"One who obtains the wings of freedom

loses both legs in exchange."

Lumina Greyrat - Volume II

Prologue

Hey there. My name is Lumina Greyrat. A cute girl with rosy cheeks along with brown hair so light it could pass as blonde, in my previous life I was a 34-year old shut-in obsessed with all things fantasy. By some odd trick of fate, when I died, I was reincarnated as a baby in another world with all of my memories intact.

I was now hired to tutor my childhood friend Sylphie, and I've worked hard to live a proper life here. For the next five or so years, I'm saving up to earn Sylphie's tuition for the Ranoa University of Magic where we can both further our magical education. That should be it for now. Hope I'm not forgetting anything.

"Lumi! Stop! You're gonna blow everything away!"

Someone yelled. A nearby tree was beginning to uproot itself, and a dainty green haired girl was about to go flying. In the midst of it all stood a lone girl, panicking.

What happened, you ask?

Let's go back around a few hours before, to answer that question…

Chapter 11:
Saint-Tier Disaster

Summer. The season's associated with all sorts of things, across all worlds.

My siblings Norn and Sirius were finally stepping out of their comfort zones, and were exploring the house. Watching them coo and make random noises at things they saw was great entertainment for me. Oh, but my room was totally off limits.

That reminds me. I had been really into figurines in my past life, buying figures of my favorite characters from certain stories was a fun pastime for me. I even painted a few before. Where this is relevant is my new hobby. I began working on small figures of me, my parents, and Sylphie. I wasn't particularly good at it, and it drained my mana like hell. But it was fun, so that's really all that matters.

That aside, they were fragile. Dropping a figure half a meter off the ground would completely obliterate it. I'd have to find a better way to do it.

Let me talk about my baby siblings now. Norn was a cute girl, but she didn't do much. She was curious, but she mostly stayed put whenever my parents were home. Sirius, on the other hand, was an energetic baby. Lilia had trouble making sure where he was most of the time, and I caught him sleeping in the clean laundry once.

"Young Mistress Lumina, your brother takes after you. This brings back memories." Lilia told me, while I was holding Sirius in my arms. Like Paul, he was growing in brown hair. He looked like he would look similar to Paul when she grew up. Sirius really liked being held, but oddly enough he'd stir up a fuss whenever Paul held him.

Norn was reclusive. She stuck almost exclusively to Zenith, and wouldn't let anyone aside from her pick her up. Despite that, she did let me pet her head a few times. So maybe she'd warm up to everyone else in due time. In other news, I learned that Lilia was beginning to teach Sylphie about etiquette. One day, I peeked through a window, and I could see that Sylphie was picking up the stuff a lot faster than I ever was. Well, maybe she was just more suited towards it.

Life was great, and so it went on.

It was now fall, and my dress no longer fit me. I was back to wearing t-shirts and shorts, which was quite saddening. But one day, like the angel she is, my mother asked me something.

"Lumi, would you like to go clothes shopping with Sylphie and I? I see you've grown out of the dress your father bought you, so we should take this opportunity!"
Sylphie had turned 8 years old, and I was going to follow suit pretty soon. So, this was a blessing.

"I'd love to, but when are we going?"

"Ah, right now actually." Zenith said. "We'll also be doing some errands on the way, so we'll be out of the house for a while."

"That's fine. Let's go, then."

I hadn't gone clothes shopping in so long. In my past life, my parents wouldn't bother buying me any new clothes, so I had to just reuse the ones I had. Even when I was a young teenager, they never really got me anything I wanted, save for the computer I had been begging for. But that's irrelevant. We began walking out of the house.

"Hey, mama. Do you ever get this weird dream that you're briefly in a white foggy room? And nothing ever happens in it?" I asked.

"Hmm. Can't say I have, sweetie. Is it bothering you?"

"I wouldn't say that. But it is strange. Guess it's just me."

We met up with Sylphie, and we went on our way. We arrived at a simple looking shop. There was an older looking lady who was working there.

"Hello," My mother said. "We're looking for clothes for 8 year old girls."

"Ah, very well. Come with me."

We entered the shop, and she guided us to an area with a few dresses and pants. None of them particularly stood out, but this village wasn't going to have any fancy clothing to begin with.

"Hmm…" I was looking at some of the darker colored dresses. Something caught my eye. A dark brown skirt with white stripes. I could wear my tan jacket over it and it would work well. I wonder if trying clothes on in the store is a thing in this world.

"Mama, could I try this one on?"

"Sure, sweetie."

There was a room in the back of the store that was pretty empty, so I used that to change. This skirt was great, I could run without a problem, and it wasn't stuffy at all. I wasn't used to wearing skirts though, there was that. That aside, it was great. Maybe I couldn't wear it during any intense sparring match with Sylphie, but for everyday use it was great.

"I'll take it." I said. My mother nodded in tandem.

I picked out two more rather dull dresses, and I was finished. Sylphie on the other hand, was struggling to pick something out.

"Hey, Phi. What do you think you'd like?" I asked. Maybe she had an idea of what she wanted but nothing here was to her fancy.

"I…don't like dresses." She stammered out. Ah, I see now. Maybe she just grew up seeing girls and dresses and assumed that she could only wear those?

"I see." I said. "Should we take a look at the shorts?" She nodded wordlessly. I motioned to my mother, and we went to the shorts and pants. She looked around for a bit, and picked out a pair of black shorts with a horizontal orange stripe at the bottom of both legs. They looked like they would suit her. She went to put them on.

"How does it look?" She asked timidly. I shot her a thumbs up.

