Swordsmaster Fox-girl

I sat outside Mom’s room; restless. Herald wasn’t here (obviously), so I had to play the role of the nervous father… Not that anyone forced me to, though.

After several nerve-racking minutes, the midwife—who was coincidentally Hannah—poked her head out of the door and said, 

“It’s done.”

I literally jumped out of my seat and dashed into the room. There, I could see Mom in her bed, holding what looked like a furless monkey with a scrunched-up face.

‘Ah, I forgot how ugly newborns looked.’

Though, considering the fact that Mom and Herald were the parents, the child would surely grow up to be attractive.

Mom soon noticed me. She beckoned me to come closer and held the baby up as if wanting to show off.

“Nova, say hi to your sister.”

“Hi.”

Then, I placed a finger on my sister’s small hand. I giggled as the child reflexively grabbed my finger.

After I played around with my sister for a bit, Ria, who was standing on the sidelines, approached us and asked,

“Madam, do you have a name in mind?”

Mom pondered for a bit, occasionally glancing at me.

Seeing that she was taking too long, Ria suggested,

“Should you name her Esth—”

“No.” Mom sharply cut her off. “That name is for my little one only.”

‘She’s talking about me?’

“Mom, what are you talking about? What name?”

In response, Mom smiled warmly.

“I’ll tell you about it when you grow up. Now, back to your sister. I think I just came up with the perfect name. She shall be…”

I stared at her with expectant eyes.

“...Ihwa.”

Someone coughed loudly, and it wasn’t me. Instead, it was Ria. She was coughing like she was choking on her own saliva. In fact, I was pretty sure she was.

“M-Madam! D-Does that mean you want her and the young miss to…”

Mom widened her eyes in realization.

“O-Oh… No! Y-You’re right, I-I should choose another name.”

This time, she didn’t take as long to come up with a sensible name.

“Nowa…her name shall be Nowa.”

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I sat down in the library, trying my best to study Magic. However…

“—so thus, Magic is the representation of the hyperbolic folding of dimension on another, and the density of Mana have something t— Fuck this! Why does it have to be so confusing?!”

I threw the book I was reading on the ground in confusion and rage. I knew that I wasn’t the smartest person out there, but I was sure that even my Ihwa couldn’t understand the gibberish written here. 

I clutched my head and heard a knock at the door. Turning around, I saw Mom holding a familiar four-year-old while leaning against the door, which was open. She probably knocked out of consideration for me.

Seeing no reason to chase them out, I said,

“Come in.”

Mom nodded and sat right next to me. 

I crouched down to pick up the book I threw down. When I came up again, I noticed that I was sandwiched between the child—Nowa and Mom. I ran my hand through Nowa’s white hair. It’d been a common occurrence by now; my sister’s appearance, not Mom’s.

In fact…I was pretty sure this was the first time she met me here.

As I was trying to focus back to the book, I could feel Nowa pulling my cheek playfully with her pale hands.

Not really having the energy to put up with this, I turned toward her, met her red eyes, and sighed.

“What?”

“Nee-san, what you read?”

‘Huh? Since when…’

I gave Mom a confused look. However, she merely smiled bitterly.

“Ask that personal Maid of yours.”

“Ah…”

That made sense. Violette often took care of Nowa, so it was no surprise that Nowa picked up some of the Otherworlders’ speech. But I knew for a fact that Violette wouldn’t call Edward “Nii-san” under any circumstances (because she just called him brother), so Nowa probably asked her to teach her.

This sister of mine…she was frighteningly smart. And no, I was sure that she wasn’t a Reincarnator like me. The reason?
I spent the first two years after her birth trying to find out if she was a Reincarnator. Of course, everything came out as negative.

I stopped my thoughts there and focused back on the book. This time, however, Mom was the one who distracted me.

“Your sister’s right, little one. What are you reading?”

I saw no reason to hide it.

“I want to learn how to use Magic.”

“Wait, what? I thought you wanted to be a Swordsman?”

“W-Well, it can’t hurt to be both, right?”

Actually, it could hurt to be both. Since Aura and Mana don’t mix together, one can already imagine the disastrous result when someone attempts to use both Mana and Aura at the same time.

Luckily for me, I had perfect control over my own Aura, so I just needed to make sure the two of them wouldn’t collide with each other.

It seemed that Mom knew how dangerous it was, too.

“Little one…you’ll have to choose one of the two eventually.”
“Why?”

“Because it’s dangerous.”

Being a good and obedient child, I nodded.

“Okay, Mom.”

“But…I suppose it’s still useful to learn Magic now. You haven’t awakened your Aura after all. Now, what have you learned?”
I averted my gaze down and scratched my cheek, embarrassed. 

