CFC 02

Chapter 02

“No, no, this can’t be. Right, it must be a dream.”

*Smack!* I slapped my own cheek hard. It hurt. This time, I pinched my other cheek. It hurt too. No matter where I pinched or hit—the back of my hand, my thigh—I felt the pain.

“Haha, it hurts? It does hurt, doesn’t it? Why does it hurt?”

The child staring back at me widened her eyes.

“Uh, big sister…?”

“Or maybe this is the hallucination?”

Just in case, I reached out and touched the child’s face. Her warm, soft cheek fit perfectly into my palm.

“Oh, soft and squishy…”

She’s real! She exists!

While I stared in breathless shock, the child reached out her small hand and placed it on my cheek. Then she gave a bright, cheerful smile.

“Heheh, big sister’s cheek is soft and squishy too!”

Half in a state of panic, I faced the horrifying reality.

This is, without a doubt…

It seems I’ve summoned my ‘past self’…

“NOOOOOOOOO!”

The realization was followed by a sharp scream erupting from my throat.

—

*After a considerable amount of time had passed.*

‘Haha.’

I painfully accepted the situation.

‘I’m screwed.’

The result of my all-out attempt at regression magic was a failure. And a spectacular one at that.

‘Who would have thought that trying to go back to the past would end up summoning my past self!’

This variable was not in my calculations.

Whether things went well or not, I had used every method imaginable to erase the traces of the forbidden magic.

I disrupted the surrounding mana flow and even intentionally damaged part of the magical formula to prevent the caster from being identified.

‘But now I’ve created such obvious physical evidence.’

What was going to happen next was clear.

Tampering with the timeline is a taboo among mages.

If this incident comes to light, the royal family will promptly dismiss me, I’ll be expelled from the Magic Association, and of course, my rivals who have been eyeing my neck will come at me like rabid dogs.

Among them, the worst case would be the Dawn Tower.

A mage who violates a taboo has their mana core destroyed to prevent them from ever using magic again. Meaning my rival Asuka himself would be the one to shatter my core.

To summarize, I’m utterly screwed.

“Um, big sister. The director is probably looking for me. If I’m late, they’ll worry…”

I snapped back to reality at the sudden voice and looked down. Little Lelsis was looking up at me with an innocent face.

‘Right, let’s send her back. I just need to return her intact to her original time!’

But how?

My heart turned cold.

That’s right. I had absolutely no idea how to send little Lelsis back. Who would have expected a child to pop out like that?

“Uh, okay, just stay put and don’t go anywhere, alright?”

I was in the middle of rummaging through my piled-up materials to find some kind of solution.

*Ding-dong.* The doorbell rang from the entrance upstairs.

“Huh?”

Both I and little Lelsis froze. The fine hairs on my skin stood on end as if hit by a cold wind.

This is ominous. Extremely ominous.

And my premonition didn’t miss the mark.

“Rel, it’s me.”

At the voice coming through the magical intercom connected to the entrance, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

It’s him.

‘Asuka Willovice!’

—

*Magic shall guide us to the dawn.*

Under the great creed of the founder, Rosanak, the Dawn Tower had become the central axis of the magical era, enjoying unparalleled prosperity.

However, the dark side of the shining moon always casts a shadow.

Mages belonging to the Dawn Tower had to handle a murderous workload. No matter how high their status, there was no exception to this fact.

“Great reputation means nothing when there’s a mountain of work to do.”

Jerrod, the direct aide to the Dawn Tower Master, muttered wearily as he flung open a door.

“Lord Asuka!”

A man stood inside the tidy office. Sunlight streaming through the curtains poured generously over his silver hair.

“There’s an anomaly on the timeline observer…”

Jerrod trailed off mid-sentence, staring blankly at the man.

The head of the Dawn Tower, Asuka Willovice, possessed looks as phenomenal as his magical prowess.

His clear, pale lavender eyes were particularly enchanting. A rare color resembling the sky just before dawn.

They even called him the White Rose of Dawn.

With a face that captivated everyone regardless of age or gender—one that even the notoriously picky Royal Theater Company had their eyes on—it was a long-standing mystery to the public why he still had no lover.

“Jason, why.”

“An anomaly appeared on the timeline observer, so I’d like you to review the related report. And my name is…”

Jerrod, about to correct his name, suddenly snapped back to his senses. Asuka was just picking up his outer coat from the hanger.

“Leaving work already?”

“Yeah. I just solved a problem I’d been pondering.”

Jerrod noticed that Asuka was in a fairly good mood.

“What kind of problem?”

