Chapter 1 (2/2)

“Hmm. I see… It seems you have been given the protection of Aerial. ”

Upon hearing the news, Renaria opens her eyes excitedly. The Wind spirit Aerial controls the air, and just like how you cannot see the air, you cannot see the wind spirit. It is widely unpopular in the aesthetics department. Another issue is that you cannot prove you have a spirit as it is invisible, so trying to convince people is a rather daunting task

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Renaria was so shocked that her eyes began to tear up. The tears caused her vision to go blurry, so she closed her eyes. Suddenly all the memories of her previous life filled her ten-year-old mind.

Renaria’s previous life was born in a rural area as a commoner. However, when she turned five, during a baptism ceremony, the church found out she had holy magic that allowed her to heal other people’s wounds. Because of this, they separated her from her parents and raised her in the church itself. At that time, no such things as guardian spirits existed, and those with magical powers had to use their own bodies in order to use magic.

Therefore all magic users had extremely short lives. However, as short as they were, they were highly respected by everyone, from commoners to royalty.

With healing magic, depending on the severity of the damage from a small cut to near-death, the mage must use their own life force to recover the damage. Essentially meaning to heal someone who was dying meant a death sentence to the mage.

Because of this, there were no aristocratic children in the church. They used poor children from families similar to Renaria’s. These children would be prepared as saints and saints to be sacrificed to people of high power.

Renaria would cry herself to sleep because she was lonely. However, because she lived with so many other children who were roughly the same age, eventually, she overcame loneliness. From then on, she spent her days learning the ways of being a saint.

At the age of ten, they would teach the children how to perform healing magic. However, this was only for the aristocrats who made large donations towards the church. Which nearly made it impossible for commoners to receive any healing from the church.

At the age of thirteen, most children would become ill and were taken back to the church to be never heard from again.

At the age of fifteen, all the remaining children would be engaged to people who belonged in the aristocratic world. At sixteen, they reach the end of their duties and are married off to whom they are engaged. This meant the surviving children had extremely high magical power levels, which were sought after for power to bear children with high magical potential. However, this rarely happened, and most children died before ever reaching this point.

The church taught the children that all the saints were beloved by God, so he would call them back to his side early to help him with his sacred duties. Renaria knew that all of this was a lie.

During her days as a saint, a good friend of hers was taken back to the church without notice, so she decided to investigate. While sneaking around the church, she found her friend’s hollow shell of a corpse, which had all lifeforce sucked right out of it.

“One day, I’m going to die like her…” She thought at the time.

Only thoughts of her fiancée could ease her broken heart. Prince Marius, who was considered one of the most beautiful men in the world, treated her with gentle love. However, Renaria didn’t know what love from another human was… She only knew God’s “love.” But this didn’t stop her from dreaming about marrying the prince as she yearned for more of the affection he gave her. She was the last saint surviving in her year, so she pushed harder to make sure she got her happy ending.

However, the day before her sixteenth birthday, Renaria was tasked with treating the princess. The princess, who was the daughter of the current duke, was laying pale face down. She had drunk poison because of her jealousy over the saint fiancée and wanted to switch. To save a human’s life on the edge of death, the gods chosen must sacrifice their lives with no exception.

Renaria could only think about her soon-to-be wedding with the prince Marius as she gave her life to save the princess’s life. Thoughts rushed through her mind, of the gentle prince who had shown her nothing but love and compassion, as she slowly drained her own lifeforce to save the princess.

Successfully sacrificing herself for the princess, she collapsed. Starting to fade into the darkness, she could hear the princess snickering at her in rejoice as she watched Renaria lose consciousness.

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