Yeah, so it’s only natural for the crystal sphere to break.
Aeli made a troubled expression upon hearing the woman’s soft muttering.
Suddenly saying things that are simply incomprehensible, such a reaction wouldn’t be unreasonable.
Aeli opened her mouth, unable to even think about unraveling her slightly furrowed brows.
“……Then,”
“You’re not the only one who broke the crystal sphere.”
“……”
“It’s the same for your son. So, Adi?”
The woman asked, looking down at the child held in Aeli’s arms, saying that Doris told her his name was that.
In fact, it was closer to talking to herself than asking, so it seemed like no answer was necessary.
“As I just said, the colors that appear in the crystal sphere you shattered react to mana, so they can’t overlap.”
“……”
“They can be similar, but the colors can’t be exactly the same. Moreover, even if it’s just mana, only witches can possess unique abilities.”
“……”
“But as you can see, Adi is a boy.”
If someone who has a unique ability or has already used it holds a crystal sphere, there would be no reaction at all if they didn’t have any ability from the beginning.
Moreover, only witches of the same kind can converse with familiars, so the child is bound to be even more foreign.
As the woman muttered like that, Aeli suddenly felt her heart beating irregularly.
It was because there weren’t very many things that came to mind when thinking about it herself.
‘−Come to think of it, didn’t he just talk to Jalapeño as if having a conversation earlier?’
Saying to call him uncle.
The image of him getting angry, saying how could that make sense when you’re a mole and I’m a human, was vivid.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a case like this, so I’m perplexed, but… you saw that you and Adi had the exact same crystal sphere color, right? That means it’s the mana of the same person.”
“The thing is,”
“It doesn’t work. But if you put it that way, does your state of having a circle but not a single drop of mana left make sense?”
“……”
It doesn’t work.
Aeli’s mouth, having lost words to say, closed.
As mentioned before, a circle remained in her body.
‘Even though it’s just a guess since there are no samples at all− fundamentally, what maintains a circle is mana.’
At this point when there’s not even a little bit of mana left, theoretically it’s impossible for the circle to be maintained.
In the first place, isn’t the most basic condition to even attempt creating a circle a certain amount of mana or more?
If you try to use magic beyond your skill level, or if your mana drops below a certain level, the circle gets damaged.
That was natural since mana is the foundation that forms the circle.
−But there’s a circle even though there’s no mana?
“……”
Aeli bit her lip.
She knew well enough that it doesn’t make sense, but.
“Then……”
“It would be explained if your unique ability is ‘transference’.”
As she muttered softly, the woman continued as if she had been waiting.
At that, Aeli lifted her head in surprise and looked at the woman.
“−What?”
“It means that the mana you possessed was completely transferred to the child. ‘Transference’ usually refers to the energy one possesses moving to another place.”
“……”
“But since magic is similar to math or science, if we were to compare it, it would be quantum mechanics−,”
“……?”
“……Right. It’s okay if you don’t know. Anyway, what’s important isn’t that− Hmm.”
“……”
“There are a few among the children living in the village who have the same unique ability as you, although not many.”
Even so, the woman said that there hasn’t been a single person who has used that ability yet, so the guess isn’t certain. But it would be the most plausible.
‘Transference’ is no different from transferring one’s own ability to another person− since there’s nothing left if you take away magic from a witch, it’s obvious they wouldn’t use the unique ability even if they had it.
The woman, who kindly explained to Aeli who had her mouth slightly open, continued with a serious face.
“If we assume that your abilities, including your mana, were completely transferred to this child, and so Adi also gained a unique ability, it wouldn’t be strange even if the crystal sphere colors are the same. It would have been originally yours, after all.”
“……”
“Furthermore, if Adi has already used the unique ability− it’s only natural for the crystal sphere to break.”
“……”
“By the way, the hypothesis that a unique ability is also created in the person who receives the transferred ability is quite interesting. This is worth researching.”
Aeli narrowed her eyes at the woman’s words.
She didn’t feel good about them talking as if she and Adi were experimental subjects.
However, there was something else that was currently troubling her, so Aeli brought up the question that had been lingering.
‘Then could it be that Adi not having a circle,’
Was because of her?
Her Adam’s apple moved involuntarily with her fluttering heart.
Didn’t it just hover around her heart as if there was already one even when trying to create a circle?
‘Even so, there was no problem in using magic.’
Aeli’s eyes trembled as she recalled the child who had smiled brightly while gazing at her.
……Those with Ratcliffe blood cannot use magic.
Although she didn’t know why, it was a fact that had long been established since she first began learning imperial history.
However, the moment she found out that the child was using magic in the form of a ghost.
“Since then……”
To be honest, it wasn’t that she had never entertained such thoughts.
The situation was coincidental, but wasn’t it strange in the first place that the child didn’t have a circle while she had one despite not having a single drop of mana left?
That alone was enough to think it was strange−,
Mana had been by her side like air her whole life, so there was no way she wouldn’t notice her familiar mana from the child.
She just thought it was a misunderstanding since it’s natural for a child to resemble their parent to some extent.
‘……In the first place, the idea that mana was transferred to another person doesn’t make sense from a common sense perspective!’
Even the things the woman said just now are absurd.
There’s no way she could have made such a guess on her own and worried if it was true.
She had simply brushed it off, thinking that the child being the only different one in the Ratcliffes who can’t use magic, and her being a Mason, meant there was something different.
