"One who obtains the wings of freedom
loses both legs in exchange."
Childhood Period: Part Two
–When the world changes, you have to change with it.
Lumina Greyrat - Volume II
Prologue
Hey there. My name's Lumina Greyrat. I'm currently an 8-year-old girl living in the sticks with a short bob of blonde hair that could pass as tan. In my previous life, I was a 34-year-old shut-in obsessed with all things fantasy. By some odd trick of fate, when I died, I was reincarnated as a baby in another world with all of my memories intact.
I'm hired to tutor my childhood friend Sylphie, and I've worked hard to live a proper life here. For the next five or so years, I'm saving up to earn Sylphie's tuition for the Ranoa University of Magic where we can both further our magical education, together. That should be it for now. Hope I'm not forgetting anything.
"Lumi! Stop! You're gonna blow everything away!"
Someone yelled. A nearby tree was beginning to uproot itself, and a dainty green-haired girl was about to go flying. In the midst of it all stood a lone girl, panicking.
What happened, you ask?
Let's go back around a few hours before, to answer that question…
Chapter 11:
Saint-Tier Disaster
Summer. The season's associated with all sorts of things across all worlds.
My siblings Norn and Sirius were finally stepping out of their comfort zones and exploring the house. Watching them coo and make random noises at things they saw was prime entertainment for me. What can I say? They were pretty cute-looking kids. I couldn't wait to see them all grown up.
Oh, but my room was off-limits. I'd set up a bit of an unspoken rule—ahem, out of fear for my beloved figures.
I haven't mentioned it yet, have I? Where it all started was when I was lazing around the house one Sunday and thought up an idea. I'd been into figurines in my past life; buying figures of my favorite characters from certain stories was a fun pastime for me. I even painted a few before. Where this is relevant is my new hobby. I began working on small figures of me, my parents, and Sylphie. I wasn't particularly good at it, and it drained my mana like hell. But it was fun, so that's all that matters.
That aside, they were fragile. Dropping a figure half a meter off the ground would completely obliterate it. I'd have to find a better way to do it.
One thing I also haven't mentioned is my hair. For a variety of reasons, I liked to keep it on the shorter side. I'm a bit of a practical person, you see? I did keep it long enough to tie into a short ponytail, but it was short nonetheless. Setting aside the fact that long, luscious hair would be a lot harder to maintain—but not impossible, mind you—and that it might get in my way while sparring with Sylphie, I had a much bigger reason for it. It was because I wanted to match with her. We didn't look all that similar, considering my hair color and middle part, but I could at least do that much. She was my closest friend, after all.
Let me talk about my baby siblings now. Norn was a cute girl, but she didn't do much. She was curious, but she mostly stayed put whenever my parents were home. Sirius, on the other hand, was an energetic baby. Lilia had trouble making sure where he was most of the time, and I caught him sleeping in the clean laundry once.
"Young Mistress Lumina, your brother takes after you. This brings back memories." Lilia told me, while I was holding Sirius in my arms. Like Paul, he was growing in brown hair. He looked like he would look similar to Paul when she grew up. Sirius liked being held, but oddly enough he'd stir up a fuss whenever Paul held him.
From what I've heard from Lilia, the Greyrat males are usually lechers. No way is Sirius already being picky at this age… right?
Norn was reclusive. She followed around Zenith like a baby duckling and wouldn't let anyone aside from her pick her up. Despite that, she did let me pet her head a few times. So maybe she'd warm up to everyone else in due time. In other news, I learned that Lilia was beginning to teach Sylphie about etiquette. One day, I peeked through a window, and I could see that Sylphie was picking up the stuff a lot faster than I ever was. Well, maybe she was just more suited to it.
Life was great, and so it went on.
It was now fall, and my dress no longer fit me. I was back to wearing T-shirts and shorts, which was quite saddening. But one Sunday, like the angel she is, my mother asked me something.
"Lumi, would you like to go clothes shopping with Sylphie and me? I see you've grown out of the dress your father bought you, so we should take this opportunity!" She said enthusiastically, her eyes practically shimmering.
