395 A past of blood and ice

Maria became angry and stood up. She opened her hand and swung her hand to deliver a slap. However, Vincent was so used to danger that his body reacted instinctively. He caught her hand swiftly.

“Let go of my hand before I freeze you into a block of ice, you animal.” Maira glared while a feeling of bloodlust could be felt. Vincent felt as if she wasn’t joking about the possibility of killing him if he remained holding her hand.

Vincent released her hand and said, “I apologize for not letting to slap my face.”

Vincent placed his hands behind his back to display his honesty and continued, “I only wanted an expert to visit our island residence and check how my wives and I are progressing with our meditation.”

“You and you wives?” Maria asked with an expression of doubt.

“This morning, I heard from teacher Ton how people can die without a catalyst during a certain level of aggressive meditation. Unfortunately, one of my wives mediates in the way he described it. I fear for her life, so I wanted an expert like you to tutor us whenever you have time.” Vincent explained as friendly as possible with an approachable smile.

“Teacher Darwin didn’t tell me a lick about the man who he appeared interested in nor his family. I only learned a bit in these few days. ” Maria responded while still glaring at Vincent. She didn’t let her guard down. “I want a confirmation of your honesty.”

“Confirmation?” Vincent asked.

“Do you agree that if I feel that you are trying to take advantage of me, I can freeze you and take whatever little payment you have to offer? ” Maria suddenly showed the possibility to change her mind at the cost of fighting a powerful mage if he tried to do anything disgusting to her.

.....

[Wow. This woman sure is cautious. I wonder what happened in her past to have so many trust issues while telling someone in their face that she could kill them.]

*Gulp* “Thank you for the opportunity, teacher Maria. First of all, you are nothing compared to getting beaten by five wives for cheating on them. Secondly, I only need your professional teaching services and nothing else.” Vincent explained how he didn’t dare bring a woman to play with her in front of his wives.

Green light materialized into an object in Vincent’s hand. “Do you accept this kind of payment?” He shows a small fresh piece of mudcrab meat.

Maria was stunned by the glowing green object in his hand. When the jewel-like meat of a mudcrab meat appeared in front of her eyes, her interest was captured.

“Did the Lionheart main family give you this meat?” Maria asked. It appeared she had already heard of the Lionheart family auctioning fresh mudcrab meat for a hefty price after such a delicacy became challenging to find after the Ant Queen emergency.

“Do you want to pay me with mudcrab meat? One piece isn’t enough, you know. ” Maria stopped glaring, yet she didn’t loosen her guard around Vincent.

[Nice. We captured her interest. Now it is time to show her our sincerity. How about giving her three pieces? We will still have a little left.]

Vincent liked the idea. “How about half of the piece for every month? I can give you three pieces for the six-month academic year upfront right now.” He summoned two other pieces and placed them on her lap.

Maria was surprised to see fresh mudcrab meat as if it had been recently harvested. However, mudcrabs can be found so far away that this kind of freshness confused Maria.

Maria quickly stored the meat. *cough* “I will request for teacher Darwin’s permission, but seeing as you are a person his gaze never moved away from, I guess he can release my card’s the teleportation restriction of your team’s island residence.”

“I will tell you tomorrow after the lesson if I can become your tutor or not. But remember the conditions I mentioned. I don’t want to freeze another student and go meditating in seclusion as a punishment.” Maria partially agreed to become a tutor because the other part rested on Darwin’s approval. She also mentioned assaulting a student after perceiving their actions as disgusting.

Vincent and Kazumi were out of words. It wasn’t normal to hear a teacher proudly mention how she possibly gravely injured a student.

As Maria had nothing else to say, she went to place the cushions back in the corner.

*Gulp* “Can I know what happened after freezing the fountain? Your reaction showed me how you or someone you know was involved.” Vincent said. He noticed Maria glared at him with bloodlust in her eyes, yet he decided to keep talking about this subject.

historical

“If my suspicion is correct, then I would like to thank you because someone I know calls you the ice princess or the ice fairy. It made her summer a memorable one. However, she was sad that she couldn’t thank you in person.” Vincent continued while feeling killing intent bushing against his skin.

