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Xzavier took a step back, thinking maybe she was right.

"Are you sure? Because this cloak and dagger thing seems a bit over the top."

She didn\'t answer him immediately. Instead, she reclined on the wall fully, and with a far away look in her eye, she began to narrate in a chirpy tone;

"When I first came into the governor\'s service, I was just a child. I used to run around with the older maids, making beds, running errands and occasionally, scrubbing in the kitchen…"

Xzavier kept mute, and looked at her interestingly as she took him on a walk through her memories.

"At first it was difficult you know. Not the tasks, but the crushing loneliness. There was no one I could talk to amongst the servants. They were mostly hung up on their own personal affairs."

She fondly touched the stem of tree she was leaning on.

"So, I would wander off on my own during my free time, hoping to find someplace where I could be by myself and cry my eyes out. That was when I stumbled upon this place."

She paused for a minute to gather her thoughts, and continued.

"Once I found this spot, I would come here alone at every given chance to enjoy the overbearing sadness of solitude. But something soon changed."

She pointed over to a clearing right around the curve.

"One day, I was on my way here, and I heard some voices around the corner. I quickly hid myself and watched the drama. I saw the thirteen year old Earlene, with bloody knuckles on top of a boy, punching and beating him…"

Xzavier\'s eyes flared up in disbelief and in judgement when Adalia disclosed this fact. Noticing his reaction, Adalia quickly moved to clear the air.

"No, no, you misunderstand. She wasn\'t JUST beating the boy for no reason, he was the bully that had been picking on her younger brother, Cadence."

"You see, I also didn\'t know at the time, and much like you, I also jumped to conclusions. Earlene soon spotted me while I was hiding, and before she could confront me, I took off and ran as quickly as my little legs could carry me."

She giggled as she remembered the sight.

"Oh, I didn\'t stop running until I had reached my room. It turned out that Cadence\'s bully was actually the son of a diplomat. So, he wasn\'t happy at all when his son came back looking like he had been stomped by a horse."

Xzavier listened with rapt attention.

"That night, the governor assembled all the servants to inquire about what happened, the boy had been so terrified of Earlene that he didn\'t mention her name, instead he told his father that he had been jumped by a thief."

"The governor questioned each and everyone of us if we saw anything, but no one saw anything. I saw Earlene staring at me with pleading eyes, silently beseeching me to not speak a word of it. So, I kept her secret and kept mum."

She stopped for a moment to catch her breath.

"That night, Earlene found me and thanked me. A week later, she requested from her father that I be assigned to her. And since then, we have grown pretty close."

Xzavier was touched by the heartfelt recollection, but he still didn\'t understand how this concerned him in any way.

Almost as if Adalia had read his mind on the subject, her follow up statement addressed his concern:

"Listen Xzavier, I grateful for your concern, and for also sticking up for me, but I have made a place for myself here. I and Earlene and this family have an incredible relationship, it might not be ideal, but it\'s genuine, and I am satisfied with that."

She paused to make sure her words sank in.

"So, I humbly suggest that you refrain from making such jokes in the future. I don\'t how things are where you are from, but here, there is a class factor that puts a glaring gap between nobles and maids..."

She adjusted her posture and faced Xzavier squarely, hoping he would grasp the seriousness of her next statement.

"I am not sure if you\'ve realized it yet, but the governor was pretty lenient in the way he handled your ambush."

Xzavier recoiled at the way she made use of the word \'ambush.\' That wasn\'t how he had seen it at all!

"Seriously Xzavier, you should be thankful. The whole thing could have gone south really quickly. Other nobles of far lesser pedigree would have handled it very differently, trust me."

Xzavier said nothing. He had nothing to say really. Adalia\'s exposition only served as a reminder of the fact that he was indeed in a strange land. In that moment, more than ever, he could feel the yawning chasm between him and this era. Like oil and water, like a bird that had been yanked out of the skies and placed in the deep sea, Xzavier felt so out of place.

As impossible as it was for Xzavier to accept it, the glaring truth was that the people in this isekai still had the mindset of the feudal period. Socially relevant issues such as gender equality and class segregation were still very much a thing! It was like reliving the dark ages all over again. The concept of freedom, equality, and democracy was completely lost on the people of this time. Because he could not force his radical, fire-brand, trans-generational reforms on anyone, Xzavier had only four words to reply Adalia\'s sermon-like speech;

"I don\'t think so."

With those words being his final say on this topic, Xzavier turned his back on Adalia and walked right out of the clearing and into a hallway that would take him back to a familiar path. Behind him, standing in the corner, Adalia was left behind with her own thoughts, silent in meditation, and alone. Just as she had been in that same place several years ago.

Back in his private and exclusive office, the governor of Princy state sat in his swivel chair like the political figure that he was. The governor had been up to his neck with state affairs before this whole Xzavier incident. It wasn\'t abnormal for him to be drowning in administrative duties. This was part of the perks of being a governor of an important state.

But as soon as he discovered Xzavier, all of a sudden, it felt like a flood of light flooded the dark tunnel that was his daily routine. This beam of light melted the darkness away, leaving him with a clear line of sight of a new batch of objectives that hung in the horizon, just a little bit out of his reach, and at the same time, so close that he could almost touch them.

In that moment, as Quaid sat on his chair in his office, he eagerly unfolded a distinct scroll.

The scroll which was in the governor\'s hand at the moment was no ordinary scroll. This was a unique brand. It was unique because an ordinary person could chance on a scroll like this, and still wouldn\'t be able to gain access to the message within.

This scroll in particular, that happened to be in Quaid\'s hands at the moment, was an advanced scroll that was used for a different type of communication. What set this scroll aside from the other basic types was just how exclusive its reader\'s list was. Only humans who were of higher or equal rank of a marquis could make use of it. As a communications scroll, it\'s purpose was to transmit extremely sensitive information of high authority. So, this was one of the reasons why the distinct looking scroll was being handled carefully by Quaid.

Asides from the fact that Quaid was a governor and a ruling principality of Princy State, the shrewd man was also one of the major dukes of the Marshi Empire. As it was, Princy State was his Sub-dominion that was exclusive to his rule. The name Princy was more than just the name of the state, Princy was also the surname of the governor\'s family. He had descended from one of the most powerful of the founding families, whose surname also corresponded with the name of the state.

As Governor Quaid unfurled the elegant, mysterious-looking scroll, he drank in its contents eagerly like a thirsty dog lapping up water viciously at a watering hole. But the governor wasn\'t just twitchy because of an ordinary communications scroll, he had had enough of them in the past.

It was much more than that. The information contained there in was aligned with his diabolic suspicions, and at this hour, Xzavier was at the center of them all. If the governor knew how to express joy, he probably would have been bursting into joyous laughter already. The information in the scroll was clear enough, and the beauty about it was that it matched his suspicions almost word for word.

"Name - Xzavier Mace…