I've been looking for the secret room's entrance for two days now.

The space was about the size of a small kitchen.

It serves two functions.

First, as the second piece of a library.

This place is packed with books, just like the library, but unlike the library, the books stored here are the type of books I would consider interesting.

Second, this room served a purpose other than being the second section of the library. In addition to six straight-lined bookshelves, four closets could be seen, each of which was stacked with various types of weapons. In short, this place also served as an armory room.

If Maa learned what was in these closets, she would definitely forbid me from using the library until I reached adulthood.

I discovered a lot of interesting things in the previous week.

The first was about this manor.

This place was built six centuries ago by a man named Alphonce Audrey. It's just a hunch, but I believe that this Audrey is my ancestor; he didn't have the Aubrecht surname, but the Aubrecht surname may have appeared several generations later.

At the time, the manor wasn't really a manor at all, but more of a barrack. This was once the headquarters for the church's expansion program, known as the Crusade.

The objective of this crusade was to conquer the great forest of Iharana.

Back then, the ancestor was a member of the church, more specifically a Bishop. The title Bishop was the third-highest title that could be bestowed upon a member of the Clergy. To sum up, he held a high position in the church.

The expedition was led by three bishops and an army of skilled paladins.

One of the three bishops sent over to lead the expedition was the ancestor.

But it didn't take them long to realize that the army they brought with them was no match for the monster lurking in the forest.

After several failed attempts to exterminate all of the monsters lurking within the first fifty kilometers of the forest, the expansion project was eventually canceled, and the three mobilized bishops were summoned back to the church.

Only the ancestor, who had developed an unhealthy obsession with the forest in a short period of time, couldn't let it go.

He resigned his bishopric, converted the former barracks into a manor, and brought his wife and several servants to the location where he would spend the rest of his life trying to uncover the secret of the forest.

“What a madlad.”

This location is in the middle of nowhere, and it was certainly the case six hundred centuries ago. It would have taken a lot of willpower to decide to live here voluntarily. After all, this location is completely isolated from humanity. Monsters are the only thing that could be considered a neighbor in this situation.

The second intriguing discovery I've made is information about monsters. Among the many books in the secret room, there were a few that were solely about monsters. These books are known as encyclopedias, and they are written and edited by clergy members. Every species, class, trait, and weakness of monster ever encountered by humanity was recorded and classified in the encyclopedia.

According to the content of these encyclopedias, there are four types of creatures that can be classified as monsters.

There was the standard monster, also known as the beast. They vary greatly, but the simplest way to describe them is as an abnormally large animal. If you ever met a 7-foot-tall rat, it's safe to assume it's a beast. However, if you come across a normal-sized dog with six eyes, you should assume he's a beast as well.

Then there's the High-beasts, which are the second type of monster. The only distinction between beast and high-beast was their intelligence and the ability to use a power known as Aina. High-beasts have the ability to increase raw power and enhance their senses.

The Magical beasts are far more powerful than the previous two types. As the name implies, magical beasts are beasts that can use magic.

Magic is a power that creatures with the ability to generate mana can use. A monster can use mana to create lightning bolts, engulf its body in fire without taking damage, and do other things.

Their use of mana was not as refined as that of the nobility, but they did have one advantage over the nobility.

The thing is, the magical beast gets better at using its mana as it ages. And, unlike nobility, magical beasts had one advantage over nobility that I will discuss later.

And the final group is more of a collection of one-of-a-kind magical beasts than a category.

On the human side, there were the seven apostles, and on the monster side, there was the Mythical Beast. They were far more powerful than the seven apostles due to their nearly impenetrable skins and their unique use of aina. Because mythical beasts do not age, they have been around since the dawn of humanity, making them the world's oldest magical-wielding creature. If Humanity goes up against them, we will undoubtedly lose. Fortunately for us, Mythical Beasts live far away from humanity and almost never leave their territory, so the only encounters with mythical beasts recorded up to this point are those left by the seven apostles.

Along with the encyclopedia, I’ve also discovered several interesting facts about humanity among the books in secret rooms.

