Transmigrated as a Ghost

While Marcus was still mad at the shady maneuvering that the Valorre family had done in a move that he found out was an attempt to gain the blessing of iron from Lilia (though she has no access to it anyway) there was nothing much he could do.

He still planned to tell Lilia the truth about Alaric being the grandson of Maryam who had tried to make an arranged marriage between the two of them before, but not until after the training trip they were going on was over. 

Also, before they left Marcus was planning to use his ghostly abilities to observe Lilia and Alaric, and make sure that the latter was not up to no good.

'Depending on his intentions I may have to set him straight or even make him disappear if him being around would hurt Lilia more.'

When it came to Lilia, Marcus had grown very protective of her. In fact, in the entire world, she was probably the only one he would be willing to risk his life for, at least for the moment.

With his thoughts now straightened out, Marcus looked towards Bianca Valorre who was still in the room with him and said, "Fine for now there is not much I can do if it is Lilia's choice, but you can be sure I will tell her about how her meeting with Alaric was not a random encounter. After that I will let her make whatever choice she wants. But know this, if your son ever intentionally hurts my little sister there is not a force on this world that can stop my wrath."

After giving that last warning to Bianca, Marcus left the room and headed back to where the other nobles were mingling.

Collapsing onto her knees now that Marcus was gone, Bianca felt a cold chill on her spine and a sense of relief now that Marcus had left.

During their conversation he had been exerting some type of unconscious aura that had been smothering her and Bianca was able to glimpse the true strength Marcus had.

'Mother I hope you have not made an enemy that you cannot deal with.'

Returning to the area the other nobles were in, Marcus made small talk with them for a bit, and set up a time to meet with Sir Hinsen in eleven weeks to talk about business when he would return to make preparations for the tournament.

Soon the meeting with the other nobles was winding down and with what he wanted to do here accomplished Marcus returned to his own estate.

However, he did not stay long as he immediately told his maids that he would be going out for a couple of days and to not expect him back for a while.

Leaving the gate of his estate on foot Marcus found a quiet alley and shifted into his ghost form becoming invisible and ethereal.

Now unseen Marcus began floating towards the royal academy where Lilia was studying, planning to observe her and Alaric and make sure Lilia was not in any danger.

Taking nearly four hours of floating, Marcus finally made it to royal academy and passed through its normally tight security like it was nothing.

'It has been a while since I have enjoyed the perks of being a ghost. Now where is Lilia.'

The sun was quickly beginning to set so Marcus was pretty sure that most classes would be done, so he started his search by heading to the mess hall, though while that was what it was called it was more like a high-class restaurant.

Floating inside Marcus made a scan of the students looking for Lilia, but unfortunately did not find her there.

'I guess the library next and then after that if I cannot find her, I can just locate her room and wait there until she comes back.'

Moving out of the mess hall, Marcus quickly found the library where a large number of students where going in and out.

Entering the library Marcus was impressed by the number of books since things like the printing press had not been invented yet and books were still mostly transcribed by hand.

In fact, this library was one of the largest collections of books in the kingdom only inferior in quantity to the royal families personal archive.

Going from row of books to row of books Marcus searched for Lilia and after around twenty minutes, finally found her deep within the library sitting around a table with three other people.

Marcus quickly identified Alaric because of his slightly pointy ears owing to his half elf nature who was sitting next to Lilia a bit too close for Marcus' comfort.

The two of them were currently reading the same book which was about how to mange resources within a territory, and they would occasionally look up and talk to the other two students that seemed to be their friends.

Floating closer Marcus hovered right behind Alaric keeping a close eye on him.

However, for all of Marcus' wariness, they just continued to study together, and soon he saw them pull out a stack of papers and it seemed they were preparing some type of presentation.

'It is still far too soon for me to come to any conclusion. He may be acting nice now but let's see how he is when he thinks no one is watching.'

Waiting for around another hour, Marcus continued to observe Lilia and her friends until they left the library and made there way to get some food.