“N-Nothing.”

“What? Let me see.”

Saying that, Mom took the book and skimmed through it. Then, she sighed.

“No wonder. Everything here is entirely theoretical. In fact, I think every book in this library is more theoretical than practical.”

‘Oh! That makes sense!’

No wonder there were strange words that I’d never seen before. However, that raised a question. How did Mom know about all this?

As if sensing my question from just my gaze alone, Mom puffed her chest in pride and giggled.

“Surprised? Your Mom was once a Mage, you know?”

‘At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was once a Monarch. Though…how do you turn an at least 10-star individual into someone like Mom?’

Pushing such absurd thoughts aside, of course I couldn’t let this opportunity pass!

“Can you teach me Magic?”

“Sure. But first…” She glanced at Nowa. “...Take your sister out to play. Today’s cloudy.”

“Do I have to?” I pouted.

“Yes. I’m sure your friend will also like seeing Nowa again.”
Nowa began clinging to my arm as if it’d been decided.

“Yay!”

Consent, my dear sister. Consent.

But I wanted to learn Magic, and there wasn’t any real reason to refuse, so I accepted.

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Just before we left the mansion, I unbuttoned Nowa’s thick shirt to make sure that the bandage was wrapping around her entire body. Yep, she looked like those “mummies” that I saw in the Otherworlders’ picture books. Though, one major difference was that the part covering her eyes was transparent thanks to a specific enhancement that allowed her to see through the bandages.

Seeing that everything was fine, I held Nowa’s hand and left the mansion. 

Despite the day being more cloudy than usual, there were still some weak rays of light hitting the snowy ground. Though, the mere sight of those rays was enough to make Nowa recoil a bit in fear.

I chuckled and let Nowa sit on my arm and hugged her, as if protecting her from the light.

‘Who would’ve known that her constitution was this troublesome?’ 

Sunlight and Nowa meant bad news, and Mom and I found that out the hard way. 

It wasn’t as if she was a Vampire or anything. In fact, it would’ve been better if she was a Vampire since they would only be weakened in sunlight. No, Nowa’s condition was a little bit different. Her skin was especially sensitive to sunlight, and her body was fragile…even more so than mine.

I believed that the Otherworlders called this condition “albinism,” but it shouldn’t affect Nowa too much once she awakened her Aura or Mana.

Just as we left the mansion, the clouds parted, and this unusually cloudy day turned into an unusually sunny day…

“Well, Nowa, you’re out of luck.”

Seeing that my sister was on the verge of crying, I planted a soft kiss on her forehead and whispered,

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you something when I’m outside.”

“R-Really?”

“Yes.”

“I love Nee-san!”

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After dropping Nowa off at the mansion, I went outside again. As per usual, Edward was tailing right behind me.

“We’re far enough from the mansion now.”

“I can see that.”

I turned around to look at him. Four years had passed since the first time I saw him, so he was now eighteen, and he only got more handsome. His handsomeness was dangerously reaching Eric’s levels. 

“Unfairly handsome bastard.”

“What did you say?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing. You can go now.”

“...As you wish.”

After that, he disappeared.

Speaking of which, I had no idea where he’d gone to. Every time I hung out with Ihwa, he disappeared right until I came back to this exact spot. 

Knowing his preferences, he probably went to a nearby village to hook up with some older women or something.

Unlike her brother, Violette chose to follow me every time.

“Mistres— Nova, are you cold?”

“I’m not.”

“Do you need water?”

“I don’t.”

Truthfully, I almost wanted her to disappear just like Edward. Almost.

Anyway, when I first took her in, I’d wanted to be my friend. However, this kind of master-servant relationship could work, I suppose.

Four years had passed since I first met her, so she was now fifteen. That meant her body began developing curves. And, quite frankly, I admired her for not falling in love with her own brother since I was pretty sure that the only things that kept me from pouncing on Edward was my past life’s memories and a little something the Otherworlders called “hormones;” or lack thereof.

Incest wasn’t something taboo here, unlike in the Otherworlders’ old world, so really, no one would say a thing if Violette wanted to fuck her own brother.

But to that, I had several hypotheses; one of which was the fact that Edward was only attracted to older girls. The other was that Violette and Edward had the Otherworlders’ morals.

Either way, it wasn’t really my problem. 

Soon, we reached the familiar forest’s edge. There, I could see Ihwa’s familiar figure. Her waist-length raven hair was now cut to her back, and she…grew taller than me.

Well, she was always taller than me, but this was just absurd. My neck screamed in pain every time I looked up to her eyes.

In fact, she was about the same height as Violette, who was two years older than her.

As soon as Ihwa noticed me, she unsheathed her sword and—

“Here I come!”

—began attacking me.