“As expected! His mana level is still zero! He’s really done for!”
“Once the empire’s number one magic prodigy, Young Master Charlotte, who reached the realm of Great Mage at thirteen, now can’t even measure up to a magic apprentice!”
“Pah! Some young master—he’s just a useless bastard! With his current state, he’s still hogging the family heir position?”
“Don’t rush. I heard that Miss Annabell of Sky Academy will be passing through our territory in a few days. She’s a duke’s daughter, the chief genius of the magic academy.”
“Would she even look at a good-for-nothing? As long as Miss Annabell publicly tears up the engagement contract, the Elder Council can immediately strip him of his heir status!”
“Break the engagement! Break the engagement!”
“Kick him off the heir position!”
The sharp, harsh faces of the surrounding relatives pierced Charlotte’s heart like sharp blades. Faced with the family’s contempt and ridicule, Charlotte felt no anger and offered no retort.
She just bit her lower lip so hard that it drew blood, then withdrew her hand and turned silently to walk down the platform. Her thin, lonely figure seemed to sway precariously under the scorching sun.
Back in her dim bedroom, Charlotte locked the door and slid to the floor as if all strength had left her. With trembling hands, she unbuttoned the intricate collar and then unwound the layers of tight chest binding bandages.
As the bindings fell away, her previously flat chest rose slightly, and her cascading brilliant golden hair, freed from restraint, spilled like flowing clouds over her delicate shoulders.
If anyone were present, they would be utterly stunned. This famed genius young master of the empire, this worthless heir bearing countless curses, was actually a breathtakingly beautiful, pitiable, peerless young girl!
“Why… why has it come to this…”
Charlotte buried her face in her knees, and tears finally burst forth. She was not a young master at all.
To protect her ailing father’s marquis position and prevent the rapacious collateral relatives from annexing the family estate, she had sworn on her mother’s deathbed to disguise herself as a boy and carry the entire family as a genius young master.
A light. A beam of light. Once, she had been so proud. A thirteen-year-old Great Mage—how magnificent!
She had even earned the right to be betrothed to the empire’s most brilliant jewel, Duke’s Daughter Annabell.
At the thought of Annabell, Charlotte’s heart twinged painfully. The scene from her childhood involuntarily surfaced in her mind. It was under a massive white birch tree in the Marquis Mansion’s back garden.
The young Annabell, dressed in a gorgeous skirt, pushed Charlotte against the tree trunk imperiously. Her beautiful red and blue dual pupils glinted with mischievous light. “Hey, Charlotte, you’re really pretty. You’re not a girl, are you? From now on, you’re mine.”
That afternoon, that meeting with her became Charlotte’s deepest secret and the only beam of light on her dark path of disguising herself as a young master. “Annabell…” Charlotte closed her eyes bitterly.
She heard that Annabell was about to come break off the engagement. Well, it made sense. She was now the lofty Chief Student of Sky Academy. How could she honor a marriage contract with a disgraced good-for-nothing?
Under extreme despair and fear of exposure, Charlotte slowly turned her gaze to an elegant letter opener on the table.
‘If I die… will Father be relieved? And I won’t have to painfully pretend anymore…’ She picked up the knife with trembling hands and aimed it at her pale wrist. But just as the sharp blade was about to cut her skin…
From the next room, suddenly came her father’s violent, weak coughing. Charlotte’s hand froze.
“No… I can’t die! If I die, those jackals from the collateral branch will devour my sick father alive!”
Charlotte threw the letter opener away. She forced herself to wipe away her tears and steeled herself. She grabbed the pendant hanging around her neck. It was a jade elf pendant emanating ancient ripples, the only heirloom left by her mother.
For the past three years, she had sensed that her depleted mana had been drained by this mysterious pendant! Although she didn’t know what secret it held, it was her last hope to restore her mana. Charlotte clutched the pendant tightly, a flame of defiance reigniting in her eyes.
“I, Charlotte, will never give up! Even if Annabell really comes to break the engagement, I will stand before her with dignity and slap the divorce letter in her face!”
However, that “fiancée” currently on her way was entirely preoccupied with how to worship this Heaven’s Chosen Daughter as an ancestor. Forget the divorce letter—Annabell had already thought up names for their future children in her heart.
