Raya

"Your mother told me a bit about you..." I turned to Raya, "She told me that you are a student at the magic academy... I have a question for you," I looked at her more closely, and indeed, she had a very visible aura of vibrant emerald.

Raya nodded. Inviting me to ask her.

"Today, I visited the entrance of the academy, the one in the central square... Is it normal that I couldn't enter?" I asked first, even though I already had a somewhat imagined answer to this question.

Raya looked at me with a surprised expression.

"You really don't know?... The entrance to the academy is reserved for students, professors, and people with special permits... Occasionally, there are guided tours... but they cost a fortune..."

'Mm, just as I suspected,' I thought.

Rasha nodded in agreement with her daughter's words; it seemed this information was public knowledge.

"You should know that Umut has only been in town for a few weeks..." Rasha explained.

"Ah... where are you from?" Raya asked.

Rasha, who had probably wanted to ask me this question for a while, welcomed her daughter's question.

'How should I respond... should I tell the whole truth? Mm... maybe it's better to summarize and not reveal everything...'

"I lived in a cave for years... with my mother," I replied, and Raya and Rasha looked at each other, unsure of what to make of it. Finally, Rasha noticed a detail in my sentence that darkened her expression.

"Your mother..."

"My mother is deceased..."

With my words, the room turned into a dark and icy winter forest. The words, once warm, have become silences as heavy as the snow that covers the roofs after a winter snowstorm. Raya and Rasha's looks showed only sadness, and mine, even though I couldn't see it, was probably the saddest of the three.

I didn't want this heavy atmosphere to persist.

"She lived a long life," I added.

After a few more moments of silence, Rasha and Raya spoke in unison.

""I'm sorry"" they both said.

I smiled a bitter smile.

"I have another question about the entrance of the academy..." I tried to change the subject.

Perhaps out of compassion, Raya seemed willing to answer, if she could.

"When I was near the entrance, I felt as if there was and wasn't a huge structure in that place simultaneously. It was as if a building existed there but in a dimension parallel to our space..."

Raya looked surprised, then looked at her mother.

"You should know that Umut is a magician..." Rasha told her.

Raya nodded, still looking surprised.

"This information is also public knowledge, so I can talk about it... the magic academy is located in a parallel dimension to our world that we live in... um..." Raya paused her explanation, as if thinking about how to explain it for me to understand. "You should know that in this world, there are points in space closely connected to places in spatial dimensions parallel to ours. These points are called 'Points of Dual Reality' and are found in random places in our world. These points can be sensed by people with extremely high magical perception, and by using special runes, it's possible to create entrances that lead to these parallel places in our space. These parallel places are very similar to our world in many aspects, except that they are locations of limited dimension, surrounded by impenetrable walls of gray smoke..."

'Interesting... so I was right about that too...'

I remained lost in thought for a while until another doubt surfaced.

"Why are you here?" I asked Raya.

"I took a few days off... you should know that in the magic academy, through exam grades and positioning duels, you earn credits, and with these credits, you can purchase various things within the academy. I decided to buy two weeks of vacation...". She replied, no longer surprised by my ignorance

'The more I learn about this academy, the more it attracts me...'

'Ah, right!'

"Rasha... as you know, I went to the library this afternoon... unfortunately, you can't borrow books on magic... but I managed to memorize a few chapters from a beginner's book," I explained.

Raya looked at us with interest.

"Mom?" she asked.

"Well, Raya, you should know that..." 

Rasha explained everything…

"Umut... do you really think my mother can learn magic?" Raya asked me.

"I'm sure she can... can't you see her aura too?" I asked.

Raya shook her head.

"I had a suspicion even before, when you asked me about the academy... but... Umut, do you really have an incredible mana perception, right?" she asked.

"Let's say I have good eyes..." I replied.

After some thought, Raya nodded.

"Well... while I'm here, I'll help too," Raya said then.

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And so, the two weeks that followed flew by, during which Raya helped with the bar, and Rasha took her first steps into the field of magic. Her progress was, as I expected, very rapid. 

During those weeks, Raya and I became quite close and familiar, to the point that we quickly became friends. Raya talked to me about her experience at the academy, and for the first time, I opened up to someone about my troubled past. 

I told her about my old family, about Arachne, and how I had become who I was.

The expression on her face when I told her I was a 'bound to mana' will forever be etched in my memory. What she displayed then was not, as I expected, fear, but profound interest. That might have been the moment when I began to feel something deeper for her beyond mere friendship.

On Raya's last night of vacation, she and I found ourselves alone on the rooftop of the bar building. It was a warm night, typical of the current month, which was May...

A cool breeze ruffled the streets illuminated by magical lanterns, and the stones on the leaf-island's base above us, glowing with warm light, made the moment even more magical. I was dressed in a fresh, cream-colored linen shirt and light hazelnut pants, while Raya wore a loose, canary yellow short-sleeved shirt and a short midnight blue skirt. That night, in my eyes, Raya seemed even more beautiful than usual.

I still didn't know that this would be the moment my life would change.

That night, Raya told me about her dream...