The Beloved Baby Priestess of the Twelve Zodiac Gods - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1
On a bed so old it seemed ready to creak with any movement at all.
Arin lay curled upon it, small and frail even for her years.
The thin rags could not ward off the cold of dawn, and her fingers and toes had gone numb.
When the sun finally rose, its light filtered through the torn canvas of the tent, and the chill eased somewhat.
But soon the morning birds began their mad shrieking, and not long after, her belly let out a loud, demanding rumble.
Only then did Arin remember she was hungry. She rose from her bed.
“Up and at it.”
With small hands like fern fronds, she folded the cloth away with practiced efficiency, then stepped into the main room.
Though the child was not yet three feet tall, the floorboards groaned loudly beneath her feet.
The floor was pocked with holes here and there.
Dust motes hung in the air, catching the sunlight and glimmering as they marked her path.
Arin paid no mind to any of it, hurrying outside in her quick, mincing steps.
After washing her face briefly with water from the basin in the yard, she made her way to the Great Hall.
On the table lay a meal so modest it bordered on meager.
Someone had left it there while she slept.
“The side dishes are getting fewer.”
The tray held only barley rice and soy sauce.
When she had first been confined here, the meals had been far more generous.
As the servants had gradually come to see her as a burden, the quality of her care had steadily declined.
Unaware of such undercurrents, Arin sat cheerfully before the meal and picked up her spoon.
She poured all the soy sauce into her rice bowl and mixed it together, making it barely palatable, though it was nothing compared to the meals she had received before.
But Arin did not protest.
A child who complained about food was a wicked child.
She had been told to stay quiet until her father’s anger subsided.
Arin held fast to every word she had heard since her confinement began.
Three months had already passed since she had been shut away in the Annex Hall.
Outside, spring was now in full bloom.
Arin stood gazing blankly beyond the stone wall.
“Little one!”
At the familiar voice calling from a distance, Arin’s eyes flew open.
“Mother?”
She bolted from her seat and rushed toward the door.
Pitter-patter-patter.
She crossed the yard barefoot and reached the door, but it remained firmly shut.
“Mother! Mother, I’m here! I’m right here!”
No matter how hard Arin pounded, there came no response.
‘They said Mother collapsed because of me……!’
Ever since Arin’s failed attempt at Hwansoo.
Her mother had taken to her sickbed from the shock, and her father had turned away from Arin with a flushed face.
Her elder brother had called it her fault entirely, declaring it a stain upon the Hong Saga that would never be repeated.
Arin believed her family’s anger was due to her own shortcomings.
She had hoped that with time, they would release her from this place and smile upon her again. Yet three months had already passed.
Growing desperate, Arin looked around her.
Finally, she pressed her body against the stone wall and began wedging her feet into the crevices to climb.
She slipped several times and scraped her hands raw, but she did not stop.
At last, with her arms straining over the top of the wall, she peered out.
“Mother, did you not hear some sound from over there?”
In the distance, a girl held her mother’s hand as they walked together.
‘That should be mine…….’
Arin stared blankly at the ornament hanging from the girl’s skirt.
The Red Coral Ornament that symbolized the Hong Saga.
Three months ago, it had been Arin’s.
She could not fathom that a stranger wore her possession as though it were her own.
Then their eyes met.
“Mot——!”
Arin broke into a bright smile as though she had never been sad, and reached out her hand.
But her mother’s face hardened at once, and she quickly turned away, shielding the girl from Arin’s view.
“Some wild beast must have wandered in. So-so, that Annex Hall over there is unmaintained and dangerous. You must never go inside it.”
“Yes, Mother.”
The girl called So-so quickened her pace with a charming smile.
Arin could only watch helplessly as her mother receded into the distance, unable to call out.
“No… Mother didn’t see me.”
She couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.
Only her mother’s cold gaze and frigid expression echoed endlessly in her mind.
The momentum that had carried her up the wall so fiercely drained away.
“Aah!”
Her weakened feet slipped, and Arin tumbled headlong to the ground.
Thump. Tumble.
Lying prone on the earth, unable to move for a moment, Arin gazed up at the blue sky and suddenly burst into tears.
“Wahhh.”
The mother she thought was ill now looked perfectly healthy.
And yet she did not come looking for her.
The servants who fussed over every small scrape, the mother who had sung lullabies, the father who had fed her honey cakes by hand—none of them were here.
Her beloved Elder Brother sent no word.
Arin understood clearly what that meant.
She had been abandoned.
A member of the Twelve Zodiac Signs who could not transform was no member of the Zodiac at all.
The Hong Saga family had been desperate to hide the fact that their youngest daughter was a Defective One.
And so Arin was isolated deep within the Annex Hall.
* * *
The Yeonha Kingdom, ruled by the bearers of the Twelve Zodiac Signs.
Eleven great families gathered around the Baek Ryong Clan, each inheriting the essence of the Zodiac from generation to generation.
The direct lineage of a Zodiac house could open their Spirit Core by age five, enabling Hwansoo—the ability to transform into a sacred beast.
Hwansoo was the very power of the Zodiac.
Success in Hwansoo granted free command of that Zodiac’s might.
The Hong Saga had contracted with the Fire Snake among the Zodiac, and thus bore the natural gift of wielding fire with perfect ease.
For any direct heir of the Hong Saga, this was a given.
Yet last year, the Hong Saga faced an unprecedented crisis.
Their sole direct heir daughter, Hong Arin, had failed at Hwansoo.
At first, it was blamed on an immature Spirit Core—reinforcement would set things right, they said.
But as months passed with no improvement, the physicians diagnosed it as a Spirit Core Deformity.
Hong Ijin, the head of the Hong Saga, could not accept his child’s condition.
He could not admit that the girl destined for the Baek Ryong Clan was flawed.
The Baek Ryong Clan, the first to contract with a Zodiac deity and thus founder of the kingdom alongside the other great families, had long upheld marriage bonds with the daughters of Zodiac houses.
With a union to the Baek Ryong Clan already assured, this calamity struck the Hong Saga at the worst moment.
For Hong Ijin, whose ambition to seal the Baek Ryong connection had been absolute, Arin’s failure weighed heavily.
He could not present a Defective One to the royal family.
Discovery by other houses would bring only shame and ruin.
And so, as he temporized and delayed, good news came at last.
A girl from the Hong Saga’s collateral branch had achieved Hwansoo.
It was not unheard of for collateral lines to succeed at Hwansoo.
Once confirmed, Hong Ijin registered the girl as his daughter three months ago.
That was the Hong So-so Arin had glimpsed yesterday.
Hong So-so inherited Arin’s old chamber without change.
Before arriving at the Hong Saga Residence, So-so had always been hungry.
Her mother was a drunk, her father a gambler.
Living in such grinding poverty, So-so had never imagined fortune would find her.
Though her power to transform lasted only briefly, So-so could now fill her belly whenever she wished.
Her worthless parents had sold her to the Hong Saga like chattel.
And what a fortunate sale it had been. Raised without want as a proper direct heir of the Hong Saga, So-so happened to discover a shabby annex.
In a ramshackle place much like the home she’d left behind, she found another girl her age, confined within.
Hair the color of flame flower petals, bright and crimson.
Pale, ashen cheeks and golden eyes sharp as stars set in her face.
There was something inexplicably unsettling about this girl—bearing an air of nobility yet clothed in rags.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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