Chapter 30

I crumpled the letter in my hands as I stood in the garden of the royal palace. A rejection. The reason for the third one was that I’d potentially hinder the command from an organizational perspective. In other words, I’d cause disorder among the ranks. No matter how strong of a soldier I could be, if I couldn’t use astral power, I would cause chaos among the corps. Well, it was a sound argument. I couldn’t refute it. And because it was such a sound argument, I doubted I had anyone who would be on my side. “Hah! Ha-ha…” I let out a dry laugh. But why? Of course. As my conflicting emotions blended to form a mess within me, words worked their way out of my mouth. “Right, of course…” Until this very moment, I hadn’t been able to abandon the sliver of hope at the bottom of my heart. I thought if I was the strongest… If I proved that I was stronger than anyone, then even a failure of an astral mage like me could be acknowledged as worth something. But… Now, I’d finally given up. I had no place in this nation. I was woken up from my dream again. Only the results mattered. The Nebulis Sovereignty is paradise for all witches. It’s the ideal place for astral mages. But it seemed they didn’t plan to create a space for those who weren’t good enough astral mages. “…” “Eep?!” The woman at the reception desk of the astral corps shrieked. She had seen the bottomless fury in my eyes. “Hm…” I glanced at the group of astral corps members waiting behind her. After clucking my tongue at them, I left the courtyard of the palace. I was going home after giving up… Or so I wanted them to think. As soon as they seemed relieved that I had left and let their guards down, I quickly hopped behind a hedge and hid myself in the courtyard with bated breath. I’d just had the impulse. I hadn’t put much thought into the action, but my indignation had driven me like an instinct. I knew I couldn’t let things end here. I waited for night to fall. The Nebulis palace was dyed a strong shade of madder red. It steadily darkened until the time came for the external lights to flicker on, when almost no one was to be seen in the courtyard. The gardeners and astral corps members had left. Only the guards were making their rounds. “…” I crawled out of the hedges. Then I slowly strolled toward the palace with leaves still stuck to my shoulders. I had no aim. If I had to say what I was doing, I simply wanted to test the strength of those who had looked down on me. “Who’s there?!” Someone turned a flashlight on me. Must’ve been the courtyard guards. It seemed they traveled in packs of three. “Hey! What are you doing here?!” One of them approached me as the other two stood by, waiting to see if they’d need to back him up. They were awfully cautious. All I was wearing was a cheap shirt and a secondhand coat. I had no gun or even any bladed weapons, so I was as good as unarmed. “Hold both of your hands up and turn toward us. Go slowly. Tell us what you are doing—” “I’m here to beat you to a pulp.” “Wha?!” As I turned around, I kicked the ground. I was faster than any gun. I was faster than any astral power. I approached my opponents before they could even blink and drove my fist into a guard’s chin. “You bastard!” “Suspicious person detected! Exhibiting violence at the entrance to the courtyar—guh?!” I stopped him as he was talking. This was a courtyard. I figured I could find as many pebbles lying around as I wanted and if I used the darkness, the guards had no hope of avoiding me. And then there was one. “Never threw rocks for fun? How about a snowball fight?” “Huh?! What are you—” “I guess you’re above those sorts of games.” It seemed he was expecting a rock. He immediately raised his arms to protect his eyes. Not too bad. But I barely needed a moment with his guard down. I rushed up to the last one and punched him right in the gut without any tricks. “…Guh?!” He groaned and collapsed. These palace security guards were supposedly the best of the best. And yet here I’d defeated three of them at once… I felt some sort of emotion bubbling up within me. It wasn’t satisfaction or a sense of accomplishment. If anything, I would describe the emotion seething within me as pure rage. “Is this what you consider good enough…?” These guards were true astral mages. How could they be so weak? The reality was thrust before me. I’d been rejected, and yet these men had been put in important positions in this country simply because they had astral power. How could things be so unfair? “Look at me…” I clenched my hand into a fist and howled. I’d trained like my life depended on it. If I couldn’t earn acknowledgment by becoming this strong, then how was I supposed to?! I’d won against the astral corps and defeated the palace guards. Was that not enough? “Do I need to push around a purebred type?” The three royal lines were related to the Founder Nebulis. Because the royal family had come from such a strong lineage and had great astral power, they were called purebred types. This was the courtyard of their palace. It wouldn’t be odd for me to come across one. “Will it satisfy you if I defeat one of them? Is that how I can be acknowledged?” No one answered me. I knew better. If I beat up a purebred type, I’d end up a criminal. Instead of being acknowledged, I’d be put on a wanted list and that would be it. I knew it was only a path to destruction. But I still couldn’t stop myself. The intangible frustration pushed me onward. I couldn’t stop it, nor did I try to as I wandered through the courtyard. “That’s…” I saw her below one of the outside lights. A purebred type sitting on a bench in the courtyard without a guard in sight. Princess Elletear Lou Nebulis IX.