Sylphie had turned 8 years old, and I was going to follow suit pretty soon. Her birthday and mine were only one month apart, after all.
"I'd love to, but when are we going?" I asked. I was halfway through making a figurine of Sylphie, so I wanted to have a bit of a heads-up in that regard.
"Ah, right now actually," Zenith said. "We'll also be doing some errands on the way, so we'll be out of the house for a while."
"That's fine. Let's go, then," I said. The figure can wait. It'd be a nice change of pace compared to my usual Super Productive Sundays which were definitely not entirely spent inside my room sleeping on my stomach.
What? Old habits die hard, you know?
All of that aside, I hadn't gone clothes shopping in so long. This would be my first time in this life, come to think of it. In my past life, my parents wouldn't bother buying me any new clothes, so I had to just reuse the ones I had. Even when I was a young teenager, they never really got me anything I wanted, save for the computer I had been begging for. But even that was because they cared more about my academic success than my actual self.
Would you look at how that turned out for me?
The two of us walked into the yard hand-in-hand to go pick up Sylphie and get on our way. The silence called for some sort of small talk, and small talk I did.
"Hey, Mama. Do you ever get this weird dream that you're briefly in a white foggy room? And nothing ever happens in it?" I asked.
"Hmm. Can't say I have, sweetie. Is it bothering you?"
"I wouldn't say that. But it is strange. Guess it's just me," I mused.
We met up with Sylphie, and we went on our way. We arrived at an unembellished and neat little shop in the more established side of the village—the cozy interior combined with the sweet-looking lady manning the place made for a pretty nice vibe overall.
"Miriam! Really cleaned up the place, haven't you?" my mother greeted her like an old acquaintance—which they probably were.
"Hehe. My husband helped me out a little with that, Zenith. Come to think of it, that was a while ago. I haven't seen you in a good minute, you know? What brings you in today?" Miriam responded.
"Spoken like a true shopkeeper. You see, my little Lumi and Sylvia's daughter have grown out of their clothes, so we're looking for some replacements," my mother explained.
"Oh! I've got just what your daughter needs. Come with me."
Miriam guided us to an area with a few dresses and pants. None of them particularly stood out, but this village wasn't going to have any fancy clothing to begin with. She held up a dark brown skirt with white stripes.
I gave it a once-over and figured that I could wear my tan jacket over it and it would work well. Ah… but what's my size? I wonder if trying clothes on in the store is a thing in this world.
"You can go try this on in the back," she said. What is she, a mind reader?
"Thank you," I said, snatching it from her and scurrying away.
There was a room in the back of the store that was pretty empty, so I used that to change. This skirt was great, I could run without a problem, and it wasn't stuffy at all. I wasn't used to wearing skirts though, there was that. That aside, it was great. Maybe I couldn't wear it during any intense sparring match with Sylphie; but for everyday use? It was more than satisfactory.
"I'll take it," I said. My mother nodded in tandem.
I picked out two more rather dull dresses, and I was finished. Again, I wasn't all that fussy about my appearance, and it wasn't like I talked to many other kids aside from Sylphie anyway.
Sylphie on the other hand, struggled to pick something out.
"Hey, Phi. What do you think you'd like?" I asked. Maybe she had an idea of what she wanted but nothing here was to her fancy.
"I… don't like dresses." She stammered out. "But Papa always tells me that they make me look cute…"
"I see," I said. It was probably just the expectations of the village that girls wore dresses. But I doubted that it was enforced all that much, judging from my personal attire. I much preferred to be able to run and jump however I wanted, but I did wear dresses now and again.
But Sylphie's family was probably different from mine. I didn't know her parents all that well, but they were much more of the hovering parent types. It was probably because of her prior experiences with bullies. Maybe Laws was the type of parent who liked seeing their daughter all cute and dressed up. Sylphie might've wrongfully assumed that dresses and skirts were the only things that she could wear because of it. In any case, I was her big sister here. It was my duty to make her happy.
"Should we take a look at the shorts?" I asked.
