Preparations (Part 1)
When I woke up, rose-gold walls that didn't seem to be my usual room stuck to me first. It had gold and silver patterns on the windows but unlike the balcony area from before, it seemed like two rooms joined together and a terrace was visible covered by floral curtains.
It didn't take long for me to notice a handsome man with the color of the walls had been sleeping on a long couch. Rakhiel was connected to a mana string between him and me.
I tried to scan it but I found myself stuck to the bed by an invisible mana lasso.
Once I moved the hand that was tethered to the string, Khiel jolted awake, "Lanessa! She's moving again! She's—"
"What are you shouting for?" He looked sleepless and fidgety. Khiel didn't even look at me, immediately jumping out of the couch and yelling for Lady Lanessa.
"Cousin! You're actually sane?!" Khiel looked at me in disbelief. Of course my first reaction was to feel sorry. It seemed like I did it again. It didn't take long for Lady Lanessa to come into the room, looking annoyed.
"What?! How many times— You're awake! Thank the Sacred Tree for this!" Lady Lanessa, looking like a random mob staying over a friend's house, stared at me happily. She also had bags under her eyes.
"Please untie me?" At that she removed the binding magic that had rendered me motionless.
As I stand my bones started to crack at some parts and shame enveloped me almost immediately. It seems like it took longer to come back as usual.
I lowered my head down at the level of my waist, "I'd like to apologize about my past behavior!"
The room went quiet. My head stayed down.
"Well of course I'd like compensa— ack! I mean, it doesn't really matter as long as you're unscathe." Lady Lanessa's voice chased the awkward silence away.
"You'll make us feel bad for helping you out, Tab." I stood up properly but the embarrassment and sorry feeling still lingered in me. "I'd like to know why you had that side of you and what happened but if you're not ready to tell me, at least, then it's fine."
Less than two weeks and I'm already part of the people Khiel seems to care about. I guess it played a role that I'm the only other person in his position within this house.
"Thank you... and I'm sorry." I bowed my head again at them. It was a bother, I knew it already.
'It couldn't be helped that it happened' and 'it was already done' was some of the few things I've heard when I go through my 'havoc phase' but it didn't come out from them.
Their reactions was the same as my family.
They only showered me with 'it's alright' messages after my continuous 'sorry'. Lady Lanessa ended up having to dine here.
Rakhiel started to talk once we settled in on our chairs. "Do you want to know the details?" he asked.
"Yes, if it's alright."
He sighed before speaking again, "Actually you were passed out for half a month."
"That's…"
"Is it longer than you expected?"
"It's actually quite short than usual."
Lady Lanessa dropped her fork. "Ah. Excuse me, did you say short? How long do you pass out when you enter a phase like that?"
"Well to explain briefly, this phase which was named as havoc phase is a by-product of a certain event in my younger years. I usually pass out and wake up a month or maybe half a year. Well I've only ever entered this phase five times, now six."
"According to what you're saying it seems like you don't wake up in intervals."
"What do you mean?" It was my time to be confused.
"Actually, Tabs, as we were trying to let you heal inside the sanctuary, you wake up after a few hours and wreak havoc again."
What the. That's the first time I'm hearing this. I could conclude that my family just wanted to keep this part a secret but it didn't seem so.
As someone who have been the main weapon during the civil war of 1166, I doubt that the area I've damaged would be small.
Ah. Is it because of the abundance of mana in this timeline?
"Well as he said, you kept waking on intervals as soon as you heal. So we had to keep you away from the Sacred Tree and heal you here."
"We were pretty anxious when you woke up earlier because it would've been the first time you did when we reached here. Guess we were right about putting you away."
I thought so. The abundance of mana and the healing aids my phase to be out of will, much worse than before even though the cooling period seems shorter.
"I see…" I thought of saying sorry again but I reprimanded myself, "Thank you for taking care of me." They smiled at that.
"To be honest I didn't know what to do when Lili called us there. You were partly bound by the Sacred Tree in the sanctuary. Your eyes were open but it was dead, and you continued casting spells hand after hand." Khiel continued
"Well when I got contacted by Lili first, I thought it was already weird but then the Aurelia Duchy started to prioritize my transportation especially since I was far from the temple, I was given mana by various mages to teleport directly there." Lady Lanessa shared her side. "Of course I thought it was stupid to call five mages whose strength lies in binding magic but..."
She shifted on her seat. "No offense but you looked really crazy. Do you want to see a photo?"
I chuckled awkwardly at her but then a question popped out, "What's a photo?"
Lady Lanessa's face had distorted itself and Rakhiel sighed at the side, "A photo is technically a stilled image or appearance taken from memory with mana. We can showcase it through the system's records."
I didn't understand but when Lady Lanessa showed me her mana system, a model or picture of me was visible.
There I was, bound by the roots of the Sacred Tree sticking out from the corners of the room and Lady Lilith was seen countering spells in front of me, the same was for Rakhiel who wielded a mana sword.
My appearance looked manic, like I was a crazy woman out for blood. My eyes were an intense darkness.
It was amazing. This was the first time I saw myself during the havoc phase.
Based on the damages seen in the 'photo', I didn't use my newly acquired spell [Inferno] and high-level ability [Gravity Manipulation]. I sighed a relief internally.
"What about Lady Lilith? Is she okay?"
"She's sturdier than me so if I'm unscathed then she should be too." Lady Lanessa assured.
"Actually the question should be meant for you, are you really okay? Aside from defending, the gua— I mean, that white haired guy told us that you needed to be properly injured to get out of your phase." Khiel and Lady Lanessa gave me a slightly concerned gaze, "It seemed that he was correct but you sustained damage far from what we thought we needed to inflict. We didn't even know how but blunt attacks or impact damages didn't activate at all as we hit you."
