Chapter 3

Kira Estelle Roelf was someone who had been born into a world with advanced technology. Keyword, "was." Although none of that mattered now, she still felt a sense of melancholy from time to time. At first, she hadn't realized she was given another chance at life—not while she was suffering from the excessive mana inside her. The experience was excruciating; two energies clashed inside her body, making her feel as if dying again wouldn't be so bad.

If she hadn't been conscious right after birth, she would have died then and there—another life lost. It was a strange occurrence, but if she hadn't been kidnapped, she might have survived with the help of her parents. She was taken away from her mother immediately after birth and wasn't found until three days later. By then, she was clinging to life, confused, hurt, and trapped inside the body of someone twenty-eight years younger than she had been.

At some point, she knew she had disassociated; her next memory was from when she was two years old. She felt as though she had awakened from a dream—as if she had been watching herself being cared for from the sidelines. It must have been a traumatic experience for her back then.

This world now was a world of magic. From daily life to labor, they used magic for everything. When everything was already convenient, it was hard to pursue other types of convenience—for example, improving technology. On Earth, people needed to painstakingly create machines for accessibility since they didn't have mana. They had to make their own kind of magic and evolve from there.

Here, they needed to improve their mastery of magic to make life a little easier. War was still a problem, but instead of weapons of mass destruction, they had magi. Depending on their strength, a magus could significantly affect the balance of power between countries in war. Kira felt that wars were cruel in her old world, but in this one, they were even worse. Although slavery was abolished a hundred years ago, no law prohibits an empire or country from training literal child soldiers.

Moreover, monarchies still existed in some places where classism was prevalent—like the empire she currently resided in, the Yves Empire.

Kira felt she shouldn't complain since she was "privileged" enough to be born into a wealthy and powerful family. But to her, it was all the more reason to complain—because now, she had time to do so. She didn't need to worry about whether she'd have food to eat or if she'd survive another day. Also, having come from a world where hierarchy wasn't as important, only to be plunged into one where she suddenly needed to bow down to some dirty old man with a crown, it gave anyone culture shock.

To be fair, this didn't happen overnight, so she had plenty of room to adjust—starting from her toddler years. Kira adjusted pretty well after a year. Looking at it now, she was still in a powerless state, and she had no plans to change the status quo anytime soon. She wasn't some superhero, and she wasn't here to save the world. Again, she wanted to slack off in this life; winning the genetic lottery was a kind of talent in itself.

It wasn't her problem if the world was rotten; she only had this life. She wasn't a saint (although this world did have saints). Why would she help someone when it was already hard to survive on her own? To be fair, she had tried before, and she had learned her lesson. If she could give one piece of advice to her former self, it would be not to join the military. While it does build character, it also builds trauma.

She was, and still is, an open-minded person. She also wanted to be as strong as she was before so she could protect herself while relaxing in some countryside.

The girl also figured out how to use mana since she had a lot of time on her hands—being a baby and all. What weirded her out was the existence of two kinds of mana inside her. Well, everyone had all types of mana, but you needed an abundance of one type to use it effectively. In her case, there were large amounts of two types, which gave her a lot of trouble at first. It was fairly "easy" to differentiate between them; she just had to use all her mental energy to do so.

And willpower to keep going.

Unlike what she had read in books, mana didn't have colors. What differed were its properties; it would only physically materialize once it was outside the magician's body. As for how to choose which mana to use, it was all guesswork—until she familiarized herself with them. Eventually, by intuition, she grasped that they behaved differently from each other. It took two years of practice before she could confidently use one type and be certain she knew which was which.

Kira's first mana was ice—like her father and brother's—and the second was teleportation. Or was it space manipulation?

Teleportation sounded cool until you tried to teleport someone and only half of their body arrived at the destination. That's exactly how she learned about it. When she was kidnapped, she had a large amount of mana right after she was born and needed to find a way to release it from her system. She randomly pushed it out of her body because of the immense pain, then fainted. When her parents finally rescued her, they found a room full of blood—severed bodies from the waist down scattered everywhere.

A few survived; they were the ones already lying on the ground, intoxicated. It seemed they were celebrating their success in kidnapping a child from a high-ranking noble.

The top halves of their bodies were found the next day, a few miles away from the base she was in. When authorities investigated, they ruled it out as someone with a powerful background who had decided to help her in passing.

As for why they were sliced in half? They treated it as some kind of twisted fetish and closed the case.

As much as possible, she would try not to use that power, as she grew scared of it after what happened. But she had to tough it out because the more she denied that she had that power, the more it would become a ticking time bomb inside her. She knew she needed the knowledge to understand something she feared. Additionally, that was an isolated case; she didn't have that large of a mana reserve now because she was still a child.

Usually, mana was elemental. It should not be beyond the realms of creation. It could be wood, fire, ice, water, or electricity. This was easy to remember, and since people typically only had a large amount of one type, they could perform magic without conflict. People with two types weren't unheard of, but they were rare—one in a million, maybe.

