The Girl Who Rewinds Wounds (2)
I was scolded terribly by Professor Apryon. For using my ability in front of so many witnesses, and for using such a dangerous power on a person.
There was no excuse to offer. Everything my advisor said was true. If things hadn’t miraculously worked out, I couldn’t even imagine what horrific consequences might have followed. I could only stand there with a terrified expression, tears streaming down my face, unable to offer a single word in reply.
There had apparently been talk of expulsion, but since I had ultimately saved the ducal daughter, that outcome was avoided. There were mountains of people willing to testify on my behalf, after all.
With matters having reached this point, the three professors agreed to fabricate the truth. They decided to claim that I had simply used an intermediate healing spell I happened to be practicing alone that day to restore Zophy.
Convincing everyone wasn’t difficult. My grades in healing magic classes were quite high, after all. Not because I was particularly talented, but because I hadn’t dozed off during Professor Melissa’s lectures.
I later heard that more than ten minutes had passed since Zophy collapsed. Ophia, who had been flustered at the time, had said “just now,” but…
“Originally, it was only about five minutes.”
Had I pushed the limits of my ability in my desperation?
After that incident, the amount of time I could rewind gradually increased. In a way, that event had become the catalyst for my growth. Though it might have simply been the result of consistent practice.
Zophy von Mittenburg, the ducal daughter who should have been the most grateful to me, never spoke to me again after that. I once cautiously asked a lower-ranking noble student who was close to her why Zophy was acting that way. The girl gave me a wary look and immediately drove me away.
She said she didn’t want to talk to the witch who stole memories.
It was then that I vaguely understood. The price the being from the afterlife—whether a god, an administrator, or merely a low-level counter clerk—had mentioned when reincarnating me. The cost that must be paid when rewinding a person’s time.
“It must have been memories. That price.”
To heal an injured person, one had to rewind the time of their entire body at once. If only part of the body was rewound—if, for example, as my advisor had once analogized, everything except the heart was reversed—then even a few seconds of rewinding would surely kill them.
The entire body naturally included the brain. The organ that stored memories, the place where the soul resided. From the perspective of someone whose brain time had been reversed, the very fact that they had been injured ceased to exist.
Only then could I imagine how terrified Zophy must have been when her memories suddenly vanished. Far from being grateful, she feared me, and it was fortunate that she hadn’t used the power of her prestigious ducal house to harm me.
I looked down at my hands. I was afraid.
After that, I never rewound time again throughout my entire university life. Not even for broken pencils or crumpled papers, let alone people. The only exceptions were during training sessions in front of the three professors.
Such a strange superpower, irresponsibly handed to me without explanation by some afterlife administrator or counselor—I had lived perfectly well without it until now. Both in my childhood and in my previous life. I regretted ever using such a terrifying ability for something as trivial as picking up a pencil.
Even as I stopped using the ability almost entirely, the power itself continued to grow steadily as graduation approached.
According to my advisor’s hypothesis, while it wasn’t magic, its nature was similar to time magic. Since I struggled to keep up with practical magic but excelled in theory, I must have learned how to elegantly control my ability while studying theories used in advanced magic like time manipulation.
Now I no longer needed to close my eyes and desperately conjure images symbolizing flowing time to rewind it. Clockwork and sand were enough. For just a few seconds or minutes, even that imagery was unnecessary.
About an hour. That was the current limit of what I could rewind. The professors suggested I might grow further, but I didn’t want to develop it any more. It was pure instinct.
I was afraid of what consequences this absurd power—capable of effortlessly interfering with causality, far too great for an ordinary person to wield—might bring. I was just a baker’s daughter. I shouldn’t have been given such a talent.
Every time I used the ability, Zophy’s face came to mind. Even though I had controlled it perfectly and achieved the best possible result, she still avoided me. I would have to remain distant from the students influenced by the ducal daughter’s authority until the very end. I spent the rest of my school life without growing particularly distant from the other students, though.
My grades never fluctuated much until the end. Foundational geometry and logical structures were high, herbalism and healing magic were at the very top, other magical theories were solidly upper-middle, and practical magic was just above last place.
Thus, I barely graduated as an unremarkable, ordinary mage. I was naturally not the valedictorian—Zophy von Mittenburg was.
It wasn’t strange. After that duel incident, she had become a completely different person, even raising her previously mediocre magical theory grades to the very top.
I simply understood that “people can change like that too.” Given how proud she was, she might have used dirty methods involving threats or bribes… but even if she had, it wasn’t my place to interfere.
The only subject where even the valedictorian Zophy couldn’t surpass me was herbalism and healing magic. It was only by a single sheet of paper’s difference. After all, I had found the lectures of that sleepy grandmother interesting.
