You know, I often wondered what the consciousness would go when I slept. Never did I imagine that it was a dark void.

Seriously, my surroundings right now were pitch black—and it wasn’t like the darkness of the cave, either. I could tell that there was literally nothing here.

“Looks like I’m lucid dreaming?”

But whatever this space was, it was good for me. It gave me respite from the constant babbling of Nira, and, most importantly, I could tell that my mental connection with her was severed here.

“Finally, I can think about her without her knowing.”

So, about Nira choking me the other day…

“It’s strange that she didn’t just kill me there.”

After all, if the owner of a Gift died, then said Gift would be turned into an Artifact if the Gift was a Tool-type like Nira, or a Skill book if the Gift was an Ability-type.

And with Nira being able to change between her humanoid and sword forms at will, she would’ve been basically free if she had killed me there.

“Then, why did she spare me?”

I was thoroughly confused. Nira was a person/sword of many contradictions, but this one instance was just incomprehensibly absurd. 

Seeing that thinking about it more would just hurt my head and not solve anything, I decided to put it in the back of my mind.

Onto another matter. The recent fight with the Octalicum…broadened my horizons.

“Magic is pretty useful…”

Of course, I knew that even in my previous life. However, I didn’t practice it then because I couldn’t handle Mana.

But this body could, and pretty efficiently at that. The only reason why I didn’t practice magic in this life was because I wanted to get back to my former power as soon as possible.

But now…it seemed that I’d die before I could get even half of my strength back if things continued like this.

So, after some minutes of thinking, I decided to start practicing Magic as soon as I got out of here.

Speaking of getting out of here, I could feel something tugging at me, pulling me out of the dark void.

‘Looks like I’m waking up.’

And woke up I did. The next second, all of my senses came back again. I could feel the cool air contrasting against something warm pressing against me, I could hear the sound of steady breathing right next to me and giggling from afar, and I could taste the iron of the blood in my mouth.

Then, as the final confirmation, I slowly opened my eyes. It took me a few seconds to adjust to the light, but that was all I needed to confirm that I was really back in the real world.

As my eyes finally got used to the light, the first thing I saw was Nira’s pretty face staring at me. 

“You’re finally up?”

What was strange was the distance between us—she was abnormally close to me.

…Well, forget that. Not just close, she was literally hugging me; and my face was dangerously close to being buried in her chest. 

Staring at her for a few more seconds, I asked,

“Why are you hugging me?”

She immediately replied, as if she’d been practicing this response for days. “You’re cold. I can feel what you feel, and I don’t want to feel cold.”

But there was one flaw with her excuse.

“...You can cut the mental connection at any time, though.”

“Oh, how silly of me. I forgot,” she said nonchalantly; her face portraying no emotion.

At least, that was what I thought until I noticed the tips of her ears getting a bit red as if she’d just been caught lying.

Something was definitely up, but I could always ask Aerin later so I decided to let this matter go for now.

As I stood up, I could see a brief flash of regret flashing through Nira’s face. Just a brief flash, but the emotion was still there.

Not particularly minding this, I looked to my right—where the giggling sound was, and I saw Aerin and Ihwa throwing snowballs at each other.

‘Wait, snow?’

Only now did I realize that we were out of the cave.

As if knowing what I was going to ask, Nira said,

“You passed out for what, a day? Anyways, Aerin and I cleared the rocks after that, and now we’re half-way back to the mansion.”

“I see… By the way, can you teach me Magic?”

Nira took a step back. Clearly, she was very surprised by my sudden question.

“W-What? What are you on about?” 

Seeing her eyeing me cautiously like that, I sighed.

“It’s not a joke, I swear. I really need to learn Magic.”

“Guess that Octalicum really spooked you, huh?”

She was right on the mark. Though, I wasn’t going to confirm i—

“I can read your mind.”

Of course…now she knew how pathetic I was.

“Wanting to learn Magic is nothing pathetic. In fact—” she gave me a grin. “—I thought that you’d never ask.”

“So, you will teach me?” I looked at her with puppy— foxy eyes. 

However, her next words broke all of my hope.

“Who says I’m going to teach you?”

Before I could give her a nice and hard slap on the face, she continued.

“And it’s not like I don’t want to. Believe me, I’d want nothing more than for you to learn magic. However, I don’t know how to teach you.”

“...What do you mean?”

“Hmmm…” she tapped a finger on her chin. “...How do I say this? You know how you don’t need anyone to teach you to breathe?”

“Yes…”

“It’s somewhat like that. It’s just in my nature to use Magic, so I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I see…you’re useless, then.”

“Did you already forget who saved you back in the cave?”

“...I’m not talking to you anymore.”

Ignoring Nira, who was following behind me, I made my way to the snowball battle between Ihwa and Aerin.

Ihwa immediately abandoned playing upon noticing my presence and ran up to me for a hug.

“Nova! You’re awake!”

I accepted her hug and let her pat my ears like always. As I was purring, she said,

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Then, I saw Aerin approaching us from behind with a smile. Only then did I notice that something was strange. Ihwa hadn’t met Nira and Aerin before, so what caused her to be so friendly with them?

As I was about to ask her, Ihwa spoke.

“They are your swords, aren’t they?”

I froze on the spot. What? How did she know?

But upon seeing Aerin’s apologetic smile, I could pierce together what had happened.

“Aerin…explain.”

“Yes.” she averted her eyes to the ground. “I had to disclose our identities because Ihwa wouldn’t stop swinging her sword at us.”

“That’s why I told you to knock her out,” Nira interjected.

“But still…”

“Nova, what do you think?”

There was only one answer to Nira’s question.

“I think Aerin made a good choice. Ihwa is someone trustworthy.”

“Wah!” Ihwa suddenly hugged me tighter. “So you do trust Unnie!”

While Aerin was still smiling warmly, Nira’s face darkened. With a frown, she said,

“I’m going. I don’t have enough energy to deal with this farce.”

Then, she turned back into a sword.

I stayed in Ihwa’s embrace for a few more seconds before picking Nira up and continuing my journey not back home, but toward the city Ria took me to before.

The reason? I still had two days left, and the forest was right next to the city.

And…I didn’t want to go back home with a body full of scratches and bruises.

I told Ihwa this, and it looked like that she could also come.

Just like that, after a few more hours, we arrived at the city.