When Lencar spoke of nobles killing for insignificant reasons, his voice did not waver.
"For reasons as trivial as displeasing their senses," he said evenly. "Smelling unpleasant. Living where they decided you shouldn't."
The words echoed through the underground hall.
Rebecca felt them strike something deep inside her—something old, something buried carefully beneath years of routine, responsibility, and forced composure.
Her breath caught.
She had heard such things before. In passing conversations. In whispers exchanged late at night. In bitter jokes commoners told to cope with realities they were powerless to change.
But hearing it spoken so plainly—without fear, without hesitation, without lowering one's voice—felt different.
It felt like someone had reached into her chest and pressed on a wound she had learned to ignore.
The glowing walls of the underground base blurred—not because tears had fallen yet, but because memory surged forward without permission, violent and unrestrained.
---
She was young then.
Too young to understand the meaning of the words spoken that day, but old enough to remember how they felt.
Their house was small, built of old wood reinforced with stone. The floor creaked softly whenever her father, Edrin Scarlet, crossed the room. He always walked lightly, as if afraid of disturbing something fragile.
The scent of boiled water and herbs lingered constantly. Her mother, Lyria Scarlet, always kept something warm ready, especially after Rebecca's siblings were born.
They were tiny.
So small they barely felt real. Fragile bundles wrapped in cloth, sleeping most of the day. Rebecca remembered sitting beside Lyria, watching them breathe, counting the rise and fall of their chests, afraid that if she looked away they might simply stop.
That was the day a noble came.
She remembered the sound first.
Hooves.
A carriage stopping outside their home—too polished, too clean for their land. The air itself seemed to tighten, as if the world had drawn in a sharp breath.
Lyria's hands began to tremble.
Edrin went completely still.
The noble entered without knocking.
He was dressed in fine clothes. Rings glinted on his fingers, catching the light. His boots left marks on the floor—marks he did not bother to notice.
His smile was polite.
But empty.
He looked at Lyria for a long moment, eyes roaming openly, without shame.
Rebecca remembered how her mother instinctively pulled her siblings closer.
"I've taken a liking to you," the noble said casually, as if commenting on the weather. "Prepare yourself. You'll offer yourself to me."
Rebecca remembered tilting her head, confused.
The words meant nothing to her then.
But the room felt wrong. Heavy. Like something was pressing down on her chest.
Then the noble's gaze shifted.
"And the girl," he added, eyes settling on Rebecca. "She'll come too."
Rebecca still did not understand.
But she understood the way Edrin's hands clenched into fists so tightly his knuckles turned white.
The noble gave them one day.
"You have one day," he said lightly. "After that I will come to take you myself. Be ready."
Then he turned and left, as if the words that he had just said had no consequences at all.
That night, the house was filled with a silence that hurt.
Edrin and Lyria didn't shout. They didn't argue.
They cried.
Lyria cried openly, hands pressed to her face, shoulders shaking as if her body could barely contain the pain. Edrin sat beside her, head bowed low, his own shoulders trembling.
Rebecca cried too—not because she understood, but because her parents were hurt and crying.
She remembered hugging her mother tightly, pressing her face into her chest, trying to make the sadness stop.
Trying to be useful.
Trying to be enough.
Eventually, the crying faded into something quieter. Something heavier.
Lyria smoothed Rebecca's hair with trembling fingers and gently told her to go to sleep.
Rebecca obeyed.
She always had.
That day Morning came too quickly.
Edrin entered her room quietly. His face was pale, eyes distant, as if something vital had already been torn away.
He knelt beside her bed for a long time in silence and after looking at her with a complex gaze he handed her a sealed letter.
"Don't open this," he said softly, "until you're old enough. Until you understand certain things about society. Until you understand what happened today"
Rebecca nodded, confused but obedient.
Then he told her to take her siblings.
To leave her home.
To go to the capital.
To work in an old friend's restaurant.
He placed their savings—everything they had—into her hands. The weight of the coins felt wrong. Too heavy. Too final.
Lyria did not come to say goodbye.
Rebecca did not question it.
She didn't know how.
But they left in a carriage.
She remembered looking back once.
The house stood silently behind them.
Years passed.
Life continued.
Rebecca worked. Raised her siblings. Learned how to smile at customers even when she was exhausted. Learned how to swallow grief and keep moving.
And when she turned 14 and understood what happened that day—
She opened the letter.
She remembered sitting alone in her room, hands shaking, heart pounding before she even read the first line.
The truth unfolded slowly.
That day Lyria had chosen to end her own life.
She knew that if she were taken by the nobel, she would not only be discarded and killed but—also broken over years. And she could except it if it were her only.
But she could never allow her daughter to be taken with her to that "hell" of a life.
So she chose otherwise.
Rebecca remembered the letter blurring as tears continuously without end fell onto the page.
Then came Edrin's writing.
After sending them away, he had chosen to stayed behind.
He planned to wait.
Using his and Lyria's magic together, they had created multiple corpses—one that resembled Rebecca and others that resembled Marco(brother), Pem(brother), Luca(sister), Mia(sister), and Noah(brother).
If the noble believed that both the wife and the daughter along with the other children were killed by her father, his rage would fall on the father instead.
And he won't bother to look for the Rebecca or anyone related to him but to directly kill Edrin or even torture him.
And Edrin had expected to die.
At the end of the letter—
Words written by both of her parents.
"Live well, our dear Rebecca. Take care of Marco, Luca, Pem, Noah and Mia for us.
We apologize that we cannot take of you and the other children.
You must be feeling quite frustrated with us and blaming us bad mother and father for suddenly leaving you to fend for yourself back when you just started living by yourself.
We have wronged you dear and we do not except you to accept the decisions we are taking but remember one thing we have always loved you all dear and even after death we will continue to love you all like always."
Rebecca remembered screaming, thrashing things.
Crying until her chest hurt.
She stopped eating.
Stopped working at the restaurant.
For days, she barely moved.
And then—
She remembered her siblings' faces.
And she stood up.
She went back to work.
Because she had been told to live well and take care of her younger brothers and sisters by her parents. Parents who died protecting her and her siblings at all costs.
And she had promised—without ever saying the words—that she would live well.
---
The memory faded.
Rebecca came to her senses and looked at Lencar.
The word echoed.
Rebecca's hands shook.
"Then why?" she asked, almost pleading now. "Why would you choose something like this? Why would you—"
She stopped herself.
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Why would you throw your life away for this?"
Lencar looked at her.
Really looked at her.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then—
He smiled faintly.
Not imposing. Not gentle.
Something in between.
"There are many reasons," he said. "Some ideological. Some practical."
He turned away briefly, looking out over the vast interior of the base—the glowing panels, the moving schematics, the quiet hum of machinery and mana working in harmony.
"But the most important reason," he said slowly, turning back toward them, "is because the noble system cannot coexist with me."
Rebecca frowned. "What do you mean…?"
Lencar's gaze hardened—not with anger, but with inevitability.
"Because," he said, his voice lowering just enough to command absolute attention,
"of my magic."