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It was a sound that woke him from a long slumber.
How long has it been since he felt this sensation?
He remembered himself as the senses slowly returned.
The first thing that came to mind was his name.
“I am… Luke Ilushi.”
Next, he recalled that he was a mage.
Someone who defines and utilizes phenomena,
pursues and advances knowledge,
and eventually contains the world within their mind.
Slowly categorizing the returning sensations and memories, he kept repeating to himself:
“The great Luke Ilushi.
Son of Leon Ilushi and head of the Ilushi family.
Top graduate and respected dean of the Tsusgel Academy.
The hero of the Demon King campaign and the Expedition War.”
In the later years of his brilliant life, he ended up as the owner of a mere general store and the village head of a small town.
He continued thinking, searching through his memories and reminiscing about the last one.
He entered the academy as the top student and graduated as the top student.
He stopped the conquest of the Demon King in the war and returned to become the dean.
He attained the highest status in the Ilushi family and became the family head but merely held the name while retiring in a quiet village.
He opened a general store in the countryside and sought to live an ordinary life, and ultimately…
“What happened afterward?”
He didn’t know.
The final memory was vague.
His head, full of confusion, throbbed.
Could he have died?
“Thi… s… this… is…!”
Attempting to regain his senses, Luke focused on analyzing the sound reaching his ears.
It was a sharp, resolute, high-pitched voice.
It was the voice of someone cautioning against something.
Against what, exactly?
As soon as he became aware of his senses, he quickly assessed the situation.
A mage is a being who, throughout their life, adjusts their senses with willpower between the world and the physical body.
He was no less than the pinnacle of such a mage.
Therefore, he was confident that he could once again awaken his senses.
However…
“My magic circles are gone.”
Moved by a shock he couldn’t contain, he manipulated the mana inside his body.
He had never heard of this kind of magic or curse that erased magic circles.
There would be fragments if they were destroyed.
There would be traces if they were obliterated.
It would be refillable if it were exhausted.
Yet, now, it was as if the magic circles had never existed to begin with.
Attempting to rise, he found little strength in his body.
It was an odd sensation.
Far removed from the physical sensations he’d felt over the years.
It was almost like…
Finally, when the cold sensation of the metal encircling his neck became noticeable, he realized he was confined within iron bars.
“Ugh…”
“An iron cage, so then could it be a slave?”
The cold sensation around his neck was clearly a collar.
Was he captured, his circle erased, and confined in such a place?
“Who could have done this to me, a grand mage, and how?”
Finally, as his hearing cleared, a conversation reached his ears.
“Really, I just caught an interesting creature!”
It was a man’s voice.
“They’re all endangered! Moreover, this forest is inviolable, and you claim ignorance?”
It was a woman’s voice.
“Ah, I didn’t know! I merely lost my way in the Rienne Forest…”
“Then submit to the inspection! What’s inside that iron cage?”
“Well, over there, you see…”
Interrupting his hesitant words, the woman swiftly lifted the cloth covering the cage.
Surprisingly, what was visible inside was…
“A girl?”
Appearing no older than 10, there was a young girl with a petite build.
With platinum blonde hair and small horns jutting out on each side of her head, and sharp pointed ears resembling a cat, her body was covered in bruises, indicating injuries. She remained naked, save for the cold metallic collar around her neck, curled up in the narrow cage.
“Huh?”
However, upon seeing the sight, the man made a foolish sound.
“Was he a wicked kidnapper or was this a water spirit? Do you think water spirits are okay? The illegal trade of water spirits was banned a hundred years ago, are you thinking!”
Accusingly the woman exclaimed, to which the man flailed his arms and shouted.
“No! Not me! There is no way! I merely caught an interesting…”
“Hold your tongue! Human trafficking could result in immediate execution, and I have the authority to do so!”
“Yeeek!”
At the iron staff aimed at his neck with fury, the man’s complexion turned pale.
But Luke felt something was off.
The voices seemed directed at the cage trapping him.
Yet, if the girl was inside, could there be another victim in this cage?
Sensing the strangeness, Luke opened his eyes.
Flash!
The sudden intense light caused him to instinctively squint.
Vision… how long had it been since he last felt this sensation?
The light stung so intensely it hurt.
“Pain?…”
Pain, that too, was a long-forgotten sensation.
“Ahgh…”
Involuntarily, a distressed groan escaped his lips.
The sensation of speaking was also unfamiliar.
