To Begin With the Conclusion
To begin with the conclusion, Luiana’s attempt to verify her output ended in failure. The reason was simple: she could not travel far enough from the village to ensure it would not get caught in the aftermath.
As soon as morning broke, Luiana took up her sword and moved away from the sacred tree. At first it was fine. The flow connected to the tree pulsed gently at her back, and the forest path beneath her feet lay quiet. A small hill rose not far from the village, and an open clearing dotted with scattered rocks seemed like a decent enough place to swing a blade once or twice. Of course, that was nowhere near sufficient.
This was right after she had completed the Cartein-style Magic System. For a proper test of her output she needed to reach a distance where not even the houses on the village outskirts would tremble. So Luiana kept walking. A thousand steps. Ten thousand steps. Just as the village began to blur behind her, the flow trailing at her back started to thin.
She knew it from the knowledge that had flooded her mind: a Dryad could not stray far from her partner tree. Knowing it and experiencing it were entirely different things.
The instant the connection weakened, a sensation like life itself was being drained from her body surged through her. Her skin turned cold, her fingertips felt hollow, and the ground beneath her seemed to recede. Even though she was breathing, the air felt insufficient.
Luiana stopped. She tightened her grip on the sword, forced one more step, and the world lurched. The forest slid sideways, the sound of wind cut off. When awareness returned, she was already standing beside the sacred tree. The path she had walked, the distant clearing—everything had vanished. As if she had never left, she stood once more in the tree’s shadow.
Luiana remained silent for a moment, then slowly lowered her head.
“...Ha.”
It was disheartening. She was angry, too. More precisely, the fact that there was no proper target for her anger only fueled it further. The sacred tree had done nothing wrong, nor had her Dryad body lied to her. This was simply how the race was made. That truth made it all the more infuriating.
In her current state, any real output test was impossible. Not unless she intended to flip the entire village upside down.
But just because her maximum output was restricted did not mean her precision had to be. Luiana raised her sword. The clearing before the sacred tree was wide. As the new heart of the village it was not a place to be carelessly damaged, yet that very fact made it perfect for testing fine control.
Scatter a handful of dirt without breaking a single stone. Raise a wind without rattling the nearest rooftop. Channel magic along her sword path without letting a single wisp escape the clearing. It was an excellent test. And… a decent way to vent her frustration.
Luiana swung.
The first motion was quiet. The blade’s tip cleaved the air, followed by a thread of pale green magic. The second motion lifted dust from the ground. On the third, a low wind curled upward. The magic powers that sympathized with her irritation swept across the clearing and formed a small whirlwind.
The earth in the clearing was thinly scored. Pebbles rolled along the sword’s path. Yet nothing left the boundary. The strikes were sharp but not hostile, the magic rough yet perfectly restrained. That exquisite contradiction shook the open ground before the sacred tree.
Before long the nearby elves, sensing the flow, began to gather. Their faces asked the same silent question: What now? Dust hung in the air like fog, pierced by flashes of pale green sword light.
Someone swallowed hard. Someone else muttered, half-dazed.
“Is Mother… angry?”
“So even a Dryad mother has days when she gets angry.”
The elf beside the speaker jabbed them with an elbow. “Why would you say that right now?”
The elders soon arrived. The oldest among them stared for a long time at the sword paths beyond the dust. The waves of magic power had clearly reached them. Anger was mixed in, yes. But it was not the dangerous kind. The flow remained trapped inside the clearing. The small whirlwind stayed a whirlwind. The sword lines never turned toward houses or people.
The elder exhaled a long breath. “It’s fine. Return to your places, all of you.”
“But Elder…”
“If Mother were truly furious, we would not be standing here speaking peacefully.”
The words carried strange conviction. The elves still looked uneasy as they watched Luiana through the settling dust, but one by one they drifted back to their tasks.
Soon Luiana’s sword dance ended as well. The final low arc of her blade signaled completion. The dust above the clearing swirled upward in a neat circle before settling quietly at the sacred tree’s roots.
Luiana let out a breath. It felt refreshing. The output test had failed, but her precision control was acceptable. She had also managed to vent her frustration without leveling the village. A success, in its own way.
Of course, Luiana never realized she had caused yet another small commotion in the fledgling elf village. By then the elders had already returned to their duties.
The village was still new. Houses remained to be built, fences needed reinforcement, food and herbs required sorting. The elders had no choice but to hurry back to their responsibilities.
Knowing none of this, Luiana sheathed her sword and glanced around.
I finished the test, but is there nothing useful I can do?
Wherever she went, her presence halted work. If she carried lumber, every elf would simply stare. If she helped weave fences, the entire area would freeze. If she offered to sort herbs, someone would likely tear up and beg her to rest.
The conclusion was obvious. Approaching the working elves would only cause trouble. Therefore she should go somewhere her presence would cause the least interference.
Luiana headed for the low building at the village center—the nursery where the elf children gathered.
The elves raised their young communally. That was why they had prepared a space for the children even before finishing proper houses in their new home. A canopy of woven leaves and vines hung beneath the low roof, and small carved wooden toys waited by the door.
As Luiana drew near, the first face she saw was a familiar one: the elf who had wrapped a coat around her at birth. She had never asked the woman’s name, yet it rose naturally to her lips, as though the elves’ origins and the Dryad’s inherited lineage simply offered it to her.
Luiana spoke. “Hyacinth.”
The elf caring for the children looked up. Her mature, warm expression melted instantly. She ran forward with the pure, unfiltered joy of a child.
