Early Years: The Beginning After the End: (Remastered Edition), page 7
She patiently waited for me to finish before replying.
“You must have had a lot on your mind. The first question is easy to answer. This place is in a narrow zone between the Beast Glades and the Forest of Elshire,” she explained easily. “No one knows of it because I’ve been warding off anyone who came close, although there are few instances of that in any case. You, young child, are the first to enter into this domain.”
“Please, call me Art. My name is Arthur Leywin, but everyone calls me Art! You can too,” I blurted, before clapping my hands over my mouth, confused as to why I had spoken like an excited child.
“Very well, child, I will call you Art.” Her red eyes glazed over, gazing into the distance while answering my next questions.
“Continuing on to your second question, I am here alone simply because I have no one left to be with. While I do not think telling you everything would be wise, I will tell you that I have many enemies who desperately wish for something I have. My last battle with my enemies left this wound. As for where I come from, it is very far away.”
Sylvia paused for a moment before continuing. This time, her eyes looked straight at me, as if she was studying me.
“Why I saved you… even I do not fully know the answer to that question. Perhaps I have simply been alone for too long and wished to have someone to talk to. I first noticed you when your party was engaged in battle with the bandits. When you fell off the cliff to save your mother, I felt compelled to rescue you. It seemed a waste for such a good child to die. You are very brave. It is rare for even an adult to show such presence of mind under pressure.”
I shook my head. “I was scared too, but I didn’t have much of an option. I just wanted to save my mother and my baby sibling inside her.” I didn’t know if it was from the gentle way she talked or because of how big and powerful she seemed, but when I was in front of her, I seemed to turn into a child. No, I was a child in her presence.
“Your mother was pregnant? I see… You must miss them dearly. But rest assured, your family and party escaped unscathed. As for where they have gone, my sight cannot reach far enough to tell anymore.”
A wave of relief washed over me, and it took all I had to keep my tears from falling. They’re safe. This new life was exposing me to emotions I had buried deep down in my previous world.
“Thank God. Th-they’re alive… They’re okay.” I let out a sniffle.
Sylvia’s giant hand reached down and she softly patted my head with a finger.
I spent the rest of the day conversing with Sylvia. Toward afternoon, she directed me to some edible roots, which looked and tasted very similar to potatoes but were black in color. We talked about all sorts of things to pass the time as she prepared to open a portal. At one point, she asked me how I was able to use mana so well at my age.
“I was under the impression that, so far, the earliest a human mage had ever awakened was at the age of ten—and even then, because the child couldn’t grasp how to use it, there was very little he could do with it. Yet not only have you already formed your mana core, but, by the way you use your mana, you seem to be more skilled than many full-fledged mages.”
I just shrugged, feeling a twinge of pride at her compliment. “My parents said I was a genius or something. I can read really well, and I understand what the books are saying.”
The twinkle in the being’s piercing eyes seemed to show that whatever I was, she knew that the word “genius” wasn’t sufficient to describe it—but Sylvia remained silent.
The days trickled by as Sylvia continued preparing the portal. One day, in a regretful tone, she explained, “The spell will take some time to be completely safe. I would not like for you to land in a destination you are not familiar with. If there is even one inconsistency, it could lead to you arriving hundreds of feet off the ground. Please be patient. You will be able to see your loved ones soon.”
I nodded. As long as I knew they were alive, I was fine with waiting. It beat trying to climb back up the edge of the mountain.
While I trained my mana core and chatted with Sylvia, I noticed a few things. Sylvia exemplified the cliché, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Contrary to her intimidating appearance, she was kind, gentle, patient, and warm. She reminded me of my mother, in the way that they both managed to be tender while scolding me when I did something wrong. One afternoon, I mentioned that the mage I had fought, along with the other bandits, deserved worse deaths than they had suffered. She suddenly flicked my forehead.
Even though she was gentle, a flick of a finger from someone over three stories tall was nothing to make light of. I was sent tumbling to the ground. When I recovered, I asked angrily, “What was that for?”
She picked me up and set me on her armored knee and, her tone soft but pained, she said, “Art. Perhaps you are not wrong in that those bandits deserved death. I myself could have saved the mage you fell with, but I chose not to, for the same reasons. However, do not let your heart be clouded with continuous thoughts of hatred and the like. Continue proudly with your life and gain the strength to protect your loved ones from harm. Along the way, you will face dangerous situations, maybe even worse than the ones you have survived already—but don’t let the grief and rage corrode your heart. Move on, and learn from those experiences—better yourself—so they won’t happen again.”
I blinked, a bit stunned to be lectured on morality by someone who looked like the epitome of evil herself. But her words struck a chord within me, and I just responded with a blank nod.
As time passed, I noticed that her wound seemed to be getting bigger. At first, I found it somewhat odd that she could still be alive with a gaping hole in the side of her chest, but I soon grew accustomed to the sight of it. After several days, however, it was clear that the wound was bleeding more consistently now. Sylvia tried at first to hide it with her hand, but it was growing more and more obvious.
