Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: A Family's Warmth
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“Family?”
I remember Rista asking a strange question during our journey south.
“Yeah, Lin, have you ever thought about having a family of your own?”
“No. I don’t even know what my birth mother looks like.”
The place where I grew up was the slums in the north.
If the chancellor of Osarius Academy hadn’t spotted my magical talent while passing by and taken me in, I would’ve died as a street orphan.
“So I don’t know what family is like. And since I don’t know, I don’t care.”
“Oh dear, how pitiful…….”
Then the shrine maiden Fride playfully hugged the boy tight and blew cigarette smoke at him. Resisting the embarrassment, I shot back.
“Even if I had a family…… I wouldn’t know how to treat them. So I don’t need one.”
“It’s not hard, Lin.”
At my empty mutterings, a flower fresher than spring bloomed on Rista’s face.
“Just cherish them a lot. You’re a kind child, Lin, so you’ll do great.”
Young master.
Young master, it’s morning……
With a polite whisper, my vision opened, and the fond memory faded away.
“Mm…….”
The boy sat up in bed and stretched.
Deep, radiant sunlight.
The spring melody of birds chirping—it was morning.
“Then, Young Master Rain, I’ll prepare breakfast.”
The boy yawned lazily and checked his reflection in the mirror, straightening his clothes.
Glossy black hair and ruby-red eyes more beautiful than gems.
An elegant figure.
His refined features bore none of the rustic clumsiness typical of slum-raised kids.
To cut to the chase, the boy had been reincarnated.
Just twenty days ago, the immature, blunt nine-year-old had regained memories from 300 years prior.
His reincarnated status was none other than the eldest son of the Ludwig Marquess family, one of the five great magic houses representing the empire.
The Ludwig family traced its lineage to Ryuken Ludwig, the fifth great mage and a senior predecessor of the boy.
Unlike his past life as a penniless orphan, he’d been born into a harmonious, affluent household, so he had to make constant efforts to adapt to the changed daily life.
“Young master, good morning.”
“Oh my. Rain, you’re already up? Such a good boy! Go call your father. He’ll be delighted if you come.”
“Yes.”
Father was in the family head’s office.
The room was cluttered with luxurious furniture and piles of documents.
“Rain, didn’t you sleep well? You don’t look so good.”
Rain, Rain Ludwig.
The pride of the Ludwig Marquess family’s firstborn son.
“Are you still tired from the trip…….”
Father Kevn Ludwig touched the boy’s forehead to check for fever. Suddenly, I recalled days when Rista had done the same.
“Breakfast is ready. They say to come down.”
“Haha, is that why my son came personally? Thanks, but go ahead and eat first.”
“Why?”
Father hugged the boy and rubbed his beard against his face, leading him to the desk in the family head’s office.
The boy’s eyes caught sight of it.
A large drawing paper spread on the desk, bathed in slanting spring sunlight. On it, three layers of magic arrays.
“Magic?”
“Yeah, the theory presentation is next week. You know how your head gets foggy after eating? I’m trying to make the most of my clear morning mind.”
The boy’s eyes quickly and accurately scanned the information on the magic arrays drawn on the paper.
The arrays formed three squares. The runes inscribed were Ju(周), Da(茶), Go(庫).
Squares meant earth-attribute magic.
With three arrays and three runes, it was a 3-star spell.
A high realm of magic that even geniuses barely reached.
‘Stuck there and there, huh.’
But the boy was a great mage.
The problems were obvious at a glance.
“Want me to help?”
“What, you gonna cheer me on?”
“No. I mean I’ll help.”
“Of course I welcome Rain’s cheers. But if I do, Mom’ll just scold me. Now go eat breakfast.”
No, I mean really help.
Without giving Kevn a chance to stop him, the boy climbed onto the desk and grabbed the quill.
‘Magic is…….’
Determining attributes with shapes, properties with runes.
‘Interpreting providence through math and twisting it to alter reality.’
The blockage Kevn faced was naturally the final step……
‘The mathematical computation part.’
The dense mathematical formulas filling the array’s interior cut off abruptly at one point.
“The Go(庫) rune complicates the math and clashes with the Da(茶) rune. So changing it to Gu(丘) would be better.”
“……?”
“Then with Imperial Mathematical Formula 41-2 matrix establishment, the answer comes quick. Like this.”
The boy finished writing on the paper with the quill and smiled.
Wait, how do you smile again?
Comically, I couldn’t recall, so I had to pull up the corners of my mouth with both hands.
“This is…… such a method……?”
Kevn, who’d been at a loss over his son’s antics, widened his eyes and alternated between the paper and his son’s face.
‘How, how is this……?’
It was a conundrum even imperial scholars couldn’t solve. A high-level spell from about 200 years ago, now obsolete.
If this magic could be reestablished, countless people could receive miraculous aid in floods or landslides.
But Rain was only nine. Just starting basic magic—how could he……?
“Can we eat breakfast together now?”
The boy asked.
Father blankly lifted his head, then ruffled his son’s hair wildly and laughed.
“Yeah, let’s go eat together.”
* * *
The boy’s family wasn’t complicated.
Parents above, and one six-year-old little sister below.
That was the girl peeking from behind the bookshelves in the library, staring at the boy.
Silky black hair like ebony, red eyes.
A lovely girl born inheriting the Ludwig family’s physical traits, just like Rain.
“……?”
But when our eyes met, she ran away.
No surprise.
