Born as the Hidden Daughter of a Villainess and the Male Lead

<Episode 84>

 

“I liked my comrades. I still do to this day. They were the first people who became mine when I had nothing precious to me.”

For the first time, a subtle affection was reflected in her face, which was usually filled with only the desire for knowledge and reason.

Mekaila lowered her gaze for a moment and muttered softly, then looked at me again and said.

“So I will help you, the granddaughter of Atara and Siorn. Not for any other reason, just because I want to do it.”

“………Thank you.”

I expressed my gratitude, feeling touched.

Mekaila smiled slightly as if she thought I was cute, but immediately calmed down and said.

“Siorn was known as a stone-headed person, but Atara was so intelligent that even I recognized her. Your mother was exactly like Atara. Also, you seem to be closer to Atara than to Siorn, so that’s a good thing.”

Atara Hacardella.

The first great water elementalist to be born into this world, she was granted the breath of Naiad, and was my maternal grandmother.

She was a descendant of the family that ruled the Principality of Water, now destroyed and lost to history.

Since my mother passed away immediately after giving birth to me, this part of my family felt distant and unfamiliar.

“The first is a written test. Check whether you are properly aware of the rules that must be followed as a spiritist. You must know the names of the spirits, the powers of the Spirit King, and famous anecdotes related to them.”

Mekaila continued with both of her hands on the wall.

“The second is to enter the center of Litera, the Temple of Wisdom, and take the spiritualist’s oath. ‘I will not use the blessings given to me only to satisfy my personal desires, and I will remember my noble mission of helping those in need and ultimately protecting world peace.’”

It is a pledge to dedicate one’s life for the public good by imprinting deep in one’s soul the fact that they are a ‘blessed one’ among the vast majority of those who are not blessed.

“……I guess that’s not a test you can’t pass?”

As I listened to her in silence, I felt strange that the level of difficulty was so low and asked.

Mekaila nodded calmly and answered.

“It’s an exam, right? We weed out all the idiots in the first round, but if we are too strict in the second round, who will be left for the final round?”

Mekaila slightly shrugged her shoulders and recited the details of the third test.

“Lastly, the third. It is the most difficult test and causes the most casualties. It’s not the final gateway for nothing.”¹It’s the only one with casualties though =⁠_⁠=, or I didn’t understand the first two so well.

Casualties.

I swallowed nervously and stared at Mekaila.

“Do you know which country is closest to Litera? It is the Kingdom of Nisha. And between the Kingdom of Nisha and Litera, there is a vast area called the Dark Zone.”

Mekaila looked down at the blue wall and quietly muttered.

“It is an area where entry is normally prohibited to ordinary people and even high-level spiritists. Only high-ranking members of Litera and spiritists from the Kingdom of Nisha are allowed to enter and manage it. The reason for such a strict ban on entry is……You know that, right?”

As she spoke, Mekaila smiled brightly.

“……Isn’t it because the Dark Spirit King left cracks in the ground?”

“That is correct. Was it because it was annoying to carry around such huge cracks, or was there a separate plan? Now, we cannot know his exact intentions, but the cracks left here and there in the Dark Zone are spewing out monsters that cannot be understood by the common sense or reason.”

The culprit, the Spirit King of Darkness, truly seemed to bring only disaster to the world, as everything that made him up from the very beginning.

As I listened to her talk, a thought occurred to me.

“The most dangerous and ugly beings born from the cracks left by the Dark Spirit King are the monsters called Porten. At first glance, their bodies are so round that they appear circular, their thick black fur sticks out like thorns, and their teeth look like half moons. It’s curved like a sword, so sharp and heavy that it can’t be broken… Instead of having limbs, it uses its elongated tongue and tentacles sprouting from its body to sweep up their prey.”

Ugh, it was disgusting just to imagine it.

I frowned slightly and suppressed my disgust.

“Some entities are such tricky monsters that they have even been seen using the power of darkness. These guys often break through the barrier of Litera and cause casualties. Because of that, I can’t even go on a tour of my own accord, ahh. ”

Mekaila let out a light sigh and muttered as if she were lamenting.

“If Porten is the monster that occupies the top of the food chain, there are also lower-level monsters below him. There is no uniformity among them, so the races are only roughly distinguished into Sakel, Barca, and Haden. Unlike Porten, there are other species that look like a grotesque mixture of several commonly seen beast species, but you don’t need to know about them.”

“Why?”

I need to know……don’t I?

Mekaila looked at me with meaningful eyes and revealed the reason.

“Because these monsters will not appear in the final exam you will take. These insignificant things are so weak that they are not even worth knowing about, they are just dust in front of you.”

Mekaila stretched lightly, turned around, stared at the vast sky and endless cliffs, and continued her explanation.

“In the third test, the test taker are divided into grades according to their natural talents and assigned a monster that each one can handle. The condition for passing is to win in a one-on-one fight using only the power of the spirits without summoning them.”

