I had spent all my life in the Magic Tower.
A dreary gray Magic Tower where love could never bloom.
Maybe that’s why…
Hand-holding. Kissing. Hugs. And all that jazz.
The many affectionate acts that others shared.
I had shown zero interest in any of it.
I had never even tried it, nor did I have any particular desire to.
I found more joy in reading another magic spell instead.
But now, I realized.
“He… Heeung…”
Up until now, I had lost half of my life… no, all of it.
Churup-chup-
I felt completely blank.
As if someone had wiped my brain clean with an eraser.
“Hyah… Heeuh… Se… Sera…”
When I opened my trembling eyes amidst the chaos.
Right in front of me was Sera, eyes closed, face slightly flushed, focusing on my lips, and it stirred my heart.
Chup-chuweup-
As if greeting me, her tongue gently traced the roof of my mouth.
An indescribable sensation surged through my brain like a wild rush.
Suppressing my heart, which felt like it was about to burst, I moved my tongue to taste Sera’s mouth, and in response, her tongue entwined with mine.
“Ugh… Hyup… He…”
Just as I instinctively tried to envelop her tongue,
Sera teasingly pulled her tongue out of my mouth.
A fine transparent line connected us.
“He… Heh…”
As if regretting not tasting her tongue more, mine stuck out.
While I gazed into the air, Sera spoke up.
“This is called a kiss, usually.”
“This is… a kiss?”
I learned for the first time.
That a kiss could feel this good.
As our tongues intertwined, a sense of fulfillment washed over me, as if connecting me to her deep down.
Staring dazedly at Sera’s shiny lips, sinister desires surged above my head.
In the midst of my untamed imaginings.
To think, something so simple could be an expression of affection.
I felt like I could be happy expressing such affection for a lifetime.
For the first time in life, I thought it was truly a blessing to have been born a woman.
‘…Wait a second.’
But a thought crept into my mind, making me uneasy.
“…Sera, do you kiss anyone else besides me…?”
I asked her without hesitation.
She said it was an acceptable form of affection between girls.
Which meant she had kissed other girls besides just me.
It was definitely an expression between girls, but for some reason, the idea of someone else tasting Sera’s lips didn’t sit well with me.
But cruelly,
Sera pondered for a moment and then replied.
“Uhm, yeah? I haven’t kissed anyone else lately except Mari…”
Mari.
Who the heck is that?
My mood immediately sank as a sticky feeling coiled in my chest.
“…Mari?”
A voice escaped my lips, much lower and calmer than I expected.
Then Sera, as if realizing she’d made a mistake,
She made a face of ‘oh no’ and smiled awkwardly before speaking.
“Uhm, she’s a junior I know…”
But before she could finish,
“There’s a girl named… Mari…”
Sera stared at me blankly for a moment, and then—
“Hyah! Mari?!!!”
As if a fire had ignited, she turned pale and broke out in a cold sweat.
Then she hurriedly turned her back and said,
“Sorry, Ariel!! I’ll be going now!!”
Without waiting for my reply, she dashed off somewhere, leaving me alone in the classroom.
“…Mari.”
For some reason, an unsettling name.
*
“Oh no… oh no!!!”
I had completely forgotten.
Before coming here, I promised Mari that I would return in five days.
When I initially said I’d be leaving for a bit, Mari, who liked me so much, clung to me until the end.
Only after we made a pinky promise that I would return soon, did she reluctantly let me go.
I could still vividly recall Mari’s expression back then.
But five days had passed, and it was already the second day.
And I hadn’t made any contact with her at all.
Normally, I would check that everyone was safe and return right away or inform Darkhan about the information I knew and come back immediately.
But time spent here had stretched far longer than I anticipated.
I had no idea how furious she might be.
Mari always showed dramatic reactions to anything related to me, whether good or bad.
I rushed into my assigned dorm room and quickly opened my backpack.
What I took out was a single clear glass orb wrapped in cloth.
When I violently shook the orb a few times,
Black smoke began to billow from what had been a transparent sphere.
As the smoke gradually cleared, someone’s figure emerged within the orb.
“Hello?!! He… Hera?! Is that you?!”
The person frantically calling my name from the crystal was none other than Sephir.
She was looking at me with a truly relieved expression, covered in cold sweat.
“Sephir… Sorry for the late contact.”
