When I was a child, my mother always used to say,
“You are a shining light.”
She said I was her light and her hope.
Then she’d hold both my hands tightly. Smile, and wrap me in her arms.
Back then, I was too young to understand, and I felt embarrassed by the warmth of her embrace.
I thought I was all grown up. It was just a typical boy’s foolish pride.
And so, I didn’t know.
I didn’t understand the value of the love whispered in your voice.
I didn’t realize the comfort of a mother’s arms.
I had no idea how precious the warmth I felt in her hands truly was.
Yes…
I thought everyday happiness was just a given.
Whenever she held me close, I’d blush and try to pull away.
Any chance I got, I was desperate to show her I could do everything on my own.
Not knowing what she must’ve felt in those moments.
What a foolish son I was.
At fourteen, I was just an immature boy.
But at the same time, I was also the heir to a once-great house of mages.
Though it had fallen into decline over the generations, our family’s name still came up now and then among storytellers, and that legacy had not yet vanished. It had reached me.
The story begins on my fourteenth birthday, in the depths of a bitterly cold winter so harsh that frost clung to the windows.
Our fallen mage family was poor. Naturally, even burning firewood was a luxury.
In the cold of winter, just going near the window brought a chill that seeped into your bones.
As usual, I was bundled up in layers of blankets, sitting in a rocking chair and carving a wooden doll.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
“Ugh, come on! Stop doing weird stuff like that.”
Mother had come up behind me and hugged me from behind. Of course, I flinched in surprise and shuddered.
I had no idea what emotions were behind that embrace.
“I’m sorry. I just love you so much. Here, this is for you. Happy birthday.”
While I frowned in discomfort, she kissed my forehead and handed me a thick envelope.
Sealed with red wax, the stiff envelope had an unmistakably refined feel to it.
“What is this?”
It was the first time I’d ever received an envelope as a birthday present, so I stupidly asked what it was.
In response, she just smiled softly and gave a little nod, as if telling me to open it myself.
When I broke the seal and checked the contents, my eyes widened in shock.
Of course they did. Because inside was a letter of recommendation for admission to the Magic Tower, something I had only dreamed about.
“Mom! Thank you so much!”
I jumped into her arms without hesitation.
“Oh my, look at you.”
It had been so long since I was the one to hug her first that she seemed a bit startled, but as always, she gently stroked my hair with that familiar, warm smile.
“You’re that happy?”
“Yes! Of course!”
My head was filled with the kind of fantasies typical for a boy entering adolescence.
I couldn’t stop imagining myself leaving home, training at the Tower, and rebuilding our family’s legacy.
Excitement and pride flared up inside me.
So focused was I on the letter of recommendation that I failed to notice the faint shadow behind my mother’s smile.
And just like that….right up to the end—
I left for the capital, where the Tower stood, never once realizing the burden she carried.
***
Life at the Tower, which I’d arrived at with so much hope, turned out to be far harsher than I’d expected.
The fantasy of quickly awakening my talent and restoring my family’s name was shattered almost immediately.
And it was no surprise.
At the time, I was nothing more than an ordinary teenage boy who had never even learned proper magic.
I was a fool who thought that just getting into the Tower would somehow make everything fall into place.
But there was no hidden talent within me—
No special power, no miracle waiting to be revealed.
I was just one of countless apprentice mages,
Not the uniquely brilliant child my mother always said I was.
If anything, I was a laughingstock. An embarrassment.
Still, I kept pushing forward, comforting myself and doing my best.
Even when I became a joke for failing to sense mana during my first class.
Even when the girl I liked sneered at me, calling me a clueless country bumpkin.
Even when I was humiliated for being unable to perform a single proper spell and labeled a “half-baked mage”.
I endured it all.
Right. Up until that point, everything was still okay.
I was just a late starter, that’s all. If I worked several times harder than everyone else, I could catch up…
That’s what I told myself.
I clenched my teeth and pushed forward.
Every day, I trained until my overloaded mana circuits were on the verge of bursting.
I squeezed every last minute from the day, pouring it into rereading magic texts others discarded without a second glance.
I was always the first to sit down and the last to get up from my desk.
And in time, my efforts began to pay off.
I started keeping up in class. And once I caught up, I began to improve more steadily—
A virtuous cycle.
The show-offs were overtaken in test scores, the loudmouths were silenced in duels,
And if there had been hundreds of apprentice mages when we first entered,
By the end, only a handful had reached my level.
