What Is Life?
Before my eyes, a younger version of myself and Mother sat in a pavilion upon a fog-shrouded lake, talking with each other.
Yeah. This was a dream.
I didn't particularly want to wake up. My one and only best friend didn't seem the type to betray me, and even if it was only a dream, I could see Mother's face.
Speaking through a diary was one thing, but seeing her with my own eyes was something else entirely. There was quite a distance between us, so I started walking toward them.
Because it was a dream, I could walk on water without any particular prayer. I wondered if that was really allowed, but hey — it was my dream. What did it matter?
Skating across the surface of the water was so much fun that I wandered off the path for a while, but before long I arrived at the pavilion where Mother and I were sitting.
"My child, I would like to ask you something. What do you think life is?"
"...What... is life...?"
I wasn't stammering, but I wasn't particularly fluent either — so I was probably around thirteen. Or somewhere in that neighborhood.
I'd spent nearly four solid years correcting my speech. It had been tedious at the time, but now that I knew Father had taught me so diligently because he loved me, I didn't mind anymore.
...Still, I didn't want to go back. Constantly parroting Father's words like a parrot, having to answer correctly whenever he sprang a question on me — it had all been exhausting.
"Ugh..."
Mother had always asked difficult questions whenever we were alone together. Things like whether humans could live without gods, whether it was right to sacrifice the few to save the many, whether aging was truly the natural order of living things — and many more besides.
At first, whenever she asked those questions, I'd wrack my brains trying to come up with a plausible answer. But at some point I'd just start going Baby doesn't know that! and try to run away.
It wasn't that I disliked Mother. I simply hated those abstruse questions. And the fact that I wasn't smart enough to answer them properly played a part, too.
But I didn't think I remembered her ever asking what life was. It was too detailed to just dismiss as a dream.
"...Life is something supremely precious, and, um, and... something valuable... isn't it...?"
That was the best answer I could come up with. A stock answer like that would never satisfy Mother.
Sure enough, she didn't seem particularly satisfied, and she mulled over what young me had said.
"Supremely precious and valuable, is it."
Having spoken those words once, Mother gestured with her hand. And something began to take shape from empty air.
It was bone. Unmistakably the skeleton of a fish. Then blood vessels and a heart, internal organs, muscle and skin layered themselves one after another over the bones.
That fish was clearly alive and moving. When she gestured again, the fish that had been floating as if fixed in midair plopped into the water and vanished from sight.
"Then is the gesture of my hand that creates life also something precious and valuable?"
"Huh...?"
Now I know Mother is a great person, but my younger self didn't know that. So of course I'd make that dumbstruck face.
Come to think of it, this scene... I was certain I'd seen it somewhere before. It was far too detailed for a dream.
...Ah. Right. This isn't a dream — it's a memory. I don't know why it's surfacing now, but somehow it was a memory I'd forgotten.
"Uh, of course Mother is precious too, but... ummm... the preciousness of life and... aren't those a different kind of thing...?"
Young me had gone deathly pale. If I'd been this shocked, I should have remembered it — so why had I forgotten?
"So you think that. Then I would like to ask you one more thing. What do you think a human being is?"
"What...?"
Mother smiled playfully and raised her hand. Young me, having exceeded my capacity for shock, fainted on the spot.
"It seems my teasing went a little too far. Yes — forget what happened today. When the time comes, you will remember."
Only after watching her pillow my collapsed head on her lap and stroke my hair did I understand the full picture of what had happened.
She'd erased it from my memory so it wouldn't become a trauma. Honestly, when she'd raised her hand just now, I'd been terrified she was actually about to create a human.
Even looking at it now would be a shock. Just as I was quietly trembling, imagining something that hadn't even happened, I felt something strange.
Mother was looking straight this way.
...Huh? How?
She's the Mother in my memory — how is she looking at me?
"...And you, my child, who is listening from over there. You should think about it as well. What a human being is."
For a moment I froze in shock, and then Mother continued.
"You should go. You need to finish what you were doing properly, don't you?"