Scratch that; it was literally one in a hundred million.

The girl had even gone out of her way to confirm it.

What was unheard of was someone who had two or more types and, on top of that, a large mana capacity for each. But thankfully, she wasn't rarer than dragons.

Or so she thought.

*****

"Kid, you shouldn't push your luck with me. Even though I like you, I can still get irritated once in a while, you know?"

"But, teacher, it is statistically possible to have a dual mana user. They should exist—at least more than dragons."

The silver-haired girl insisted, calmly resting her cheek on her left hand. The teen in front of her raised an eyebrow as if to say, "If I can't shut you up by reprimanding you, I can shut you up physically." They were inside a study room, surrounded by rows of bookshelves. Like any other room in the Roelf mansion, this one had top-of-the-line furniture, some accented with gold.

"Have you ever tried betting in a lottery?" The teen tried to stare at her with patience, but his eye twitched, betraying his feelings.

"I am six," the girl replied matter-of-factly. There were still rules here, and that included not gambling until one was of age.

The person she called "teacher" closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. His lips curled slightly as he tried to gather his remaining tolerance. "It's not easy for a person with resources to give birth to a dual mana user with mana reserves to back it up. And if they are born, they're more likely to grow up in the slums, where they'd focus on survival rather than magic. That again lowers the odds. Comparing them to dragons, which are rare but still exist, you should stop pushing me to my limit and stop asking these kinds of questions when I've already given you the answer, or else—"

"Or else what?"

"Or else you'll do twice the practice exercises I gave you last time," the teen deadpanned. His eyes gradually turned blank, and Kira felt she might have pushed her cousin to the brink.

"You were definitely happy when they told you I was smart for my age, Arthur." Noticing his lack of energy, Kira showed a face of disgust.

Arthur snorted, rolled his eyes, and then sat on the chair beside her. "Sometimes it's okay to hit children," he muttered as if talking to himself.

Arthur Clemens was her first cousin on her mother's side. His mother was her aunt, the First Princess of the Empire, who had married Marquis Clemens through an arranged marriage. Unexpectedly, the couple had gradually fallen in love, so when they gave birth to their first child, Arthur, it was out of love. He was a smart child who gained the affection of adults; on top of that, he excelled in his magic studies as well as his hobbies.

If anyone wanted to find fault with Arthur, it would be his complete lack of emotional intelligence. He would lash out like a child and reprimand people whenever he felt like it. The teen was so engrossed in his studies that he had forgotten the importance of building interpersonal relationships. So, when Kira's aunt found out that she and Arthur might be "the same," she wasted no time shipping him directly to the Roelf family's front door. They essentially treated Kira's family as a kind of blessing from above.

Kira knew that her aunt and uncle loved Arthur—after all, that's why they were so decisive in sending him away. They did the right thing, though; her father was an excellent parent and a model to look up to. He did not hesitate to reprimand them when they did something wrong and was just as quick to express his affection when needed. The First Princess, frankly, was not up to par. From what Kira heard, she tended to spoil Arthur.

Long story short, Arthur had been a part of Kira's life since she was three. Back then, her cousin was just 13 and attending the academy. With the special privileges that came with being the son of a princess, Arthur's mother arranged for him to visit Kira's family every week. Arthur would usually spend time with her (when he was deemed worthy of taking care of a child), with maids keeping a watchful eye on him. Kira's mother had recently died around that time, so perhaps Arthur felt sympathy for her, which might explain why he wasn't as hot-headed as he used to be.

Kira had a sneaking suspicion that her aunt sent Arthur to their family not only for his sake but also for theirs. Arthur was a lot to handle, so he could certainly serve as a distraction from the loss of a loved one.

The boy eventually grew into a teen and was now 16 years old. He had completed the first half of his Academy education (similar to high school) at 14 and was now in the second half (essentially like university). Since studying at the Academy typically takes eight years to finish, he still visited as often as he used to. Currently, he was acting as Kira's magic tutor while on vacation. From the six-year-old girl's perspective, however, he wasn't particularly good at it.

"Come to think of it, where is your brother?" Arthur inquired, having not seen him since returning from the Academy.

Closing the book, the silver-haired girl stood up from her seat, feeling a little light-headed. "Esternon? He said he would stay at a friend's place."

"Which friend?"

"I didn't get the chance to ask. Ask Father; he allowed it. I'm pretty sure he's safe." Leaning against her cousin's body, she raised both of her hands and said indifferently, "Carry me."

"You're heavy, Kira."

"You've been carrying me since I was three. Why are you only complaining now?"

"Just admit you don't want to walk so I can drag you on the floor," the teen grumbled, but he reached out to pick her up nonetheless. Kira, facing his back, didn't see the affection in his eyes as he did so.