Prologue Story

My biggest flaw right now was that I sometimes forgot I was still a child.

When I got home, as expected, I got an earful from my mom, who was utterly shocked.

“You can’t go out by yourself yet!”

She repeated the same thing over and over.

Then, as I tried to explain, she glanced at the orb in my hand and spoke.

“Hm? A beginner’s training orb? Eunha, you still can’t control magic, right?”

“Yeah…”

I lied, feeling a bit unsure.

Mom just looked at me for a moment.

Meeting her gaze, I shrank back slightly, wondering if I could keep this hidden.

“Blue… or is it navy? Eunha, do you know? This orb changes color when magic is infused into it.

It changes to match the color of the person’s magic.”

“What…?”

Wait, really?

Now that I thought about it, the orb had initially been a mix between purple and blue.

But now, it has turned into a color closer to navy.

Did that mean my magic color was navy, or perhaps even darker?

“Watch carefully.”

Mom infused her magic into the orb.

The color of the orb shifted, glowing and changing.

It was so vivid that even the magic Mom used seemed to reflect a red hue as it moved.

I had never seen anything like this before.

My eyes widened in awe.

The orb gleamed.

A bright red.

“Once you can completely color it like this, you can say you’ve passed the first stage of basic magic control. After that, you train by drawing in the surrounding magic like this, and then practice moving it. Like this.”

The magic gathered at her fingertips, forming a rotating sphere.

It was a red vortex.

At that moment, I was startled.

‘Wait? I… I can see the color of magic…’

Without thinking, I called upon the magic inside my body.

From the moment I first looked at and started wielding magic, it had been quietly accumulating within me.

An unfamiliar color illuminated the space around me.

I felt as if the wind was wrapping around my entire body.

Mom’s eyes widened as she looked at me.

“Eunha, you…!”

Now I could see it clearly.

The magic enveloping me was a beautiful navy, outlined with a silver edge.

“You can move magic?!”

Mom’s shocked cry echoed throughout the room.

She sat me down, her face tight with concern.

In front of me lay the red-colored orb.

“The truth is, I could tell right away that you had started sensing magic, Eunha.”

What?

As I widened my eyes, Mom, looking troubled, touched one cheek with her hand.

“I’m more sensitive to magic than most people. My primary magic, communication magic, is easier to use if you’re sensitive to the presence of magic.”

I see.

I hadn’t known that before.

Mom continued, watching me as I absorbed this new information.

“When someone starts sensing magic, the flow of magic around them changes. So, I noticed that you could feel magic.”

“…Yeah.”

Her words made me feel slightly guilty.

For whatever reason, I had hidden the fact that I could sense and move magic, even from my own parents.

Mom’s expression darkened as she spoke again.

“I even thought you might be able to move magic a little. But to already be aware of the magic within you… that’s an extraordinary talent. …Though, I actually wished your talent would be more ordinary.”

“Why…?”

At my question, Mom bit her lip slightly, her fists clenching tightly at her sides.

She may have bowed her head to hide her expression from me, but since I was much smaller, I could still see everything from below.

Her gaze was deep and sorrowful.

“Eunha, I have a very close friend.”

A friend?

My eyes widened.

If it’s Mom’s close friend…

The first person that came to mind was her.

Auntie Suna.

The stunning beauty with incredible magic skills who used to visit my mom almost every day when I was a baby.

I hadn’t seen her since I was two, so it wouldn’t have been strange if I had forgotten her by now, at five years old.

But I still remembered her.

I blinked at my mom, who continued with a pained expression.

“She showed exceptional talent from a young age. Because of that, she was envied by friends and favored by teachers…”

Mom gave a small, bitter smile.

“People try to pull in those with talent. Even if they’re children. That’s why my friend was often dragged into dangerous missions, even as a child, by regular organizations or the police. Her combat skills were superior to most battle mages her age, so perhaps it couldn’t be helped. But I always felt it was unfair. That was when she was still in middle school.”

…Ah.

I clenched my hands that had been resting on my lap.

Even now, she was working overseas as a key member.

