The World Has Become Kinder to Her

In the heart of the capital, a large river divided the city into north and south—the Venus River, named after the goddess of beauty and love. Its surface shimmered in the light of dawn and dusk, said to be as beautiful as the goddess herself.

If someone had fallen into the water, it could only have been in this river.

*I’m in a hurry myself,* Frederick thought, hesitating for a moment. But he couldn’t ignore the possibility that someone’s life was in danger. If Frederick had been the kind of person who disregarded life, he wouldn’t have chosen the path of the Magic Tower over becoming a royal mage, destined to be deployed in wars.

Frederick changed direction, heading for the river. It wasn’t difficult to figure out where the person had fallen—crowds of people had gathered, pointing toward a specific spot in the water. There was also another critical clue: a child who had been pulled from the river.

Unlike the woman who had completely sunk, the child had been floundering at the surface, clutching onto a rope someone had thrown into the water.

The Venus River wasn’t particularly fast-moving, so Frederick quickly calculated the area where the woman could have gone under. He began to cast a spell from the telekinesis school of magic.

“Ohhh!”  

“He’s a mage!”  

“The water is parting!”

The crowd marveled as the water rose in tall columns, parting as if by divine miracle. Frederick, however, focused on ensuring his magic didn’t harm the submerged person. *I need to be careful.*

The spectators were awed by the sight, but Frederick’s expression remained impassive. 

*Once I pull her from the water, the people here will take care of her. I’ve already wasted too much time—Loti is waiting for me. Still, if Loti hears about this, she might praise me. She might even think I’m a considerate man,* he mused.

As the riverbed came into view, the murmurs and cheers from the crowd reached a fever pitch. But Frederick paid them no mind. His focus was entirely on one thing.

There, lying motionless on the damp riverbed like a broken doll, was a woman. Her long, soaked hair obscured her face, but something about the scene felt familiar to Frederick.

Like someone possessed, he stepped onto the wet, muddy riverbed. The earth clung to him, pulling him down like a swamp. He forced his heavy feet forward, step by step.

Red hair. *No, no—it can’t be. How many women have hair like that?* 

The dress—so similar to the one he had given her as a gift once before.

*No. All dresses look the same to me anyway.*

Frederick bit his lip, trembling as he reached out and brushed the woman’s wet hair aside with shaking hands.

“Loti!”

Why? Why was she here? How could this be happening?

*This can’t be real. It has to be a lie.*

“Tell me this isn’t happening. Please, no…”

The moment Frederick pulled Lotus’s body from the river, the water surged back into place. Her body, held in his arms, was cold—so cold. Her breathing was absent, and he could feel no heartbeat.

“Loti, Loti, Loti. Please, no. Loti…”

Her name became his only words, his cries turning into desperate pleas. Frederick could barely form coherent sentences as he held her still body. 

The sun was setting, darkness slowly engulfing the world, and yet there was no sense of reality in the lifeless form of Lotus in his arms.

*This has to be a nightmare, right? If I just scream her name loud enough, I’ll wake up from this horrible dream.*

“Loti, please open your eyes… You can be angry, yell at me for holding you without permission. I don’t care…”

His heart was racing, his hands and feet trembling so much that he couldn’t even cast a drying spell to warm her body. 

Using magic in such an unstable state could lead to an uncontrollable burst of power. He couldn’t risk harming her unconscious form.

“Please…”

He clung to her, hoping that if he just held her tighter, his warmth might reach her frozen body. Maybe the beating of his heart could somehow bring hers back to life.

Frederick pressed her closer, as if trying to absorb every last drop of the water that had chilled her. But all he felt was the silence of her stopped heart, the absence of life.

Even his own tears, which flowed uncontrollably, frightened him. He didn’t want to make her any wetter than she already was.

“Loti. Loti. Loti…”

“…That’s enough.”

The onlookers who had witnessed Frederick’s miraculous display of magic recoiled in fear, watching him clutch the lifeless body of the woman, desperately calling out her name. None dared approach him, not even the city guards who had arrived on the scene. Ultimately, they sent for aid from the Magic Tower.

When Manores arrived, the scene before him was one of utter chaos and tragedy. Not long ago, Frederick had been elated, giddy with the anticipation of proposing to Lotus. Now, seeing him in this broken state, Manores felt a heavy weight settle in his chest. If his own heart felt like it had been plunged into ice, he couldn’t begin to imagine what Frederick was going through.

Still, as Vice Tower Master, it was Manores’ duty to intervene. He couldn’t allow Frederick to continue holding the cold, lifeless body any longer.

“Manores!” Frederick’s tear-soaked face twisted in desperation as he clung to Manores’s robes.

“Please… please… use a drying spell. Loti must be so cold, and I can’t— I can’t use magic in this state.”

Frederick’s face was a mess, wet with tears, and his lips were bleeding from being bitten so many times. Manores knew, and Frederick must have known as well, that Lotus was already gone. But Frederick couldn’t accept it. Just hours earlier, he had been dreaming of a future with her, and now that future was shattered, cruelly replaced by this unbearable reality.

“I cannot do what you cannot, Tower Master,” Manores said gently.

“No, no, no!”

“Forgive me…” Manores whispered as he raised his hand.

Despite Frederick’s formidable resistance to magic, his mental exhaustion left him vulnerable. His silver eyes, dulled by grief, slowly closed as Manores cast a spell. Frederick collapsed forward, unconscious.

