While I was getting used to my changes, the biggest one was how I could generate my Mana—even if my world had nearly zero native Mana. There was no issue for me completely sustaining my magic and abilities.
A flicker of flames danced on my palm before twirling around my fingers like I used to do with coins as a trick.
I don’t know why I knew this would improve my proficiency, power and control of my magic, but the knowledge and conclusion inside my mind were solid.
“It’s probably related to the strange heart. Can I not speak to Eternia about this?”
[Prohibited]
“What would happen if I did?”
[They would be purged, and you would be punished.]
“Tsk…”
It felt like I got something amazing for Christmas but could not share the news with my friends at school.
Since the past two days in the dungeon were so dense, I wanted to take a break and avoid the dungeon for at least a day or two, so I grabbed my phone, feeling worried.
I wanted to have a proper talk with my mother.
Now that I was close to bringing another into the dungeon, I wanted it to be her, and I would not let Eternia or the others teach her.
It was something I would do myself.
“Haha… Mother, you worry far too much. Forgive your stupid son for not making sure you were at ease.”
Maybe it was due to the changes in my body, but the thoughts and ideas that entered my mind were so clear and unclouded. Most of the issues that held me back could finally be cleansed.
[To Mother]
Sorry for the late reply.
I was busy with work, and you don’t have to worry, can you meet me tonight?
Love Rai
x x x.
***
The text didn’t make my heart throb or feel an unpleasant sweat.
Now, I could admit that I might be a flawed person.
I felt both the love of a man and woman and sexual attraction to my adoptive mother and no matter how much I denied it in the past, from now on, even if she were to become disgusted, I will not hide these feelings.
“The truth is that I don’t want her to work late, to ruin her body… Or, more honestly, to meet another man while she doesn’t know my feelings.”
“I am selfish… but that is me.”
Stepping up off the sofa, I headed to the shower, grabbing a few more expensive bath washes and goods to make myself clean, removing Lumia’s scent.
Even now, her sweet and sour scents blew into my nostrils and aroused me— tonight, that wasn’t the purpose of meeting the mother.
Maybe I should start calling her real name to avoid people misunderstanding and judging her in public…
***
After a long shower and self-care session, trimming my nails, excess fur and hair, I stood looking into the huge bedroom mirror as the light shined through my blinds.
“I look nothing like Dad apart from these slightly mean eyes. Yet they look quite cool in this suit…”
Finally, the custom suit I ordered arrived when I was half dry. I felt a bit sorry for the delivery guy greeted not by a hot woman wet from the shower in a towel but by a handsome male wet and with a towel around his waist… Haha.
The smooth silk of the inner layer and the sleek yet velvety outer layer were amazing.
“Bzzzt”
My phone began to ring, vibrating on the table, and of course, it was Anastasia, my mother.
It was a name that my mother said meant ‘resurrection.’ It came from her family’s country of origin, which resided in the distant east in an empire made of bitter frost and solid beliefs that some might call inflexible.
Yet it was Mother’s motherland.
So I still wanted to visit one day, together with her, who abandoned her future for us to live happily.
*Click*
“Hello? Rai?” Her voice seemed to be a little worried but mostly relieved.
“Hi, Mother.”
“Do you want to meet tonight? I have work, but if you ask, I will take the night off.”
She was always gentle and kind, yet I was so selfish and full of my issues that I never noticed how much she would do for me with a simple call or text.
“I would love to—please get some rest and use the shower gel and other goods I left in the bathroom for you.”
“Eh… Rai, but I searched, that shampoo is more than twenty-five dollars! How can your old mother use that stuff for beautiful young girls?”
“Don’t be stupid—no woman can compare to you, even in their Twenties!”
My mother’s laughter and tapping her coffee mug as she took a sip made me realise the extent of my improvements, almost allowing me to hear her heartbeat over the phone.
Would I need to buy some noise-cancelling headphones to avoid migraines? Or can I control it with my mind and willpower?
After that, I began to chat with Mother for the first time in a long time.
No…
Had we ever spoken like normal adults before? I listened to her complain about her co-workers making her clean more linens and giving her the boring tasks.
It was nice to hear a mother complain and laugh at stupid things.
“Eh, but mother, do you clean linen at a club? I don’t understand.”
“Hmmm?” She responded with a confused sound before making a loud noise and taking a deep breath.
“Hahaha… Oh my, did you still think I worked there after all this time? Rai… You are so adorable!”
“What!? I thought…”
“Have you forgotten what you said to me when you were twelve, and I still worked those jobs?” frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
I didn’t remember.
Rather, anything from my past used to be shrouded in a thick darkness.
However, now the fog and darkness were slowly thinning out to reveal my dad’s smiling face even when his hair was gone, and he looked a little thin…
A memory flashed when I was twelve.
There was a young boy with golden blonde hair, which was a little curly, wearing an action hero t-shirt and shorts, rubbing his eyes as a beautiful woman, maybe twenty-two at most, stumbling through the door.
She smelt like alcohol and seemed struggling to walk as the boy helped her. He didn’t like the smell or the strange feeling of a different mother.
