Father? God of Life? There was something briefly mentioned about them in the plot, but it was nothing useful. As for why such terms felt familiar—

|Congratulations, Host! You have completed the Hidden Mission as of now! And! You’ve also triggered a Side Mission!|

|What is it?|

| Teach the protagonist and villain how to use magic!|

|Do I have to? I already have one student…|

|Does the Host have important questions for this system or not!?|

|… Fine, I accept.|

Jun had a lot of free time anyway. This was a rare world where not only was he older than those two men, he was more powerful than them! Jun “looked” at Aurelius and Raven, who had been watching him lose himself in his thoughts. “Do you two want to learn how to use magic? You’ll be able to attack and defend against Dark Flames without using your Swords, which will prevent corruption. Even if you two get corrupted again, I can just purify…”

Naturally, they agreed to be Jun's students. Why wouldn’t they? Ophelia had a grand time laughing haughtily at the prospect of being an “elder” apprentice. Little did she know they would overtake her within a couple of weeks. Jun was happy to have two extra sets of eyes to help him get around. Although he was capable of using multiple types of magic simultaneously and could store large quantities of mana in his body, the mana expenditure was exponential and fatigue was prevalent.

As Jun’s party of two became a party of four, they journeyed through the continent while Jun taught his three students magic. There was no sense of discomfort or distance between Jun and Aurelius and Raven. Often, the two men would help him walk in certain hard-to-traverse areas by holding his hand or linking arms, and he instinctively welcomed their touch.

Jun’s suspicions were confirmed when Ophelia whispered to him one day: “Teacher, teacher, I think Ark and Ray might be your past life’s lovers!”

Ophelia had dropped the “sir” address with Aurelius and Raven from the moment she became their “elder” apprentice. 

“Why do you say that?” 

“I forgot to mention it before, but Ark has golden eyes and Ray has those crimson red eyes you’re always talking about!”

“… I don’t always talk about that.” Jun adamantly denied this. Not always, just most of the time.

“Then the feeling? Do you have the feeling, Teacher?” Ophelia gesticulated, copying Jun.

“…” Though he regretted telling Ophelia anything, he did have “the feeling” so he nodded.

“Are you going to become lovers with them now?” Choking on his saliva, Jun nearly bit his tongue.

After recovering through Ophelia’s hearty smacks on his back, he responded, “That depends on them.” 

“How so?”

“I don’t know if they like me in this life.”

“And you, Teacher? Do you like them?”

“It’s not like, Lia. It’s love…” Jun paused, thoughtful. Though he spoke like it was the natural order of things, nearly believing it himself, his heart wavered. Love...? “… And I’ll always love them just like I did in my past life and will do the same in my next life.” 

“Ew, that’s so gross—”

“This kid—!” Giggling, Ophelia ran away while Jun attempted to give chase. Attempted. 

Swords were not only physically strong but had exceptionally heightened senses. As such, Jun did not realize his conversation with Ophelia had been overheard by Aurelius and Raven, who were practicing magic several hundred feet away. 

Raven missed his target, setting Aurelius’s hair on fire. Aurelius doused his entire body with water. They blankly stared at each other before turning in opposite directions and walking away from each other. 

By then, they had been traveling around with Jun and Ophelia for almost three months now. Whenever they met wounded people, they healed them. Whenever it was a Dark Omen, they cured them. Whenever Dark Flames found them, which was often because of Jun, they extinguished them. Raven wasn’t as effective at destroying them as Aurelius, but he could weaken them enough to control them into retreating.

If they continued to work on their magic, they’d probably be able to handle any kind of Dark Flames without Jun’s assistance within another three months. During this time, Aurelius and Raven started to develop some affection for Jun. After all, he was good-looking, kind, and good at cooking—very good wife material!

‘Wait, wife?’ Both men stopped in their tracks at such a thought. Why did they think that way?

For Aurelius, traveling with Jun was the most relaxing he’d felt in a long time. Everything was so simple. No longer was he pressured to prove himself nor had the need to impress anyone. For Raven, he was able to experience the warmth of another again. Due to his corruption, he killed another Sword for the first time and was subsequently ousted by the Sword Association, living a lonely and empty life without aim. Even Raven admitted to his past transgressions, Jun didn’t mind and even offered him a smile of acceptance.

Jun thought, who was he to judge Aurelius and Raven? Not everything nor everyone was black and white. Ever since he found his two men, Jun considered settling down,  but then he remembered that Aurelius was the protagonist, who had a harem of women! Although he didn’t do anything, that part was unacceptable! Deciding they’d travel for three more months instead of settling down, he intensified Aurelius and Raven’s magic training by 5 times. 

