I was born in a small village on the north side of Beaumont.
Though not having many memories of my youngest age, I knew that I had a very normal infancy for a commoner, despite being a child of light.
Serena was the name I was given at birth.
While the arrival of a child of light is usually preceded by destruction, in my case, it was almost as normal as that of a simple commoner.
There was no boom, no bam, I was just born with a plok.
My parents had no way of knowing that I would be born different. They only learned of it after my birth, when I had put my own mother in a deep coma. My father told me that at the time, I was still a nine-month baby when it first happened. My first victim was my mother. I won’t go as far as to thoroughly describe what happened, but in that incident, I put my own mother into a coma and ended up burning half of my face.
It must’ve been traumatic for me. After all, I was just a nine-month old toddler. But my current self has no memory of that incident, I only knew of it from my parents, yet I still have the scar of that incident plastered on my face.
Thankfully for me, nothing happened to my mother, since I somehow was able to wake her up during the time I cried for help, so in a way, maybe I was my own first victim.
Also, thanks to that accident, my parents grew to know what was wrong with me. In this world, if one were to find out that their child is a child of light, it would be required of them to surrender their child to the church. But that wasn’t what my parents did. They kept me and raised me like any other child, and quite thanks to that, I got, I believe, a very normal early childhood.
Though they didn’t know exactly how to deal with my magic, given the fact that they were just humble paysants and didn't know anything about magic, they still managed to raise me without raising anyone’s suspicion.
But that was only for a time, I think it went south when I was around seven or eight, so far, one of the best ways my parent found out to avoid having unintentionally hurting people with my magic was to have me emotionally stable, the early years of my life they kept me hidden from others, later when I was four or five since I hadn’t come to see many people because of how they raised, through intense training and by training I mean being put in an overly interaction with my parents, I theoretically got used to people, and to not hurt them with my magic, they began to allow me to be close to other children, as I grew up my life became more and more normal. But when I reached seven, I made a blunter that had cost me a lot. Being cursed with a horrible scar on half of my face that I brought upon myself by myself, I wasn’t the type of kid you would want to hang out with, as such I was taught to compensate with other things such as personality, thinking back it must’ve been then that I got this talkative, but sadly in the world of children some are completely immune to the perk I’ve keened sharply since a very young age, kids can be pretty ruthless, I’ve seen that firsthand. That day a girl from the village, mocked my scar, I wouldn’t say it never happened before but that time I simply wasn’t able to simply laugh it off, or brush it away with a joke or something like that, that day I unintentionally froze her, and by frozen her I meant I put her in a state of rigor mortis.
Of course, it didn’t kill her. Of course, I unfroze her, but that incident was enough for my existence to reach the church’s ears.
That time, they came, separated me from my parents, and knowing very well, punished them for having hidden me, a noble, from the church.
Though quite rare, the case of children of light being found too late to be adopted isn’t something unheard of. After the age of five, no one is willing to adopt a child raised as a commoner, because a child has already bonded with its original family, rendering the entire principle of the child of light being raised as a son or daughter to his foster family ineffective.
As such, I was sent to a place where children like me who grew up in commoner families were sent. The rehabilitation house, as it was called. Once again, I won’t go into detail, it must be said that that place was, and I believe is, still a horrible place in which children are brainwashed into thinking that their parents were to be hated, to be loathed, to be blamed for what was happening to them, and to that end, they don’t hesitate to use fear and violence to instill this as an absolute truth to the children.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
To sum up, that place was a horrible place, I spent two years of my life there, I was ten when I got out of there, I was assigned to be in the care of the bishop in care of Beaufort’s church for I was born with apparently an exceptionally large pool of mana.
Just when I finally thought I would be free of that hellish, I realized that the bishop who I would be under orders from was yet another esclavagist.
The Bishop at the time was under the commandment of the Archbishop under the authority of Djeem the Accursed before the Archbishop Medvedik. That person was very well known for his eccentricity. In the middle of the Last Crusade, he jumped in the whole thing as if some sort of destiny was calling him on the battlefield, despite being an Archbishop and not a Holy Paladin. Naturally, it was those under his orders who were the ones to suffer the most. The Bishop being one of them, he tended to be pleased to vent out his frustrations on everything within reach, it was then that I appeared, maybe it was because of my scars but he took a large pleasure into belittling, bullying and beating me.
