Chapter 7: Oath
All she had ever wanted was to hold a sword again.
“M-My mana! My mana...!”
“Damn it! Stop the ritual, now!”
On the very day she was to receive her knighthood—a day that should’ve been the happiest of her life—the ritual failed for reasons unknown, and her mana circuit was completely burned out. Ever since, Lunelle had done nothing but claw her way forward, obsessed with that single desire.
Of course, it wasn’t easy.
The same people who once praised her as the greatest knight candidate in history turned on her without hesitation. The endless stream of sponsors who’d flooded in day after day vanished as if it had all been a dream.
Even the Empire’s most renowned physicians shook their heads in refusal. The family that once lavished her with love gave up, unable to bear the astronomical treatment costs that were going nowhere.
Still, even then, Lunelle believed things could be reversed.
But the world was not kind to a girl who knew nothing but the sword—and had even lost the right to hold one.
The quack “experts” who approached her claiming they could repair her mana circuit, the scammers who cloaked themselves in sympathy only to loan money that might as well have been extortionate usury... It didn’t take long before her life was buried under mountains of debt and criminal charges.
And finally, the moment she realized just how far she’d fallen came when a letter arrived at the dingy inn where she barely scraped by—an official notice of her expulsion from the noble registry.
That was when she understood: she could no longer dream of living as a knight, a noble, or even a normal girl.