A Villainess Should Be Strong

"This.. place is," Estelle grimaced.

Right in the innermost section of the fief, laid a manor that was known to house the Clareste family. This was where Estelle detected a strange resonance with the current storm's situation.

A resonance that had the same wavelength as the sinister spell she had found in the bases that were now long destroyed.

Estelle would've never guessed such a thing. The catalyst was placed in a location with high security, and it managed to lay low and not get found until this sort of intensive search was done.

Hiding it in the place people would never expect.

How daring.

However, how? How was Elias able to place this sort of gift inside the fief?

Estelle tried to recall all her memories back in order to decipher the mystery.

If Elias' aim was Estelle, then it would explain why he planted his gift inside the manor long ago. But when? Estelle's total years in terms of the Surface's time was approximately 7 years.

When did he start planning? It couldn't be, before she was even born?

Estelle's mind was racking up ideas to connect all the dots.

"The timeline somehow doesn't match. If Arayle and me hadn't been born, on what basis did Elias target the Dukedom?" Estelle mumbled, full of questions.

Furthermore, if she looked at the intricate details, the exact location of the object was actually inside a room in the manor.

Having a dangerous object embedded within the building, how did it go through Estelle's detection skills?

Sure, she hadn't scanned the manor thoroughly, but surely an object that could create a disaster of this caliber would be conspicuous?

Estelle flew back to Heine and Minerva. Whatever the actual object was, she had to rush there before everything was too late.

Elias' movements were unpredictable. There was no telling when he would suddenly 'gift' her with another 'present'.

She felt like she was trapped in a game. A game where the wager was people's lives and destruction.

Estelle gritted her teeth and hastened up her pace. She was able to reach Heine and Yulia back in less than a minute.

She was in a hurry, so she couldn't do the proper explanation and stuff. She just had to convey the important details.

"Heine, Yulia, there's a change in plans. I have to go back to the manor. Please watch over the storm and call me if something happens," Estelle tapped the two adults lightly before jumping to the rooftop once more and taking flight.

She couldn't waste any more time. Opening a space rift that connected to the manor, she jumped in without waiting for Heine and Yulia's response towards her request.

She trusted that the two would be able to make do.

Her tracks had been wrong from the first place.

Jumping out of the space rift, she landed inside her room, where she connected the portal to.

Estelle opened her detection skills one more time. The manor was mapped out, and her potent mana spread throughout the place.

Then, a signal came from a certain location. The same signal that resonated with her when she scanned the entire fief. The one that brought her to this place because she viewed it as a clue.

In truth, she wasn't sure whether or not this was the object she was looking for, but it was oddly familiar.

She quickly deciphered the signal's location.

"..Father's study,"

Estelle was reminded of another incident that involved this exact room.

That one time they searched the manor and found traces of a spatial gate connecting the Clareste manor and the Land of the Elves, Alfheim.

[It's my father's study again.] The coincidence was a bit too convenient.

Doubts starting appearing inside her mind.

Elias planting this gift couldn't have been a mistake on his part. It must've been a carefully planned situation.

Did the connection with Alfheim have anything to do with it?

What was so special about the study?

Knowing her next destination, Estelle made her way towards the study.

After reaching the room, she checked once more, making sure that the resonating object really was located inside the room past the door in front of her.

Estelle opened the door carefully. No one was inside.

Of course, that would be the obvious case. Her father was busy helping the civilians out and trying to fix the city.

Estelle stepped inside the room, looking around in curiosity. When she thought about it, she hasn't explored her own lands that much.

She was much more interested in foreign lands, perhaps because she hadn't seen it with her own two eyes yet.

In case of Alynthi, the civilization was more or less the same with ones that were described in history books when she lived as Reina. Only, this time around, real magic was heavily involved.

Even her father's study felt foreign to her. She had the study's perfect image in her memory, but she didn't have any memories that pertained to a 'feeling' aimed towards the manor.

She just wanted to protect it because her precious people was here.

In the same way, she wanted to protect the city because, well, her precious people was here.

Her thoughts drifted back to Elias' words. Mocking the civilians as useless.

Her precious people. The ones she was fond of and wanted to protect. If they weren't here, Estelle wouldn't have gone this far.

Estelle narrowed her gaze as she thought about the city's rumbling events.

What was it that she wanted to protect? Who did she recognize as her people?

Were the chaotic civilians included in the description of 'her people', or was it just the ones she was close to and ones directly under her wing?

This storm not only made a mess of the fief, but also stirred her heart.

Huffing a breath, Estelle trailed around the room while spreading her mana. She searched for this anomaly, one that would give away clues about the gift.

Then, a crisp spark initiated. Between her mana and the familiar abnormal elementals used in monsters.

There was a monster's energy. No. To be precise, the monster was mutated by Elias' orders. Thus, the energy they procured should be from Elias as well.

The monsters couldn't use magic, but they brought a new type of energy into the game.

It was absurd. Like Black Magic, but not exactly the same forbidden Black Magic the world knew.

Black Magic used mana, whereas a monster's magic leaned more towards an ambiguous energy that they were able to manipulate to their own liking.

No one else possessed this bizarre skill except for them. No one else wielded this kind of monstrous energy.

She pinned down the location of said object. Getting closer to it, her footsteps were light and cautious.

She didn't know what to expect.

Stored inside a sealed box inside her father's study, came a weak energy that twitched from time to time. It resonated with the storm's movements and strength.

The twitches meant that the storm was trying to rampage or break free from a certain influence, which in this case was Estelle's restraining magic.

The box was completely black. It was made of a hard and rigid material, one that would crack a concrete floor if it was thrown down at it. It didn't have a key, nor did it have a crevice that indicated that it could be opened.

Rather than a storage box, it was as if the box was made to surround this particular object and not do anything else.

She held the box in her hands, fumbling with it a couple times. After making sure that it really wasn't an openable box using physical interference, she finally decided to use magic.

She channeled her mana. Trying to cover the box and inspect the object.

However, when she did this, a sensation entered through her hands and overcame her entire body with great speed.

She dropped the box in an instant, staggering backwards in pain.

She wouldn't mistake this sensation with another.

This was her archenemy for years. A type of magic that she struggled to overcome and finally managed to beat for a flash.

One that she escaped from in the Underworld.

"This.. is similar to Arayle's magic, just a bit different," Estelle widened her eyes.

Her hands were left with a jittery feeling, as if lightning waves were running through her veins.

This was Arayle's [Destruction Magic] combined with another strange element.

She tried to probe around the object one more time. This was pivotal.

The existence of Arayle's magic proved that it was relevant to the current situation. Because of Elias' alleged interference on the matter, it wasn't a surprise that Arayle's ability would be found here.

After closer inspection, the magic that mixed with Arayle's element seemed to be Black Magic.

"Black Magic.. is involved," Estelle didn't dare to get too close to the object anymore.

She knew the extent of which the shock could go to. She had built a certain amount of tolerance towards the magic, but she was still unsure.

If Estelle tried to mess around with it too much, there was no telling whether she would face a great backlash that could make her collapse.