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Chapter 3
“That’s what I said too. To my mother—no, your grandmother.”
Now it was my turn to be shocked.
“Wow… I guess like mother, like daughter.”
In her previous life, those were words Selli would have hated hearing. But in this life, she happily said them herself.
Until then, her mother had been staring at her with a strange unreadable expression. Only now did she finally smile.
“I know. The fact that you’re saying the same thing I once did… what a strange twist of fate.”
Selli’s mother had also grown up in a single-parent household. And apparently, her grandmother had wanted to live in this forest forever too—but her mother developed another dream and gave it up.
“So you left the forest and achieved your dream?”
“I did.”
“Then I can too—”
“But I lost my mother instead.”
“…Huh?”
Why would it turn out like that?
Selli already knew her grandmother had died before she was born, but she had never imagined it had something to do with her mother.
“How did that happen?”
“The outside world was too dangerous. If I had never left…”
Her mother only gave vague answers before gently cupping Selli’s cheeks in both hands, as though holding a precious treasure.
She was seeing the face of her beloved mother in her daughter.
‘I look exactly like Grandma.’
Selli had once seen a picture of her grandmother beside her mother’s bed.
“Selli, why did Mommy say the outside world is dangerous?”
“Because the Demon King appears.”
Selli had always assumed that was just one of those lies adults told children to scare them into behaving, like “The ghost will get you” or “The sack man will come take you away.”
‘…Mom was serious this whole time?’
The Demon King really had existed in this world. But according to books, some incredibly powerful heroes defeated him ten years ago.
Yet her mother was still terrified of a Demon King who no longer existed.
“I just…”
Tears welled in the eyes staring blankly at her daughter. Her mother looked on the verge of breaking down before suddenly pulling Selli into a tight embrace.
“I don’t want to lose someone again.”
Did Grandma die because of the Demon King?
Now that she knew the reason, Selli finally understood her mother’s irrational fear.
‘She kept me trapped in this forest because she was afraid I’d die in the outside world like Grandma did.’
When she first learned her mother had hidden the admission letters, Selli had worried she’d ended up with another terrible parent again. But after hearing the circumstances, she only felt sorry for her.
But the Demon King is gone now.
Even so, her mother still lived under his shadow.
“When I lost my mother, I realized something. I don’t need anything else. As long as I have you, that’s enough.”
Still holding Selli’s hands, her mother clenched both fists tightly and made a promise.
“Selli. You don’t have to give up your dream.”
…Wait. Just like that, she was suddenly allowing her to attend Spellmore?
“I’ll ask the Dryad aunties to teach you magic instead.”
There it is.
At this point, Selli admitted defeat. Her mother was impossible to persuade.
“Dryads are the strongest mages in the world anyway, right?”
Nod.
“And you like them too, don’t you?”
Nod nod.
Selli obediently nodded along with everything her mother said.
Her relieved mother would never realize the truth:
That her daughter was only agreeing so she could gain the momentum to disobey her later.
And so, Selli ran away from home.
To the greatest magic school in the empire—
Spellmore Academy.
Before dawn on the day before the entrance ceremony, Selli packed her belongings.
‘If the outside world really is dangerous, I should bring a weapon, right?’
The moment she pulled it from the kitchen cabinet, the moonlight gleamed sharply across the deadly object.
It was…
A barbecue skewer.
There were no evil people in the forest, but there were hungry beasts. After Selli once witnessed a giant eagle snatch up a mountain goat as large as herself, her mother had taught her:
“If something tries to eat you, stab it with this.”
“……”
“Fast as lightning!”
“……”
“Accurate as a machine!”
How to make eagle kebabs.
If she walked through civilized society carrying a lamb skewer stick, crowds would probably split apart like the sea. Nobody messes with crazy people, after all.
Therefore: self-defense, check.
But low blood sugar doesn’t care whether someone’s crazy or not, so sandwiches: check.
And school registration before 9 AM tomorrow…
Tiptoe, tiptoe.
Sneaking into her mother’s bedroom, Selli stood beside her sleeping mother and pulled out a sheet of paper from behind her back.
