Of course, he didn’t recognize that I was a magician. He simply praised my brain as being different from others.

“She has excellent data interpretation skills, strong memory, and mathematical ability.”

“But Nelly is clumsy with words. She certainly sits quietly and reads books well, but……”

“Often, geniuses may appear somewhat lacking in the eyes of others. Their thought processes are different from others. But it’s clearly a special talent.”

“Still……”

Father didn’t believe the tutor’s words. Father’s doubt wasn’t unreasonable. To be honest, I was a dull child who couldn’t even wipe my own nose at that time. I couldn’t even put on socks properly, making the maids sigh heavily.

For such a child to be a genius? It was natural not to believe it.

‘Could this be a scam? Are they going to say this and then ask for more money, claiming a special education program is needed?’

‘It might really be so.’

My parents didn’t believe the tutor’s words. The tutor sighed and said this:

“If you can’t believe my words, how about taking a test at the Academy?”

Father, though skeptical, took me to the Academy. He probably felt like this:

‘The child is good-natured but clumsy, so I’m worried about her future. But wouldn’t it be fortunate if she has any talent?’

In the carriage heading to the Academy, I had no thoughts. I only newly learned that reading in a carriage makes me motion sick.

At the Academy we arrived at, I was confirmed to have high intelligence, especially talent in mathematics rather than language. Up to here, it was exactly as the tutor had claimed, but.

“Gasp! What is this?”

“My goodness. The magic measurement device exploded! This is the first time since the Academy’s founding.”

The anomaly occurred when I put my hand on the magic measurement device. I had an enormous amount of magic power in my body. Immeasurable with current technology. They said it was comparable to the magic power of legendary dragons.

“To think such a talent would come to us on their own feet!”

“We absolutely can’t let this one go!”

“Leave it to me! I’m the right person for this!”

“Get lost! I’m the one who brought this child here!”

The magic department professors rushed to send love calls, each wanting to become my mentor. They all shouted in unison:

“This child will surely become a great magician!”

Honestly, even hearing such words, I didn’t feel my innate talent.

[This is the timeline separator]

Neither I nor my late parents knew, but my distant ancestor, the great magician Periway, had entrusted his legacy to the Academy. It was entirely his stubbornness.

[If a great magician appears among my descendants, pass on my legacy.] [And if one doesn’t appear?] [Then it stays here, of course.]

A great magician isn’t like the neighbor’s dog. Even if he was a great magician himself, did he have any basis to be confident that talent would manifest in his descendants?

However, for quite a long time after that, the Periway family didn’t produce even a decent magician, let alone a great one. For that reason, the legacy had been sleeping at the Academy for a long time.

Then, at the age of seven, I discovered my talent for magic and entered the Academy.

In fact, nothing much happened after that either. The Academy professors clearly thought of their disciples as slaves. They said they were teaching me magic, but the professors talked more nonsense.

“Go copy that.”

“Go summarize that.”

“Make some jujube tea.”

“Are you kidding? You didn’t put pine nuts in the jujube tea? Drink this yourself!”

“Ho ho ho, I’d like chrysanthemum tea, please.”

So, they wrote ‘disciple’ but thought of us more as servants. And not just any servants, but smart ones who understood whatever they said perfectly.

‘If I were that smart, I would have strangled the master to death and escaped long ago.’

Usually, slaves have some kind of collar that prevents them from defying their masters. I had one too.

It was graduation.

“How dare you think of going out and calling yourself a magician with that level of skill! I won’t let you graduate!”

Without the professors’ recognition, one couldn’t become an official magician. And it was illegal for unrecognized magicians to make money using magic.

You ask what kind of crappy system this is? This country was a place where you couldn’t even get a job without a letter of recommendation. When a professor insisted like that, there was nothing to say.

I was a slave to the professors who held graduation hostage. Another 10 years flew by like that.

The words I said most often at the Academy were probably these:

“Ah shit, I can’t take this anymore.”

The second most frequent words were:

“I want to quit.”

Similar to the most frequent ones? Well, anyway, it was like that. I was always saying I wanted to quit, wanted to give up.

The reason I could endure that time was thanks to my family who supported me.

“I’m proud of you, sister. I brag about you to my friends every day. That my sister is studying magic at the Academy.”

