seriously going to make me wait?”

At his words, all three of us moved swiftly until we were all led to the lord of the castle’s bedroom. Built for a siege, it had slits for windows and was quite small, but it still had one bed, a bathroom with artifacts that supplied fresh water for cleaning and drinking, and a sofa. With just one cot, we could all sleep in it.

A luxurious domicile for a castle under siege.

The door closed, he made a gesture and effortlessly granted us privacy, and promptly walked to the bed, lifted it, and then pulled out two large suitcases.

“Gifts for the three of you for your first war. Spices mostly, so you can stuff your face with all this.” He leaned against the wall after giving us the two suitcases. Spices while we were under naval invasion with ports blocked? He may as well have given us suitcases filled with gold. “Alright, you guys can get the first round of questions.”

“When did you get here?” Chloe asked immediately.

“A couple minutes after you guys went in. I snuck in while the whole base was focused on the three of you. This place’s defenses are awful.” He took off the soft cap on his head and grimaced as he shook it free of flour. “The emperor asked me to look at the situation and give him a price, through an artifact his agents handed me halfway through your training. I think they knew this was coming. Had a teleportation ritual set up and everything to get me here sneakily.”

I would’ve sat on the sofa, if not for the fact that I was covered in detritus from battle. Instead, I elected to sit on the floor, and both my companies followed.

There was much information being shared, so I took my time to process it before Alice spoke.

“Are you going to give him a price?”

“Hm, well, you three have it handled. So long as you three work together, nothing in that fleet’s a problem. It’ll give you all a chance to avoid a dumb civil war, too, if I don’t just sweep the fleet away and skedaddle back home rich as hell.”

A shiver travelled up my spine at his words, and I mustered some words thanks to the shock.

“The three of us!? Then, that means someone there is on par with Lady Aigen!?” At my question, a wide grin closer to baring fangs spilled across Lord Trelawney’s face. Suddenly, I thought to run away, but there was no place safe here. Or, rather, there was no one besides Lord Trelawney who could conceivably handle such a threat with ease. “Lord Trelawney, how much do you desire—

“What I want is for the three of you to work together and actually kill whoever it is.” My innards clenched before suddenly feeling like they were falling through an endless void. I looked at Alice and found a similar nervous look. Chloe seemed determined, but I had long known that she was ill-suited for anything save combat. “I’ll step in if you’re going to get crippled or die, but I want you to try and win. Invasion fleets like this don’t exactly come around often.”

With that, he ceased leaning on the wall and gave us a wave.

“I have to go prepare food, so go ahead and get some rest. I think you’ll have a couple of days before you need to tackle the boss, so consider everything else practice!” He opened the door to our room… and his demeanor abruptly changed. The smirk, narrow gaze, and straight shoulders all faded. With wide eyes, flat lips, and slumped shoulders, he bound up his hair into the cap he had dusted off earlier. Instantly, Lord Trelawney was replaced by a scullery boy. One that opened the door, and I barely stopped a scream as the demigod of the goddess of love was right there. “A-ah, excuse me, Mum. I-I was just delivering food!”

“Oh, I’m sorry for blocking your way. Go on ahead, child!” Anisette smiled and gave Lord Trelawney a pat on the head. I almost flinched at the casual touch and imagined that her hand disappeared at touching him. Instead, though, Lord Trelawney bowed out of her reach and scuttled away with barely lifted feet. The very image of an embarrassed, fearful boy. As if all his power and ability weren’t enough, he could also simply show up disguised with none the wiser!? “Ah, goodbye!”

I rose to my feet and met the gaze of the young woman who I was not able to do anything for so many weeks ago.

Then, before I could speak, she bowed to me and gave an earnest plea.

“Lady Argelia, please tell me more of how you grew strong!” My heart stopped. Not at her revealing her desire to grow strong and face her own challenges on her own, but because the exaggerated footsteps Lord Trelawney was making suddenly stopped. “I—if possible, I would like to be trained by Lord Trelawney as well, so that no one can seize me just for my lineage!”

Before she even finished speaking, Lord Trelawney was behind her with a wicked smile splitting his lips.

I barely thought to tell her to run when he suddenly pushed her into the room with us and shut the door behind him.

I caught the confused, stupid girl in my arms as Lord Trelawney undid his disguise with a too-wide smile.

Oh, you poor, deluded fool!

You placed yourself directly into his hands without thinking!

You haven’t even seen the curriculum!

…

Interlude: Anisette, Demigod of Love

…

Father once told me that a child forced to take up arms is to be pitied.

Yet Lord Trelawney only inspired fear in my heart.

“C’mon, let’s go! There’s still a few hours left before sunrise! We can get a couple hundred more kills in!” I was far from the coast, on a small boat, which he had flown onto the sea. The waves were high, the air frigid, and I was soaked to the bone, yet I held my staff in my hand like a woman possessed as the seas raged and corpses of monsters were all around us. “Here comes the next school! Get ready, hahah!”

His laughter was mocking and filled with pride, but I could not summon a single word, because everything that I had was devoted to withstanding what came next.

As this land was bereft of monsters of ‘quality,’ he had me hunt monsters of ‘quantity,’ and the look of pity on Lady Argelia’s face at his words was seared into my mind.

How could I have possibly known Lord Trelawney was present at the fortress and disguised!?

