Nymie didn’t see Lee’s face of frank disbelief and slowly dawning horror, as she only had eyes for his Spellbook of the Genesis. One of her hands was pulling on Lee’s pants leg in an attempt to have him lower the spellbook, and her other was reaching upwards for it.

Lee swung his eyes from Nymie to her mother, Kaylith.

“Is this a prank?” Lee asked.

Kaylith ducked her head a bit as she cringed and replied.

“I’m afraid not. Her only two elements are Earth and Light. As soon as she heard about the Life element that you discovered and how it cured me from cancer, she saw it as a… sign…”

Lee looked to Nymie, now standing on his foot for the extra two inches of height, as she continued to try and reach for the spellbook. Her face slowly grew frustrated but still showed mostly a crazed, childish excitement.

Kaylith continued on, her eyes flickering back and forth from Lee and Nymie.

“Normally, I would have never let her learn spells as she is too young. She’s… a handful, but she sat down this whole week and tried her best to learn the only advanced element available to her. I didn’t think she would actually succeed, so I let her try. That backfired.”

She glanced down at Nymie with a worried face.

“I told her I would let her learn from your spellbook if she succeeded… So here we are.”

She turned to Nymie and began to quietly speak with her, asking if this was something she truly wanted and telling her that it would not be a pleasant experience. None of that seemed to phase her in the slightest, and before Lee could attempt to sway Nymie from the attempt, Nymie spoke a little too loud for their hushed conversation.

“Yes! I told you I was gonna do it! Papa didn’t believe me when I said Lee would heal you, Mama, and you didn’t believe me when I said I was gonna learn magic! Hero Lee is here to teach me!”

She brushed her platinum hair away from her dark red eyes as she looked at Lee, and Lee could have sworn he saw stars in them for a second.

“I am ready, hero Lee! Give me magic!”

Lee looked over his shoulder at Anya, who was so red-faced from withheld laughter that he didn’t bother to ask if this was safe. He knelt on one knee to bring himself face to face with Nymie as he put the spellbook back into his Hidden Cache.

“Listen, Nymie. I am very glad you spent the time to learn the Life element. It must have been very hard.”

Nymie nodded rapidly and was about to explode into her story of hellish trials and overcoming the odds when Lee spoke over her and placed a hand on her head.

“This is not fun and games Nymie. This is serious business. I’m touched that you think so highly of me, but I am no hero. I am just a person—a person who just did what was right to do. Now, if I let you learn my magical spells, will you heal all those who need it? Or do you only want this magic, just to have magic? This is a lot of responsibility.”

Lee tried to deliver this as seriously as he could, but he was talking to a child.

Nymie was nearly vibrating from excitement. She had just been given a speech by a humble hero about responsibility! A noble calling! This was the beginning of her story!

“Yes! I will use my magic for good! I will heal everybody I can and bring happiness to all! I want to spread healing all around the world! So when I grow up, I wanna heal a human mama and be the hero, just like you!”

Nearly everybody in the room grew still and silent. Lee looked about and saw faces of pity and longing. They knew Nymie would never be able to leave the Shadowgrove, and her dreams were going just to be that—Dreams.

Lee, on the other hand, did not grow still. He smiled brightly at Nymie as his heart stung from hearing the praise of an innocent child. He spoke with as much wonder as he could manage.

“That’s a wonderful dream. The same dream I have, Nymie. There are many people out there in this wide world who hope for someone to do what I did for your family. Do you want to do that for them? I will not lie to you, Nymie. It will be hard. Harder than you imagine. You may not realize it now, but it was hard for me. In the future, when you’re older, you will understand what I mean. I want you to remember these words that I’m about to say.”

Lee looked into Nymie's eyes with such emotion that even she calmed down and looked semi-serious.

“No matter which race, gender, age, skin color, or belief, everybody deserves to be healed. Everybody deserves a second chance, for I would not be here without one.”

Lee removed his hand from Nymie's head, and in its place, his spellbook appeared. He dangled it from the chain and opened the cover, revealing the gilded pages, and he looked into Nymie’s eyes.

She excitedly reached for it, and he pulled it back. She looked at him frustrated but paused as she saw a tear falling from his solemn face. Lee spoke once more.

“Are you prepared? This is your final warning.”

Now, suitably less excited, Nymie began to pull her hand back but paused halfway. She began to think—seriously think about what this means. This wasn’t just free magic; this was something big.