Mom must have wanted to stop her.

“We had been the closest of friends since kindergarten. But as she grew up and her remarkable talent for magic began to show, we started to drift apart. Even so, I couldn’t help but care for her. And then, one day…”

Mom’s eyes shone with bittersweet memories.

“I found her crying, alone, with bandages wrapped around her arms on the rooftop. When I asked if she was okay… she said she was fine with a twisted expression, while crying all by herself.”

There’s nothing you can do for someone crying over something you don’t understand.

I grimaced slightly, simply listening to Mom’s story.

Would a clumsy attempt at comfort hurt her pride?

What could I possibly do?

Relationships like that were the most difficult for me.

No one can be sure if sincerity will get through to someone unless they experience it firsthand.

The idea that heartfelt sincerity always gets through is something you only see in fairy tales or comics.

It left me with a bitter feeling.

I had thought that they had been close from the start…

“I waited for her to stop crying… but I couldn’t say anything, so I just left a piece of candy next to her. But the next day, she was involved in a battle and ended up hospitalized. …When I heard about it, I rushed to see her after school. She was lying in bed, looking terribly exhausted, as if she had fainted.”

Mom’s expression sank as she murmured, her eyes darkened with grief.

Then, seeing my face, she gave a sad smile and patted my head.

I probably had a pretty gloomy expression myself.

“I was so upset that I started crying. When I finally stopped and looked up, she was crying while looking at me. I held her hand tightly… and from that day on, we always supported each other.”

“…Yeah.”

“But I’ll never fully understand her. No matter how much I tried to comfort and support her, I’ll never know exactly how she suffered or what she went through. I could only offer my heartfelt sympathy. I’m always grateful to Suna for staying friends with me and for supporting me even now. Eunha, I…”

With those words, Mom pulled me into a tight embrace.

“I don’t want you to ever be in danger. That’s how I feel, Eunha… I know you probably don’t fully understand what I’m saying yet. Your talent isn’t fully clear. And maybe my concerns are just worries for nothing. But… I hope you’ll keep what I’ve said in your heart.”

If I became a strong magician, someday, I’d have to fight.

Fight, get hurt, and either grow stronger or, in the worst case… die?

Even now, you hear and see it often on TV.

People talk about how becoming a strong magician is something to be proud of, but the stronger you are, the more you’re pulled into dangerous missions, and the more you get hurt.

It’s not uncommon to see the names of deceased magicians in the news.

Battles between magicians sometimes escalate to the scale of full-blown wars.

I used to just think, “Oh, that’s how it is,” when I heard about these things, until I listened to Mom’s words.

But, Mom, I don’t want to be strong just for the sake of it…

I muttered to myself in a melancholy tone.

Even though I knew I’d reincarnate many more times, learning magic wasn’t just about becoming powerful.

I simply wanted to wield magic.

With that thought, I hugged Mom tightly.

Even so, I knew I was advancing at an unusual pace.

For the first time since reincarnating, I felt anxious about the future.

☆

I decided to start by recalling the magic I wanted to learn from my previous life.

Then, I wrote them down on paper as they came to mind.

Teleportation.

I definitely wanted to learn this.

Not to use it as my main magic, but just because I wanted to learn it.

It’d be nice to use as a support magic.

Before that, I wrote down “Barrier Magic” in one of the subcategories.

It was one of the magics I had decided to create for myself since I was a baby.

Teleportation magic came in many forms, so I’d just pick one to learn and use it.

It was a tricky type of magic, but I didn’t think it would be incompatible with me.

It was just a hunch, but if it wasn’t right, I could always think about it again later.

I paused my writing and fell into thought.

Now that I think about it, there was a particular magic I really wanted to use if I became a magician in my previous life… but I couldn’t recall it.

While space-related barrier magic came to mind as my second choice, that wasn’t quite it.

The realization that my memory was incomplete struck me deeply.

Still, knowing the reason behind it, I casually nodded.

It was something necessary for me to live in this world without issue.

I wondered if there was something more that resonated with me.

