Chapter 138:

“If there’s any white magic you want to use, tell me. There’s a lot of cool ones.”

Swan’s hand shone with bright, pearl-colored white magic. His arm was covered with suppression bracelets, but he still had so much magic left. I was so jealous. I couldn’t even use the magic that I had because it was still sprinkled with black magic.

“Can I call you over when I’m bored?”

Swanhaden turned his head to stare at me at my question. After a few seconds, he turned his head back to stare right in front of him. He slowly nodded.

Swanhaden, who had always been kind of uncomfortable to be with, was becoming more and more comfortable these days. I still felt a bit awkward next to him because we didn’t talk as much as I did with my other friends, but we had been involved in so many different things together that we were becoming close.

At his insistence for me to use any kind of white magic that I needed whenever, I remembered something and spoke up.

“Swanhaden.”
“What.”
“I’m tired.”

Swanhaden smiled slightly as he snapped his fingers.

I could feel strength flowing back into my body and was awed by Swan’s white magic. When I asked if I could use it often, Swan looked surprised before smiling.

It was a pretty, casual smile.

I couldn’t help but let out a sigh when I remembered how Eric had clung to me earlier. After changing out of that sheer, short outfit and returning back to the hall, I took out my checklist notebook from my bag.

“I couldn’t fill it all in the end….”

If I had just filled up one more box, then I would’ve filled up the first page of my dating checklist. The reason why I still wanted to date Eric even if I had lost all interest in him had been because of this. I knew it was a trash move, but so was he.

If I had just checked off the ‘Get to 100 days’ in my checklist, then I would’ve filled up all of the items on the first page of my list.

I suddenly remembered something that had happened before I died.

In my past life, there had been a time when I had seriously, solemnly wondered about my future, right before I became a legal adult. Even after I had become an adult, I always thought that my main job was to be a guardian to my youngest sibling until they became independent.

My entire life consisted of the responsibility I felt towards my younger siblings, and that meant that everything that I wanted took a back seat. I always thought that my wants were a luxury.

Because of that, anything that I wanted to do or accomplish had to be thrown aside. Responsibility was such a heavy, large feeling to me.

Instead of giving up, I made a list of all the things that I wanted to do to make myself feel better. I always told myself that if I didn’t forget it and wrote it down in a notebook, my future self would accomplish it for me.

Life was an endless mystery and had always thrown large curveballs at me, so I wrote all of my plans in a notebook. This was the same, for both this life and before.

First, my biggest goal was to have a safe and stable future. And then, planning long, mid, and short-term plans about that goal, checking each box every day, and completing those goals had become an everyday task for me.

I had begun erasing check boxes after my past memories returned, so all of the detailed, small boxes for my stable future were all checked off. Most of the mid-term plans were almost completed, and almost all of the long-term plans were almost done as well.

I should’ve been proud, but I felt strangely empty as I stared at it. I wanted all of the check boxes that I had written as a child to stay incomplete, but couldn’t wait until it was completely checked off and finished at the same time.

Anyway, the big goals were well on their way to completion, so I wanted to small, minute goals to be completed as well.

My small goals list was basically done except for my bucket list, and I didn’t want to leave any blank boxes in the list of check marks.

That was just how I felt.

I stared at the ‘Get to 100 days’ check box and wondered for a moment.

“Should I do a 100 day party celebrating my breakup with my friends?”

Lovers were in the bubble of important people, and friends existed in that same category as well. So if I had a party with my friends, then there wouldn’t be a big problem, right?

If I had just filled that one box with an ‘x’, my entire checklist would be filled. But just thinking about the fact that I had checked off the dating items with Eric bothered me, so I resigned myself to my fate.

In the end, I put my hand on the page with my dating checklist to rip it apart. I had just placed my hand on it, but a few other pages had flipped over too. I eyed an ‘x’ that felt alien to me. It was something that I had checked off, but it felt unfamiliar.

“………a kiss.”

It was something that my past self had checked, just so I could check something off of the dating list. There was nobody around me, but I couldn’t help but blush furiously at the rush of embarrassment that I felt.

When did I check this off? That wasn’t a kiss, that was me getting my lips bitten off.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I just ripped all of the sheets into pieces.

It was all useless.

Another wave of shame came over me. I threw my notebook to the ground.

Chapter 18. I Don’t Want the Main Character

At the end of the festival, I headed over to get the swordsmanship teacher’s sword, as was promised. It was basically community service on my part, so my teacher placed a lot of weight on my actions. Once class ended, I put all of my heavy books and items in my dorm, then headed to where the swordsmanship teacher was.

The teacher seemed like he was on his way home. He had changed to a normal work outfit from his training uniform, and was carrying his keys. His keys jangled as they went into his coat pocket. He seemed so happy to be going home that he didn’t seem to notice that I was there as he collected his belongings. I didn’t call him when he looked so busy, and just waited for him to notice me instead.