"Yeah! That too! It's like your body was surrounded with a small area where everything stops moving!" Lady Lanessa couldn't help but exclaim as she ate.
My mistake. It seemed like [Gravity Manipulation] had managed to turn itself into a defending skill.
Maybe it's because I only use it for transportations and not once for attack?
Then again, I've never really used that magic on anything else than me. Since the mana here is abundant, can I do an area damage?
"Ahem— Lady Lanessa, manners." My thoughts were pushed out by Rakhiel acting like a proper noble for once.
"Excuse me." She sat back down in a refined way if I'm not mistaken.
It had been something on my mind since day one but these heirs doesn't really act like proper heirs, do they? I guess I can rule out Lady Lilith and Lord Rougeus, but even they didn't speak like one.
The only noble-like heir that I met in this timeline was Lord Hanzen. Just as he was polite and respectful from his mana soul version before the time travel, he was just as kind-natured here.
Lady Lilith of course, however she wanted to act, she could do so because she's the top heir across all households.
The main reason why I made her a role model in the first place was because of her affinity in magic itself and her contributions to the development of the kingdom, government, and households as a whole.
Aside from that, she was strong to boot.
"If you're that amazing as a mage at what? Sixteen years old? Then you'll be a great addition to the Exodus Magic Academy." Lady Lanessa rambled, "I'll be a new student too so there's two of us in the honors class".
"Same goes for me. It seems like Grandmother had put me in the registry before I could complain about it". Rakhiel added.
"But I don't think I can enroll there though." In the first place I don't think I'll stay here that long. "I don't have to enroll." With that I continued to eat in silence.
Of course I received such an outburst of response.
"What do you mean?! I've heard you were training in magic formulas, was that wrong?" It was Lady Lanessa who ruptured first.
"Well it's not wrong but I can study on my own." If truth be told, the magic formulation ability with the system coincides with my experimentation magic, Alchemy, which is also my only skill that wasn't elemental in nature.
If everything goes well then I can master formulas of element-based magic, it's probably just a few inexperienced tweaking on what I'm used to.
The problem was every other magic that's not elemental.
[Mana System: Synchronization Successfully Finished]
Huh? Seems like I had way more knowledge than I thought. Guess I'll check it out later.
"Studying on your own isn't a good thing. If anything goes wrong then you might get tangled up in mana bursts."
Mana Bursts. It's what you call when a large mass of mana are clustered together and negatively react with each other, causing it to explode.
It's usually the result of inexperienced merging of mana together.
I chuckled at him, "I trust myself to experience no such thing, cousin. However if I do, I doubt it will put a scratch on me. You should know that by now."
Truth be told, I've experienced plenty of experiments resulting to mana bursts before so it doesn't scare me. Especially since it's one of the foundations that made me really sturdy.
"That's ridiculous! Even if it'll barely hurt you, you'll still get hurt you know!" He raised his voice. That shocked me.
Even Lady Lanessa remained quiet while staring at Khiel's desperate cry.
The whole night continued with Rakhiel urging me to join the academy which I still gently refused to.
*******
"Haaaa. That girl's really bad at taking care of herself."
After Khiel pestered Lady Tabitha to enter the academy, he offered to take me home but we ended up taking a stroll in the garden.
I knew where we were going.
"It's good to see you like this."
He sneered at me. This punk-like cousin. "You're awfully sounding so sweet Nessa." It seemed like he wanted to make fun of me more but after giving him a certain look he averted his gaze. "Right. You were originally like this."
I nodded at that. "That's right. We were all originally different. That's why it makes me glad that you're coming back to your real self, cousin."
He quieted down. It seems he's finally calmed down.
"You used to be energetic and happier."
The soft rustling of leaves could be heard in the garden as a gently gust of wind passed by. The familiar small rosemary garden came into view.
"I'm still like that though?"
"Are you really? I don't think being socially active is the same thing. You look dead inside." Green eyes stared back at me.
Those same pair of viridescent eyes which was darker after the incident had slowly lost its luster. But now, it was almost as bright as it used to be.
He's definitely happier after meeting Tabitha.
The veil of discomfort, terror, sorrow, and loss in those eyes were gone. What a relief then.
"You're definitely happier. I'm glad. Oh! By the way, you forgot to properly introduce me, I couldn't say it to her at the party." I remembered.
"That's right. Well it's rare for you to call me cousin either way but I guess we should do that."
His father and my mother were siblings after all.
The reason of our peach hair were because of the dominant trait of the Obiel family's rose-gold ones.
"I think I'd like to change my hair color." I confessed. "For some reason I'm getting more distant with my sister so I want to be different to her."
"You should ask Hanz if they've developed a tech about that. What color do you like?" He replied.
"Hanz said he'll prepare it for me as soon as I pick a color too.. Hmmm what would suit me? I wanted to have a lush crimson hair like the Rosario family."
"I think it'll suit you. You have a fiery personality in public."
"Guess I'll go for red."
We remained silent after that. Just staring and smelling the rosemary air was a peaceful time in its own way.
"I miss Aunt Rosalie and Uncle Dharvo." Softly, I started. "They were the sweetest parents I know."
Khiel only nodded at that. It wasn't a lie. The other parents were strict, they were too but they didn't force us to be heirs if we didn't want to.
I was a direct heir of the Guisen Family but I stepped back in the successor competition. Instead of going in a path I didn't think I'll be able to handle in the future, I will support the one I think of well.
That person wasn't my sister either.
"I guess I shouldn't ask cause it's obvious."
"Of course. They're my parents, I miss them the most." He answered. The trembling mouth who forced himself to reply was shut tightly.
I placed a hand on his back and patted him.