chapter 36
Veronica
The girl was dragged out of the iron cage.
The slave traders treated the girl harshly, but she was still not used to her twisted, reverse-jointed legs, so she couldn’t walk properly.
In the end, she sat down in front of Leon helplessly.
The slave trader pulled the leash to keep the girl up.
Leon couldn’t help but frown at the sight.
Of course, Leon also knows that it is inevitable.
The girl is already a half-demon tainted with magic, and she doesn’t know when she will become a monster and lose her sanity.
The fact that the leash that was fastened to her was a safety measure for that.
Because Leon also once had the experience of becoming a half-demon and being tied to a leash and locked in an iron cage.
“Loosen the leash.”
At Leon’s words, the girl and the slave trader flinched at the same time.
Fortunately, the girl’s mutation was not yet serious.
There is little chance that the girl will turn into a monster right before your eyes.
“But guest. As I said before, this child has a long way to go, so if he loosens his leash, he may bite a customer.”
But it wasn’t Leon who answered him.
Isaac said as he placed his hand on the sword he wore around his waist.
“Don’t ignore me. As long as I am by your side, this girl will not be able to injure you.”
The slave trader had no choice but to untie the girl’s leash despite being ill.
With a loud groan, the girl could not stand up as she looked at the untied collar, and struggled to widen her distance from Leon.
But soon after she understood that she had no choice but to be blocked by a wall and had nowhere else to run, the girl asked Leon with a desperate expression.
“Why the hell are you doing this to me?”
“what?”
“Why does a precious person like you pay so much money for something like me?”
At that, Leon smiled.
“Am I precious? Why did you think so?”
At Leon’s question, the girl looked around with a rather perplexed expression.
Leon did not seem to have any intention of hiding his identity while purchasing slaves at the slave market.
It was because he was accompanied by the guards proudly and even had a badge symbolizing the noble family engraved on his chest.
Leon giggled as the girl raised her hand and pointed at the veil, unable to contain the laughter that escaped her.
“Is this picture just proof that I am precious?”
Leon raised his hand, grabbed the veil, and ripped it open.
The slave traders who looked at him had no choice but to flag Leon’s actions.
What surprised me the most was Arya.
For Arya, who was feeling a kind of sympathy with Leon, Leon’s actions came as more than a shock.
Disobedience to the family was something Arya could not have imagined.
However, Tina, who was now accustomed to Leon’s way of thinking, and Isaac, who deeply understood Leon’s position and vowed to follow him, were not at all surprised.
Rather, he hardened his face with a firm determination as if it was natural.
“Then, am I not precious now?”
The girl kept her mouth shut.
She also understood the meaning behind Leon’s actions, but she didn’t think that Leon had truly betrayed her own family.
I just thought of him as a stubborn little boy trying not to lose in an argument.
But looking at the girl with such distrustful eyes, Leon said.
“What do you think determines a person’s noble heaven?”
“Is there anything other than your identity?”
“Yeah, from an ordinary point of view, status doesn’t matter. They are nobles, and they are of a noble family. But do you really agree with those standards? Is it true that a person’s destiny is determined only by his or her birth lineage?”
The girl didn’t answer, but her gaze was enough to give her an answer.
Intense anger flashed in her eyes.
“okay. Our fates are too far-fetched to accept such standards broadly. So what is the ability? If you are leading more money, more power, and more subordinates, are you a valuable person? No. Those things just make a person more free, and I think what one does with that freedom determines a person’s destiny.”
When I was born, I was not a noble person or a precious person with a gold spoon.Read at NovelNext.com
Just because you have more knowledge and abilities doesn’t mean you’re a valuable person.
What do you do with that background?
Leon was saying that it is what determines a person’s exalted heaven.
At those words, the girl looked somewhat shocked.
It was a very natural thing for anyone to think, but no one in this world took it for granted.
In this world, only being born as a noble is valuable.
If you are born as a humble person, you are lowly.
Because that was the natural world.
However, Leon is directly opposed to the standards of the world.
“But it is also true that without power there is no freedom, and without freedom of choice there is no opportunity. So here I am offering you freedom. As an opportunity for you to be put to good use.”
“But why me…”
“Because I saw your worth in you.”
Leon looked directly at the girl’s swaying eyes.
Leon was once in a similar position to the girl.
A life that was born as junk, turned into garbage, and abandoned by the family.
