Editing Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance:Volume17 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 4===

Late at night. Inside an office where a small lamp was lit&mdash;

Rubia Elstein was currently reading secret documents uncovered from Scorpia.

Most of these secret documents were about the Ranbal War.

This great war started from a minor territorial dispute between Ordesia and the Holy Kingdom of Lugia that finally drew in the entire continent.

Even though an eternal truce had been signed between the two nations since twenty-odd years ago, the war's effects still linger everywhere.

(Experiments for transferring to power of spirits to humans, experiments for inducing spirits to self-destruct so that their internal energy went amok... This is more terrifying than imagined&mdash;)

Rubia lit a fire at her fingertips and burned the stack of documents to cinders.

Such severe crimes, going as far as to turn spirits into instruments of war, it was nauseating.

The Theocracy was not alone. In those days, every country did similar things.

Even her home country, the Ordesia Empire, had been researching cursed armament seals and strategic-class militarized spirits that had been modified into weapons of mass destruction.

(I have no right to mock such folly, I suppose&mdash;)

Rubia Elstein narrowed her ruby-like eyes and mocked herself.

She had corrupted her own body with cursed armament seals for the sake of obtaining power, thus disqualifying herself as a pure princess maiden.

Of course, she had no regrets. But&mdash;

(This filthy body no longer has the right to hold my little sister's hand&mdash;)

This was the only thing that she missed, weighing on her mind.

(But that man&mdash;)

Suddenly, Kamito's face appeared in her mind.

Recalling the first time in her life to show her naked body to a man, she instantly blushed, her face turning hot.

She had never experienced such feelings in her entire life.

As soon as she thought of him, her heart became strangely unsettled.

(Why&mdash;?)

Just then, suddenly, she felt intense pain from her right hand.

Her face contorted by the sharp pain, as acute as being burned by fire, she cast her gaze upon her right hand, only to see&mdash;

A crimson emblem, symbolizing fire, was glowing brilliantly.

"...Wh... at...?"

Rubia widened her ruby-like eyes.

This was the brand that had not disappeared even after she had disqualified herself as a princess maiden.

&mdash;The seal of the spirit contract formed with the Fire Elemental Lord.
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