Chapter 42 · A Chance Encounter (1)

“Land? Land, you say? Do you want an island? Or perhaps a resort in the province of Letitia, or—”

My, aren’t we thinking big! Even if I received something like that, I couldn’t sell it secretly, and I couldn’t run away with it either.

“Land where I can gwow plants! I’ve been intewested in gawdening watewy.”

“Oho… That is a most elegant hobby indeed. As expected of my granddaughter.”

It was actually because of the herb of life. For three years I had been trying to sprout the herb of life, but things simply would not go my way.

I had wondered if it was because my divine power was insufficient, so I asked Paeon and the priests as well, but the result was the same.

‘It seems there are various conditions besides divine power. But I don’t know what they are.’

A disaster would soon strike, and my seeds were dwindling, which made me terribly anxious.

‘A wide plot of land with good sunlight might make a difference.’

“As I gwow plants, I come to know Wux’s wondews bettew. Just as I chewish these fwiends, I think Wux must chewish me too.”

“Khh… Yes, yes. The fact that we sustain our lives by His light is a miracle no matter how many times I think of it.”

Even my blatant flattery, which was embarrassing even to say, moved the king.

“Come to think of it, I heard you are very fond of the greenhouse garden near Floria Palace. I will expand it and create a space you can use freely.”

“Thank you so much, Your Majesty!”

“Ho ho, it’s dangerous to do that in a carriage, Anastasia!”

When I threw myself at him and rubbed my cheek against his white-whiskered face, he spoke in a deliberately stern voice. But his mouth was grinning from ear to ear.

“Come sit beside me. Seeing you makes me feel as if I’ve gone back some fifteen years. Beatrice too would throw herself at me with no dignity at all and get scolded by her etiquette tutor. Every time, she would talk back, saying it wasn’t even a formal occasion, so what did it matter.”

The king’s emerald eyes filled with me. For an instant, his eyes flashed.

“But you possess something even she did not…”

Was he talking about divine power?

“That is something absolutely necessary for a monarch.”

Huh? Then it’s not divine power…

But the mention of a monarch made my heart thump a little. Surely this man wasn’t really thinking of giving me that position? If so, I had completely miscalculated. I had no intention of taking it!

Please, like in my past lives, be indecisive and vague until I turn twelve. If you declare ‘You are the successor, done and done’ now, I will truly be in danger.

“Oh my, we’ve already arrived.”

He said, looking out the window. Having heard of the king’s return, Stella was outside.

“Father!”

She came running toward him, then spotted me and frowned sharply.

“Why are you coming with that thing?”

“What do you mean, ‘that thing,’ Stella. She is your lovely niece.”

“Lovely, my foot…”

She swallowed the rest of her words when she saw the king’s expression.

The image I had carefully built over three years could not be ignored. I had lived quietly so as not to be faulted, and whenever I faced the king, I had subtly raised his favor.

“We discussed expanding the garden beside Floria Palace. Anastasia wishes to cultivate it.”

“That’s—that’s the garden Father built for Sister and me when you were young! I was already annoyed that she kept going in and out of it, and now you’re giving it to her outright?”

“Don’t you have plenty of other gardens? There’s one beside Ollentia Palace as well.”

“That one is much smaller than the one at Floria Palace!”

“Stella, if you keep being greedy, this father cannot help but be disappointed in you.”

Stella turned ashen. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and she dashed away without even a greeting.

‘I shouldn’t have brought that up. Knowing Stella’s temper, why did I say something to upset her…’

I shook my head at the king’s careless words and went into the room. As always, Dean Roktania was sitting at the desk. He was so small that it was hard to tell whether he was sitting or standing.

“You’ve come, Princess.”

“Hello, Dean Woktania.”

“I heard you came with His Majesty the King. Then have you heard that matter as well?”

“What matter?”

“Ah, it seems His Majesty forgot. I told him it would be good for you to enroll in the academy, and he said to do so.”

“The academy? Is it possible for someone my age to enroll?”

“Yes, I will arrange a special admission for you. You have already learned all the magic that requires a level of mana you can handle, so there is nothing more for me to teach you separately. From now on, it would be good for you to review what you’ve learned in the upperclassmen class at the academy.”

The academy… I was going to the academy? In my past lives, going there had always been a dream. Graduating from there and joining Naritas was an honor even for royalty.

But I had never dared to hope, because I never knew when I might be falsely accused for using magic, and so the academy had grown distant from me.

That place was filled with countless magic books, magical tools, and laboratories—a dream space for any mage.

“It makes no sense for a child like that to enter, and to be put in the upperclassmen class the moment she joins? Most of them are adults. There’s no way she can keep up!”

Stella snapped in a voice full of envy. She was currently in the intermediate class.

