Chapter 14

Radis stared at Huber, who was still unconscious.

She knew that he was a mana stone trafficker.

But she never imagined that it would be to this extent.

No, she couldn’t believe it even when she’s looking at it all with her own eyes.

“I can’t believe it’s this bad.. Even with the Imperial Subjugation Squad, they wouldn’t have collected this much after going into the forest of monsters all year round.”

Without thinking much, Radis picked up a yellow mana stone.

“....!”

Again.

It’s this again.

The yellow energy that had been flowing inside the mana stone disappeared as if it was a candle that was extinguished.

And just like before, when the mana stone lost its light, it turned into dust.

Radis picked up one more mana stone, this time with the left hand. And the result was the same.

Radis repeatedly picked up more mana stones as though she had been possessed, and they just continued to turn to dust.

After a while, almost all the stones had been turned into dust, and Radis was left dumbfounded.

She couldn’t believe it.

“What’s going on?”

Radis clutched the hem of her dress, then finally, carefully picked up the largest thumbnail-sized red mana stone in Huber’s secret compartment.

This time, the light didn’t disappear.

She took a deep, rough breath as she calmed her heart.

And she focused all her senses on her fingertips.

After that, she slowly touched the mana stone once again.

When her fingertip got into contact with the stone, the light that had been fluttering within the mana stone grew bigger and bigger.

Warm energy could be felt on her fingers.

And beyond this warmth was a nostalgic feeling, and it began to spread within her starting from where she touched the mana stone.

She felt it clearly this time.

It felt like her whole body was heating up from running for a long time.

A vivid feeling of her bones, muscles, waking up from a long slumber.

A heightened sense of elation that made it seem like she could touch the sky if she just outstretched her hand upwards.

“..Mana.”

Ooong.

The mana that was absorbed from the mana stone made her whole body buzz with a strange ringing. This was something familiar, something she missed.

“How?”

She really couldn’t believe it.

Mana couldn’t be obtained like this.

As far as she knew, mana could only be obtained through a long period of training the body until it could recognize mana, and this was only through insistently accepting mana into the body. It was a power that could be gained only after a long, tiring training process that would make anyone want to give up.

Meanwhile, the red mana stone in her hand, the mana in which had all been transferred to her, slowly turned grey.

Then, it soon broke, crumbling as it turned to dust.

Radis rubbed the dust between her fingers.

It was soft, like burnt ash.

It had really turned into dust.

“This can’t be..”

It was impossible.

What was contained within a mana stone was the mana of demonic monsters, or their demonic energy.

Just because a person reaches for lightning wouldn’t mean that they would gain the power of lightning. In the same way, a person could make a flame through the use of a flint, but that didn’t mean the person would gain the power over fire. People couldn’t use demonic energy if they didn’t have it within them in the first place.

A person would just get electrocuted if they would touch lightning, and a person would likewise just get burned if they touched fire. If someone were to be in contact with demonic energy, it would become like poison to that person’s body.

That’s why people were afraid of demonic energy. And in her previous life, she had died from addiction to it.

Radis felt the mana, which was heating up her whole body, slowly seeping into her system.

She gingerly raised one hand and placed it over her abdomen, at the center of her body.

Perhaps inside was a mana core that was not originally in the body of the 16-year-old Radis.

Her core had a lot of power.

“I can’t believe it.”

She only succeeded in making a mana core in her previous life, and it happened when she was 24 years old. Even that was like a miracle.

This mana was something that knights, who had trained for all their lives, couldn’t even handle without adverse effects.

On the other hand, Radis was never taught how to properly train mana.

It was really only a coincidence that she managed to make a mana core.

When her body was on the verge of collapsing due to her addiction to demonic energy, she felt a certain echo within her body that pulsed strangely.

It felt like she had two hearts.

The echo had allowed her to stand once more when just a moment ago she was dying from demonic energy addiction.

There seemed to be a furnace within her heart, and that furnace burned the demonic energy to create another power that let her live.

She instinctively felt that it was mana.

Even at that time, Radis couldn’t believe it.

Creating a mana core was a huge achievement in itself, and a knight who had become a mana user would be recognized for their ability and would henceforth be known as a mage knight rather than a regular knight.

Even so, she didn’t tell anyone about her ability to wield mana.