Spirits cannot be summoned.

The moment I heard that part, I realized why, no matter how exceptionally talented a spirit master was, there were significantly few of them who passed the spirit master qualification test at a young age.

“To precise, it’s about determining whether you can maintain the ‘permanent spirit summoning state’ for a long time.”

Truly skilled spiritists freely use the powers of the spirits corresponding to their attributes without having to summon the spirits.

“It is no longer enough to borrow and use the power of spirits – as he himself is not the said spirit.”

Mekaila muttered softly in a dreamy voice, as if swimming through old memories.

“It is my theory that anyone who cannot do that is not a true spiritist, no matter how great their spirit blessing is.”

“…….”

“The conversation has diverged somewhere else. Do you understand now? Why I told you that there was no need to remember the names of lesser monsters?”

Mekaila did not hide the expectations she had for me.

“These days, even the blessings of higher spirits are rare. But you were blessed with all your attributes by the Spirit Kings. It has been a long time since Porten was chosen as the opponent for the final test.”

That was a clear fact.

Even if we exclude the Ruairi royal family, where all the princes except Ashmed were born without receiving the blessing of the spirits, the overall number of spirit masters was decreasing significantly.

“I am so happy that a genius as brilliant as you has appeared in this world again. The same goes for your fiancé, the Second Prince of the Roshan Empire.”

Mekaila said, smiling with eyes filled with joy.

“It seems that the world often criticizes the fact that the 2nd prince’s side spirits are dark spirits, but what does that have to do with anything? It doesn’t matter as long as he has the ability. After completing all my missions, I don’t think I’ve ever been more filled with anticipation than now.”

I responded with a polite smile to the enormous expectations placed on me.

“……I will do my best to live up to Mekaila’s expectations.”

“There are three days left until the exam. There is good rival by your side, and more than anything, it’s clear that you have no combat experience yet, so don’t just trust in your natural blessings and practice hard.”²I really really want her to do that, again she trust too much on her talent.

“Thank you.”

After the conversation with Mekaila.

When I returned to my dorm, I fell down on the bed helplessly and mumbled in a daze.

“Is it possible for all of the spirit masters to be so great……?”

Every time I thought of that madness, cold sweat would pour down my back.

I slowly closed my eyes, thinking that I should rest a little first then tell Ashmed about the exam content.

 

***

 

And then the day of the exam dawned.

There were bookshelves filled with tens of thousands of books, extending up to the ceiling in a huge curved shape, everywhere.

And countless testers of all kinds gathered below.

As Ashmed and I entered, we were met with whispering voices and attention from all over the place.

“So that little girl is the daughter of the great Hailien Archduke?”

“Is that all? Didn’t you study the part about the Great Spirit? She is also the only blood relative of Siorn Archaitz Bastevan.”

“It is the Second Prince of Roshan…….”

At first glance, it seemed like I was the youngest candidate.

I sat in my assigned seat and waited for the test to begin, paying no attention to the conversations around me.

“Now, now! We are holding the 1651st Spiritual Master qualification exam, so please be quiet everyone.”

Then, a spiritist from Litera appeared and started explaining the test procedures.

As expected, it was not one bit different from what Mekaila told me a few days ago.

Was this the benifits of connections?

Feeling grateful to my grandfather once again, I immediately took the first test paper that was handed over.

It was a test paper in which dozens of questions were listed on a white piece of paper and the answers were to be written below them.

The first question was to describe when the disaster began and came to an end, as well as its aspects.

[The beginning of the disaster occurred about 70 years ago, when humans and spiritists glorifying Arkane, the spirit king of darkness, revolted all over the continent. For nearly 20 years, the terrible chaos continued, even with the six great spirits, but….]

Thinking of my grandfather, I smiled involuntarily.

[Immediately after the appearance of the non-spirit hero, they were able to gain victory for the first time, and after several years, they finally annihilated all the rebels. Finally, the onset of disaster came to an end.]

The next question asked about the upheaval brought about by the onset of the disaster and the changes in the world.

[Although spiritists who were originally born with dark attributes were ostracized before the onset of the disaster, they were not hated to the point where they were legally punishable by death.

But disaster struck and changed everything.

The dark spiritists were reduced to a situation where they could not receive even the slightest humane protection anywhere on the continent, except for the Kingdom of Nisha.

So, I have sincere doubts:

Did the Spirit King of Darkness really think at all about the lives he had blessed before he planned the unprecedented massacre that would mark the beginning of disaster?]

I added a little editorial, but… Litera’s lawmakers said they find new and free opinions very admirable, so it wouldn’t hurt to add that.

Next, they asked a question about the existence of the Great Spirit Masters.

 

***

 

TL:

Hello dear readers,

Due to the recent problem with moondusts, it became obligatory for locked chapters to be set between 15 and 20. So to balance things out to suit my liking, I opened all locked chapters and reduced the max number of locked chapters at one time to one.

Enjoy the rest of you day~