Certainly, there were a lot worse than him, but still, he was still an asshole.
One day, he beat me up so badly that I was given no other choice but to be sent to the nearby hospital center.
It was there that I saw him for the first time, it was love at the first sight as it is called. I was merely eleven by then but when I saw these blue eyes, those silver hair, I told myself "I want to marry that."
His name was Emilien Edouard he was born from the Edouard Family of the five great families of Beaumont, At the time, due to the strange situation the Ducal family was in the entire leadership of the Duchy was temporally under the Edouard family for the heir of the Ducal family was still too young and the one who should’ve been the leader of the family was one of the Fourteen as such then duty befell on Lord Emilien’s father.
Lord Emilien was 24 years old when I first met him, and he had just returned from his studies in the Aurora academia. Generally, those born from the Edouard tend to stay in the Aurora academia for a much longer period of time to refine their art, but since his little sister was already fianced to the heir to the Ducal throne, they were to return as soon as possible to Beaufort, because for a Duke, most things are learned on the field.He came back earlier to be with his sister and the future Duke, who was also like a brother to him, but also to help his father, since his father couldn’t quite handle both his duty as a substitute for the duke and also being the leader of the only family known for their healing magic in the whole Duchy of Beaufort.
Instead of perfecting his art theoretically, he was sent to the field at a very early age. It was there that I met him for the first time, but it was also there that I met her for the first time, Diona she was called. She was four years older than him and was akin to a sort of mentor to him, but I immediately knew that these two relationships weren’t that simple.
Diona was just like me, a child of light, she was born and immediately after raised into a noble family who happened to be another family who gave birth to prodigy with healing magic, she had magic heavily focused on the water element which she has over the year mastered and craftily included into medicine which happened to be her focus. She was not a healer, just a noble who, most likely due to the environment was raised aspired to be one.
When I saw them together, I knew I was disqualified from the race even before I started it.
From time to time, when the bishop was in a foul mood, I was sent to them, I couldn’t count how many times Lord Emilien had to heal a broken bone on me. Time went by, I grew to know them both. They proposed to help, but maybe in pride, I had always refused.
One day, the news came that the Archbishop somehow had managed to get himself killed during the crusade. Despite hating him, the bishop knew that everything, including his current standing, was given to him by the Archbishop and he knew very well that the one succeeding the Archbishop wouldn’t hesitate to sweep every remnant of the previous one in the church.
That night, he beat me, more than he ever did before. That time, until I passed out. When I woke up, Lord Emilien and Lady Diona were there. From their explanation it seemed that once they heard the news of what happened to the Archbishop, they immediately rushed to the church, only to find me being attacked by the Bishop all while being unconscious. Being unable to resist his anger, Lord Emilien, killed the Bishop by completely impaling him. At least that’s what they wanted me to believe it.
I knew very well what happened that night.
All Lord Emilien did was make it appear as if he had done it himself.
I knew they were reaching their hand to help me while also pretending that they weren’t,
I knew it was my responsibility, my duty to be punished for what I had done, yet at that time, I gladly accepted the hand they silently offered me.
Though the killing of a bishop wasn’t a small matter, Lord Emillien’s link with the Holy Paladin Armand and the precarious situation the bishop was in before his death allowed them to easily bury that whole affair.
And on top of that, I was even promoted to the rank of Vicar, not only for my large mana pool but mainly because of Lord Emilien and Lady Diona’s interference.
On top of my vicarious duty, I started to assist Lord Emilien and Lady Diona as an anesthetist, as they called it.
It was then that I started to wear a mask, partly because it was unsettling to see someone pretending to help you heal with a huge burn scar on half of her face.
I will be eternally grateful to them for what they did. Even after Lady Diona went into eternal rest, I continued to do my best to repay them for what they had done for me.