The Venus River, which had taken the life of a woman and the future of a man, now glistened serenely under the moonlight, as though nothing had happened. The cold, indifferent beauty of the scene made Manores grit his teeth in frustration.

***

Lotus’s body was returned to the Estelle estate by the mages of the Magic Tower. Whether out of guilt, public pressure, or some sense of repentance, the Marquis of Estelle held her funeral according to the proper rites, treating her as a legitimate daughter of the family.

During the funeral, Frederick remained locked away in his office at the Magic Tower, unable to face the world. Manores understood—Frederick was still in denial, refusing to accept what had happened.

It wasn’t until a week later that Frederick emerged from his office. His face was pale and hollow, devoid of the usual vitality. When he finally spoke, it was in a hoarse, lifeless voice.

“I’m going to turn back time.”

The kind of magic that was said to have been bestowed upon humanity by the gods themselves was powerful, almost omnipotent at times. But there were two realms that magic could not touch: time reversal and resurrection.

No matter how powerful a mage, no one had ever successfully turned back time or brought the dead back to life. Yet, here was Frederick, announcing his intent to challenge the impossible.

Manores couldn’t bring himself to ask if Frederick had lost his mind. The look in his silver eyes—filled with a disturbing mix of determination and madness—told him Frederick was entirely serious.

Frederick placed the Tower Master’s symbol, the “Ring of Oaths,” in Manores’s hand.

“I’m not going to concern myself with anything else. Take this.”

“That’s not a position you can just abandon like this.”

“I can’t face anyone right now,” Frederick replied, his face contorted with pain. “Never in my life have I thought about using my magic to kill someone.”

Manores remained silent.

“But I want to kill that child. The one Loti saved. If it weren’t for that child, Loti wouldn’t have died. Just thinking about it drives me insane. The people who were there, the guards who moved too slowly, the nobles who couldn’t keep her at the party… I want to kill them all.”

“…Tower Master.”

“I just— I need to focus on my research. I don’t want to see anyone’s face right now.”

Frederick was prepared to leave the Magic Tower altogether, but Manores refused to allow it. He knew that if Frederick were left to his own devices, he would only spiral further into destruction. The fragile balance of his emotions, mana, and murderous intent were too dangerous to leave unchecked.

In the end, Manores arranged for Frederick to be secluded in a special research lab and practice hall within the Tower. 

In a secluded area protected by wards, Frederick immersed himself entirely in his research. The space had been created for the sole purpose of allowing him to focus without distraction, and he had been given complete privacy. His expertise in teleportation was unparalleled, and he began to theorize: if time could be approached as something to “move,” maybe—just maybe—he could make it happen.

Clinging to the faintest thread of hope, Frederick threw himself into his studies. He scoured every magic tome related to time and movement, barely eating and sleeping just enough to avoid death. His body deteriorated quickly, but he paid no mind to his own well-being. His family’s calls and pleas went unanswered, ignored as irrelevant noise.

All that consumed him was the desire to turn back time and see Lotus again. He didn’t care if she accepted his feelings or his proposal. All that mattered was seeing her alive once more. He would do anything for that.

Around two months after Lotus’s death, a package arrived for Frederick. If Manores hadn’t been away on Magic Tower business, the package would never have reached him. Inside was an item and a letter—both left behind by Lotus.

—

**Frederick,**

By the time you read this, I’ll likely no longer be in this world. I’m returning the excessive gift you once entrusted to me.  

This brooch deserves a better and more worthy owner.  

While your gift may have been driven by curiosity or a fleeting kindness, I want you to know that I appreciated the sentiment behind it.  

I’m also grateful for the kindness you’ve shown me in other ways.

I hope one day your family, and especially Francis, will understand your heart.  

Isn’t it time you settled down? I hope you meet someone good and live well.

**-Loti-**

P.S.: For the first and last time, I’m using the nickname you always called me by. I hated it because it reminded me of a girl who was loved by everyone—someone so different from the real me, who was despised and neglected by others. A silly reason, right?

—

“Haha, what madness…”

Frederick laughed bitterly, but his face twisted with grief. *You knew everything about others, but why did you never realize how I felt about you?*

Without hesitation, he set the letter on fire. The flames consumed it, and it crumbled into a handful of ash that scattered across the floor.

“Cruel, Loti. You’re so cruel.”

The brooch inside the package was pristine, as though she had never worn it, likely having put it away the moment he gave it to her. If she had worn it, if she had recognized the meaning behind it, she might have been saved. If she had worn it that day, the shield magic embedded in the brooch would have activated as she sank into the river.

“I wouldn’t have had to take this back.”

Frederick cursed himself. The brooch could have protected her when she sank beneath the water. The shield would have saved her life.

“And now you tell me this should belong to someone better? What a joke.”

To Frederick, the brooch held no value if it wasn’t with Lotus. Without her, it was meaningless, useless.

In a fit of rage, Frederick summoned his mana. The brooch, imbued with powerful shield magic, resisted his attempt to destroy it. Wind blades—one of Frederick’s specialties—lashed at the brooch, but the shield protected it, deflecting his magic.

For several minutes, the brooch’s shield battled against the sharpest, most powerful winds Frederick could conjure. Eventually, after depleting the mana inside the brooch, his wind pierced through it, shattering it completely. The brooch disappeared without a trace, just as its owner had.

As Frederick watched it vanish, something inside him broke too. His sorrow, rage, and desperation melted away, leaving nothing but a deep void, a crushing sense of emptiness.