Chapter 21
The sudden hostility made her blink.
The woman before her, with red hair and deep brown eyes, was breathtakingly beautiful.
But more than her appearance, it was the contempt, annoyance, and hatred in her gaze that struck first.
It was as if someone had poured cold water over her head, shaking her from the mood she had been in, absorbed in the new place and atmosphere.
Her spirits sank at once.
“So you’re the Imperial Princess? Shouldn’t you be enjoying yourself in the splendid palace instead of coming to a place crawling with lowly commoners?”
The words were an unvarnished sneer.
Her face hardened. The woman knew she was a princess.
She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she was someone familiar, but there was no such woman in her memory.
Then how—?
What is this?!
At the woman’s words, the butterflies behind her flared with killing intent.
It was weaker than what they had directed at Callios, but still sharply aggressive.
The woman faltered briefly at the sight, but soon, as if unwilling to yield, a small red hawk appeared beside her with a flicker of flame.
“Well? Say something, Your Highness.”
There was a peculiar emphasis on the title of princess.
She restrained the butterflies scattering more and more light.
The butterflies, after a few reluctant beats of their wings, vanished abruptly.
It seemed they had retreated readily because there had been neither an overwhelming killing intent nor a threat to the spirits themselves, as there had been with Callios, and because she had willed them to withdraw.
Instead of answering the woman’s forceful words, she recalled the name Ledin had told her and bowed her head politely.
“You must be Miss Lucy Abella? I’m Asila, and we’ll be sharing a room. Please take care of me.”
“…What?”
Leaving the momentarily speechless Lucy Abella behind, she placed the book she had received from Ledin on the desk.
She could feel Abella’s gaze stabbing into her back, but she ignored it, drew the curtain on her bed, and slipped under the covers.
The tension that had frozen her body at the woman’s venomous words had already melted away.
The woman’s hatred was probably not directed at her. No, it was not.
If someone she had never met before loathed her on sight, that would not be normal.
From the few words exchanged, she could sense mockery toward the privileged class in Abella’s tone.
However she had learned it, she had heard that Asila was a princess, and that must have been why her reaction was so sharp.
Because she was part of the imperial nobility.
—I hate people like you most of all!
She remembered a child she had seen not long after arriving at the grand ducal estate, back when she had not yet known it was a boundless and dreadful mire.
Dressed as a maid, the girl had naturally seemed to be one.
In truth, she had been a child who had harboured a grudge against the nobility and slipped into a noble household.
She had tried to stab Asila in the chest with a small knife. Due to her carelessness, she was quickly caught, and Asila had faced her for less than ten minutes.
Yet she could not forget it.
For deep in the girl’s eyes had been endless hatred and loathing for the nobility.
Even at such a young age, her gaze had been filled with pain and murderous intent far beyond her years.
—Fall into hell! Nobles, die! Die!
Even as she was dragged away, the girl had cursed the nobility. She had lost her entire family to a cruel provincial noble.
It was said their home had been burned in the night simply because, due to poverty, they had failed to pay their taxes on time.
The grief and rage beyond words must have filled the child with hostility and the urge for vengeance against the nobility.
Abella must have her own circumstances.
She was accustomed to others’ malice. And now that she understood it was not directed at her personally, the hostility was hardly an irritation.
It was better than the way society ladies and noble daughters would slowly scratch at a person from behind their backs.
Annoying as it was, it was far less vicious than the malice she had felt from them.
A faint, hollow laugh escaped her.
In that sense, perhaps she was the same—she too despised the nobility.
Even as one of them, they had been nothing to her but enemies.
With that thought, she let her heavy eyelids fall.
It was broad daylight, but she was tired.
Her consciousness sank quickly.
***
Time in the tower passed swiftly.
Training with Callios and theoretical lessons in spirit arts with Ledin proceeded at the same time.
The tightly packed days left no space for other thoughts.
Sweat formed on her brow.
She swallowed against her dry mouth.
When she closed her eyes and blocked out her vision, she could clearly feel the strands of mana flowing through her body.
At first, even with Callios’s help, the sensation had been hazy, like being wrapped in fog, but after many days of repetition, it began to grow clear.
But that was all. Controlling the mana in her body was still difficult.
She felt the number of butterflies increasing, and at the same time, the killing intent from where Callios stood before her pricked sharply at her skin.
For the first few days, he had tested her control with indiscriminate attacks, but, finding it inefficient, he began simply sitting and replacing them with his killing intent.
Along with that killing intent, the black shadow beside him swelled, writhing as if ready to pounce on her at any moment.
Even that alone easily excited the butterflies.
It had now been a full month that she had sat before him, unguarded, sensing and trying to control her mana.
And it had been a full month without any gains.
The mana spread from her heart throughout her body like rough waves.
It was like throwing herself in barehanded to block a strong current flowing toward the spirits.
We must attack.
The spirits’ voices reached her faintly, as if blocked by a wall.
Fortunately, there had been some progress over the month.
The overwhelming voices that had once pounded in her head and caused intense headaches had grown noticeably quieter.
—Your strength to maintain yourself has grown. You’re not swept away by their emotions as before, are you?
Callios explained that exposure to killing intent had allowed her to separate her emotions from the increasingly aggressive spirits.
If she did not stay sharply focused, she could still be swept away, but the difference between training with a splitting headache and without one was great.
A month was a long time.
Spending most of it with Callios had naturally brought them closer.
The high wall of caution she had built when she first saw him destroy the tower had long since crumbled.
It felt almost like the closeness of an older brother, and aside from those rare moments when his eyes took on an odd look, his ever-curved red eyes were pleasant to see.
“Don’t let your mind wander.”
At Callios’s words in her ear, she focused again.
Yes—what mattered now was the present. She still could not control her mana.
Following the sensation, she moved down the edges of her body.
The hazy current became clearer toward the core.
Usually, she would be repelled at this point, but today was different.
It was like slowly sinking into a bottomless hole.
She felt as though she could see a blinding light flowing rapidly downward.
She held her breath.
It was the first time she had seen it so clearly.
That was the mana at her core.
Even just seeing it was overwhelming—an ocean of light surging like waves.
It was like floating alone in a vast, endless darkness.
The great light of mana flowed far into the distance.
She felt as though she might be swallowed by its waves.
Though she could not truly see it, she could feel it.
A shiver ran over her whole body.
If she could block it, she could control the spirits—move them as her own limbs.
Without realising it, she slowly reached toward the swiftly flowing light, as if drawn in by instinct.
At that moment—
“Stop.”
The low voice pierced her ear.
Her mind, sunk deep, was suddenly drawn back as if by magic.
She gasped for breath.
Cold air filled her lungs, and her dazed mind returned instantly to reality.
Cold sweat ran down her spine.
“Did you see it clearly?”
At Callios’s question from where he sat opposite her, she nodded slowly.
The meaning of the subjectless question was obvious.
What she had seen faintly until now had been enormous.
It was on a different level from when she had first tried to block the path of mana Callios had pointed out to her.
What he had shown her had been only a small part.
Looking down at her trembling hands, she could feel every strand of energy running through her body.
Even without focusing, she could sense it clearly.
It felt as if a new sense had opened.
Callios, watching her, curved his red eyes in a crooked smile.
“That is your power.”
Outside the spirit realm, spirits could only draw strength by consuming mana.
That spirits chose and cherished a spirit master was, in truth, so they could consume sufficient mana.
In other words, the power of a spirit master was proportional to the amount of mana they possessed.
“The foundation of control is to feel your power.”
It was a statement that she had finally advanced one step.
