In the large open courtyard, a huge full moon hung overhead in the night sky.
A luxurious white building glowed as it basked in the moonlight and casted a delicate shadow everywhere. The light of fixedly placed lamps flickered and occasionally distorted the outline of that shadow.
The Weizsäcker imperial academy was preparing for tomorrow’s entrance ceremony. Usually it would be silent at this time of the night, however, right now the spacious courtyard was filled with prominent internal members of noble society, as if there was a ball about to take place here.
However, the expression that reflected on their face through the moonlight was not one of festivity, it was full of tension. Their gazes were fixated on one point — the middle of the courtyard, where a magic formation was located.
That’s right, these people where the parents of the noble children who were turning 12 this fall.
Excluding those who the empire had invested in and had meritorious service, all the nobles inside the empire has the blood of the dragon flowing through them. It had been continuously passed down and once they turn 12, they are summoned to the academy — as expected, this bloodline does not run thin.
Joining the academy is the fate of the nobles, but it is also something to be boastful about. Therefore, while saying things such as 「Dear me, having the entrance preparations taking place in the dead of night is truly an inconvenient thing wouldn’t you say,」they open drinks and come to the courtyard to see if their children have been summoned safely.
Now, a light shines from the magic formation, and at the same time, a single ‘student’ appeared.
It seems that it was the son of a viscount family, his parents simultaneously let out both a sigh of relief and sigh of disappointment. He safely arrived at the academy but, he appeared too early. Just like pulling in a big fish takes lots of time, those with large amounts of magical power appear later than others. For the young boy, his magical power had barely met the requirements for the summoning.
The summoned children have their name verified, and then they are shown to their dorm room by their upper classman. Back in the days of when the empire was unstable, there were many children who had magical power that were summoned who didn’t know about the academy. Nowadays, since a large majority of ‘students’ are from noble lineage and that commoners with magical power are very rare to come by, preregistering your name to a room before the entering the academy was normal.
In this manner, one by one the ‘students’ appear, and after confirming that they’ve been safely summon, their families headed home. Now the amount of people left over have become very scarce.
The cheerful and chattering nobles who had their children enter the academy are separated behind a line. Leftover was a single married couple who were staring at magic formation with a grim look on their face.
One had an ashen moustache, a gentlemen with a robust build in the prime of his life. The other had elegant and graceful looks with a few signs of wrinkles from her mature age, the madam to the gentleman. The madam finally let out a gentle sigh and turned to talk to her nearby husband.
「…Hey, dearie. As I thought, that child — Claudia’s child isn’t going to appear is she.」
Squinting his amethyst colored eyes the man — the old Harkenberg marquis did not say anything.
The flustered madam started talking by herself, as if she had been overwhelmed by anxiety.
「Our dearly beloved, we learned 12 years ago that she had given her life in order to give birth to a single daughter…. Our grandchild, if they’re alive this year they would be of-age to enter the academy. We had mobilized the entire force of our marquis household but we still could not find her, even though I had a glimmer of hope that the strong summoning formation of the empire’s founder would be able to do what we could not…」
Tears fell as she spoke, but noticing that the surround people had begun to worry, the madam brought herself back and fixed her posture.
She was the honored Harkenberg marchioness, Emilia.
After the events of the Disaster of Flora, as the mother of the victim, she’d received many pitiful looks over the years. She can’t afford to expose anymore weakness than this.
Emilia forcefully smiled and let out a cheerful voice.
「But, anyway, as per my wish, I had a dress specially made for meeting her today, it’ll suit her no matter what kind of granddaughter we get. Since she’s dearie’s daughter, she’ll definitely have violet eyes don’t you think? But since we don’t know the color of her hair I troubled over the color of the dress and had many of them prepared. If she’s blond then blue-grey, if she’s a brunette, a tender cream color. Or else, I wonder if she’ll have flaxen hair instead? Just in case, I included a bright green dress as well. I wonder just what color of hair she’ll have, and also, how her life has been…」
「Emilia.」
The old marquis softly called out to his wife, who once again was unable to hold back her tears. He gently brushed his wife’s hair, but Emilia soon shook herself off and tearfully shouted,
「How can you be so calm like this!?」
The surrounding people started to clamor upon the sudden outburst of the madam. The nobles who understood the circumstances painfully closed their eyes, while those commoners and newcomers who didn’t know her usual graceful appearance were looking upon her with genuine shock in their gaze.
