And so Laplace poured her a piping hot cup of tea from her fancy teapot. (How it was still warm, Tanya had no idea.)
“Now then, seeing as we have all the time in the world... where should I begin?”
Laplace took a sip of her tea and let out a long sigh. She fell silent for a moment, hesitation flickering in her eyes.
“You see, Tanya... this ‘payback’ of mine is to avenge the things that happened to me 300 years ago,” she said after a moment. “First, let’s start with my father... Maxwell the Court Grand Mage.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Her father: the Court Grand Mage. Her mother: a shrine maiden at the Temple of the Dragon God said to be his direct descendant. She’d lived a sheltered life, with a wealthy family and a noble bloodline.
At least, that was young Laplace’s perception of her home life, anyway.
“All I need is for you to do exactly as I say.”
This was a sentiment her father, Maxwell, repeated frequently over the years. He was an ambitious man who tended toward self-aggrandizing behavior.
As the Court Grand Mage, Maxwell was desperate to discover the secret of immortality. But Pajan was at war, and there was no time to devote to personal research... so instead he focused his efforts on developing a super-soldier.
A living, breathing tool of genocide. The ultimate pawn that would never die or betray. 300 years ago, such a thing was thought to be unattainable, and yet both sides raced to be the first to develop one.
Meanwhile, Maxwell used every connection and trick at his disposal to arrange for a shrine maiden descended from the Dragon God to be his wife—and Laplace was the product of that marriage. With the blood of the Dragon God in her veins and an innately high mana capacity, she was the perfect “specimen.”
Laplace never once met her birth mother.
Once she was born, her mother was taken back to the Temple, as agreed upon in the contract. Maxwell had no further use for her, after all.
At the very top of the tallest spire in Ode Castle, there was a tiny room where Laplace was kept. As a child, all she ever saw were those four walls and the small fragment of sky visible through her window.
At a very early age, before she had even learned to walk, she was given a number of books, all of them focused on magical studies. This was how she learned to read and write—and the more she copied down the text in the book, the more she came to understand it. All of her time was spent studying.
Then, one day, a servant took pity on her and gave her a picture book. Inside was the story of a fair princess kidnapped by an evil wizard... This single fairytale became Laplace’s only friend.
The wizard had locked the princess away in a tall, tall tower—until one day when a brave and kindhearted prince came to rescue her. In the story, the wizard was ultimately vanquished by the prince.
Laplace never once noticed the similarities between herself and the princess.
“Be a good girl and do as your father tells you. I’m only doing this because I care about you.”
There was one other activity Maxwell permitted Laplace to take part in: human experimentation. Every night, he made her his guinea pig.
“It hurts... I’m scared... I can’t breathe...!”
Those were the only things young Laplace could feel.
As a descendant of the Dragon God, her latent mana capacity was enormous, which was ideal for her father’s purposes. He embedded magical formulas and spells into every drop of blood that flowed through her veins, then made his daughter memorize them. He even made her read the forbidden tomes, though it was said the mere act of reading them would drive anyone mad.
The days turned into weeks... months... years. Her father was her one blood relative, and his word was law. She was not permitted even the thought of opposing him—her life simply didn’t have room for that.
“He’s only doing it because he cares about me... because I’m important,” Laplace told herself. She believed that this was normal—that she was just “sheltered.” After all, she had everything she could ever want: food, clothes, an education.
Then, at last, Laplace was “complete.”
With dozens of magical formulas embedded right into her blood, she could wield magic to a degree that was practically unheard of. Her Dragon God heritage had given her near-immortal longevity by default, but Maxwell had taken it upon himself to strengthen it further.
And so the Great Sorceress was born.
✦ ✦ ✦
Tanya had no words to express the pain she felt hearing this story.
As they sat there in the quiet cell, Laplace spoke slowly, like the drip of rainwater from the roof.
“Cheer up, Tanya.”
“In the stories I was told... you were gifted, but dangerous,” Tanya replied in a faint, wavering voice. “You were the Wicked Dragonwhore who tried to destroy our country, and that’s why Maxwell the Court Grand Mage had to seal you away. I’ve checked all the history books, and none of them go any further than that.”
“Interesting. So that’s the story everybody knows, hm? Hilarious—No. I need to stop doing that.”
Laplace bit her lip. She was always so quick to play things off like they were no big deal—but she’d vowed to herself that was going to change. After all, this was the whole reason she’d come here.
“If I’m being honest... it really pisses me off,” she spat.
And so Laplace resumed her story.
✦ ✦ ✦
Ten years later, during the height of the Intercontinental War, Laplace was unleashed upon the front lines for the first time. With her vast knowledge of sorcery, sky-high capacity for mana, and body optimized for large-scale combat, she was more than ready.
On the battlefield, the Great Sorceress of Pajan would throw around inhumanly powerful spells left and right. In her free time, she crafted new offensive magical formulas for her fellow Mages in the army. And with her wisdom, the nation’s Magi-Crafters were able to create countless new magical tools and weapons.
And so Laplace led the imperial army to victory against their enemies... but naturally, Maxwell took all the credit for himself. At the time, she was little more than his loyal lapdog. She had no agency of her own; she wasn’t allowed any. She was merely his creation, produced with his genes and perfected through his research.
He was obsessed with her. Likewise, her feelings for him exceeded the love of a daughter. She was dependent upon him... and afraid of him.
But as for Maxwell...
“Why must immortality continue to elude me so?!”
Narcissistic to a disgusting degree, all he cared about was his own ambition. The key to making his daughter immortal lay in her blood, inherited from the Dragon God. And, due to his achievements, his reputation as the Court Grand Mage was at an all-time high.
But though he yearned for the power of immortality, he never managed to attain it. This drove him mad with jealousy... and that jealousy, in turn, drove him to commit a reprehensible crime.
This was the lost truth left out of—or more accurately, erased from—all the history books.
Maxwell decided to perform a ritual that would siphon life energy from the citizens... all to sate his own greed.
He minted coins out of orichalcum, an alloy that could conduct mana. Then he cleverly imbued them with a spell formula that would absorb the vitality of any living being... and distributed them throughout Pajan. By absorbing their life force, he would gain a sort of “immortality”—or so he planned.
But right as his plan was one step away from fruition, it was dashed when one of his subordinate Court Mages reported him to the authorities.