Chương 15: Trial of Worth

It had been a long time since Cecilia had returned to the main house. After joining the academy, she barely ever visited the house, and after the incident, she was simply not allowed to come here without a summon from the house or taking permission. Looking at her old room, which hadn't changed at all since the last time she had seen it, Cecilia felt a strange sense of comfort. Bella had moved to the servant quarter to get her food. As for Edwin, she had no idea where he had disappeared to.

While Cecilia was still looking around her old room, a few more maids entered the room.

"My lady, the bath is ready." Cecilia nodded. She wanted to take a bath before she met the senior steward. She took one last look around her old room before leaving it. The maids followed behind her as she walked through the familiar hallway toward the bathhouse. When they reached the bathhouse, Cecilia pushed the door open and was about to enter when she stopped and turned toward the maids.

"You don't need to come." The maids looked at each other, not understanding why a noble lady would refuse their help. Cecilia never liked servants looking at her naked body, even if they were female servants. So she had learned everything herself so she wouldn't have to rely on servants. Only Bella was an exception in this case, though Cecilia was not even sure why that was. She had never bothered explaining it to them, but looking at the maids, she thought they might be new recruits who had no idea about it.

She didn't explain herself and strictly told them to leave. Only after the maids left did Cecilia enter the bathhouse. The bathhouse was as big as 900 square feet. In the middle was a large pool where the water was continuously moving from one side to the other before falling into a tunnel built at the side of the room. It was like a constant stream of running water, keeping the pool from becoming still. Keeping the water clean and fresh. She then proceeded to take a bath.

— After bathing, Cecilia ate the food that Bella had brought for her. Wiping her mouth, she looked at Bella.

"Isn't this your first time in the main house?" Bella nodded innocently.

"Yes, my lady. This place is even bigger than my imagination." Cecilia thought for a while before speaking.

"Listen, Bella. Don't do anything stupid or troublesome. Do you understand me? Especially, don't attract the attention of any of my brothers." Bella nodded at once.

"Yes, my lady. I will make sure to stay out of trouble." Cecilia then stood up.

"Then I will be going to meet the senior steward. In the meantime. You should go and find Madam Elia." She took out a letter and handed it to Bella.

"Give her this. And also tell her to prepare a dress for the celebration for me." Bella took the letter and nodded. Cecilia then left her room. The main house was divided into four wings: the East Wing, West Wing, North Wing, and South Wing. The direct descendants of the lord lived in the West Wing. Cecilia didn't like her siblings much and found them troublesome to deal with, so she had moved her residence to the North Wing.

Most of the administration duties were handled in the West Wing, while the soldier training was done in the South Wing. The main house itself was incomprehensibly big. Because of its size, small carriages had been prepared inside the estate just for travelling from one wing to another. Cecilia approached one of the carriages. It looked at least ten times more luxurious than the carriage she had arrived in. The driver, an old man with gray hair, bowed his head before opening the carriage door for her.

Cecilia entered the carriage.

"To the West Wing. Area 1." The old driver nodded and closed the door. It took a good ten minutes for her to reach her destination. Cecilia left the carriage and walked toward the entrance of the West Wing. She soon entered Area 1, where most of the household's administrative work was handled. Servants and clerks were constantly moving from one place to another, carrying stacks of papers and documents. But the moment a servant or clerk recognised Cecilia, they immediately became tense and looked away.

It was almost as if they had seen some kind of monster. Cecilia paid no attention to them and continued walking until she reached the senior steward's office. She knocked twice on the door.

"Come in." A voice came from inside. Cecilia opened the door and entered. The office was enormous, almost large enough to be a small hall. Several enormous bookshelves covered the walls, filled with countless records and documents. There were several tables placed around the room, each covered with papers, ledgers, and other administrative documents. At the far end of the office stood a large wooden desk. Behind it was a wide window that overlooked the inner grounds of the main house.

There were also several chairs arranged in front of the desk for people who came to discuss matters with the senior steward. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Despite the size of the room, everything was arranged neatly. Beside the desk, which was placed near the window, sat a man who appeared to be in his late 50s. He had white hair, a white beard, and a moustache. His build was like that of a professional bodybuilder.

He was huge, but not excessively so. His body was almost perfectly proportioned, giving him an intimidating presence. Cecilia approached the man and sat down on a chair in front of the desk.

"Sebastian," she said, crossing her legs and resting her hands on the arms of the chair. Sebastian looked at her.

"Cecilia, it's been a while." Cecilia ignored his greeting.

"Which one?" Sebastian knew very well what Cecilia was asking, but he still pretended not to understand.

"I don't understand what you're asking." Cecilia gave him a hard look.

"On whose honour is this celebration being held?" There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"It's Roseline." Cecilia's face immediately became disgusted upon hearing the name. Roseline was her elder sister and one of the only four daughters of Lord Rosenkreuz.

"You summoned me here just for that? Surely you don't think I'm going to stay here even for a second and be bothered with such a useless matter. There must be more to this. Otherwise, I'm leaving." Sebastian didn't get offended by her informal tone. He was already used to it by now. In terms of hierarchy, Sebastian stood just below Lord Rosenkreuz himself, so every member of the household was expected to show him respect, with the exception of Cecilia. She just couldn't be bothered with such things.