No, the voice itself was strange; nothing felt familiar.
“Ahh…! It hurts!”
Realizing this sensation as pain, he groaned at the pain spreading throughout his body.
At his cry, the woman reprimanded the man harshly.
“My goodness! What exactly did you do to this child?”
“I absolutely did not do anything like that!”
“Drop the excuses! You’re caught red-handed!”
“Th-that…”
—
After a short while, Luke opened his eyes.
“Did I faint?”
Realizing he was seated somewhere, Luke immediately glanced around.
A plush armchair, an old blanket covering him.
That was all he could discern.
What was this belt that was strapped across his body?
“Are you feeling a bit better? It was tough, but now you’re safe. It’s alright.”
From within the sound, he could hear something understandable.
A gentle, female voice.
It was the same woman’s voice he heard before he lost consciousness.
He turned his eyes toward the source of the voice.
She was an elf woman with violet eyes and golden hair.
Trying as hard as he could to move, Luke struggled but found it difficult due to the bruises all over his body.
“Ugh…”
“Don’t overdo it, you’re injured.”
“Ugh… Is that so? And you…”
Using the unfamiliar sensation, he managed to produce words.
There was no better way to objectively assess his condition than through conversation.
“My name is Yerna Risphind, the forest keeper of Luke Forest. And you?”
“Luke, Ilushi.”
“Luke? Wow, it’s the same as the forest’s name.”
“…”
The woman smiled faintly at him and redirected her gaze forward.
During this time, Luke looked around to determine where he was, and found it peculiar.
The plush chair, the landscape visible through the glass windows on all four sides moving swiftly behind them, indicated that they were in some kind of vehicle.
Yet, if this was indeed a carriage, there should have been horses pulling it, but none were visible.
“Is this a carriage? But there are no horses. Could it be an invisibility spell on the horses?”
“Huh? Suddenly bringing up a carriage? This is a car.”
“A car?”
Unfamiliar with the term, he raised his voice.
“Could you truly not recognize a car? Hmm, could you have lost your memory?”
He nodded in agreement to her words, as his memory was indeed unclear.
“That seems to be the case.”
At this, the woman looked ahead again with a slightly melancholic expression.
“I see.”
When the conversation paused, Luke gripped the blanket covering him and cleared his throat.
At the very least, he should express his gratitude.
Organizing his thoughts in his mind, he moved his tongue and lips, and didn’t forget to vibrate his vocal cords.
“Though my thanks are delayed, Yerna, I am truly grateful. I nearly became a victim of kidnapping. By the name Luke Ilushi, I will certainly remember this favor.”
It seemed the sensation of ‘speaking’ was finally returning completely.
Now that he was smoothly speaking, he felt somewhat better internally, but he did not show it externally as befitting his age.
A smile tinged with amusement came from Yerna in response.
“Haha! Never mind, Lord Luke Ilushi!”
While looking at Yerna’s joyful and exaggerated smile, Luke suddenly felt something was off.
Were elves originally such a tall race?
In fact, not only was the chair unusually big for him, but it was as if everything had grown while he was asleep.
“Still, Yerna, you’re quite tall for an elf. You could be compared to a giant.”
Though it was a pure expression of admiration, her reply was rather cold.
“If you’re going to tease elders like that, you’ll get punished, Luke. I’m already teased for being short among my colleagues.”
“Is that so? Then allow me to apologize for my mistake. Will you accept it?”
“Of course… hmm, but really, for a kid, your speech is pretty amusing.”
“Speech… my way of speaking?”
His entire life, he had never been criticized for his speaking manner, so he couldn’t help but feel strange.
Furthermore, being called “kid” was far from his reality; he was certainly an old man, not a child.
“Exactly, your way of speaking. What book are you reading and mimicking? It’s quite natural though.”
“Hmm, this is the original speech of this body…”
“Then what?”
Confused, he turned his head toward the window.
The reflection in the glass was shocking.
With platinum blonde hair and pointed animal ears protruding atop his head, instead of ears, there were horns growing sharply.
Moreover, his eyes were not ordinary.
The left one was golden, the right one an emerald green, an odd-eye combination.
The most noticeable change, however, was that he now appeared as a small girl.
Luke began touching his face, bewildered.
“What could this possibly be…?”
Struggling to move his uncooperative arms, he lifted the blanket, which confirmed his suspicions all the more.