「That child, OUR dear, when she suffered at the academy you didn’t help and when she was exiled, you did nothing to aid in her search at the beginning. When she…when she died! You didn’t even raise a single eyebrow at her tragic fate, even now all you do is stand there expressionlessly! How can you do this!?」
The madam then covered her face and starting weeping harder than before.
「Even though the violet eyes of the Harkenberg family was praised as being able to see through the truth, you did also, and so did I! But we overlooked the fragments of the truth at that time and now, all we can do is just stand around!」
All the marquis could do was listen silent and occasionally caress Emilia’s back as she let everything out. Towards the heartbreaking scene, all the surrounding people could do was watch with bated breath.
「Emilia」
Before long, the old marquis slowly started to speak.
「Since olden times, the Harkenberg family has been the empire’s shield, and also its sword. Our oldest born child Claudia was also a genius soldier who excelled at martial arts. For her to be assaulted by a burglar, he must have been a greatly skilled adversary. To die a noble death against such an enemy, Claudia would have also had no regrets.」
His message had been a little misinterpreted. Towards the muscle brain husband, the madam gritted her teeth.
「This is about our tragic daughter who wasn’t able to get help from her parents, NOT some talk about a subordinate who died in battle!」
Brushing his moustache with a ‘hmm,’ he thought for a while and corrected himself.
「Claudia was a smart child. Manipulating a ferocious flame, she was a strong child as well. Even she was young she was able to escape from the eyes of our spies we had watch her when she went down to the city, she had a great intuition. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was nonchalantly living her life somewhere even now.」
「As someone who was born as noble’s daughter, just where in empire’s territory would she be able to make a living for herself!?」
「Hm. That is, well, uhm……by opening a bakery in the lower city perhaps?」
「Don’t say stupid things!」
Unexpectedly, The marquis had seen through the truth. (Not that he knows it)
Receiving an absurd response from her husband, Emilia came back to reality and stood up sniffling while thinking that she has to be the level-headed one.
「Just now, the second son of an honored duke was summoned. Next would be someone in the class of the imperial family or head duke family huh… Dearie. Let’s return home already.」
The summoning’s for their corresponding rank had stopped — Once she had understood that, Emilia sighed greatly and decided to return home.
However, at that moment.
Pzzt….—!!
As if the sun had exploded, an explosive strong light shined everywhere.
A strong gust blew from the middle of the magic formation, lifting up people’s clothes and blowing out all the candles. Various screams were raised at the sudden flash of light and shockwave.
The marquis promptly protected his wife, having his eyes be blinded by the light he squinted, and wondering what the source was he turned towards the center of the magic formation.
And then,
「……!」
He opened his eyes in shock.
Inside the formation where the wind had settled, was a single young girl crouching down.
From her crude clothes, you could see that she was very thin, however, she had almost transparent white skin.
Hiding the shoulders of the girl crouched on the ground, was an abundant amount of black colored hair.
Understanding that this is clearly not a noble’s child, everyone held their breath as they watched.
With hundreds of gazes fixated, the crouched girl nudged her arm and shakily began to stand up. Before long, it appeared from between her black hair, even though it was dirty, it was an unbelievably beautiful face that seemed as if it didn’t belong in this world.
「No way……」
Having a premonition run through her whole body in an instant, Emilia covered her mouth with both hands and uttered with a shaken voice.
Looking around with a confused look, the girl who surveyed her surroundings with long eyelashes had — crystal clear violet eyes.
「By the spirits……!」
Someone had given praise to this miracle as the work of the spirits.
A young girl appeared who was blessed with natural beauty.
There’s no mistaking it. That is Claudia von Harkenberg’s daughter.
「Ah…! Ah! Ah! I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it at all!」
Emilie clung to her husband’s arm as she shed tears.
「Dearie! That child! It’s that child’s daughter! She’s finally returned to our side! Take a look, those violet pupils, that charming face…! A splitting image of dear when she was a child!」
「…………」
「……Dearie?」
The husband had no response. Puzzled, Emilia frowned upwards towards the marquis.
「…ca …th」
「Excuse me?」
A fire suddenly flared up in the old marquis’s eyes.
「Call the best tailor in all of the empire! I don’t care how much it’ll cost! I shall decorate my amazingly cute and spirit-ly blessed granddaughter with the highest quality dress possible — !!」
Once before, the brave and strong old Harkenberg marquis was feared on the front lines of battle.
Once upon a time, his howl could break the fighting spirits of his enemies, and cheer up the entirety of his forces. On that day, his legendary roar was used to,
「MAKE IT PURPLE — !」
By unimportant maters, the whole academy was abruptly disturbed from their quiet sleep.
