Chapter 18: Sad memories
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(Rine POV) [3 years ago]

Today is the tenth birthday of the Cross kingdom prince, Lance Cross. With the whole kingdom ready to celebrate this special occasion, the king sent several invitations to the nobles and made a huge buffet for the citizens.

That night the invitation to the party came along with the place it would be held, it was lady's Arcon mansion. My father is a man who heavily valued the noble prestige, so as soon as he saw the invitation his eyes beamed a greedy light.

"Rine, remember to talk with the prince when you get there."(????)

"Yes, father."(Rine)

I didn't like the attitude of my father, but as her daughter, I didn't have an opinion in the house. The next day we left the mansion early, through the entire journey my father kept preaching to me about being friendly with the prince.

Five years ago my nanny told me that because I was born with a total of eight stars my father did everything to engage me with the prince. At first, when my father told me I was very upset by his insatiable greed, but now after knowing and interacting with the prince for five years I fell in love with him.

Around the time when I started interacting with the prince, other nobles sent their daughters with the intention of gaining his favor but only two of them managed to gain the right to talk with him, their names were Lapis Sign and Fari Aurum, as both of them had a talent of seven stars. At first, I thought they would be obsessed with the prince like other girls, but when I met them my expectations were shattered in pieces.

Lapis didn't like to talk and was more interested in reading books than interacting with the prince, while Fari was a shy girl and was barely able to interact with other people.

In our first meeting, we couldn't talk about anything. Every time we ended a sentence there would be an uncomfortable silence, it was more noticeable whenever the prince was near.

It took us a year to become good friends, as it happened because they found out about my love for the prince. As embarrassed as I was at that time I clearly remember how they were grinning while telling me that they weren't interested in the prince. After a long talk, they decided to help me with my relationship with the prince.

I was very happy at their support and thanks to their help I got my feelings retributed by the prince, making this engagement acceptable. I forgot to mention that because we were very often in the palace we managed to get acquainted with lady Arcon.

Maybe I daydreamed a lot because without my knowledge we arrived at the lady Arcon's mansion. When we got into the salon most of the guests were already there.

"Rine, go and interact with the other kids. Remember not to be rude."(Father)

He didn't add anything else and left with mother to greet the other guests. I could only sigh at his attitude before walking toward the other kids.

I didn't like the interaction with other kids because they always came with bad intentions. Ever since my engagement was announced the boys began to approach me to meet with the prince while the girls despised me and whispered awful things behind my back, clearly consumed by their jealously.

I was very amazed every time I heard their whispers, we are very young to have poisonous hearts. This fact made me glad that Fari and Lapis weren't like them, I'm really lucky to have them as friends.

After walking and exchanging greetings for a while I found Fari and Lapis in the food section.

"Hello Fari, Hello Lapis."(Rine)

"Sis-Sister Rine, n-nice to meet you."(Fari)

As usual, Fari reacted nervously to my words and Lapis nodded at me. Without anything else to do, we talked about some random things. After waiting for an hour the king entered the salon together with the prince.

"Good afternoon everyone, I'm glad you decided to come here today for the celebration of my son. You need to forgive me for the absence of lady Arcon, she went to the frontier on a mission so it's very probable that she won't return until tomorrow."(King)

The reactions of the crowd were very obvious, they were disappointed at the absence of lady Arcon but remained with a smile on their face.

The party continued until the sky turned dark, knowing it was too late we agreed to return to our parents. When we found them they were talking with the king and prince. The king was the first to notice our presence, so he stopped the conversation. 

"I need to talk with your parents for a while, you can stay in the palace for now and they will pick up you later."(King)

"Thank you, your majesty, for your kindness."(Rine)

After being told that the prince proposed to go with us, we didn't have an objection so left the mansion in a carriage prepared by the king together with multiple bodyguards. Inside the carriage, Lance was silent for a while before he spoke a little puzzled.

