Her first thought after the entire discussion about Amara's little sister being a troublemaker was that this little sister was truly a little too devilish!
However, soon enough she realized that it definitely couldn't be her. Amara's little sister was younger than herself, meaning she wasn't even three years old yet! From the sound alone, that thing couldn't have been too small or light, and must have been thrown at a decent speed.
Most importantly, the culprit definitely threw it from the window, which was too tall for a three year old to even look through.
Only one name came to her mind - the first Lord's son, her cousin Tristan. He was barely tall enough to be able to peek through the window. That bastard with his early growth spurt!
"I-I'm okay, don't worry…"
Once Amara let her go from her embrace, allowing Evelyn to stand on her own and look at her, she was startled to see a faint bruise on her forehead. Glancing at the window, there wasn't even the shadow of the culprit to be seen. The little bastard probably didn't even stay to look if the stone hit!
"You're not okay at all! Argh! Tristan that little idiot, I know it must be him!"
Amara frowned, feeling that the headache of calming Evelyn down was going to be worse than the hit just now. "Shush, Evelyn, calm down!"
Evelyn couldn't help but stomp her feet in frustration as Amara picked up the small stone that had hit her and kept it in the pouch like pocket of her apron. Even if she knew that with the redhead's 58 physique stat, a stone throw from a child couldn't hurt more than a bug bite, she still felt like beating that little bastard up.
"Even if you're not hurt, we can't just let it go! He still tried! Let's go catch that idiot and teach him a lesson!"
Amara sighed as she patted the little girl on the head. "No… remember, this matter didn't happen. You can't mention it to anyone else…"
"But…"
The redhead sighed. "Look, Evelyn, you're so smart, so tell me… If you complained about little Tristan hitting me, what would happen? Nothing!"
Evelyn was still a bit unconvinced. "He'll probably at least get scolded, right? And we don't have to complain, we can go catch him and beat him up ourselves!"
Amara rolled her eyes. The headache from the hit was already gone, but the one from trying to convince this stubborn girl was just beginning. "Firstly, he doesn't care about getting scolded at all, does he? He wouldn't have done this if he did. And if you beat him up, it's not your responsibility, but mine."
Evelyn finally looked a little cowed as she calmed down and thought it through. She wasn't willing to let him go, but it seems like she would have to figure out some other way to punish him.
"And to even get him a scolding, your father and the first lord would have to get into an argument first. Do we really want to do that when they seem so overworked already?"
"Fine, fine! I get it…"
She still felt angry when she thought about it. Evelyn had a hundred and ten points in physique, but a normal child did not. Even if she was born from a blessed spirit egg, she was supposed to have at most only twenty or so physique at this age. If that stone had hit her head instead of Amara, with just twenty points of physique, it would have been a serious injury.
Letting him go scot free when he did something like that did not sit right with Evelyn. If he learned that he could get away with such a thing right now, who knows what he might try a few years down the road?
'Ugh, that little shit is so annoying! I'll definitely get back to him, if not today, then tomorrow, or the day after! I don't believe I won't get the chance. Hmm… come to think of it, I might as well ask that now.'
Her thought process was simple. At her age, children had very short attention spans. As long as she changed the topic abruptly, Amara should think she had already forgotten about it, and won't pay as much attention to keeping her in line later. That should give her more opportunities to teach that little shit a lesson.
"All the other people here eat regularly and go to the bathroom, right? Amala-"
Tears sprang to her eyes from the pain in her tongue, she really shouldn't have spoken in a panic. 'Oh no… I have done it again…'
She could see the corners of Amara's mouth twitching from trying not to smirk.
"I-I did nhat bit-"
She took a deep breath waited for her injury to regenerate, thanking herself for picking this ability. "I did not bite my tongue! I just… stumbled on my words."
Amara smiled as she picked her up, ignoring her protests. "Of course, little miss."
It seems that the redhead didn't want to stay in the hall anymore, and decided to take a walk in the gardens outside, carrying the little girl along.
'She really does whatever she wants, huh?!'
"H-hey?! Who told you to pick me up?! Put me down! Down!"
The insolent redhead ignored her whining and squeezed her cheeks instead. "Weren't you asking me something? Don't mind the little things, Evey."
