Plona Moonlight’s first memory began at an orphanage located in Randell, in the western part of the Luminous Kingdom.
Raised in the orphanage since she was a baby, Plona knew nothing of her biological parents’ faces.
Only as she grew a little older did Plona realize she was a survivor from a village that had suffered an attack by Beastmen, but because many villagers had lost their lives, she never learned her parents’ names.
Yet, even so, young Plona did not shed tears. The abstract sadness had no clear target to aim at.
Missing someone whose name and face she didn’t even know made it far too difficult for the little girl.
There were times when she felt an unidentified sting and unfulfilled loneliness, but whenever that happened, the kind headmistress would stroke her hair, so Plona managed to smile as if everything was fine.
She couldn’t just cause trouble. After all, there were many other families in the orphanage who needed the headmistress’s care.
Though a bit unfortunate, the cheerful girl became someone more than an ordinary village child when she turned twelve.
That year, a welcome piece of news came to the family at the orphanage where Plona lived: the Luminous Kingdom’s Palace had decided to provide support for the orphanage.
Of course, it was just one of many facilities reached through the Luminous Palace’s charitable activities, so the amount of support wouldn’t be huge, but from the orphanage’s perspective, where every penny mattered, it was worth celebrating.
As a result, someone from the palace came to visit.
Similar to how politicians or businesspeople would come smiling and take pictures when they had some heartwarming story to share, it wasn’t that the visitors had no ulterior motives, but at least the children in the orphanage welcomed their unexpected guests.
And those guests turned out to be two Knights.
Knights.
Guardians of humanity. The sword and shield of the Luminous Kingdom.
For the children, Knights were figures to be admired, like heroes who had jumped out of storybooks, and it was a perfectly reasonable reaction.
However, the reason Plona began to remember things was not due to any sort of admiration for the Knights, like the boys around her had.
The Knights’ visit to the orphanage had three purposes.
First, it was a commemorative visit to promise support from the Church.
Second, it was to encourage the children in the orphanage and instill a little hope in them.
And lastly, it was to find promising talents worth keeping an eye on.
Had it been just for the first or second reasons, there would have been many other people who could have come instead of busy Knights, so it wasn’t hard to guess that the last reason was quite significant.
The children protected by the orphanage often lost their families due to the Beastmen.
Because of that, many children applied to become soldiers when they reached adulthood. In a time rife with violence and misery, revenge became a significant driving force for wandering souls without a purpose.
This phenomenon wasn’t a bad thing from the Palace’s perspective, which was always in need of recruits.
They weren’t being forced; it was the path they wanted to take.
And a promising tree will always stand out from its sapling stage.
By visiting early and pinpointing potentially capable children, a timely offer of assistance and advice could lead to a satisfactory outcome for both sides.
An event of this sort was held at the orphanage where Plona lived. The two Knights divided into groups, allowing some to experience swordplay, while others could try out magic.
Of course, it wasn’t like they were being told to fight; it was a light event where they demonstrated sword dances and magic, or took a moment to check the children’s aptitudes.
Twelve-year-old Plona Moonlight settled on the magic experience led by an apprentice Knight.
After all, they promised snacks for participation, so there was no reason not to join. Most other girls chose this side because they regarded magic as prettier than sword fighting, and Plona joined them too.
And this seemingly insignificant choice would turn out to be the pivotal moment that changed Plona’s life.
The magic lesson was a slapdash affair intended to pique the children’s interests, focused more on participation than learning.
By skipping the complicated explanations suitable for their level, there was a sacrifice of practicality, meaning the educational quality was almost non-existent; it was merely an appetizer that enabled them to use magic. Plona perfectly replicated the spell demonstrated by the apprentice Knight.
For Plona, it wasn’t a big deal. They said, “Just try it,” so she thought she could likely follow along by intuition.
In reality, no adult expected that this haphazard one-time crash course would enable the children to use magic; twelve-year-old Plona was blissfully unaware of this.
Meanwhile, the apprentice Knight Celin Soleis was utterly astonished by Plona.
She thought maybe a child talented in this area could create a drop of water or an icicle, but it was beyond imagination that someone could replicate the ice flower Plona had created.
It was overwhelming talent. A blessed rarity when it came to a wizard, encompassing natural quickness, adaptability, and affinity for spirits.
Celin Soleis relayed her observations about Plona to her superior who was demonstrating swordplay to the boys.
Upon hearing her report, the Knight immediately set out to find the rumored girl.
Coincidentally, perhaps due to the whims of the gods, the Knight who had come to verify her magical talent discovered an unprecedented swordsmanship talent in the twelve-year-old girl.
An extraordinary level of talent in both swordplay and magic.
Though still merely raw potential, it was blessed enough that one could be certain that whichever facet was refined carefully, it would shine as a beautiful gem to captivate the world.
In haste, they brought the girl to the Knight Order, and the other Knights were similarly impressed.
The Knights who witnessed young Plona marveled at her potential, assessing it as a once-in-a-century type of talent. They believed with enough self-cultivation and experience, she could one day stand alongside the heroes of history.
As the powerful Knights assessed Plona’s exceptional abilities, the Palace sought to recruit her immediately.
Though nominally not a coercion, it was suggested that if she decided to join, there would be significant additional funding for the orphanage.
Plona accepted.
After all, she had no particular dreams of what to do when she grew up.
