LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 137.1
137.1. A Woman’s Past is Filled with Mysteries, Isn’t It?
I am Eva Casper.
A magician.
Twenty-four years old.
Let’s talk a bit about the past.
My memories are vague, but I remember my parents were exceptional magicians when I was very young.
At that time, Camille was still toddling, and Marilyn might have only been crawling.
Both of my parents vanished.
Apparently, they died in an accident.
We went through a lot and were taken in by the man who had been their mentor.
It seems my parents didn’t like him.
Vaguely, I remember them muttering something about being abandoned by a terrible mentor.
The mentor first assessed the magical potential of the three of us sisters.
He used a secret, specialized magic to measure each person’s latent magical power.
Of course, I only learned this much later.
He said to me…
You have great potential magical power.
If you become my apprentice, become a magician, and inherit my role, I will take care of all three of you.
Even at a young age, I instinctively knew I had no other way to survive.
There was no way I could support my two even younger sisters.
I hesitated, but eventually, I nodded and agreed.
Why had we been taken in by the mentor instead of relatives?
I learned the reason only after I became an apprentice and started living in an old, remote tower.
The tower was filled with orphans like me.
Children with magical potential, gathered in a secluded place—a Hermit’s garden.
My parents had come from here.
They had been talented orphans with no relatives, who met in this place.
I’ll skip the details.
The Hermit’s Garden was a small community cut off from the outside world, a small village and nation all in one.
It housed not only magicians but also people with other crests and professions.
While I immersed myself in studying magic under the mentor, the village provided a nanny to take care of my two younger sisters.
To avoid being abandoned by my mentor, I clung desperately to my studies for the sake of my tiny family.
At sixteen, a coming-of-age ceremony, though different from the norm, was held.
A crest officer I had never seen before in the village performed a spell to engrave a crest on my left hand.
How can I describe the tension and fear of that moment?
If, after all my efforts from childhood to this day, I did not receive the magician’s crest…
The time felt both like a few seconds and an eternity, long enough to relive my entire life up to that point.
But finally, the magician’s crest was engraved on my left hand.
From that day, I began my true, practical training.
Of course, I had been able to use basic magic even before receiving the crest, but with it, my magical efficiency and power were on a whole new level.
I started competing in skill and knowledge with the older magicians who already had their crests.
My efforts paid off, and within a few years, I grew stronger.
Both of my sisters, Camille and Marilyn, also obtained crests, Camille as a swordswoman and Marilyn as a priestess.
Since they didn’t meet the magical potential our mentor had sought, they had been living in the village, working.
Camille hunted monsters with her sword, while Marilyn helped with healing at a small church. Their respective crests were determined based on these roles.
As I became known as a promising talent in the garden, it wasn’t just me but my sisters too who gained attention.
As we three grew older, people’s gazes changed.
Predatory eyes.
The way men looked at us shifted unmistakably.
When I began to feel these gazes of lust and jealousy, I decided to take on the trial to become the next “Hermit.”
If I became the Hermit, no one in the village could touch me or my sisters.
I would protect them, no matter what.
The trial involved mastering two grand spells.
I vomited blood during my intense training.
One was [Hell Prison].
A high-level, powerful offensive magic, also called [Cocytus].
It was said that those who could use it were considered true magicians in the garden.
The other was [Rose Prison].
This was a unique magic passed down through generations of Hermits.
A defensive spell where steel roses encase the target, with their thorns inflicting damage on the attacker—a rather cruel magic.
Neither of my parents had been able to master these spells, and because of that, they had been cast out of the village with barely enough money to survive.
I knew little about the outside world, only what I had learned.
Strangely enough, we could easily access knowledge of the outside world in the village, even being thoroughly taught about it in class.
Now that I think about it, it seems likely that the more talented magicians were sent out into the world.
I remember my parents saying, “We were abandoned by our mentor because we were failures,” though it’s a vague memory from when I was very young.
But I suspect now that they were not abandoned; they were talented, and once they had learned all they could, they were sent out into the world.
For various reasons, once the candidates for the next Hermit were gathered, the most skilled among those who had mastered the two great spells was chosen to succeed. The others had to either stay in the village as teachers or leave.
I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I was a genius.
I mastered the two grand spells at a young age.
It was a remarkable achievement in the history of the village.
However, the one chosen as the next Hermit was a seasoned magician in his late thirties.
It was no surprise—the most likely candidate, as everyone had expected.
Though I was disappointed not to become the next Hermit, I didn’t care as long as I could leave the village with my sisters!
I could no longer bear the beastly gazes directed at us!
Of course, the outside world might be just as bad, or even worse, but in the confined space of the village, we could no longer escape the men’s eyes.
The world outside was vast.
As an adventurer, hunting monsters, I could move from town to town, something impossible in the village. I believed we could escape.
So I made up my mind to leave the village with my sisters.
We went to inform the Hermit of our decision.
The Hermit silently gazed down at us.
Knowing the village’s secrets, I wondered what restrictions would be placed on us, but there were none.
Just one thing was said…
“…Eva. If you ever feel like you’ve touched even a bit of the world’s secrets… return to the village… return to the Hermit’s Garden.”
I didn’t understand the meaning.
I didn’t particularly want to return to the village.
But I owed them for raising me.
If I ever did find this “secret of the world,” I resolved to return.
When I gave a small nod, I suddenly lost consciousness.
…
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