"It looks great on you, Phi!" I really meant it. She smiled bashfully.

Out of the blue, I heard rumors about the grand opening of the Buena Village Library. That aside, I was ecstatic. I was picturing all sorts of books from around the world, stories larger than life, filled with interesting things for my kid brain to absorb. However, reality is often cruel.

I knocked on the door to the library. Okay, I say library, but it's more like a shack on the edge of the shopping area manned by an old lady. The old lady answered the door.

"Hello there, Lumina." I… don't recall telling her my name. Maybe she just knew me from the clinic or something. I don't remember everyone's faces after all and maybe people talked about me.

"H-hey there. I wanted to check out your collection." I said. She guided me to a room further back, and there was a shelf. Not a bookshelf, mind you. Just a shelf. And well, guess it really didn't live up to being a library. There were sheets of paper neatly stacked, a few small handbooks, and that was about it.

Books are expensive. Normal sized ones go for several gold coins. No way was some shack in a village stuck in the middle of nowhere going to have those. I sighed. What was I getting my hopes up for?

I decided to check one of the small books out. It was titled, A Short Guide of Languages Around the World. Jackpot. It looked a little small to be anything life-changing, but maybe it could show me how to say a few key terms in other languages. I picked it out and decided to buy it.

I rummaged through the other handbooks. Wandering the World - Comprehensive Edition, The Beauty of Ars, Beginner-Tier Magic, Improving to Saint-Tier Heights– Huh? Where did I put that last one… This one. I might be able to learn a few other Saint-Tier spells!

"I'll take these two, please!" I exclaimed, holding both of them up. The old lady smiled. "That'll be three silver coins." Oof. That's like half of my savings. If this is the price I must pay for knowledge, so be it. I shed a tear as I handed over the money. Or I did in my head, at least.

And so, I walked out of the library and made my way to my house.

"Good afternoon, Lumi!"

Sylphie was waiting for me at the hill. "Hey, Phi. Today, I want to do something special. Can you go get your parent's permission to leave the village? I want to try out some new magic I recently learned."

She widened her eyes. "O-okay…But are we going alone?" She asked.

"My father is coming with us, so don't worry. He's the strongest in the whole village!" I said pridefully.

"Ah, okay. Wait for me here!" Sylphie said, and ran off.

When she got back, Paul was already here with me.

"My dad said I could go as long as I come back by sundown!" Sylphie yelled, approaching us.

"Alright, Lumi. Let's be off then." My father said, patting my shoulders.

I'd managed to convince him to go with me, since it had been a while since he had seen a spell of this caliber. Paul wasn't interested in my magic at first, but now that he had a son who he was going to train up to be a swordsman, he was more interested.

We were taking the horse. We managed to all fit on it, and it walked just fine. If this ride was as long as I remember it being, we were in for a decent sized wait.

The sun was still high in the sky when we got to our destination. It was the same field where I had taken my graduation exam with Roxas. The tree was as lonely as ever, and the far off mountains were still omnipresent.

"Alright. I'm going to cast the Saint-Tier wind spell, Tornado." I proclaimed, with my hands on my hips. Well, here goes. I opened the handbook, and began to recite.

"Oh, I call out to the vast expanse of the sky, heed my prayer. Twist and turn as you unleash your might amongst the land of the mortals. Disrupt the sea and earth as your furious winds devastate everything–Tornado!"

A familiar feeling spread throughout my body. The air was thinning, and my mana was being drained. The sky darkened, and a large group of thunderclouds began to form. Lightning hit the ground with deafening crashes. I applied more mana. The air within the clouds began to shift around at high speeds.

A funnel cloud formed in the distance where I was pointing my wand. It touched the ground, and picked up speed. Fast winds were blowing all around us. The spell was finished. Now, time to maintain it–

"Lumi! Stop! You're going to blow everything away!" My father yelled.

Looks like we're all caught up now.

That wasn't important now. Sylphie was losing her footing, and Paul was struggling to walk towards me. I was so caught up in how I did it last time around that I failed to notice that the people around were getting affected by the spell. I'd screwed up. I needed to do something.

"Right! I'm cutting off all my mana!" I yelled. Hopefully this would work.

It didn't. The twister was continuing on its path, which was right towards us. I knew there was a way to stop the spinning wind. I just had to rack my brain for memories. Right, cast a twister that was spinning the opposite direction. I did my best rap god impression and spat out the incantation again, and a second twister formed.

"Lumina! What on earth are you doing! Get back here!" Paul yelled. "I know what I'm doing, Father! Please trust me!"

The two tornadoes spun around each other, and then… they merged?

"Oh yeah, you definitely do. Get back here and cast an Earth Fortress! Sylphie here's about to get sucked into one of those things!"

I ran over to Paul and Sylphie, and did as I was told.

Sigh. What was I thinking?

"Lumi. You've got to be careful, especially when casting spells of that caliber. You cannot, under any circumstances, be careless. Even more so when there are other people around that you could hurt." My father lectured, now that I was home.

He sighed. "I hate to do this, kiddo. But you're grounded for the rest of the month. Take the time here at home to reflect. Once you get back home from working with your mother, you come straight home."
"B-but what about Sylphie–" I started.

"I've already talked with Laws, and he agreed. You can't afford to make a mistake like this out in the real world." Paul said, with finality.

And that's how I was grounded for the first time in both of my lives.

Author's Note:
We're in Volume 2 now! I hope you enjoy these sorta SoL chapters until a certain point of the story. Thank you for reading!