Beilixiya

Gaia Continent, Imperial Calendar 1145.

In a subterranean cave unlisted on any map, somewhere in the outskirts of the Noah Royal Capital, a girl’s scream abruptly echoed.

“Waaaah—Young Master, maybe we should just give these ores back to them!”

The tender face of the ten-year-old dragon-kin maid, Beilixiya, was now deathly pale with fright, the pair of small horns on her head trembling slightly.

Her arms, in a manner utterly disproportionate to her petite frame, were desperately clutching a piece of ore that could only be described as “massive” for her size.

The ore was heavy, forcing her small body to lean forward, yet her short legs, wrapped in white stockings, were now moving at an incredible speed, pattering frantically across the rough cave floor.

Behind them, the shrieks of beasts rose and fell, drawing ever closer; if Beilixiya were to look back now, she could even see the red glow in their eyes.

“Give them back? No way!”

Her twelve-year-old young master, Xia Ya, answered with absolute conviction.

He too was clutching several smaller ores, running even faster than Beilixiya.

“This is Starglimmer Ore, which only appears once every hundred years! It took me a hell of an effort to find this place.”

“Do you have any idea how much adventurers out there would pay for a weapon made from this? Do you know how perfectly a Starglimmer Ore weapon would suit you?”

“Beilixiya doesn’t know anything… Beilixiya only knows that we’re about to die, ahhhhhh!”

As she screamed, she tilted her head to dodge a glob of venom shot from behind.

Beilixiya no longer had the energy to complain about her unreliable young master.

She truly regretted it now.

She had actually believed Xia Ya’s nonsense, not only failing to stop him from skipping his classes but also trotting along after him to this deathtrap…

Xia Ya von Wolfgang, the young lord of the Wolfgang family in the royal capital, and also the most un-aristocratic misfit among the noble children of his age.

While other noble children were learning aristocratic etiquette, he ditched his tutors and took Beilixiya to the army barracks to learn practical swordsmanship and basic magic.

When other children were busy networking at social gatherings, he would slip out midway, taking Beilixiya to join adventurer parties and run dangerous dungeons on search-and-destroy missions…

In the eyes of other nobles, these actions were nothing short of rebellious, but only Xia Ya knew the root cause of this “rebellious” behavior.

His soul did not belong to this world.

In his previous life, Xia Ya came from a world called “Earth.”

His last clear memory was of the explosive pain in his heart after grinding for seventy-two hours straight during his annual leave, and the still-open game interface on his computer screen.

That game was the pixel-art yuri RPG masterpiece that combined romance simulation, strategy combat, and adult elements, set on the “Gaia Continent”: “Dragon Maiden Nurturing Manual.”

When he opened his eyes again, he had become the infant young lord of the Wolfgang family.

At first, he thought it was a dream, but twelve years of aristocratic life—every breath, every touch, every sting of pain as a strict etiquette tutor struck his palm with a ruler—told him with undeniable reality.

He had transmigrated.

He had transmigrated into the game he had grinded himself to death for, and had even become a… mob villain.

Yes, a mob villain.

In the original plot of “Dragon Maiden Nurturing Manual,” the character “Xia Ya von Wolfgang” was positioned as the protagonist’s rival in the first chapter.

In the story, he had a distinguished birth and outstanding talent, but his personality was utterly vile—arrogant, cruel, and viewing commoners as nothing more than dirt.

Under normal circumstances, his fate would either be exile by his family or a direct death at the hands of the protagonist’s party, becoming a high-quality stepping stone and experience pack on the player’s path to growth.

But the Xia Ya of this life would never accept such a future for himself.

Therefore, from the moment he could move around freely on his own, he did everything in his power to disrupt the original plotline.

The most crucial of these actions was to snatch the future ceiling of the protagonist’s party’s combat power—Beilixiya von Wolfgang—from the slums ahead of schedule to serve as his personal maid.

As long as he could successfully raise the Beilixiya from the original story, who was strong enough to solo the Demon King, into his own top enforcer, while also deliberately avoiding the original “villainous young master” persona, then forget the protagonist’s party—not even God Almighty could easily take him down!

“Hah… hah…”

The faint speck of light at the cave’s exit finally became blinding sunlight, as Xia Ya and Beilixiya practically tumbled their way out.

The very instant Beilixiya’s tail cleared the opening, the cave entrance collapsed right before their eyes, burying the monsters that had been chasing them forever underground.

“We’re… we’re safe!”

Beilixiya’s legs gave way.

The massive ore in her arms thudded to the ground beside her feet, and she collapsed onto her bottom, her face ashen and her chest heaving violently.

Xia Ya was also panting heavily, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, but his face was alight with the exhilaration of survival and the joy of a successful harvest.

“See? I told you it would be fine! We got the Starglimmer Ore! Beilixiya, we now have the material for your exclusive Starglimmer Greatsword!”

Lying on the ground, Beilixiya turned her head and shot Xia Ya a fierce glare.

She had no strength left to complain about the day’s events.

Now, she simply looked up at the azure sky and prayed as she always did.

‘Oh, dear gods, if you can hear Beilixiya’s voice, please make Young Master Xia Ya calm down in the future. Your devout believer, Beilixiya, prays to you…’

Gaia Continent, Imperial Calendar 1150.