The teacher discovered me a bit late.

“Shuraina West? Did you have a question?”

The swordsmanship teacher held his document bag as he turned my way. It seemed like he had forgotten his promise.

I didn’t really need his sword, but I had just visited because I remembered it. I hesitated for a moment–I felt like it was a bit overkill to suddenly mention the promise from back then, and too much time had passed from then. But now that I was here, I felt like I couldn’t just leave without it.

“………when I went up on stage as the representative.”
“Oh, right! I promised to give you the sword, right?”

Thankfully, it seemed like he hadn’t completely forgotten about the promise.

The teacher clapped once in remembrance, then rushed over to his desk. The teacher retrieved his keys from his coat pocket again. He took out a small gold key from the giant assortment of keys, then with his special hopping-walk of his, he headed to his personal locker.

When he opened his locker, there was an assortment of swords on display. A rapier, a main-gauche, a dagger, and an assortment of other types of swords were on display. It seemed like this teacher had a similar hobby with Hylli. Was it an overarching similarity for those who use swords?

Swanhaden didn’t seem like he collected swords, but just weapons in general, right? I also had a few swords in my collection. A while ago, Hylli and I had fought amongst each other to get our hands on a dwarf sword. I had been kind of scared of Hylli when I had first seen him because he was the crown prince. Wow, what a long time ago.

While I was deep in my memories, the teacher took out a sword that was on the way bottom of the displays. The sword was wrapped in a white fabric that was so dusty that it seemed black. There was so much dust that both the teacher and myself sneezed and coughed from it.

“Here, Shuraina West. Here’s the old, withered sword that I promised.”
“……It really is old and withered.”

I said as I unwrapped the white fabric after receiving it. I would’ve believed it if I was told that it was a few hundred years old. It looked like it had almost lost its shape as a sword.

“This is exactly how it was since I bought it, so it’s basically brand new. I bought it because it looked mysterious, but it was only mysterious and nothing else. The blade is dull so it’s no use. You sharpen it on your own to use it.”
“……….”

Every time I even put my fingers on the sword, a mysterious dust seemed to fall off of it. I didn’t know if it was just dust or some component of the sword falling off, but I had a feeling that it was the latter.

“But, uh, you can cut fruit with it….?”

The teacher said, scratching the back of his head with a dull voice. He tried to send me off with a promise to give me this old, withering sword? Teacher, you scam artist.

“….Thank you. I’ll use it well.”
“As I thought, it’s too old, right? What about this main-gauche?”

I dragged the corners of my lips as high as I could and thanked him, but my smile still looked fake. The teacher seemed guilt-stricken at my reaction, and, with shaking hands, handed me the brand new main-gauche towards me.

“Oh, I’ll just take this.”

I rejected his main-gauche. His expression, begging me not to take it from him, was a sight to see.

“Shuraina, it was an amazing performance. It was incredible.”

When I refused the main-gauche, the teacher smiled widely as he pat me on my back. The pats were so strong that I almost broke the sword in my hands.

“I’ll be on my way now. Please hurry and go home.”

I smiled awkwardly at the teacher’s compliment as I greeted him. After turning away, I walked slightly fast to get out. I tried not to show how excited I was until I could see that the teacher was out of my line of sight.

I held the sword as if it was precious as I walked. Then, I walked slightly faster. I broke into a run.

The reason I didn’t take the teacher’s brand new main-gauche wasn’t because I was trying to be thoughtful. It was because I could feel a type of magic that only I could feel from this sword that seemed like it was a few hundred years old.

I had ended up getting something incredible.

Once I returned to my room, I carefully removed the dusty fabric off of the sword. As soon as I unwrapped it, a piece of metal and some pieces from the handle fell off.

“Eugh……..cough cough.”

An incredible amount of dust and particles seemed to fly into the air from the fabric. After coughing for a bit, I opened the windows to clear the air. If Hazel was here, she would’ve asked what kind of rubbish this was before demanding that I throw it away instead of spreading dust around. I thanked the universe that she was busy at work as I placed the sword on the ground.

As soon as the sword touched the floor, more pieces broke off as a black-colored magic bloomed from it. Black magic appeared so minimally that it was almost impossible to check for it visually, but I had a bit of black magic in my body that helped me feel it.

I poured a liquid that would help eliminate rust on a tray, then placed a handkerchief in the liquid.

After pulling up my sleeves and getting in position, I strained the wet handkerchief and carefully wiped the sword to prevent more pieces from breaking.

The more I cleaned, the more I could see its original form. It seemed like the teacher had bought it, judged that he couldn’t use it, and had never wiped it down properly. If he had even attempted to wipe it, there was no way he would’ve just handed over the sword to me.

