Are You Really The Creator?

After meeting Yoko and Harri, mother started to ask a lot of questions. Where were they from? How old were they? What did they do for a living? How did we meet? For how long have I known them? I mostly answered the same way I did with everyone else: they are a foreign couple that I happened to meet randomly, and I befriended them after they helped me.

Trying to give as little detail as possible –since lying too much will only backfire- I told her that I didn't know that much about them. However, without stating it clearly, I strongly suggested that they eloped, running away from the prejudices of being an interracial couple. When she understood this, mother immediately threw in the towel. She knew better than anyone else the struggles of being romantically involved with someone from another race, so I knew she would stop asking any more questions. Sorry for using your weakness against you, mom…

After that, I rejoined Yoko and Harri in the courtyard, where they were waiting for me.

"Are you done?" Harri asked, as he saw me approaching.

"Yeah, somehow. How was my mother's core?" I immediately inquired, turning my attention to Yoko.

"Intact," she responded. "There is nothing wrong with it."

I let out a relieved sigh, as it lifted a huge weight off my mind.

"Lynett, you said your mother was an elf, but isn't she a high-elf?" Yoko asked.

"Heh? That's right. Is there any differences?"

"Yeah, it's not really the same thing…" She muttered, as she started rubbing her chin. "Forget about it, what's wrong with her ears? They have such a weird shape. Is it a new fashion trend among mortals or something?"

Hearing her words, I felt a little offended as my eyes twitched. "Of course not… That's my stupid aunt's doing. I made sure she regretted it, though."

The two gods in front of me furrowed their eyebrow, as they quickly exchanged an inquiring glance.

"Is that so?" Harri asked. "But… Why didn't you grow them back? I mean, you're obviously bothered by it. When the minx lost one of her tails, she grew it back."

Widening my eyes, I turned my gaze on Yoko. "You once lost a tail?"

"Yeah. I got into a fight with Drakarth." She grunted, as I clearly saw the veins of her temples popping out. "This motherfucker… I made sure to return him the favor. No one touches my tails."

"… Drakarth? You pissed off the God of Anger? I knew you had some guts but…No wait. You grew your tail back? You can do that?! I was pretty sure you didn't have such a power!"

"And you're right, I don't." Yoko shrugged. "I don't have such a high affinity to the light attribute, so I asked Naia to do it for me. She owed me favor, you see?"

"Oh… Of course. I got my hopes up for nothing…" I sighed. "So you're saying that I need to find Naia if I want my mother's ears back?"

"Why would you need to find her?" Harri inquired, raising an eyebrow. "Can't you do it yourself? This much should be nothing for you. Aren't you the Creator?"

I let out a loud sigh. "That's the point… If I could, I would already have grown them back, but I can't. It's not like I didn't try, but the [System] won't let me do it."

"The System?" Yoko and Harri both repeated, as they narrowed their eyes.

"Yeah. At first, I thought I couldn't heal my mother's ears because of my lack of control, but for the past twelve years, I did practice a lot." I started to explain. "You know, there are a lot of stray animals wandering around the mansion. Since I feed them, they came to trust me and let me touch them. I'm not sure if they get into fights with each other or if the inhabitants mistreat them, but they're often badly injured, and some of them are even missing a toe, a tail or an ear. Uhm… It's a little cruel, but I've kind of been using them to practice healing magic."

Without saying anything, Yoko and Harri carefully listened to my story. Since they didn't seem to want to add anything, I continued.

"So just like that, I practice for years, without any improvements. Opened wounds or internal injuries weren't a problem, but I couldn't do anything about their missing parts. Still, I didn't give up. And after years of practice, a change finally occurred. Not what I was expecting though… As I was focusing on the missing tail of a dog, I felt something changing. I'm not sure what, but this time, I was convinced it was going to work. So I tried visualizing its tail, and as I thought, for the first time, mana started materializing around the missing part. However, just as it was about to work, the [World System] sent me a notification, interrupting my magic…"

"You got interrupted?" Harri repeated, drawing his head backward and squinting.