*Sigh* “Yes, I am. However, remember that I am admitting because teacher Darwin is friends with the Lionheart family, and he is also interested in the new Lionheart family.” Maria answered coldly with her annoyed expression.

“Many people wanted to thank you for what you had done. I feel safe with you as our tutor now. ” Vincent said with a smile to change the awkward mood.

“Did they really like what I did?” Maria asked with a surprised expression on her face. She had a somewhat happy expression on her face, unlike the usual angry, cold, grumpy, or annoyed expressions.

“I only know about one family. But it might be many more people by what I heard.” Vincent answered.

“I trust teacher Darwin’s judgment, so take what I am going to say to your grave. I will freeze you into a human block of ice if anyone learns about this.” Maira warned.

[I wonder what she is about to say to threaten you again.] Kazumi’s interest was piqued.

“Can my wives know at least?” Vincent asked. He didn’t want to mention a part of Maria’s past by accident and have an ice mage hunt him.

*Sigh* “Fine...” Maria agreed, and so, she began talking roughly about what happened on that life-changing day.

The young Maria was taken to prison. Her action was reported as an act of terror. Furthermore, after her parents tried their best to free their daughter, they also were imprisoned as her accomplice.

Maria and her parents were placed in separate cells. After a few days locked in a cell without any official decision, a noble visited Maria.

In the end, Maria kept denying the offer the noble made for an entire week. However, her state and her parent’s state were becoming worse, day by day.

Maria refused to become the noble’s slave while her parents refused to sell their daughter to the noble.

Maria became so desperate that she prepared to use one of her hands as a catalyst to escape her restraint, remove the bondage around her mouth, and cast as many ice spells as she could to kill the noble and free her parents.

On the eighth day of barely eating anything but food filled with aphrodisiac and the noble was becoming impatient of her will. He approached Maira with a whip in his hand.

Maria started the do-or-die plan. She began forcefully channeling mana around her hand to kill the noble, even if that was the last thing she did before her final breath.

“But who knew that instead of my hand exploding and starting to excessively bleed, the noble in front of me was suddenly impaled by multiple ice shards and I became covered in his blood instead. That is how Marquise Darwin Griffenheart saved my family and me from a bastard of the Blackheart family who was magically removed from the registry of their family.” Maria said. She revealed a faint smile and continued, “My family now lives on the island where the test is going to be. As for me, I became his student and later a teacher” *Sigh* “to further develop myself, he said.”

Maria changed her expression again. She glared at Vincent and said, “I hope I didn’t decide to place my trust in the wrong person by believing in teacher Darwin’s interest in you. I am not a weak little girl anymore. I can freeze you before you think it is freezing.”

“Fine, fine. Your secret is safe with me. I will also tell my wives a little bit of the story. Is that agreeable with you, teacher Maria?” Vincent said.

Maira nodded and left after hearing this.

Vincent went over to the cushions in the corner and sat on them. He appeared to be mentally exhausted.

[No, this is why Maria hates nobles. Well, to be honest, now it is understandable to act this way. But this also reminds me of you.]

-Hmm? How so?-

[Well, the two of you were saved from your mental prison while Maria from her physical prison by another person. Coincidently, the two of you also followed your savior.]

-I guess you are right as always, Kazumi. But I wonder how Darwin fix the situation with the death of a noble?-

[Who knows. Maybe a corrupt guard was also killed by Darwin and took the blame.]

Vincent smirked at Kazumi’s insight. He took out his academy student card, used the mail checking commanded the card flashed once, meaning he had no mail. With nothing else to do, he teleported back to his island residence.

The first thing he did was to collect his wives in the bedroom and tell them about the arrangement he made. He also mentioned how Maria would give her final response at the end of tomorrow’s magic lesson.