Sidestory: The chaotic devil and the mercenary (1)

"..A mutation."

A handsome man with short raven hair and deep blue eyes was standing next to a hospital bed, holding a screaming baby in his arms.

The eyes of the man widened as he looked into the eyes of the baby.

He looked over to his wife, who was already asleep due to exhaustion, comparing both of their features.

While the baby had the raven black hair and pale skin of the leviathan house, she didn't possess their most notable feature.

She didn't have the deep blue eyes that almost all of the leviathan house members possessed. Instead, her eyes were a dark, striking purple.

They just struck the feeling of fear and chaos in people.

However, instead of being intimidating, when the baby noticed the shocked expression of her father, she raised her arm, touching his face.

She gently caressed his face, before flashing him a wide smile.

"Dada."

Her father returned her smile with a gentle expression.

Although he was worried about her future, that was a problem for later.

For now, she was just his adorable little daughter.

*

Five years had passed since that day.

Acedia was a smart girl and as such, she learned to walk and speak only a few months after her birth.

The small leviathan girl ran across the mansion, looking for her little baby sister, as she suddenly ran into one of their butlers.

"Ow!" Acedia fell down on her butt. She rubbed her nose, as she slowly raised her head, looking at the tall butler, that she ran into. "I'm sowry Butler."

"Oh no, Lady Acedia." He gave her an apologetic smile. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. Is there anything that you need?"

"My sistar!"

"Oh," The butler reached his hand out to her. "Lady Seraphir is in the main hall with the Lord."

Acedia grabbed the hand of the butler, pulling herself up. "I shee."

Nodding, she ran by, turning to him and flashing a wide grin before completely disappearing from his view. "Thank yu!"

When she arrived, she carefully opened the door.

Spotting her father with her little sister in his arms, she sprinted towards them.

"Papa!" The small Acedia jumped onto his leg, grabbing it with both of her hands. "I wannar play with Sera too!"

"Sure, honey." Acedia's father kneed down, kissing her on the cheek, before carefully giving her the baby.

Slowly, Acedia grabbed Seraphir, carefully carrying her in her arms.

For a while, she just silently stared at her little sister, with a smile glued to her face.

"Papa." She raised her head, looking at her father. "Why do I have purple eyes?"

Acedia had that question for quite some while now but never dared to ask it as she feared the answer.

From the maids, she had already heard about illegitimate children of noble houses and thus feared being one herself, as she had a different eye color.

However, now with the birth of her little sister, she couldn't contain her curiosity.

Her father froze up at that question, giving her a wry smile.

Scratching the back of his head, he thought about how to explain that to her. "You know honey, it's because you are a very special child."

"Special?"

"Very." He nodded. "Do you know what the leviathan house stands for?"

"Uhm…" Acedia narrowed her big, round eyes, as she touched her lips, recalling the information from books she had read. "We are the gatekeepers of hell and our domain is..envy..ocean..and…?"

No matter how hard she thought, she couldn't put her finger on what the last thing was.

Her father chuckled. "Chaos. Our last domain is chaos."

"I've never seen papa do chaos, though?"

"Yes." He nodded. "It's because I can't."

"Huh..?" Acedia's eyes widened in surprise. "There's something Papa can't do?"

"Yes" Her father responded with the usual gentle smile on his face, enjoying the adorable look of surprise on his daughter's face. "But you can."

"HUH?!Reallyyyy?"

Chuckling, he patted Acedia's head. "Yes, really. You have a very rare mutation, that only a few in the history of the leviathan had."

"So I can create chaos?" Acedia spun around excitedly, raising her arms and spinning around with the baby.

"Hey, careful." Her father warned her with a stern voice, taking the baby back into his arms. "You'll wake your sister up."

"Oh." Acedia put both of her hands before her mouth, acting as if she had just said a forbidden word.

"Seriously." With a gentle smile on his face, he massaged his forehead. "You already create enough chaos. Even without your chaos magic."

*

Seven years later.

Acedia was now twelve.

She started learning magic two years ago and was regarded as a prodigy by everyone.

In only a couple of months, she broke through the third tier and managed to learn the basics of 'Hellwater', one of the leviathan house's greatest arts.

After only two years, she managed to break through the sixth tier and mastered the 'Hellwater' arts. As of that moment, she had already started grasping the basics of chaos magic.

Usually, members of the leviathan household only unlock the 'Hellwater' ability after fully understanding the extent of their curse.

However, due to Acedia's mutation, she skipped that part to master the 'Hellwater' arts. Though, a new problem appeared.

While she didn't have the curse of 'envy', apparently, she got cursed with its more negative sibling, jealousy.

At least that's what she had read in her books.

Although she already understood the very basics, she couldn't proceed, as she couldn't exactly understand her curse.

As she never felt jealousy before, her understanding of the whole concept of jealousy was lacking.

"Sister!" The small Seraphir excitedly ran towards her big sister and jumped into her arms, embracing her in a tight hug. "Are you done with training?"

Seraphir also started her magic lessons after she watched her sister doing it.

She begged her father to let her learn magic at an early age, even though he had originally planned to wait until she was ten.

Cracking a small smile, Acedia nodded. "Yes, I am. What about you?"

Huffing cutely, she responded. "Sister is a far better teacher."

"Oh, is that so?" Acedia put her hand in front of her mouth, giggling. "That's unfortunate."

Not being able to suppress her cuteness aggression, she ruffled through Seraphir's hair.

"Mhhhmm.." Acedia grumbled before her expression instantly lightened as she recalled the original reason why she ran to her sister. "Oh, right!"

Seraphir put her hand in her trouser pocket, pulling out a small, strange-looking orb.

Acedia raised her eyebrow. "What is that?"

She looked at Seraphir, who just responded with a shrug. "Dunno. I found this in papa's room and it looked cool."

While Acedia knew that she should tell her to put it back, as it was dangerous, she, too, was curious about what the orb was.

She reached out to the orb and grabbed the orb, analyzing it.

"It's pretty." The orb had a strange color. It was primarily black but got a purple glow as soon as Acedia touched it.

"It glows!"

"It reacts to my mana…" Acedia analyzed.

Before she touched it, the orb was blue, probably reacting to Seraphir's mana, but after she touched it, the glow turned purple.

"Leave the room for now, please." Acedia waved her hand at Seraphir, her eyes still glued onto the orb.

"Huh…?" Seraphir complained. "But I wanna watch!"

With a serious expression, Acedia shook her head. "No..it could be dangerous."

She then glanced at the clock that hung on the wall of her room, above the brown wooden door. "Call for help, when I'm not there until dinner."

With a disappointed expression, Seraphir resigned and left the room. "Okay, sis…"

"Good girl." Acedia smiled at Seraphir, ask she watched her sister leaving the room.

"Now then.." Acedia focused her attention back on the orb. Although she knew, that it wasn't a good idea to try something unknown while being alone, she just couldn't suppress her curiosity.

"Judging by the fact, that it reacted to my mana..how about…" Acedia forced a bit of her mana into the orb.

The purple glow got stronger and stronger until the orb suddenly broke.

"Huh?"

Suddenly, a black liquid spread around the room, trapping Acedia and slowly fully engulfing her.

And before she could react, she lost her consciousness.