They say the most important thing when learning magic is imagination, and my greatest strength was my imagination.

Since I had been a novelist in my previous life, I had confidence in that aspect.

If you have a talent, you should make use of it.

So, this was essential.

Magic that allowed me to fully unleash my imagination as a novelist.

Creating worlds and weaving stories… that sounded good.

It was just as I had thought long ago.

In the blank space above where I had written “Barrier Magic,” I added “Written Magic.”

The first step toward designing my own world.

I felt a small sense of satisfaction, as though I had inched closer to my personal magic.

I couldn’t help but grin.

I picked up my pen again.

Alright, let’s move on to the next page and write down the other magics I wanted to learn.

Even without creating new magic, this world had countless spells I could learn, like spell magic, so the possibilities were endless.

Mom could use most of the basic magic anyway.

I scribbled down a few more things with my pen.

I definitely wanted to learn clairvoyance magic!

I still vividly remembered the time I struggled because I lost something.

And tracking magic, for the same reason.

I was planning to learn as much magic as my capabilities allowed.

Of course, right now, I could only move magic.

But once I could do that, I’d basically be ready to start learning magic.

Suddenly, I recalled asking Mom a while ago whether the color of magic was something you could just see.

It was a question born from simple curiosity, and Mom had said no, shaking her head.

She said only those with a talent for sensitivity to magic could see it.

Talent.

That word again.

Mom still didn’t know that I could not only move magic but also see its color.

I didn’t tell her, thinking there was no need to add to her worries.

I jotted down “healing magic” next.

“Come to think of it, I was planning to use barrier magic as a type of spatial magic. I wonder if it’d be possible to manipulate time within the barrier as well? What was that called again…? Time regression? Anyway, since I was going to use the barrier as my ‘world,’ I might as well include that too… So maybe I should make barrier magic the medium for space-time magic…”

I mumbled to myself as I flipped back through the pages.

When I thought about it, both barrier magic and the magic I had just mentioned fell under the same category of space-time magic.

Especially when it came to manipulating space.

‘That would be more practical, right? With space-time magic, I could not only turn back time within a certain range but also cut through space, teleport, and create barriers… controlling space…’

I drew a line next to where I had written “Barrier” and added “Space-time Magic.”

In parentheses, I wrote an explanation of the magic.

I checked the text I had written.

『Barrier – Space-time Magic (focused on barriers + gates)』

A lot of ideas came to mind regarding space-time magic.

I envisioned it in my head—how the magic would manifest and what it would look like.

Transparent barriers with defined shapes, black portals that could cross through space… those were the images that floated through my mind.

If I could create something like that, it would be incredibly useful.

Then, I could probably modify the pocket dimension too, right?

I could hide in the gap of a severed space and attack from between dimensions…

Could I even go as far as cutting off space entirely?

No, that’s too cruel.

Now that I thought about it, my idea of barrier magic and the concept of controlling space with space-time magic seemed the same.

When I reflected on it, my plan had always been to create a domain I controlled with barriers.

Strengthening it with written magic, or using written commands to reinforce the barrier—that was the idea.

How was that any different from space-time magic?

In the middle of designing my magic, I paused and let out a small laugh.

This really was ridiculous.

If I could create everything I was imagining, I’d be a total overpowered character!

Even though I hadn’t properly learned magic yet, I knew enough about human limitations to understand that.

Unless I became an S-rank magician like Mom’s friend, it would be nearly impossible.

Isn’t it the same everywhere?

Magic that manipulates space and time is always portrayed as the most difficult and fearsome.

So, I knew I wouldn’t be able to achieve everything I was envisioning.

Yet, I didn’t erase what I had written.

Instead, I just smiled, feeling something close to pride.

Still, I thought it wasn’t a bad goal to aim for.

Even with just barriers, there were countless things I could do.

Since my idea of a barrier was basically like a “shield,” couldn’t I shape it into something like a sharp blade?

Well, creating a sword with written magic would probably be easier, though.

I grinned.

I was simply enjoying this moment.

Imagining magic and picturing my future.