She nodded wordlessly. I motioned to my mother, and we went to the shorts and pants. She looked around for a bit and picked out a pair of black shorts with a horizontal orange stripe at the bottom of both legs. They looked like they would suit her. She went to put them on.
"How does it look?" She asked timidly. I shot her a thumbs-up and flashed a smile.
"It looks great on you, Phi!" I meant it. She smiled bashfully, and she agreed to go ahead and buy the pair of shorts.
Out of the blue, I heard rumors about the grand opening of the Buena Village Library. I knew a few of the village kids, but they didn't really offer much in the way of conversation. It's not like we were that close anyway. But their parents were a lot more interesting. And that's where I had heard it from.
That aside, I was ecstatic. I was picturing all sorts of books from around the world, stories larger than life, filled with interesting things for my kid brain to absorb. However, reality is often cruel.
I knocked on the door to the library. Okay, I say library, but it's more like a shack on the edge of the shopping area. I have no idea when it sprang up, but apparently, it's been here for months.
"Hello there, child," the old lady said. "Lumina, was it?"
I… didn't recall telling her my name. Maybe she just knew me from the clinic or something. I don't remember everyone's face, and I wouldn't be surprised if people talked about me. I was practically the mascot of the clinic at this point.
"H-hey there. I wanted to check out your collection." I said. She wordlessly guided me to a room further back, and there was a shelf. Not a bookshelf, mind you. Just a shelf. And well, it didn't live up to being a library. There were sheets of paper neatly stacked, a few small handbooks, and that was about it.
I've been scammed! This place isn't a library! It's a glorified shack!
Well, what was I expecting? The books in this world were expensive. Normal-sized ones went for as much as several gold coins. No way was some shack in a village stuck in the middle of nowhere going to have those. I sighed. What was I getting my hopes up for?
I decided to check one of the small books out. It was titled, A Short Guide of Languages Around the World. Jackpot. It looked a little small to be anything life-changing, but maybe it could show me how to say a few key terms in other languages. I picked it out and decided to buy it.
I rummaged through the other handbooks. Wandering the World - Comprehensive Edition, The Beauty of Ars, Beginner-Tier Magic. Nothing all that helpful there, but I guess I'd check out Wandering the World if I couldn't find anything else. The only thing left for me was the stack of papers. Upon further inspection, they were all… notes? Written by a ton of different people, at that. As I shifted through the pages, one caught my eye.
A Dedicated Look Into Saint-Class Invocation and Magic
Written by Georg Calvos
It looked like it was ripped straight out of a magic textbook. I could've sworn I recognized the name, as well. In any case, it contained one incantation for a Saint-class Wind spell and one Saint-class Fire spell. It was exactly what I needed—both Sylphie and I, even.
"I'll take these two, please!" I exclaimed, holding both A Short Guide to Languages and the research paper.
The old lady smiled. "That'll be three silver coins." Oof. That's like half of my savings. If this was the price I had to pay for knowledge, so be it. Seeing my savings being swept into her pocket was enough to make me shed a tear.
And so, I walked out of the library and started toward home.
Sylphie patiently awaited me at the hill, waving her wand absentmindedly until she noticed me.
"Good afternoon, Lumi!" she called out.
"Hey, Phi," I greeted, walking up the hill and plopped down beside her. "Today, I want to do something special. Can you go get your parent's permission to leave the village? We won't be going far, just far enough to try out some new magic I recently learned."
She widened her eyes. "O-okay…But are we going alone?" She asked.
"My dad's coming with us, so don't worry. He's the strongest in the whole village!" I said pridefully.
"Ah, okay. Wait for me here!" Sylphie said and ran off.
When she got back, Paul was already with me.
I'd managed to convince him to go with me since it had been a while since he had seen a spell of this caliber. Paul wasn't interested in my magic at first, but now that he had a son who he was going to train up to be a swordsman, he was a little more enthusiastic about it.
"My dad said I could go as long as I come back by sundown!" Sylphie yelled, approaching us.
"Good evening, Mr. Paul!" Sylphie greeted my father with a cute-as-a-button smile on her face.
"It's nice to see you again, Sylphie. I hope little Lumi here's treating you nicely," he said, ruffling my bob of hair.
