The First Awareness in Darkness
The first moment of self-awareness came in the darkness. Or could it even be called darkness? There was no sense of sight at all. So it wasn't that she felt it was dark. Nor had she judged that there was no light. There was simply nothing to see, nothing to hear, and even the boundary of her body felt faint. Therefore, Luiana accepted it as darkness.
What she could feel was only the flow. Something unidentifiable flowed into her, then flowed out again. In, out, in once more, out once more. It resembled breathing, yet it was not breathing. It was similar to the sensation of blood circulating, yet it was not blood. It differed slightly from the opponent's pulse felt through the palm gripping a sword. It was simply a flow. A gently swirling flow.
With no senses to ground her, her consciousness remained hazy as well. Luiana sank into that flow as if submerged. Any thought that tried to surface quickly dissolved, and memories she attempted to name drifted away like ripples. She could not tell how much time had passed. A day? A hundred years? Or something even longer? To Luiana, time did not flow—it seeped.
Then, at some point, it happened. The ever-calm flow began to tremble. This was no small ripple. It was a violent upheaval surging from the depths. The flow seized her. And like a wave sweeping consciousness upward, it dragged her somewhere.
The distant senses returned. Skin, breath, weight, fingertips, toes, heartbeat. Yet they felt unfamiliar. Familiar, but strange. She had clearly reentered a physical form. Only this form was not the human body Luiana had known. It was not composed solely of bone and muscle. It was lighter. Deeper. Mana flowed not through veins but through her very existence.
Luiana opened her eyes. The first thing she saw were beings with long ears. Beautiful faces and trembling eyes. Some knelt. Others clasped their hands as if they had forgotten to breathe, staring at her.
The moment she saw them, an inexplicable tenderness bloomed inside her chest. These were unfamiliar faces. People she was clearly seeing for the first time. So why did it feel as though she had kept them waiting far too long?
She felt she ought to embrace them. She felt she ought to protect them.
But the feeling did not last. Luiana's gaze fell on the sword hanging at one elf's waist.
Sword.
In that instant everything sharpened. Tenderness, the unfamiliar flesh, the countless eyes watching her—all of it was shoved aside. Only her fingertips reacted first.
I want to hold it. I need to test it. Whether this body can still flow with a sword. Whether this body can still cut. Whether I am still myself.
"Sword."
Her lips moved. The elves' eyes wavered.
"...Yes?"
"Give me the sword."
It was a demand, almost a seizure. Yet at that moment Luiana could not even judge whether it was rude. A sword stood before her eyes. And she needed a sword.
One elf extended the weapon with a trembling hand. The instant the hilt touched her palm, Luiana drew a sharp breath.
It had returned. The world had returned.
The sword was cold. Its weight felt strange. Its balance was terrible. It was not a good blade. Compared to the cherished sword that had stayed with her until the final moment of her previous life, it was little more than a toy. Still, it was a sword.
Luiana raised it. Slowly at first. Cautiously, as though confirming the joints of her new body. From shoulder to elbow, wrist, fingertips—she traced the flow and moved the blade's tip. Mana followed. No, it did not follow. This body leaked mana simply by moving. She could not tell whether the sword drew the mana or the mana drove the sword. The two simply intertwined naturally.
Luiana might have been smiling. She could not clearly recall the expression on her face at the time. But the joy surging in her chest remained vivid.
The sword path continued. Once. Twice. Three times. And at the end—
As though exhaling a breath she had held for ages, Luiana swung at a nearby massive tree.
Slice.
It was a strike that carried almost no mana. Yet the great tree split like paper. A thunderous crash followed as it toppled.
Luiana kept her eyes closed for a long while, savoring the sensation left in her hand. The feeling of the sword cutting air. The blade sinking into fiber. The lightness when resistance collapsed and the refreshing burst that erupted from within her body.
Only then did she open her eyes again. And she saw the elves, frozen in place. Their expressions hovered somewhere between awe and bewilderment. Some stood with mouths agape. Others looked back and forth between the fallen tree and Luiana.
As if it had been waiting for that exact moment, knowledge poured into her mind. Elves—the beings she must protect. Dryad—the name of the body into which she had reincarnated. Companion tree—the root of her existence. Spirit contracts, prayers, the forest's cycle. Like someone had arranged it beforehand, the fundamental knowledge of this world settled into place all at once.
And only then did Luiana understand why the elves wore such faces.
A Dryad was a symbol of peace and benevolence. True Dryads had always been far from aggression. They shaped environments where elves could thrive, mediated contracts with spirits, and through mental bonds acted as motherly pillars for their communities. What the elves had desperately longed for must have been exactly that: the mother of the forest finally encountered after a long, exhausting journey. A guardian who would embrace them.
But what they had actually witnessed was somewhat different. A Dryad who demanded a sword the moment she was born. A Dryad who danced with the blade the instant she grasped it. A Dryad who had sliced a massive tree like paper with an ordinary weapon. Moreover, in the moment she swung the sword, something beyond mere joy had surely surfaced on Luiana's face.
It was enough to inspire fear.
The knowledge did not stop there. The elves' origins seeped in. The suffering they had endured to reach this place. Lost homes. Failed prayers. Children who had fallen ill. Enemy blades encountered beyond the forest. The desperate longing that had refused to surrender despite it all.