In the large open courtyard, a huge full moon hung overhead in the night sky.
A luxurious white building glowed as it basked in the moonlight and casted a delicate shadow everywhere. The light of fixedly placed lamps flickered and occasionally distorted the outline of that shadow.
The Weizsäcker imperial academy was preparing for tomorrow’s entrance ceremony. Usually it would be silent at this time of the night, however, right now the spacious courtyard was filled with prominent internal members of noble society, as if there was a ball about to take place here.
However, the expression that reflected on their face through the moonlight was not one of festivity, it was full of tension. Their gazes were fixated on one point — the middle of the courtyard, where a magic formation was located.
That’s right, these people where the parents of the noble children who were turning 12 this fall.
Excluding those who the empire had invested in and had meritorious service, all the nobles inside the empire has the blood of the dragon flowing through them. It had been continuously passed down and once they turn 12, they are summoned to the academy — as expected, this bloodline does not run thin.
Joining the academy is the fate of the nobles, but it is also something to be boastful about. Therefore, while saying things such as 「Dear me, having the entrance preparations taking place in the dead of night is truly an inconvenient thing wouldn’t you say,」they open drinks and come to the courtyard to see if their children have been summoned safely.
Now, a light shines from the magic formation, and at the same time, a single ‘student’ appeared.
It seems that it was the son of a viscount family, his parents simultaneously let out both a sigh of relief and sigh of disappointment. He safely arrived at the academy but, he appeared too early. Just like pulling in a big fish takes lots of time, those with large amounts of magical power appear later than others. For the young boy, his magical power had barely met the requirements for the summoning.
The summoned children have their name verified, and then they are shown to their dorm room by their upper classman. Back in the days of when the empire was unstable, there were many children who had magical power that were summoned who didn’t know about the academy. Nowadays, since a large majority of ‘students’ are from noble lineage and that commoners with magical power are very rare to come by, preregistering your name to a room before the entering the academy was normal.
In this manner, one by one the ‘students’ appear, and after confirming that they’ve been safely summon, their families headed home. Now the amount of people left over have become very scarce.
The cheerful and chattering nobles who had their children enter the academy are separated behind a line. Leftover was a single married couple who were staring at magic formation with a grim look on their face.
One had an ashen moustache, a gentlemen with a robust build in the prime of his life. The other had elegant and graceful looks with a few signs of wrinkles from her mature age, the madam to the gentleman. The madam finally let out a gentle sigh and turned to talk to her nearby husband.
「…Hey, dearie. As I thought, that child — Claudia’s child isn’t going to appear is she.」
Squinting his amethyst colored eyes the man — the old Harkenberg marquis did not say anything.
The flustered madam started talking by herself, as if she had been overwhelmed by anxiety.
「Our dearly beloved, we learned 12 years ago that she had given her life in order to give birth to a single daughter…. Our grandchild, if they’re alive this year they would be of-age to enter the academy. We had mobilized the entire force of our marquis household but we still could not find her, even though I had a glimmer of hope that the strong summoning formation of the empire’s founder would be able to do what we could not…」
Tears fell as she spoke, but noticing that the surround people had begun to worry, the madam brought herself back and fixed her posture.
She was the honored Harkenberg marchioness, Emilia.
After the events of the Disaster of Flora, as the mother of the victim, she’d received many pitiful looks over the years. She can’t afford to expose anymore weakness than this.
Emilia forcefully smiled and let out a cheerful voice.
「But, anyway, as per my wish, I had a dress specially made for meeting her today, it’ll suit her no matter what kind of granddaughter we get. Since she’s dearie’s daughter, she’ll definitely have violet eyes don’t you think? But since we don’t know the color of her hair I troubled over the color of the dress and had many of them prepared. If she’s blond then blue-grey, if she’s a brunette, a tender cream color. Or else, I wonder if she’ll have flaxen hair instead? Just in case, I included a bright green dress as well. I wonder just what color of hair she’ll have, and also, how her life has been…」
「Emilia.」
The old marquis softly called out to his wife, who once again was unable to hold back her tears. He gently brushed his wife’s hair, but Emilia soon shook herself off and tearfully shouted,
「How can you be so calm like this!?」
The surrounding people started to clamor upon the sudden outburst of the madam. The nobles who understood the circumstances painfully closed their eyes, while those commoners and newcomers who didn’t know her usual graceful appearance were looking upon her with genuine shock in their gaze.