Chapter 138:

“If there’s any white magic you want to use, tell me. There’s a lot of cool ones.”

Swan’s hand shone with bright, pearl-colored white magic. His arm was covered with suppression bracelets, but he still had so much magic left. I was so jealous. I couldn’t even use the magic that I had because it was still sprinkled with black magic.

“Can I call you over when I’m bored?”

Swanhaden turned his head to stare at me at my question. After a few seconds, he turned his head back to stare right in front of him. He slowly nodded.

Swanhaden, who had always been kind of uncomfortable to be with, was becoming more and more comfortable these days. I still felt a bit awkward next to him because we didn’t talk as much as I did with my other friends, but we had been involved in so many different things together that we were becoming close.

At his insistence for me to use any kind of white magic that I needed whenever, I remembered something and spoke up.

“Swanhaden.”

“What.”

“I’m tired.”

Swanhaden smiled slightly as he snapped his fingers.

I could feel strength flowing back into my body and was awed by Swan’s white magic. When I asked if I could use it often, Swan looked surprised before smiling.

It was a pretty, casual smile.

I couldn’t help but let out a sigh when I remembered how Eric had clung to me earlier. After changing out of that sheer, short outfit and returning back to the hall, I took out my checklist notebook from my bag.

“I couldn’t fill it all in the end….”

If I had just filled up one more box, then I would’ve filled up the first page of my dating checklist. The reason why I still wanted to date Eric even if I had lost all interest in him had been because of this. I knew it was a trash move, but so was he.

If I had just checked off the ‘Get to 100 days’ in my checklist, then I would’ve filled up all of the items on the first page of my list.

I suddenly remembered something that had happened before I died.

In my past life, there had been a time when I had seriously, solemnly wondered about my future, right before I became a legal adult. Even after I had become an adult, I always thought that my main job was to be a guardian to my youngest sibling until they became independent.

My entire life consisted of the responsibility I felt towards my younger siblings, and that meant that everything that I wanted took a back seat. I always thought that my wants were a luxury.

Because of that, anything that I wanted to do or accomplish had to be thrown aside. Responsibility was such a heavy, large feeling to me.

Instead of giving up, I made a list of all the things that I wanted to do to make myself feel better. I always told myself that if I didn’t forget it and wrote it down in a notebook, my future self would accomplish it for me.

Life was an endless mystery and had always thrown large curveballs at me, so I wrote all of my plans in a notebook. This was the same, for both this life and before.

First, my biggest goal was to have a safe and stable future. And then, planning long, mid, and short-term plans about that goal, checking each box every day, and completing those goals had become an everyday task for me.

I had begun erasing check boxes after my past memories returned, so all of the detailed, small boxes for my stable future were all checked off. Most of the mid-term plans were almost completed, and almost all of the long-term plans were almost done as well.

I should’ve been proud, but I felt strangely empty as I stared at it. I wanted all of the check boxes that I had written as a child to stay incomplete, but couldn’t wait until it was completely checked off and finished at the same time.

Anyway, the big goals were well on their way to completion, so I wanted to small, minute goals to be completed as well.

My small goals list was basically done except for my bucket list, and I didn’t want to leave any blank boxes in the list of check marks.

That was just how I felt.

I stared at the ‘Get to 100 days’ check box and wondered for a moment.

“Should I do a 100 day party celebrating my breakup with my friends?”

Lovers were in the bubble of important people, and friends existed in that same category as well. So if I had a party with my friends, then there wouldn’t be a big problem, right?

If I had just filled that one box with an ‘x’, my entire checklist would be filled. But just thinking about the fact that I had checked off the dating items with Eric bothered me, so I resigned myself to my fate.

In the end, I put my hand on the page with my dating checklist to rip it apart. I had just placed my hand on it, but a few other pages had flipped over too. I eyed an ‘x’ that felt alien to me. It was something that I had checked off, but it felt unfamiliar.

“………a kiss.”

It was something that my past self had checked, just so I could check something off of the dating list. There was nobody around me, but I couldn’t help but blush furiously at the rush of embarrassment that I felt.

When did I check this off? That wasn’t a kiss, that was me getting my lips bitten off.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I just ripped all of the sheets into pieces.

It was all useless.

Another wave of shame came over me. I threw my notebook to the ground.

Chapter 18. I Don’t Want the Main Character

At the end of the festival, I headed over to get the swordsmanship teacher’s sword, as was promised. It was basically community service on my part, so my teacher placed a lot of weight on my actions. Once class ended, I put all of my heavy books and items in my dorm, then headed to where the swordsmanship teacher was.

The teacher seemed like he was on his way home. He had changed to a normal work outfit from his training uniform, and was carrying his keys. His keys jangled as they went into his coat pocket. He seemed so happy to be going home that he didn’t seem to notice that I was there as he collected his belongings. I didn’t call him when he looked so busy, and just waited for him to notice me instead.

