“…Let’s go home, Yuna. We still need to prep the next step.” Lucimia let the tangled thoughts drop like a cut kite-string.

“Mm… Lucy, sis, are you okay?” Yuna’s worry fluttered like a sparrow under rain.

“Probably… I haven’t slept well lately, so my spirit’s dull, like ash after a cold fire.”

Yuna stayed quiet, like snow holding its breath. After a moment, she said, “Lucy, sis, you said, there’s a soldier named Cole, and he’s Ritch’s captain. He’s a Deceiver, and he did, those things, right?”

She didn’t know why Yuna asked, a mist of doubt blurring the path, but Lucimia still answered, “…Yes.”

“Mm-hm.” Yuna gripped Lucimia’s arm like ivy on warm stone and said softly, “Since, Lucy, sis says, such a person exists, then he does. Yuna, believes you.”

Lucimia’s heart jolted, like a struck bell in winter air; those words were a warm cabin in a whiteout, hearthlight licking the logs.

“Mm!” She nodded, like a reed bowing to wind.

Cole had been real, yet less than five hours after Lucimia slew him, his name washed away like footprints under a tide.

He didn’t just fade from others’ memories; the page was torn from the world, the thread pulled from history’s tapestry.

In the original history, Cole received a great Blessing from Elyssus, a brand that granted a Deceiver’s shadowed gift.

He used it to warp sight, like heat haze on stone, making brave Jeff look like Cole, and Jeff like a monster behind a mask.

In the end, Cole perched on stolen honor like a crow on a steeple and became the town guard’s captain.

After Lucimia killed Cole, that fog burned off. The river slid back to its old bed; Jeff lived and rose as the town’s hero, wearing the captain’s wreath.

One thing gnawed at her like a mouse in the grain: if Cole vanished, why didn’t history correct itself and appoint a stand-in, instead of deleting all he did?

As an Elyssus follower, Cole must have done something for Elyssus. If so, were those offerings also swept away like candles snuffed?

Not necessarily. The coin hung midair, flashing light and shadow.

At least last night, Lucimia and Ritch did go to stop the ritual. If it wasn’t Cole, who died under the blade? Was there a second Deceiver in town?

Why did Cole dissolve like ink in rain?

The wheel rolled back into its rut.

“Exemption… exempt his existence?” A bubble of thought rose from her depths like a pearl from a well.

Bold guess: if Lucimia’s Authority Power is Exemption, the gears click. Her magic works by exemption; when she kills, the ledger strikes out the name.

The law seals, leaves fall from the list, and candles gutter out in a breeze.

So her so-called miracle effects are just Exemption’s Authority wearing her hands like gloves?

“Right, the boy’s mother!” Relief broke like dawn cutting fog; a window banged open in her chest.

On the first morning after the first loop, she met the boy, yet his mother was missing. Back then it puzzled her, like a missing shadow on wet stone. Now it fits—perhaps that woman’s existence was exempted.

Before the first loop, Lucimia had killed the octopus disguised as the mother in a dusty used bookstore, shelves dense as a forest, her blade flashing like lightning.

Yes, that logic slots in like bamboo tiles clicking.

But isn’t the deity of Exemption Ruigana? Lucimia isn’t Ruigana. Even her followers call her Olivya, like altars set at a crossroads of names.

What is going on? The knot tightened like vines in the rain.

Who is Ruigana? Who is Olivya? And Lucimia is… oh—me. Mirrors faced mirrors; her sense of self rippled like a pond.

Even so, the signs point like iron needles: Lucimia holds a high-tier power akin to Exemption, a wind that erases tracks without a crown’s crest.

She recalled her father’s tale: the Town of Tranquility was once a village, a nest under a wolf-storm. Ruigana did all manner of evil there. Then the ancestor who had slain the Dark Deity returned, and both Ruigana and that ancestor vanished like twin stars slipping into the sea.

The answer sleeps in that chapter, a page sealed in amber, a well lidded with stones.

“…Forget it. These questions don’t shift the present. Handle this incident first, then pin the map and study it.” Resolve cooled like quenched steel.

After that storm of thoughts, Lucimia took Yuna home along a ribbon of road, sparrows of worry settling.

All day, she studied magic. She aimed to swell her mana pool, and to polish Instant Movement until it cracked like thunder.

First, mana itself—the well’s depth over the bucket’s shine.

In last night’s fight with Cole, she felt her mana leak like sand through fingers. Maybe her unschooled casting bled power like a leaky roof.

Or maybe casting above her tier was like climbing thin air, each step burning more breath.

So in pure combat, do mages lose to Swordmasters, silk to iron rain?

Either way, she had to raise her mana. A full reservoir is a lake behind a dam, steady through a long storm.

After reading for a while, pages rustling like leaves, she found several paths that forked like streams to grow mana.

First: cast often, like tempering iron with ceaseless hammer blows.

Drain the well, let it refill a little fuller; or hone fluency to spend less, like her Flight Spell riding wind.

It’s slow as tree rings, season by season; but it’s cheap and safe, a wall built brick by brick.

Second: drink potions, bottles glimmering like liquid moonlight.

Strong mages brew elixirs to increase mana, or tonics to restore it, cauldrons simmering like thunderclouds.

Don’t overdo the former, or the river breaks its banks and the body bursts; the latter is a normal rain topping a cup.

Third: refine the Magic Array, carving sigils like frost on glass.

Most mages inscribe arrays along their inner mana corridors to cast, roots and constellations mapped within.

A better array wastes less mana, like a well-drawn bow that keeps every arrow true.

Fourth: raise affinity with nature, so wind and rain call you by name.

Elements live in the world; with affinity, you borrow fire from the sun and waves from the sea.

“How do I do it?” Frustration tugged like a knotted cord as her thoughts kite-circled in a crosswind.

The first is out—too slow, a snail on a mountain path.

Potions that increase mana are rare, pearls in palaces; maybe only the Royal Capital, the Magic Academy’s magi, or nobles of ducal rank have them. As for restoratives, maybe the Lancelot Family keeps some in a chest.

Her house breeds few mages; most chase the Swordmaster’s path, banners snapping in a steel wind.

The third’s tricky. She has no Magic Array inside, yet she casts like a song without notes, a bridge without pillars. If needed, she’ll mold one with bare hands.

As for the fourth…

Honestly, she couldn’t feel it, a compass gone deaf. She didn’t know her affinity. Yet before the first loop, when countless octopuses hunted her like storms of ink, she tried to command the rain.

It answered. Water cupped her palms like a tame river, silver threads sliding to her will without a hint of pushback.