When they arrived, Her mom didn’t scold her, but she hugged Lowell tightly instead. Lowell also hugged her mom and noticed she’s trembling. Lowell started to cry because she knew how worried her mom was.
Lowell asked her teacher’s location. Her mom Belle guided her towards a vacant room. There, she saw her teacher who was crying in her sleep. Lowell held her hand and she woke up. She also held my hand while apologizing.
After her teacher gave an apology, Lowell let her rest since ranking up has a large strain in one’s body. She returned towards her dad who still had his Silver hair and eyes. After taking a deep breath, his Brown, long hair and brown eyes returned.
“*Sigh*.. Looks like I did it again.. My body’s aching all over..”
“Dad… How did you do it? Changing your hair color and eyes in just a second?”
“Oh that? It’s because of this.”
He brought out a pendant with a brown jewel embedded on it that he’s wearing inside his clothes.
“It’s a Dye Jewel. Since we, Spatial users are incredibly rare, I need to use this thing here. It gives me brown eyes and hair, as you see, as long as I inject my mana into it. ”
He starts to mutter things by himself.
“It’s also used for dyeing one’s heart. It’s good that it could restrain my impulsive self.. but it’s useless when I’m using magic.. and that personality really goes all out whenever he gets a chance.. aha aha ahaha..”
Now, he laughs while his expression is in despair.
“So that’s really your real personality, Dad?”
“Ugh-!”
Looks like I inflicted high damage..
He knelt on the ground.. After a few seconds, he starts to crawl towards Lowell. He grabs her hand and starts to plead.
“Lowell, do you hate Dad who’s like that? Please don’t hate me…”
“I don’t hate Dad.. rather… I find him cool..”
He looks like a prince at that time.. If you remove his madman tendencies..
Smile has built up in his face. He looks like the sun after a rainy day.
But when Lowell remember his impulsive self, she thought of how much stress her father was building up… when he’s directing all of his grudge towards the Magical Beasts.
“I’ll also tell Mom… to be kinder to Dad.”
Lowell muttered the last line silently while fidgeting.
“Aaaaaah! LOWELL-SAMA!!”
Louis clings at her intensely.
“Sama?! W-wait! Dad.. I-It hurts…”
His hug starts to hurt Lowell.
“Ah-! Sorry, Lowell..”
“By the way, why are you calling me a genius, while you are using Spatial Magic proficiently?”
“Well…”
Louis told her that Lowell showed signs of having Full Spatial Magic at the age of 3 months old while he showed it at age of 5 years old. That’s why Spatial Magic Fleurs are already in Practitioner stage when they unlock it.
“So I’m already at Pracitioner stage since three months old?!”
“That’s not the case. The hole you created was passable for an Low Rank Apprentice Tier during that time.. What’s abnormal is.. your understanding towards the unknown.”
“Understanding.. towards the unknown?”
“Yes. Unlike other element and mysterious magic, Spatial’s origin.. is unknown. When I unlocked mine, I examined a book for spatial magic… In the introduction, it has the words ‘Space is everywhere, Space is infinite’.. I tried to understand it.. then ‘poof!’ I could see silver lights. I tried to gather it, and used it towards a practice target.
Instead of being destroyed like other elements would do, a big circle emerged out of nowhere. That’s when I started to research it. In some turn of events, I became a known adventurer because of that.”
“Dad didn’t seek advice from other Spatial users?”
“Like I said, we’re very rare. This magic isn’t passed via bloodline. When I saw you having this magic, I was very happy that I shed tears.”
“Tears because you escaped my punishment. Right, honey?”
Her mom, who was tending her teacher inside, joins into the conversation.
“Well, There’s also that part . Aha aha ahaha.”
Her dad laughs forcefully.
” Come inside, It’s time to eat supper. Your Teacher will eat with us. Honey, if you could please send Ms. Aurel back home later?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Looks like Dad is back to his usual self.
He started to dash towards the house, leaving Lowell and Belle behind.
“Really, that man…”
Now, a question from Lowell came out of nowhere.
“Mom, how did you and Dad meet?”
“Oh? Now Little Elle’s interested with our story?”
“Mhm!”
Belle sat on the grass. Her Yellow hair sway prettily because of wind blowing towards her back, while her blue eyes shine like the stars in the dawning sky.
“I met your Dad during a bandit subjugation quest in our area.”
“Mom, you’re a bandit?”
“Hahaha, of course not! I’m one of the leaders of the quest. Your Dad was the other one. Silver-Haired Silver Eyes, he was called the Silver Adventurer. Since most adventurers wants to get his favor, I think he’s a strong one. But during that time, I was set on my goal…”
“Goal?”
“To kill a dragon.”
Lowell was shocked. According to her teacher's lessons, dragons are existences that was likened to Gods – or Disasters. A dragon that didn’t even reach adulthood can reach Unique Rank. A full pledged adult Dragon are on Legend Rank, depending on what type of Element it was. Only Mystery Magic Attributed Dragons can reach World Rank.
“It is said that when a Dragon assaults an area, it’s sure that its inhabitants, may it be human or animals, would die because of it’s viciousness. My village was one of those who was razed.. by a young Life Dragon..”
Little by little, teardrops appeared in front of her mom’s eyes.
“That young dragon escaped from an operation made by 6 High-Rank Meister Tier Fleurs. They were tasked to annihilate a Dragon’s Nest… because it prohibits transportation around it’s nest, affecting our economy. One of the supposedly killed young dragons escaped while the Meisters battle the adult dragon.
