The Unfettered Ice Princess [ EN ]

Chapter 8 [ Anger Trigger ]

(For the record, Naeva refers to other people as "little girl/boy" "kid/child" or the like because of their age difference).
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Naeva POV

This little girl in front of me looks a lot like that boy. The only thing different about them is their gender.

No... Her talent too.

That boy was just lucky to have a dragon's eye, magical talent and a poor physique. Whereas his descendant, Ophelia Calliope is practically a genius, even I don't deny that. But a genius child who exceeds that boy is considered a failed product? What the hell is that!?

That's an insult to me too who once taught that boy.

"Information about my people, huh... What can I do... Okay, I'll tell you."

I need to know why this gem in my eyes is considered a roadside stone by her family.

Ophelia Calliope, the little girl descended from the boy began her long story. Her hands were covered in cold sweat and her pupils glanced everywhere, though her expression remained calm as if what she was about to tell was nothing.

"Naeva, in the Calliope Family... there is something called Weapon Selection. It's a tradition of our family since ancient times," she said with a trembling voice.

Weapon Selection huh... I've heard about that.

"The tradition requires Calliope Family descendants who have turned 10 years old to enter the Calliope Family weapons room. There, the weapons will choose their master. So we don't have the right to choose our own weapons," she continued.

"Therefore, you could say this tradition determines our destiny. If we are lucky, a strong weapon will choose us. And if we are unlucky, a useless weapon will choose us."

"Our position in the family is also determined by the tradition. The more family support there is, the stronger the weapon that chooses us."

What does that mean? Wasn't Calliope supposed to contain war brains who led troops from the rear? Since when did the family focus on weaponry?

Ophelia looked at the expressionless me with an incredulous face.
"You might think this is absurd, that one's talent is measured by the weapon that selects it? But in fact the measurement has always been precise, so none of the Calliope Family has questioned it."

"Because I knew that, the 10-year-old me confidently entered the weapons room. I thought a powerful weapon would definitely choose me, everyone in the family who had previously warmed up to me thought so too."

"But that turned out to be just my expansion. The weapon that chose me was just a weapon that was useless in battle. On that very day, my position in the Calliope Family went into freefall and people's attitudes changed 180° towards me," Ophelia explained with a wry smile.

"Even so, I didn't give up at all because there were still people who supported me."
Now that her expression had improved, it seemed that she was remembering the good people she had mentioned earlier.

As she said, measuring one's talent from the weapons that chose them was absurd. But it was a different story if it was in the Calliope Family.

It was possible that the beginning of this tradition was thanks to the Erato Family. For those who specialized in love magic, indicating who one would be matched with was not something difficult. Mates were not just living beings. Weapons and other inanimate objects are too. It looks like Erato did that to show which weapon Calliope was matched with.

The strangeness came from this. It was impossible for Erato's matchmaking spell to miss. Even if it failed, it would only make the match unable to be found, not miss. Then what was really going on? How could a genius little girl pair up with a useless weapon?