"Then Rine, what do you think about the mission of lady Arcon?"(Lance)

"You don't know about her mission? Then it must be something very serious to make it without telling anyone."(Rine)

"Bu-But what could be more important than the birthday of the prince?"(Fari)

It was expected for anyone else to lack the knowledge of lady Arcon's mission, but hearing prince Lance's doubts made this suspicious.

"It must be an extermination excursion. Remember that two years ago the chaos monsters movement and the prophets became more active. It can be also related to the abnormality that happened in the astral forest, I believe that the king didn't want to worry anyone so he kept silent about this. Prince, you and your attendant are very lucky to have formed a contract before this incident."(Lapis)

Without leaving her sight from her book Lapis gave us a reasonable explanation. It was known that in the last two years it became impossible to form a contract with the earth spirits. No one knew the reason behind this incident and even the higher rank spirits that were already contracted didn't know anything about it. Luckily prince Lance and his attendant Marson made their contracts five years ago with an earth spirit, as result, they weren't affected by this event.

It was a shame that other people were still unable to make a contract with the earth spirits, but the fact that making contracts with spirits of other elements was still available didn't cause more damage than we could repair.

As we continued our journey the carriage suddenly stopped, everyone was confused by this. It was at this moment I noticed that outside of the carriage two bodyguards were shivering uncontrollably, one of them was very fat while the other was very thin. I didn't know why but their actions gave me a bad feeling.

"Hey, are you okay?"(???)

One of the bodyguards approached the shivering bodyguards a little concerned, that was a bad choice as he was decapitated at the next moment. Noticing this wasn't good prince Lance opened the carriage door by force while dragging us down, as panic overcame our minds one sane guard approached us while dragging some horses.

"Prince and ladies, we need to leave this place immediately!"(???)

Not wasting any second ran behind him, not looking at our backs where the frenzied battle was taking place. It was just a second, but it was my first time seeing how a devil spiritualist fought. One of them had a very ominous knife in his hand while the other had a black bone hammer, I remember how each time they landed a hit on the bodyguards they would drain them from their mana and astral energy. 

The time of our fleeing was perfect and we almost managed to leave the area, but when we were about to flee, I noticed a big problem, Fari wasn't with us. I turned my sight at the carriage and saw Fari trembling with a pale face.

"Stop! Fari is still in the carriage!"(Rine)

Without waiting for an answer, I turned around and ran towards Fari before the battle was over. I reached Fari and dragged her out of the carriage, this was the biggest miscalculation of my life, as the devil spiritualists were stronger than I thought. With the battle over the thin devil spiritualist with the dagger appeared behind me with a nauseous smile on his face.

"Where are you going little girl!?!?!"(????)

The only thing I saw was his dagger aiming at my head before closing my eyes in fear. But the pain I was expecting didn't happen, as the bodyguard that saved us deflected his attack.

"Run!!!!!!"(???)

I followed his advice and ran with Fari towards Lance and Lapis, Lance immediately helped me to carry Fari and we tried to flee. Sadly, our attempt was stopped very soon, as a black bone hammer fell in front of us creating shockwaves that sent us flying backward. Behind the smokescreen was the fat spiritualist licking his lips.

"H-Ho-HOW DELICIOUS!!!! I REALLY HIT THE JACKPOT!!!!"(???)

His gaze began to wander between me, Fari, and Lapis, with a degenerate glint. Everything happened so fast as the thin spiritualist appeared behind us with the head of the bodyguard that helped us.

"Oh, beautiful girls, how about we play a game? If you win then you are free to go, but if you lose then you are going to become mine. Of course, you can refuse my offer, but you are risking the life of that dirty prince, hehehehe."(????)

The words of the fat spiritualist made us shiver in horror, as we knew he didn't have any intentions of letting us free or spare Lance. With Lance frowning a lot, Fari crying and Lapis with a pale face I suppressed my despair to stall even a few seconds for an opportunity.

"What are the conditions?"(Rine)

The fat spiritualist was delighted while the thin looked bored by his actions.

