Chapter 26: The Weakest Witch in History

“Hello, big sister. My name is Melantha. I’m thirteen years old. I originally lived in Vardar County of the Empire.”

As Scarlet Night spoke, she held her hands neatly folded in front of her, standing straight as if she had received an excellent upbringing. Her voice was clear and pleasant, her tone steady, with almost none of the wavering typical of a thirteen-year-old child.

“Later, Father and Mother said it was no longer safe there, so they sent me here and entrusted me to my uncle’s care. Now that big sister has come, Uncle said you would take care of me, so he let me come find Sister Pelleti.”

Scarlet Night kept a straight face, her expression filled with seriousness.

In truth, she felt no pressure at all.

She had known the blue-haired Elien in her previous life.

Back then, it was with Elien’s help that Sister Qingcheng had escaped from the human nations, and many things afterward had also benefited from her assistance.

Scarlet Night’s evaluation of Elien was simple: a textbook single-minded person—a battle fanatic with a straightforward mind, someone who practiced swordsmanship to the point of being a bit foolish, doing things bluntly and directly.

As long as you went along with her way of thinking, she was very easy to get along with.

Most human nobles couldn’t tolerate being contradicted by commoners. In comparison, although Elien was also a noble, she was already among the more reasonable and restrained ones.

Scarlet Night’s clear and composed self-introduction left everyone present momentarily stunned.

This was completely unlike how a thirteen-year-old should behave.

A look of obvious pity appeared in Anna’s eyes. She attributed this premature maturity to misfortune.

Thinking of how the girl had been passed around by her parents and then lost her uncle as well, a sense of heaviness rose in everyone’s hearts.

Especially Elien—she hadn’t expected Scarlet Night to have such a background, nor had she imagined that this girl, who looked so small, was actually thirteen years old.

This was clearly underdevelopment.

A child tossed around by relatives like a hot potato, only to finally be taken in by Pelleti, who didn’t look well-off herself, and even brought to a hotel of this caliber.

This gave Elien a more concrete understanding of Pelleti’s kindness.

Pelleti, however, was far less calm inside than she appeared.

If not for maintaining her outward composure, she would’ve been wearing the same incredulous expression as everyone else.

Watching Scarlet Night fabricate her life story without even blushing or skipping a beat, Pelleti couldn’t help clicking her tongue inwardly. As expected of a witch who had lived for hundreds of years—lying came as naturally as breathing.

Elien would never imagine that all of this had been made up on the spot, right?

After all, who would doubt the words of a child barely over ten years old?

“Uh… Captain, there really is a place called Vardar County. There was a border conflict there about a month ago.”

“I know. There’s no need to remind me of that.”

Elien spoke flatly, a faint hint of irritation in her voice.

She crouched down again, trying to meet Scarlet Night at eye level. “Then let me ask you—where is your uncle?”

“I don’t know. They all disappeared,” Scarlet Night shook her head, her expression carrying just the right amount of confusion.

“Do you have any contact information? An address, or somewhere a messenger could reach?” Elien pressed on.

“No,” Scarlet Night replied just as succinctly.

Seeing Elien interrogate a child who had just lost her support like this, Anna couldn’t bear it anymore. A pained look crossed her face. “Captain, things are already like this—there’s no need to keep asking, right? She’s just a child…”

She hesitated, anger toward those irresponsible relatives bubbling up inside her.

They dumped the child on Pelleti and then vanished, not even leaving a way to be contacted. It was clearly an attempt to dump all the trouble onto Pelleti.

Anna couldn’t help but sigh inwardly—relationships among commoners could really be terrifying. Fortunately, Pelleti was kind enough to take her in. If Miss Pelleti had been a cold-hearted person, Anna more or less knew what kind of ending this child would have faced.

Elien let out a soft sigh, seemingly realizing that she wouldn’t get any more answers from the child.

She turned to Pelleti instead and changed the subject. “Then have you found a job yet?”

Pelleti showed a hint of helplessness and smiled. “Not yet. After all, I just arrived. I wanted to get familiar with the place first.”

“So you really won’t consider joining—” She stopped mid-sentence, realizing there were others in the room. Turning her head, she noticed that a server was standing quietly outside the door, waiting.

That server had quite a sharp sense.