She looked into Lee’s glowing blue eyes with her dark red ones and saw the weight of what he was offering her. She didn’t know what the weight was or what it meant, but she knew deep within her heart that it was going to be worth it.

She nodded and reached for the spellbook, not as an excited child but as someone who wanted to do good. To become someone who could do what Lee did for her. She wanted to be a healer, just like her hero.

Lee didn’t pull the spellbook away this time as Nymie reached for the pages with both hands. As soon as her palms touched the golden pages, life mana slowly trickled up her arms, and she twitched.

Time seemed to slow for Lee as he watched and waited for Nymie to quit. He knew from the others that learning from his spellbook wasn’t pleasant, but he wasn’t aware of how unpleasant it truly was. He had seen others grimace, some sweat in concentration, and one even had to stop and restart again.

Nymie's only movement was that original twitch.

The life mana receded back into the book, and Nymie lowered her arms and moved her gaze toward the ground, her eyes moving back and forth as if reading.

Kaylith bent down and looked Nymie over as she seemingly read from her status. Declaring that she was fine, she turned to Lee with a respectful visage.

Before Lee could speak, he himself got a status message.

Lee read his new skill’s description, then looked down at Nymie.

Is she reading the spells? Or was she imparted some of my knowledge?

As Nymie was entranced in reading, he spoke to Kaylith.

“I just got a new skill. It seems that Nymie might have been given some of my knowledge along with the spells. You’re going to have an even bigger handful to deal with.”

Kaylith’s response was to just close her eyes, sigh, and nod. Lee’s heart went out to her, as she was going to have her hands full with a child that had magic.

As Nymie kept reading, Lee decided that this was a good time to actually get to know Nymie a bit. Actual information, not like ‘she steals food.’ He was also curious about Dark Elven children in general.

“So, I haven’t actually seen any other elven children besides Nymie around. Do you know why that is? And, How old is she?”

Kaylith sat down at the long table as most of the other elves who had come to learn from the spellbook had already left or were in the process of leaving. Lee sat down next to her as she began to speak.

“Children are usually with their parents in Nuval, the underground layer of Neldam. Nymie was brought upwards to be with me at… my end. Oh, and Nymie just turned twenty-four this year.”

She seemed hesitant to speak about her cancer, which Lee completely understood. So he was nodding as he stuck his pinky in his ear to clear whatever was blocking his hearing, as he had just heard the absurd statement that Nymie was twenty-four. As that couldn’t possibly be correct, the only logical explanation was that there was something blocking his hearing.

Lee inspected his clean pinky and knocked his ear with his palm, hoping to dislodge whatever was causing his hearing loss. Kaylith looked at him with a raised eyebrow in confusion.

“Sorry, can you repeat Nymies age again? I’m afraid I had something messing with my hearing.”

Kaylith just repeated.

“She just turned twenty-four this year.”

Lee looked at Kaylith with his face so utterly blank as he inspected her up and down. Was this a prank? He turned to look at Nymie, then back to Kaylith. To Nymie. To Kaylith. To Nymie. To Kaylith.

Finally, he just casually placed his hands on the table and looked down at that. He barely managed to utter a whisper that Kaylith could hear.

“She’s older than me…?”

Kaylith then understood where Lee’s mannerisms were coming from. She then did exactly as Lee had. She turned to Nymie, then back to Lee. Then, she actually had the gall to guffaw and slap the table repeatedly. So uncharacteristic of anything Lee had ever expected from Kaylith, not that he knew her well at all.

“Oh my gods! Oh…. OH MY GODS!”

Lee held his hands over his head, wishing he had long enough hair to pull.

This can’t be fucking happening. This is a joke. It has to be.

It was at this time that Nymie had finished reading her status. As she looked up at her mother and at Lee, she exclaimed and waved her hands around like the twenty-four-year-old child she was.

“I learned lots! Hero Lee taught me with magic!”

From all of the hardship Lee has faced since arriving in this new world, this was something unlike any other.

He had survived the wilderness of a new world with nothing but a hospital gown.

He had learned of a whole system that powered up the people in said new world.

He had fought in a grisly and gruesome war against monsters with his life on the line.

He had met with a new race, unknown to him for all his life.

He had seen the wonders and horror magic could bestow upon an individual.

And now he saw that the only child he met since arriving on Pallesia, the one who poorly wrote a letter to him asking for healing, the one who spied on him from across a restaurant with awe and wonder, the one who ate his damn hamburger, was older than him.

And that was the straw that broke the camel's back.