“Finally decided to wake up, eh, you brat!”

That was the first words he heard when he came to.

Momentarily ignoring the voice, Gratunius raised his hands in front of his face and looked absent-mindedly at them.

“Small…” He quietly whispered.

“Hmm? What did you say, brat?” The same voice asked again.

Shaking his head, he said, “Nothing…t-t-teacher.”

Gratunius or Granu stuttered again and again before he could finally voice out the title that he had used to call his one and only magic master with.

He looked at the surrounding, and a nostalgic, somewhat blurry yet familiar scenes came into his eyes.

The place was neither too big nor too small.

An old cauldron in the middle of the room with traces of liquid of differing colors smearing around the edge’s surface. Transparent glass bottles containing various ingredients on the old shelves near the cauldron. Further away, in one corner of the room, old books of various ages sparsely decorated the shelves. The floor was wooden with various shears here and there from its oldness.

Granu even remembered injuring his feet with the pointed wood a few times back when he had lived here.

Well, not that he was not living here now. Again.

“Teacher, what is today’s date?” the time leaper asked as he stood up and dusted the dirt off his clothes.

“The 13th of the third month of year 254th of the Kingdom’s calendar. What’s wrong, brat? Need to do something today?” his teacher frowned.

“Nah, nothing of the sort. It just… I need to confirm it,” Granu replied to his teacher with a wry smile on his face.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

‘So I really came back.’

As he had planned, he came back to when he was 12; 2 years after he first met Velna, and about 1-2 years earlier than when he had first dated her.

“You are weirder than usual today, brat. Anyway, as a punishment for slacking off and napping during the lesson, I will have you clean the study room. Finish it by sunset.”

His teacher snorted at his weird actions and gave him the order before he went back to read his book.

“Yes,” he dryly accepted the order. He knew that his teacher was not as angry as he sounded to be. Or else, Granu would experience a violent awakening, instead of the peaceful one.

Granu grabbed a broom from the corner and perfunctorily dusted off the dirt on the floor.

The correct way to do it if he was serious about cleaning was to first clean the dust off the shelves first before dusting off the floor, but he chose not to do so this time.

He stole a glance at his teacher from time to time as he reminisced about the past.

He was Gratunius von Jullodius, an illegitimate son of Viscount Jullodius

His mother was a travelling scholar whom the Viscount fell in love with and forcefully taking in as his concubine.

When he was 10 years old, his mother died. His father gave him a pouch of money and told him to get out of the house.

He eventually decided to travel to his mother’s hometown to live with the maternal relatives his mother once told him about. He remembered that he was tempt to just become an adventurer with the money to buy his starting gears back then, but eventually acknowledged the limit of his capability and discarded the idea.

The travel was very harsh for a 10-year-old. He got cheated out of the rest of his money at about the end of the travel, and barely arrived there, only to find out that all the relatives had died from the recent monster attack.

Luckily, he met his teacher, Uncle Astrum, a close friend of his mother who accidentally passed by the village he was in at the time. Uncle Astrum agreed to take him in as his magic disciple for old times’ sake when he noticed his magic attitude.

He was taken to the forest where Uncle Astrum lived. There, he met Velna, his teacher’s daughter, and his fellow disciple. Velna was the same age as him. They lived together for 6 years in a hut in the forest. The first 2 years, they used it to get to know each other and become good friends. Late into the third year, they became a couple with the approval of his teacher. The relationship continued and deepened in the following years until the sixth year when she turned 16…

He brought his mind back to the present when he had reached the last thought.

He stopped the hands dusting off the floor and gazed at his teacher again.

A man with long white hair that reached the shoulders and the beautiful red eyes like that of blood.

He stared straight at his benefactor who both took him in and taught him magic during the beginning of his magic career.

And…

The man who he had killed with his own hands 4 years from now on.