Chapter 81: Where exactly did you find this child?

"Renna, aren’t you reacting a little too much?" Rowena finally had to step in to stop her granddaughter.

She had her own doubts too, but Magna was still the one who had saved their family member and brought her body back from that place, so at the very least he deserved some respect for that.

"Am I reacting too much?" Renna showed no sign of calming down. "This dwarf is spouting nonsense nonstop, and I’m the one overreacting?"

What she couldn’t accept was this. If it had really been that easy to escape, then why had her mother died? Was her mother weak? That was something she simply couldn’t accept.

Finally, to prove he was lying, she suggested. "If you want me to believe you, then show me. Let’s see how good your fighting really is, good enough to save a life better than even a 9th Trial Witch could."

"Renna." Rowena stepped in again, trying to stop this pointless argument, but by now Magna’s patience had run out too.

"You want to fight me? Fine. But don’t cry later when I kick your ass," he said, pointing a finger at her.

It wasn’t that he was so desperate or angry that he couldn’t think straight when he agreed to the fight.

It was simply that if he wanted them to believe him, he figured he had to at least show them his fighting ability.

Renna wasn’t like Titus, so beating her shouldn’t be too hard, or so he thought.

As long as he moved first and kept her from chanting any spell, there shouldn’t be a problem. It might even be an easy fight.

He was quite wrong about that, though he didn’t realize it until Faye’s whisper reached his ear from behind. "Hey, hey, are you sure about this? Do you even know what her bloodline trait is?"

Magna gave her a side glance. "What?"

But it was too late to learn anything more, since things had already escalated past the point of no return.

—

’What the hell is this,’ Magna thought, standing on the outside training ground, looking at the figure across from him.

He was already regretting that he’d agreed to the fight.

Renna stood across from him in her red robe and wide red Witch hat, not taking any guard at all.

But even without a guard, Magna was too afraid to even get close to her.

An unbelievable heat radiated off her, so intense that just looking at her, he could see the air around her twisting and burning.

Even from a few meters away, Magna had already started sweating from the heat hitting his face.

The crazy part was that she hadn’t even chanted a single spell. It was just her bloodline trait making her body run this hot.

"If you don’t want to make the first move, I will," Renna finally said, unable to wait any longer.

’I can’t let her cast a spell if I want to win this,’ Magna thought, finally making up his mind to attack.

He had no weapons on him at the moment, so he raised his bare hands into a fighting stance and lunged forward suddenly.

The distance between them wasn’t that great, so he was sure he could land a punch straight into her open stomach before she could finish chanting anything.

But Renna had no intention of chanting at all.

Seeing Magna finally commit to attacking, she took a fighting stance instead of starting a chant.

She slid one foot forward and raised both fists up in front of her face.

Mid rush, Magna was thrown off for a moment seeing her boxing style stance, but he didn’t slow down.

The girl wasn’t as big as Titus, and she wouldn’t be as physically strong as him either.

Focused on just one plan, land a hit on her stomach and end the fight in a single move, he was already right in front of her.

—

Watching from the sidelines, Rowena was still watching the two of them sizing each other up on the training grounds as she asked. "Are you sure you want to allow this? Renna doesn’t hold back when she fights. The boy could get hurt."

Strangely enough, she was the only one among them who seemed against the fight.

Even more surprising was that Celeste hadn’t said a single word so far, simply going along with whatever happened.

"Don’t worry. If things get out of hand, Titus is here to step in," she was very calm, even letting out a small chuckle.

The moment Magna agreed to the fight, Celeste had simply let him be, since in her eyes the boy was already someone capable of making his own decisions, and all she owed him was respect for that.

She also genuinely believed Magna wouldn’t have much of a disadvantage in this fight, having seen his talent in combat firsthand.

Still finding Celeste’s calmness rather strange, Rowena chose to stay quiet as well and watch, her interest growing by the second.

The reason Renna hadn’t contracted with a Shadow all this time wasn’t that she hated men or they lacked money to find one at alll.

The real reason was that she simply hadn’t found anyone worthy yet.

The Cinder bloodline trait wasn’t just about raising their body temperature to unbelievable levels. Its true power came from boiling their blood to gain incredible physical strength.

Born with this bloodline trait, every Witch from the Cinder family began training in close combat from early childhood.

So Renna was already as strong as any Shadow at her age, able to protect herself with her own fists in a fight without needing anyone else.

Then, as the two figures on the training ground finally began to move, the next scene came with a loud bang that echoed across the whole arena.

Watching the scene, Rowena couldn’t help but widen her eyes in shock, unable to stop herself from asking again.

"Celeste, where exactly did you find this child?"