In the Avalyne Empire, the color silver had always been associated with the moon and the Witch Queen who drew power from it.

In other words, silver was a cursed color.

Six-year-old Medrauta gasped for breath as she clawed herself free from the mire. A sharp branch snagged her shirt and opened a gash on the side of her abdomen as she crawled onto solid ground, but she ignored it.

Throughout the whole ordeal, she hadn’t even bothered to make a sound. No one would come to her aid, and the only response she would receive was a cacophony of laughter.

Just like the ugly sound coming from the boys on the hill above.

“Whoa, she’s still alive! Scary!” One of the boys smirked as he slid down the hill with his friends.

“You should be thanking us, y’know? We fixed your ugly hair for you!”

The group of boys stopped in front of Medrauta, surrounding her. There were four of them, and they blocked Medrauta’s path out of the swamp.

For whatever reason, the city of Blanchet had decided to build an orphanage near a swamp. It wasn’t as if Blanchet was too poor of a city to hire proper urban planners. In fact, they were among the most prosperous of cities within the Revelo dukedom, but perhaps that was the very reason which drove them to construct the orphanage there.

Out of sight and out of mind, the city’s inhabitants would never have to concern themselves with the poor state of the orphans. Despite the city’s large funds, the only thing they were concerned with was enriching the lives of those already fortunate. After all, it would be unthinkable for Blanchet to be considered a harbor for the impoverished.

And in fact, it wasn’t. The marquis of the territory made sure of that.

But even so, light cannot exist without darkness, and so the orphanage had been quietly constructed near the fringes of the territory. Destitute and underfunded, the tiny population of orphans who dared exist in Blanchet were unruly and uneducated.

As such, staving off their own suffering by inflicting it upon others was the only vestige of fun that was available to them.

It was just unfortunate that Medrauta had been born with silver hair and made a target for their hatred. Its glossy sheen was beautiful, but it was undoubtedly unusual, and even orphans were aware of the tale of the Witch Queen.

Resplendent black hair and gleaming eyes rich with the color of blood, the Witch Queen drew her power from the silver moon when it was at its peak, absorbing its lustrous color and ushering in the age of the Black Twilight. For a thousand years she reigned, and a thousand years more until Emperor Soleil managed to strike her down.

That was why despite the cruelties these children committed, they felt no remorse. After all, they were simply striking down a witch.

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Medrauta glared at the boys who surrounded her. While she endured their bullying without even uttering a word, it did not mean that she had simply accepted it. Rather, she hated them all with a passion.

Had she truly been a witch, she would’ve loved for nothing more than to reduce them all into ashes with a single snap of her fingers. Alas, she was nothing more than a weak and injured girl who was covered in mud, water, and blood.

She quickly assessed her chances. There were four of them against herself. There was absolutely no way she could win. At best, she’d land a good solid hit on one of them and then be beaten to a pulp right after.

“Well?” One of the boys sneered. “Aren’t you gonna thank us?”

Medrauta figured that she had two choices right now.

She could go along with it, and they’d probably leave her alone after a light beating had she actually capitulated. However, the boy had walked up pretty close to her in the process of making that demand, meaning that he was now a prime target for a sucker punch.

Of course, Medrauta chose the latter.

As an orphan, Medrauta had no formal training. She was malnourished and injured, but her fist shot out like a spear, thrusting straight into the boy’s face with no remorse. The shock of the strike traveled through her arm and jarred her thin bones, but she welcomed the sensation with pleasure.

The boy fell backwards into the dirt, holding his bleeding—and probably broken—nose as tears streamed from his eyes. He wailed incessantly, but his cries were for naught. In the city of Blanchet, no one cared about an irrelevant orphan.

“I fixed your ugly face,” Medrauta said smugly. “Aren’t you gonna thank me?”

The rest of the boys immediately descended upon her.

Although Medrauta tried her best, she was inevitably overpowered and beat profusely before being pushed back into the mire kicking and screaming all the way.

“That’ll teach you, witch!” One of the boys sneered, stomping on her hand as she attempted to pull herself out yet again.

Medrauta flinched in pain, biting her lip so that she wouldn’t cry out in pain. Doing so would only encourage the boys to keep tormenting her.

“L-Let’s head back. Father Raphael’s probably back already...” The injured boy called out to his friends.

“Yeah, right. It’s not even sunset yet.”

“C-C’mon... My nose hurts really bad...”

“Tch. You’re so weak, man. What’re you gonna do about tomorrow?”

The injured boy didn’t answer.

“...Fine. Let’s go.”

The four boys headed back as Medrauta floated in the mire. The water was filthy, and it stained every inch of her body. The wound she’d got from earlier was probably infected by now.

She waited for a short while after the boys left before pulling herself out of the mire and squeezing what little water she could get out of her shirt. Chances were, Father Raphael was going to be more than a tad upset with her, but she didn’t mind.

Medrauta was used to it after all.

She let out a sigh as she turned her gaze upwards to the blue sky. She envied that color. It was so wide and vast. Boundless. Looking at it made her feel like she could go anywhere, do anything.

It was the color of freedom.

But more than that, she loved the Sun. Its rays were always comforting, and it shined with a light that touched all corners of the empire. It helped dry off her muck-ridden clothes, melt away the loneliness in her heart, and most of all, it reminded Medrauta of her mother’s warm embrace.

If the sky was freedom, then the Sun must be love.

Medrauta clasped a hand to her chest.

...Just one more day, and I’ll be free of this hellhole.