"Easy, you need to withstand my attacks for one minute. Don't worry, I will hold back."(????)

That bastard!! This is bad, the only one with a contract here was Lance. Even though Lance made a contract with a very powerful earth spirit he couldn't tap all of his potential. Even if a spirit had very large reserves of astral energy if the human contractist didn't have enough mana to support it they would be emptied in a second.

The astral energy is an energy that has the power of controlling the attributes of the world but it cannot manifest in the world by itself and our magic or mana is an energy inside of every human that can allow us to interact with the astral energy together with our attribute. The more powerful the spirit is the more consumption of mana it will require.

"Then let me ask you something, why are you doing this?"(Rine)

The fat and thin spiritualist were stunned by hearing my question before laughing hysterically.

"Why you ask?! It's obvious we need the prince to be out of the way, originally this plan was supposed to be executed later while slowly gaining control over the country but now we don't have anything to fear! We felt the coming of our messiah!!! It doesn't matter the failure of our original plan, with his arrival everything else is irrelevant!!!"(???)

Without any warning, the fat spiritualist swung his hammer at us, in panic Lance created an earth wall barely managing to block his strike. The fat spiritualist didn't stop as he kept landing a barrage of strikes on the earth wall. As time passed I noticed the deterioration of Lance's expression, he wouldn't endure more time.

In this desperate situation, I decided to risk everything and form a contract. In front of me, a blue summoning with the figure of a drop of water began to shine. Fari and Lapis were shocked by my actions and the fat spiritualist finally broke through the defense of Lance before stopping when he saw my contract attempt.

"So, you are making a bet? Let me see how is your luck!!"(???)

I kept repeating to myself that a high-rank spirit would come on my aide, I believed that everything would be fine, but sometimes you are forced to learn how merciless is world. After what felt like an eternity, I saw in the middle of my summoning circle a fourth rank spirit, this alone shattered every kind of hope I had. Even if I survived my future with the prince was over. 

"HAHAHAHAHAHA, Poor little one. But don't you think suffering alone is unfair? You two! I believe that you also don't have a spirit, you can refuse my orders, but if you do that then your little friend and I are going to have fun."(???)

Like wanting to make a point the fat spiritualist grabbed me and fondled my chest. I was disgusted and wanted to cry, but before he did anything else a bright light shined in the direction of Fari and Lapis. I looked at them with panic and saw the crying face of Fari and the pale Face of Lapis, as they began to form a contract with a yellow and black summoning circle appearing in front of them. 

"Stop it!"(Rine)

"NO!! We can't forsake you!"(Lapis)

"We-we can't let you suffer sister!"(Fari)

One thing was my future, but I couldn't let the future of Fari and Lapis be wasted. In the world of the noblesse, if one didn't have a high-rank spirit, they would be despised by others no matter how many stars they had. To avoid this, our parents arranged a ceremony where we could make offers and attract high-rank spirits while rejecting low-rank spirits, but because we were doing a contract without the ceremony it depended on fate what rank of spirit we would get.

After a moment my worst fears became real as Fari and Lapis also got a contract with a fourth rank spirit.

"Jajajajajajajajajaj!!!!! This is the best!!! I managed to break the future of three talented girls!!!!!"(????)

Seeing our misfortune made the fat spiritualist laugh for a long time before stopping suddenly.

"I had my fun. You three will come with me... And you prince, well, see you in hell."(???)

The fat spiritualist raised his bone hammer and swung it at Lance, just a moment before impacting his body the fat spiritualist was blown away. To my surprise even if he was holding me I wasn't blown away, but without any strength left I landed on the ground, seeing this Lapis and Fari hugged me tightly while trembling and crying.

I looked at prince Lance trying not to faint and I barely noticed a white ring with an elemental crystal shining lightly.

"Don't worry, I called for reinforcements."(Lance)

Hearing that help arrived was a relief, knowing that we were safe the last of my strength left my body.

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