Yeah. I wasn’t talentless. I was just late to start.
Just like Mother always said, I was someone who shone.
But…
That was arrogance born of not having faced true despair.
Ten years had passed.
I was working on an assignment in the library when I stepped out briefly to clear my head in the restroom.
But when I returned—
There was a small kid, probably around ten years old,
Sitting in my seat, scribbling something.
My heart jumped as I remembered the half-finished assignment, and I rushed over to grab the girl’s wrist.
But it was already too late.
The paper I’d worked on for the past month was now covered in the child’s messy doodles.
The realization that all my work had gone to waste in an instant made my hands tremble with anger.
“Ow!”
The girl yelped, and it was only then I realized I’d reacted emotionally. I let go of her wrist.
But I couldn’t stop the fury boiling up inside me as I glared at her.
“…Do you even know what you just did? Why would you do something like this?”
“Um… well…”
“Answer me.”
Pressed by my voice, she hesitated for a long moment before finally speaking.
“I thought… maybe it would be simpler if you solved it this way…”
“…What?”
“Eep! I-I’m sorry!”
It took me a few seconds to process what she had said.
I hurriedly turned my gaze to the table, forcing myself to stay calm as I scanned over the assignment sheet objectively.
My eyes, which had been narrowed in disbelief, gradually widened over time, and soon even my mouth hung open, unable to close.
What the girl had scribbled wasn’t a doodle. It was a diagram. A conceptual diagram capturing the core of the assignment!
A ten-year-old child had solved in a glance what I had struggled with for an entire month.
It felt like I’d been struck in the head with a hammer. Only then did things I hadn’t noticed before begin to come into focus.
There weren’t any complex symbols or notations in the diagram. It used only basic shapes and simple equations to express the idea as a truth.
There wasn’t even a trace of the advanced formulas that are considered essential in high-level magic.
Yes….she had identified the core of the problem relying solely on instinct and intuition!
The reason the key structure was a diagram rather than an equation was likely because that was the only kind of “knowledge” the girl possessed.
“Um… was I… not supposed to help you?”
I started to think that true despair might just be another name for the kindness of a genius.
In the face of her talent, I felt like nothing more than moonlight reflected in water or a firefly beneath the sun. The overwhelming gap was dizzying.
“Oh my! Miss, there you are! You’re going to be the death of me, I swear!”
It was something I overheard from the servant who had arrived late. As it turned out, the girl whose wrist I had grabbed was the heir to a famous and prestigious family in this field.
I watched blankly as she bickered with the servant. Countless thoughts and emotions churned through my mind.
Magic is a path of power passed down through generations.
If a true genius were to receive the full support of a great family. If that girl were to put in the same effort I did—
Could I surpass a true genius?
No, do I even deserve to?
Could I, with my talent alone, surpass the efforts accumulated over dozens of generations, the inherited path of magic that had become a legacy?
Do I have what it takes?
Was there not a single one of her ancestors who had worked as hard as I have?
If even one of their achievements reached this girl and she also put in the effort, could I possibly surpass that combined strength of talent and hard work?
Half-hearted talent is worse than none at all.
I finally understood what those old words meant.
“I’m sorry, big brother. I’ll give you a proper apology next time.”
Until the girl left the library.
I couldn’t say or do anything.
I simply stared blankly at the girl’s retreating figure, as if gazing at a distant place far beyond my reach.
Suppressing my trembling hands, I made my way back to the dormitory.
──────────
—To my beloved son.
──────────
In the eyes of a young man wounded by harsh reality, there was no way mother’s letter would catch my attention.
It was something that came regularly. It was just another part of my routine.
Skipping it just this once wouldn’t make much of a difference.
With a sudden motion, I crumpled the letter and left it shoved in a corner of the drawer.
To be honest,
I couldn’t bring myself to face it. The confident image of myself when I’d left home burned hot in my cheeks.
I was ashamed of the way he had charged ahead, oblivious to reality.
***
In the end, I couldn’t avoid failing that semester.
I had spent the rest of the term in a daze, completely out of it.
“I can’t focus on anything… I might as well just go home.”
As soon as break began, I left the dorms and headed back to my hometown.
I had been so buried in magic that this was my first time returning since entering the tower.
Outside the carriage window, the distant scenery of my hometown looked both familiar and strange.