Unlike Zophy, who was immediately recruited by the Adventurer’s Guild and became an active mage, or those with grades sufficient for additional degree programs and research careers, I had to agonize over my career path until just before graduation. …I knew all too well from my previous life how much suffering awaited someone with no real talent who went to graduate school.
At the graduation ceremony, I said my farewells to Ophia, Kalia, and countless other friends. While doing so, I deliberately turned my back on my parents, who were wiping away tears at the sight of their only daughter becoming a proper… if untalented mage, and worried alone about whether I should open a shop selling basic magical tools for ordinary people next to my father’s bakery.
That was when the summons from my advisor arrived.
In my advisor’s office were the three familiar professors who had always helped train my time-rewinding ability… and one more professor whose face was familiar but whom I hadn’t met personally much. It was Professor Melissa. The master of healing magic welcomed me with a bright smile.
“Congratulations on your graduation, Kaira. I suppose I should call you Mage Kaira now.”
“Thank you. Thanks to the guidance of all the professors, I was able to graduate, inadequate though I am.”
I grasped the skirt beneath my robe with both hands and bowed slightly to express my gratitude.
“I heard about you from the three professors. All sorts of stories about what an excellent student you are……”
The elderly Professor Apryon immediately cut off Professor Melissa and interjected, adding as if making excuses:
“It was unavoidable if we were to help you. I hope you understand.”
I tilted my head. What on earth was my advisor grandfather talking about?
“I’ll keep it brief since the matter isn’t complicated. Mage Kaira, I, Melissa, intend to write you a letter of recommendation to the director of the Imperial Hospital.”
At the unexpected development, I let out an excessively loud voice.
“What!? The hospital… you mean?”
“Yes. The hospital. The letter states that as the student who most excellently completed healing magic among all my disciples in the magic department, you are in no way inferior to the finest doctors and healing mages in the Empire right now, and that you can be immediately deployed for emergency duties.”
Professor Melissa smiled gently.
“It’s embarrassing to say this myself, but even the director of the Imperial Capital Hospital couldn’t easily dismiss the opinion of Professor Melissa.”
“But while my grades in the classes you taught were good, for you to give me such an evaluation……”
“What are you saying, Kaira? That’s merely what will be written in the recommendation letter I provide. Your actual healing magic skill is irrelevant.”
Professor Melissa’s benevolent smile, more suited to a wool sweater than a mage’s robe and a knitting armchair than a professor’s office, was reflected in my eyes.
“You can save even the dying, can’t you? By rewinding time.”
Professor Melissa leaned in close to my wide-eyed face.
“And Kaira, do you know? From you……”
Professor Melissa paused for a moment, then took several breaths. Sniff, sniff. She looked as if she were savoring something… very fragrant.
“You give off a happy scent, like when you’re standing in front of a bakery wondering what to buy. That alone can be a comfort to those who are suffering.”
“B-bakery… because I’m the daughter……”
A few minutes later, I left my advisor’s office with a dazed expression. In my right hand was the letter of recommendation Professor Melissa had written in her flowing, comforting script. In my left hand… was a pocket watch that Professor Apryon had given me outright, calling it a graduation gift.
As I walked in a trance and encountered my parents waiting in the wide courtyard, I muttered dazedly as if talking to myself.
“I… have to go to the hospital.”
The very next moment, I had to desperately stop my father, who had mistaken his only daughter for having contracted a serious illness and was running off like a madman to hire a carriage. It was then that I learned that even with the power to rewind time, one couldn’t take back words that had been wrongly spoken.
On the way home, I told my parents about Professor Melissa’s recommendation letter. I also mentioned that I would probably be working at the Imperial Hospital. I told them everything except the story about my time-rewinding power. Mother was delighted that her daughter had become a capable mage who secured a position right after graduation, but Father wasn’t particularly pleased.
To Father, hospitals were ominous places. Hospitals were always places where death lingered. People went to the hospital alive and came out dead. Even though Father knew that hospitals existed to heal illnesses and injuries, and that many people did come out alive, the hospitals reflected in his eyes were still like that.
Father had always taken pride in having a job that fed people, giving them the strength and life to endure each day through the bread he made. Being such a person, he might have disliked the work of doctors and healing mages, who always had to witness people’s deaths—the complete opposite of himself, who only dealt with people seeking that day’s meal or a week’s worth of provisions.
Still, he seemed pleased that the Imperial Hospital was close to home. It was about an hour’s walk to the hospital. Thinking back to my life on Earth, a one-hour commute was nothing.
Since the magic university had mandatory dormitory residency as a rule, every word Father spoke carried a deep sense of regret that he couldn’t be with his precious daughter even though she was right in front of him.
By the time we reached home, Father had finished speaking.
He concluded with the words: “Whatever path you wish to take, I have no right to stop you.”