Do You Remember Her Voice [#]
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Loss comes for all. In its wake, a simple voice can become the thing we wish for most.
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Do You Remember Her Voice [1]
The cracks widen, mana condenses, and the shadows of the end draw near—
Demons rage, the world crumbles, and the beings behind the ice open their eyes to the world—
The cold breaks the chains of the void—
And the remnants shall witness and retreat—
The king will descend and take his due—
And the forgotten soul shall fail—
This is the curse that will bring about the end—
This is the curse of the world—
Before Deon could even analyze what appeared to be game-like statistics from his previous world, he was bombarded with what seemed to be a prophecy of the world''s end.
‘One step at a time...!’
And yet, there were no steps to take.
Sure, the interface provided an expanded view of his abilities, but it didn’t answer his questions. How did he end up in the world of his novel? Why? And for what purpose?
Even the ominous words of the prophecy taught him very little, none of which related to what he truly cared about.
If the world was going to end, that was the least of Deon''s concerns. All he cared about was returning to his world, if it were possible.
One thing that bothered him, however, was the voice that welcomed him and recited the prophecy.
The voice felt familiar yet strange.
‘Whose voice is that? And why do I feel this way?’
Deon placed his hand on his chest, feeling the erratic beats of his heart refusing to calm. His breathing was steady, but his heart was not. Slowly but surely, his heartbeat returned to its regular rhythm. Yet Deon redirected his focus to the white letters on the lake’s surface.
‘There must be something, a puzzle I can solve?’
He reread his statistics multiple times, recalling the prophecy that refused to fade from his memory—a strange occurrence.
Indeed, there was a similarity he had overlooked. The interface and the prophecy shared one thing in common:
"You are cursed, and your curse will bring about the end."—from the interface.
"This is the curse that will bring about the end—"—from the voice in his mind.
“I’m cursed, and my curse will bring about the end? This is the curse of the world?—... This doesn’t help at all. If I’m the harbinger of the end, why am I here? Am I supposed to destroy the world? Save it? Or just watch? Damn it, what am I supposed to do?”
Unknowingly, Deon had risen from his seat, glaring intensely and shouting at the calm lake. But no response came from its depths—only the words that continued to float indifferently on its surface.
‘I need more information.’
And yet, he gained nothing. Every lead he had didn’t seem like it would connect anytime soon.
SIGH
With a defeated sigh, Deon sat back down on the wooden bench, closing his eyes in exhaustion and despair.
‘Don’t let impatience push you astray.’
He reminded himself aloud with the words he used to repeat whenever he felt powerless and defeated in his previous life as a failed writer.
Calmly and steadily, his mind became quieter and cooler. Deon acknowledged the significance of the place, but for now, it seemed it wouldn’t offer him much help—aside from the interface, which was a nice addition.
With that thought, Deon stood up again from the bench hurriedly, looking at the lake that had returned to its former stillness. Only the serene waters and colorful stones remained.
‘No, I have a lead!’
He did have one, and that lead was the reason he came to this place at this exact time in the first place.
‘Deon’s mother?! She created this place, according to Vierenna... I need to know more about her; it might help unravel some of the mysteries…’
Choosing that exact moment, Vierenna’s voice emerged from the bushes around the lake.
“I never thought my baby brother knew anything about manners. Plus one point for inviting me... and minus twenty-five for not waiting for me. And I’m the one who thought of you and brought you this... I keep being the good sister, and you…”
She stepped out of the bushes, looking at him with disappointment that would’ve been convincing if not for the wide smile she struggled to suppress, unsuccessfully.
Deon looked at her casual attire, her loose hair, and what she was attempting to hide behind her back.
“Were you sleeping?”
“What... no? Why would you think that?”
“You’re bad at lying. And you’re looking everywhere but at me—the classic sign of a bad liar.”
She puffed out her cheeks, and before she could start rambling again, Deon interrupted her.
“Sorry for waking you. I know it’s late.”
“.....”
