Sylvia’s Dwelling

Sylvia Indrath's POV:

"What exactly is that wolf-like beast?"

After a good laugh at little Ben's expense, I took a closer look at the wolf-like mana beast that was somehow able to talk and from what I could tell was able to wield Aether and Mana near perfectly.

How interesting.

"Oh me, I'm Regis and I'm-"

"Regis don't-"

"MAJESTIC AS FUCK!"

The cave was silent other than the sound of hands slapping their faces as the boys facepalmed. I couldn't help but let out a howl of laughter, though at the cost of a pain in my side.

Damn wound.

Arthur walked up to me before bowing and began to profusely apologize for Regis's behavior.

"I am truly sorry for his behavior; he is very misbehaved due to the nature of his birth."

Hmmm? How interesting. As I thought that Regis leaped back into his body for whatever reason.

"Explain."

"Regis is a sentient weapon capable of wielding Mana and Aether, he was born from a combination of several different people's Mana including you, your daughter, myself and a retainer by the name of Uto."

He growled out the last part, I didn't recognize the name, but that doesn't matter.

It was just as I thought and saw in his memories…

He came back from the future.

"Come here children, you've both had a long journey to get here."

Arthur teared up before smiling at me, a brilliant smile that could light up the world. Ben approached as well, he seemed much more comfortable with my presence than I had expected, but as Arthur made his way up onto my throne something unexpected happened.

My egg cracked.

—

Arthur Leywin's POV:

It seems that you're back sooner than expected, Sylvie.

I watched as the egg hidden within the throne began to hatch to reveal the small dragon that I knew as my daughter. As the egg cracked to reveal her, I couldn't help but cry with relief that I wouldn't have to wait for her to be born for another several years.

The final part of the egg cracked causing the shell to fall apart based on Sylvia's reaction I guessed that she was holding back tears at the sight, Sylvie quickly stretched her body like a cat and tried to talk though all that came out was a loud 'kyuu' she immediately grimaced and looked thoroughly annoyed by the revelation that she couldn't speak yet.

Sylvie turned to view the unfamiliar surroundings, her gaze landing on me, she quickly rushed to me and pounded her head into my sternum asking for a hug. Yeah, this is the Sylvie I remember.

Hugging her tightly I held onto my daughter while Sylvia watched with fascination, although she was silent, I could tell she realized that Sylvie was from the future as well. Pulling Sylvie out of my chest she quickly readjusted her aim for my arm where she had bit me before, landing her blow I felt a searing pain on my arm that established the connection between us.

Not long after I heard her thoughts in my head.

'Papa! Where are we?'

She moved her head to observe the surroundings for a moment before finally noticing Sylvia was there, jumping from my arms she made her way to Sylvia's lap and looked up at her mother. Sylvia finally spoke her first words since her daughter's birth while Ben remained silent at the heartwarming scene.

"It's nice to meet you, my daughter, though I believe if Arthur's memories served me correctly, your name is Sylvie."

Sylvie kyuu an affirmative.

'We are with your mother Sylvie.'

—

Benjamin Leywin's POV:

"It's nice to meet you, my daughter, though I believe if Arthur's memories served me correctly, your name is Sylvie."

As I watched the scene play out silently, I noticed that the little baby appeared like a dragon from the books in the library. Wait… even though those books say that dragons are extinct the books also tell us that there is only one continent. How accurate could those books be if they didn't even know everything about our own continent?

I decided that I should make my presence known.

"Umm… is that a dragon?"

Sylvie abruptly looked at me and then slowly turned towards my brother. He seemed to have a look on his face of fear you only feel when you have upset a woman. Sylvie's expression was scarier, it looked like my mother's face when she was upset with us or dad. I grimaced as Sylvie jumped at my brother 'kyuu'ing loudly as if yelling something inexplicable, but then it came to me, it was about me, of course, I didn't exist in the original timeline.

"Sylvie, I can explain!"

My brother yelled despite receiving scratches all over his face, Sylvie stopped and perched herself atop his head in a fairly noble and regal manner as if to say, 'I'm listening.'

My brother started using the memory sharing ability that he had shown to me, after he was finished Sylvie facepalmed and had her paws on her temples rubbing them as if dealing with a headache.

"Now what?"

I asked, seeing as this conversation so far was going nowhere. They all looked at me expecting me to lead the conversation from this point forward. I rubbed my temples, following Sylvie's example, to deal with my throbbing temples. I thought for a moment before saying.

"It seems that we are at an impasse with the current amount of knowledge that we have, so I would like to suggest that you tell us more about the future, however only enough so that we know what will happen in the immediate future and enough to know what to do without changing the future in a way that takes the future out of our control."

I directed my statement towards my brother, he just nodded and began explaining.

"Nothing much important that is within our ability to change happens over the next four months, that is until Sylvia dies, but if you agree with me, I can change that."

Sylvia didn't seem surprised, but I was, Sylvia the one who had saved us was dying, I could only imagine the pain I would have experienced if I had spent months with her before seeing her die.

"What do you mean when you said that you can change that, Arthur?"

Sylvia was the one who asked that question, though if she hadn't, I would've been the one to ask the question myself.

"What I mean is that the process of time travel requires an indescribable amount of insight into time, space and existence as all of them are linked intrinsically, to turn back time requires either fate or all three other genuses to be used, do you see where I am going with this?"

