I woke up, finding myself in my bedroom. Apparently, I’d passed out during the Oracle Rite. As I stared blankly up at the ceiling, I heard a knock on the door, after which Tutte walked in.
“Oh, Lady Mary. You’ve come to,” she said.
“Tutte...how did I get here?” I sat up and watched her approach.
“You fell unconscious soon after the rite ended, so I carried you over to the waiting room. I contacted the estate, and the duke showed up with a small retinue, looking quite distressed... The master was incredible, you know. He stormed into the temple furiously. I was quite startled.”
Tutte recalled what happened, nodding the whole time. I sighed, exasperated. I could vaguely imagine it based on her words.
“Here you are.” Tutte placed a cup of fragrant tea before me, hoping to lift my spirits.
“Thank you...” I picked up the cup and sipped on it. It calmed me down somewhat, and I was able to reflect on the ritual.
I never imagined that’s what I’d find out. I’m basically the strongest person alive, and I didn’t even know it. Well, at least in terms of physical abilities. I wish God made it so my mental prowess matched that too... I mean, I’m the type to always waffle when it’s time to act.
I took another sip of tea...
“Speaking of the rite, you were amazing, my lady!” Tutte said. “The whole temple went white with light, and the crystal ball just shattered to bits!”
“Pffft!”
...and then I very nearly sprayed all the tea out of my mouth in shock, but I was able to stop myself at the last second. Spit takes and rich lady dignity are kind of mutually exclusive.
“I-I-I broke it?! Really?! I broke the holy treasure?!”
“I’m not sure if it was just you, to be honest,” Tutte said pensively. “The temple’s people said the pedestal was already on the verge of breaking after the prince received his oracle, so you using it was just the final straw that broke it. I mean, it shined like that after you touched it, but it shattered a moment later.”
“Can we...compensate them for the crystal?” I asked, sweating bullets.
The cup of tea I was holding was clattering in my shaking grasp, and I held it so hard it started cracking.
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. It’s a sacred relic, after all. It fixed itself a moment later,” Tutte said reassuringly.
“Th-Thank goodness...” I sighed in relief.
“The temple’s staff said that if you didn’t end up successfully going through the rite, you could come back another day and redo it.”
“No, I heard God’s voice, so I think I’m fine.”
If anything, what he told me is the problem... What am I supposed to do now?
Seeing my pensive silence, Tutte approached me after she disposed of the cup I’d cracked. “What’s wrong, my lady? Was there a problem with the oracle you received?”
Tutte wasn’t my maid for nothing; she caught on to my emotions quickly. I gathered my courage and decided to tell her about the powers God granted me. “I... Hmm, apparently I have some broken powers.”
“Broken powers...? Do you mean your powers are defective somehow? I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“Well, they’re not defective. It’s more like... Hmm, in my terms, they’re very strong and unbalanced compared to everyone else’s.”
“My, that sounds impressive. Oh, is this ‘broken power’ thing another idea from your past life?”
“If only it were just that...” I sighed and told Tutte about my powers as God had detailed them to me. At first she simply nodded curiously, but the more I told her, the paler her face became.
“Are you saying you’re going to become a legendary hero?! I think I probably won’t be a worthy companion for a hero... I’d probably just drag you down.” Such was her impression after I’d finished telling her everything.
“I’m not going to be a hero! All I want is to just enjoy an average, peaceful life with you! I don’t want to spend my life grappling with dangers...”
“My lady...” Tutte looked at me, looking very relieved. Her cheeks also looked kind of rosy...?
“But the real question is what I do next,” I continued. “I need to find some way to either suppress or hide my powers. Because if they come to light...”
I hugged myself, shivering. So far, I’d insisted on trying to live as a normal girl, hiding my powers because of the incident that had revealed my powers to me, when I saw Tutte’s expression of terror. Although it had all ended in a misunderstanding and nothing serious had happened, that moment was a traumatic memory for me.
Plus, having read all sorts of books and watched many movies, I knew that when people are faced with something they can’t understand, something common sense can’t explain, they usually act to dispose of it...
I told Tutte as much, and she embraced me even as I wrapped my own arms around myself. “Don’t worry, my lady. You always have us on your side. Me and the other servants, and the master and the mistress, we all love you very much.”
While those words did soothe me, they also gripped tightly on my heart. There’s something else I know: when faced with the unknown, society also tends to expel those who side with it...
“Thank you...” I said. “Lend me your help, okay? So we can figure out if there’s something I can do.”
I relaxed my arms and moved away from Tutte. “Tutte, let’s go meet with father and mother.”
For the time being, I have to learn how to control my powers as soon as possible. To do that, I need to study a lot. The way I am now, I’m basically a walking nuke with an exposed fuse.
A few days passed, and my family had summoned an instructor to teach me martial arts to pair with my private tutor for etiquette. I wanted to study how to use second-order magic too, but as it turned out, there was a law that forbade the teaching of magic on that level until one reached the appropriate age.
Thankfully, mana only exhibited its power when used for magic. If one didn’t know how to use magic, it didn’t matter how vast their mana reserves were, it all went unused. But still, there were cases of people’s power going haywire once they tried to use even the simplest of spells, so I couldn’t be too optimistic about this.
I wish I could learn how to use magic sooner rather than later. I mean, it’s magic! It’s so exciting!
Feeling a bit disappointed, I changed into the more convenient top and pants I had the tailor make for me and tied my hair into a ponytail. I stepped out into the estate’s lawn, waiting for my lesson to start. My new martial arts instructor was scheduled to arrive today.
Hmm, I wish I had a tracksuit or something, but I guess those don’t exist in this world. Maybe I can get my exclusive tailor to really make me a tracksuit... I pondered my attire as I waited for the instructor to arrive.
Come to think of it, father said the instructor was a friend of his. They fought on the same battlefield when they were younger.
Father had reacted quite badly to my request to learn martial arts. As always, he was overprotective to exaggerated degrees, and he said I didn’t need to learn any of that, bemoaning what would happen if I got scraped. In the end, my tongue slipped, and I bellowed at him, “If you won’t do what I ask, I’ll hate you, father!”
I had to spend the few minutes that followed assuring him I was retracting my words. Father was in a state of complete depression and despair. It did work, though, because father begrudgingly agreed to my request.
“My lady, Count Elexiel has arrived,” Tutte informed me as she approached with a knight following after her. He was a middle-aged man clad in full armor. He was quite muscular and had brown hair. He had a sword scar over one of his eyes, and overall, he had quite the intimidating face. I found myself automatically standing at attention.
“Ah, my apologies for being tardy, Lady Mary,” the knight said. “This dunce was grumbling the whole time, so I had to knock him out, wrap him in a mat, and carry him over.”
“Pardon?” I asked.
The knight dumped a large bundle at my feet. I only barely noticed—because of the tip of their head and their feet dangling out—that the bundle was actually a person.
Huh, what’s happening here? How am I supposed to process this? God, some input?
My mind went blank at how fast things were developing, and I froze up. The bundle on the ground thrashed, and with the rope keeping the mat rolled up having loosened from hitting the ground and coming undone, the person inside was finally freed.
It was a boy. He looked to be about my age, and he had short red hair and healthy-looking tanned skin. He got to his feet with a sullen look on his face. As he glanced my way with his violet eyes, I felt my heart skip a beat. While his facial features paled in comparison to the prince I’d met not long ago, they were still quite fair, and he was a pretty handsome boy.
“Allow me to introduce you,” the knight said. “This is my son, Sacher.”
Another pretty boy... I’ve got a bad feeling about this, I sighed internally.