Chapter 01
“Done, it’s done……”
My heart pounded as if it was about to explode.
I looked down at the magic circle shimmering with a blue light at my feet, overcome with emotion.
“It’s done, I finally completed it!”
This complex magic circle, covering the entire floor of my secret laboratory in the basement of my mansion, was the result of years of research that had consumed my time, my health, and my very soul.
Its name: ‘Time Reversal Magic’.
Yes, it was magic to go back to the past.
“Just you wait, Asuka. Now I, Lelsis Valtine, will defeat you and become the greatest mage!”
There was only one reason I so desperately wanted this ‘Regression Magic’.
A monster perfect in looks, skill, and even family lineage.
The damn rival who made me the eternal second-place student at the academy, and who, upon graduation, became the youngest ‘Dawn Tower Master’ at the same time.
My lifelong rival, Asuka Willovice!
It was all to beat that bastard.
‘If it weren’t for him, I would have been the new Dawn Tower Master!’
Just thinking about that annoyingly handsome face made my teeth grind.
What is the Dawn Tower Master? It’s an honorable position held only by the continent’s supreme mages, a position that even the king cannot easily interfere with.
Ever since I started learning magic, I wanted to become that Dawn Tower Master more than anyone else.
‘If I become the master of the Dawn Tower, no one will be able to look down on me. Even the parents who abandoned me will regret it.’
It was stubbornness, or perhaps a desire for revenge.
To prove my worth and talent, I studied obsessively. Nosebleeds were a common occurrence, and I collapsed several times during exam periods.
I might have sacrificed some health, but the results were clear. I succeeded in surpassing even the nobles who received higher education.
‘Everything was going well, but…’
Despite my persistent efforts, there was one person I just couldn’t beat: Asuka.
He was different from the start.
Unlike me, who grew up in an orphanage not knowing who my parents were, he was the only son of the ‘Duke Willovice’ family, which had produced powerful archmages for generations.
Asuka Willovice seemed determined to be an obstacle in my life, ruining things for me at every crucial moment.
When we were young, he blocked my adoption. As we grew, he stole the ‘genius’ title from me. And in the end, he even snatched away the Dawn Tower Master position I so desperately wanted.
Just thinking about it still makes me feel resentful and humiliated.
A sudden wave of nausea hit me, and I took a deep breath to calm myself.
Calm down. It’s okay now.
Because I can go back to the past and change everything!
‘If I succeed in regressing, I absolutely have to get adopted by a noble couple. Then I’ll erase all records of the orphanage. That way, I can get rid of the label of a common-born orphan.’
In this damn hierarchical society, my background will continue to hold me back. Probably until the day I die.
So I have to go back. To the moment where I can fix everything.
‘I won’t let you interfere this time, Asuka.’
And that’s not all. If I take all my current magical knowledge back with me, I’ll appear as a genius of the century in everyone else’s eyes.
No matter how talented Asuka is, he won’t be able to handle me, who has lived through the future.
Once I beat him, I’ll immediately become the strongest mage.
I took my place at the very center of the magic circle. In my hand was an old, worn notebook.
To go back to the past, I needed a record of the past. That’s why I chose my childhood diary, which I used for handwriting practice, as the regression medium.
Now, all that’s left is to cast the spell.
“…Alright. Let’s do this.”
I opened the diary, held it up, and slowly closed my eyes.
Steeling my resolve, I parted my lips, and the spell I had memorized day and night flowed out naturally.
Soon, a strong flow of mana began to envelop the area. The feeling was suspiciously good.
‘Everything will work out.’
It felt as if someone was whispering that in my ear.
*Swooshâ*
I realized something was going wrong when I was about to recite the third verse of the spell.
Sensing something was off, I slightly opened my eyes, and for some reason, my vision was bright red.
“Wha, what!”
I was shocked. The magic circle, which should have been blue, was dyed a bloody red.
‘This isn’t supposed to happen! What’s going on?’
Panicked, I fumbled, trying to say the next part of the spell.
That’s when it happened.
Cracks spread across the magic circle, and a light far more intense than before exploded forth.
*BOOOOOOMâ!*
Sharp mana swirled like a storm inside the basement.
“KYAAAAAAAH!”
My loud scream was the last thing I remembered.
I collapsed onto the basement floor, unconscious.
—
“…Excuse me.”