"So, to come back you mastered all the genuses or fate, therefore you, through Regis, have the power to save me?"

He nodded in response before asking a question of his own.

"I'm surprised you didn't know this already, what with you being able to see my memories."

"I may be able to see all of your memories in an instant, but I cannot sort and understand a megaannum of years if they are thrown into my head in an instant."

Wait a megaannum, he lived a million years before coming back?! How is he even sane anymore?

"You lived a million years? How are you even sane anymore?"

"You have the impression that I'm sane? No man who thrives in this world is truly sane, I could say the same for you, you are not sane, not in the traditional sense. But I am not either, sanity was one of the first things that I sacrificed when I decided to master Aether and come back to this place. To suffer again, why would any sane person choose to go through all of their pain again if they could avoid it?"

Some of my suspicions clicked into place and gave me a better image of my brother, the once strong and all knowing, genius and loving now became lonely and pitiful, tired and desperate. I couldn't help but sympathize with his struggle through his life.

Sylvia gave a thoughtful look before responding to his offer.

"I have a condition I want you to fulfill if you're going to save me at the risk of the timeline."

We all turned to Sylvia to hear what she had to say. A solemn smile filled her face as she continued with her demand.

"Love and find happiness in this life children and I will support you, don't let yourself succumb to your losses and regrets, and don't hold yourself to your past lives, you are only Arthur Leywin, not Grey or the Arthur Leywin that came before, you've evolved into something more than just Grey or Arthur, you are something special now yes, but don't let that take your chance at happiness from you."

My brother let some tears slip from his eyes as he responded.

"Of course, grandma."

—

Over the last three and a half months my brother and Sylvia have been preparing their Aether spells and researching into the runes that resided in our cores, the research into the runes became expedited after beginning our stay at Sylvia's cave, having an extra mind not to mention two who were both more than familiar with Mana made the process proceed at a exceedingly fast pace, and at this point it would be fair to say that we had discovered the pattern to the magical language and mapped all of the simple and moderately complex terminology in the runes.

Of course, this wasn't all that improved, now that we had a better understanding of the runes, I became able to use some new spells from my brother's previous lives including Thunderclap Impulse and Absolute Zero being the standouts. No, the real improvements though were certainly because of Sylvie's presence. She had, through my brother's ability, taught us some of her unique spells that focused on Pure Mana Arts and each of the elements individually and some with multiple elements.

Hell, even Sylvia was learning from her, her understanding of Mana is completely baffling! Most of the spells that I had learned from her were spells designed using a single element, usually Pure Mana that were cheap yet devastatingly deadly, she didn't just teach us combat oriented spells though, in fact, she focused mostly on non-combat related spells, or more accurately utility spells, and from the point that we had learned the spells she never had to repeat herself as all it took to remember the insights and usage of the spells was charging the runes to use them with an appropriate amount of Mana.

After the months of being here I hadn't improved in the quantity of spells so much as the quality of my spells improved, my burst movement, mirage walk and mana rotation all made leaps and bounds of improvement under Sylvie and Sylvia's guidance, while my general control over Mana had reached an entirely new realm.

My spells and abilities from my old world weren't forgotten as Arthur retaught me how to fight every day and I was more adjusted to my new body than I expected. Not to disrespect the pillar abilities I had, but I had already hit a ceiling on those that weren't going away, they would always be useful yet mediocre abilities in the coming future.

All of that improvement leading to this day, today was the day we were beginning our journey into the Elshire Forest as well as, using Regis and Sylvia, trick whomever is looking to kill Sylvia into thinking that she is dead. Arthur had bonded with Sylvia after our first meeting and had made a plan with her which he was about to explain to me.

"Alright, are you ready Ben?"

"Yes, please tell me how we are going to save Grandma Sylvia."

He nodded before beginning.

"This plan requires a few things to work, one: we need to notify the enemy of where Sylvia and we are before evacuating, two: we need to make sure that they believe that Sylvia is dead, and three: we need to make sure that we are hidden going forward."

"So how will we accomplish that?"

"To alert them of our location we will make a portal as they approach and go through it, they won't be able to sense the portal as it doesn't rely on Mana however it does require Mana to influence which will alert them. To make Sylvia appear dead and real we will make a copy that won't dissipate or show signs of being a fake, that will be accomplished with my understanding of Vivium, it is a rather advanced spell so it will take a lot out of Regis so we won't be able to rely on him much for a while, for the third part we need to accomplish, I'm going to sever the bonds Sylvia has to all but me and alter her Mana signature using Sylvie's understanding of Mana."

He smirked at me with a not so slightly malicious look on his face before getting his head bopped by Sylvia, Regis, Sylvie and I all started howling with laughter seeing him blush and pout for being booped on the head by Sylvia.

"Alright well then, let's get this gambit going already!" I yelled, Sylvia had a grateful smile upon her face as she looked at the four of us together working to save her, as she opened the portal and was healed by Regis, she looked at us for a moment before a brilliant smile met her face as the last of the spells was completed. We walked through the portal to the Elshire Forest and as we were leaving, I could make out her words as she walked with us, words that made me thankful for this journey of ours, words that put into perspective what we were doing here.

"Thank you, my children."