“Magic studies refer to the overall discipline, and among that, I’m researching the correlation between spatial transfer and time……”

“Anyway, I’m proud of you, sister!”

Thinking about it now, even then Diana was probably just parroting ceremonial words. She was probably satisfied just being able to brag about me to her friends.

‘Well, it wasn’t all terrible things.’

There were fifteen students in total following the magician course at the Academy.

We, who were treated like slaves by the professors, formed a somewhat close family-like relationship. I even gained someone who was like a real younger sibling.

“What are you going to do after graduation, sister?”

Grisha was a beautiful, delicate-looking boy four years younger than me. Perhaps because of his pretty and kind face, even the fierce professors became gentle with Grisha.

“Well, I guess it’ll be similar to now even after graduation.”

I was very indifferent to Grisha’s question. Graduation? What’s that, is it edible? First, shouldn’t you ask if I can even graduate?

Grisha asked, his sapphire-like deep blue eyes twinkling:

“Then, would you like to open a magician’s guild with me?”

“A guild? Are you planning to become a mercenary?”

“Yes. I want to live freely. In a place where there are no people I know, doing what I want to do.”

“If it’s people you know, shouldn’t I be excluded too?”

“N-not you, sister!”

What a cute kid. I ruffled Grisha’s black hair.

“Alright, let’s do that.”

“Hey, you promised!”

“Yes, I did.”

It would have been nice if the future had flowed as I promised Grisha.

One day, while I was diligently taking the graduation exam, a thunderbolt of news struck.

“S-sister, our parents……”

Our parents had passed away in an accident.

Now Diana was the only family I had left in the world. To be there for my sister, I first needed to leave this Academy. Quickly, graduate and leave!

‘Argh! So let me graduate already! In my opinion, I’m already more than qualified to work as a magician!’

Why won’t they let me? Are they trying to make me a ghost of the Academy?

Grinding my teeth, I did graduation research again and again.

Finally, I passed the last hurdle of graduation with the topic “Magic that Transcends Time: Is it possible to transfer only the soul excluding the body, and can that be considered oneself?”

And on the day of the magician recognition ceremony.

The dean of the magic department offered me a handshake and said:

“Congratulations, Great Magician Periway.”

“……Pardon?”

So you know how to use honorifics? No, more importantly, what did you just call me?

“Did you say Great Magician?”

I doubted my ears. The professors, with broad smiles −I was shocked again by the fact that they could make such expressions− offered me congratulations.

“That’s right. All the faculty members of our Academy have been waiting for you to reach the level of Great Magician.”

“I knew you could do it.”

“It’s admirable.”

“Finally, a Great Magician has been born in the Empire.”

It felt like I was being subjected to some malicious prank. Are they all making fun of me? Are they suddenly going to say I actually didn’t pass graduation and laugh?

While I was looking around at the professors with eyes full of suspicion.

“We are pleased to finally be able to pass on the legacy of the Great Magician, which has been kept at the Academy for a long time, to its rightful owner.”

The overall president of the Academy came out and informed me of the existence of a legacy I didn’t even know about.

“From this moment on, the Great Magician’s legacy is yours. However.”

“However……”

To me, still dazed and unable to grasp reality, the Academy president added these words:

“The previous Great Magician Periway instructed that the legacy should be handed over three years after you become a Great Magician. He was also a space-time magician, so perhaps he glimpsed something of the future and left such a will.”

At that time, I didn’t know that the unknown old legacy would be the piper’s tune bringing misfortune to my life. I was simply happy to have graduated.

Little did I know that my sister would try to kill me for that legacy.

If I hadn’t researched magic to turn back time, I would have ended right there.

‘If only I could have turned back time a bit further while I was at it.’

Then I would have stopped the president’s mouth before the word ‘legacy’ even came out. But the day I opened my eyes was the day after I was appointed as a Great Magician.

‘So I end up walking this hell repeatedly.’

Outside, relatives who came coveting the legacy were making a fuss, and inside the house, my younger sister was eyeing my life.

My mind felt like it was collapsing from experiencing these things again. I scratched my head irritably.

‘The legacy only opens after 3 years. No one even knows exactly what it is. Yet they’re already trying to kill me.’

Diana. A frightening child.

According to Diana’s explanation before I died, the legacy had already been transferred to me, and the Academy was just holding onto it, so even if I died, the inheritance of the legacy wouldn’t be invalidated.