Because instinctively, she knew that it wasn’t normal mana.

She couldn’t believe that her abilities had increased from being able to extract mana from demonic energy.

‘It was weird back then, too, but this is really.. really ridiculous. How is it possible to absorb demonic energy from a mana stone and transform it into mana?’

Radis’ body began to quiver out of her control.

“It’s not possible. It can’t be.”

5. A contract with the Marquis

Early dawn after the banquet.

Radis returned to the Tilrod family’s mansion with a pale face.

With how sickly her complexion looked, even Irene asked her.

“Milady.. Are you alright?”

Radis staggered into the room without answering.

Looking at Radis’ back, Irene shouted inwardly.

“Something happened..!”

By noon of the same day, practically everyone already knew about how Radis returned hope only early in the morning.

Including Margaret.

She jumped up from her seat without waiting a single second, and marched straight towards Radis’ room.

When Margaret kicked the door open, Radis was jolted awake, and she glared at Margaret as she sat up.

“Can’t you knock?”

Margaret habitually was about to slap Radis, but she instead flinched.

This was because Radis had risen from her bed and was looking blatantly at Margaret’s hand.

“Are you going to try again?”

Cold eyes that contained no emotions.

This gaze reminded Margaret of the horrible aftermath of when she tried to hit Radis the other day.

She just fell because she couldn’t beat Radis’ strength, but in fact, it wasn’t a bluff that Margaret holed herself up in her room after that.

In fact, Margaret really sprained her back and couldn’t move for days.

’The condition of the Madam’s back.. It’s almost the waist of an elderly person.’

This was what the doctor who came on a house call said as he shook his head.

’Madam, even if you’re living luxuriously, you have to exercise a little. You don’t have any muscles and your whole body is soft. Your back is only a little sprained now, but if this keeps happening, you’ll suffer so much that even slight trauma over your back would make it so that you won’t be able to move.’

With her pride damaged like that, Margaret threw a teacup at the doctor’s face and kicked the quack out of her house.

Her back soon got better, but the hardships she endured couldn’t be expressed in words.

Margaret didn’t want to suffer like that again.

So instead of hitting Radis with her raised hand, Margaret pointed at her face instead.

“Why are you looking up so proudly like that!”

“Then, did I do something wrong?”

“Goodness, you’re really out of your mind. You came back home at dawn and now you’re saying you did nothing wrong? How promiscuous!”

Radis was amazed.

“Promiscuous? Wasn’t it you who shoved Huber my way? Who was the person who told me to do well?”

“Yeah I told you to do well, but who told you to come home in the morning?!”

Radis sighed heavily.

She was already dealing with enough confusing thoughts, but when Margaret forced her way in here, it felt like her head was about to explode.

Apart from that, she wasn’t in a good condition.

It was only natural since mana was poured into a body that had not a drop of mana beforehand.

Radis shook her head.

“Nothing happened, so just stop it. You and Yurhi left first and I was stuck in a difficult situation, so let’s just say I owe the Cradium Guild for this. So now..”

“Don’t lie!”

“....”

“Haa, how can you lie so well without even stopping to take a breath? Disgusting! Forget it—just remember this. I don’t care where you are or what you do, but if you come home carrying something in that stomach of yours!”

Margaret shouted at the top of her lungs.

“You’ll die at my hands!”

Radis’ eyes widened.

All kinds of emotions stirred in her heart.

She couldn’t understand why Margaret thought this way, why she was criticizing Radis for being ‘promiscuous’ as if she hadn’t told her own daughter to snag a rich man.

She pretended to be a strict mother to her daughter even as she never cared for her at all, and now she was acting like she was concerned enough to scold her daughter for being in some kind of trouble because she deserved it.

Radis realized.

In her previous life, she didn’t think it was unfair or strange even when she experienced Margaret’s arbitrary behavior.

Even ridiculous actions were swept aside and labelled as a ‘mother’s affection’ to justify those actions.

But in fact, there was never a single grain of affection there.

Margaret only prattled on and acted arbitrarily like this without any care.

And Radis was always caught in her whims while blaming herself as she suffered.

As she realized this, Radis felt nauseous about Margaret’s hostility.

With her teeth clenched to withstand the nausea, Radis said firmly.

“That’s not going to happen.”