“I greet you, Miss Mariella.”

She held the formal posture and lifted her gaze.

“How is it? Do I look like a crown princess‘s palace maid?”

The cheerful tone and endearing manner made Ella’s mood lift on its own.

More than anything, the relief of finally having someone on her side in this palace that had felt like walking on ice.

That was what made Ella smile.

“Hah, did I mention? I made every single magical tool that will be used in the upcoming war. I was so excited I couldn’t sleep thinking about finally getting to use them……”

Meivia muttered as though lamenting. Then she startled and waved her hands.

“Not that I’m complaining! I don’t dislike attending to you, Miss Ella, so please don’t misunderstand.”

“I know. Thank you for coming all the way here, Meivia.”

Meivia’s expression turned serious.

“Then let’s save the greetings for later……”

Meivia murmured a low incantation and formed a barrier.

A thin glass-like film tinged with violet light wrapped around the two of them. It felt as though they had been separated from the world.

“Now, shall we deal with the problem that’s developed in your body, Miss Ella?”

“You already knew?”

“How could I not. The moment I sensed your mana surging, I was the one who ran to the glass dome house.”

“Then the one who brought me to the bedchamber was also……”

“Yes, me. Do you know how badly I wanted to say something earlier?”

“Then the maid who came into the bedchamber……”

Meivia answered with a smile.

“More importantly, you need to eat more. If you stay this light, you’ll have trouble keeping up with Haven’s stamina…… ah, no! That was a slip of the tongue.”

This mouth! Meivia struck her own lips in self-reproach.

Ella paid it no mind and raised her question.

“Then how did Jenith come to witness what she did?”

“It’s a type of confusion spell. It can manipulate memories. You describe a scene and implant it as something they saw themselves.”

“Ah……”

With all her questions answered, Ella finally felt at ease.

“But have you already found a way to suppress the mana surge?”

Hadn’t Meivia been the one to intervene?

“……What do you mean?”

Ella’s eyes wavered with unease.

“When I arrived, your mana had already stabilized.”

As though Meivia’s words had been a trigger, a face flashed through her mind like a bolt of light.

Someone with brown curly hair and strange golden eyes.

‘Could it be……’

Does Joi know about my condition? Is that why he had me breathe in that scent, to calm the mana surge?

For a moment, the scent of dry grass seemed to drift to her nose.

‘A temporary measure.’

‘Breathe in deeply.’

The words she had heard through her fading consciousness lent weight to that theory.

In her last memory before she lost consciousness, Joihad been there with her. If Meivia had come to that place, the two of them would have crossed paths.

“Was I alone there?”

“Yes, you had collapsed by yourself.”

“……”

He must know, it seemed.

That her body was filled not with holy power but with magical energy.

‘How on earth would Joi……’

He was neither skilled in magic nor swordsmanship. He was just an imperial gardener.

Then again, he had been full of suspicious qualities from the very first meeting.

A man who appeared at the chapel, then at the dome house, as though by coincidence, offered his goodwill, and disappeared.

She didn’t dislike him or find him unfamiliar, but she couldn’t fully trust him either. For Ella, who was drawing a larger picture, he was inevitably unsettling.

That was precisely why she had left the glass bottle he gave her buried in the drawer.

Come to think of it, who had opened that stopper?

“By any chance, was it youwho opened the glass bottle in the bedchamber?”

“Pardon? What bottle?”

“The glass bottle on the side table by the bed. The one packed with dried leaves……”

Meivia tilted her head and then shook it.

“No, after laying you on the bed I went straight to find Head Maid Jenith……”

That meant someone else had taken out the bottle and opened the stopper.

The only person who knew about the bottle with the dried petals was.

‘No one but Joi.’

The imperial gardener had brazenly entered the crown princess‘s bedchamber and gone through the drawers on his own.

With no shortage of watching eyes, how on earth had he managed it?

Questions rose in every direction.

‘I’ll have to meet him.’

The only one with the answers was Joi.

Light entered her drifting focus when Meivia’s magical energy flowed into her body.