A life in which he cursed the low blood flowing through his body, lamented his incompetence, and struggled in a meaningless way.
If Leon was given a handful of freedom,
If someone had just said one word that you were worth it, you might not have lived such a terrible life and died.
After all, the words Leon said now were the words he wanted to hear at the time.
Leon held out his hand and said.
“Take my hand and get up. Then I will give you the strength to seize freedom.”
At those words, the feelings of distrust and anger began to slowly dissipate from the girl’s eyes.
To that extent, Leon’s words had the power to give dreams and hopes to those who are drowning in despair.
Without realizing it, the girl stretched out her hand and shrugged.
He was still hesitating if he really could hold that hand.
“…is it really worth it to me?”
“I believe so. But if you don’t believe it, try. so that you can create value for yourself. So that I do not regret having found value in you.”
With those words, the girl finally made up her mind and was able to hold Leon’s hand and get up with her shaky legs.
Leon took a potion from the subspace pocket and handed it to her.
“Drink. It is the magic medicine.”
It was a potion that was commonly available anywhere with 10 gold at most.
However, for the girl who had no choice but to become a slave because she did not have the 10 gold, this was not just a medicine.
Read at NovelNext.com
Just as Leon was reincarnated as a binary type after death,
As if returning to the past after Wonhyung Lee’s death,
It is a golden opportunity to change the life that came to her like magic.
The girl carefully took the medicine from Leon and poured it into her mouth.
The effect appeared quickly.
Her skin, swollen like a tumor, began to subside all over her body, and her twisted skeleton and mutated blood began to return to her original form.
Good luck!
“Ugh…!”
But the process was very painful, and the girl rolled over the floor, writhing in pain.
But for a while, the girl was able to regain her original form, or at least her human form.
Only the horns that grew over her head and the brightly colored eyes remained as a symbol of the half-demon, and she became a girl with bright blonde hair appropriate for her age.
“What is your name?”
“…there is no name.”
“You don’t have a name?”
“I was sold here by my parents. Of course, I don’t resent them. The only way for me to survive, tainted with magic, was to sell me to a slave trader. But the name I had until then was passed down to me by my parents. The moment I was sold here, I gave up my name.”
Indeed, Leon was able to understand why no one knew the real name of the Witch of Condemnation.
“Even if you gave up your name, would you have received that body from your parents as well?”
“It was my parents who sold it, and it was the master who rescued my sold body from the abyss of despair. If so, then this body must also be yours.”
you are the master
Leon smiled satisfied with the girl’s name.
She had already made up her mind to serve Leon as her master.
“Then I should give you a new name as your master. From now on, I will call you Veronica.”
Veronica’s name is derived from the Latin word meaning “true image”, so it means to accept the new image you have now as your true self and live a new life.
To that, Veronica answered with her head bowed.
“Do as your lord wills.”
* * *
Leon had the family’s maids wash Veronica clean and change her into a maid’s uniform, making her her direct maid.
Even if it took her to grow into a witch of condemnation in the future, she was just a little peculiar girl with a horn growing on her forehead.
The most suitable position to teach her while staying by Leon’s side did not exist other than the maid.
Above all, when entering the academy, students begin living in a dormitory.
However, since there was no way the noble children who had lived their whole lives under the care of servants could lead a proper life, they were allowed to have servants to take care of them.
Perhaps the family would try to have a knight or servant of the family sit there for Leon’s supervision, but Leon was thinking of rejecting it because he already had a maid under his direct control.
Of course, for the remaining four months until entering the academy, Veronica has to teach her how to be a maid, but Veronica was already eagerly observing the behavior of the maids around her and learning the shape of a maid herself.
And Leon was soon able to participate in Arya’s birthday party, which was the original purpose of this journey.
It was Leon’s first social gathering, but no one paid any attention to Leon.
no.
To be precise, it was an atmosphere all too familiar to Leon.
‘I’m acting like I’m invisible.’
It was so natural.
Not surprisingly, this celebration was to celebrate Arya Rothbane’s birthday.
Naturally, the nobles participating in the celebration were all close to the Marquis of the Marquis Rothbane, or those who wanted to get closer.
Of course, it was a situation in which he could be caught by the pro-Rosbane faction if he showed the appearance of mixing words with the children of the Farostel family, which is the opposite faction of the Rosbane family.
