He knew that shouldn't be the case. Given the circumstances—the iron-clad rule that every former hero bore the glowing insignia of their calling—the math simply didn't add up. Why was Cerci treated as a hero in all but name when she possessed no mark at all? The very concept shattered the laws of their era; two heroes in a single generation was an impossibility. Yet, as he walked through the sprawling estate, the riddle gnawed at the back of his mind.
Frustrated by the suffocating lack of answers, Kyle turned abruptly to Olivia as they navigated a quiet corridor, demanding an explanation.
"Well, about that," Olivia whispered, casting a nervous glance over her shoulder to make sure no passing servants were within earshot. "Cerci was never given the Hero's Mark. But from the exact moment she drew her first breath, she possessed an absurd, suffocating reservoir of mana. Even now, her combat prowess surpasses that of a true hero."
She paused again, stepping closer to Kyle as her voice dropped to a low murmur. "It all started when the late Lady Cecilia fell pregnant with Cerci. Back then, the former patriarch was entirely consumed by a maddening obsession to slay the Demon King. He had been severely crippled in their final clash, and the injury festered in his mind until it pushed him to the edge of sanity. When he learned Cecilia was carrying a child, he became ecstatic—not out of love, but because he saw an opportunity to forge a living weapon. A hybrid strong enough to rival the gods of war, born without needing a divine mark."
Olivia swallowed hard, her eyes darkening. "He spent days and nights locked in his study, tearing through ancient texts and forbidden archives, searching for a way to artificially inflate human mana capacity. Finally, he unearthed a dark legend: deep within the treacherous depths of the Labyrinth of Huldru, on its absolute lowest floor, lay the World Tree. A single bite from its forbidden fruit would grant a mortal world-shaking power."
Driven by a fanatical single-mindedness, the old patriarch had assembled fifty of House Lucas's elite mages and veteran warriors to descend into the abyssal depths of the labyrinth.
"Three days before Cerci was born, he finally crawled back out," Olivia continued, her voice trembling slightly. "Out of fifty men, only ten survived the descent. But they brought back three pieces of the fruit."
One of the fruits was meticulously prepared by a master alchemist and fed to Cecilia right before she went to sleep. The other two were sealed away, waiting for the child to emerge. The fruit worked its horrific design, but at a devastating price. Cecilia's mortal body could not withstand the violent, untamed surge of divine energy; she burned from the inside out, dying in agony the moment Cerci was born.
"Instead of mourning his wife, the patriarch was furious that Cerci was born a girl," Olivia said bitterly. "He ignored her entirely for her first year, banishing her to the servants' quarters and refusing even to give her a name. She was nothing to him—until one afternoon, he looked out from his study window and saw a one-year-old child casting 4th-circle intermediate magic without a single incantation. She wasn't even supposed to have awakened an element yet, and yet her mana control was so terrifyingly refined that she was casually shaping pure mana into whatever element she fancied."
Realizing his horrific gamble had paid off, the patriarch's interest was instantly reignited. Not as a father, but as a smith looking at raw steel. He viewed Cerci as an instrument, a blade to be hammered and quenched until she became the ultimate weapon to exact his revenge on the Demon King.
"Every single day, he dragged her to the sparring grounds," Olivia whispered, a shadow falling over her face. "He never held back his punches. He would beat her half to death and then throw her to the estate diviners just to be healed, only to drag her back out the next day. Later on, he forced her to consume the remaining two fruits. Even with her mutated constitution, her body tore apart from the inside every time she ingested them. He didn't care about the pain. He only cared about growth. The only warmth she ever knew came from the maids who secretly comforted her. When Ronald eventually found out, he had every single one of them fired and cast out."
By the time Cerci turned five, the relentless torture had pushed her into the 3rd circle of awakening. The concentrated essence of the World Tree made her a rare quad-elemental, granting her mastery over light magic alongside the core elements.
"That was when Ronald's cruelty truly knew no bounds," Olivia continued, her fists clenching at her sides. "He hired the most ruthless battle-mages in the nation to tutor her. The spars doubled to twice a day, and this time, Ronald used the full, crushing might of a true hero against her. Since she couldn't inherit the mark due to her gender, he was determined to beat raw, terrifying power into her until she surpassed the mark entirely. She came home with broken bones almost every single day. How is a little girl supposed to endure that kind of hell?"
That was when Curtis, Olivia's grandfather, had finally snapped. He refused to stand by while a child was systematically butchered in the name of pride. Along with a faction of senior elders, he tried to force Ronald to halt the madness. But Ronald, blinded by resentment, had shifted all his bottled-up hatred onto Cerci, blaming her entirely for his lost glory and the death of his mother.
"It went on for years, a living nightmare, until Cerci finally broke," Olivia finished quietly. "She ran away. No one knew where she vanished or what horrors she endured out in the wild. Not a single trace of her remained—until ten years later, when the war with the demons erupted across the borders, and she stepped onto the battlefield, single-handedly slaughtering an entire legion."
Noticing the dark, murderous fury radiating from Kyle, Olivia quickly reached out, trying to soothe him. "Look, ever since she disappeared, Ronald has been drowning in regret. That's why he invited her back—he's desperately trying to atone for what he did."
Kyle slowly turned his head, fixing Olivia with a dead, hollow stare. His voice dropped to a low, venomous hiss, dripping with lethal irritation. "You actually think a little remorse washes away what they did to her?"
"Kyle, I'm just telling you what happened, but you need to calm down right now!" Olivia hissed, her voice rising in panic.
"I am calm," Kyle replied flatly, though every muscle in his frame was coiled like a strained spring, barely containing a boiling tempest of rage.
"Tell that to the wall!" she yelled, pointing frantically.
Kyle blinked, snapping out of his internal fury to look around. Fine, spiderweb cracks fractured the polished plaster walls beside him, and the heavy framed portrait of a former Lucas patriarch lay shattered in pieces on the marble floor where the ambient pressure of his mana had blown it apart. He forced his breathing to steady, suppressing the raw violence churning in his chest.
His voice turned glacial, completely devoid of warmth. "I've lost my appetite for this tour. I'm going back to my room."
Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel and began marching back the way they had come. But as he rounded the corner, his vision blurred with sudden movement, and he slammed directly into the solid chest of an approaching figure.
Kyle's head snapped up, the suppression breaking as a fresh wave of blinding anger surged through his veins. A heavy, calloused hand landed firmly and familiarly on his shoulder.
"There you children are," Ronald's voice echoed smoothly down the corridor. "I've been looking everywhere for you."