"Why you ask? There's no hidden story. Just some old stuff from long ago, not worth talking about!"
When mentioning the past, Elder Gwendolyn's voice sounded a bit sad, which didn't match her young looks at all. But she didn't seem to want to admit it, and just brushed us off.
"Really? But Altima just said you've been with this family since the first lord, at least. That's hundreds of years of history! There must be some reason, right?"
Too bad Cyra wasn't going to give up on digging for gossip. Earlier, when we met the castle mistress, we actually learned quite a bit of secret info about Gwendolyn from Altima. It definitely wasn't as simple as she claimed.
The Sebastian family, lords of Sifur, has a very long history, going back to when the Ilandra Dominion Empire was just starting. Their first ancestor, Hausman Sebastian, seemed to have done something big to help build the empire, so he got land that's still owned by the family today. But how exactly he got connected to Elder Gwendolyn, we don't know the details.
But all the Sifur lord family members over the years knew they always had an angel maid protecting the family's safety. The angel maid's exact background got forgotten over time, and she didn't want to talk about it. Now probably only she knows the real story.
"Don't tell me it was because of love? In this world men can marry many wives, even in the Ilandra Dominion Empire. Elder Gwendolyn, were you maybe the first lord's small wife?"
I made a bold guess, even though it sounded crazy to me too. But looking at it another way, it kind of made sense.
After all, the empire was never a pure religious country following one-man-one-wife rules. Men with many wives were everywhere, nothing strange. To put it bluntly, if a man liked, he could just drag a slave girl from the stable to be his wife, very normal.
Of course, Elder Gwendolyn was an angel, so I don't think she'd end up like that. But if she was the main wife, that didn't seem right either. The lord's spouse had to be in the family records, no way she'd be lowered to just a maid! So it was hard to understand...
Even though we couldn't sense any light element energy from Altima and the other descendants, there were many generations between, so maybe the angel mixed blood got so thin it disappeared.
"Hmph, nonsense! Do I look like an angel who'd be happy to be a small wife under a human?"
As expected, Elder Gwendolyn snorted coldly, sounding very proud as she argued back.
She didn't look like she was lying. Did I guess wrong? But besides this, there was no other way to explain why she stayed in Sifur so long. It couldn't just be for fun, right?
"Could it be one-sided love?"
Who'd have thought Cyra would drop such a bomb after thinking for a while. The ten-winged child flying in front suddenly dropped straight down several meters. Luckily she quickly steadied herself and flew back up, or we might have had a weird air crash.
"Pah! Nosy! Who do you think I am? I'm your Elder, a very senior one! How could I possibly have a one-sided crush on a human? Absolutely impossible!"
Even though she denied it very strongly, Elder Gwendolyn's red face and flustered look gave her away. Even a fool could see she wasn't being honest. Cyra and I shared a knowing look.
"So you stayed with the Sebastian family by choice?"
I just asked directly.
"How is that possible? I'm an Elder of the mighty Angel race! How could I willingly be a maid for a human? That bastard Hausman tricked me, don't talk nonsense!"
Though she was still trying to explain, this time Elder Gwendolyn was red-faced and her wings were flapping irregularly. She almost fell down several times.
"Oh? Sounds like your feelings for him have faded. Why are you still with his descendants?"
Cyra perked up and quickly asked.
"Hmph, I already said it wasn't one-sided love, so what feelings are you talking about? This is just charity! I'm just very interested in being a maid, and I saw Hausman's descendants were so pitiful, so I just stayed to take care of them!"
Did we guess wrong again? Her reaction was surprisingly calm, and she seemed very dismissive. If we didn't already know her personality, we might have been fooled.
"Strange, an angel throwing herself at a human but can only love one-sidedly... At least his noble status kind of matches yours, why wouldn't Hausman be interested?"
I couldn't understand. We'd seen angels like Gwendolyn who misunderstood things before, like Teacher Aetna, but that was with someone like Pope Cysper. A small lord of the empire shouldn't have such high standards, right?
"I said it's not one-sided love, why don't you understand? How could a great Angel Elder like me not be good enough for a human? Nonsense! Let me tell you, I'm the one who didn't like Hausman, especially after he married someone else! I only stayed to see how that bastard would regret it when he died!"
Okay, Elder Gwendolyn's face was red again. She stopped in the air, waving her hands at us angrily. She didn't even notice she was revealing a lot of inside info.
"Could it be he thought you were too young?"
Cyra hit the nail on the head. The air around us suddenly felt frozen, with no sound for several seconds...
"You, a newborn angel just a few days old, dare say I'm young? Back then I did look much younger than now, but I was still thousands of years old! More than old enough to be that bastard Hausman's great-grandmother, where did he get the nerve?"
Elder Gwendolyn finally couldn't hold back anymore. We saw her veins popping out as she yelled at us, spitting everywhere. But no matter how hard she tried to hide it, she still ended up revealing everything.
What an easy-to-handle angel Elder, acting all tsundere! Just like that, with a few questions and answers, we got all the info we wanted.
Basically, years ago Elder Gwendolyn traveled and had adventures with Hausman, the ancestor of Sifur's lords. They built up quite a bit of feelings. But sadly, Elder Gwendolyn looked way too young, even more so hundreds of years ago. So she lost badly in the love competition, even with her angel status. Hausman knew she was special, but only saw her as a little sister. In the end he chose another female adventure companion as his wife.
The young and hot-headed Elder Gwendolyn back then was in the foolish stage of love. She couldn't win head-on, so she wasn't happy. She disguised herself as a maid and snuck into the Sebastian family, hoping to turn things around. But sadly, she never got Hausman to change his mind. Time passed, generations of Sifur lords came and went. After her loved one died, Gwendolyn was already used to maid life and didn't leave. She changed her goal to protecting Hausman's descendants. I guess that's a kind of love too...
After figuring out the whole story, Cyra and I felt touched by Elder Gwendolyn's devotion. But we'd seen all kinds of love stories in movies and shows in our past lives, so we could kind of accept it. The person involved got too stressed out and flew far ahead, totally ignoring us.
"You think she might be too angry to help us now? What should we do?"
Suddenly Cyra asked me, a bit worried. It was deep night now. We'd been flying for over 10 minutes, not very fast, but we were far from the castle. It was pitch black all around, with barely any light. We could only follow Elder Gwendolyn's position marked by light elements.
"It's because you love digging up gossip, always wanting to dig deep into people's past. If you'd just kept quiet earlier, there'd be no problem."
I rolled my eyes and scolded her. Okay, I was a bit involved earlier too, mainly because I was curious. But I believe the elder is big-hearted and won't take it to heart, or she would've left us behind already.
"We're here!"
Sure enough, after a while, Gwendolyn flying ahead suddenly stopped. We saw her floating in the air, pointing at the forest below.
"There's a secret light elf settlement here, not far from the military base you mentioned. This light elf tribe has been having more conflicts with the imperial army lately. You might find some useful clues here! Whether it helps depends on your luck."
"Huh, this is close to the imperial army?"
I was a bit confused. On the way here, we were so focused on Elder Gwendolyn's love story that we didn't pay attention to where we were going. Now that she mentioned it, after looking carefully at our surroundings, I saw a huge dark dome faintly visible in the forest to our north.