"But these days, it's nice that they're not scared of me. I'm used to it, but it still hurts when someone obviously avoids me."
"Really."
I didn't really understand what he was talking about. Cory sat upright from his face-down position on the table. He poured himself a cup of milk and drank it, pausing to think before speaking.
"I'm not going to your class because of Hestia."
"I know, it's because you have no friends."
Cory spewed out his milk at my words. He glared.
"….I told you I have the prince."
He said, as if giving an excuse. I nodded. Then, Cory glanced my way and responded.
"I have you too."
"And Hestia too?"
"Stop teasing me."
Cory wiped off his milk moustache and glared ferociously, but I didn't find him scary at all anymore. Had I already gotten used to his face?
I huffed out a laugh at Cory's cute actions, which were just second to the prince. I even comforted him.
"It's okay, I don't have a lot of friends either. That's why I had such a hard time finding club members."
"Yeah. It looked like it."
Y….you…..?
As if this was payback, Cory laughed as he responded. I smiled at his petty revenge, which was just about as effective as a bunny kick.
After finishing everything that I asked of him, Cory picked up a notebook with my notes on magic. I watched him.
He pulled out a worn notebook and a fountain pen with a warped tip, then drew out the magic circles in my notebook.
Cory didn't hold his fountain pen properly, but instead grabbed it with a fist. Because of that, Cory seemed to be bad at drawing too. The magic circle resembled a bent potato, but because of his magic skills it seemed to work regardless.
A blue light emanated from his magic circle. Then, the magic circle drew itself midair, still emanating light. It looked like he had practiced this before: with ease, he stretched out the magic circle with both hands.
The enlarged magic circle was filled with ancient letters and math equations. He easily rearranged the information to make it easier to read.
Then, he wrote down the information from the magic circle on an empty piece of paper he had ripped from his notebook.
"You're really doing your best."
I felt proud watching as he studied. Cory was already almost done reading through my magic how-to notes. He definitely had a main character buff with how fast he was catching up to me.
Cory furiously scribbled down his notes, then nodded to himself. He held up the book that I had given him and opened his mouth.
"This thing is amazing."
After complimenting me, Cory completed analyzing the magic circle and returned the circle to its original state. Then, he combined the water ball magic circle he knew before with the magic circle in front of him.
The magic circle, which was originally blue, turned red. The new circle in front of him was a muscle strengthening magic circle.
Cory took out a rock from his pocket and engraved the circle on it. When he gripped the circle in his fist, his skinny arm slowly grew bigger and more muscular.
He put down the stone after finding that he had succeeded. The magic on his arm slowly disappeared.
"There's probably nobody else in the history of magic who would think to break down and rearrange magic. That means you can control basically every property within it. After figuring out the tips you gave me, it became easier to understand the magic circles created by my favorite magicians, too."
In awe, Cory pocketed the stone back.
"Well, yeah. The only difference with magic is that the layout is different. It's all the same in the end, though. If you know the principles, even complicated magic circles look easy.
Cory stared a hole through my face and then whined as he muttered.
"Why did you go into swordsmanship? Class would be really fun if I could take it with you.
He pouted. I just laughed at his statement. Why did I go into swordsmanship….? Obviously, it was because I wanted a steady paycheck from the country.
My dream was to become a magic knight. I could study magic on my own, but because I wasn't naturally born with physical talent, I had to put in just as much more effort.
I could enter the royal magicians' research group, but because they were paid based off performance, it wasn't as stable as a job. Moreover, royal magicians just didn't receive the same treatment as knights.
And most of all, knights just looked cooler than magicians.
"Magic knights earn more money."
When I gave him a short summary, Cory chuckled.
"I was curious about this since you talked about club money…. From what I know, the West family isn't that poor. Why are you so concerned about money and your future?"
"Oh, that's…."
Why was I so concerned? From what others could see, my family really was fine, and so was my environment.
But situations could always change. There was no guarantee that tomorrow would be the same as today.
"That….. Well."
I was about to respond to Cory's question, but for just a moment. For a moment, I found myself caught in my past. Everything was based on my past life.
Even for me, I wasn't trying to survive since birth.
In my past life, I had a pretty luxurious childhood. The child me had everything that I wanted. Even if I didn't care about it, there were people who cared and loved me.