“Don’t get too close to me. Magic doesn’t have eyes.” Annabell said coldly to a magic freshman who had fallen to the ground. Annabell held a staff inlaid with countless diamonds, and mana surged around her.
At her feet lay more than a dozen carcasses of low-level demon beasts, “Wind Blade Wolves.”
Each corpse had been killed instantly by extremely sharp ice blades, and even the spilled blood had been frozen solid by the frigid temperature, not dirtying the surroundings in the slightest.
Her silver hair cascading like a waterfall, beautiful and flawless, Annabell stood amidst this bloody battlefield, yet she seemed like a queen descended from a frozen kingdom, creating a stark contrast beauty!
Anyone who saw this stunning scene would cry out in their hearts: What a peerless icy Miss!
And the junior freshman she had casually saved was now looking up at her with worship and affectionate eyes, her gaze so sticky that if Annabell nodded, she would immediately go for some yuri cuddling.
“Don’t misunderstand. I just don’t want to delay the training progress.” Leaving a cold remark, Annabell’s gaze swept over the freshmen.
“You have a quarter of an hour to prepare. We depart in fifteen minutes.” With that, Annabell found a quiet place and closed her eyes to meditate.
“Miss is so cool!”
“Just now, Senior Annabell cast a third-tier magic ‘Frost Nova’ instantly without even chanting!”
“Senior’s eyes are so beautiful, feels like my soul is being sucked in.”
“What do you know? That’s the Truth Magic Eye! A dual pupil with one red and one blue—the mark of a natural Grand Archmage!”
“Wow…”
A group of magic freshmen who had just escaped death were not afraid at all; instead, they looked up at the high-standing Annabell with admiration like fanatical fans, quietly discussing among themselves with stars in their eyes.
Listening to the whispers below, Annabell closed her eyes and calculated silently in her mind. She had led the team into this “Demon Beast Forest” for two full days.
According to the academy’s training rules, the freshmen not only had to survive for seven days in the outer perimeter of the Demon Beast Forest but also collect the demon beast materials listed in their respective task lists to pass the assessment.
As the leading Chief Student, she was originally supposed to intervene only when the freshmen’s lives were in danger.
But Annabell, eager to speed up progress and get to Charlotte’s family to advance the plot, had taken the initiative to help several times, turning the survival trial into a max-level babysitter run by a big shot.
‘Hmm… This Demon Beast Forest place, I remember there was some important plot in the original game?’ Annabell opened one eye and glanced at the map floating midair, pondering to herself.
The Demon Beast Forest was the largest primeval forest in the northern part of the empire, extremely ancient. Not only did it teem with demon beasts, but it also hid many ancient ruins left from the age of the gods.
In her somewhat blurry memory, the early adventures, opportunities, old sages, and divine artifacts of this world’s Heaven’s Chosen Daughters were all more or less connected to this forest.
And the Demon Beast Forest was the optimal dungeon to catalyze the protagonist’s halo, naturally a place that Annabell, as a “walking death flag,” hated the most. After all, villains here often ended up as loot drops and stepping stones for the protagonist.
The area they were currently in was only the outermost periphery of the Demon Beast Forest, where most of the demon beasts were low-level, ranging from first to third tier.
Occasionally, fourth-tier mid-level demon beasts appeared, making it the perfect spot for these magic novices to level up.
In the deep dangerous areas of this vast mountain range, it was said that lord-level demon beasts of seventh tier and above were entrenched, and there even existed legendary nine-star Saint Beast Lords that could take human form! If ordinary adventurers strayed deep into the forest, they would be as good as dead and gone.
‘Dammit, why can’t I remember the key plot point? Ugh, it’s all because when I played the game back then, I only cared about looking at the female characters’ illustrations and CG, and skipped the long story by frantically clicking through!
Damn it, how did that saying “skip the story and skip your life” become reality?’ Despite still maintaining a deadpan expression on her beautiful face, Annabell was so frustrated inside she wanted to beat her chest and stamp her feet.
If only she had spared a few more glances at the story text back when she played the game, she wouldn’t be so clueless now. ‘Charlotte, where are you?’
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