How does she know that? I tried to move my mouth, but my body wouldn't move at all. More importantly — keep watching Dogeon?
I couldn't properly understand any of it. But I could clearly hear Dogeon's voice tickling my ear.
The voice saying the name Exipri.
"Why do I have to take supplementary classes?!"
"An excellent question, cadet. Because magical beasts do not spare you just because you are a young lady. No — let me correct that. They target young ladies first. So shouldn't you be working twice as hard?"
Exipri was trying every way she could to get out of the supplementary class, but Georg shoved her into the supplementary class group as if that were none of his concern.
Not that the "supplementary class group" amounted to much more than her and me. And even then, I was on the magic side, so we barely had any overlap.
"There, there — don't be too discouraged, Lady Exipri. I'm sure the professor has his reasons."
Not that he does. Honestly, just giving her snacks would send her favorability skyrocketing, so there was no need for any of this.
Still, better than doing nothing.
Hoyeon happened to be asleep, so I didn't need to worry about being watched.
Whether it was the lack of friends that was her sore spot — after I said that, she hadn't spoken a single word.
She seemed properly sulky, and I debated whether I should apologize, but talking to her while she was angry could just make things worse, so I didn't.
She seemed easy in some ways, but also a bit of a hassle. Probably the type who'd get sulky again if she saw me getting along with someone else.
The fact that she'd followed me all the way to the gym suggested something like: I'm mad at you, but I don't want to leave your side, and I also don't want to see you talking to anyone else.
I wouldn't know the truth until she told me herself.
"Ugh... I guess so...?"
"Yes, of course."
I'd just gone along with her mood a little, and she brightened right up and started grinning — and I couldn't help thinking she really was easier than Hoyeon.
Hoyeon was easy too, but only when the word "friend" was attached. It seemed she genuinely hadn't had a single friend.
Well, being the child of an emperor and something transcendent — of course there wouldn't be many people who could treat her casually.
So that was why she'd been so happy about the word "friend." And when that monumental first friend had hit her sore spot, of course she'd gotten that angry. I understood.
I'd stayed in touch with my first friend too, until I fell into this novel.
Once her anger cooled, I'd properly apologize with sincerity.
Going along with Exipri at a comfortable pace, she brightened up quickly and started scrambling around declaring she'd overcome something as trivial as exercise — and it was cute.
Today's special training was just at the gym, without using subspace. She ran this way and that dodging the beast phantasms, while I just had to appropriately handle the magic Georg was firing at me — a pretty simple class.
During the main class he'd pushed us mercilessly, so I'd been worried about what he'd do during supplementary class, but it was easier than expected. The magic he was firing could be blocked with a simple barrier, and I could also counter it with opposite-attribute spells.
Well, even in the first class it had only taken a long time — he'd basically just been measuring us. Maybe this session was for gauging how proficient we were with magic.
Thinking that, I was taking the class easy when I felt an intense gaze boring into the back of my head. Half-expecting it, I turned around to find Hoyeon looking at me.
...Since when?
If she'd just woken up, she wouldn't be staring through me like that. So she must have seen me getting along with Exipri.
The problem was from which point she'd been watching. If she'd been watching from the first time I called Exipri's name, my crime would be that much heavier.
So she really did follow me because she didn't want to see me talking to anyone else — the thought had barely crossed my mind when a spell hit me while I was distracted.
"Where do you think you're looking, Cadet Han Dogeon."
"I'm sorry."
It just stung a little, like being hit with a somewhat strong flick to the forehead.
Nothing I did would work on Georg, so I just had to bow my head. Ever since coming to the academy, it felt like all I'd been doing was bowing.
"...Aha. So it's because of that young lady over there."
"How did you..."
Know?
Before I could even ask, he just said what he wanted to say.
"Go on. She's waiting for you, isn't she. That's enough for today."
This wasn't the kind of person he was. I couldn't believe someone who considered everyone but himself garbage would care about someone else.
That aside...
Right now I had to go apologize to a thoroughly furious her.