Third update today: Chapter 3719! 3/4!
She remembered the origins of most of those treasures with perfect clarity.
This one had been gifted by a Dragon Ancestor of the Dragon Race; that one had been personally forged by a venerable expert of the Phoenix Race; this one had come from the hands of a reclusive grandmaster artificer of the Human Race; that one had been unearthed by some race of the Beast Domain from the deepest reserves of its treasury...
Every single one carried the weighty sincerity of its giver.
She understood those sentiments, and she cherished them.
Yet throughout the long years of the past, these divine artifacts and supreme treasures, enough to drive countless experts mad with envy, had merely been "toys" to her—things she took out to admire and play with in her spare time before carefully putting them away again.
She rarely, or rather, almost never, used them in actual combat.
It was not because she disdained them, nor because she had forgotten about them.
Rather—
When those elders had given her these rare treasures, there had been tenderness and affection in their eyes. They had casually said, "Just little trinkets. Take them and play," offering them with no conditions and no expectations attached...
Perhaps they had never expected her to use them at all.
Behind every treasure lay no calculation, no investment, no expectation of recompense.
There was only heartfelt pity and affection for a girl who had lost her father's protection from childhood.
They had given her supreme treasures not so that she could wage war across the land and achieve glorious deeds.
They had only hoped that, on her long life journey—a journey destined not to be smooth all the way—she would have a little more confidence in protecting herself, one more