This young lady had a slender, curvaceous figure and an extremely beautiful face. Though she carried a dashing demeanor, her fiery red hair hinted at a bold, lively personality—but her eyes were cold as iron.
Well, actually, she was at least a few hundred years old... hardly a young girl anymore.
But Shel still saw her as a little girl.
Only when gazing at Shel before her did a trace of indescribable emotion flicker in her pupils.
Shel watched her silently, sensing the rigid blade trembling in her hand.
She was Shel’s first “saved” demoness: Lofna, Queen of Ipoli.
Well, “saved” wasn’t quite right. It was his first task upon arriving in this world. Back then, the system went crazy, crashed without explaining the requirements clearly. Shel was clueless, didn’t know who to “save,” misjudged everything, and caused a lot of trouble.
They stared at each other for a long time.
Shel didn’t know how to explain, and the girl before him wouldn’t let him off easily.
Inevitably, this terrible, sudden reunion caught them both unprepared.
They could only awkwardly lock eyes, while memories of their first meeting flooded back.
---***---
Lofna.
Her meeting with Shel happened long, long ago.
When they first met, Lofna was the granddaughter of a king in the Ipoli nation.
Shel, meanwhile, was a wandering mage, roaming the world with no fixed home.
It sounded like a rootless mage ranked far below a princess—but that wasn’t true.
After all, Ipoli was just a medium-sized nation in the Great Darksend Region on the northern side of the Western Continent in the Aran world. It ruled only three or four walled cities and a few dozen towns and villages.
In this magic-filled world, noble life far surpassed European medieval standards.
Kings used potent magical potions for longer lives and more children. Their surroundings were cleaner, free of medieval filth.
Especially Ipoli’s old king—he lived in luxury with boundless energy.
By hiring mages to brew potions and forcibly taking over a dozen wives despite church bans, he had forty or fifty children and over a hundred illegitimate offspring by his hundredth birthday.
His grandchildren numbered beyond count.
Lofna, though, was just the daughter conceived after the king’s twenty-third prince slept with a town mayor’s niece for a few nights.
The mayor rushed to give his niece away because her parents were dead, she was easy to bully, and she was decent-looking—the prince happened to fancy her.
In return, the mayor secured a tax collector post for his son.
That simple trade brought Lofna into the world.
Her princess status was recognized, unlike an illegitimate child’s, and she had maids to command—but that was all.
She lived outside the palace, in a small house by the riverside mill.
Before age five, her friends were dairy cows, sheep, and dogs from the farm next door, plus children of maids and servants.
By the way, those children later died from hard labor, war, cheap liquor, and plague.
The farm’s cattle and horses, as the king’s property, were well-protected and lived longer.
Lofna had seen her father only a few times, always with other kids during major festivals.
Her prince father probably didn’t even remember her.
This was the princess’s childhood.
At six or seven, as a noble, she entered the church-run school—a free benefit for aristocrats.
Churches hired scholars to teach spelling, history, and arithmetic.
Most crucially, they drilled theology into children.
From infancy, kids learned the “Supreme Eternal Being’s” greatness, that defying the church as adults was unthinkable, and that tithing was mandatory.
Boys mostly hated priests’ sermons. They preferred learning hunting and combat from their fathers.
Only if priests brought alchemists or mages to show real magic would boys attend class.
But local churches couldn’t afford skilled mages.
Even kings paid mages only for one-off jobs like brewing potions or forging weapons.
Mages and alchemists were proud, especially high-level ones from secret societies or ancient schools.
Their secluded dojos in valleys, academies, or underground kept them isolated. Most traveling mages stayed in wealthy cities; few wandered remote areas.
So, no mage would waste precious knowledge on noisy noble brats in a chaotic church school.
Church school was boring.
Teachers were dull, lessons duller.
A black-robed priest in a white shoulder cape would listlessly scrawl illegible words on the board, waving thick church tomes like bricks while shaking his head at the kids.
Priests had odd tempers too.
Some beat kids with paddles for no reason; others rushed through lessons and ignored everything; a few fanatically made children recite hymns, then cried and laughed like madmen when anyone faltered.
Lofna hated church school.
Her devout mother had said: “Church school makes you pious. Study hard, and under the gods’ blessing, you’ll marry well, manage your husband’s accounts with arithmetic, and tell your kids stories from church history. Be a good mother.”
That made Lofna despise studying even more.
Especially math. The arithmetic priest loved grabbing kids’ hands and clamping their fingers with clips—one clamp per wrong answer.
Every quiz, Lofna—a math idiot—had all ten fingers clamped, swollen for over ten days.
She’d heard him say: “You girls can’t fight. Learn arithmetic to manage your husband’s money. Can’t count coins? You’re useless.”
“I won’t marry anyone!” Lofna retorted defiantly during punishment.
“If you don’t marry, what then?” the priest scolded harshly. “Will your father support you forever? Do you have magic? Are you that favored?”
“Maybe I’ll become a mage,” she shot back.
Naturally, the kids burst into laughter.
After a paddling, Lofna squatted outside the classroom, swollen hands outstretched, silently crying.
Studying was hateful.
Until age seven, when a ray of light finally pierced her gloomy life.
Shel appeared in it.