"Of course she is!" Sylphie assured, exclaiming.
"Heheh. Alright," he chuckled. "Let's be off then," My father said, patting my shoulders.
We were taking the horse. We managed to all fit on it, and it walked just fine. If this ride was as long as I remember it being, we were in for a decent-sized wait.
The sun was still high in the sky when we got to our destination. It was the same field where I took my graduation exam. The tree was as lonely as ever, and the far-off mountains were still omnipresent. Not like they could've moved, anyway.
"Alright. I'm going to cast the Saint-Tier wind spell, Tornado." I proclaimed, with my hands on my hips. I scanned the research paper and found the incantation. Well, here goes…
"Oh, I call out to the vast expanse of the sky, heed my prayer. Twist and turn as you unleash your might amongst the land of the mortals. Disrupt the sea and earth as your furious winds devastate everything—Tornado!"
A familiar feeling spread throughout my body. I felt the air in my immediate surroundings thinning, and my mana being drained. The sky rapidly darkened, and a large cluster of thunderclouds began to form. Soon enough, lightning violently slashed at the ground with deafening crashes. I applied more mana. The air within the clouds began to shift around at high speeds.
A funnel cloud formed in the distance where I was pointing my wand. It touched the ground and picked up speed. Fast winds were blowing all around us. The spell was finished. Now, time to maintain it…
"Lumi! Stop! You're going to blow everything away!" My father yelled.
Looks like we're all caught up now.
That wasn't important now. I quickly caught sight of what was happening around me. Sylphie was losing her footing, and Paul was struggling to walk towards me. I was so caught up in remembering how I did it last time around that I failed to notice that the people around were getting affected by the spell. I'd screwed up. I needed to do something. And quickly.
"Right! I'm cutting off all my mana!" I yelled. Hopefully, this will work.
After a few moments in the roaring wind, I concluded that it didn't. The twister was continuing on its path, which was right towards us. I knew there was a way to stop the spinning wind. I just had to rack my brain for memories. I'd seen tornado movies before, so I was practically an expert. Right, cast a twister that was spinning in the opposite direction! I did my best rap god impression and spat out the incantation again, and a second twister formed.
"Lumina! What on earth are you doing? Get back here!" Paul yelled.
"I know what I'm doing, Father! Please trust me!" I shouted through the violent gusts of wind.
The two tornadoes spun around each other, and then… they merged.
"Oh yeah, you definitely do. Get back here and cast an Earth Fortress! Sylphie here's about to get sucked into one of those things!"
I ran over to Paul and Sylphie and did as I was told.
Sigh. What was I thinking?
We arrived home in silence, about an hour after the winds had naturally dissipated. I'd totally underestimated the power of Saint-class magic. Sylphie had hurried back home since it was getting late by then. My mother was still working at the clinic, so right now, it was just Paul and I
"Lumi. You've got to be careful, especially when casting spells of that caliber. You cannot, under any circumstances, be careless. Even more so when there are other people around that you could hurt," my father scolded.
"I know that…" I responded, my eyes on the floorboards.
He sighed. "I hate to do this, kiddo. But you're grounded for the rest of the month. Take the time here at home to reflect. Once you get back home from working with your mother, you come straight home."
"B-but what about Sylphie–" I started.
"I'll talk with Laws about it. I'm sure he'll understand. You can't afford to make a mistake like this out in the real world." Paul said, with finality.
"I-I…" I couldn't say anything. This was undeniably the worst mistake that I'd made yet, something that could've easily ruined my chances of living a happy life this time around. This wasn't the time for a witty retort. But I still felt so frustrated. Frustrated at the fact that I was still reckless, still the same thoughtless girl I'd always been.
But most of all, I was annoyed at how I didn't want to apologize, despite it all. I was never going to change if I kept thinking like this. I needed to climb over the oh-so-tall wall that was my pride. It was a mindset that I'd gained through being a worthless bum for twenty years of my life. And I had to get rid of it.
"I'm sorry, dad."
And that's how I was grounded for the first time in both of my lives.