「That child, OUR dear, when she suffered at the academy you didn’t help and when she was exiled, you did nothing to aid in her search at the beginning. When she…when she died! You didn’t even raise a single eyebrow at her tragic fate, even now all you do is stand there expressionlessly! How can you do this!?」
The madam then covered her face and starting weeping harder than before.
「Even though the violet eyes of the Harkenberg family was praised as being able to see through the truth, you did also, and so did I! But we overlooked the fragments of the truth at that time and now, all we can do is just stand around!」
All the marquis could do was listen silent and occasionally caress Emilia’s back as she let everything out. Towards the heartbreaking scene, all the surrounding people could do was watch with bated breath.
「Emilia」
Before long, the old marquis slowly started to speak.
「Since olden times, the Harkenberg family has been the empire’s shield, and also its sword. Our oldest born child Claudia was also a genius soldier who excelled at martial arts. For her to be assaulted by a burglar, he must have been a greatly skilled adversary. To die a noble death against such an enemy, Claudia would have also had no regrets.」
His message had been a little misinterpreted. Towards the muscle brain husband, the madam gritted her teeth.
「This is about our tragic daughter who wasn’t able to get help from her parents, NOT some talk about a subordinate who died in battle!」
Brushing his moustache with a ‘hmm,’ he thought for a while and corrected himself.
「Claudia was a smart child. Manipulating a ferocious flame, she was a strong child as well. Even she was young she was able to escape from the eyes of our spies we had watch her when she went down to the city, she had a great intuition. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was nonchalantly living her life somewhere even now.」
「As someone who was born as noble’s daughter, just where in empire’s territory would she be able to make a living for herself!?」
「Hm. That is, well, uhm……by opening a bakery in the lower city perhaps?」
「Don’t say stupid things!」
Unexpectedly, The marquis had seen through the truth. (Not that he knows it)
Receiving an absurd response from her husband, Emilia came back to reality and stood up sniffling while thinking that she has to be the level-headed one.
「Just now, the second son of an honored duke was summoned. Next would be someone in the class of the imperial family or head duke family huh… Dearie. Let’s return home already.」
The summoning’s for their corresponding rank had stopped — Once she had understood that, Emilia sighed greatly and decided to return home.
However, at that moment.
Pzzt….—!!
As if the sun had exploded, an explosive strong light shined everywhere.
A strong gust blew from the middle of the magic formation, lifting up people’s clothes and blowing out all the candles. Various screams were raised at the sudden flash of light and shockwave.
The marquis promptly protected his wife, having his eyes be blinded by the light he squinted, and wondering what the source was he turned towards the center of the magic formation.
And then,
「……!」
He opened his eyes in shock.
Inside the formation where the wind had settled, was a single young girl crouching down.
From her crude clothes, you could see that she was very thin, however, she had almost transparent white skin.
Hiding the shoulders of the girl crouched on the ground, was an abundant amount of black colored hair.
Understanding that this is clearly not a noble’s child, everyone held their breath as they watched.
With hundreds of gazes fixated, the crouched girl nudged her arm and shakily began to stand up. Before long, it appeared from between her black hair, even though it was dirty, it was an unbelievably beautiful face that seemed as if it didn’t belong in this world.
「No way……」
Having a premonition run through her whole body in an instant, Emilia covered her mouth with both hands and uttered with a shaken voice.
Looking around with a confused look, the girl who surveyed her surroundings with long eyelashes had — crystal clear violet eyes.
「By the spirits……!」
Someone had given praise to this miracle as the work of the spirits.
A young girl appeared who was blessed with natural beauty.
There’s no mistaking it. That is Claudia von Harkenberg’s daughter.
「Ah…! Ah! Ah! I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it at all!」
Emilie clung to her husband’s arm as she shed tears.
「Dearie! That child! It’s that child’s daughter! She’s finally returned to our side! Take a look, those violet pupils, that charming face…! A splitting image of dear when she was a child!」
「…………」
「……Dearie?」
The husband had no response. Puzzled, Emilia frowned upwards towards the marquis.
「…ca …th」
「Excuse me?」
A fire suddenly flared up in the old marquis’s eyes.
「Call the best tailor in all of the empire! I don’t care how much it’ll cost! I shall decorate my amazingly cute and spirit-ly blessed granddaughter with the highest quality dress possible — !!」
Once before, the brave and strong old Harkenberg marquis was feared on the front lines of battle.
Once upon a time, his howl could break the fighting spirits of his enemies, and cheer up the entirety of his forces. On that day, his legendary roar was used to,
「MAKE IT PURPLE — !」
By unimportant maters, the whole academy was abruptly disturbed from their quiet sleep.
