NOVEL NEXT Chapter 96
Some people sleep lightly, while others sleep deeply.
In my past life, I was often awakened by the slightest noise, so I always thought I was someone who slept lightly.
Yet, reflecting on the times I almost overslept for the academy because I couldn’t hear the alarm, I began to think that I might actually be the type who has trouble waking up unless someone forces me to.
I suddenly remembered what my master once said: the human brain remembers experiences of deficiency.
For instance, intermittent fasting, where you only eat one meal a day, might be an effective short-term diet method, but our bodies adapt to the smaller food intake, gradually increasing calorie absorption.
I heard that this makes one more vulnerable to yo-yo dieting, along with compensation psychology.
Was it because I didn’t sleep much as a baby?
But even then, I never really felt like I was lacking sleep.
In fact, if anything, I might have suffered from insomnia due to a fear of not waking up tomorrow.
Of course, there were some comforts that came with having this body.
The fact that I could lie in bed and fall asleep as soon as I closed my eyes was, along with my unrefined appetite, one of the blessings one could receive.
I was forced awake because someone shook my body vigorously enough to make me feel nauseous.
It was Yuna.
“Ah… Sorry. I dozed off. Did you have dinner?”
She must have quietly entered the room without even turning on the light.
I felt sorry that I, the host of the pajama party, was holed up in my room and sleeping.
“If you’re done eating, do you want to watch a movie? We have ‘Zootopia’ and ‘Inside Out’ that I downloaded.”
“……”
Why is no one responding? I specifically chose animated films considering their ages; is it not to their taste?
Haru, who had been observing quietly, finally spoke up.
“Na-me… are you still tired?”
Tired, huh?
I did wake up early and felt tired, but after taking a little nap, I felt refreshed.
I tried to make excuses, feeling that I might have ruined the mood by dozing off in the middle of having fun.
“I just dozed off while setting up the projector. I didn’t fall asleep because it wasn’t fun hanging out with you guys. I was really looking forward to the pajama party today.”
“NoName…”
Yuna softly pinched my pajamas with a trembling voice.
Did they have a fight or something?
It was too dark to see their faces properly.
When I sat up and turned on the room light, I saw Yuna with a furrowed brow.
“Why are you about to cry again? Did you fight with Haru when I wasn’t around?”
Shake shake –
Yuna’s red hair shook vigorously from side to side.
I tried to hug her to comfort her as usual, but she pushed me away.
“Is it because I went into the room without saying anything?”
Shake shake –
She shook her head again.
I pinched her soft cheek gently, but she pushed my hand away and even pouted.
“I can’t read your mind just because you’re you. I wish you’d just talk if you have something on your mind.”
Children’s emotions are exceptionally complicated.
Adults show their feelings clearly: joy is joy, sadness is sadness, hatred is hatred.
Single emotions are clearly visible on their faces, but kids often don’t even know what they feel, making it quite challenging to read their thoughts.
One undeniable fact was the disappointment visibly overflowing from Yuna’s eyes.
“Isn’t it you who’s hiding something, NoName?”
This time, Haru spoke up with an angry tone.
“Me? I am?”
“Yeah. You’re hiding things from us too, so why do you tell Yuna to be honest with her feelings?”
“I feel like I’m missing something here. Can you explain what’s going on?”
I felt so confused right now.
I felt as startled as an elementary school student who accidentally witnessed the art teacher and gym teacher kissing in the art room while I was there to pick up the pencil case I forgot after after-school activities.
I won’t reveal who they were for the sake of privacy.
Yuna pressed her forehead against my thigh and hugged me tightly.
“Your nightmare was… really scary… You were mumbling runes, suddenly saying it hurt, asking for help, and then… then… saying you felt like you were going to die…”
As Yuna confessed what she saw, the girl in pig pajamas came up next to me.
“If you’re in pain, say it hurts. I hate people who say they’re okay when they’re really not… They’re the worst liars.”
Haru said, clenching her fists tightly.
She looked as if she was about to burst into tears at the slightest touch.
With both girls clinging to me, I could only let out a deep sigh.
On the first day of the pajama party, instead of reconciling the two girls, I ended up making them cry.
*
As the full moon’s light hung in the night sky, and dusk fell,
Na-me prepared to go out, gathering the girls’ upper garments.
“Are you going outside at this hour? For what?”
Professor Cheon asked with a puzzled tone.
“To see the stars.”
Na-me answered briefly and opened the entrance door.
However, the professor’s question remained unresolved.
In the brightest city in Korea at night, the stars shyly concealed themselves.
“On a night like today, it’s probably too cloudy to see any stars at all.”
“It’s okay. I remember where they’re hiding. Can I borrow this?”
The group headed by Na-me went to the playground in the apartment complex.
The traces of children who had been playing everywhere were nowhere to be found, leaving only a lonely, desolate open space.
Leading Yuna and Haru by the hands, I sat them on swings.
“It’s hard to see stars in the city because of light pollution. So, if you want to see stars, you should go to a dark place.”
“I can’t see anything…”
Haru, full of TMI, and Yuna, still shocked from Na-me’s sleep talk.
They gave me suspicious looks since I dragged them here without explaining why.
“What I dreamt was not a nightmare.”
Na-me said from the highest point of the slide.
“Well, what was it?”
Yuna expressed her displeasure, kicking the ground to move her swing.
