Good Intentions
The intention was good.
He gathered the mountain of cigarette butts piled on the desk and dumped them into the trash.
They were the byproducts of sorting what could be used from what could not.
Luke laid the tobacco leaves he had collected onto a handkerchief. Once gathered, it amounted to about a fistful. Measured against a child's fist, it was hardly a satisfying quantity. Pillus already held little mana to begin with, and after the impurities were refined out, the yield would shrink even further.
Luke rinsed them clean with water. Washing away the filth was the bare minimum, after all. He dried the wet tobacco leaves with a magical phenomenon of fire and wind—the privilege of a Second Circle mage.
"Hmm…"
Luke stared intently at the tobacco leaves, trying to identify what kinds of impurities they contained. He sniffed them, even put a bit to his lips, and as he did so, considered how best to process them.
Pillus is a mana-herb that was never meant to be drunk in the first place…
Pillus manifested mana in a form best suited for absorption through mist or vapor. Taken through the digestive system, the mana was far too weak, and the effect never lasted long. So this time he would purely elevate the quality of the tobacco itself. That seemed the better approach.
Alchemy in reverse—recovering the original materials—was never an easy task. Just because you could identify what ingredients went in did not mean you could necessarily separate them out again. Most alchemy was irreversible; twisting a transformed structure back apart was extraordinarily difficult.
Moreover, this purification and separation was being performed in an ordinary household, without so much as professional alchemical equipment—something he had never attempted even in the past. He had never been placed in such impoverished circumstances to begin with; a professional environment had always been prepared around him.
But fretting over what he lacked would do no good. Luke rummaged through the cupboards and pulled out whatever might serve as tools. Measuring cups, a kettle, handkerchiefs, a pot… Still, this was decent enough.
Closing his right eye, Luke concentrated as hard as he could and sorted the mana-herbs that held the most mana. After staring wide-eyed through the classification for a while, he soon felt his eye growing fatigued. Once the sorting was finally done, he put them into the kettle and raised its heat. Raising the temperature of a target was no longer difficult for Luke, so not having to move seats was truly convenient.
He did not forget to open the window for ventilation. A workshop for alchemy always needed good ventilation—especially for reverse-alchemy work that produced so many byproducts.
While it boiled, he fiddled with the area around his golden glowing eye and wore a faintly bitter smile.
"One eye really is stifling, after all."
Losing what he had once possessed was more inconvenient than he cared to admit. If he did not pay attention, he could not even use Mana Sight. In the past, simply looking at the world with both eyes had been enough to grasp the essence of an object's mana. If he had to name the thing he missed most among what he currently lacked, it was not alchemical tools—it was the Mana Sight of his other eye.
"Haha. So human greed truly knows no end."
He ought to be grateful for even one remaining, not grow greedy for more. Luke closed his eyes for a moment to rest them.
Thoughts that came with closed eyes. Why had he ended up in this body? Why could he not remember his own end? Why had he opened his eyes now, five thousand years later?
Reincarnation…?
Luke had always rejected that concept. Nothing in the world was immortal. That included the soul. Death was complete death; obtaining a new life was impossible. That was the conclusion he himself—an Archmage—had reached after countless experiments and verifications.
For a very long time, Luke had researched "immortality." It had clearly been out of concern for Renier, who would be left alone in the end. In the end, the more he experimented, the more the results only confirmed that the "immortality" he envisioned was impossible. Impossible without borrowing the power of a god who governed the rules of the world, like Renier…
"Ugh…!"
Luke groaned at a sudden headache and pressed his brow.
Luke…?
Pai asked, sounding worried. It was clearly asking if he was all right. He gave a small smile to say he was fine, not to worry, and only then did Pai settle down, relieved.
Looking at that spirit, Luke felt a strange sense of déjà vu. It was the first time even for Luke that he was seeing a spirit directly. So what was this sense of familiarity? No matter how hard he thought, nothing came to mind right away. Just a misperception?
No. That can't be. This is…
Bubble-bubble—the sound of the kettle with the mana-herbs boiling reached him.
Whoops. I need to focus on the work for now.
Luke continued the purification. He had to finish refining at least before Yerna came home, didn't he?
"Phew… I'm exhausted."
Coming home from work really was the best. This wave's monsters had been low-level, so defending hadn't been particularly hard, and there was nothing specially tiring about it—but clocking out always felt like this.
Come to think of it, I also pulled an all-nighter last night.
Well, for having blocked a wave all day without a wink of sleep, she was pretty spry. Was it because of Luke's tea? Thinking that brought the morning tea back to mind again. That incredibly warm, cozy feeling that had wrapped around her. That sensation had felt rather nice, too.
"By the way…"
Yerna took out her phone and checked the places Luke had wandered today. She had linked location tracking to Luke's phone. Considering she'd lost him once before—well, she hadn't actually lost him; she'd just fretted alone—she had realized a child could go missing at any time, so this was for the future.
