Chapter 100

“Why… why did you do that!”

Haru threw himself down onto the soft, bouncy flooring, expressing his frustration.

The brilliant fantasy was now nowhere to be found.

On a starless night, the only sound that echoed in the silent playground was the chirping of crickets.

“Why did you end the magic so abruptly?! I still haven’t even talked to Mom properly!”

He slammed his tiny palms down against the ground.

But all that accomplished was pain in his hands, so I helped lift Haru up.

“It’s time to return to reality.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“It’s chilly at night, you might catch a cold.”

“I don’t want to! I said no!”

For now, I had to take him back home.

Haru pouted, refusing to take a single step away from the playground.

“I think I can fix your eyes.”

“…! The doctor couldn’t fix them, how do you think you can?”

“Remember when I used Aura on you before? You saw colors for a moment, right? Now I know how to do it.”

Though he still looked doubtful, Haru willingly took my hand.

We walked in silence until we reached our front door.

Now and then, I could hear his labored breaths beside me.

I could usually consider my stamina decent, yet Haru was much worse off.

The reason he couldn’t distinguish colors wasn’t just the shock of losing his mother.

The pill he took clearly emitted magical waves akin to ‘dark magic,’ even though it was an item formed within an alchemist’s creation.

If this were true, and if that was given to him knowing its effects, then his mother couldn’t possibly be considered sane.

Once back in my room, I sat Haru on the bed.

I dragged Yuna, who was sitting on my desk chair, over to the bed so that Haru could face her.

“Iharu, what color is Yuna’s hair right now?”

“Gray… no, black…? No, gray…”

Yuna’s hair remained an unchanged vibrant red.

There seemed to be an issue with his eyes.

“Close your eyes. If it hurts, raise your right hand.”

I wiped away the tears streaming from his swollen eyes and covered them with my palm, releasing my unique Aura. I planned to use it differently than last time.

“Ah… it hurts…!”

Haru immediately grabbed my wrist, groaning in pain.

“It hurts? Where does it hurt?”

“Ugh… I don’t know. Nameya, I’m scared… can’t you stop? My head hurts too much…”

What I was doing was merely a purification procedure using Aura.

There shouldn’t be any painful components in this process.

Yet, Haru trembled his right hand and continued to complain of pain.

I held onto his hand tightly. I couldn’t stop here.

This still left the possibility of dark magic.

However, dark magic couldn’t exist in a complete form in this world.

As long as there’s a ‘storage’ phase that calls mana from another dimension, magic couldn’t be easily performed through simple methods like human sacrifices.

Thus, the only remaining explanation is that I had indirectly used magic through ‘engraving,’ like when I transformed a pen into an atomizer.

Had the magic circle been inscribed on the pill, then activated by absorption into the body?

[3rd Circle Reversal: Unseal Engraving]

I cast a spell to reverse the engraved magic circle.

Immediately, black letters and formulas squirmed out of Haru’s eyes, creeping up my hand like snakes.

A tingling sensation surged as my right arm filled with runes and distorted circles like a tattoo.

I barely managed to contain the spread throughout my body with my Aura.

As I sighed in relief,

“What is this?”

Yuna asked, surprised.

“Engraving magic. The content seems to be… an acceleration spell of the 6th circle.”

Did Haru’s mother believe this was just a pill to enhance intelligence?

It was frustrating not being able to confirm the truth.

* * *

I laid Haru on my bed and asked Yuna to watch over him for a moment.

I needed to go break the binding spell before the engraved magic circle I temporarily stored in my arm faded away.

“If Haru wakes up, let me know.”

“Is Haru not supposed to be alright?”

“Yeah, I’ve treated him, so you don’t need to worry too much.”

The reason Haru said he couldn’t see colors or heard voices was simple.

At an excessively young age, he was exposed to high-level circle magic that was beyond his capacity, which caused an overload in his brain.

The former was a case where the brain lacked the area needed for information processing, thus interfering with other senses, while the latter was a case of disrupted brainwaves.

Haru had been continuously exposed to unrefined mana due to Aura Heart, disrupting the balance within his body significantly.

Thus, the first procedure I performed was using Haru’s Aura Heart to remove mana impurities, and the second procedure involved completely removing the engraving spell and temporarily infusing my Aura into him.