In the boy’s memories, Rain hadn’t been kind to his little sister. Not unkind, just indifferent to the world.
Perhaps due to the loneliness etched into his soul.
Born in an era after all his comrades died as legends, the pain might have left him living a life filled with emptiness.
“…….”
She kept running, so I ignored her to read, but an annoying voice nagged.
- Cherish her a lot.
How, when she keeps running?
I’ve got my own stuff to do.
This body has messed-up mana reserves and low stamina. Even knowing spells is useless without mana.
- You’re a kind child, Lin, so you’ll do great. I believe that.
The boy let out a big sigh.
Then, when his eyes met his sister’s again, he beckoned.
“Come here. Want me to teach you something? Or play?”
His sister, Seri Ludwig, looked flustered at the question. She hemmed and hawed for a while, then bolted.
But soon she returned, holding out a book with both hands to Rain.
“『Fundamentals of 1-Star Magic Formulas』…… You’re six and already studying this?”
Seri nodded vigorously.
Then she started dancing around happily. Her face said she was thrilled to talk with her big brother.
- Come here, Lin.
Fond memories briefly washed the world before his eyes crystal clear.
Every time they encountered beautiful scenery.
Vast nature, brilliant worlds—Rista would sit Lin on her lap and teach him all sorts of things.
- Lin, know what this flower means?
- Lin, know the story behind that cliff?
Lin grumbled about being babied…… but truthfully, those times were precious. So he sat Seri on his lap.
“What don’t you get?”
“Th, thi-this!”
“You don’t know from the very first part…….”
“Yeah-!”
“Got it. I’ll explain.”
How to describe the vast world of magic.
“Ever played house-building?”
“Yeah-!”
“Thatched hut, brick house…… materials change by house type, right? Magic arrays do that role.”
Magic arrays.
Their shapes determine the magic’s attribute.
“Draw a triangle like this for fire attribute, a fan shape for wind. So this spell is wind-attribute magic.”
“Wi, wi-wind!”
“Next comes runes. They set the magic’s property.”
Runes are incantations bestowed on magic—ancient words with different meanings.
Yul(律) means binding.
Ho(扈) means scattering.
For example, engraving Yul rune in a triangular array makes a fire-binding spell.
“Now use math formulas to solve from here.”
“Ma-math!”
“No, math.”
“Ma-math what?”
“…….”
“……?”
“Yul requires quadratic equations…… whatever, let’s start with addition and subtraction.”
The maids and butlers stole glances at the endearing scene, exchanging hushed smiles.
“Young Master Rain’s changed.”
“Yeah. Before, he ignored Lady Seri even when she cried beside him…….”
“Since the plaza trip, his eyes have real spark now.”
When the boy’s parents arrived at the library, the boy and girl had succumbed to childish sleepiness, slumped side by side over the desk.
“Oh…….”
The boy’s mother, Brim, covered her mouth, wiping tears.
“Dear, I want to paint this scene.”
“By the time the painter comes, they’ll wake. And you know how shy Seri is.”
“Still…….”
Kevn carefully approached and examined the items on the desk. Basic magic book, quill, clumsily scribbled magic array on drawing paper……
“Yeah, he was teaching his sister.”
Kevn smiled gently and placed a hand on the boy’s head. The small, soft hair slipped between his fingers, fluttering in the spring breeze.
“Since the plaza, Rain seems like a whole new person.”
“Talks so maturely now. Think he’s possessed by the abyss?”
“Abyss? Nah. They call this like father, like son, right? I’ve had similar.”
The top graduate of the leading magic university Delaiten gets to view Great Mage Lin’s preserved body.
“I met Lin 14 years ago when I got that chance.”
“Right.”
“Embarrassing. He reached 5-star in wartime, and here I was, smug as a mere 3-star mage.”
Even Atlas(3-star) mages leave names in history—only 150 in the entire empire.
“Of course, that meeting didn’t make me 4-star. But it was a turning point. Probably the same for Rain.”
“Was Lin’s body really frozen?”
“Of course. Didn’t even look like a corpse. Such masterful ice magic—his 18-year-old form perfectly preserved.”
“Tell me more.”
“More? Nothing much left to say.”
Kevn shook his head with a wry smile, then suddenly stroked his chin. “Ah.”
“Oh yeah, there was mana left by Hero Rista in the ice.”
“Really?”
“Even the dragonkin priests confirmed. Seemed like mana only she or Lin could awaken—like a letter for sure.”
Rista’s mana whispered thus:
To you, who will surely awaken someday, as promised—I leave a letter from my soul here. To you, coming from some faraway place.
Recalling that day with a wry smile, Kevn furrowed his brows.
“Oh, right…… I had something to tell you.”
“What?”
“Rain’s a genius. Not just any—maybe even Sage realm.”
Kevn recounted how Rain solved the magic array that morning. Something he’d slaved over for a year without success—in one go.
“Ah! So that’s why you made it to breakfast?”
“Yeah. So, though a bit early, I’m thinking of starting to teach him the family magic.”
The Ludwig family had long been called ‘stealing mages.’
At the pinnacle, they awaken the magic eye, famed for reading and stealing all magic.
That was the Ludwig family magic, a bloodline limit usable only by blood heirs.
“Of course, not sure how far I can teach…….”
“That big?”
“Yeah.”
“So what’ll you do?”
“We’ll see later. For now, teach him my best.”
Kevn gently stroked the boy’s head and smiled brightly once more.
“With such a lovable son, as parents, we want to give him everything we can.”