"Hmm. Did he meet Gerard today, maybe?"
The mana power plant was marked on Luke's route. Yerna nodded. She remembered how he'd gone out alone to the mana power plant before, too. Luke really, truly wanted to become a mage. So of course he'd have lots of questions for Gerard, a working mage. Thinking that made him all the more adorable again.
But he wandered around an awful lot today…
The weather had been lovely today. Maybe that was why Luke had gone so far afield. She hoped he wasn't too tired. As she thought this and that, she realized once again that she was fretting over Luke.
Ugh, stop. Just stop.
She worried too much. Siena had told her so, and Daphne had told her so. But how was she supposed to not worry? She didn't want to let something like that happen again.
Still, thinking about it, maybe Luke was the one making her worry. Just think—kidnapping, confinement, human experimentation… Right now, with his memories gone, a childlike innocence was showing through… but when his memories returned, would Luke still be able to keep his sanity? Well… it was hard to be optimistic about that. And if you looked at a child like that and didn't worry, wouldn't that make you a heartless psychopath?
Yerna took a steadying breath, forced a bright expression onto her face, and opened the door.
Bang.
"Luke, Unnie's ho—"
She froze.
The moment she opened the door, a peculiar scent filling the entire house greeted her. This smell was definitely…!
"Ah, Yerna. You're back?"
Luke's gaze turned toward the entering Yerna. And there, Yerna could only be horrified. What met her eyes was the sight of Luke smoking a cigarette with an extremely tired expression. She cried out like a scream.
"L-L-Luke…! Wh-where did you get that cigarette?!"
"Ah, this? I made it myself."
"Y-y-y-you made it??"
"Indeed. All the tobacco around here is pure junk—it couldn't produce a satisfactory effect. Making it was quite a hassle."
"…"
Faced with Luke's brazen confidence, Yerna's mind completely blanked out.
Lu… smoking a cigarette…
She barely caught her collapsing body and pressed a hand to her forehead. She felt like she was going to lose her mind. Her legs actually wobbled a little.
"Just what…"
What did he mean, the effect wasn't satisfactory? Didn't that mean he'd smoked before, even in the past?! Yerna forced the words out in a trembling voice.
"L-Luke, you smoke cigarettes too?"
"Is that strange?"
"Good heavens…"
Luke asking back as if wondering what was odd about it made her head spin. Of course it was common sense that children shouldn't smoke…
Ah.
Luke lacked common sense. After all, there had been no adults around to teach him what was wrong. Perhaps, having grown up in that kind of environment, Luke had naturally taken up smoking as well. And it wasn't as if he'd only tried it once or twice—his posture was thoroughly professional.
While Yerna desperately fretted over what to say, Luke took her reaction for mere surprise and fatigue, and held out the other cigarette he had barely managed to craft.
"Here. This is one I refined to perfection. No side effects. How about it? Smoke it and your mood will lift, your head will clear, and your fatigue will melt away. The effect is guaranteed."
A guaranteed effect… So it wasn't just ordinary tobacco, then. The claim that he'd made it himself also bothered her.
Don't tell me…!
Was that not a cigarette but some kind of drug?
"Luke!!"
Smack!
Yerna swatted it away at once.
"…!"
Luke was greatly startled by Yerna's reaction. He had spent nearly half a day struggling to make that, and the fruit of that labor had been rejected right before his benefactor's eyes. She hastily snatched the cigarette from Luke's hand as well and crushed it out with her fingers. She cleanly ignored Luke's nonsense about how this had been refined perfectly clean to raise performance and lower side effects. It was still a cigarette, after all.
Yerna took the confiscated cigarettes straight toward the kitchen trash can to throw them away.
…And then she saw it.
A mountain of countless cigarette butts. Seeing that, her head felt ready to explode entirely. How much had he smoked? The fact that she hadn't noticed at all until now left her utterly devastated. Come to think of it, Luke had recently been taking out the trash himself as part of helping with housework, so she hadn't seen any of this.
Yerna spoke as if muttering.
"Since when."
"…Yerna? What on earth is the matter?"
"Tell me the truth."
At the ominous atmosphere, Luke tensed a little. Asking since when, out of nowhere. Luke thought for a moment, then, since this form of cigarette was indeed a first for him, said:
"…Today is the first, though…?"
"Don't lie."
"It's true. This form is a first…"
Yerna cut him off with a chilling reply.
"Luke. I really hate lies."
"I-it's true!"
"I see… So that's how it is…"
Yerna truly didn't want to do this, but she had no choice. Yerna seized Luke. Whatever the past had been, Luke now had to live the life of an ordinary child—and this was corporal punishment a guardian absolutely had to administer.