Chapter 7
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: Solar Disease (1)
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As a child, I once played with the children of noble families who had come to visit our estate.
"Elaine, why don't you go outside and play with your friends? Mommy's a little busy right now."
Visitors rarely came to the North.
Meeting kids my own age was like chasing stars in the sky, so everything felt fresh and exciting that day.
It was truly fun.
We played all sorts of games, and the last one suggested by a boy and a girl was hide-and-seek.
"Hide-and-seek?"
"Yeah! The seeker wins if they tag everyone else!"
Just hearing the rules didn't make it sound all that fun.
But with their eyes sparkling, I couldn't bring myself to refuse.
I was the first seeker.
"Got you all."
I caught my friends easily.
There wasn't any real challenge.
If anything, I wondered why they were all moving so slowly.
"N-No fair! Let's switch!"
The boy, his pride hurt, threw a tantrum and demanded we swap roles.
And so he became the seeker this time.
But the result was the same.
I never got tagged once.
"Waaah...!"
The boy's face twisted in frustration.
Back then, I didn't know.
That losing to a girl had scratched his pride.
"That's cheating! Cheating!"
"Did she use magic or something?"
I hadn't used magic.
I wasn't even sure if magic really existed.
Suddenly, the boy shoved me hard.
It was a force that shouldn't have fazed me, but my foot caught on a stone in the ground.
My body lurched, and I fell.
My knees scraped against the gravel laid out to decorate the garden, drawing blood.
"Ow..."
It hurt.
A sharp sadness stabbed at my chest, and I couldn't hold it back.
Tears finally burst out.
"What... It's your fault..."
"...Feels good acting all high and mighty, huh?"
But no one came to comfort me.
Just because I hadn't lost a single game of hide-and-seek,
I had somehow become the arrogant, selfish kid.
The children headed inside the estate one by one.
I stayed there alone, sniffling and sitting for a while.
"Oh no, my poor girl!"
Mom came running out of the estate after hearing my cries.
"Does it hurt a lot? Are you okay?"
She hugged me close and patted my back gently.
The sadness piercing my chest melted away like magic.
She pulled out some ointment from her bosom and applied it to my knee.
"Here, Mommy will blow on it so it doesn't hurt."
The stinging wound started to feel better as she blew on it.
"How's that? Doesn't hurt at all now, right?"
"It's amazing! How did you do that?"
"Hee hee. Mommy's magic."
Mom smiled playfully,
but back then, I thought she really was a magician.
She stroked my hair and gave me a warm smile.
"Someday, Elaine, you'll meet a wonderful person who can use magic to make wounds stop hurting."
"...Really?"
"Yes, really."
Yes, looking back now, as a child, I admired magic.
If it could heal painful wounds in an instant,
everyone in the world could be happy.
I truly believed that.
However.
.
.
.
.
—Roar!
"I love you... my daughter... you have to live..."
The 'real' magic I saw that day
turned my most precious person into ashes.
#
"I dozed off for a bit..."
She'd had a terrible nightmare.
Elaine thought to herself how unlucky she was as she stretched and surveyed the scene before her.
Her fiancé, who had come from the Silverhardt family, was happily playing dolls with the elf children.
"How did things end up like this..."
She clutched her throbbing head and recalled how it had come to this.
It had started with a request from the elf knight, Sian.
"Miss, could you ask Sir Yudel if he'd teach some magic to my kids?"
The moment Sian learned Elaine's fiancé was a mage, her eyes lit up with that outrageous request.
But there was something she didn't know.
"He's practically invisible to me..."
That Elaine and Yudel weren't close at all.
They were engaged, but their first meeting had been a disaster.
Silverhardt.
The fact that her match was a man raised in the famed house of magic
had filled Elaine at the time with an anger that was hard to believe.
Of course, she soon realized it was unfair.
The man had done nothing wrong.
If anything, coldly reflecting on it, she had been the rude one, person to person.
'Still...'
Elaine hated mages.
Every time she saw him, she reflexively thought of him as a 'mage' first.
And negative emotions followed.
She considered explaining her circumstances but soon gave up.
With Sian's personality, she'd probably take it as some lovers' quarrel.
It would definitely become a hassle.
But asking Yudel to play teacher was a perfectly reasonable idea.
'Separate from my hatred of mages, elves are a race suited to magic. His guidance would help a lot.'
So she made the request.
She was prepared to be seen as shameless.
If this made Yudel dislike her even more, that wasn't so bad either.