She opened her mouth to say something but stayed silent.
Shaking her head, she walked past Deon and sat comfortably on the wooden bench, still hiding the object behind her back.
“What are you hiding?”
Deon asked to start the conversation.
“You first. Why did you call me?”
Vierenna replied with a confident smile, as if everything was under her control.
Deon sat beside her, feigning indifference and curiosity at the same time.
“Well, I just wanted to ask you about something.”
She gestured for him to continue, making an effort to hide what was behind her back. Deon did so, his words betraying the tension visible in his expression.
“About... Sabel, the academy...?”
“You want to enroll?”
She cut him off hastily, her eyes wide with shock.
Deon nodded silently, trying to maintain a composed fa?ade. Though he didn’t need to try too hard—he was already nervous about what he would ask her next.
“Oh, thank your soul... I don’t have to force you.”
Vierenna placed a hand on her chest, letting out a relieved sigh after another.
“Wait, what do you mean by ''force me''?”
Deon’s curiosity was piqued.
“Did I say that? No, I didn’t. I said ''convince you.'' ”
Vierenna answered with an innocent look, avoiding his eyes.
Before Deon could refute her, she quickly continued.
“The thing is, you’re already on the list for the new season. So, you don’t need to thank me.”
Deon had plenty of questions, but somehow, the girl in front of him always found a way to make him forget them.
“Here, this is for you—a gift.”
She handed him what she had been hiding all along—a rectangular wooden box. Its gray wood was unlike anything Deon had ever seen in his life.
“Go on, open it!”
She ordered with a voice trembling with unrestrained excitement.
Deon had been planning to ask her about his enrollment in the academy to get a clearer timeline of his arrival in this world, but her enthusiasm stopped him.
“Since I’m already part of the first-year batch for the new season, I’ll find out soon enough... Vierenna herself will tell me without me having to ask.”
He had also intended to ask her about his mother and hers, but guilt crept in at the thought of bringing up such a topic while looking at her beautiful smile.
‘But I have to.’
Deon looked between the box and the girl. She kept nodding at him to open it, her smile growing wider.
Reluctantly, Deon agreed and opened the box he held in his hands.
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Do You Remember Her Voice [2]
Inside the box was a dark purple book without any writing on its surface, only strange symbols and aesthetic patterns. There was also a small blue cube, about the size of an adult''s palm. The cube was smooth on all six sides with sharp edges.
Deon looked at Vierenna, curiosity evident in his violet eyes.
She simply smiled at him and gestured for him to pick up the cube.
Deon obliged.
The cube was lightweight, ruling out the possibility of it being metal. However, its exterior didn’t suggest it was wood either.
Strange.
Vierenna moved closer to Deon, placing her hands over the cube, enclosing it within his.
“This is a beginner’s cube, as you can see from its blue color. It will help you unlock your mana and guide you to reach the threshold of the first tier.”
“What? Isn’t it the Awakening Ritual that awakens mages?”
At least, that’s what Deon had gathered from his research.
“That’s true,” Vierenna explained, “but the Awakening Ritual only awakens the ability to manipulate mana and latent talents. The human body still needs to adapt to the new change, which is a challenge in itself... Of course, individuals can learn slowly, but merely accessing mana and attempting to manipulate it is difficult on its own. The cubes are tools to ease this process by introducing the body to mana. Their role is to create behavioral patterns that make it easier for the body to follow mana—at least at the first tier.”
Despite Vierenna’s thorough explanation, Deon’s thoughtful expression prompted her to elaborate further.
“The blue cube will help your body become familiar with the new found mana. But it’s limited to the first tier. Why? Because an individual’s mana manipulation starts simple and becomes deeper and more complex in each tier. So, the first cube will guide you to the threshold of the first tier, and when you advance to the second, your mana manipulation will only grow more focused and profound. Again, you could figure things out on your own and progress without external help, but the process itself is long and arduous. That’s why cubes exist—to facilitate progression within each stage.”