“Mom… Do you have to work at this place? I don’t like it when you come home drunk and smell like other men… What about dad…”
His mother suddenly trembled and looked at the body, her lips smelling like alcohol and cigarettes, kissing the boy’s forehead gently, but due to the smell, he struggled and pushed her away, causing them both to fall back.
The mother was on the sofa while the boy hit his head on the glass table and fell to the ground with a bloody face.
“Ah… Rai… Mommy didn’t mean it… Rai…”
My mind returned to the future as she spoke about how she worked the night shift at a hotel for eleven years and quit the job as soon as possible…
“Haha… you were so angry and adamant that night. Now I can laugh about it, but the moment I saw how much you disliked it, you fell.”
“I took that as a sign and instead began to work at a cafe for a while until getting this job and managing to become a permanent member after two years.”
Feeling a sense of vertigo, I sat down, feeling that my worst enemy was my mind.
For so long, I had been adamant about many idiotic things and made pointless walls and distance between myself and those who loved me most!
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner… I always thought..!”
“Silly boy, do you think I don’t know or understand how much you struggle each day?”
“How could I pour my troubles onto you?”
“You’re my son, and I am supposed to protect you, yet I failed and wanted to wait till I could confidently speak with you.”
“Haha…” Her laugh was a little low and lacked a bright tone.
“Yet you were the one that suddenly began to grow up. The strange things you would talk about stopped, and the dark look on your face vanished… You even stopped smashing the mirrors if you saw your reflection.”
All the memories without the distorted filter began to flood into my mind without the help of Eternia or others, just my mother’s words and my heart open and willing to accept them.
Images of her brushing up the glass as I whispered about being disgusting and ugly… Yet in the mirror was the same face I now have, just a little thinner and pale.
So many events distorted in my mind made me feel pathetic and cringe at how stupid and insane I must have been!
I covered my eyes and tried to stop my lips trembling from all the pain I had caused both Aki and mother…
“Oh, my~ are you crying, Rai?”
“I’m not crying…”
“Fufu… where are you taking me tonight?”
“Eh?”
“Aren’t you taking Mommy out for a meal?”
“…”
That’s right, since you know your errors and what I have done wrong, why wallow in self-pity, Rai?
No matter how much you regret, the past won’t change.
However, the future can!
“You’re right, it’s a date. So I plan to take you somewhere good. You better dress nice!”
“Ah~ what should I do? My son is trying to eat me with his newly gained money!”
“Mother!?”
There was another deep breath from her side of the phone. I could hear her lips opening and closing several times as her saliva, and lipgloss smacked each time.
“Rai…”
“Yeah?”
“You know…”
“When you give massages to people…”
“…”
Something seems strange.
“Ahaha… It isn’t very comfortable to say, but… Continuing our last talk… You see me as a woman, right? Not just your mother.”
“!!!???”
She sounded a little playful, but it was strange, surreal. Did someone else take the place of my mother? How would she ask such a question!?
“Rai… I won’t shout or get mad. You were nearly ten, and I was only eighteen when I started looking after you.”
At that moment, I realised just how young my mother was in reality…
“Haha… do you think I couldn’t hear the name you would call out when doing those bad things in your room late at night before I left for work… Or when you massaged me, you would do the same bad things…”
I want to die…
Someone killed me or hit my head with an iron bar, so I forget these things!
“…”
“Mmmmm.”
“Don’t mind!”
The cute words of encouragement shattered my pride and the things I did in secret, which seemed to have been included in things I pretended never happened…
“Ahh… I want to die…”
“Hahaha… sorry, I thought you might be able to accept your stupid mistakes and actions with how clear and calm you were on the phone.”
“I mean, it’s normally out if you stick your fingers in there when massaging someone you know?”
“I hope you don’t do that to other girls or Aki…”
My dark history came to the surface, and I took critical damage before she snorted, seeming amused at my silence…
Was my mother this playful and cheeky before?
“Well, don’t beat yourself up too much about it. At first, I wanted to beat your little head in… But I am partly to blame, too. A young woman has needs, and it wasn’t like I could get a man with our debt and house…”
Hmmm?
“Rai, that place, I am sure you know now, is VERY sensitive… Do you think your unskilled hands wouldn’t have woke me up… or how I always seemed to adjust or move my hips so you reached the nice spots…”
“You’re not that dense to not realise I was awake, right…”
“…”
This woman managed to soothe me and heal my pride, but now it all came crashing down! She knew…
All along!
“Well, after a few years of doing it, you became too good…”
Torn between hearing the words of someone you saw as your mother, speaking about her sexual desire and pleasure and being a woman you saw and wanted to hear these things was more confusing and weird than I thought…
So, shortly after this, we ended the call and agreed to meet later tonight.
I sent another Three hundred thousand to the debt repayment, lowering it by a large chunk again before leaning back against the sofa with a big sigh, covering my eyes.
“Damn… why was I so cringe and disgusting, and is mother broken too? There’s no way a normal person would accept it…”
While my thoughts were still tormenting me, the door suddenly opened with Haruka and Elizabeth skipping inside with several bags of clothes and other items while chatting happily about a brand of makeup or something…
When did these two get along together?
My mind became clearer, and the problems plaguing me faded as I moved closer to my ideal…
The more insane the people around me seemed!