Could it be that he had solved one of the Seven Great Enigmas of Magic?

He looked on with anticipation, but an unexpected answer came back.

“Hmm, the security barrier of a certain mage’s mansion?”

“Excuse me…?”

While Jerrod looked bewildered by the absurdity, Asuka finished getting ready. He was impeccably dressed, as if going on a date.

“Do I look strange?”

“No, you look great.”

“Really?”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of Asuka’s mouth. It was an expression rarely seen from him, who was usually expressionless.

Jerrod suddenly realized.

“You’re going to see Lady Lelsis, aren’t you?”

The Dawn Tower Master did not deny it. That, that damn workaholic. Jerrod sighed inwardly.

“Isn’t she under house arrest at her residence right now?”

Lelsis Valtine, that poor royal mage, had recently been caught up in an incident and received a suspension.

‘Apparently, she got into a fight with someone right in the middle of the palace.’

In truth, this wasn’t a one or two-day affair.

As the saying goes, the nail that sticks out gets hammered. To the high-nosed royalty and nobles of the palace, Lelsis, a commoner by birth, was simply an eyesore.

Recently, there were even rumors that she would soon be dismissed due to lack of performance. For the ‘Lady Lelsis’ who was in a bad situation in many ways, a visit from the ‘Dawn Tower Master’ was like stirring up a hornet’s nest.

“That’s exactly why I should go see her. She must be bored.”

“Uh, I don’t think she’ll be very happy about that…”

As Asuka’s smile deepened, Jerrod felt a sense of crisis and fell silent.

“That matter can wait until tomorrow, Jeremy. I’ll be leaving now, so take note.”

“W-Wait a minute…!”

Before he could even try to stop him, the Tower Master’s body scattered like flower petals. A high-level magic that Jerrod, or rather, no one in this tower, could dare to imitate.

“…I’m envious, leaving work early.”

Jerrod’s eyes left behind grew moist.

—

Goosebumps erupted all over my body.

‘Why? Why? Why on earth?’

There was no way I misheard. That annoying voice was unmistakably Asuka Willovice.

‘Why is he coming here!’

Did he find out? Was I discovered? So quickly?

“Ugh, I don’t know, just hide for now!”

“What? Why? What’s going—mmph!”

I covered little Lelsis’s mouth as she looked around, and searched for a place to hide her.

But the basement was filled with too many dangerous objects for a child. Research magical tools were scattered within arm’s reach, leaving nowhere to hide her.

“Mmph! Mmmmph!”

The child, with her mouth covered, struggled.

“Shh, just a moment—ow! D-Don’t bite my hand!”

I debated what to call my past self and settled on shortening it to ‘Sis’.

“Sis, please, can you just hide in the room for a moment?”

Sis, who had been gnawing on my finger like an angry kitten, gave me a questioning look as if to say, ‘Why?’

“This is hide-and-seek. You know the game where you mustn’t get caught by the seeker, right? If you get caught, there’s a very, very big penalty!”

The penalty being a minimum prison sentence…

In the midst of this, Sis’s eyes sparkled with some thought.

‘Seems fun!’

Her innocent thoughts were plainly visible.

“So you have to hide really, really well until I say it’s okay. I’m serious, it’ll be a huge disaster if you get caught!”

*Nod nod.* Sis nodded in affirmation. I didn’t exactly trust her, but with the situation urgent, I had no choice.

I scooped Sis up in my arms and quickly left the basement.

“Phew.”

While Sis let out a breath she had been holding, I ran up to the second floor and opened the door to an empty guest room.

“Stay quiet until the seeker leaves. Shh. Even if the sky falls, shh!”

“If the sky falls, shouldn’t it be ‘crash’ instead of ‘shh’?”

“I mean be quiet!”

After hiding Sis, the doorbell continued to ring until I came back down to the entrance. The bastard was annoyingly persistent.

‘I don’t want to open it!’

Should I just pretend I’m not home? Would he go away then?

*Ding-dong. Ding-dong.*

At the ringing doorbell again, I gave up on that idea. That bastard would stand in front of my mansion until he achieved his goal.

No, he might just tear the door off its hinges. It wouldn’t be hard for him.

As I approached the door, the bell finally stopped, as if he sensed my presence.

*Huff.* I let out a short breath.

Slowly, I opened the door.

Through the widening gap, a gorgeous face was revealed.

Calm silver hair. Low-temperature eyes. A flawless, expressionless face.

“…Asuka Willovice.”

He, standing outside, bent down to match my eye level.

“Long time no see, Rel.”

He whispered a cool greeting.