Chapter 3
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“Someone this lowly is supposed to be my Guide?”
The reason tears did not immediately spill at such harsh words was because she was too shocked. As if he had been waiting for this very moment, Kasselard poured out verbal abuse.
“Just a thing that worked as a maid for some petty count’s family…”
“Crown Prince!”
Empress Yekaterina shouted with a flustered expression. Normally, as the mother of the First Imperial Prince and Crown Prince Kasselard, the Empress never raised her voice at him, but this situation was different.
This was an occasion to introduce the young lady who had just become a new A-Class Guide before many nobles. The imperial couple intended to announce here that Kasselard, who had drawn everyone’s concern for having no Guide until now, had finally found one.
Their son was the only SS-Class Transcendent on the continent, but because he had never had a Guide with a compatible match rate, he had been called a ‘walking disaster’. It meant that if he ever went on rampage, he could devastate land equivalent to two capitals.
Transcendents continued to appear, but Guides were scarce.
The chronic shortage of Guides was nothing new, so once someone manifested as a Guide, it was common to promise them protection and status for that alone. Even Ephinia, who was introduced today as an A-Class Guide, had newly received the title of Baron of Linier.
Most of the Guides the Empire possessed were B-Class and C-Class. Although there was said to be one S-Class Guide, there were only two A-Class Guides including her, so there was no opposition.
A Transcendent who could not receive guiding was nothing more than a ticking time bomb.
However, because of the match rate, the Crown Prince, who could not even receive guiding from the sole S-Class Guide, took issue with Ephinia’s background.
“Granting a baronial title to someone who was just a maid in a count’s household was pushing it, wasn’t it.”
“As expected, just for guiding His Crown Prince, huh…”
Murmured voices reached her ears from behind fans, or from people covering their faces with their hands. Ephinia looked at them with a deathly pale face.
‘I’m scared. It feels like everyone is laughing at me.’
It was true that she had worked as a maid in a noble household, but it could not be said to have been by her own will. Her father had sold her for a handful of money. She later learned that it was illegal, and that she did not need to repay the absurd sum her father had taken in advance.
Even knowing that, there was no way for her to leave that noble household. She did not have a single coin to her name, and all the servants knew that if she ran away, she would be framed as a thief and reported.
The fact that she was a Guide was revealed by chance. Once a year, all citizens of the city were required by law to undergo a Guide test.
She took the test after suffering a mild fever, and that was when it was revealed that she was a Guide.
‘I heard that Transcendents are kind to Guides.’
When it was revealed that she was an A-Class Guide, many things changed. After hearing her circumstances, the officials punished the count’s family that had unjustly used her as a maid, and secured a substantial amount of compensation for her.
Since all Guides were required to first go up to the capital and undergo a reexamination, after being tested again there, people treated her with even greater care.
At that time, when match rates were checked against the records of various Transcendents, she recorded a high match rate of over 76% with most of them. In particular, her match rate with Kasselard, the Crown Prince who had suffered without a Guide, was 98%, so everyone naturally knew she would become Kasselard’s Guide.
There was no way the imperial family would let this opportunity slip.
For now, the Crown Prince was young and holding on with suppressants, but he would eventually hit his limit. The Lord of the Mage Tower had said that the maximum age Kasselard could endure without a Guide was exactly twenty-six.
‘T-That idiot!’
Kasselard was already past the age of twenty-five. Seeing Ephinia’s ashen complexion, the Emperor pressed his temples.
When he had introduced Ephinia as his Guide, he had seen Kasselard’s expression stiffen, but he never imagined he would behave like that toward the only Guide who could guide him.
‘He just doesn’t want to marry a commoner.’
It was an era of extreme Guide scarcity. It was said that several hundred years ago it had not been this severe, but as exploitation of Guides intensified, at some point Guides stopped being born.
Now Transcendents married Guides out of necessity. Emperor Anox himself had married the Empress, who was his Guide, and Duke Lanas, the Empress’s nephew, had also married a Guide.
So… Kasselard also knew that if he received guiding from that Baroness of commoner origin, he would end up marrying her.
‘Idiot. He doesn’t even know that binding a Guide through marriage is for the sake of Transcendents!’
There was a reason the imperial family granted titles to those revealed to be Guides. It was to pave the way so Transcendents could more easily take them as partners. If nobles did not marry within the nobility, the backlash was fierce.
On the other hand, Kasselard was looking at the Emperor and Empress with a smug expression.
‘If I go this far, they won’t try to bind that thing and me together.’
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