"Sure."
"..."
Against her expectations, he accepted readily.
And now, here he was, laughing heartily while playing with the elf children twitching their long ears.
"Miss Elaine! You must be tired. Did you have a hot night or something?"
"Ah... a bit."
Elaine was once again struck by the fact that Sian was a married woman.
Only someone like that could toss out such crude jokes so lightly from a woman's mouth.
"I should thank Sir Yudel again. As an inadequate mother, I can't teach my kids much myself."
Sian gazed fondly at Yudel and her own children playing happily beside him.
"Good thing."
Did becoming a mother change a person?
She seemed completely different from the elf woman Elaine had first seen, sold as a slave in the black market. The venom was gone, maybe.
"Hey!! You kids! Who said you could tug on Sir Yudel's ears!! You'll get it from Mom!"
Or not... She seemed even feistier now.
Elaine followed Sian's gaze.
"Got it? If you can understand the beauty of these dolls, you too can become excellent mages."
Yudel was having his cheeks and ears pulled by the elf children.
Far from annoyed, he calmly explained the beauty of the dolls.
For some reason, Elaine found herself staring blankly at the scene, unable to look away.
#
At Elaine's request, he had begun teaching the elf children she was protecting.
"You all are splendid."
"Yeah! Big bro's splendid too!"
"No, I'm not splendid at all. You all are."
"Eh?"
I couldn't hide my excitement at seeing elf children straight out of a fairy tale.
Especially those long ears.
My heart was racing.
I wanted to tug on them once, but I held back, afraid these doll-like kids would come to hate me.
"The dolls are cool! I wanna take them home!"
"I'll give you some as special gifts."
"Really? Yayyy!"
No matter how artistic or perfectly crafted a work is, it's worthless to someone who can't appreciate its value.
In that sense, these kids loved my creations more than anyone and recognized their worth.
Not a bit of regret in giving them away.
"Have you gotten a feel for circulating your mana?"
"Yeah!"
As expected of half-elves, their aptitude for magic was outstanding.
To reach this level of proficiency on their very first lesson.
"Reminds me of Brunhild."
"Hmm... Who's Brunhild?"
"A human girl. She's training hard to become a knight."
"Wow! Our mom's a knight too!"
"I, I see."
Keeping up with the kids' conversation pace was exhausting.
"Big bro has such white skin! Mom says people who stay cooped up inside all day have pale skin!"
"...Yeah."
"Right! She says all guys with white skin can't fulfill a man's role!"
"..."
Sian rushed over, covering the kids' mouths, and flashed an awkward smile.
"What exactly are you teaching my kids..."
"S-Sorry. I'll make sure they learn manners."
I let out a small sigh and watched the elf children getting scolded by Sian.
The pure violence unique to kids had wounded my heart, but I'd gained something too.
While teaching the elves, I'd let my mana flow into the children, and in the process, discovered something interesting.
'Maybe because of the racial difference, the elves' mana circuits were shaped differently from humans'.
But their efficiency was incomparably superior.
"Helpful."
Opportunities to examine other races' bodies weren't common.
Someday, I could incorporate it into my automaton puppets.
By now, the kids had latched onto Elaine, spinning around and bragging about their training progress.
Elaine hates magic...
I worried the elf kids might get smacked for no reason.
"Sis! I can use magic now?"
"Really?"
"But... my body's feeling weird."
That was when it happened.
Sian's third son, Ryan, who had been clinging to Elaine, suddenly staggered and collapsed to the ground.
"M-Mom, I'm dizzy... my body's hot."
"Ryan? What's wrong! Ryan!"
"...!"
I hurriedly checked Ryan's pulse.
Fortunately, his body seemed fine.
Pulse normal, breathing normal.
But.
"He's hot."
From using too much mana?
It was a symptom beginners often experienced.
If you handle excessive mana before your body is tempered, it can't keep up.
But something was off.
I'd adjusted the training intensity.
Embarrassing as it is, I'd been studying magic for twenty years.
Since starting at five, I'd never slacked on my studies.
I was past the point of rookie mistakes.
'The amount of mana Ryan handled couldn't produce this much heat.'
Naturally, my eyes turned to the woman holding the boy.
"Elaine."
I roughly seized Elaine's wrist.
She looked at me with bewildered eyes.
But there was no time to explain.
The powerful mana flow surging through her hand into me made my eyes widen.
"You... how long has this been going on?"
Her body was burning hot, like a fireball.