I used to believe that there were only two kinds of people: commoners and nobles, but I was wrong. The was more than that,

To classify humanity, the church and the nobility use different names.

For the church, there were two kinds of people: commoners and nobility, but these two groups could also be subdivided into several sub-categories.

First and foremost we had the normal human being, also known as common folk. They represented eighty-five percent of what is called humanity. They had no super-power, they were just the most regular human one could find.

First and foremost, there was the ordinary human being, also known as the common man or woman. They accounted for 91% of what is known as humanity. They possessed no superpowers; they were simply the most ordinary humans one could find.

Then there are the Aina users, who are also known as commoners, but unlike the other 91%, they have the ability to use aina, a power that allows its user to enhance its ability. There is no known way to predict who will become an aina user. I didn't seem to rely on genetics because there have been cases where aina users are born from the parents of two non-aina users. With the ability to demonstrate an overwhelming combat-oriented advantage over any other normal human, aina-users frequently try to make a living by working for nobility or the church because it is the most rewarding opportunity they will ever have.

Nobility: A class of people born with the ability to produce mana, and thus the ability to use magic. Nobles are also natural-born Aina users, but they prefer magic over Aina.

In comparison to the commoner, the nobility could be divided into subclasses based on their birthright.

There were the nobles who descended from the apostles. The first and most common category of noble.

From the sixth month of a noble's life until his death, he began to produce mana. The pregnancy should go smoothly as long as the unborn child's or the mother's mana capacity aren't too out of sync. If the mother's mana capacity is too great in comparison to one of her unborn children, the pregnancy will undoubtedly end in miscarriage. However, if the unborn child's mana submerges the mother's, it will almost certainly result in premature birth, and in the worst-case scenario, will end the mother's life.

Then there's the child of light, who, like Aina users, has no known explanation for their appearance. A child of light is a child born of commoner parents.

Every now and then, a couple of commoners gives birth to a child with the ability to use magic. The chance of a commoner couple having a child of light is less than 0.025 %, which is further reduced by the fact that a commoner body isn't designed to support a noble child (a living time bomb, if I could say). During pregnancy, two things can happen.

The first scenario is that the unborn child's mana is extremely calm; he only releases a small amount of mana, just enough to keep his or her mother safe. If everything goes as planned, both the baby and the mother will survive.

The second is that the unborn child overburdens his mother with his excessive mana, resulting in the death of both the mother and the child.

The church or the noble in charge of the domain confiscates all children of light without exception. It may sound horrible and heinous, but no commoner could deal with a hungry child capable of summoning fire or lightning. After being confiscated, these children would be entrusted to a noble family who would foster him until his fifteenth birthday, at which point he would be free to do whatever he pleased.

And then voilà, it was all that was recorded in the book I read.

Which of the previous cited categories could I fall into?

None of them obviously.

I am convinced that my mother is a commoner and my father a noble, I had no doubt about that.

Despite this, nothing in any of the books I've read so far mentions children born of a commoner and a noble.

At first, I assumed that I was merely a commoner or a noble. But It wouldn't makes sense.

I couldn't possibly be a commoner because I was baptized in the same way that a noble child would be.

Baptismal refers to a ritual performed immediately after the birth of a noble child, which consists of placing the noble child's umbilical cord inside a small box and casting a curse on it. The curse will prevent the baby from using magic until the curse is lifted during a coronation ritual held on the noble tenth birthday. The authority you will be subject to is also chosen during the baptism. This ritual can only be performed by a representative clergy because only they have access to the curse magic used in the ritual.

It's also unlikely that I'm just a noble. If I was just a noble, why would they bother hiding me here in the middle of nowhere? That doesn't explain why Maa bothers to conceal my mother's identity.

All of this led me to three conclusions.

One: Children born to nobility and commoners are despised and hunted to extinction, leaving no trace.

Two: There are no cases of children born to nobility and commoners, which would explain the lack of documentation.

Three: These books just happen to be devoid of information about people like me. This is probably the dumbest assumption I could come up with, but it's the only optimistic one I could think of.

“Aaaah. I came here looking for answers. And here I am, wondering who or what I might be, and what kind of horrifying potential future awaits me.”