Mimic Awakening

Chapter 40: Visiting Her Estate

On a sunny day, a young man suddenly appears in the middle of the woods within the territory of the Kingdom of Roheazul. Since he is yet to learn spatial magic, Azrael has to rely on Claire when it comes to long-distance transportation.

Upon arrival at the location, Azrael scans the surroundings trying to find Claire’s estate but to no avail. Even his radar fails to sense any signs of humans; only animals and monsters are nearby.

(Are you sure we really landed on your property?)

(I’m sure, Azrael. Let me set the barriers to allow you to pass. Alright, you can walk past it now.)

(That was fast.)

After a bit of tinkering, Claire has changed the settings on the barriers, which Azrael easily passes through as he walks forward. For him, though, it was like breaking through water. The moment his face makes it through the barriers, his eyes are in awe upon seeing a villa surrounded by a beautifully maintained garden.

(Damn. Your magic is really something else. I won’t believe that there’s a building here. So this is your house?)

Impressed by how hidden the house is, Azrael praises Claire’s magic. From the outside, this spot is filled with trees that look so real that they are tangible. Anybody would not expect a literal house to be hidden there.

(Not officially written in my assets, but it’s my secret base. I went here from time to time to relieve my stress. This is where I keep my personal belongings as well as your loot.)

(I see. Being a court mage must be rough.)

Azrael looks around the property before he checks on his radar to find a single entity in the house. He notices she is in a hurry and going in his direction. Seconds later, one of the front double doors bursts open, and he sees a young woman in a maid outfit coming out of the estate.

Hm? She must be Claire’s servant, he thinks.

The woman is clearly running at him, but Azrael senses that she is not going to welcome him. Her face is filled with hostility, and she wields a dagger in her right hand. He is sure that she is not happy to have him. To her, he is just a stranger who barges into private property.

"Who are you?!"

(Woah. I can understand her!)

With his accelerated mind, he sees her movements to be so awfully slow that he has the time to celebrate the success of the God’s Tongue spell. While he is at it, he uses this time to examine the woman.

From what he can see, the young woman appears to be in her late teens or early twenties. But in this world where a year is shorter than Earth’s, she might be more than that in age. Then Azrael realizes that there’s no need for that right now as he has to do something about her aggression.

"Haa!"

"Hmph."

As the woman is about to land the blade at him, Azrael quickly grabs her hands and immediately disarms her, letting go of the dagger from her hands. Almost immediately, he twists his whole body and uses her own momentum to pin her down on the ground facedown before he sits on top of her.

"Let go of me! Who are you?! How did you find this place?!"

The young woman tries to resist, but she cannot budge Azrael’s grip no matter how much she struggles. Not to extend this further, Azrael lets out a sigh, looking disappointed, before he turns his focus on his mind.

(Isn’t there magic that communicates with the mind? Why didn’t you use it beforehand?)

(Well, telepathic spells actually exist, such as Telepathy and Farspeech. The reason why I won’t use it is that you can also hear the conversation.)

(That is a rather shallow reason. Claire, can you tell her to calm down?)

(I’ll try.)

As Azrael is pinning down the young woman, Claire attempts to make contact with her servant. At first, she tries to connect through Telepathy, but it does not seem to work for some reasons.

Telepathy is a high-tier arcane magic spell that allows the caster to communicate with another person mentally, although they can only communicate with one person limited to within the sight. This spell is the upgraded version of Mindtalk, an advanced magic that communicates with another person upon physical contact.

Since Telepathy does not work, that applies to Mindtalk as well. Claire then cast an upgraded version, the supreme-tier Farspeech, onto her servant, and it somehow works.

(I got it!)

(Good.)

Farspeech is fundamentally similar to Telepathy, but with much wider coverage, global scale to be exact, and it bypasses almost all of the barriers with a nigh uninterruptible connection.

(Alina. Can you hear me?)

(!! This voice...! Is that you, Mistress?!)

Hearing her mistress’s voice in her head, the young woman, Alina, immediately stops struggling to focus more on the telepathic call. On the other hand, Azrael can hear everything they have been saying. He compares this to wiretapping of the modern Earth.

(Yes, it’s me. It’s going to be a long story, so I’ll make it short. Due to unseen circumstances, I have died and been forced to take this man’s body. But instead, I failed to take his body over, and I was trapped inside him.)

(What?)

As Alina is still processing the information her mistress dumps, Claire continues talking.

(I am basically at his mercy, and I have to do anything he wants. So calm yourself down. I already permitted him to enter the property. Also, treat him like how much you treat me.)

(Mistress... If you say so, then I have to obey him as well.)

Due to her absolute devotion to Claire, Alina never doubts her words and immediately follows her order to obey this young man.

After listening to their conversation, Azrael stands up and lets go of Alina. The young woman then gets back to her feet as she stares at him, wondering how he knew how the conversation went on.

"So, I’ll take it that you are Alina," Azrael greets her with a lifeless smile. "I would be happy if you were going to introduce yourself as well."

"Ah-yes." Alina recomposes herself before she takes an elegant bow. "My name is Alina, servant to the Great Sorceress, Claire Forlath. It’s an honor to serve you, the person my mistress recognizes... Master."

"I will be in your care."

Before him is a young woman with long, wavy, silvery gray hair that stretches to her waist. She has pale blue eyes, and her skin is fair. Her build is tall, around five and a half feet tall in Earth’s standards, with a slender yet curvy body under her black and white maid outfit.

She’s not bad, he thinks inwardly as he secretly stares at her assets that might rival Claire’s. Claire senses that he might be having impure thoughts about Alina, so she immediately chimes in to move the topic.

(Alright. Now that we have settled the misunderstandings, let’s proceed to the next step of the plan.)

(You are rather excited, Claire. It’s not like your vessel is going to run away.)

(So he can really hear our mental conversation.) Alina tries to keep it to herself but broadcasts it to the group chat instead. Group conversations are one of the advantages of Farspeech.

"Your body can wait. So for now, how about we have a meal? It’s been so long since I tasted real food. I wonder what this world’s cuisine is like."

"I understand, master. Please wait a bit."

Afterwards, Alina leads Azrael to the house.