The teacher discovered me a bit late.

“Shuraina West? Did you have a question?”

The swordsmanship teacher held his document bag as he turned my way. It seemed like he had forgotten his promise.

I didn’t really need his sword, but I had just visited because I remembered it. I hesitated for a moment–I felt like it was a bit overkill to suddenly mention the promise from back then, and too much time had passed from then. But now that I was here, I felt like I couldn’t just leave without it.

“………when I went up on stage as the representative.”“Oh, right! I promised to give you the sword, right?”

Thankfully, it seemed like he hadn’t completely forgotten about the promise.

The teacher clapped once in remembrance, then rushed over to his desk. The teacher retrieved his keys from his coat pocket again. He took out a small gold key from the giant assortment of keys, then with his special hopping-walk of his, he headed to his personal locker.

When he opened his locker, there was an assortment of swords on display. A rapier, a main-gauche, a dagger, and an assortment of other types of swords were on display. It seemed like this teacher had a similar hobby with Hylli. Was it an overarching similarity for those who use swords?

Swanhaden didn’t seem like he collected swords, but just weapons in general, right? I also had a few swords in my collection. A while ago, Hylli and I had fought amongst each other to get our hands on a dwarf sword. I had been kind of scared of Hylli when I had first seen him because he was the crown prince. Wow, what a long time ago.

While I was deep in my memories, the teacher took out a sword that was on the way bottom of the displays. The sword was wrapped in a white fabric that was so dusty that it seemed black. There was so much dust that both the teacher and myself sneezed and coughed from it.

“Here, Shuraina West. Here’s the old, withered sword that I promised.”“……It really is old and withered.”

I said as I unwrapped the white fabric after receiving it. I would’ve believed it if I was told that it was a few hundred years old. It looked like it had almost lost its shape as a sword.

“This is exactly how it was since I bought it, so it’s basically brand new. I bought it because it looked mysterious, but it was only mysterious and nothing else. The blade is dull so it’s no use. You sharpen it on your own to use it.”“……….”

Every time I even put my fingers on the sword, a mysterious dust seemed to fall off of it. I didn’t know if it was just dust or some component of the sword falling off, but I had a feeling that it was the latter.

“But, uh, you can cut fruit with it….?”

The teacher said, scratching the back of his head with a dull voice. He tried to send me off with a promise to give me this old, withering sword? Teacher, you scam artist.

“….Thank you. I’ll use it well.”“As I thought, it’s too old, right? What about this main-gauche?”

I dragged the corners of my lips as high as I could and thanked him, but my smile still looked fake. The teacher seemed guilt-stricken at my reaction, and, with shaking hands, handed me the brand new main-gauche towards me.

“Oh, I’ll just take this.”

I rejected his main-gauche. His expression, begging me not to take it from him, was a sight to see.

“Shuraina, it was an amazing performance. It was incredible.”

When I refused the main-gauche, the teacher smiled widely as he pat me on my back. The pats were so strong that I almost broke the sword in my hands.

“I’ll be on my way now. Please hurry and go home.”

I smiled awkwardly at the teacher’s compliment as I greeted him. After turning away, I walked slightly fast to get out. I tried not to show how excited I was until I could see that the teacher was out of my line of sight.

I held the sword as if it was precious as I walked. Then, I walked slightly faster. I broke into a run.

The reason I didn’t take the teacher’s brand new main-gauche wasn’t because I was trying to be thoughtful. It was because I could feel a type of magic that only I could feel from this sword that seemed like it was a few hundred years old.

I had ended up getting something incredible.

Once I returned to my room, I carefully removed the dusty fabric off of the sword. As soon as I unwrapped it, a piece of metal and some pieces from the handle fell off.

“Eugh……..cough cough.”

An incredible amount of dust and particles seemed to fly into the air from the fabric. After coughing for a bit, I opened the windows to clear the air. If Hazel was here, she would’ve asked what kind of rubbish this was before demanding that I throw it away instead of spreading dust around. I thanked the universe that she was busy at work as I placed the sword on the ground.

As soon as the sword touched the floor, more pieces broke off as a black-colored magic bloomed from it. Black magic appeared so minimally that it was almost impossible to check for it visually, but I had a bit of black magic in my body that helped me feel it.

I poured a liquid that would help eliminate rust on a tray, then placed a handkerchief in the liquid.

After pulling up my sleeves and getting in position, I strained the wet handkerchief and carefully wiped the sword to prevent more pieces from breaking.

The more I cleaned, the more I could see its original form. It seemed like the teacher had bought it, judged that he couldn’t use it, and had never wiped it down properly. If he had even attempted to wipe it, there was no way he would’ve just handed over the sword to me.