Noticing the direction of my concerned gaze, Sylvia gave me a weak smile and said, “Do not worry, little one. This wound festers from time to time.”
One day, while I was meditating and using strict movement techniques to better control my mana, Sylvia suddenly interrupted. “Art. Try absorbing mana during your movements. Ideally, while you are fighting, you should be able to absorb at least a fraction of the mana you would during meditation. You’ll be using mana faster than you can absorb it, but you should be able to prolong the usage of your mana.”
I remembered having had this exact idea. I had never gotten to test my hypothesis, since I wasn’t able to move as freely as I could now. I was used to thinking of the absorption of mana and the manipulation of mana as two separate things, and I hadn’t stopped to think about the possibilities in this new world.
I nodded. “I’ll try.”
“Humans have a very linear mindset regarding mana and find it hard to deviate from anything that already works. Practice hard now, though, because you can only acquire this skill while both your body and mana core are immature. Even mana beasts learn this technique, but humans awaken much too late and, in most cases, their bodies have nearly matured by that time. But considering how young you are, there shouldn’t be a problem so long as you practice,” Sylvia continued, giving a proud puff of her nose.
I had to admit that, as with most theories I tested, it was extremely difficult at first. It reminded me of the exercises the headmaster at the orphanage had shown us when I was younger, the ones where you tried to make each of your arms do something different, but it was much harder. But mastering this would essentially mean I would be able to fight proficiently while still maintaining a constant inward flow of mana.
Sylvia’s only advice was to tell me that an exceptional mage must be able to split his conscious mind into multiple segments in order to process information at the most efficient speed. I’d never had a teacher tell me to split my mind, but I tried doing as she said. I’d never tripped over my own body so many times, not even if you combined all my experiences from both my lives. This, at least, seemed to get a few hearty chuckles of amusement out of Sylvia.
The months passed. I kept Sylvia company, telling stories of my family and the town I was born in, and continued to improve in the mana technique thanks to Sylvia’s patience and my diligence.
If there was a name for this skill, Sylvia refused to reveal it, so I named it myself: mana rotation.
It would be an understatement to say I had grown close to Sylvia. She had treated me like her own blood grandson and, in response, I’d gotten attached to this demon lord grandmother. And, because of our growing relationship, I wasn’t able to simply ignore what was happening. It was frustratingly clear that, as the portal that would take me home became more distinct, her wound was growing worse.
One especially bad night, after she had vomited a pool of blood, I couldn’t hold back my concern. “Sylvia, please tell me what’s happening to your wound. Why is it getting worse? It wasn’t like this before. Your saying it ‘festers from time to time’ was clearly a lie. This isn’t going to go away on its own—it’s actually getting worse!”
I paused for a second, struck with the realization. Why didn’t I notice this before?
She had been getting worse while creating the portal.
In order to send me home—
She was sacrificing her life so I could return to my family.
Sylvia let out a deep breath, knowing that I had realized what was going on. Managing a sheepish smile, she whispered, “Art. Yes, I am dying. But I will be angry if you blame yourself, thinking that you have caused this. I have been dying for quite a while now. You are doing me a favor by allowing me to leave this forsaken cave a bit faster.”
As soon as she finished speaking, a bright golden glow began radiating from her body. Shielding my eyes to keep from going blind, I tried to focus on the shape forming where Sylvia had been sitting. In place of the ten-yard titan-like figure was a dragon, even larger. From her snout to the end of her tail, she was covered in a pearl-white coat of shimmering scales. Beneath her iridescent lavender eyes were glowing golden runes that marked her neck and ran down to spread around her body and tail like sacred engravings. They looked like an elegant, almost celestial tribal pattern, branching out harmoniously and with purpose, like carefully placed vines. The dragon’s wings were pure white, adorned with white-bladed feathers so fine and sharp as to put even a sword forged by a master smith to shame.
The golden light enveloping the dragon dimmed until I no longer needed to shield my eyes. I looked at the celestial creature sitting where Sylvia had been.
“There now… Do I look a bit more like a ‘Sylvia’ in this form?” Sylvia gave a toothy smirk.
“S-Sylvia? You’re a dragon?” I said.
“Now that I am in this form, we do not have much time. Yes, I am what you humans refer to as a ‘dragon.’ This wound that is killing me was inflicted during a narrow escape from men who sought to capture me. I sensed one of them drawing dangerously close a few days ago, so I feel that my time of hiding is drawing to an end. This form will alert them of my location, so I have time to explain only what is necessary. First, take this. I will need you to take care of it from now on.”
One of her bladed wings unfolded to reveal a translucent rainbow-colored stone the size of two fists. With its myriad of colors and shades, the stone gave off an aura that made me hesitate to take it. I almost felt as if I wasn’t worthy of holding it.
Without waiting for me to respond, she continued: “Everything will reveal itself when the time comes. Just hold on to it—and do not let anyone else know that you have it. Most will not know what it is, but everyone will be attracted by the aura it emits.”
While she spoke, she had plucked a feather from her wings with her claw; now she handed it to me. “Wrap the stone in this to conceal it.”