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Our village, which is only 15 kilometers away from the battle, wasn’t informed of that event. When we received the message, it was too late. The dragon already arrived on our village. Our village is a small one, the only strongest ones are my father and mother, which are High-Tier Professors during that time. At that time, we believed we could even repel that dragon. Me, being 8 years old, wasn’t any help even if I join the battle.. so I joined the children and the elderly to evacuate from the area.
My world broke when I received a news that both Mom and Dad died during the battle.. It wasn’t because the dragon was strong.. but because Father changed tiers during the battle. You know how much strain changing tiers could give to the body, right? Because of that, only Mom was fit to battle. Now, she’s fighting the Dragon while defending herself from father without hurting him, and defending father from the dragon. One by one, all of their comrades died on the hands of the dragon.. That’s when the battle goes much harder…”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a Life Dragon. It has an innate ability to manipulate living things as long as it’s target has a lower mana capacity than it and different from it’s race. Beforehand, mother and father can interrupt the dragon’s controlling by unleashing spells while the others support them at the side.. but when Father entered the ‘Outbreak’, only mother can interrupt the dragon. The villagers who act as support starts to panic and tries to flee.
That’s when they were controlled one by one. The dragon controlled them and commanded the villagers to get closer to it. A slaughter happened until only mother and father – who was still at his ‘Outbreak’- are left. Mom tried her best to interrupt the dragon, but she also fell into it’s control. That’s only when father returned to his senses. He saw mother being eaten by the dragon.
He tried to retaliate even the backslash still persist, but he too, became a prey of the dragon. Those bastards of Empire Capital doesn’t care a bit as long as they aren’t affected by the dragon’s rampage.”
Belle tried to wipe her tears but it was coming out non-stop. All Lowell could do was hug her.
“That’s when I vowed to kill that dragon. I worked during the day, and practiced the sword and magic during the night. I became an adventurer at the age of 13. I started as a baggage carrier of other adventurers. I absorbed all the knowledge I could get while working until I could start up my own party.
Most of my first members are the orphans of my village.. but one by one, they left saying ‘It’s impossible to defeat the dragon’ and lived their lives peacefully. I didn’t care, I only thought of killing that dragon. I became an A rank Adventurer at the age of 20, but I don’t have anything that I could call ‘Allies’ by my side. One day, I discovered that one bandit group had obtained the sword ‘Krakkein’, a famous dragon-slaying sword that has been lost after a war. I tried my luck to obtain it since the guild issued a subjugation quest.. and the guild doesn’t prohibit adventurers taking the loot.
That’s when I met your father. He’s also looking for an item.. If I could remember.. it was a book… but he didn’t mention it’s name. Your Dad was an annoying one. During the bandit subjugation, I hid my face by a cloak, but during a certain encounter with a Magical Beast along the way, it was ripped, showing my face to everyone. After that incident, he started to bug me with words ‘Please be my wife’, or ‘Please Marry Me’. I always beat him up, but he doesn’t even retaliate.
After finishing the subjugation quest, most of the adventurers looked at me with malicious eyes but they didn’t even try to fight me because of their fear of your Dad. So after that day, I tried to escape with all my might with ‘Krakkein’ on tow. I didn’t know that those malicious adventurers already secured the area. It was twelve on one fight. I killed five of them but I made a mistake and was overpowered by the remaining adventurers. When I was on the verge of death… I didn’t feel scared.. but comfort.. But your Dad arrived on the area.. holding a head of a young Life Dragon.
His first lines were ‘My wife, where are you? Your husband has a present for you! I uphold my promise, so Marry Me!’. All of us in the area were stunned, especially me. That’s when I remembered I made a drunk person’s promise.”
Belle giggled while wiping her tears.
“He asked me of what he should do so that I would marry him. Because I was drunk at that time, I said he should defeat the Life dragon occupying my previous village, and I’ll be his wife. I was too drunk at that time, but he took it seriously.”
“That’s when I thought of myself – ‘Now, what should I fight for?’ and ‘What’s the purpose of my struggle?’. After that, I felt towards your Dad was deep hatred. I thought ‘I would marry this man and torture him for the rest of his life’. During our early days of being married, I tried all of torture to make him hate me.
But slowly.. months after he killed the dragon, what I felt is happiness. Happiness because I felt the burden of killing the dragon was removed from me.. but I was too stubborn. I still hated your Dad, but as I know him much better, I knew he was a much more complicated person than I thought. I thought he killed the dragon because of his selfishness, but he wants to remove the chains of past that were binding me to move forward. He acts as the fool, but he just wants me to see me happy.
Even though I feel it, my selfishness and ego was the one inhibits his affection to reach my heart. I saw him gave up everything, his life as an adventurer, became a civil clerk for a noble even though he could do better, and making us live in a house full of warmth and happiness. That’s why I’m really grateful that I met your Dad. He’s the one who guided me away from that darkness.”
Her mom smiles while tears fall again on her face. These were tears of happiness.
“Uhmm… Honey? Let’s eat? I thought you’re in a hurry?”
Lowell's dad shouted from the door of their house. Both Lowell and Belle replied simultaneously.
"“We’re coming!”"
Both walked silently towards the house.
Belle wipes her face full of tears.
“Did something happen?”
Louis looks at her daughter and wife foolishly.
“Nothing~ Right, Little Elle~?”
“Mhm~ Nothing, Nothing~”
Both of them laughed while Louis was figuring out what happened.