“Miss Elien, I’ve already made it very clear—I don’t want to join any Tuning Class. I just want to find an ordinary job and live a peaceful life. Besides, I now have such a small child with me. How could I let her follow me on nonstop nationwide missions day and night?”

The reason was more than sufficient. Elien opened her mouth but couldn’t find anything to refute it.

“…All right.” At this point, she could only give up on persuading her.

However, Elien didn’t leave immediately. Instead, she took out two silver-white metal bracelets from her pocket and held them out to Pelleti.

The bracelets were exquisitely crafted, each inlaid with a perfectly cut blue diamond-shaped gemstone. A faint glow seemed to flow within.

“What’s this?” Pelleti took the bracelets, curiously rubbing the cool metal and the warm, smooth gemstone with her fingers, putting on an appropriately puzzled expression.

“Just standard inspection bands. Put them on—it’ll be over in a moment,” Elien explained casually, keeping her tone deliberately light.

In reality, these were anything but ordinary bracelets. They were special element-detection bands made by the Church, specifically designed to detect high concentrations of elemental fluctuations unique to witches.

They only reacted when the elemental concentration surpassed a certain threshold.

Elien knew all too well how dangerous witches could be. If the two in front of her were truly witches with hostile intent, exposing them rashly could lead to serious consequences.

To avoid alerting them, she deliberately downplayed it while closely observing every subtle reaction as the two put on the bracelets.

“Oh, okay.” Though Pelleti felt a bit uneasy inside, she didn’t show it, obediently slipping the bracelet onto her slender wrist.

Scarlet Night also extended her small hand, docilely letting Pelleti help her put on the other bracelet.

Elien’s gaze was locked tightly onto the blue gemstones of the two bracelets.

Second by second passed. There was no abnormal reaction. The light within the gemstones remained steady—no color change, no flickering.

Only then did Elien’s taut nerves finally relax, and she quietly let out a breath of relief.

Good. Miss Pelleti isn’t a witch—just an ordinary commoner.

“Thank you both for your cooperation.” She stood up, efficiently removing the bracelets from their wrists and giving Pelleti a polite nod.

“We still have official duties to attend to, so we won’t trouble you further.”

“Take care.” Pelleti maintained a proper smile, seeing them to the door before gently closing it and carefully making sure it was locked.

“Phew—”

Listening as the sound of military boots faded down the hallway and eventually disappeared, Pelleti’s body finally slackened.

She leaned against the door, her legs giving out as she slid down to the floor. Raising a hand to her chest, she let out a long breath.

“That really scared me to death…” Her voice still trembled with lingering fear.

After calming down a bit, she remembered her earlier question and turned to look at Scarlet Night, who was calm as ever. “So… that bracelet she took out at the end—what exactly was it? Do you know? It looked pretty fancy.”

“I do. It’s an elemental sensing device used to detect witches,” Scarlet Night nodded, her tone as calm as if she were talking about the weather.

“Oh, so it was a bracelet for detecting witches. I thought it was some kind of novelty—” Pelleti repeated reflexively, then suddenly froze. Her body stiffened as she lunged forward and grabbed Scarlet Night by the shoulders. “Wait! What did you just say? Detecting witches?!”

“Yes, a bracelet used to detect witches,” Scarlet Night let her hold on, patiently repeating herself and adding an explanation.

“And the Church’s detection methods are basically all based on the same principle as that bracelet. But don’t worry, big sister—as long as I want to hide, alchemical tools of that level can’t detect my true nature at all. As for you…”

Scarlet Night paused, looked at Pelleti with her clear, innocent eyes, and delivered the cruel truth: “Your current magic level and elemental concentration haven’t even reached the minimum threshold needed to trigger that bracelet’s alarm. So there was never any danger of you being detected.”

“In other words…” Pelleti’s expression instantly became a complicated mix of shock, realization, and an indescribable sense of grievance. “It’s because I’m too weak—so weak that I don’t even meet the detection threshold—that the bracelet didn’t react?”

“Mm, that’s basically what it means.” Scarlet Night nodded firmly.

Pelleti released Scarlet Night’s shoulders and sat back down on the floor in a daze. The corner of her mouth twitched as she muttered to herself:

“Th-This… how is that supposed to be good news at all?!”

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