Maybe it was because the passion I’d once seen reflected in the glass on my way to the tower had faded, replaced by the heavy sighs of a weary young man.
When I finally arrived home,
I realized I had been secretly hoping my mother would come out to greet me.
I’d sent her a letter in advance. So of course, I thought she would.
Now that I was older, I understood:
The love she’d given me had been something rare, something special.
I was ready to meet her without hesitation, to hold her tightly when she came running out in her socks.
But instead, I was met with silence. Nothing but silence.
Even though we lived in a poor neighborhood,
There were no signs of break-ins or thieves. Protective magic made that much clear.
Only one thing was certain.
No one lives in this house anymore.
If someone did, there wouldn’t be dust gathered on the latch of the front gate.
No matter how small a one-room house built in the suburbs may be, what else could you call a place left in such neglect, if not a ruin?
I pushed the door open with hurried steps.
There was no warmth inside, no sign of anyone. Only the thick layer of dust showed how long the house had gone without care.
And on the rocking chair my mother used to hold me in—
──────────
—to my beloved son.
──────────
A letter began with the familiar greeting. The neat handwriting was unmistakably my mother’s. I carefully picked it up and unfolded it.
[I don’t know when this letter will reach you, my son.]
I silently continued reading.
[I never said it, but the clock given to me runs a little fast. Since when, you ask? Of course, since the day I was born. It’s not your fault, so don’t worry about that.]
[Thanks to it, I was able to meet your father, and I was able to meet you, so it’s fine. But there is one thing I regret.]
[Just.]
[Just…….]
[I wanted to stay with you for as long as possible. I wanted to see everything…your graduation, you meeting someone you love and building a family, just like everyone else.]
[But it seems the time given to me ends here, and that makes me so sad.]
[You’re not reading this with a girlfriend next to you, are you? If so, please read this again later when you’re alone.]
[Just as you used to get embarrassed, your mom gets embarrassed by embarrassing things too.]
The line had a hint of playfulness, yet….why was it? I couldn’t smile at all.
[I asked you to come this time if you could, but of course, you were tired and busy with your studies, so you couldn’t make it. Mom understands.]
I remembered the crumpled letter. A disaster born from a single moment of emotion. My head spun at the thought of that irreversible choice.
[Son, do you remember when you were little? You didn’t like it when I hugged you every day and held your hand. It embarrassed you. Will you forgive this selfish desire of mine?]
[I wanted to stay with you longer.]
[My son.]
[Mom loves you, and I’m sorry.]
When I finished reading the letter, I couldn’t move.
Only—
Only that I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe. My chest ached.
It was like someone had stuffed my lungs with wet paper. It was tight and suffocating.
Blocked. Completely.
What could she have been feeling?
When she sent me off to the tower, wanting to see me happy even while knowing she didn’t have much time left… did she already know how it would end?
When I smiled so brightly at the thought of being away from her—
Mother, what were you feeling then?
Did you know your son would turn out to be a heartless child who wouldn’t visit even once in all those years?
And even knowing that, would you still have made the same choice?
Would you still have let me go?
You would have.
Even if you’d known, you would have sent me anyway.
Because that’s the kind of person you were. Because it would help me.
Because I loved it.
Because you…because you chose to be my mother first, rather than just a person.
Of course you did.
Mother.
***
After a few days, once I’d managed to get a hold of my emotions, I headed to the basement, where the family’s library and laboratory were located.
As the letter had said, she was there, preserved, laid to rest in the underground archive.
She must have done that herself, too.
Unless they die away from home, this is how most mages leave the world—
So that a part of their magic can be passed down to their descendants.
Mother must have hoped I would absorb her magic as well.
Even if it wasn’t much, she would have wanted it to help me in some way.
But I didn’t absorb the magic from her body.
Because I am a heartless son. A terrible child.
So I decided to go against her final wish as well.
I held her cold lifeless hand and made a vow.
No matter what it takes—
By any means necessary, I will make you smile again.
I will return warmth to this hand.
And the letters I never got to read, I will hear from your own voice.
Until that moment comes, my heart and body are nothing more than tools to achieve that goal.
The self known as “me” will be set aside.
A magical vow is the manifestation of a mage’s powerful will—
Strong resolve and a clear purpose are what drive a mage, blindly and relentlessly, to grow stronger.
I sealed the basement door and added magical reinforcement.
Then, after reactivating the house’s protective magic one last time,
I headed straight for the tower.
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