After I followed her instructions, the once-divine, radiant stone now appeared to be merely a smooth white rock—pretty, but ordinary.
While I studied the feather-encased stone, I was suddenly pushed back as Sylvia’s snout gently brushed against my chest, where my mana core was.
Taken aback, I looked up to see Sylvia’s purple eyes, and the gold markings around them, blazing even brighter than they had when she first transformed. As the markings grew dimmer and then disappeared, Sylvia pierced my core with her tongue, giving off wisps of a golden smoke that crackled with sparks of purple.
A sharp yelp escaped my mouth as I blinked, confused and surprised. I continued to just stare at her as she drew her head back, leaving a trail of blood from a hole in my threadbare shirt. My sternum had bled, but when I ran my hand over the area, there was no wound.
Sylvia’s expression was visibly pained and weak; it was apparent even for a mighty dragon. Perhaps most notably, her once-shimmering purple irises were now just a dim yellow, and the beautiful runes that had flowed across her face and body were now gone.
I opened my mouth to ask what she had done, but a giant explosion interrupted me.
I whipped my head up to see that the ceiling of the cave had been blown off. The figure that now appeared through the opening reminded me of Sylvia’s previous form.
It was clad in sleek black armor and a blood-red cape that matched its eyes. The figure’s skin was pale gray, like the clouded sky in the background. Its horns were different, though—this entity had two horns which curled down and under its ears, following the line of its chin.
Sylvia immediately covered me with one of her wings to protect me from the falling debris—and probably to keep me hidden from our visitor.
“Lady Sylvia! I advise you to stop your stubbornness and hand it over. You’ve already caused us quite enough trouble by hiding yourself. If you submit, the lord may even heal your wound.” The entity sounded impatient.
As soon as he finished speaking, the world around me seemed to pause. Except for Sylvia and myself, the colors of the world had changed, as if I was looking at a photographic negative. Most surprising of all, everything was still, as if suspended in amber—the entity, the clouds behind him, even the debris falling from the ceiling.
Ignoring the enemy, Sylvia casually peeked at me underneath her wing. “I’ll open the portal now,” she whispered, her eyes solemn. “I didn’t have time to make it go directly to your home, but it should take you to a place with humans nearby. Do not let him see you and do not look back.”
But I had heard the intruder’s promise, and I ignored Sylvia’s instructions. “Sylvia! Is what he said true? If you turn yourself over, will you be able to live?”
“Do not trust his honey-coated words. It will be worse for you if you are found right now. As for me, I would rather die than go back to where he is,” Sylvia said, impatience and anger mingling in her voice.
“No! I won’t let you die here. If you refuse to go with him, then please, just come with me,” I begged.
“I cannot go with you. You will forever be in danger if any one of them finds out you have had contact with me. I must stay here.”
Sylvia gently wiped my cheeks with a claw, her draconic eyes lined with tears.
“You once asked me why I chose to save you. The truth is, it was to satisfy my own greed. I wanted to keep you as my own child, even for just a little while. I intentionally prolonged the transportation spell because I wished to have more time with you, and now there is not enough time to finish it. I’m sorry, little Art, for my selfishness—but I have one last request to make. Can you be my grandson? Will you call me ‘grandmother’ just this once?”
“I don’t care about all that. I’ll say it as much as you want if you come with me. Grandma! Grandma! You can’t! Not like this!” I was stuttering with fear and frustration. “Please, I’m begging you, just come with me. I-I don’t know what you did, but everything is frozen right now; we can escape! Please, Grandmother, don’t go. Not like this!” I held tight to Sylvia’s claw, desperately trying to pull her away with me.
In that moment, Sylvia’s face blossomed into a smile so beautiful, she looked almost human.
I barely caught the words she spoke as she pushed me into the portal.
“Thank you, my child.”
Chapter 10
Road Ahead
The trip through the dimensional rift evoked a very peculiar sensation. My surroundings whizzed by in an indistinct blur of colors while the space below slipped from underneath me. I stared blankly off into the distance with no more tears left to cry.
I landed with a jolt on hard ground, though my fall was cushioned by a pile of leaves and vines. It didn’t matter, though. Even if I had landed on jagged rocks, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
I remained in the same seated position I had maintained during the trip, not even bothering to look around me and take in my surroundings.
She was gone.
I would never have the chance to see her again.
Those two thoughts triggered another wave of emotion, and I heaved with sobs.
I recalled the months we had spent together—how caring she was, how she had treated me like her own blood. I didn’t care that she had delayed sending me home in order to keep me with her. In the short time I had been with Sylvia, she’d taught me so much and given me insights I had lacked in this world.
The anguish was overwhelming, and I succumbed to the urge to sleep—my mind’s way of coping with it, I supposed. I curled up into a ball where I had landed, but then a searing pain jolted me back up.
The burning sensation spread from my mana core throughout my body, and then a voice echoed in my head.
‘Ahem. Testing, testing… Ah, good! Hello, Art. This is Sylvia.’
My heart fluttered in instant response to the voice. “Sylvia! I’m here! Can you hear—”
‘If you’re listening to this right now, it means I have shown you what I actually am.’
