Genius Prismatic Mage Chapter 329

#329. Side story 2. The girl in the marble (5)

Past. Memory. Restoration.

Words that would not have had much value separately were gathered into one sentence and radiating a great light of meaning.

Heart pounding.

My heart was pounding.

My mind became dizzy.

What happened next was an act of God.

Curiossa rushed to the desk and began to frantically search through the research materials placed on it.

Flap! Flap! Swish! Swish!

Unfolded, turned, and flipped through.

I read every single sentence of every piece of material at a fast pace, without missing a single word.

'The handwriting is the same for each document.'

The materials, all of which were presumed to have been written by the owner of the lab, dealt with an unheard-of magic known as Restoration Magic.

Through magic, you can restore forgotten memories of the past.

That was the gist of the material.

'That's ridiculous.'

There are things in this world that cannot be undone no matter what you do.

Or words that have already been spoken.

Or maybe it's a memory that's already been forgotten.

Or hair that has already fallen out.

But is it possible to restore memories?

I couldn't believe it.

But the logic and systematic nature of the data were suggestive.

This is magic that can be implemented.

Palak.

When the last page of the material was finally turned, Curiosa's back was soaked with sweat from excitement and thrill.

And the moment I turned my immersed mind around.

“That’s a very interesting theory.”

“Oh, shit, this is surprising.”

I almost fell over when I saw Ray standing right next to me.

“… Kid, how many times have I told you not to show up so suddenly?”

“It wasn’t all of a sudden. It had been here for a long time.”

Curiosa checked her watch.

More than an hour had passed already.

Veronica and her siblings were also downstairs, seemingly having already finished exploring the lab.

Binggle.

Ray turned around and looked at the lab as he continued.

“The owner of this lab seems to have been suffering from a disease that is causing him to lose his memory.”

“A disease that causes you to lose your memory…?”

“Yeah. If I were to guess from what was written in the diary.”

Ray shook out a thick, worn leather journal that fit tightly in his hand.

The owner of the lab was a young wizard from the 4th Circle who lived decades ago.

"I've traveled the world and gained as much experience as I can. Now I'll devote the rest of my life to research and invent magic that will astonish the world."

Returning to his hometown of Sector 49, he set about setting up his laboratory with great ambition.

Inventing your own magic that never existed before in the world.

It was one of the ultimate goals that every wizard dreams of.

Of course, the difficulty level was close to extreme, but he had the passion, time, and talent necessary to reach his dream.

But then tragedy struck.

One early morning, he woke up and realized something.

“What…what is my name…?”

No matter how much I thought about it, my own name just wouldn't come to mind.

For a moment, an indescribable fear and horror came over me.

─Kudangtang!

I was so scared that I ran around the house looking for everything.

Only then was I able to get my name back by signing a document.

And the next day.

“Where is this…?”

After staring blankly at his surroundings for a while, he realized that it was the house he lived in.

And I could sense it.

What happened yesterday wasn't just an incident caused by fatigue.

“Why is this thing here…?”

“I don’t know…! I don’t remember…!”

“I don’t know who you are or what your relationship is with me…!”

At first, the memory loss was mild, such as the names of objects or places, but it got worse over time.

He realized that he was falling apart like a sand castle.

It was a disease.

The name and cause are unknown.

Every morning, one memory disappears.

Every time the symptoms occurred, he desperately tried to regain his memories, but it was only a temporary measure.

It wasn't simply a problem of daily life becoming impossible.

"I, who am I? Who am I? Who the hell am I?"

A wizard whose ego inevitably becomes much more developed than that of an ordinary person.

As a wizard, losing myself was a disaster beyond imagination.

There was only one thing left to do.

The idea was to invent a magic that would restore memories.

The passion, effort, and time that he had originally prepared for his dream ended up being used for his own survival.

Fortunately, the research was successful.

Because I was able to complete the magic before I completely forgot about myself.

widely.

Ray said, covering the journal.

“But it probably wouldn’t have been easy. You would have had to use restoration magic every single day without fail to combat your disintegrating self.”

He used objects with strong traces of himself as a medium for memory restoration magic.

Or something you use often.

Or a place you frequently visit.

That was also the reason why the laboratory was built in a shallow underground area, close to the sector.

His hometown, Sector 49, was a place full of memories for him.

It became his routine to wake up and first thing he did was check the note he had written the night before.

“You… go to the places listed below in order and use restoration magic. This will help you to resolve the confusion in your memory that you are currently experiencing.”

By following the contents of the note, I was able to figure out who he was.

I was able to spend the rest of the day being my true self, and at the end of the day, I wrote a note to myself the next day with the same content I had read.

Strictly speaking, it wasn't exactly the same content.

The total amount of memory loss is increasing.

Because the number of places to visit also increases every day.

“And then one day you will fail to remember yourself.”

“… … .”

“Either you made a mistake when using the restoration magic, or your memory recovery speed couldn’t keep up with your memory loss speed. That’s why you couldn’t return to the lab.”

The continuation of identity from day to day was like tightrope walking.

What if the tightrope that had to be crossed was getting longer every day?

