When it came to my ‘do not trigger the bad end flag’ planning, I was of course keeping in mind some of the worst case scenarios. For example, what if Ariana was also a reincarnated person who was going to be some sly bitch who will take advantage of her heroine halo. This could then result in me having an even worse ending than the humiliation one from the game. I really hope it doesn’t come to that though, because I’ve read this kind of plot in quite a few of those web-novels in my past life and (oh, boy) those kinds of characters are hard to take down. Especially since they are usually the kind of characters that keep coming back like cockroaches.

In any case, while Virgil is an intelligent person, he tends to get a bit lost when it comes to emotional things. So, whenever I could, I couldn’t help but wish to tease him a bit and see how far I could go with my ‘innocent little sister’ act. Unfortunately, with my earlier encounter with Cain, he had seemingly caught on with my actions, thankfully, he had decided to not say anything about it to Virgil. While my concerns for the future are ever present, it looks like my relationship with Virgil at the moment is at a satisfactory level. Unlike previously, he now seems more comfortable around me and approaches me of his own accord.

“Ah!”

Uh…

I stared blankly at my drenched clothes. Whilst in the middle of our magic dance practice I had lost my concentration and now I’m soaked.

Cain chuckled at my mistake. “Let that be a lesson on concentration, Velloa.” And then proceeded to collect and magic away the water from my body with a flick of his wrist.

With a pout, I brought my attention back to my dance movements and positioned my hands one above the other and vertically parallel to each other, proceeding to make a push and pull motion towards Cain then back to me. With that, I regained control of the water that I had spilt.

Seeing that, Cain positioned himself back to my left. “Let’s do this from the beginning.” He instructed whilst doing the same motions I had, except with a slightly larger volume of water from a nearby fountain.

I glanced towards my right and Virgil managed to smile wryly while seemingly giving me a reassuring look. “Three, two, one!” Cain’s voice cuts off our little moment and we whip our gazes forward as we take up our assigned stances.

To think that we’ve been practising a magic dance these past few weeks so that we would perform it at the Imperare’s celebratory ball…

Our sole music accompaniment as we practised was a harp being played by our music tutor. The sound of three pairs of feet reverberated rhythmically in the training hall to the music’s tempo; the dance was to be done barefoot. We would constantly maintain a ‘v’ formation after the first few moves with me approximately three steps behind Cain and Virgil. The dance was similar to a veil dance, but rather than a veil we were using magic and water instead. We had to maintain a sort of ‘fluid’ elegance along with the water bending movements, apparently, this kind of dance was chosen in respect to me who had just begun their magic training, for the other option would have been a weapon-ed dance. I understand their sentiment, but they do realize that I am still a seven-year-old child, right? Performing in front of not just the sovereign, but all the important personages of the kingdom isn’t good for my heart, you know…

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Despite that, I had memorised all the moves around two weeks ago, all that was left was my timing and minute ‘artistic’ details such as my ‘look’ and ‘feel’ (words right out of our music tutor’s mouth). I was lucky enough that the music was relatively slow but other than the fact that I memorised or learnt things faster, my past life experiences didn’t really help much in this situation. I recall doing some dancing, but they were simple school-related activities. In other words, the skills gained from those experiences aren’t at a level that is ‘worthy’ of showing to such a crowd of important people.

My full attention snapped back, around the last minute of the dance, Cain circled the water around him and passed it to me, a beat later Virgil did the same actions. Having taken control of a much larger body of water, I raised both arms and then moved them apart, the liquid then proceeded to bend into a large arch above me. From my peripheral view, I could see Cain and Virgil kneel onto a knee as they placed a fist above their hearts. To think that they gave me a solo. Well, there’s no helping it now, apparently, this is going to be my debut as the Imitheos family’s heir, as well as a sort of performative gift for the Imperare. It’s two days before the performance, this is the last practice, let’s make this solo good…

With that, my feet moved to the rhythm, and my arms to the flow of the music. Rather than a veil, I saw the water as if it was living creature. A serpent? No, maybe like the Leviathan? Hm… Perhaps that’s too scary… As I danced, so did the water. Its movements feeling very much alive, it was almost like we were harmoniously synced together rather than me controlling the water. Perhaps because of all the practice done, I felt that my dancing was more fluid and refined, for my movement no longer felt awkward. It seemed as if the dance moves I strived so hard to memorise were now able to flow gracefully from one to the other…

So, after completing a spin, could you imagine my shocked reaction after suddenly coming face to face with a dragon-like creature made of water?

It was a good thing the dance was complete because the music tutor’s harp playing abruptly stopped and everyone in the room gaped in shocked silence. What I thought was simply a large body of water that I was controlling, was now a legitimately live ‘dragon’. How I knew this was due to the simple fact that I had stopped all movement, and therefore magic, the moment I locked gazes with the watery eyes of this creature. Wha…? How and why?

After a few more moments of shocked and silent staring with this water ‘dragon’ that was easily five times larger than me, a thought struck me, and I felt myself relax. So, you’re my Magic Manifestation…?

The creature’s mouth opened, and a deep, rumbling voice echoed in my head. “Yess…”

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