Luiana stayed silent. The version of her from her previous life—the one called the sword demon—had lived with only a single blade as companion. A life painted in blood and battle. She had learned how to cut long before she learned how to embrace. She had practiced the rhythm of combat far longer than words of comfort. To become a mother who could wrap her arms around an entire group… those words felt far too vast, too alien.
Still, she understood what she needed to do.
Luiana looked at the elf standing closest. The one who had draped a cloak over her. The elf who met her gaze swallowed hard. He did not seem entirely free of the desire to flee. Yet he did not look away. It felt strange, a little frightening, and very confusing—but she was still the one who would become their mother and guardian.
Luiana approached him slowly. The elf's shoulders flinched. She set the sword down. Then, as gently as she could, with the most careful touch she could manage, she rested her hand on his shoulder.
"You've been through a lot."
It was a short statement. Neither elegant consolation nor a blessing befitting the mother of the forest. It was simply the closest thing to sincerity Luiana could offer right then.
The elf's body stiffened. Luiana moved her hand awkwardly. Pat. Pat. She stroked his shoulder, careful not to strike too hard.
A moment later, the tension drained from him. He collapsed against her, burying his face in her shoulder. His trembling breath brushed her skin.
Only then did the other elves begin exchanging glances. Their hesitation was brief. They approached cautiously and gathered around Luiana.
She watched them with a slightly troubled expression and thought, The role of a mother might be far harder than swordsmanship.
Once they settled in one place, the village took shape in the blink of an eye. Elves were a long-lived race. One might imagine them relaxed and slow, but in truth they were astonishingly diligent. Watching them, Luiana even considered nicknaming them the workers of the forest.
They moved with the sacred tree of her birth at the center. They trimmed dead wood, packed the earth firm, and wove vines and leaves into roofs. After one day, spaces appeared where they could shelter from rain. After two days, small houses for sleeping multiplied. After three days, the clear outline of a village emerged.
Luiana watched for a while, then glanced around a few times, wondering if there was anything she could help with.
"Shall I help?"
The elf carrying lumber widened his eyes.
"Ah, no. It's enough simply having you nearby."
The response was closer to reverence than refusal. Luiana looked at the lumber in his arms.
"I can carry it."
"It's truly fine. Just having Lady Luiana close by gives us strength."
The answer came almost too quickly, yet a smile lingered at the end of his voice. When Luiana took one more step closer, the working elves' faces visibly softened. Those exhausted from the long journey would lose themselves smiling the moment her mana aura touched them. Lumber tilted. The elf tying knots wound rope in the wrong place.
Luiana quietly withdrew. It seemed she was only getting in the way.
Of course, none of the elves thought so. To them, Luiana was the heart of the forest; her mere presence let them breathe again. But Luiana herself concluded that staying still helped more. So the first thing she did was examine her own body.
This body was not human. A form half-composed of mana. Simply walking generated a flow of mana. Moving her hands caused the mana in the air to react subtly.
The problem was efficiency. The flow was abundant but lacked precision. In her previous life, Luiana had handled mana with a human body. Through heart and blood vessels, muscle and nerve, and the mana circuits she had built between them, she created the flows required for swordsmanship.
This body, however, possessed no such circuits. It was nearly mana itself. How should she wield it?
Luiana sat cross-legged beneath the sacred tree. She closed her eyes and sank her consciousness inward.
Within her mind, her own form appeared. A faint silhouette like a shadow. Inside it, light-green mana flowed like mist.
The starting point was the heart. If she followed her previous life's method, she would use this spot as the central axis and unfold the circuits from there.
Luiana tried to draw the first line. At that moment her consciousness stopped cold, as if someone had seized her wrist. No one had actually blocked her. Yet a near-certain premonition struck her: if she drew this circuit now, she would regret it.
The previous method was not wrong. But it was not the best answer for this body, either.
Luiana narrowed her brows, eyes still closed. Then, like a flash of lightning, one piece of knowledge rose.
The Cartein-style Magic System. The ultimate mana circuit once called the essence of magitech engineering in her previous world.
To create the greatest swordsmanship, knowing how to swing a blade was not enough. One had to design mana flows that harmonized with swordsmanship. For that reason Luiana had studied magitech engineering. What she had learned in the process was the Cartein-style Magic System.
It was too much for a human body.
Luiana gazed inside herself.
But now, I'm not human.
It was never meant to be inscribed on a human form. The structure belonged to industrial magitech machines, large-scale defensive installations, city-wide mana circulation networks. A system that was massive, complex, and precise to the point of excess. No human flesh could endure it.
But what about this body?
The body of a Dryad that flowed mana not through veins but as her very existence? If she took the vast circulation connected to her companion tree as the central axis?
The corners of Luiana's mouth lifted. It was an expression that would have made the elves freeze solid again if they had seen it.
"I can't pass this up."
Luiana sank her consciousness deeper. She erased the old circuit she had been about to draw at the heart. Instead she grasped the enormous flow rising from the sacred tree's roots. Over that flow she laid the most outrageous design she had learned in her previous life.
A Dryad born as the mother of the forest was attempting to carve the essence of industrial magitech engineering into her own body. By any common standard, it was an act bordering on madness.
But Luiana had a better word for it.
Training.