In the place where everyone was laughing and having fun hahahoho, only Leon was left alone, but Leon was rather comfortable with this situation where no one talked to him.
Leon’s eyes, as he looked at the faces of the guests, were distinctly different.
Leon did not recognize their faces, but familiar names were heard from the names they called each other.
They are still young, but they are all geniuses who will make a name for themselves within 10 years.
Surprisingly, they all seemed to be the same age as Arya Rothbane.
While Leon was intrigued by the fact and pursued a new plan, the birthday party was ripe and the gift-opening ceremony began soon.
A parade of colorful dresses, accessories, and elixir continued.
Each one is a masterpiece made by a famous craftsman and rare items that are not easily available.
And finally, Leon’s turn came.
Even the guests of the celebration, who until now pretended not to see Leon, could not but pay attention to Leon for this moment.
The venue, which was noisy with applause and cheers, quietly subsided.
“The gift I prepared is an artifact I made myself.”
At Leon’s remarks, voices that seemed to laugh could be heard from everywhere.
It was the same in this world that the sincerity of the person who prepared it is important for a gift, but in a noble family, a gift was like a kind of show off.
Our family is so economically strong.
Our family also has links with these craftsmen.
We have excellent intelligence and can obtain rare elixir and so on…
But among those great gifts, it’s funny that at most a 10-year-old master has prepared handmade gifts just like commoners do.
However, as Leon continued to explain, their ridicule had to disappear.
“This artifact is a magic wand that was custom-made for Arya’s maiden, and no one but her can handle it.”
“Is that possible…?!”
The attack certificate distributed by the attackers guild was a special artifact produced in Saint Lane, the Holy Empire.
The patent technology possessed by the Holy Empire is a security system that grants magical power to the thin certificate, recognizes the person’s mental frequency, and does not work if the person’s mental frequency is different from that of the original owner.
However, Leon developed the patented technology of the Holy Empire and applied it to the artifacts he made, and produced artifacts that only Arya could handle.
But what really surprised me were the functions of the magic wand.
“Are you young? Would you like to cast magic on this staff yourself?”
Arya, who took over the staff Leon gave her and poured magical energy into the staff with a curious expression, looked at the blade of ice rising from the staff with curious eyes.
Then, all over the venue, wizards who recognized the magic trembled.
The most surprising among them was Libert Vince Rothbane, the owner of the Rosbane family, who hosted the celebration.
“I guess that means that time is frozen…!”
The base of this staff is an item carried by the High Priest Mogr Lizardman, who worships the immortal demon.
It was a staff engraved with Dimension Wall, the 5th circle dimensional magic.
The crystal ball responsible for the core of its function was broken and disappeared, but since Leon attacked the Direct Dungeon, he was immersed in the study of the artifact for the past three months and succeeded in understanding the principle.
After the research was over, the remnants of the magic wand were reprocessed and prepared as a birthday present for Arya.
Arya stretched out the blade that protruded from the staff and cut the marble statue.
Then, the blade of ice gently pierced the marble like a ghost, and the statue slid down along the diagonal line.
“Like a scarecrow on a stone statue with permanent protection magic on it…!”
The principle was not difficult.
Thermal energy is ultimately the kinetic energy of particles.
If the kinetic energy is expanded and released in the four-dimensional space-time direction and the kinetic energy is lost, of course, the thermal energy is also reduced.
It’s like time slowing down.
No, it really slows down time.
The Big Freeze, a thermodynamic end that occurs through so-called thermal death, is not because everything freezes, but because time stops because entropy that will no longer increase is lost.
Theoretically, no physical energy can penetrate the space where time has stopped.
It is an absolute realm consisting of absolute zero.
It was an absolute immortal blade that even time had frozen.
Naturally, there was no material that the blade of that time could not cut.
It was a high-ranking magic that even Libert, an authority on ice magic, could barely feel its traces until he reached the level of 6th circle.
Leon was only 10 years old when he organized the magic into a systematic theory and produced it as an artifact.
“As an added bonus, it has been enchanted with a enchantment that stabilizes the mind of its owner.”
A small smile bloomed on Arya’s face, who did not budge even after receiving any gifts from Leon’s words.
She was more pleased with Leon’s use of mind-stabilizing magic, thinking about her well-being, than the great magic that created the blade of time.
“thank you. Leon. I will write well.”
Leon was able to finish her socialite debut splendidly with the beautiful smile of a girl like that.