Deon looked at the cube in his hands in a new light.
‘Isn’t this just a form of cheating?’
As if she could read Deon’s thoughts precisely, Vierenna said with a hint of disappointment,
“Well, at the academy, every student is given one. But nobles are already familiar with them, which is why they’re always at the top of their classes. It’s no big deal.”
She said it casually, but Deon thought otherwise, making sure his thoughts were heard.
“It is a big deal alright. I’ve already wasted enough time; I won’t waste any more.”
Vierenna smiled at his words, her expression one of someone who had finally found solace.
‘I’m glad you’re back,’
she whispered softly, too quietly for Deon to hear.
“How do I use the cube?”
Deon asked, his curiosity and excitement getting the better of him.
“You need to maintain physical contact with the cube—preferably with both hands—and try to establish a connection with it. This initial connection is the hardest part because it’s how you link the cube to your mana signature. From there, the cube will help you explore and guide your mana... Once you’re connected to the cube, no one else can use it unless you intentionally sever the connection.”
Deon nodded in understanding and closed his eyes, preparing to begin.
“Why the rush? You haven’t even looked at all your gifts yet,”
Vierenna teased, snatching the cube from his hands.
Deon glared at her in protest but quickly remembered the box placed carefully beside him on the bench.
‘The purple book...!’
He pulled it out of the gray box and held it in his hands, examining its intricate patterns with curious eyes.
“As you might expect, it’s a beginner’s spellbook,”
Vierenna commented from the side.
“Curse spells.”
Deon’s eyes widened. He couldn’t take his gaze off the girl sitting close to him, a serene smile gracing her face.
His shock stemmed from understanding how rare and valuable even a single curse spell was, let alone an entire book of them.
Once again, Vierenna, adept at deciphering his thoughts, chuckled softly.
“Don’t look at me like that. There are only three beginner-level spells in the book. It’ll be some time before you can even think about trying to learn them. Until then, I might find other spells if you put effort into these.”
Deon remained silent under Vierenna’s radiant smile. He knew well that everything she did was directed toward her brother, Deon—not him. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel moved.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice quiet but full of heartfelt gratitude.
Vierenna smiled shyly and looked away.
She took a deep breath and turned back to Deon.
“Put the book aside for now. You should start with the cube first. As I said, time is not on your side.”
Her tone was commanding and left no room for refusal.
Deon obeyed her words. But before attempting to establish a connection with the cube as she had instructed earlier, he instead asked her about their mother.
“Do you remember her voice?”
For some strange reason, he felt she wouldn’t mind talking about it now.
And he was right.
She looked at him with initial confusion before catching his gaze on the small lake.
“Oh, Mother! Yes, I remember her voice. How could I forget?”
She looked at him with curiosity and asked in return,
“Do you remember her voice?”
Deon closed his eyes for a moment before answering.
“I want to say I do, and I do in a way. But I only remember it as a distant echo... I remember the face and all the other details, but the voice is the one thing I never want to forget.”
He answered, though they weren’t necessarily talking about the same person. (Everyone loses someone dear at some point in life, and the day will come when they want to remember and hear their voice again.)
“Oh, baby brother,”
Vierenna began, gently patting Deon’s head, her expression one of pity and affection.
“Mother was—and still is—a special person. We both loved her as she loved us back. If you want to hear her voice, it’s good you told me. There’s a Memory Record with Father... I’ll bring it for my baby brother.”
Vierenna’s last words were spoken with slight hesitation, indicating that retrieving this “Memory Record” wasn’t as simple as she made it seem.
Deon owed her more than he could ever repay, so he didn’t want his debt to deepen further.
“You don’t have to. I said I still remember. This lake has already given me enough.”
That was, in a way, true, despite all the confusion it had only added to his situation.
“It’s not just for you. I want to mock your memories as a child. Isn’t that my right as your big sis?”
This left Deon with no room for argument.
So once again, all he could do was say,
“Thank you.”