The sensation of cold water circulating through her veins made her body contract.

“Hm.”

“Stay still for a moment.”

A faint violet light swept down through Ella’s body. Unlike the first time the spell had been performed, there was no pain.

When the violet light in Meivia’s hand finally faded, her expression grew more serious.

“What is it, Meivia? What’s wrong?”

“Hmm, this is really quite unusual……”

Eyes deep in thought narrowed for a moment.

The longer Meivia’s silence stretched, the heavier Ella’s unease grew.

“Are you by any chance practicing mana control?”

What does that mean? Practice?

Ella gave a short laugh.

“How would I do that? I only learned I had mana inside me thanks to you.”

Ah, right, Meivia let out a short sigh.

“Something is off. The intensity of your mana is growing stronger at an abnormal rate. Even more than when we first met.”

“……”

“That’s why the spell I placed broke. And as a result, the mana temporarily surged. If we imagine a situation where heavy rain is pouring……”

Meivia used hand gestures to continue her explanation.

“The water began to overflow the dam holding back the river like this. Think of it as the dam bursting because it couldn’t hold the swelling water. The spell that was acting as the dam broke because it couldn’t withstand the growing magical power.”

“Ah……”

Now it made sense.

Ella gave a small nod.

“But this is really, truly unusual. Normally for mana to strengthen like this, it takes a long time. A few years at the shortest, and in many cases it doesn’t grow at all over an entire lifetime. That’s why mana stones are sometimes used for assistance.”

“……”

“And yet for you, Miss, it has only been ten days since the mana manifested. In all the spell books I’ve read, this is close to impossible.”

Close to impossible……

Ella turned the last words over in her mind.

‘There’s no such thing.’

She had already experienced the impossible becoming possible once before. Her very existence, regressing and inside Marian’s body, was proof of that.

Perhaps it was because she was someone who had been granted life in such a way that things like this happened.

It was already a contradiction that a saintess’s body had manifested magical power instead of holy power, and that a being who should have ceased to exist was alive like this.

‘Isn’t the world already spinning out of control.’

So one more impossible thing happening was nothing to be surprised about.

Ella stopped thinking deeply about it.

“Well, regardless, we know the cause, so dealing with it isn’t a problem. You say you don’t know how, but the fact that the rampaging mana settled this easily suggests the ability to control mana is also something you were born with.”

Meivia, unaware that Joi had helped, continued to marvel.

“If you were to learn magic, she could reach the level of an archmage……”

“……An archmage?”

“Ah, I’ve misspoken again. What am I saying in an age when mages are persecuted…… I apologize.”

Meivia was flustered by her own words.

The prejudice against mages had reached its peak hundreds of years ago, beginning with the emergence of dark mages.

To make matters worse, the Mage War broke out, and the indiscriminate conquest and sl*ughter carried out by knight orders centered around mages caused enormous casualties across every nation.

This became the cause of mage persecution, and it had continued to the present day.

To manifest as a mage in this era meant social burial.

But Ella found herself quite intrigued.

‘Magic……’

It would be good to learn for the future.

If the saintess of a temple that shied away from even mana stone lighting were to manifest as a mage…… it would be a proper blow to the back of the Grand Temple’s head.

It was a rather appealing proposition.

‘I’m curious what expression Capuasia would make.’

On top of that, offensive magic seemed like it would be useful for revenge.

And it would expand the role she could play in the imperial war Haven would eventually start.

‘It might be a better choice than learning swordsmanship.’

Having reached a rational conclusion, the decision was surprisingly easy.

Ella took Meivia’s hand and spoke.

“I want to learn, Meivia.”

“……Pardon?”

“Teach me. Everything about magic.”

“But Miss Ella!”

“Please. Meivia.”

Reading the firm resolve in Ella’s eyes, Meivia hesitated briefly.

“This is the imperial palace. With so many watching eyes, it could be difficult……”

“Don’t worry. We can do it here. Since no one comes to this chapel but me, isn’t it the perfect place to learn magic?”