Chapter 04
Adel knew Haman was displeased treating his children as half-breeds.
Haman, a perfectionist and pureblood supremacist, disliked Irina and Ezekiel being in the family at all.
Then, one of the family knights shouted:
“The carriage! There’s been a battle!”
Adel’s hands trembled uncontrollably.
The more signs of Irina and Ezekiel they found, the more urgent the situation appeared.
The family knights looked half resigned.
They all thought Irina and Ezekiel were dead.
Some already mourned the children’s deaths.
Heila, the family’s second child, slowly approached with a faint smile.
“I worry about Ezekiel. He has great swordsmanship talent. If caught by the evil god worshippers, he won’t be treated well…”
Haman replied:
“Lord Arte is troubled. He had come to visit our castle briefly but got caught up in this.”
All eyes turned to Arte.
He was one of eight mages recognized by the Mage Tower and was helping track Irina.
But Arte didn’t answer Haman.
Haman looked at him curiously.
For some reason, Arte was sweating and looked pale, anxiously scanning the surroundings.
He muttered softly:
“What is this magical power… It shouldn’t exist here…”
“Are you okay?”
“I sense traces of a mage with at least seven mana rings.”
Haman’s face changed sharply.
“A mage with seven rings?”
As Arte began to answer, a knight shouted from afar:
“There’s the carriage!”
Everyone’s eyes turned there.
“Irina and Ezekiel are here!”
Adel ran forward.
What he saw made him stop in shock.
Bodies everywhere.
People gasped.
“What is this…? Could it be the evil god worshippers were defeated?”
“Though we sent some of the family’s top knights as guards, there’s no way they could beat the body-modified evil god worshippers.”
Arte said in a shaken voice:
“Someone used magic here. Very powerful magic.”
Adel didn’t hear anything else.
His gaze was fixed on one spot.
Ezekiel and Irina lay pale in front of the carriage.
Ezekiel looked fine, but Irina did not.
She was covered in blood, her face ghostly pale.
Her whole body felt like a fireball.
Irina coughed violently.
One difficulty of returning to the past was how weak her body had become.
She had a fever so high it was suffocating.
Ezekiel shouted:
“Damn it, what happened? Irina, Irina! You idiot, open your eyes!”
His voice was full of guilt.
He couldn’t believe he had lost consciousness at such a crucial moment.
Irina felt a little sorry for him.
He lost consciousness because of her.
“I hit him with mana, his head must hurt.”
Yet Ezekiel didn’t seem to feel his pain and stayed by her side.
“Irina, please open your eyes. Please…”
Irina wanted to tell him not to worry but couldn’t speak.
Ezekiel’s hot tears fell on her cheek.
“How did Lady Irina survive and come back?”
“I heard an unknown mage appeared.”
“She defeated so many evil god worshippers alone?”
Voices sounded confused.
“Maybe I’ve arrived home.”
She soon felt the softness of a blanket.
“Irina, please…”
Ezekiel’s hand, which had held hers until then, suddenly withdrew.
“Get out of the way, Ezekiel.”
A cold male voice.
Irina almost burst into tears.
It was the voice of her father, Adel Ledders, whom she hadn’t heard in decades.
She felt his hand on her cheek—a desperate, trembling touch revealing how shocked he was.
Irina wanted to say hello and that she had missed him.
To say she had misunderstood before, now she knew how much he cared.
He was just inexperienced as a father…
But her weak body didn’t move.
“What happened, Ezekiel?”
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault Irina…”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“The evil god worshippers…”
Irina didn’t hear the rest as she kept losing and regaining consciousness.
“Divine power is ineffective.”
When she came to again, Adel was furious.
She heard a tone of anger she had never heard before.
“What does that mean? Is there a shortage of donations?”
She pondered those words blankly.
“Father never liked the temple. They once tried to use my life to manipulate him.”
If Adel didn’t help the temple, they stopped her treatment.
That was why he spoke sharply to the priests.
“Father’s instinct was right. The temple can’t be trusted.”
She recalled the temple’s true nature she saw near the evil god worshippers.
But the one who answered Adel wasn’t a priest.
It was an old man.
“It’s natural divine power won’t work. Miss Irina became a mage. Having experienced the power of a seven-ring mage nearby, this is possible.”
He continued:
“Mana and divine power oppose each other. Miss Irina no longer responds to divine power.”
He clicked his tongue regretfully at Adel.
“She barely survived with divine power. It’ll be harder now. Divine power can no longer purify the turbid energy accumulating in her body.”
He told Adel she didn’t have much time left.
Since being captured by the evil god worshippers, Irina began having nightmares.
They were caused by deep regrets.
The nightmares showed how her life fell into ruin.
“I barely dreamed of father or Ezekiel. Only terrible visions appeared.”
Few good memories remained in her dreams.
“What will this nightmare show me?”
She blinked.
She saw a middle-aged woman and a boy.
“Roana and Fenrir.”
They often bullied her when she was in the Ledders family.
She saw herself as a child.
At that time, Irina was slowly realizing she had no talent for swordsmanship.
Ezekiel wielded a sword well even younger, but Irina struggled to lift one.
Irina was different from other children of the Ledders family.
She was weak, small, and powerless.
A herbivore caught among beasts.
Nothing more or less.
Others easily excluded her.
The Ledders children quickly noticed she was weaker and began ostracizing her.
Adel Ledders’ children.
Expectations in their name turned to cold looks.
Roana, who came as her tutor, was kind at first.
“You might not be able to do swordsmanship. Find another talent.”
“Another talent?”
“Yes, you’re kind and beautiful. You’ll soon find something that suits you.”
She smiled gently.
It was the first time.
Without a mother, it was the first time an adult woman was so kind to her.
“Miss Irina, just listen to me. Then the adults will dislike you less.”
Like a newborn chick recognizing the first thing it sees as its mother, Irina had no choice but to follow Roana.
Poor baby🥺