“What on earth were you doing that you haven’t come back yet without contacting?? Do you know how furious your daughter is—”
“…Mom?”
Another voice came from the crystal.
A chilling, eerie voice that sent shivers down my spine.
“Eeeek?!”
Sephir jumped, startled, and hurriedly handed the crystal to the owner of that voice.
“I… I don’t know!! You handle it, Hera! Here, Mari! You have a call from your loving mother…?”
“…..”
As Sephir dashed away in a panic, handing the crystal to Mari.
When the azure eyes appeared in the orb, I felt a chill run down my spine, without knowing why.
“M-Mari? How… how have you been…?”
“…….”
With no response coming from the crystal, I could only swallow hard.
“M-Mari…?”
No answer.
As she silently stared at me for what felt like ages,
“Which girl is it?”
“W-What?”
A voice from Mari that was nothing like the cheerful one I always heard.
“Which girl has come between us? Breaking the promise we made and not contacting me at all?”
“W-Who are you calling a girl, Mari… Please don’t say bad things…”
Was the mom’s heart still able to lecture even now?
But unfortunately, my words only seemed to provoke Mari further.
Crack-crunch-
“Hyah?”
Startled by a bone-crunching sound like teeth breaking, I quickly spoke in a soothing tone to Mari.
“M-Mari! I’m sorry… I know you must be upset that I didn’t contact you… But I’ll make sure to reach out more often from now on, so please let it slide just this once?”
But Mari’s response was—
“Contact…? Are you not coming back right now?”
Her gaze darkened even more as she stared at me silently.
‘That gaze…’
It was terrifying.
She may be my lovely daughter, but occasionally, that look from Mari sent chills down my spine.
“W-Well… I sort of have things to do here… Can you wait a little…?”
“How long?”
“A-A month, maybe…?”
“……”
As if all the color had drained from her, Mari stared at the crystal with darkened eyes.
A long silence filled the air before what she finally said was—
“Mom, I’m coming over right now.”
The worst-case scenario of what I could imagine.
I hurriedly waved my hands to stop her.
“M-Mari! No way that is allowed!!”
Over the past two years, Mari had grown quite a bit.
While she still hadn’t shed her old skin, she had gained a bit more definition in her face and body, and she was taller than before.
But the biggest change was her strength.
In those two years, Mari had made tremendous exponential progress.
As a dragon, a master of magic, she had reached the realms of the 9th circle that even Athena couldn’t approach.
It was so real that I finally grasped that Mari truly was a dragon.
Perhaps even the Great Sage would have to concede before Mari.
But with her rushing here, especially in a much agitated state…
I highly doubted anything good would come of this.
If by any chance Mari found out she was a dragon, it would stir chaos across not just the academy, but the entire empire.
And that was definitely not what I wanted.
So I tried to talk her out of it, but—
“No. I’m flying over right now.”
Mari’s determination was unyielding.
In the end, with my eyes squeezed shut, I could only tell her.
“I’ll let you do what we talked about last time…!! Just hold on for this one time, Mari!”
“…”
At my words, Mari flinched for a moment, and her eyes started to light up again.
“Really…? You’re serious?”
“Yes! So can you calm down…?”
After a brief moment of thought, Mari sighed and agreed.
“…Alright.”
Her acceptance filled me with immense relief.
As I exhaled a sigh of relief, Mari looked at me intensely and said.
“A month. If you don’t return by then, I will really come for you.”
“Uh-huh….”
After finishing the call,
I slumped onto the bed like a deflated balloon.
“Sigh……”
I wasn’t sure when it had started, but these days I found myself swayed by Mari.
Maybe it was the onset of puberty, but Mari had become quite forceful.
Still, her love for me remained the same, so she wouldn’t touch me. To be honest, there was also the feeling of not wanting to scold her.
But who wants to nag their daughter?
I didn’t want to raise my voice to her either.
But this couldn’t go on.
If I spoiled Mari like this, the chances of her going astray later would be too high.
There’s a saying, isn’t there? Proper upbringing needs a mix of carrots and sticks.
It seemed like it was time for some stick now.
‘As a mom, I must lead my daughter…’
That was my resolution, but the image of Mari’s eerily shining sky-blue eyes made me feel timid again.
…Can I really lead her?
Well, whatever happens.
I had made a promise to Mari; just one month.
In that time, I needed to somehow set things right with the original story.
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