Poor Raven didn’t know he was suffering Jun’s wrath because of his younger brother. By the end of the gruesome three months, both men became experts at using magic. Jun was bitter because they learned excessively fast and were stronger at light and dark magic than him. What happened to being a genius? He seemed to have forgotten that neither of them could use earth or wind magic.

“Strangely, you don’t use any spells or magic words to do magic,” Aurelius noted one day.

“Well, those are like your Swords, a way to channel magic, which is useful for people who have poor control over their magic.” But for their party of four, who possessed strong magic and even stronger magic control, such things were more useless than useful. “Mages are Creators of their reality, so the most important factor is one’s imagination.”

This was the reason Ophelia was gifted at magic. She had the potential and the pure-hearted imagination of a child to make anything real.

Following that conversation, the magic lessons and training for Aurelius and Raven reached an official end. There was nothing else for Jun to teach them, and the rest they would have to comprehend and develop on their own. As for Ophelia with the high aptitude, she still required some more training.

|My dearest Host, congratulations on completing the Side Mission! You’re doing so well in this world!|

|Well, yeah…|

Without the interference, this world wasn’t so bad. Too easy, actually. Even his blindness wasn’t much of an issue, though he had to thank himself for electing to learn magic in the training room. 

|If another Side Mission comes up, I’ll let you know, dearest Host~|

|Thanks.|

A year and a half had passed in this world, and with three and a half years left before the Main Mission was completed, Jun contemplated settling down once again. Jun wasn’t a super good-hearted person and thought he had assisted the people of this world enough. Now that Azazel and Elior we're with him, he yearned to retire already. Oh no, his inner laziness was reappearing. 

Some missed milk tea would be nice, too...

Aurelius and Raven also desired to settle down. Having traveled around the continent for years fighting against Dark Flames, they had performed enough as Swords. Aurelius was 23 while Raven was 24. There were many much younger Swords left on the continent, so they didn’t need to continue that profession. Their newfound magic skills and Jun were much more appealing. And of course, there was the adorable Ophelia. Why struggle when they could relax?

Whether they stayed in one place or moved around wasn't important to Ophelia. All that mattered was remaining by Jun’s side. Thus, the decision to settle down was unanimous. All that was left was to determine where. People were still disdainful of Jun’s blindness—it was actually his hair!—so they had to select a more open-minded town or city. Furthermore, after “camping” in forests all the time, they didn’t want to reside in a village.

“How about Illia?” Raven suggested. Illia was a decent-sized city, housing about 25,000 people, and located close to Gondoa, the continent’s capital where the King resided. Because it was a city many travelers and adventurers passed through, Illia was the most suitable for what they wanted: freedom, privacy, and some security.

Remembering how the plot described Illia, Jun was excited. Illia was a seaside city, so essentially a trade and port city. Not only did many people from the continent pass through to reach Gondoa, so did foreigners. Maybe he could find some tea leaves? “Illia sounds good. Let’s go with Illia.”

Their destination set, the party of four set out for Illia, which would be reached in a week. Along the way, they earned some money as Mages and Healers. Jun didn’t spend much of the money he earned and saved quite a lot, hoping he could use his funds to purchase land on the outskirts of Illia for their future homestead.

Upon reaching Illia, they paid an entrance fee, which made Jun shed tears of blood inside. His hard-earned money evaporated just like that. Why was the entrance fee so expensive!? Aurelius glanced at his forlorn expression and thought it so adorable, he handed over his money pouch to Jun.

“For you,” He said. “Teaching fee.”

Raven did the same and wordlessly gave Jun his money pouch. When he “saw” the contents of the two money pouches, Jun’s hands shook as he was “blinded.” His magic could detect what type of metal the coins were made of—Gold! Feeling very rich indeed all of a sudden, Jun laughed a little too maniacally, receiving strange looks from passersby and Ophelia.

Only lovestruck fools like Aurelius and Raven found Jun’s diabolical laughter pleasing to the ears and eyes. Ophelia saw their foolishly fond smiles and shook her head. Love was really blind. ‘Teacher, don’t you see? Your past life’s lovers are already so madly in love with you it’s turning them stupid.’

After suddenly becoming a “new money” master, Jun went straight to Illia’s City Hall to buy land. All he could “see” were pieces of parchment, not what was written, so he relied on Aurelius and Raven to help decide. They found a suitable location, paid for it, then left to acquire some materials. As per his usual tastes, Jun wanted to build a wooden house, and a lot of wood was required to meet his requirements.

Not wanting to attract too much attention, they found a wood vendor and made a large purchase, requesting them to deliver the wood to the land they bought. The delivery took an entire week because the mode of transportation in this world was at the level of ox-driven carts and horse-driven carriages, but the latter was primarily used by the nobility and royalty. 

—

A/N: Well, this chapter ended kinda abruptly 😂