“Focus, kid! Focus! It’s time!” He called out, and I looked around at the towering waves. One of them was a good deal taller than the rest. A sure sign of the oncoming monsters. The Tidal Gluttons were schools of monsters that resembled small fish. They were a plague for fishermen. They moved in large packs, manipulating just below the surface of the ocean, and joined large waves. They hid within waves, making them larger from within, and crashed upon vessels to devour their crews. Lord Trelawney was holding the vessel together, but a massive wave filled with flesh-eating monsters would still kill me with ease! “Fire or lightning! You decide!”

Lightning should have been the obvious choice, as it travelled through water, but the last time I cast it, I had been partially shocked myself. Fire worked, but we had to vaporize much water before reaching the creatures, and many of them survived the attack. The survivors called upon more of their kin, and the next wave would be emboldened thanks to their call.

So, I grit my teeth and summoned lightning before letting it loose upon the towering wave.

A shock went up my arm, through my shoulder, and passed into my body. I shook, my grip on my staff almost faltering, while my vision went black for a second, and I had to catch myself from falling onto the deck.

It almost knocked me unconscious, but the attack did as I intended.

The wave was struck, lightning coursed through it, and the monsters within died.

Then, I felt their collective power surge into me.

I saw a monster in my people’s territory. Amidst my hunting ground, there was something that was prey but wasn’t. It was surrounded by the corpses of my brothers and sisters. My family. It killed them with power that I didn’t understand. Though I was not hungry, I followed all the others, because if the creature remained, there would be nothing left for the rest of us. I followed my brothers and sisters to try and kill the beast from above who intended to kill us all.

If we failed, then there would be nothing left.

I puked off the side before uttering words to Lord Trelawney.

“There’s almost nothing left here. Let’s move to the next patch.”

He gave a whistle at my words.

“Already picking up actionable information from your kills? Nice. Everyone else just picks up feelings.” The boat we were in lifted, while a warmth spread across me and the boat. Water turned to steam and lifted off the boat as we flew through the skies. I took a moment to drink the concoction Lady Argelia gave me and almost found myself chugging the mix of water, dried fruits, vinegar, salt, and sugar. My stomach immediately rumbled, and I felt like I hadn’t eaten in an entire day. I scrambled for the pack of dried meat on my person and hastily put it in my mouth to chew. “Wow, I had to tell them to do that. You pick up on things quickly!”

His praise somehow made me want to curse, and I had to hide grinding my teeth while eating.

Control your temper. Do not feed heavily into your passion. Restrain yourself, as you are too strong for others.

Father’s words resounded in my head. All good lessons since I was born from my mother.

But Lord Trelawney’s impish nature was making it difficult to stay calm!

He deserved a talking to at the very least, even though I thought he should get a spanking for acting like such a brat!

“Oh, ho. That’s new.” I froze and looked up. He loomed over me on one of the benches of the rowing boat he held aloft and flew. Still dressed like a scullery boy instead of a noble, the grin on his face was like a child finding a new toy to play with. If I were being less generous, I would be like a cat playing with its prey before consuming it. “You get angry. Alice gets angry too, but she always wusses out. You don’t.”

I was tempted to lie, but I decided that I would stand my ground.

“You delight in imposing your will on others and take every opportunity you can to be cruel.” I understood why he did it. The emotions I felt, the anger in my heart, resonated with the anger of those whom I killed. It allowed me to take more of their power than normal. I felt stronger with every passing hour, like I was becoming who I was meant to be. A hollowness that I never even realized that I had was filling up within me, and I knew that I would not stop until it was filled. However, that did not forgive Lord Trelawney in the slightest! “I will not back down from that belief. You need to be taught how to treat others properly, Lord Trelawney. Know that when I have enough strength, I will do so! Boys like you need to be guided properly lest you become irredeemable as men!”

Surprise flitted across his features at my admission, and for a second the grin faded and was instead replaced by a smile that was almost warm.

I blinked as I was reminded more of my grandfather than a young boy at the smile.

“And, you really believe that, don’t you? You’re worried that I’ll head down the wrong path when I get older.” His voice was strangely soft, and my brow furrowed as I tried to make sense of him. I knew that his family perished, so did he feel some strange affection for me for speaking to him as a senior relative would? My instincts told me such wasn’t the case. That warmth felt distinctly aimed towards my decision to stand my ground on my ideals. My gifts gave me little more insight than that. “Very well, then. I’ll listen to you when that time comes. When you’re strong enough to make me listen, I will.”

He offered me his hand, and I eyed it warily before taking it.

It was calloused and rough, despite his youth, and his handshake was very firm before leaving my grasp.

Then, that grin appeared again, and my thoughts on him soured instantly.

“Alright, that’s enough of that. Time for you to make a choice. Descend now or descend later.” He pointed down towards the sea below us. “If we descend later, you keep fighting schools of fish until you’re sick of it, but if we descend now…”

He aimed his finger off the side of the ship, and power surged from him. The sea below us came apart as a massive plume of water… And then I heard a roar.

A moment later a massive beast I’d never seen before leapt out from the white plume. It was like a shark but the size of a whale and had multiple fins on its spine and sides. It stayed aloft for a frighteningly long time and searched with eyes as large as barrels for prey. I met its gaze, and I knew it saw me as prey, but it faltered when it turned its gaze towards Lord Trelawney.

It was clear who was the bigger predator here, but instead of descending to the depths, it returned to the surface of the ocean… watching and waiting to move.

“So, kid… What’ll it be?” He goaded me and reminded me of my earlier words without saying a thing. “Descend now or later?”

If I wanted to teach this boy to have some manners, there was only one real choice.

“Now.”