The enrollment consent form.
‘Good thing I hid this. I had a bad feeling about it.’
At the bottom, the fingerprint symbol in the parent consent section shimmered with rainbow colors. Even though it was paper, it looked almost like a smartphone lock screen.
‘This is my first time seeing something like this…’
She really hadn’t paid much attention to the outside world.
Quick-witted in both her past and present lives, Selli carefully pressed the rainbow fingerprint symbol against the fingertips of her snoring mother.
Press.
Nothing stained her hand, yet her mother’s black fingerprint appeared on the paper, and words emerged beneath it.
Enrollment consent has been accepted.
Registration, check!
Preparation for running away: complete!
…Almost.
Selli quietly gazed at her mother, who was sleeping peacefully without the slightest clue her daughter was about to run away.
Then she lowered her head.
Kiss.
As puberty slowly approached, she hadn’t kissed her mother much lately. But now she gently pressed a kiss to her mother’s cheek and whispered:
“Mom, I love you.”
And I’m sorry.
She hoped her mother would someday understand the feelings she couldn’t yet say aloud.
‘It’s not because I hate you that I’m leaving.’
Selli didn’t want to leave her mother either.
‘But children have to leave their mother’s embrace to become adults.’
She wasn’t sure where she had heard those words before, but repeating them helped soothe the sadness swelling inside her as she prepared to leave home.
‘It’s time to go.’
She slung her overstuffed bag over her shoulders and headed for the front door, when suddenly—
Tap tap tap tap.
Tiny footsteps followed behind her.
Turning around, she saw the chick her family had taken indoors yesterday after a rooster kept bullying it. The chick blinked sleepily and toddled after her.
“Piyak, please take care of my mom while I’m gone.”
As she placed it back into the box, the chick’s eyes suddenly snapped wide open. Puffing out its fluffy yellow chest proudly, it declared:
“I’m runnin’ away from this shitty house too!”
“…What?”
There was one downside to understanding animals.
You learned that their speech wasn’t nearly as cute as their appearance.
“Ever heard the phrase ‘running away is a solo activity’?”
She was already going to have to survive alone in a ten-year-old body. Adding another mouth to feed?
Even with a knife to her throat—
“I’ll wake your mom up.”
Smack!
At those words, Selli instantly pinched the chick’s tiny beak shut.
“Fine. But if we run away together, we each go our separate ways later, got it?”
“O-okay. Future hens that lay one protein-rich egg a day for runaway kids are wanted everywhere anyway.”
“Hmmm… a hen, huh?”
Come to think of it, she had no idea how meals worked at Spellmore. A chicken could become both an important protein source and a small source of income.
When Selli bent down and opened the front pocket of her overalls, the chick hopped right inside.
‘Heheh, Selli’s dumb. She won’t be able to abandon me.’
Naturally, Selli couldn’t hear that thought. She could understand animals, not read minds.
Now this was a real runaway.
Stepping outside the cabin, Selli pulled a worn compass from her pocket and held it under the bright moonlight.
“Okay… if north is that way, then west is over there.”
Yesterday, she had already asked the birds for directions.
They didn’t know where Spellmore was, but every bird agreed the nearest human settlement was west.
So Selli quickly began walking down the western trail.
“If you leave at sunrise, you’ll arrive when the sun is overhead.”
That advice came from birds. Flying birds.
They had no idea how long it would actually take a human child to walk there.
Still, her registration was already complete, so her acceptance couldn’t be canceled.
‘But this time, I’m definitely attending the entrance ceremony.’
As Selli hurried forward, she suddenly froze.
“Child of the forest…”
A voice drifted past her ear on the wind, sending chills crawling across her skin.
The moment she stopped, the dandelion blooming on the dirt path ahead suddenly began growing wildly.
In an instant, it became larger than Selli herself.
The flower stalk thickened like a tree trunk and blocked the road.
Then, from behind the enormous dandelion, a woman stepped forward.
It was too dark to clearly see her face.
But from that elegant yet firm stride alone, Selli immediately recognized who it was.
