Chapter 26

TW: bullying / childhood trauma

The small child carefully placed her hands on the black stone. Her eyes were tightly closed, hands clenched, but the gaze on her was cold.

“You still don’t feel anything?”

“Well, something… seems to be moving,” the startled girl hurriedly replied, tightening her grip on the mana stone.

Unfortunately, nothing happened.

Duke Ingelos stared at his child pityingly, and suddenly raised his hand to point at the stone.

“Ah!”

A small explosion sparked just above the mana stone, causing black smoke to rise. The child dropped it with a shrill scream.

“This is futile.” The duke turned his back on his little daughter without looking back.

She trembled for a long, long time before breaking down in tears.

***

Alessia, who was staggering back to her room, saw a group of children. She quickly tried to escape, but she had already been spotted.

“Wow! It’s Alessia, our archmage!”

The children gathered at the end of the hallway rushed closer to her.

“What other miracles did you accomplish today?”

“It’s something that ordinary mages like us can never accomplish, right? Can you show it to us?”

Alessia, who was thin and small, was quickly surrounded.

“Make it rain…”

“Alright…” she mumbled.

The children, her cousins who had always been compared to her, laughed uproariously. As they all lived together in a large castle, sharing research progress reports, all of the adults’ hypotheses about Alessia spread to the children.

“Oh, how dare we laugh at our archmage!”

“I’m sorry!”

They looked down on Alessia with similar red eyes.

“Did you think we’d say that?”

“My dad says you’re not a proper wizard. That Uncle failed.”

“You thought you were the best, didn’t you? Because everyone loves you, right?”

“No, I… I didn’t do anything, I wasn’t—”

“So noisy!” A hand flew towards her.

She crouched instinctively, and the children began to pull her hair. Alessia swallowed her tears and didn’t scream once.

“Alessia can’t use magic. She’s a fool, she’s a fool…” they sang.

Ever since then, the words of their little song were…

***

Her name, which once bore her family’s hopes, had thus been reduced to ridicule.

In fact, the anomalies between her perceived potential and actual skill appeared when she was four, when she had first started taking classes. Alessia had not been able to sense mana concentration, something that most descendants of Ingelos could do.

She was overflowing with mana, so it should have been simple to sense and harness it, but it seemed like she didn’t even know mana existed.

Sometimes there were children who were late bloomers, so the duke brought a mana stone. If she couldn’t feel it herself, it would be enough if there was an external stimulant.

Had he not witnessed her potential with his own eyes? Even though several years had passed, the sight of the mana stone shining like a glass bead was still vivid in his mind.

As such, he did not doubt that Alessia would soon overtake her peers.

However, that belief was quickly shattered. The mana stone did not respond at all. He brought out all the others that Ingelos possessed, but none of them reacted to Alessia.

The duke hurriedly called his wife and brother to the room, interrupting their own research. Monique and Xavier were annoyed at first, but immediately understood the situation.

“It’s her first time, so she might be too nervous.”

“But there’s no way that nothing would happen at all.”

“Alessia, did you try to connect with the mana?”

“Yep.”

The child, who sensed the strange atmosphere, eventually withdrew without them noticing.

Their days passed just like any other, and the years went by quickly.

Each member of the family had their own suggestions. Some said that the dormant mana could be awakened by force, while others said that exposure to magic stones would be helpful.

Unfortunately, none of those methods work. Alessia and the mana stone were at an impasse.

It was rare for a child with magical power to lose it temporarily, and even rarer for one to lose it entirely.

In an unprecedented event, the ducal couple made no progress in their studies related to Alessia’s condition.

They were left with an ordinary child, and as usual, their interest soon shifted to their next experiment.

***

Failures were bound to be discarded, easily forgotten.

But Alessia Ingelos was neither discarded nor forgotten. It would have been better if she were, but her existence itself became a disgrace to her family.

“Poor Alessia, why are you even reading? You can’t use magic, can you?” Stella tapped her head and kicked the torn book away.