The Wolfgang Family’s Private Training Grounds.

“Hah—!”

With an explosive sound, a massive black shadow, wreathed in a turbulent gale, swept across and precisely struck the neck of a training dummy.

The top half of the tempered steel dummy flew through the air, crashing against a retaining wall over ten meters away with a loud clang.

The cut was as smooth as a mirror.

The black shadow came to a sudden halt.

It was a greatsword nearly as tall as a person.

Its body was a deep, dark silver, and within the blade, countless fine stars seemed to be sealed, refracting dreamlike points of azure starlight under the sun—forged from the very Starglimmer Ore that Xia Ya and Beilixiya had brought back from the brink of death in that cave five years ago.

Wielding this “Wrath of the Stars” was the fifteen-year-old Beilixiya.

Five years had shed most of the baby fat from her face.

Her figure had grown taller and leaner, revealing the supple lines unique to a young woman.

Those amber dragon eyes, once filled with terror, were now as serene as a deep pool, igniting with a sharp, golden glint only in the instant she swung her sword.

The horns on her head had become harder and more defined.

Her tail, which once trembled slightly when she ran, now hung steadily behind her, its tip curving with a sense of power.

The ore she once struggled to carry with both arms now felt as light as a feather in one of her hands.

She wore a custom-tailored battle-ready version of her maid uniform—the skirt shortened to above the knee for mobility, an outer layer covered in light yet tough alloy plates, the white stockings replaced with more practical leather boots, and a deep blue ribbon neatly tying her silver-grey hair back.

Beilixiya sheathed her sword, her breathing even, with only a few beads of sweat trickling from her temples.

She looked at the dummy she had so easily decapitated, not with pride, but with a familiar sigh mixed with helplessness and indulgence.

“Young Master.”

She turned around.

“This is the seventh dummy this month. The butler was just complaining to me yesterday about the procurement budget being overrun.”

In the shade of a tree at the edge of the training grounds, the seventeen-year-old Xia Ya was reclining on a comfortable lounge chair, holding a ridiculously thick ancient tome whose cover was inscribed with complex magic runes.

His figure was tall and slender, the elegant silhouette of a nobleman already apparent, but the innate, flighty unruliness in his eyes had not diminished in the slightest.

Instead, it had settled into a kind of devil-may-care confidence.

Hearing Beilixiya’s complaint, he lazily lifted his eyelids and closed the book in his hands—its title was prominently displayed: “Principles and Expansion of Applied Spatial Magic (Forbidden Arts Volume).”

“Tsk, so stingy.”

Xia Ya pouted, casually tossing the book onto a small round table beside him.

“They’re just a few lumps of iron. How could they be more important than my Beilixiya getting familiar with her new weapon? Speaking of which…”

He stood up, flexed his wrists, and a familiar, mischievous grin spread across his lips, causing alarm bells to ring in Beilixiya’s mind.

“Don’t you think training dummies aren’t as good as live targets?”

Beilixiya’s amber pupils contracted for a moment, and her tail instinctively went rigid.

“Young Master, you can’t be thinking…”

“Bingo!”

Xia Ya snapped his fingers, his smile brilliant.

“Today’s ‘routine adventure’ is… a fight with me!”

Beilixiya pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling the few beads of sweat there instantly threaten to turn into a cold sweat.

Five years!

A whole five years!

She was long accustomed to her young master’s endless “surprises”—from practicing wind magic to glide off the highest clock tower in the royal capital (and nearly getting shot down by the patrolling knights as an intruder); to attempting to dye the gargoyle statue in the garden with a modified alchemical potion (which resulted in the gargoyle going berserk and chasing an innocent gardener for three blocks); and just last week, he had dragged her deep into the royal dungeons to “visit” the old black dragon imprisoned there for a century, claiming he wanted to test the “natural resistance of dragon-kin to draconic aura” (even through three layers of reinforced wards, she could feel that suffocating pressure, and had nightmares for three days afterward)…

Every single time, she was the one left terrified, desperately cleaning up the mess, and silently praying to the possibly non-existent “dear gods” for her young master to just calm down.

The poor maid-slash-bodyguard.

And now, another item had been added to the young master’s adventure checklist: personally volunteering to be a punching bag?

“But, Young Master,” Beilixiya attempted to protest, “you know I can’t control my strength well… Besides, didn’t you nearly blow up your own study yesterday while researching that ‘spatial magic’? I think you need to rest more, or… maybe read a book on etiquette?”

She pointed to a brand-new copy of “The Essentials of Noble Etiquette,” which lay next to the forbidden tome he had tossed onto the table.

“Rest? The Grim Reaper aiming for your young master’s head isn’t going to take a break!”

Xia Ya waved his hand dismissively.

He had already walked to the center of the training grounds and casually pulled a practice rapier from the weapon rack.

With a flick of his wrist, he performed a beautiful flourish, the movement fluid and pleasing to the eye—the fruit of countless times sneaking into army training camps and the Adventurers’ Guild to “steal” their techniques.

“As for your strength? Don’t worry, come at me with all you’ve got! Let me see the results of your five years of training, and I’ll show you the results of my own secret practice!”