"Yup." I sighed. "Ever since, each time I tried again, the [System] wouldn't let me use magic. It's exactly the same thing with Mind magic. Do you guys know anything about this?"

Harri shook his head. "Nope, not a clue. It never happened to me before."

Ah… Figures. Even if they did experience something similar, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even notice it. If they can't receive any messages from the [World System], they can't have any way to know about this. This is problematical. I'm absolutely on my own, there.

After staying silent for a while, Yoko eventually spoke up. "What's the strongest magic you've ever used?" She asked.

"Huh? Uhm, well… Giving blessings, I guess?" I responded, unsure of myself.

"It doesn't count. That's not magic, pick something else," she immediately said.

A bit confused, I tried looking in my memories the times where I used magic. I wasn't sure why she wanted to know that, but knowing her, Yoko probably had something in mind. Unfortunately, I didn't recall a lot of times where I actually used magic. I preferred using my small admin tricks over magic, since unlike magic, admin skills didn't require any mana, and thus, left no traces. There was also the risk of my magic going rampage. Over the past few years, I grew confident in my control, however, now knowing that I subconsciously infused mana all around the place, I'm clearly still lacking. Besides, since there was no place for me to practice without causing damages, I never used any high level magic besides healing magic. So, the strongest spell I've ever used? I'm not sure… Oh! Wait, there was that one time…

"Then bringing someone back to life." I finally answered, after thinking for a while.

Hearing this, Yoko and Harri both widened their eyes. Obviously, that's not a common magic.

"You resurrected someone?" Yoko asked, clearly not believing her ears.

"Uhm, not exactly. She wasn't really dead, so it's not really resurrection. She was about to die for real, though. She just stopped breathing and her heart stopped beating. However, her soul wasn't completely gone yet. So I just used healing magic to restart her heart, and voilà! Her soul returned and she came back to life."

Without uttering a word, Yoko and Harri exchanged meaningful glances.

"Uhm… Is it that uncommon?" I asked, a bit worried.

"Not really," Yoko answered. "As long as it's not too late and the vessel is intact, a soul can always return to its body and the person 'come back' to life. That's not the problem. You do know that basic Healing magic only accelerate the healing process, right?"

"Uhm? Yeah."

"Anything beyond that is advanced magic. So if you can't use Healing magic to regrow limbs, you shouldn't be able to use it to restart a heart. In other words, what you used back then probably wasn't Healing magic, but Lightning magic." Yoko explained.

Lightning? Well, that makes sense. It would work like a defibrillator, wouldn't it? Shocking people to stop or restart their heart. That sure is convenient, and also terrifying. But that's not the problem.

"I don't think I've ever heard of the Lightning attribute…" I muttered, skeptical.

"That's not surprising," Harri said. "It's a hybrid attribute. Basically, a magic obtained by combining two different attributes. However, since you would need a high affinity with two attributes, it's extremely rare, even among Gods, so not a lot of people know about it."

"Huh?"

"What are you so surprised about? Shouldn't you know that already? Are you really the Creator?"

No, no, no. That's exactly the point. I've never invented such rule. Actually, it's not the first time something like this happens. When I first heard about Soul and Mind magic, I thought they were only rumors, since I never invented such a thing. I only defined six different elemental magic: water, fire, wind, earth, light and darkness. There shouldn't be anything else. Yet, I eventually discovered about Soul and Mind magic, and since they're both forbidden arts, I couldn't find a lot of information on it. While Soul magic doesn't seem to be a problem, I can't use Mind magic at all. And now I discover another form of magic that I didn't invent.

If I'm really the Creator? To be honest, I'm starting to wonder too. Maybe I'm not after all. Maybe the gods just pulled a massive prank on me and manipulated my memories, making me believe that I had a past life where I created everything, whereas it's not the case. But it seems a little far-fetched as a hypothesis. What would explain my admin class, then?

In that case, it can only mean one thing: someone or something is interfering with my world.

"So you can't regrow limbs, but you can use hybrid magic? Interesting." Yoko exclaimed with a small grin. "Let's try something out. Harri."

"Right away!" Harri responded, probably guessing her thoughts.