*Hmm,* just a little more sleep. Don’t wake me up.
“Big sister, I’ve never seen you before. Wake up.”
Five more minutes. No, ten more…
Irritated, I waved my hand, but someone pinched my cheek sharply.
“OW, OW, that hurts!”
My eyes snapped open. The first thing I saw was a dreary, gray ceiling. Where was this?
‘Ah, my basement, I guess.’
It wasn’t too surprising to wake up after passing out. I often collapsed from overwork anyway.
‘But what was I doing to end up like this?’
As soon as I asked myself that, the memories came flooding back like a thunderbolt.
Attempting Regression Magic, an unknown error, a catastrophic failure!
I shot up.
‘Damn it, if this is my basement, doesn’t that mean I failed to go back to the past?’
After blinking a few times, my focus slowly returned. As it did, a small something in front of me gradually became clearer.
“Wow, you’re awake! Big sister, are you okay?”
It was a child.
A little girl, incredibly cute like a doll, with brownish-gray hair and clear, emerald-green eyes.
“Our director said you’d catch a cold if you sleep on the cold floor. So I pinched you so you wouldn’t get sick.”
Her face seemed to say, ‘I did good, right?’
“Yeah, thanksâ”
Wait a minute.
“But where did you pop out from?”
“Huh?”
The child tilted her head. I found myself tilting mine too, matching her. Who was this kid?
“How did you get in here?”
Holding my throbbing head, I asked, and the child shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Uh-huh, when I opened my eyes, I was just here.”
My mansion had multiple layers of defensive magic set up from the outside for security.
There was no way this young child, who probably didn’t even know the first thing about magic, could have broken through those layers and gotten into the basement. The most likely cause was my regression experiment.
A very bad feeling started to creep up my spine…
“Do you live around here? Do you have parents or a guardian?”
As I asked, I looked the child over.
She was at most six years old. She wore a white dress that looked hand-me-down, too large for her frame, but for some reason, it seemed familiar.
“…Have I seen you somewhere before?”
“Me! I want to ask you something too!”
At that, the child raised her clenched fist and looked up at me. Looking at her soft, innocent face, I felt a strange emotion.
‘It’s really amazing. It’s like I’m looking at my younger self.’
She had the same hair and eye color, and her facial features were quite similar too. If a stranger saw us, they might mistake us for family.
“Oh, yeah? Go ahead.”
“Hmm…”
The child furrowed her brow as if thinking hard, clutching the hem of her clothes and biting her lower lip. Come to think of it, that habit was exactly like mine too.
“Big sister, are you a kidnapper?”
“What? What?”
While I was reeling from the absurd question, the child fidgeted with her fingers and mumbled on.
“If you are, you picked the wrong person. I’m an orphan, so, uh, I don’t have any adults to pay money for me…”
My surprise at the child’s unfortunate story was short-lived. The word ‘kidnapper’ hit me hard.
‘If I get framed as a kidnapper here, the investigators will ransack my mansion…!’
Oh, God.
“A k-kidnapper? I’m not a bad person.”
I frantically waved my hands and tried to put on a kind smile. The child looked at me with suspicious eyes.
As someone who had attempted forbidden magic, my conscience pricked at me, but I still puffed out my chest, trying to act confident.
“What’s your name? I’ll find your home for you right away.”
At my question, the child finally seemed relieved and gave a small smile. Her emerald-green eyes, like spring buds, looked straight at me.
“I’m Lelsis. Lelsis with a double ‘L’ in the middle. I live at Austin Orphanage.”
Goosebumps erupted all over my body.
“…Your name is ‘Lelsis’? From Austin Orphanage?”
“Uh-huh! Isn’t my name pretty?”
“My name is Lelsis too…?”
The child’s eyes went wide with surprise.
“Really? Really, big sister’s name is Lelsis too? This is the first time I’ve met someone with the same name as me! Wow!”
With the excited child in front of me, I fell silent.
The strangely similar appearance to me, the same habits, the identical name down to the spelling, being from Austin Orphanage.
And most importantly, what I had attempted and failed was regressionâin other words, ‘Time Reversal Magic’…
My overactive brain, working faster than a second, arrived at a conclusion I didn’t want to believe.
‘…Could it be that she’s me as a child?’
Just then, my eyes met squarely with little Lelsis, who had no idea what was going on. My blood ran cold.