“… … .”

Curiosa somehow became solemn.

Perhaps it is because he himself has similar concerns about memory, albeit to a lesser degree.

Even though he was a complete stranger whose face I had never even seen before, I felt sorry for the hard life he must have endured.

'I was wondering if I could use this person's magic to get my memories back.'

Is that really true?

Is it okay for a country to use the achievements of the deceased for human greed?

I guess that's… … .

Hurrah!

“Then I will discard all of these materials.”

“No, no, wait, kid, you have to listen to what people think until the end. Hey, dude, aren’t you going to put out that fire?”

Curiossa quickly stopped Ray from starting a fire to burn all the data.

“So, are you thinking of trying magic?”

"hmm…."

Curiosa thought for a moment.

But in fact, the answer was already set.

Who am I?

It was a question like a barrier in life that would always stand there unless it was broken through.

“… Kid, help me.”

"okay."

Restoration magic was a new form of magic that did not exist in the existing magic world.

Although the types of elements required were small, the formulas were long and difficult enough to fill up the entire wall of the lab.

A level of extreme difficulty that only the person who invented magic would dare to attempt.

But that wasn't a problem.

Woof!

Because there was a being here who could unleash any kind of magic at his fingertips.

Colorful mana bloomed in the air and became entangled like threads.

Veronica and her two sisters came around and looked at me nervously.

Curiosa took out the snowball.

“… If this is really my thing, I might be able to recall my memories.”

His voice trembled slightly.

It was impossible to hide the tension.

Snowball floated into the air between Ray and Curiosa, enveloped in colorful mana.

“According to the data, the basic principle of restoration magic is that the memories contained in the medium are revived in the subject’s mind.”

Wooooowow─!

“However, there are variables. The way the magic manifests can vary depending on how strong the medium’s memories are. The subject’s current psychological state also has a big impact. In other words.”

Woooo …

“I’m saying that I don’t know exactly what will happen when I cast restoration magic. Is that okay?”

The decision has already been made.

Curiosa nodded.

Mana continued to cry while they entangled each other and worked their magic.

Kkirik─ Kkirik─

The pressure caused the snowball's mainspring to wind on its own.

Whioooo──!

The sand inside the glass bead also fluttered.

And the girl on the step also started to move.

Pfft!

Light filled the space.

*

Wiggle.

Curiosa regained consciousness and slowly got up.

I found the substance flowing down the black cloth and muttered absentmindedly.

"sand…?"

I looked around slowly.

An endless expanse of dry land.

It was a very familiar landscape, a wilderness.

Why am I here?

Surely you were in the basement research lab under the bookstore just a moment ago?

I was embarrassed.

No, it was absurd.

Curiosa tried to come up with a hypothesis within the scope of his common sense to understand this situation.

First, the little guy sent me here to play a prank.

“Well, rejected.”

It's not that the guy never gets playful, but it's not like this.

Second, the formulas on the wall were not formulas for restoration magic, but were actually formulas for ordinary space movement magic.

“This isn’t it either.”

The formulas on the wall were definitely real.

What brought Curiosa, who was groaning and clutching her head, back to her senses was nothing other than a tingling sensation.

“?”

That is, the tingling sensation felt on the skin covered with black cloth.

As I raised my head, the blazing sun in the sky came into view.

It wasn't anything strange.

Because this was a wilderness in broad daylight.

The only problem was that he usually used cooling magic to maintain his body temperature, so he never felt hot.

'Did the magic break while moving through space?'

A phenomenon that is not normally experienced.

Curiosa tilted her head and used her cooling magic again.

and.

“?”

I felt a great sense of embarrassment.

“No, why doesn’t this work?”

No matter how many times I tried, sweating profusely, the magic didn't work.

Curios, who had been straining her senses inside her body, soon realized that the ring was completely undetectable.

Also, no mana was felt at all in the surrounding atmosphere.

As if it were a world where the substance called mana never existed in the first place.

A state of complete vacuum of mana.

This was my first experience of this kind, and I had never seen this phenomenon mentioned in any magic book.

“I’m dreaming right now….”

Curiosa, who had been muttering to herself, turned her head to the right.

It was because the white-haired little boy suddenly appeared and it was a startling moment.

Fortunately, there was no one there.

The moment I returned my head to its original position with relief.

“I think it’s because there’s no mana around here that this isn’t the real world.”

“This is driving me crazy.”

Curiossa noticed Ray appearing on the left and momentarily grabbed his thumping heart.

“Why on earth are you doing that? Huh? Why are you doing that to me?”

“At first, I thought the magic had failed or that I had misunderstood the formula, but upon closer inspection, I realized that wasn’t the case.”

He was a little boy who didn't respond to screams and only said what he wanted to say.

Curiosa became liberated.

“…But what? This isn’t the real world?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I wonder what this little boy ate wrong.

Even though mana has disappeared, everywhere I look it feels like the real world.

Then Ray raised his hand.

“If I’m right, this is.”

He pointed his finger toward the sky.

“This is the inside of a snowball.”

Beyond the clouds, a huge glass curtain, covered in scratches, gleamed.