Chapter 4

" Ma, what is happening?", Ava asked her mother while looking at how her mother is currently reconstructing their house through some strange sways of her hands.

The strange thing is that, it is not your - usual - reconstruction as there are still blasts of green and red fire that can be seen in the house. It is more like a rewind of what happened a while ago, in a slow motion. She can't help but to widen her eyes as it is actually what she thinks it is, it is reassembling the house through the usage of time! She can clearly see how the bricks slowly reassembled in  the designated part of the house the same way it was blasted a moment ago.

When she was a little bit sure that maybe her mother is a cultivator a while ago, now she can't be so sure. From what she read from all those novels, cultivators can manipulate nature and space but she never encountered a cultivator who manipulates time, or atleast who can rewind time wilfully without rewinding the time of the day. It just affects the house, not the current time.

' Or she really is a witch? With a sword?'

' Why can't a witch has a sword?'

Ava can't help but laugh at her thought.

' Why confuse myself right now, if I can just ask her myself?'.

" Mother, just answer us honestly, you look very well versed in assembling the house, has this kind of incident happened before?", she asked, emphasizing her observation as she tries to sound her mother out.

" Yes", her eyes widen as she did not expect her mother's curt reply.

" When we were not around? Or when we were not born yet?", she asked again, with confusion in her eyes.

' Like dude, I will surely know if something like this happens before because I' ll make sure that I will pester my mother to teach me these cool stuffs! '

" You were around", her mother answered curtly again before taking their little baby who is already sleeping and entered the newly finished house, leaving her dumbstruck daughter and son behind.

' If that's the case then... '

" You freaking erased our memories!?", she shouted at the top of her lungs, not caring about the curious looks of their neighbours as she also failed to realize that the greeninsh transparent dome that was covering their house has been long gone.

***

The family of three is already sitting in the sofa, one with a hardened face while the other two are confused.

They silently watched as their mother stands and wave her two hands above their heads. Ava had an ominous feeling about it, so when she saw that her mother's hands are already glowing with strange green again, she immediately covers her head and ran farther away from her mother.

" There is no way in hell would I let you erase my memories again!", she shouted hysterically as she looks at her mother's face which is currently frowning deeply.

" The fuck would I also let mine!", her brother covers his head and follows suit.

Well, of course they knew that their hands covering their heads are useless but, so what?

They convinced their mother about the pros and cons of erasing their memories. They reasoned out that, the memories are too good to be true, that maybe erasing their memories too much is bad for their health (which is a plain bullshit), and they are just very unwilling to robed by the only good thing that they has (another dramatic bullshit again).

Their mother is just looking solemnly at her already hysteric children who are currently wracking their brains just to convince her.

" Ma, I want to learn!", Alex, her brother, said with a determined face, in which she noded her head in approval. Her mother took a deep sigh and closed her eyes.

" Don't you know how much we sacrificed just for you to live peacefully in this world? You want to learn? For what? Just so you can live your imaginations, forsaking your safety? Are you just going to throw away your normal lives just to experience a momentary bliss? ", their mother cups her head and grops her hair, feeling stressed at her two starry eyed children.

" Mother, have you seen how useless we were at that moment? How we can't even protect ourselves? What if in the future, there will be thousands of them instead of just 20 something? We will just going to die while our eyes are wide open?", Ava said drammatically with teary eyes, emphasizing her point and mustering her most ' I'm - really - disappointed' look to guilt trip her mother.

" Ma, what if we will be abducted? We'll just goung to be abducted like chickens? All we can do is to just flap our hands hoping that it will do magic? Ma, no matter how you want to hide us from who - knows - who, they can still catch up! See, this is the 5th house that we bought yet, wait were they the reason why we have to stay at different houses from time to time?",

Actually the house is already the fifth, excluding the apartments they rented, and the only house that they lived for the longest span of time.

" Anyway, the main point is, we also need to learn how to protect ourselves against them! ", she breathlessly reasoned out.

" No matter what you say, you know that you can't always be with us three forever. Please give us a chance to atleast make a decision for our selves", the siblings both look at each other with a knowing look and a grin,

" And we decided to learn whatever magic you are using to protect ourselves", she finished her little speech with a bow, which made their mother speechless.