A gust of wind slipped through the cracks in the white wall, causing my small body to tremble. No matter how much I curled up into a ball, the cold would not stop seeping through the thin cloth draped over my body. The cloth was the size of a handkerchief. There was no way it could win against the relentless cold.
The wind seemed to grow stronger by each passing minute. My skin began to itch, perhaps from the overwhelming cold. It didn’t hurt much, but tingled slightly.
Even in such a situation, the expressions of those peering down at me was hard to read.
Their eyes were emotionless, as if they were inanimate objects and not living, breathing beings. It caused me great discomfort.
Why are you doing this? Help me! I’m hungry! It’s cold!
No matter how much I complained in my head, they could not hear my thoughts. Tears began to well up in my eyes. The bitter cold froze my tears, making it hard for me to keep my eyes open.
It’s too painful to bear.
“Huaaah!”
In spite of myself, I began to cry loudly, but even then they didn’t stir. They simply glanced my way, before resuming their conversation.
“The Lord will be disappointed.”
“Of course he will be. His daughter cannot even manifest her powers.”
I have more or less guessed the reason why they have brought me here. If they were to maintain their family’s prestige, I could not be kept alive. If the children of the Delde family fail to develop their power, they must die.
How do I know this so well? As I grew weak and hungry, I recalled the contents of a book I had read in my previous life.
The Delde clan was one of the three most powerful rulers of the continent. The other two were Relotia, the knight clan, and Ardellos, a holy clan that uses divine power.
The Delde family did not have a good relationship with the two.
Their relationship was so hostile to the point where the two other clans gathered their strength together and sought out Hostamtam to defeat the Delde clan.
That's certainly possible.
Delde was a clan that wanted to awaken the sealed demon and bring the world into despair and grief. It was natural that someone would be against this. They did not hesitate to carry out rituals with sacrificial offerings, and condemned all who showed weakness. For that reason, the Delde clan was determined to attain only the perfect strength. Therefore, descendants from the head of the family were not usually seen.
Even if a descendant was to rise to the position of the head of the family, he wouldn’t last even a few years, because the neck of a member of my family was always in danger of getting slit.
During all that, I was born. It was all thanks to the strong, unprecedented mage of this generation: the current head of the family.
The first three years after he rose to the head of the family, he executed all the traitors. The next few years, he ensured internal stability.
After that, three years later, he took in a wife. The descendant from that woman was me.
But unlike the other family members, my ability has failed to develop. Greatly disappointed in me, I was to be abandoned by the head of the family.
Of course, I'm not sure how I'll die.
In the novel, it was written that the only daughter born from the current head of the family—the most powerful one ever to be seen in history—made no appearance at all, and had died before she was old enough to walk.
The conclusion was that I would die no matter what.
Ugh, I don’t want to.
Even just the thought of it made my body break out in goosebumps, and I started crying again.
“Waaaahh!”
The person who was silently watching me curtly replied, “Seems like she’s still brimming with life.”
“That’s because she is of the Delde bloodline.”
Ugh, don’t talk about me like that between yourselves. I’m currently on the verge of death. This is how I’m going to be, and no one can do anything about it.
It was when I was drowning in sorrow that a heavy iron door, which had been closed the entire time, creaked open.
A man emanating an overbearing aura appeared in the doorway. As soon as his crimson eyes met with mine, a wave of goosebumps shook my body.
His hair was pitch black, and his pale, ashen skin was impossibly white. With a long, black cloak draped over the entirety of his body, he seemed to be the darkness himself.
As soon as I saw him, I knew who he was.
Hades.
He was the current head of the Delde family, and my father.
It was my first time seeing him in the flesh. I knew he was the only one who could save me from this situation, but, I didn’t even cry, much less beg for help.
The only thing I could do was to stiffen my body.
He looked down at me with his frosty eyes, and an incessant question flowed from his mouth.
“The result?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s disappointing.”
He seemed to be putting nearby stones to shame. His face was surprisingly expressionless, without a tinge of appreciation.
He was silent for a while, then spoke slowly, seeming to have made a decision. His deep, low-pitched voice pronounced my death.
“Throw it in the Valley of Trials. After ten days, if it’s still alive, bring it back.”
The Valley of Trials? Where was that again?
My mind was in turmoil. After a long time of worrying, I remembered that it was the Delde clan’s garbage dump.
They threw away dead bodies into the Valley of Trials. Most of them died the moment they fell from that steep cliff of an unknown depth.
It was rumored that down there was a passage down to hell, with lava streaming through the endless darkness.
But you’re throwing me in there now?
My eyes widened in surprise.
Because of that, my eyelids, which had frozen with tears, screamed with pain.
But it just wasn’t possible for me to die like this.
“Ah!”
As a last resort, I let out a cry. But he had already opened the door and went out. As soon as he left, one of the guards picked me up.
Almost immediately, he opened the window and tossed me out unsympathetically.
It was a relentless hand. He didn’t hesitate at all. He did not even utter words of prayer for my end, nor words of readiness to prepare me.
My body sailed through the air. The only thing that embraced me that day was the frosty wind that whispered over the vast land.
The feeling of my body giving out and falling was petrifying. How scary must it have been that I couldn’t even feel the midwinter wind piercing through my flesh?
Ahh, why am I dying like this right after I was born?
I struggled, but it was all in vain. It was of no avail. I was simply falling closer and closer to my eventual death.
No matter how deep a cliff reached, even if the end seemed invisible through the never ending darkness, it only really takes a few seconds to fall off even the tallest cliff.
Slowly, the bottom of the valley was within my sight, exposing mounds of ashes and bones piled up like mountains.
The screams of the dead who had been desperately crying to me seemed to have reached my ears. I struggled, a spine-chilling sensation filled me, as I met the eye of a significant presence, a presence I could not put my finger on.
He looked at me, and asked me a question while closing his eyes.
“Do you wish to live?”
A mysterious voice whispered close to my ear. That voice sounded like it could belong to a young man or an elderly man, and I tried to figure out which one it was.
His hissing voice seemed to dissipate, before asking me again.
“Do you really wish to live?”
“Aahhhhhh!”
Instead of responding, I let out a cry. He laughed at me, his voice like a crackling flame.
His lively voice was that of a young man’s.
“You will regret it. You will wake me, and destroy the world. Do you wish to live anyway?”
“Ahhhhhh! Ahhhh!”
Help me! You jerk!
I cried, twisting back and forth. I wanted to know what would be more miserable than my life ending here.
As if I had made a joke, the sound of laughter flowed from him. Soon, he whispered in a soothing voice.
“Yes, if this is what you want.”
After he said that, I was swept up in a strange, unknown light.
Will I be able to live now?
A faint, wavering hope seemed to be in my grasp.
But not long after I thought that, my hopes were shattered. All of a sudden, I was tumbling down the midst of a snowy field.
Gah! My mouth was filled with snow, and it didn’t stop there. It plugged my nose as well. As expected, that devil-like guy just wouldn’t graciously save me.
I struggled, my face planted on the ground, but I was barely a month old and was too young to flip myself over.
That evil devil bastard!
I cried internally. Didn’t they say you should be cautious when making a deal with the devil?
Ahh, my fate. To think I would die due to suffocation.
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I began to shed tears, despairing over my sad, pathetic life.