Following along, Marcus once again entered the mess hall and paid close attention to what everyone ordered.

'Lilia got some type of beef stew, similar to some of the dishes I made for her on the road. But that kid Alaric got some sort of vegetarian dish that uses a type of gourd as the main ingredient. Is it because of his elven heritage? No, his mother was eating meat earlier and she is a pure elf, so it is probably just his preference.'

Watching them eat lunch, Marcus nearly jumped in when he saw Alaric and Lilia sharing their food with each other, but he contained himself.

'Crap their relationship seems to be more advanced than I thought. Yeah, they are close I can tell that by the way the interact with each other. They are certainly being friendly towards the other students sitting with them, but the two of them sat next to each other and are talking with each other around twenty percent more.'

Carefully analyzing every minute detail, Marcus was ensuring that nothing funny was going on that could endanger Lilia, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

So far, they had just been acting like normal kids and Marcus had found no smoking gun like sociopathic tendencies or hidden messages being passed.

'Ugh this is getting boring do something damning already.'

Waiting around until they had finished their meals, Marcus noticed that Lilia and Alaric split away from their other friends and towards what Marcus assumed to be a dorm building.

Once inside they began heading up some stairs and made it to the third floor, when Marcus noticed a group of girls waiting around where they were heading.

The group soon approached them and began throwing insults at them especially one girl who seemed to be the leader.

"What do we have here, the country bumpkin and the son of a traitor. Has your father sold out more of the country to the elves yet? I heard from my father he was recommending basically giving away the majority of the kingdom's magic cores, and in return all we were going to get is some lousy fruits. I wonder how far your whore mother had to spread her legs to get that through. And you little miss perfect; you think you are so special because you are a few levels higher than the rest of us. At the end of the day, you're not really a noble, your sister just lucked her way into a title, and not a very prestigious one at that. She has no territory, no position in the kingdom, and I hear she is a forgemaster. Ha I bet she looks like a big gorilla sweating away in the heat doing commoners work every day."

The pack of girls continued to throw insults at Lilia, obviously trying to provoke Alaric or her into attacking them in an attempt to get them in trouble.

Marcus even noticed that someone that looked to be a teacher was standing nearby but out of eye shot, and since she was currently doing nothing was probably with the mean group of girls.

'The little bitch is even insulting me. I thought Lilia told me it was taken care of but apparently these girls still have it out for her. And I guess that means Alaric coming to her aid was not a complete set up otherwise there would be no reason to continue this kind of act.'

Marcus continued to watch the verbal sparing match that was going on which mostly consisted of the girls throwing insults, but occasionally Lilia and Alaric would throw back their own.

It seemed that they were both used to this, and it did not seem that it was going to come to physical blows.

Well even if it did the highest level any of the girls flinging insults was only level nine and Marcus was certain Lilia could mop the floor with all of them.

Soon their verbal match began reaching its finale and Alaric said, "Francesca maybe you should give it a rest. Over the break I am going to see my grandfather, and his territory is before your father's on the major trade route from Loursend. I am sure if he hears what kind of brat Count Rassgat is raising, the majority of the goods might be diverted elsewhere."

However, the girl Francesca seemed to not be in any way deterred and said, "Ha, your old grandfather may be a Marquess, but my father has recently become the right-hand man of Second Price Rowan who is currently the general of the aerial knights."

The two of them continued to grandstand a bit more saying this and that about how they could bring down the ire of powerful friends and family until the girls eventually got tired and began leaving.

'Yeah, if you think you are getting away with insulting me and my sister think again.'

Following the girls until they reached the stairs, Marcus waited until the girl named Francesca put her hand on the railing and using his chill zone ability froze her hand to the metal.

The girl as she tried to step forward found her hand stuck and she began looking around frantically at the other girls who all seemed equally as confused.

'Ah I feel a little bad about doing that to a child, but after all the crap she gave Lilia and the insults towards me she deserves it.'