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Do You Remember Her Voice [3]
The blue cube rested in Deon''s hands as he sat on the wooden bench facing the small lake.
Though his posture was slouched, his intense gaze never wavered from the cube in his hand.
‘Vierenna said the first step is to establish a connection with the cube, but what kind of connection? Mental? Physical? Or something else entirely?’
Deon decided to close his eyes and focus his senses on the cube without overthinking it.
But that wasn’t as easy as it sounded—his mind refused to quiet down.
‘The cube needs to link to my mana signature, and Vierenna said it''s best to maintain physical contact with it. But how can I do that without involving my mind? Even holding it involves engaging my senses...!’
Deon''s thoughts paused at this realization.
Indeed, the mind drives the body, and the senses mediate the relationship between them.
Therefore, mana must be nothing more than a new sense.
And all Deon had to do was explore this new sense.
‘The hardest part of the process is always the starting point, but at least I have something to begin with.’
Deon steadied his breathing and cleared his mind of excessive thoughts.
This time, he didn’t struggle much with his thoughts because he had already found a focal point.
Deon’s hands, which had been gripping the cube tightly, relaxed. His tense expression softened, and his breathing became steady and rhythmic.
It wasn’t long before Deon entered a state of sensory stillness. The connection between his mind and body dulled, almost fading entirely.
From the sidelines, Vierenna watched with a shocked expression. She knew Deon wasn’t in danger but hadn’t expected him to enter the exploration phase so quickly.
“How is he doing this so effortlessly...?”
Unbeknownst to her, she had stopped breathing while observing his progress.
Inside Deon’s mind, the realm of his thoughts had shrunk to a single white point. From that point, something new emerged.
‘A heartbeat?’
A rhythm pulsed irregularly at the back of his mind. It wasn’t the steady beat of his circulatory system, but something entirely different, something beyond words.
‘A new heartbeat?’
But no matter how much Deon tried to pinpoint its source, his senses failed him every time.
‘My senses? Why can’t I feel them?’
He tried to panic, but the instinctive bodily reaction to fear never came. Thus, Deon panicked without truly panicking.
‘What...?’
The erratic heartbeat continued, indifferent to his emotions.
Once again, all Deon could do in this situation was focus on the heartbeat.
But despite his efforts, the precise focus that typically comes with natural sensory direction eluded him.
The heartbeat continued its unpredictable rhythm—sometimes loud, sometimes soft, and occasionally utterly silent.
Deon repeatedly reminded himself of what he was doing before finding himself in this state.
‘The new sense...! What if the heartbeat is the new sense?’
Yet, nothing happened.
‘What if I’m already sensing mana, but I just don’t know how to interact with it?’
The heartbeat continued in the background.
‘Wait, Vierenna said exploring things on my own would be difficult. What if that’s exactly what I’m doing?’
And indeed, that’s what he was doing.
‘The cube! I need to reach it somehow!’
But Deon had already lost connection with his body. How could he do that?
‘The cube is supposed to help introduce my body to mana. But what if hearing this heartbeat is my direct interaction with mana without…’
Deon felt, somehow, that he was on the right track. He didn’t understand this feeling, but he didn’t plan to ignore it.
‘I need to stop hearing this heartbeat!’
At that moment, the heartbeat ceased, as if responding to his command. Slowly, Deon’s senses began to return, albeit faintly.
The first thing he did was connect with the cube, a process that felt instinctive somehow.
Vierenna, still watching from the side, had barely recovered from her initial shock when she was stunned again.
‘How can this be possible?!’
The cube in Deon’s hands began to emit a soft blue glow, a stark contrast to its dark color.
The glow lasted for three seconds before fading.
Complex patterns started forming on every surface of the cube, converging at multiple points. With each passing second, the patterns grew more intricate.
Although the cube retained its shape as a simple cube, the newly etched patterns imbued it with an aura of mystery and newfound power.
Soon, the patterns stopped forming, marking the completion of the cube’s new aesthetic.