Only after swallowing her saliva with a gulp did Aeli lower her gaze and look at the child.
“……”
“……”
Other than fiddling with the crystal sphere held in her hand, there was no notable reaction from the child who had lowered her head.
Aeli quietly observed the child fiddling with the crystal sphere that had turned black and seemed like it would break at any moment.
She thought she should stop the child from touching it in case it breaks and hurts her hand.
‘Something…… The reaction seems a bit strange.’
Usually by this point, the child’s eyes would sparkle asking what ability she used, or make a tearful face asking if she stole it from her mother.
Whatever it was, there should be a noticeable reaction, but there wasn’t.
The somewhat strange reaction made her think there was something off.
But that soon came across as if the child also had something she felt guilty about.
“……My mana started decreasing since I became pregnant.”
Aeli spoke to the woman, convinced that there was something more that she didn’t know.
Although she still found it unreliable, she didn’t think she would get an immediate answer even if she asked the child, so she intended to ask what she wanted to know first.
“I still don’t understand what ability you say I have, but if we assume so, does that mean I used the ability since then?”
“That’s right.”
“……Is it possible for such a thing to happen without the person knowing?”
At Aeli’s question, the woman hummed for a while.
The woman, who had been tapping the back of her hand for a long time as if she wasn’t sure herself, replied.
“Occasionally, even if unintended, the ability is used automatically if earnestly wished for……”
“……Are you saying that’s me? But I’ve never thought that way even once.”
“I can’t give you an exact answer to that either. This is a record left in documents, and usually, once born as a witch, you can’t not know that you have an ability, so it doesn’t happen often.
“……”
To summarize what the woman said, it was like this.
She heard it’s a phenomenon that rarely occurs when one’s condition is too poor to use magic, or when only consciousness remains.
However, that ‘I heard’ came from records written in an ancient book that exists in the village library− so it’s difficult to determine whether it’s true or not.
Moreover, even such content doesn’t amount to five times throughout the hundreds of years of imperial history, so there’s virtually no sample.
That was the gist.
“But from what you claim, it doesn’t seem to be that.”
“……”
“−Or the idea that you must have used it this time could be a prejudice in itself. Many things that are out of the ordinary happen in the world more often than you think.”
“……Pardon?”
“We’re also inexperienced with this, so we’re not certain, but we can roughly sense it. After all, those from another world are not beings that completely belong to this world……”
Pause.
The woman, who had been speaking without rest, suddenly closed her mouth.
After being stiff for a while, the woman shook her head from side to side and said,
“I don’t think I can tell you any more than this.”
“Pardon?”
“It becomes troublesome for us too if causality breaks. You’ll have to find out the rest yourself. It’s not too bad since it seems to be time to send you back?”
“No, you talk by yourself and then suddenly out of nowhere, what……!”
Snap!
As soon as the woman snapped her fingers, Aeli felt her vision blur.
“Instead, I’ll help you out once when you need it. If you need to contact me later, come to the address written on the note.”
She said she would specially let her know of a secret hideout in the capital since it’s too far to go back and forth to the estate.
“By the way, the line written below is a password.”
She vaguely heard that she probably wouldn’t be able to visit this hut again, and the password changes each time so she can only enter once, so use it carefully.
With some kind of paper handed to her as the last thing, Aeli closed her eyes.
[This is the timeline separator]And when she opened her eyes again.
“……”
Putting aside not being able to tell how much time had passed for now.
Aeli swallowed upon seeing the familiar room, the long black hair that entered her sight.
−And lastly, her parents who got up from the chair next to the bed with teary eyes.
Forget the brooch, none of the other accessories she had just in case were seen, as if they had changed her clothes.
In other words?
‘……Could it be that I’m doomed?’
After Being Cheated On, She Picked Up a Treasure (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The husband I married on a whim had been secretly in love with me for a long time.
On the day when Jun Shao finally obtained the imperial decree for her marriage, Lan Qu, the person she had admired for six years, defied the decree and ran away.
Her gentleness and devotion, her promise of a lifetime together, were all disregarded by him. Instead, he dreamed of entering the palace to serve the Emperor’s sister as a sixth-rank attendant.
News of this incident spread throughout the capital, and the alleys in front of and behind the Lan mansion were crowded with people who came to watch the commotion.
Jun Shao should have been embarrassed and angry.
But someone stepped in to protect her dignity.
The figure was in a miserable state, yet still possessed an undeniable elegance and handsomeness.
The young lord struggled to climb the wall of the Lan mansion and shouted to her, “If he won’t marry you, I will!”
So, Jun Shao took advantage of the situation and married the person.
She thought the young lord did it to save the Lan family from the crime of defying the imperial decree, but never imagined that from beginning to end, what he coveted was her.
*
After the wedding, Jun Shao felt like she was living in a dream.
Her Wife-master was as beautiful as a fairy in a painting, skilled in the six arts, well-versed in poetry and literature, capable of being gentle and attentive, and also grand and dignified. Most importantly, she was the only one in his heart and eyes.
Jun Shao didn’t know how Lan Shiwu, as a illegitimate son without a father and blessed with beauty, had managed to preserve his purity, recklessly escape, and use his last ounce of strength to ruin his own reputation, all because of his love for her, just to stand before her.
She could only see him gazing at her with eyes full of love, and when she bestowed a name upon him, his eyes shone like stars.
“You have come to me like a weary bird perching on a branch. I shall call you A Qi.”
