*****

‘What did I just get myself into…’

She was sitting before her mirror, meticulously inspecting everything about herself. Her skin complexion, her hair, the shape of her face, and most importantly, her eyes.

“Were my eyes always this brown…? Or did it become darker? Do eyes naturally become darker…?’”

Murmuring to herself, she tried her best to determine if everything was okay with her. Aside from her appearance, she also tried to make sure that her thoughts and actions were in order as well.

She couldn’t really find anything different, but her heart was still at unease.

‘What the hell did I touch inside Evin’s head…?’

Although the boy looked fine from the outside and acted quite okay, considering everything, Leanne knew that the boy was far, far from normal. She didn’t know what it was she stumbled upon inside the boy’s head, but she did know that it was probably not something that was supposed to be found inside a person’s head.

She also understood that it was a problem way above her level.

‘It must something ancient… An entity or a magic item from before the Empire…’ Leanne thought, remembering the violent outburst of primal fear and crippling despair she felt when she made contact with the thing, whatever it was.

During her time as a student in Arcvallen, when she was first learning the therapeutic methods of Lochra, the World of Thoughts, she’d made a lot of mistakes when she was working inside the minds of the patients. The most common of these mistakes were to shy away from the ‘Lumps of Negativity’ found inside people’s heads after contact.

She was taught to deal with these things with firm hands and a steady core.

If she failed to do so, then it would lead to her becoming infected by these negative emotions, leading to all sorts of problems. She had made this mistake once during her internship – with an invalid from the Southern war.

Even to this day, Leanne feels emotional when thinking about the young man… his dreams of serving the country and making his parents proud… all of it going down the drain for the simple mistake of fumbling his steps while retreating and having both his legs eaten by the Myrmi.

It’s wasn’t uncommon for Leanne to have the same nightmares as the young man’s, waking up in the middle of the night to check if she really possessed her legs or not. Only after 5 years, she was free from the influence of his trauma.

It was truly an eye-opening experience for her. It was the moment she learned that mental illnesses could be infectious.

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But none of those symptoms were apparent after what had happened with Evin. Sure, she felt despairingly bad for the kid immediately after, but there were none of the lasting effects she felt like the patients she bonded with before. Sure, she would feel her heart aching when she thought about Evin’s circumstances, but those emotions were mostly under her control. If she could distract herself with something else, she could easily rid herself of her heartache. It wasn’t like the relentless wave of empty sorrow that hounded her head all day and haunted her dreams all night when she was still but a student.

At first, the lack of these symptoms led her to believe that she’d become more skilled somehow. After experiencing the same thing, she was now able to better deal with it.

She had fancy thoughts of perhaps becoming a proper psychologist, but as time passed, she started to realize that maybe things weren’t as simple as she first imagined.

The reason was because she started to have nightmares. Not Evin’s. Her own nightmares.

In it, she would keep on experiencing that same moment she touched whatever was inside of Evin’s head.

Every night, she was forced to re-experience the same emotions she was forced to experience that day.

And with each experience, she was more and more convinced that she stumbled upon something she never should’ve come close to.

The world of mages was filled to the brim with things that could only be described as unexplainable and incomprehensible. This was especially true for the stuff that came from before the point when ‘history began’.

What Leanne was experiencing right now was exactly that. Unexplainable and incomprehensible.

What was happening to Leanne right now had never happened to anyone else. She scoured the libraries for solutions, but she could find nothing about it.

As far as she was concerned, the fact that she was having the same nightmare every night hadn’t happened to anyone else in the world. And if it had happened, clearly nothing good had happened to them.

Of course, logically thinking, that was beyond paranoid. It wasn’t like the Academy’s library contained all the knowledge in the world.

Perhaps if it was just that, Leanne wouldn’t be so worried.

But there was one other thing that forced her to worry more.

It was Evin’s unnatural talent in Imagination Casting.

A commoner casting better than nobles like that is clearly impossible… unless of course, there was something else going on in the background.

That was the more obvious reason for Leanne’s doubts, but there were other reasons as well:

Firstly, his father mentioning a Voice inside the boy’s head. Leanne first assumed that it was an excuse made up by the abusive father, but a quick investigation revealed that the boy did indeed talk to a Voice in its head.

Practically everyone near Evin’s house knew about it, and practically everyone said that they could hear the boy talking to himself occasionally.

Of course, they all simply assumed he was mad and left it at that.

The final reason was Evin’s state of mind.

She expected the boy’s head to be a mess, considering everything, but it was much more serene than what she first imagined it to be.

Though she was a bit fearful at first, she conducted a few other healing sessions on the boy while he was unconscious, and found that the healing process happened smoothly and effortlessly. It was simply too easy, feeling like something inside Evin’s mind was actively helping with the treatment.

Moreover, that lump of negative emotions that she stumbled upon the first time was nowhere to be found.

At first she was careful in her search. She didn’t want to face that thing head on if she could. But as more time passed, she started to brazenly search for it inside the boy’s head. She did not care if she stumbled upon it when she wasn’t ready. At that point, the only thing she wanted to do was to find it inside the boy’s head.

‘After all… if it’s not inside the boy’s head… where else could it be but inside my own head?’