NoName was a girl shrouded in mystery from head to toe.
She knew everything about herself, but Yuna didn’t know anything about her.
That made Yuna feel angry and frustrated. Every step she took to know her, Na-me would take two steps back.
Yuna was determined not to let her divert the topic again.
“Do you guys have a moment in your life that was the happiest?”
What Na-me dreamt might have been a nightmare, but it also wasn’t a nightmare.
It was truly the hardest and most desperate moment in one’s life, but at the same time, it was the struggle of someone longing for the return of the happiest moment in their life.
“Today, I’ll show you just how many stars exist in this world.”
She pulled out the Light Transmutation Circle Inscriber she borrowed from Professor Cheon.
It was a wand product that could inscribe magical circles and transmutation circles in mid-air without any strikes.
Notably, since all three stages of recording – injecting – activating proceed uniformly with ‘inscribing’, it has the disadvantage of being unable to modify midway.
However, where there are disadvantages, there are also advantages.
The speed at which the thoughts of the caster are reflected in the magical circle for calculations is excellent, and the mana injected is at an optimal approximation value, so its mana consumption is low.
Considering that Na-me would use a lot of runes and equations for magic in the future, it was an essential item.
“There are many quirky people in this world. I wonder if there have always been people out there who were curious about whether a magic circle could be created by using every rune at least once.”
The null, indicating an empty set, can be omitted. But this time, wanting to perform it correctly, she created 128 blank spaces in the magic circle.
The girls still had no idea what Na-me was doing.
Until light began to emerge from the northern part of the magic circle.
“Null. El. Ras, Mabeon.”
She started reciting the runes most commonly used for casting 1st and 2nd circle magic.
As runes were embedded at the top of the magic circle, lights began to ignite one by one.
“Sutra, Arhen, Guernum, Psyche.”
The related circuits moved five gears of formulas.
With every tick of the second hand on the clock, the outermost path gradually lit up clockwise.
“Istanya, Lumiere, Fresian, Fantasia, Nellimelo, Samatra, Bestial, Hyperit.”
Overwhelmed by the grandeur of the magic circle that transcended mere wonder, Yuna’s mouth opened slightly.
The amount of mana being injected through the inscriber was endless.
As if wringing out golden mana, new runes emerged, greedily consuming that energy.
A colossal magic circle with a diameter of 8m centered around Na-me made its magnificent form shine.
Five layers of gears, brighter than streetlights turning on and off, illuminated the playground.
But only half of it was lit up so far.
As the swing came to a sudden stop, Na-me gathered the final 64 seven-syllable runes in one breath.
“Zigmund Asente, Reshai Iqbar, Saleantirumone, Haraye Tureika.”
The name of the magic circle that used all 128 runes typically employed in regular magic circles was:
[Cast: Alchemist]
“Alchemist, a magic for storing wishes.”
No sooner had Na-me finished speaking than all the light in the world vanished around the three girls.
“…!”
Just as they were astonished, the first to sparkle was the North Star, greeting them.
In the east, thirteen stars glowed blue.
In the west, nine stars sparkled red.
Stars appeared above Yuna’s head and around Haru’s feet, as the entire world was enveloped in starlight.
Before long, they realized they weren’t standing on solid ground.
“How does it feel? Like being in the center of the universe?”
Na-me approached the two girls, who had come down from the slide.
Realizing that even the swing they had just been sitting on had disappeared, Haru’s heart raced excitedly.
“What kind of magic is this…?”
“Aren’t the stars pretty? You won’t find a place like this anywhere.”
Of course, that was true.
Haru would surely say she had never seen a scene filled with thousands, no, tens of thousands of stars illuminating a black canvas.
“Na-me, so what you were mumbling about while you were sleeping…”
“Yeah. I guess I was casting this magic. It’s my favorite magic.”
What on earth could this magic be?
Was it really just to see the night sky?
But Yuna’s question was quickly answered.
Her eyes were naturally drawn to the point Na-me was pointing at.
In the northern sky, a shooting star streaked across.
“A star is falling…!”
As if it was too early to be astonished, Na-me laughed.
Soon, two, then three stars began to plummet.
Still, hundreds of stars remained hanging in the sky.
Now, ten, then twenty stars fell all at once.
Worried that they might fall this way, Yuna tightly gripped Na-me’s hand.
Haru felt the same way.
The meteor shower adorning the night sky made Haru’s heart flutter. Similarly, she didn’t let go of Na-me’s empty hand.
Following the path the stars had taken, the dark sky began to crack.
If the world the girls saw was the inside of an egg, it was as if that egg was about to crack open.
Crash-!
As the 128th star performed its role and fell, the black dome completely collapsed, revealing the outside world.
The sky was a pure blue with not a single cloud in sight, and expansive lands teeming with life spread out before them.
A lush green meadow was dotted with brilliantly blooming scarlet flowers, adding color to the earth.
As a warm spring breeze intertwined with the fresh scent of grass, it seemed to diffuse like a perfume of nature.
Flower petals, riding the refreshing breeze, clung to the girls’ cheeks as if greeting them.
“Alright, let’s go.”
“Um… where to?”
Na-me pointed to the edge of the hill.
On the grassy field filled with the scent of grass, two figures had set up a modest mat.
One was a cold-looking blonde boy, and the other a slightly younger girl full of smiles.