The patterns, initially glowing faint blue, turned black as they stabilized, signaling that the cube had ceased drawing mana from Deon once it linked to his mana signature.
Deon opened his eyes to the familiar scene of the small lake.
He took a deep breath and looked around to reorient himself.
Vierenna was still beside him, staring with her gray obsidian eyes as though trying to pierce through his skull.
“So, I’m back. Only you have such looks.”
He said without embarrassment.
“My gaze is perfectly normal, and you see it that way.”
“Of course, I didn’t say otherwise.”
“So! What happened?”
‘What happened, indeed!’
Deon had his theories about why he had heard the heartbeat and lost all his other senses.
Mana Sense.
One of his four innate abilities.
Mana Sense: The key to the world’s greatest mysteries.
Though the description was as vague as the ability itself, Deon was almost certain of his suspicion—no, his conclusion.
Even the description referred to it as an innate and latent ability.
Deon felt he wouldn’t need the cube to hear the strange heartbeat again, but how would he control it?
That? He didn’t know.
‘I also have Sword Sense, and the Sword Attraction. the latter is described even more ambiguously than any other ability I have. I wonder if the three are related... No, I’m getting ahead of myself.’
Deon refocused on Vierenna, whose curiosity threatened to set the entire garden ablaze.
“At first, I didn’t know what to do with the cube or how to feel it. But remembering your explanation led me to a logical conclusion that helped my mind focus and calm down. From there, I felt all five of my senses fade... I don’t know how to explain what happened next, but somehow, I managed to establish a connection with the cube. It’s hard to describe.”
Vierenna nodded at his words. She had felt the same when forming her initial connection with the cube.
‘But not this quickly... Less than five minutes! This…’
“Thanks to your explanation, I was able to do it.”
Deon’s words were sincere. Without her guidance, he would have been left in the dark. She had been his greatest help, and it hadn’t even been a full day since he arrived in this world.
“How do you feel now? Your connection with the cube?”
Deon held the cube up to his face, examining it with curiosity.
“It’s like a puzzle I need to solve, but the puzzle is... me... maybe?”
Vierenna gave him a wide smile and began patting his head firmly, ignoring his resistance.
“My baby brother is right—it’s indeed a puzzle you must solve.”
“You’re... ruining my hair!... The hair you styled... yourself... Stop it!”
Deon tried to resist, but how could he against her superior strength? Her authority as the older sister gave her the upper hand.
“And I’m a great sister and a great teacher! Don’t you think?”
Deon managed to escape her grip, pushing himself to the edge of the bench.
“You are, absolutely, just stop!”
She looked displeased by his retreat but didn’t act further as Deon spoke again seriously.
“What now? I mean, after the cube.”
“After the cube, more work with the cube. The cube will help your body familiarize itself with mana, and only when you reach the point where you can manipulate mana at will can you begin learning your first spell. Though I’d advise against rushing to learn spells.”
“Why?”
“Because the more familiar your body is with mana, the faster you’ll learn spells. If you choose to learn a spell while only having minimal control over mana within your body, it will take a long time to learn. Even casting it won’t be easy with shallow control.”
“.....”
Deon fell silent.
Vierenna’s explanation was logical from an objective perspective. Though there were rare instances where rushing yielded the desired result, rushing was usually a fast track to failure.
“I understand.”
Deon said, his calm expression reflecting his sharpened determination.
Seeing his resolute expression, Vierenna smiled warmly.
“You’ll accomplish great things, baby brother.”
She said from the side.
Deon nodded at her continued support.
“What now?”
“Now, we both need to rest. I’ve already gone past my bedtime. Let’s head back. Tomorrow, your training begins.”
She rose from her seat, and Deon followed beside her toward the mansion.
“So you’re admitting you were asleep earlier.”
Vierenna glanced at Deon’s face, which held a smile that said, ‘I knew it.’
She smiled in turn, and without a word, punched him lightly in the elbow.
Then she continued walking as if nothing had happened.
“That hurt!”
“I know.”