The descent continued.
The moment Serena closed her eyes, she suddenly felt a familiar coolness.
It wasn’t a bone-chilling cold; in fact, it was quite gentle.
“Ma… Madam… please… wake up.”
It was Anna’s voice.
Did she want Serena to open her eyes? Then she would open them.
After all, other than her eyes, her body had become completely immobile.
A gust of wind brushed past Serena’s ears.
She was still falling, but she didn’t feel like a star plummeting from the sky. Instead, she felt like a drifting feather.
“Madam… is this your… magic?”
Following Anna’s raspy voice, Serena tilted her head slightly.
She saw a giant White Bird.
The White Bird was silent. It simply carried her and Anna on its back, slowly descending toward the bottom of the valley.
As a high-level magic user, Serena knew what this White Bird was.
A magic user with a sufficient amount of mana could materialize their power, summoning various magical creatures known as “Familiars.”
But in the next moment, Serena suddenly noticed something.
Why did the mana of this Familiar seem to be slowly flowing into her own body?
That shouldn’t be possible… Familiars were pure creations of mana. Unless they were connected by blood to the summoner, their mana would never naturally merge into a stranger’s body—
“Ah… this — this is — !”
Yes, unless they were connected by blood.
Serena’s eyes widened.
However, a few black dots suddenly appeared in the sky above.
These dots rapidly approached Serena and Anna, and the crimson magic circles they deployed were all aimed directly at Serena and Anna on the White Bird’s back.
the Empire’s elite were pursuing them.
But in the next instant, the silent White Bird suddenly looked up. With a mere flap of its white wings, all the black dots, along with those crimson attack circles, vanished without a trace.
The mana mobilized by the White Bird flowed into Serena’s body once more, and this time, Serena recognized it.
This was mana Serena would recognize even if she were turned to ash — it was exactly the same as the overflowing mana she had once absorbed from her daughter.
This was Elena’s mana.
“I knew… I knew all along…”
Tears welled up in Serena’s eyes once more, blurring the world before her — but this time, Serena was smiling.
The White Bird gradually landed at the bottom of the valley. After setting Anna aside, it wrapped its massive white wings around Serena, silently guarding its “mother.”
The mana of any magical monster was a lethal poison to humans.
But the mana flowing into Serena’s body from this White Bird, though cool, made her feel warm.
At this moment, no further proof was needed.
‘My daughter is not a witch…’
‘My daughter is not a witch; my daughter is not a witch!’
“I know… I’ve always known.”
The White Bird gently rubbed its head against Serena, brushing its feathers against her cheek.
As the White Bird’s mana flowed into her, Serena gradually lost the ability to feel the exhaustion and pain in her body.
But the fact that her lifespan was at its end was something that could not be changed.
Soon, the White Bird’s body began to dissipate.
In the next instant, Serena felt her perception of time expanding, slowing down more and more…
“You, you’re going to…”
Ice crystals gradually climbed up Serena’s body, moving slowly like flowing water.
Even though it was ice, Serena didn’t feel cold.
The mana that had been enough to form that giant White Bird was now like a child’s clumsy and desperate embrace, wanting to wrap up and protect its mother.
Because the child didn’t know what else to do, she could only use this method — using this ice to fix her mother’s fading life and time in place.
Trying to freeze her mother’s time, trying to keep her mother by her side forever…
How foolish, how truly foolish…
Serena took one last look at Anna, who was sitting blankly to the side.
“Anna… could you come over here for a moment?”
Serena raised her hand and handed the Signature Book she was carrying to Anna.
“I’ll leave this Signature Book to you. Do with it as you wish—burn it, throw it away… but I have one small, selfish request to tell you. I hope you can continue to live, all right? After you leave this place, you can run far away, to a distant land, and find a new meaning for your life… and if you ever happen to see my daughter one day, could you say something to her for me? ‘Can you forgive Mother for not being able to spend your tenth birthday with you?'”
After her voice trailed off, Serena closed her eyes.
The midday sun had been turned into a gloomy sky by gray clouds at some point…
It was going to rain.
After Anna took the Signature Book, the final ice crystals quickly spread over Serena’s face.
Serena had no expression, looking as if she had drifted off into a dream.
It might not have been a beautiful dream… but it certainly wasn’t a sad one.
After Anna left, the rain began to fall.
One drop, two drops, and then it poured down. But the rain was very fine, like the tears of the sky.
Inside the transparent ice crystals, Serena slept.
As the rain fell onto the surface of the ice, it became the source for the ice crystals to grow. Transparent ice flowers gradually bloomed, and in the lightless valley, they slowly ignited a silent and formless fire, lighting up a sea of crystal flowers…
This place was without light, but it buried a mother’s unachievable dream.
Perhaps these past events would one day be brought to light, but for now, this was fine. Being in this lightless place was fine…
Because the most beautiful dreams do not require light.
*
[And that is what followed, as Elena told you.]
[Anna, not knowing what to do, eventually went to the Duke’s Mansion and became a maid serving Elena.]
[Perhaps she wanted to see for herself what kind of existence a so-called witch truly was?]
[Or perhaps, she simply had nowhere else to go.]
“…”
When the scene before her disappeared, Ai’er returned to the darkness.
At this moment, Ai’er didn’t know what to say.
Nor did she know what she should say to Elena.
Elena believed it was her own mana that had killed her mother, but the truth was the exact opposite.
She should tell Elena the truth…
But how should she say it?
Setting aside whether Elena would even believe her, just touching that box in Elena’s room earlier had caused Elena to react like that…
‘…The box?’
‘System, what’s in that box?’
The system did not respond.
‘Would Miss Anna know? And that Signature Book… since Miss Anna chose to become a maid at the Duke’s Mansion, what happened to that Signature Book?’
The system still gave no response.
‘If I consume System Points, can you tell me these things?’
[…Message ending.]
[Countdown to normalization of time flow begins — ]
[3, 2, 1 — ]
The instant the voice faded, the afternoon sunlight felt blindingly bright to Ai’er.
“Ai’er? What’s wrong?”
[Note, current mission: Have the Witch of Time, Elena White, “kill” you.]
[Furthermore, the deduction of points to maintain the transmigration will occur tomorrow afternoon.]
[Current points remaining: 8]
After adjusting to the sunlight, Ai’er looked into Elena’s ink-blue eyes and saw the worry and care within them.
But in Ai’er’s field of vision, the System’s prompt was displayed abruptly right next to Elena.
‘Kill…’
This world had already given Elena enough malice; even her own system wanted her to be “killed” by Elena.
“I’m fine, Elena… let’s go back.”
Smiling as she took Elena’s outstretched hand, Ai’er did her best not to let her inner emotions show on her face.
Although she didn’t know how much she could do for Elena, at the very least, she had to let this young lady know the truth.
But she needed a suitable setting and a suitable narrator —
In the next moment, Miss Anna’s figure appeared in Ai’er’s mind.
…That would work.
The past shown by the system only went as far as Madam Serena handing the Signature Book to Anna.
What happened after that? She would just ask the person involved directly.
Under the setting sun, the two girls walked toward the dormitory hand in hand.