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Chapter : 26
“It has to go well… right, Ignis?”
She muttered as she watched Rienne and the prince riding in the luxurious carriage leaving the mansion gates.
Ignis, the high-level fire spirit in the form of a blazing eagle, spread its wings once.
[Trust your friend, Contractor. They seem capable enough to handle this. And considering they’ve mastered even a high-level water spirit, Undine, after just two years… that’s incredibly strong. You know that, too.]
“…Yeah, but I can’t help worrying.”
Sierra von Anes was a person who only cared about herself.
The fire spirit she commanded, Ignis, was particularly stronger than the spirits other summoners controlled, and she had grown arrogant because of it. Moreover, she had learned early on to understand what spirits were saying—a skill only a particularly affinity-rich summoner could have.
And because of her twisted personality, she had no friends at the Spirit Tower. She stayed only by the side of the tower master, Jema, whom she regarded like a father. She simply wasn’t very interested in others.
What she liked were only dressing up and occasionally going out of the tower to operate the merchant guild she ran with money earned from commissions. She found fun in managing the funds that Jema had once recommended she try handling.
Having lived with no interest in peers—though there weren’t many her age in the tower anyway—she first became interested in someone else when she was seventeen, after receiving a message from Jema urging her to come immediately, even if it meant destroying an artifact.
Jema had never done anything like that before, so Sierra set the coordinates he gave her and hurriedly infused mana into a one-time-use teleport artifact.
The place she arrived at was a slum street in the Lupium Empire.
Wearing her usual extravagant dress, she frowned at the vomit on the ground and the rats scuttling past, lifting her skirts. Then she looked around.
Are you sure Jema meant this place? Did I set the coordinates wrong? Why would Jema—unless he’s gone mad—send me here…
“…Jema?”
Sierra’s eyes fell on a familiar elderly figure kneeling on one knee, tending to someone.
As she took a few steps closer, she instinctively hesitated.
A fierce backlash of mana was raging.
Sensing her presence, the old man—Jema—turned around.
A colossal being who had never shown fatigue before, Jema now looked visibly tired.
“Come here. We’ll stop it together.”
Pushing through the heat of the mana, Sierra flinched again as she approached.
A girl, her own age or younger, was struggling to endure the runaway mana, gasping for breath. With mana this strong…
“Is she a summoner?”
“Yes. Her mana veins just burst, and a spirit seems to have appeared.”
“…Is that even possible? Unless you’re innate…”
“Quiet and help me stop this. If we leave it unchecked, this child and this entire city will be reduced to ashes.”
Trusting Jema, Sierra slowly placed her hand on the girl’s emaciated shoulders to help suppress the rampaging mana—and nearly got swept away herself.
“Her mana pool is far greater than most summoners. Keep your mind clear and hold on.”
Together, the two spirits’ handlers managed to gradually calm the explosive mana that had been torturing the girl.
When the mana finally settled, Sierra took a slow breath as she got a proper look at the girl’s face—one that had been obscured by the torrent of magic. Though she had grown up familiar with mana and had hunted monsters before, she was still only a 17-year-old girl.
Her hair, matted and unwashed for quite some time, was blue and tangled. She rested her head on Jema’s knee, eyes half-lidded, and her body was so thin that her bones were nearly visible. Her limbs were so fragile that they seemed like they could snap if touched.
Ignoring the filth and foul stench, which she would normally hate, Sierra unconsciously touched one of the girl’s cheeks.
The blood had clotted, and where her right eye should have been… there was nothing.
Her hand trembled.
Next to her, Jema gently closed the girl’s remaining eye and lifted her up.
“Did you bring the artifact?”
Sierra, standing dazed, snapped back to attention and nodded.
“We need to feed her quickly. Let’s go.”
It had been a few days since the acquired summoner who caused the mana surge entered the Spirit Tower.