I grew up being loved by the people in my life, and I believed that the peace would last forever.
But everything changed in an instant.
At the age when I preferred chocolate milk over coffee, my country suddenly had an economic recession, and my father's company went bankrupt.
My father had to pay his employees and had no other choice but to get loans from the bank to pay them, but his credit had soared downwards and the bank could no longer loan him any more money.
Even with my mother's adamant refusals, he still borrowed money from a loan shark.
This was because of me and my three younger siblings. He wanted to give us a good education and good food, even if he was in debt.
He tried to make sure that we had three warm meals a day and a good education, even as we moved from a high-rise apartment to a one-room basement.
Our bad luck came all at once. It was when I was in my first year of middle school. My father's company was slowly coming back to normal, and our family was in high spirits. Both my mother and father were out looking at used cars that day. When I called them after school, they were excited about the future. My father was proud and telling me that my favorite cheesecake was in the back seat, waiting for me.
My friends were dragging me over to a snack shop to eat tteokbokki after school, so we ate as much as we wanted, and then went to karaoke and even took sticker pictures. I could do all that because of my allowance from my father.
I played as much as I wanted and helped my younger siblings with their elementary school homework, waiting for our parents to come home. When I told them about the cheesecake, they sat next to me as we all waited for our parents to come home.
But our parents, always full of love for us, came back as expressionless corpses.
After getting my siblings to play in the playground across the hospital, I went in to check my parents' corpses as the oldest sibling. My parents' cousins or their acquaintances didn't end up coming, so I was the only one who could check. The cause of death was the car's engine failing. Their bodies were badly damaged. Even I, their daughter, could barely tell who they were.
And that was how my protectors faded away.
None of our cousins wanted to help. I couldn't go to the orphanage and leave my younger siblings behind.
I begged my uncle, who I barely knew, to get custody of my younger siblings. Everything was my responsibility from then on.
The only things left to my name were my three younger siblings, the debt that my father had incurred, and our basement room.
Back then, I was too young. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. There were no smart adults who gave me any advice, and everything was left over to me.
When I asked how I was supposed to proceed with the debt and my inheritance, everybody had a different response, and none of them gave me thoughtful advice.
So I had no choice but to do everything by myself. Like an idiot. Because we were short on money, I stated that I would get the inheritance immediately, and the debt came alongside it.
After becoming the sole breadwinner of our family, I did just what my parents did for me: I did everything I could for my younger siblings.
Every day was different. I had nowhere to rely on, and too much on my plate.
My income was always different because I was working jobs as a minor, and my younger siblings were always different and my health always fluctuated. I just hoped that my younger siblings came back from school without any harm, and that I could keep on going for just a bit longer.
The situation was a lot different now. Both of my parents were economically active and stable, and my older brother and younger brother were healthy and living happy lives.
Other might probably ask if this wasn't enough, but it wasn't for me. Like I had experienced in my past life, situations could always change, just like a flip of your hand.
If my family crumbled like in my past life, I had to be able to support them from the bottom up.
If I wanted to do that, I needed to be interested in my surroundings, and be able to react at the smallest of issues.
In the novel, the West family faced a lot of financial difficulties. Because of that, the novel stated that I had no choice but to marry someone who was rich. Moreover, it wasn't just me that faced the same sad fate. Both of my brothers were in a similar situation.
I would never force my family into such a desperate situation. I would never face that kind of situation again. I bit my lips.
"...are you okay?"
I couldn't respond to Cory, who was asking with a concerned expression.
"Shushu."
"...…"
I recognized Cory's voice calling me, but I couldn't seem to move my mouth as I was deep in thought.
He could tell that the atmosphere had grown heavy. Cory had a strange expression on his face. He stared at me, suspicious, then sighed deeply.
"…..was my question too thoughtless?"
Cory mumbled to himself, voice too low for anyone else to hear. He scratched the back of his head, tangling his hair.
Once I was deep in thought, I couldn't seem to stop thinking. It felt like I was in a deep ocean with no end in sight. My heart grew heavy as both my past and present coolided.
Suddenly, I thought of my younger siblings in my past life. I left them alone when I died. I felt pinned down by responsibility.
When I stayed deep in thought staring at the ground, Cory opened his mouth as he grabbed my shoulder.