“Mother! What brings you here?”
“Just.”
Luiana chose her words carefully. “I couldn’t find a way to be useful anywhere else. I thought perhaps here I might help a little.”
Hyacinth looked one breath away from throwing herself into Luiana’s arms. She was trying to act like an adult and hold back, but the effort was painfully obvious.
In the end Luiana drew her into a gentle hug and stroked her hair. The tension drained from Hyacinth’s shoulders. She beamed with a dazed, blissful smile. Expecting coherent speech from her in that state seemed hopeless.
Luiana looked past Hyacinth’s shoulder. The children were there. Only five, all with long ears perked upright, huddled behind the door and pillars. They fidgeted as though the situation felt awkward, yet their eyes shone with pure longing—to approach, to be held, to speak. The gaze was too clear to ignore.
Luiana carefully seated Hyacinth on a nearby chair, then crouched before the children and opened her arms. Only then did they rush forward with a bright cheer.
Five children were easy enough to hold at once. The problem came afterward.
“Mother! I saw the wind earlier! The dirt was spinning round and round!”
“Were you angry? Who made you angry?”
“Can you show us the sword again?”
“Can you talk to the sacred tree?”
“I tied three knots today, but two came undone.”
“I made a leaf boat!”
“Why does Mother’s hair shine?”
“I wish my eyes were two colors like Mother’s!”
A storm of questions crashed over her faster than any sword strike. Luiana had no idea which to answer first. Reading air pressure was simpler. Predicting sword paths was less complicated.
When one child carefully touched the tip of her hair, another asked if they could touch her ears. All the while someone kept begging to see the sword. Just as Luiana’s mind began to fog, Hyacinth finally recovered and stepped in.
“Children, if you all speak at once you’ll trouble Mother.”
They closed their mouths simultaneously. The perfect unison was almost more surprising than the outburst.
Hyacinth smiled softly. “One at a time. And don’t pull on Mother’s clothes so hard.”
“Yes~”
The reply was obedient. Their eyes were not.
Holding the children, Luiana wondered what she could actually give them. After a moment’s thought she realized there was no need to overthink it. From the beginning, her options had been limited. Swordsmanship. The magical engineering she had learned to support it. She was unsure whether either was appropriate for a mother of the forest, but doing nothing would be worse.
Of course she had no intention of driving them like the brutal training of her past life. They were long-lived. Time was plentiful. Teaching them just enough to hold their interest would suffice—like play, like enjoyment.
As Luiana’s gaze moved back and forth between her sword and the children, Hyacinth seemed to sense something. She raised her hand cautiously.
“Mother.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you… planning to teach the children the sword?”
Worry colored her final words.
The children looked back and forth between the two women. Luiana considered the question. A sword was dangerous. That was true. But keeping danger at arm’s length only ensured the children would be hurt worst the first time they encountered it. A hand that did not know how to hold a sword would not know how to release it. A body ignorant of magic flow would be swept away by the slightest tremor.
“I won’t teach them how to cut first,” Luiana said. “How to hold it. How to set it down. How to stop. And how to see where the flow becomes dangerous.”
“The flow?” One child’s eyes widened.
“Yes. If swordsmanship is the flow of the body, then magical engineering is the study of seeing the flow of magic power.”
Hyacinth still did not look entirely reassured, but she offered no objection. She could feel that this was the first time Luiana had tried to do something inside their community. Even if the direction was slightly odd, at least Luiana was truly seeing the children. The children seemed to sense that instinctively as well. It was enough.
Luiana stood. “Wait a moment.”
All five pairs of eyes sparkled at once.
She walked to the edge of the village, to the place where she had split the giant tree in two on her first day. The severed upper portion had already been turned into building material and was gone. Only the massive stump remained.
Luiana stood before it and raised a thin layer of magic power along the edge of her hand—sharp as a blade, yet this time not to harm but to shape. Her hand, wrapped in faint green light, passed over the top of the stump.
Swish.
A sliver of wood fell away. Again.
Swish.
Each pass carved out a long piece of lumber. Luiana refined them with her fingertips and magic—smoothing edges, forming grips, balancing weight. In moments five passable wooden swords lay finished in her arms.
When she returned to the nursery the children were already lined up neatly before the door. No one had ordered them; Hyacinth must have arranged it. Luiana handed out the wooden swords one by one. The reactions differed.
One child tried to swing immediately and froze under Hyacinth’s gaze. One turned the sword over and over, studying grain and handle. One stood it upright and stared at it with solemn intensity. One hugged it tightly to their chest and smiled. The last asked carefully.
“Mother, is this my sword?”
“Yes,” Luiana answered. “But first, make some promises before you swing it.”
All eyes locked on her. She liked those eyes. More curiosity than fear, more anticipation than awe. They were exactly the right eyes for children to have. Without realizing it, Luiana felt a quiet swell of pride.
“Do not swing until I say it is all right.”
“Do not point it at anyone.”
“If you feel anything scary or strange, stop immediately.”
After the three short rules the children gripped their wooden swords tightly and nodded.
Seeing their earnestness, Luiana smiled faintly and continued. “The first lesson is not how to cut.”
One child tilted their head. “Then what is it?”
Luiana lowered her own sword tip toward the ground. “How to stop.”
All five children looked down at their wooden swords at once. Behind them Hyacinth quietly drew in a sharp breath.
Luiana gazed at the children and allowed herself the smallest smile. The output test had failed. Yet today’s training seemed likely to begin far better than expected.