She never had and probably never would.

"As much as I would like for you to stay away from the main house for my own peace of mind, it's not really possible this time." Sebastian paused for a moment before continuing.

"The celebration is indeed being held for Roseline's achievement of successfully completing her mission and becoming a member of the Red Rose. However, there is one more important reason." He paused.

"I really don't like your habit of stopping at the important point, Sebastian. Just get to the point."

"Someone has called for the Trial of Worth." Cecilia was slightly surprised, wondering who had the audacity to call for a Trial of Worth. The Trial of Worth was a way for a member of a branch family to challenge a member of the main family. If the challenger won the trial, they would take the position of the main family member they had challenged. And the challenger will take almost everything that the individual possesses, including their position, privileges, and everything else that comes with it.

Their entire family would be raised to the rank of the main house, giving the challenger an equal chance of one day becoming the next Lord of Rosenkreuz. But if they failed, their entire bloodline would be forbidden from calling for another Trial of Worth for the next two generations. The challenger would either be killed or become a permanent servant of the challenged member.

As for the defeated member of the main family, their mana core would be broken and they would be thrown out of the family, as they would be seen as nothing more than a disgrace to the Rosenkreuz name. Most didn't survive more than a week in the outside world, where there was no shortage of enemies of the Rosenkreuz family.

"Who is this imbecile who called for a Trial of Worth? Have they lost their mind. No one from a branch family has ever won the Trial of Worth."

"Yes, you are correct. No branch family has ever truly won." Sebastian paused.

"Except for two."

"Oh, please, Sebastian. My father and Aunt Anemira are exceptions." Sebastian nodded.

"Anyways, what does that have to do with me? I couldn't care less about which of my siblings they challenged or who the challenger is." Sebastian then looked straight into Cecilia's eyes.

"The person from the main family who has been challenged is you." |||||||||||||||||||••|••|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Author note: I'm going to address this matter only once. I don't want to do it, but I have to. For the past three days, since Friday, things have gotten really, really bad. You guys have to understand something. As a reader, every single one of you has the right to criticize anything in the story that you don't like.

And as a writer, it is my job to hear you out, try to understand why you feel the way you do, and improve on my writing. One of the most important reasons I still publish on RR is to improve. I want to take the feedback I receive here, learn from it, and use it to make the next edit better. But you also have to understand that there is a fine line between criticism and bullying. The chapter I published this Friday had some elements that many of you didn't agree with. I understand that.

I read your comments, I took the criticism, and I kept a lot of what you said in mind so I can improve on it later. Some comments were extremely harsh. Some were reasonable. Some I agreed with, and some I didn't. But all of that was still within the boundaries of what I expect as a writer.

Then, all of a sudden, came these few "geniuses"—I'm going to use a different word in my head, but I'm not going to write it here—who apparently thought it was their right to get personally offended by something that happened in a work of fiction and take it to an extreme. The first two comments were outright attacks on me as a person. As a reasonable person, I tried to engage with them at first, but eventually I did what I could: I blocked them.

I don't want to see someone's twisted sense of justice being taken out on me over something that happened in a fictional story. But then, like a dam breaking, two of those few people Send me a DM on my Discord ID. And honestly, the amount of vile, disgusting, and inhuman things they started saying there left me speechless. For a moment, I genuinely had no idea how to even respond.

One of the messages said:"You are human scum that shouldn't even be allowed to ••••" If you're reading that and thinking, "Okay, that's not right," then imagine how it felt to actually receive that message. And that wasn't even the end of it. This continued for THREE DAYS. I blocked them. They came back with another ID. I blocked that one. They came back with another. And for three days, they kept doing it.

I haven't even told you 20% of what they said or how far they took something that happened in a fictional story. Then came the rating bomb. Before all of this happened, the novel's rating was somewhere between 4. 5 and 4. 7. Then, in a few day, I suddenly received 9 –2 star ratings, 1- 0. 5 star rating, 3- 1 star rating. And somehow, right after all of this happened, I'm supposed to believe that all of them were completely unrelated? (Maybe.) I have thick skin as an author.

You have to, if you put your work out there for people to read. But even I have a limit. I'm still human, and yes, this hurt me. So this is my one and only request: You have every right to criticize anything that happens in the story. You can dislike a character. You can hate a chapter. You can tell me that you think something I wrote was terrible. You can disagree with my decisions as a writer. I will listen. But please, don't cross that line.

Don't go out of your way to attack my personality, question my character, insult me, curse at me, or harass me over something that happened in a fictional story. The last three days have been really difficult. Somehow, I've managed to deal with everything, and I sincerely hope I never have to go through something like this again. If it happens next time, I'm simply going to block the comment section and move on. I don't want to engage with this kind of behavior anymore.

And if you are one of those two people reading this... I genuinely don't understand why you had to do that. I really don't. As for the rating bomb, it has affected the novel's rating and ranking quite a lot. So, if you haven't rated the novel yet, please consider doing so. It would genuinely help a lot. (Just give whatever rating you think it deserves so far.) Thank you to everyone who has given me honest criticism, even when it was harsh. I may not always agree with you, but I do read it, and I do learn from it.

That's what I'm here for.