Interlude 2
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「As expected.」
Along with her scornful remark, the five layers of 《Water Wall》 I had cast are instantly pierced through.
While the opponent’s magic is somewhat attenuated, it’s a sad state of affairs that it can even break through intermediate magic.
Her magic, hardly losing any of its power, collides with me and dissipates due to the effect of the training ground’s barrier (which shoulders the damage for me).
Alternately casting attack magic and barrier magic at each other is considered primitive, but it’s also seen as practical training to grasp one’s own abilities and experience magic firsthand.
I hated this training.
Because I already knew the outcome before even doing it.
And I always became the center of attention.
In a bad way.
「Again, Angelica?」
The practical skills teacher deliberately sighed and spoke out in an accusing tone.
There’s that look again.
No, not just from the teacher. In the depths of the eyes of most people here who know me, there’s a color of scorn.
『The disgrace of the Honest family.』
『That failure.』
『Acting all high and mighty just because she’s an Honest.』
They’re all words that were once hurled directly at me.
And now──,
「I’m glad I’m not like her.」
Someone said.
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Angelica Honest.
That’s my name.
The Honest family is considered one of the world’s preeminent magician bloodlines.
It’s said that this lineage, passed down from ancient times, can be traced back to a mage who saved the world alongside a Hero of the past.
The truth is unclear, but the Honests won’t budge on this claim. However, it’s also a fact that they’ve continued to achieve enough to be allowed to make such assertions.
The Honest people took pride in their bloodline and had the full capabilities to match it.
I too was once expected to be a member of the Honests.
Born with the red hair said to be the same as the founder’s and the highest mana in the Honest family’s history, I was lauded as the founder’s reincarnation.
First my parents, then the gathered adult relatives, told me over and over,
『We’ll give you an education befitting the founder’s reincarnation.』
And I was subjected to an education true to those words.
This world had rules.
To prevent young children from having mana outbursts, they mustn’t use magic until the age of ten when their minds stabilize.
Naturally, I also abided by that rule.
That being the case, even without using magic, I spent day after day training in internal mana control so that I wouldn’t be unprepared when I turned ten.
My education in knowledge and skills was also on a different level from what the Honest children, already considered to have a strict upbringing, received.
My days were filled with training and studying.
However, I never found it painful.
Rather, for me it was as natural as breathing.
While I couldn’t put it into words well, as a child I vaguely realized that learning was life itself, and I accepted that training was something to be done as a matter of course.
For me, learning and training to come into contact with unknown magic, knowledge, and skills was my greatest joy.
That’s why my childhood was happy.
Looking back on the beginning of everything, it was indeed my tenth birthday.
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An Honest is expected to have completed internal mana manipulation and studied spellcasting, so on their birthday they try casting up to an intermediate magic spell they have an aptitude for.
《Wise One》
That is the name of my rare skill.
It was an extremely rare skill said to be the same one the Honest founder possessed.
With this skill, one is said to have an aptitude for all attributes and be able to cast at least advanced magic of all attributes.
On that birthday, in the training room of the Honest family’s main residence.
It was my debut and a place where the whole family had gathered.
Even now, I see that moment in my dreams.
「Everyone, look, it’s the little wise one.」
「So that’s the reincarnation.」
「The debut of the greatest prodigy in Honest family history.」
「What an auspicious day.」
「The Honests will be secure for fifty years with this.」
「I feel sorry for the children in the same generation as her. After all, they’ll be compared to her from now on.」
Intermediate magic is a given──of course, everyone thought so, including me.
However, no matter what, no matter what───
That day, I was unable to cast intermediate magic.
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My parents and relatives apologized to me, saying they had expected too much.
Ashamed of my incompetence after hearing those words, I trained even harder to live up to everyone’s expectations.
It was a harsh period of trial and error.
More than anything, it was painful to hear my parents’ encouragement like 「You’ll be fine if you train」 and 「Time will solve it.」
However, I later learned that even those days of training were still bearable.
I’ll never forget the day that became the trigger.
On that day, a fed-up relative suddenly visited.
Insisting there must be something wrong with me, he took me to a teacher renowned as a court mage and an authority on magical medicine.
And with that, my everything ended.
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Congenital mana emission pore occlusion disorder.
That’s what the court mage told me.
This was my illness.
It’s a disease that appears at a probability of only one or two people even in the royal capital, and I was also told that with modern medicine, a cure is impossible.
From there, it all happened in an instant.
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Of course, my parents who had placed too heavy expectations on me, and every single relative, stopped expecting anything from me.
Just like teeth falling out of a comb, those who frequently came to see me disappeared from around me.
Still, the reason I was barely able to live in the Honest house was because of my hair color and mana capacity───in other words, because of my bloodline, also said to be an atavism.
In other words, as the only successor to the main family at the time, I was left with the role of leaving behind offspring───when I grew up.
As a child, I spent every day crawling on the ground, coughing up blood, trying to break through the current situation.
Of course I trained in intermediate magic that I couldn’t even do, and I also endured various experiments with my own body by going to the court mage’s place in order to elucidate a treatment method.
It was during such a time.
I received a message from my parents to come to their room.
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「I’m pregnant.」
───My mind went blank.
「Now you’ll be freed from your hardships.」
───That’s right. I had kept causing hardships for my parents.
「I hope this child won’t be a failure like you.」
───I also knew that my parents called me a failure behind my back.
「Let’s pour more love into this child.」
「Indeed.」
「We’ve fulfilled one of the Honest family’s duties.」
「Oh, you’re still here?」
「Yes, I’m done with my business.」
My father replied with a smile, as if making small talk.
「Good for you, you’re free to do as you please now.」
He told me, still smiling. My mother also nodded with a smile and informed me,
「I’ve made the preparations.」
I knew this day would come eventually.
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The fact that I was forced to run away from home quickly became known not only to my relatives, but also to the magician families throughout the country, and the gossip about the former prodigy became quite the topic among magicians.
And around that time, I don’t know who started it.
But I was being called the 「defective red hair.」
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