Naturally, a new summoner—especially one with such extraordinary abilities—would have been the talk of the tower. Indeed, the other summoners’ eyes lingered on the girl for a while, but the uproar Sierra had expected never occurred.
The girl’s name was Rienne.
Rienne didn’t speak to anyone.
But she also didn’t stay locked away in a room.
Anyone in the tower could see her if they wanted.
Rienne spent all day in the tower’s mana training grounds, from morning until night, without a single day of rest. It was questionable whether she even slept or entered her room.
Within just a month of entering the tower, she could summon low-level spirits at will; within two months, mid-level spirits. Watching her command them left Sierra in shock.
It seemed that only Jema knew her full situation.
Sierra didn’t understand why she felt so concerned, but she made a point of checking on Rienne at least once a day.
About three months after Rienne entered the tower, Sierra finally mustered the courage to speak.
“Do, do you want some help?”
Rienne’s vacant blue eyes turned to her.
“…?”
“I’m Sierra. Sierra von Anes. And you?”
Sierra already knew her name, but she wanted to hear it from Rienne herself.
“…Rienne. You’re Sierra?”
Rienne knew her, apparently from Jema.
That was the formal first meeting between Sierra and Rienne.
Under the pretext of helping with mana management, Sierra visited the training grounds daily, and over time, they became accustomed to each other.
Though their personalities were very different, like all close friends, they grew closer over time. Rienne, who initially kept her distance, gradually relaxed around Sierra.
Eventually, they even befriended Alex, the tower’s renowned research enthusiast, and the three became inseparable.
Jema, though he never said anything, seemed relieved to see the three together.
The more Sierra got close to Rienne, the more she realized how much the girl knew about noble culture and the empire.
Though Rienne ran a merchant guild, she didn’t work on-site herself, leaving the daily operations to the deputy guild master, only reviewing final documents. She had also quietly shared knowledge with Sierra, who had rarely been outside the tower for more than a month.
When Sierra was struggling with which tea leaves to import for noble clients, Rienne, pretending not to be from the nobility, advised her on preferred types and small decorative goods. Clearly, she had not come from the slums.
Yet Rienne had somehow ended up in the slums near death, and lost one eye. Sierra often wanted to ask why, but she restrained herself.
She decided to wait until Rienne chose to tell her. She would not pry.
She had seen Rienne’s expression darken whenever a similar topic arose. Losing an eye would be unimaginable pain. Sierra did not want to hurt her by asking.
So she waited.
Rienne spoke when Sierra decided to leave the tower to act fully as a guild master.
Rienne, who always seemed certain of everything, came to her room, stayed silent for a while, then suggested they sleep together.
Lying side by side, listening to her chatter, Rienne quietly revealed her past.
Her original name had been Arien von Aicien, a princess of the Lupium Empire.
Because she looked exactly like the princess who died at age six, she was adopted into the Aicien family.
For ten years, she lived as a princess, until the real princess—whom everyone thought dead—returned. Though slightly anxious, Rienne was happy because everyone else rejoiced.
Their relationship soured due to rumors spreading in the mansion. Rienne was said to have harassed the real princess out of jealousy, though it was false. But when the couple heard the rumors, Rienne felt something was wrong.
The real princess did not deny the rumors.
From then, Rienne was branded a villainess who bullied the real princess.
She was driven to a hut, abused by the father and elder brother she loved, abandoned by her fiancé, and eventually forced onto the streets, ending up in the slums.
“…And the one who took my eye was the crown prince.”
“That’s it,” Rienne added dryly. Her voice burned with intensity.
“You know, Sierra…”
“…Yes?”
“I will get revenge on them. I want to return all the suffering I endured tenfold.”
Sierra could only nod at Rienne’s words.
Though Rienne spoke matter-of-factly, the pain she had endured shook Sierra’s heart.
How did my friend endure all this?
Even hearing it makes me feel this way.
Perhaps it was then that she resolved: whatever Rienne faced, she would support her. She would help her not to collapse.