Though his soft limbs were marked with bruises, it was undoubtedly the body of a young girl.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t find anything suitable for you to wear, so please bear with it for a while.”
Yerna said this, assuming Luke felt embarrassed by his appearance.
“This is…”
He was confused.
Was he dreaming?
Luke had lived over a hundred years as a human male, and the image he remembered of himself was that of an old man with silver hair and a full beard, wrinkled around the eyes and mouth – certainly not this young girl.
“Ah, we’ll be arriving soon. Let’s prepare to get out, young Luke.”
“Young…?”
Though he didn’t want to admit it, his current appearance was unmistakably that of a young girl.
—
Standing with his arms open at the examination device, Luke eventually heard the examining official, a woman, say that he could come down. Lowering his arms, he stepped away from the examination device.
It seemed his body showed no abnormalities, but the pain he felt every time he moved was enough to make Luke frown.
Even though this was a sensation of the five senses he hadn’t felt in a long time, moving a body that wasn’t his own was an unfamiliar feeling that was undoubtedly unpleasant.
Still, despite the examiner stating there were no other abnormalities and seeing the frowning young girl, the examiner thought it was the kind of temper tantrum or sulking that children often display after being given an annoying task and smiled, handing out something the children of that age would like.
“Good job. Here, have a candy.”
Luke looked down at it with mixed feelings as he received it.
Though the packaging was made of a material he had never seen before, marked with “Strawberry flavored, contains real fruit,” he wasn’t so ignorant as to not know that inside the wrapper was a candy when it was torn open.
As Luke peeled the package and popped it into his mouth, a sour yet sweet sensation spread, something foreign to him, and his expression relaxed slightly.
Seeing Luke enjoying it, the examiner smiled and asked him.
“Does it taste good?”
“Mmm… surprisingly flavorful.”
“Doesn’t it?”
The examiner, who smiled mischievously at his response, seated Luke and approached Yerna with the examination results.
After the woman read the results of scanning Luke’s body, she asked Yerna in a curious voice.
“It’s strange, Yerna. It says this child is a human?”
“What? Not a water spirit?”
“Yeah. This isn’t a water spirit but a human. Still, this horn and these ears…”
If the examination showed results as “human,” that meant that the horns and ears were something “attached” later through surgery or magic.
It was common back in the days when buying “usable” slaves was legal to add horns to the head for better grip or change the ears to link with animal instincts.
Interestingly enough, this “human-to-water spirit disguise” was a popular procedure back then to evade the law.
Once slavery was entirely outlawed, however, any such procedure for the purpose of selling slaves remained illegal.
So, the question remained – who and for what reason did this to the young girl?
Yerna approached the small girl, sitting neatly on the chair with a candy rolling in her mouth, crouched down, and made eye contact.
“What kind of race are you, Luke?”
“I was definitely human. But now… I’m not quite sure.”
It seemed the test results were accurate.
It was clear that the horns and ears were “added” by someone.
Honestly, doing one of these was enough, but putting both horns and ears at the same time seemed excessive.
Yerna thought whoever bought this girl must have been quite a perverted individual.
In a world where all forms of human trafficking were now banned, such “water spirit transformation” procedures had fallen out of practice.
If this was still happening, it was simply the preference of a perverted person.
“Do you remember how this happened? Or perhaps what happened before you were captured?”
“Hmm… I can’t recall.”
“Even how long you were confined?”
“I don’t know. All I remember is the iron cage.”
No memories…
Actually, it would be better to forget any memories of abuse if that were the case.
“Can you remember your mother’s or father’s names? Where are they?”
“My father is Leon Ilushi. My mother is Bina Ilushi. They both passed away a long time ago.”
…I sort of expected that.
Children with parents rarely become victims of human trafficking.
Still, I hoped…
“…Alright, thank you for telling me, Luke.”
An orphan, a victim of human trafficking, unclear memories, and so young.
Could it really be a coincidence that she was found in the forest with the same name as her own?
Perhaps even her name is a figment of her imagination.
The perpetrator who tried to kidnap her only repeated, no matter how much she interrogated, “I just caught an interesting cat,” and she couldn’t extract any information about the slave distribution network.
Well, who knows what might come out during a proper interrogation…
“There’s no choice but to send her to a facility, right?”
“For now, that’s how it should be…”
They both sighed as they looked down at Luke Ilushi with complex expressions.
Luke felt the same way, but he didn’t sigh because a candy was in his mouth.
—