If she could help her headmistress, whom she called Grandma and trusted deeply, as well as her younger siblings at the orphanage, there was no reason to turn down the job offer.
Thus, Plona Moonlight was scouted into the Knight Order, becoming a trainee Knight at the tender age of twelve—an unprecedented appointment since the founding of the Kingdom.
Though some who had been sweating and struggling with swordplay and magic expressed dissatisfaction, it all ended up as a minor incident.
Those who witnessed the stark difference in talent lost the motivation to criticize Plona any further.
What troubled Plona wasn’t the jealousy of those around her, but learning.
To be a Knight meant mastering swordsmanship and sacred magic while also being a devout follower of the light god, Luminous.
The Knights and priests constantly imbued Plona with the righteous faith.
The will of Lord Luminous is the only truth in this world.
Only the Church that follows his will is the sole bearer of justice.
Only humans chosen by Lord Luminous deserve to be respected as sentient beings, while the Beastmen are all tainted by violence and savagery.
For young Plona, these concepts were somewhat difficult to understand. There was only a listing of results without any understanding of the processes behind them.
How are humans and Beastmen different?
What exactly does the will of Lord Luminous entail?
No priest provided Plona with a satisfactory answer to her questions.
Instead, whenever she voiced such ‘blasphemous’ doubts, her sword training would become so grueling that her hands blistered, her feet swelled, and her body became bruised, while the night theology classes grew longer, cutting into her sleep time.
It seemed the meaning of faith was something one had to seek out on their own.
Could it be that the proactive and autonomous teachings of the Church were effective? Plona, who rolled her body in training and reduced her sleep, eventually no longer questioned the Church’s policies.
Through rigorous training, Plona was swiftly growing up.
She was still a young girl, but the adults around her no longer saw her as a child.
The commanding Knights and seniors were always strict, and whenever she ventured outside, the townsfolk observed her Knight Order insignia with a mixture of fear and admiration, bowing their heads.
After a week filled with tear-inducing, grueling training, when she returned to the orphanage, even her siblings no longer looked at her the same way.
Respect, admiration, envy.
The eyes of the world had changed in ways that were foreign and heavy for this young girl barely in her early teens, yet she had to bear this burden all on her own.
The only constant support left for Plona was her headmistress Amy. Only before Amy could Plona truly feel like a child.
But even that couldn’t return to the way it was before.
Ultimately, Plona had already left the orphanage and gained independence. Even if it was just as an apprentice, her status was infinitely higher than that of a mere headmistress.
Though Amy cared for Plona and gave her another treat, in reality, she had to attend to the more irresponsible children sheltered in the orphanage, who needed her help even more than the flourishing Plona.
Awareness of reality had made Plona lonely. Her sole support was not completely hers, leaving her with a sense of isolation.
Yet, despite the tears and difficulties, she could not cry.
Because she was a Knight. As a guardian of humanity, she couldn’t show any weakness.
However, what Plona found harder to bear than the exhausting training was the solitude she couldn’t share with anyone.
Still, Plona forced a smile. Covering her true emotions with a false grin, the girl truly longed for her biological parents, whose names and faces she did not know.
Had she truly unlocked the form of that abstract yearning she couldn’t perceive as a child, was it a blessing or a curse for her?
Whenever her painful moments arose, Plona simply yearned endlessly.
If I had a real family.
With just a word saying, “That must have been hard,” and a warm embrace, I could overcome all this.
The girl enduring her difficult days lived every night with such unfulfilled dreams in her sleep.
However, the world was not one where the dead would miraculously return to life.
The world only pressed her with harsh standards, urging her to grow up, and as that happened, a part of her heart was slowly hollowing out.
But, regardless of the loneliness she held inside, Plona grew stronger day by day.
Follow the will of the divine. Protect humanity.
Your talents are a blessing from the gods, and you must use them for the gods, the Church, and the faithful.
Never doubt the will of the gods.
Receiving the Church’s teachings instead of parental guidance, the girl whipped herself hard with a sense of duty, leading to an astonishing advancement.
In just two years.
The girl who was the center of everyone’s jealousy and concern sparked discussions about whether it was an institutional problem that she could not be officially promoted to a Knight due to her minor status.
Though she was denied exceptional recognition under the premise that the system couldn’t be changed for a single individual, in reality, she was treated as an official Knight or even higher.
Within the Knights, strength categorized ranks, and for those with eyes to see, it was uncertain how far she could rise in the future.
Of course, she was still just a girl with a lack of experience compared to top-ranking Knights, but that was something time would resolve.
No one at the Palace could be so blind as to overlook such promising talent. Those who were would have already been transferred to local or foreign branches.
And then, three years later.
The girl who became an adult was formally recognized as a guardian of humanity.
It was an excessively heavy and bright burden placed upon her tiny, delicate shoulders to take on the role of a guardian.
Where there is light, there also casts shadows.
If anyone had looked at her directly, they would have seen the enormous shadow cast by the size of the light she bore, but the blinded folks gazed up at her radiance, cheering, oblivious to the shadows that cloaked the ground.
Perhaps, regardless of whether her essence was buried there.
Still, the lonely girl continued to wear a bright smile for the five years that followed.
She had to do so.
She had to be someone’s pillar of support.
Not long after, Plona encountered a white woman who had lost her memory during a mission.
This marked the second turning point that would change her life.
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