I quickly took action and summoned Aerin in her sword form. Holding her over my head, I thrust her down…into Fenris’ corpse.

[AUR has permanently increased by 0.5]

“Nee-san, what—”

“Shut up for a second, will you?”

By the time I realized my mistake, Nowa’d already begun sobbing. 

My hands…they felt weak. Although my sister was the one responsible for this, I couldn’t bring myself to hate her. So, as her “nee-san,” I vowed to fix this. I left Aerin where she was and knelt down to Nowa, but not before ordering Violette to be on lookout.

“Nowa, I-I’m sorry.” I patted her back soothingly.

Nowa continued sobbing for a bit before regaining her calm.

“N-Nee-chan…hate me?”

“No, I don’t.” I quickly shot down the misunderstanding. “It’s just that…you did a very bad thing.”

“...Bad?”

“Yes. Don’t ever do this again, unless it’s necessary, okay?”

“Is gift for Nee-san...no necessary?”

‘Okay, she got a long way to go.’

I sighed. She would fit in the battlefield like a neat glove, but I specifically didn’t want her to experience war, whether direct or indirect.

And…I could already imagine how Mom would react if she knew of this. She definitely wouldn’t abandon Nowa, but I could already see her blaming herself for not raising her daughter correctly.

So, after some deliberation, I decided to hide it and bury the body deep within the ground. I then roamed the garden and found some Lily seeds. After planting it right above where Fenris was buried, I hugged Nowa from behind and whispered,

“Nowa, let this be a little secret between us, okay?”

“Secret? Mom…not know?”

“Yes. She absolutely can’t know about this.”

.

.

.

.

Strangely, the Lilies blossomed overnight, which was a good thing since no one would dare to dig them up now. I could still remember the time when a new gardener accidentally stomped on Mom’s flowers… Yeah, let’s just say that someone shat their pants that day.

That aside, since I’d “fulfilled” Mom’s request of taking Nowa out to play, she began to teach me Magic.

…It wasn’t anything crazy. She just told me to meditate until I’d learned how to move Mana—which I'd already did in the past four years. 

‘Well, she already thinks that’s I’m a genius, what’s one more going to hurt?’

That was why I decided to show her my (subpar) Mana control the next day. And yep, just like I’d expected, she regained her calm after a few seconds of initial shock.

“Okay, little one, you’re learning…much faster than I thought you would.”

“Really?” I feigned innocence. “How long did it take you?”

“Two years.”

It was lucky that Mom was naturally gullible. Not that it was a bad thing to me, though.

“Then, when’s the next lesson—”

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can teach you.” She lowered her head regretfully.

“W-What?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” she quickly clarified. “It’s not like I don’t want to, and it’s not like I’m not good at teaching, either. It’s just that…it’s almost impossible to teach Magic due to its nature.”

“...What do you mean?”

“Okay, listen carefully.”

My ears involuntarily twitched at this.

“The way each person activates their Magic is different. But it all boils down to how you see Magic.”

“But I don’t have Eyes of Mana…”

“I didn’t mean it literally,” she sighed. “I’ll just tell you how I visualize my Magic. I think of it as a tower whose building blocks have to be carefully stacked on top of each other.” 

I listened to her words and tried using her method. Since my Attributes weren’t awakened yet, I decided to use Illusion magic since Fox-kin are naturally born with it. 

I decided not to use [Garden of Illusion], not right now; not even for a long time, I suppose. After all, when I first tried to use it, a big blue box saying, [INSUFFICIENT AURA] was shoved up in my face.

‘Let’s see, building towers. Block by block, and— nope, not working.’

As if knowing what I was trying to do, Mom chuckled and gave me a kiss on my forehead.

“Don’t fret over it too much. You’ll find your way eventually. Now, how about you help me prepare dinner? Nowa seems to love everything you cook.”

I nodded and followed her into the kitchen. While on the way, I mulled over what she told me earlier.

‘Well, she’s not lying.’

I wasn’t referring to her saying that Nowa liked my food—it was a constant fact that would never change even if the Universe were to explode. No, the part about each person having a way to activate their Magic, she might be right about it.

After all, in my first life, every Mage I met always jump in excitement when they saw Ihwa’s Magic, which came from…circles.

Okay, it wasn't only circles. Squares, triangles, you name it. She drew shapes with Mana and her spells manifested from them. Apparently, she could make the shapes three-dimensional too, but I’d never seen her do it.

Anyways, at that time, I thought that they were overreacting over nothing. But now, yeah, I kinda got it. Being able to whip up a spell by just drawing mere shapes in the air was definitely overpowered.

.

.

.

.

A few months had passed since then, and it was nearing my tenth birthday. However, I still hadn’t made much progress—or any at all—on using Magic.

It seemed that I was too stressed over it, as Mom noticed something wrong with me.

“How about going outside with me to take your mind off things?” She said.

Of course, not really having anything to do, I accepted.

But if I had known that she was going to go fishing, I wouldn’t have.

‘Well, it’s too late now.’

I was now on a small boat in the middle of a big lake. Apparently, some Fire mages come here occasionally to make sure it wasn’t frozen.

I looked over my shoulder and looked at Mom, who had Nowa sitting on her lap. Seeing them laughing and giggling like that, I couldn’t help but sigh.

‘What’s so fun about fishing?’

You use the fishing rod and stare into still water for hours. Then, if you’re lucky, you can catch a fish.

Not going to lie, it was pretty calming. However, it was boring as fuck.

Well, there was something that made this much less boring.

{Hehe, you’re definitely wearing this, pushover.}

{Nooo! What even is that?!}

{A swimsuit.}

{T-There’s too little fabric!}

Aerin and Nira were messing around in whatever space they resided in when unsummoned. Unluckily for me, I couldn’t see them no matter what I did. So, all I could do was imagine what they were doing.

But even that eventually got boring. I decided to focus my mind on the important things.

‘Magic…Magic…’

Why did it have to be so damn difficult!?

Now, even the important things were making me frustrated. So, I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that the fishing rod was bending downward.

“Ah, you caught something, little one.”

Even without Mom’s exclamation, I still had enough knowledge about fishing to know it. So, without any hesitation, I pulled the entire rod up.

However…

“Oh, the line snapped.”

…Yeah, nothing was going well for me in the past couple of years, huh?

When I showed Mom, she simply spoke some words of encouragement before replacing the line for me.

After having the fishing rod back, I hooked on the bait and…dropped…it…in…the…water?

‘W-Wait!’

It was as if lightning struck me. Everything, everything just made sense! From the minute detail of the nature of my Magic, seemingly everything was laid out for me!

Was this what they called “enlightenment”? Even with all my years of experience as a Swordsmaster, I’d never gone through anything like this before.

And, if this moment was like people said it was, then it would be gone in a matter of seconds!

I quickly closed my eyes and concentrated on moving Mana and made the small space before me devoid of any energy. As the ambient Mana rushed in to fill the void, I grinned.

Beware of the fearsome Hunter,

Let it be known that life is a fickle thing. 

Once his prey falls for his bait,

Extinguished be the flames of life.

"[Illusion]"