“The princess can use more magic than the graduating students. Princess Stella, you have watched her all this time, so wouldn’t you know that well?”

“…”

She gritted her teeth.

“But Dean Roktania, I… I want to master portal magic perfectly with your help before I go in.”

Portal magic was something I had wanted to learn most since long ago. It was the optimal magic for escaping dangerous situations. But it was a high-tier spell requiring an enormous amount of mana and skill.

Most people, even with mana, used carriages rather than portal magic. It was far too inefficient. An ordinary person would have to pour out half their mana just to move a single stadion (about 200 meters). Besides, there were many risks of accidents. You could end up teleporting into empty air and falling onto someone’s head.

“Princess, I have said this repeatedly, but it would be better for you to attempt that after you come of age. Your mana is still too unstable to handle it properly.”

“…Can’t I just try it once? I’ve already learned the method…”

“If something were to happen while trying…”

He trailed off, looking troubled. But I, being stubborn, kept pestering him. Once I went to the academy, private lessons with him would become difficult, and he was the only master of portal magic in Santra.

“Why do you want to learn that magic so badly? If the princess wishes to go somewhere, I can have a carriage brought at once.”

“That is…”

I couldn’t answer and bowed my head.

“Isn’t it just a desire to show off?”

Stella, who had been watching us, snorted and said.

“She must want to boast about having mastered such a difficult spell.”

Ugh, this girl, really!

“If that is the case, then I absolutely cannot permit it. There are many difficult but safe spells, Princess.”

“No, no! I really need to learn this magic!”

I cried out in frustration.

“Please, just help me once. If I fail, I won’t try again until I come of age.”

“Hmm… If you insist that much, there is no helping it…”

He finally raised his hands in surrender. In case of an accident, he cleared the objects in the room and helped me train to refine my mana for a while.

“Now, you will move to the corridor outside the door. First, let’s try summoning the portal.”

I took a deep breath, extended my hand, and recited the activation word while picturing the complex formula in my mind.

“Spatiális ōs.”

I gritted my teeth and endured the enormous amount of mana draining from my body. Then, with an eerie sound, the air distorted and a swirling hole appeared. The inside of the hole was filled with darkness where nothing could be seen. Honestly, it was terrifying.

“I-I did it!”

I had only ever seen Dean Roktania’s demonstrations; this was the first time I had summoned a portal myself. At the wondrous sight, I nearly forgot what to do next.

“From here is the most important and difficult part.”

Dean Roktania said in a worried voice.

“When you enter, you must focus with all your attention. You must simultaneously think of the formula, a precise image of where you wish to go, and the coordinate information. You must also regulate your mana appropriately.”

To focus on so many things at once—it was easy to see why it was classified as a high-tier spell.

I swallowed hard and stepped my foot into the endlessly swirling portal. The moment I took a single step, I heard a small whisper and something struck the back of my head with a thud.

“Ugh…!”

It seemed Stella had done something. It was a spell that gathered mana into a strike, a lower-level magic than aura, so it didn’t deal much damage, but… it was enough to break my concentration. I tried to pull my foot back in a hurry, but some powerful force yanked me in like a giant magnet.

“Aaaah!”

In an instant, everything went dark, and I was sucked into an infinite darkness. I couldn’t breathe, as if submerged in water, and my whole body ached as if something were crushing me from all sides. After a few agonizing seconds, I fell with a thud.

“…?”

It was pitch black all around, and I couldn’t identify anything. My body stung here and there as if I had bruises. I hurriedly used divine power to heal my injuries.

‘Where on earth is this?’

From the feel of things under my hands, it didn’t seem like I was still in that unknown space inside the portal. This was the real world. It was a cramped space with no light coming in at all, smelling musty and full of dust. If it was small enough for me to get stuck in, it might be a storage closet for cleaning supplies.

I felt around the floor diligently. There was something I could grab.

‘Is this… a book?’

There was a pile of books. It seemed I was standing on top of a stack of them.

‘Could I have ended up in some far country across the sea? Surely not…’

That would be impossible with my mana. Travel would be limited to what my mana could allow, so no matter how far, it couldn’t have exceeded three stadions.

‘Then am I still in the royal palace? Or maybe the servants’ quarters…’

My heart pounded as I made all sorts of guesses. There was something that looked like a door before me, but I couldn’t open it because I didn’t know what was outside. What if this was a secret warehouse of a criminal organization?

‘This is driving me crazy, really.’

Just then, I heard approaching footsteps. My heart pounded as if it would leap out of my mouth.

‘He must have heard… He’ll open it.’

I had intended to slip out after a little while if it seemed no one was around. I’m doomed!

‘Lord Lux, please make it a normal person! Not a murderer, a slave hunter, a child predator, or any other kind of lunatic!’

Clank.

With eyes now accustomed to the darkness, a painfully bright light poured in.