“Just behave, will you? Don’t make me feel bad by trying out things that won’t work.” Pascal, who had upturned the room, giggled and left.

The book’s pages were scattered on the floor, and a stream of blood dripped from Alessia’s forehead, which had been hit by the book’s spine. She leaned against the wall helplessly, reflecting on what had gone wrong.

Pascal and Stella, who had not received much attention from their parents due to their unremarkable magic powers, grew up to be mages of little importance. They were not smart enough to devote themselves to research, not talented enough to cultivate their abilities.

So they took out their rage on Alessia.

But just as it was not her fault that she had no mana, her cousins’ lack of it had nothing to do with her.

Her wound tingled and throbbed.

She knew better than anyone that nothing would come out of reading books that she could not follow. Nevertheless, she couldn’t live waiting for the day she would be discarded. Alessia just wanted to live, even as a human being.

Was that so greedy of her?

A squeak interrupted her thoughts.

Alessia managed to raise her head.

Richard Ingelos was there. Her older brother was sixteen years older than her and the de facto hair to the duchy, as their parents had stepped back to devote themselves to research.

He did not directly hit or bully his little sister, but he did not help her either. Under his indifference, their cousins grew bolder and more aggressive.

So why was he looking at her now?

An ominous feeling began to creep up on her.

Richard wordlessly threw something at her.

‘A ring?’

It looked a little too old-fashioned for Alessia, but she wasn’t in a position to argue about it.

‘Is he trying to frame me for stealing?’

She had already gone through similar plots many times, so that was the most likely assumption.

But Richard had never been the type to waste time on useless things.

“You can’t live this worthless life forever. Now you can do something to help the family.”

Normally, she would have jumped at the opportunity, but she no longer had the energy to do so.

Drops of blood clung to her eyelashes, obstructing her vision.

“Take that and go to Ferdinand. You’ll be betrothed to their prince.”

Her eyes opened wide.

Ferdinand? Betrothed?

Still, Richard was now suggesting that she leave, something that she had always imagined but never dreamed of coming true.

“You’ll deal with the monsters there.”

“…If it’s that, then…” Alessia’s elation was washed away coldly.

She was being told to go and die.

Alessia swallowed a bitter smile, feeling all the more foolish for her anticipation. “I see. I will do that.” She nodded.

After all, her existence was no better than death. If she could live somewhere else, even for just a little while, it would be better than whatever her current life was.

Even if that somewhere else was the land of Ferdinand, their mortal enemy.

“Use that. If you wear that ring and cast spells, you’ll be able to do it. The magic is in the ring.”

Yet another surprising development. Alessia had heard that Richard was conducting research on magic transfer methods. Everyone expected to make a huge amount of money if he succeeded.

It seemed that he had indeed done the impossible.

Sighing, she came to her senses.

‘Why is he giving it to me?’

It was unbelievable that she would be given an escape route and a way to survive in one go, much less from the brother who had always ignored her.

She would have been more relieved if he had hurt her.

Alessia looked at Richard.

He looked uncharacteristically anxious. Uneasy.

She realized that he was keeping his success quiet for now, given that his discovery would have already shaken the world if it had been revealed.

“Make sure no one finds out that you’re using magic through the ring. I’ll slit your neck if that happens. If something goes wrong, send me a letter immediately.”

“…I’ll do that.”

Richard seemed to want her as his test subject. Even if side effects occurred, she would die in their enemy’s land, so she was the perfect candidate.

Ferdinand also needed mages, but there were no volunteers there, so it was likely that that would be her role.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Alessia clenched her fingers around the ring after Richard left.

Even a trap had to be turned into an opportunity. She had no strength and possessions to escape Ingelos alone, and there was no telling when such fortune would arrive again.

Besides, maybe she could start a new life in Ferdinand. It had been a long time since she was branded a failure, but the people there knew nothing.

‘If I could do that…’

She didn’t care that she was subject to experimentation again. She would do anything for a normal life.

Alessia would survive at all costs.