While Haru slept, my Aura was now circulating from his head to his toes, restoring the organs that hadn’t been functioning properly.

Clink-

With the sound of the bathroom door closing, I found myself staring at my reflection in the mirror.

My hair had really grown long.

Even though Hiasen had carefully cut it, when the illusionary magic was dispelled, it all returned to its original state.

This is why I didn’t want to cut it…

In any case, that wasn’t the main issue, I decided to start with undoing the spell.

Since I had done this process repeatedly in the past, I didn’t even need to close my eyes to concentrate.

As the golden Aura flowed from me, the combinations of runes on my arm began to shift.

Aura. A probabilistic compound derived from mana.

Just as human blood passes through the lungs to replenish oxygen, mana is transformed through the Aura Heart to accept signals from brain waves.

In other words, summarizing Aura as a substance could be viewed as ‘controllable artificial hormones.’

The difference from regular hormones is that Aura encompasses the continuous secretion of hormones.

For instance, if thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) stimulates the secretion of thyroxine, and thyroxine then promotes metabolism, Aura bypasses this and combines everything into one step.

However, since Aura is fundamentally derived from mana, it’s not a tangible substance.

It merely seems as if new hormones have formed from clusters of inactive hormones already present in the human body.

Thus, while it can make one run 100 meters in 10 seconds, it cannot make a person faster than a cheetah or a Ferrari.

Of course, if one’s ability to manipulate Aura is extremely superior, it may be possible to emit it externally over short distances, but that’s a separate matter.

Honestly, I personally think that being born with an Aura Heart is as miraculous as how dragon race can use dragon speech.

Despite the clear limits, the ability to enhance the body without permanent side effects or costs is already a tremendous blessing in itself.

Who was it that said human greed knows no bounds?

Aura is easy to apply, but its limitations are clear. In contrast, mana is difficult to handle, but the possibilities are endless.

This is precisely why many people emerged wanting to utilize mana similarly to how Aura works, often sacrificing their lives in the process.

Magic that activates automatically even without understanding its principles, at one point, we referred to it, in slang, as ‘dark magic.’

It seemed like extracting the engraved magic would take time as it was layered. Erasing a tattoo was such a difficult task.

The engravings extracted completely from Haru’s head were results gradually injected into him through dark magic.

Engraving magic, being the only type of magic that has succeeded in mass production worldwide, is more commonly used in factories than by people.

Therefore, if the magic contained within this pill was not human-made, decoding the caster’s code could yield useful information.

The decryption process was similar to dispelling.

However, the considerably tricky part was that dispelling does not differentiate between dynamic equilibrium and static equilibrium, as long as it somehow brings the magical sum to ‘0’. In contrast, decryption can only apply the procedures of static equilibrium.

Thus, I proceeded to reverse the casting process, unraveling the tangled threads one at a time to unbind the spell.

Decryption is the reverse of the magical record. Therefore, the ‘subject’ that needs to be written first when recording a magic circle becomes the last remaining character.

The reason individual assessments can be collected at the Korean Mana Power Plant is likely due to having the technology to decrypt the ‘subject’ obtained from the ‘storage’ process.

“This is…”

When all the unsightly tattoos disappeared, leaving only a single word on my hand, I could only bite my lips tightly.

[Walpurgis]

A myriad of thoughts flashed through my mind.

‘Why is this coming up here?’

Is it just a coincidence? The validity isn’t certain either. Unlike casters, the naming conventions of mechanical subjects are up to the user.

But this sticky sense of discomfort couldn’t be erased.

My heart raced uncontrollably.

Why did those who manufactured illegal drugs, holding onto 6th circle magic not permitted for the general public, set the subject of the engraving as ‘Walpurgis’?

Were they truly involved in this? Or did they just name it as a convenience since it was a group that had been eradicated long ago?

As dizzying hypotheses swirled in my mind, there was a knock at the door.

Knock, knock—

“Hey, Nameya, are you still in there?”

For now, let’s keep this a secret from the kids.

The information still at hand was still insufficient.

[1st Circle Casting: Clean]

I completely erased the last remaining character and greeted Yuna with a bright face.