Evelyn paused. Oh yeah, she almost forgot. The topic she was using to distract Amara, what was it again? Food?
"Amara… why does everyone else eat so much?"
Her 'maid' smiled, kissing her little chin and laughing at her angry response. Her little lady was a ball of curiosity. Very easy to distract, but very focused on the strangest things at the same time. The little girl didn't even notice when she discarded the stone she had been carrying in her pocked into one of the bushes.
"Of course they eat so much… they're not special like my cute little Evey, after all!"
Normally, this is all she would have said, but she knew Evelyn's curiosity won't be sated so easily, so she continued.
"As someone born from a spirit egg, a very special one at that, your body is able to directly absorb energy from the world. Consuming regular food not only does not help, it can actually be a bad thing for you. So, you must be very careful what you put into your mouth."
Evelyn nodded when she saw Amara look serious. She wasn't too worried, since she was sure that having 'disease immunity' had her covered from getting sick, but others didn't know that.
'I guess this body is a bit abnormal even in this world… Hm, come to think of it, her status said Amara is also a blessed spirit… I wonder if she'll tell me if I ask?'
"Are you also the same, Amara?"
The redhead looked slightly surprised. "The same…?"
Amara sighed before smiling gently at the child in her arms, sometimes she was too smart for her own good. The redhead was a bit concerned if this adorable little fluffball would become overconfident and conceited later. Wouldn't that be a huge loss? But… could she really lie to such a cutie-pie?
"You're a little more special, but we're more or less the same… You'll understand when you're older."
There it was, the phrase Evelyn came to hate the most since her rebirth – 'You'll understand when you're older'.
"Don't treat me like a ba-bweh?!"
And she bit her tongue again.
----------
Amara had never been fond of taking afternoon naps. However, every day Evelyn would take a nap in the afternoon for about two hours. Moreover, she insisted that the redhead lay down with her.
After a while, it became a bad habit for her to sleep along, and it was this bad habit that Evelyn took advantage of today to crawl away slowly, down the bed and out the door and right out of the mansion.
If someone saw her, they would just think that she was sneaking away to cause some mischief. Her real goal, however, was quite different.
The system that Evelyn had didn't have any proper intelligence or soul, and could not really serve as an instructor. It was only a tool, and to use that tool to its fullest extent depended on the user.
Evelyn was quite sure that people in this world didn't think about strength in terms of levels, because she had never heard that word even in passing. Nevertheless, the easiest way for her to grow stronger using her system was to level up.
Leveling up increased her base stats, and the higher the base stats, the stronger the skills she could use would be. By defeating opponents or maxing out affection, she could of course acquire many enhancements, but these enhancements would be quite useless if her base stats were pathetic.
And to level up, she needed experience. Her body absorbed some of the world's natural energy by itself, giving her one experience point every two to three days. But this was just a drop in the bucket, barely worth mentioning. That's not to say it was useless - it did help her level up to 9 in these three years!
At this point, however, the most efficient way to get experience was to complete missions.
Almost every challenging task she could possibly do in her life - impossible or not, was issued to her in the form of a mission. She could 'accept' the ones she wanted to keep looking at, and they would be saved to her ongoing missions window.
The rejected missions were hidden, but if she completed them later somehow they would give her the rewards anyway.
Missions were also of different types, and gave different amounts of experience. Green missions, the easiest of the bunch, only gave her 20 experience when she was level 2, and 90 experience at level 9. Yellow missions could give anywhere from 1,000 experience to 100,000 experience in terms of reward, depending on the difficulty.
Currently, she had three missions. The first two were both yellow missions giving out 1,000 experience each - maxing out the affection of both her parents. Once completed, they would surely give her a huge boost in level!
And the third mission was the reason she was sneaking out today. Even if it was a green mission that gave only 90 experience points, she had to do it.
After looking around for a while in the garden outside the mansion, she finally found the stone that Amara had thrown away.
She could use anything else, but in her opinion, even if justice wasn't poetic, vengeance had to be. For maximum satisfaction!
[Vengeance: Level 1] : Accepted
Hint: Beat up Tristan Knox.
Reward: 90 experience.