Magic = Being Full

Magic = Being Full

At dawn, the once-lush forest had become a wasteland. Black flames blazed across the dark earth, and at the center of the sea of fire, a figure slept. Countless flames clustered around her, while her straight black hair spread across the ground. Her pale skin resembled the icy snow atop a mountain that had stood for ten thousand years.

Within the flames, the girl's tightly closed eyes slowly opened. A mass of black fire burned in her dark pupils. Her exquisite, beautiful face was filled with coldness and dead silence. Her appearance did not make her seem even slightly cute—instead, she was filled with hatred.

Hatred that seemed capable of burning the entire world to ashes.

In the sea of black flames, Nina slowly raised her palm. The dark flames flowed over it with incomparable gentleness, as if they were part of her body. Nina now understood the true nature of the power she had obtained: it was the flames formed from the endless hatred within her soul.

The Nina she had once been was already dead. All that remained was an empty shell that had lost everything, while her soul had transformed into the flames of vengeance.

"Kainas."

The next moment, Nina turned toward Kainas's corpse in the distance. A trace of sorrow appeared on her cold face as she slowly walked over and lifted Kainas's body into her arms. Black flames ignited in Nina's hands.

Within the flames, Kainas's young body slowly turned to ash.

"Tears... So I've already lost the right to cry."

Watching the ashes disperse bit by bit, Nina raised a hand and touched her cheek. Yet her smooth skin held not even a trace of moisture. By now, even crying had been forgotten by her. All that remained was the endless hatred in her heart.

"If that's the case, then from this moment onward, I am the Witch of Vengeance. The flames of vengeance will burn everything to nothing!"

As Nina spoke, the sea of black flames began to churn. Endless fire gathered around her as though celebrating the birth of their king. The flames transformed into black armor, leaving behind only the desolate earth. From that moment onward, Nina, the human, had completely disappeared. All that remained was a Vengeance Witch named Nina.

Beneath the golden sunlight, the Vengeance Witch stepped out of the desolate land. A forest full of life lay ahead, while behind her was a black, dead wasteland.

Elsewhere, inside a small wooden hut deep in the forest of the Kingdom of Blooms.

The morning sunlight streamed through the cracks in the hut and illuminated the entire room. A little girl slept on the shabby wooden bed with a blissful smile on her face. Her small mouth moved as if she were saying something, and she tightly hugged a sky-blue slime in her arms.

"Hey, hey! Sally, your drool! Your drool is dripping!"

The moment Lu Minghao opened his eyes, he saw crystal-clear drool dripping from the corner of Sally's mouth. She was still mumbling something about not being able to eat another bite. Seeing the drool draw closer and closer, and noticing that Sally showed no sign of waking up, Lu Minghao hurriedly wriggled out of her embrace.

"Minghao, what are you doing?"

On the bed, Sally drowsily opened her eyes after Lu Minghao left her arms. She rubbed her large eyes and looked at the round slime beside her. A hint of a budding smile appeared on her little face as she picked Lu Minghao up and held him aloft.

"Obviously, I'm avoiding that thing."

Lu Minghao raised a tiny hand and pointed at the crystal-clear drool remaining at the corner of Sally's mouth and the pillow, which was visibly soaked in one spot. Sally blinked her large eyes and looked where Lu Minghao was pointing. Her little face instantly flushed bright red, and she buried it directly into Lu Minghao's body.

His soft, elastic body made Sally instinctively rub against him. But halfway through, she remembered that Lu Minghao had also pointed at the corner of her mouth. She hurriedly set Lu Minghao down and lowered her head, not daring to look at him again.

"...All right, let's go find today's food."

Lu Minghao helplessly watched Sally keep her head lowered, only daring to sneak glances at him. What else could he do in this situation? He could only forgive her. Besides, back in the sewers, there was hardly anything he hadn't been exposed to.

"Hehe, Minghao, you're the best."

Hearing Lu Minghao, Sally quickly lifted her little head, picked up Lu Minghao, and rubbed him repeatedly against her cheek. Her little face was filled with a silly grin. If the villagers in the nearby settlement saw Sally like this, they would surely wonder whether they were still dreaming.

Lu Minghao looked at Sally's silly smile, and a hint of a smile appeared on his round body as well. For some reason, Sally had suddenly become deeply dependent on him after yesterday, but Lu Minghao did not dislike this feeling.

They were similar kinds of beings.

Under the warm sunlight, deep in the forest, a girl under ten years old held a slime in her arms and carried a battered wooden basket on her arm. Her short legs hopped along across the grass. From time to time, she would catch a butterfly and hold it out for the slime in her arms to look at before stuffing it directly into the slime's body, watching as the butterfly slowly dissolved.

"So amazing. It really can eat things."

Sally blinked her large eyes, full of curiosity and envy, as she watched the butterfly disappear inside Lu Minghao's body. At dinner last night, Sally had worried that Lu Minghao would not get enough to eat and had wanted to share her food with him. But Lu Minghao had said that he did not need it, and that even this amount of food would not be enough if he really needed to eat.

When Sally heard that the food would not be enough, she had almost burst into tears. With reddened eyes, she had promised Lu Minghao that she would work hard from then on and make sure he ate his fill.

Seeing Sally on the verge of tears, Lu Minghao had realized that he had said the wrong thing. He hurriedly explained that he was not hungry, that he could digest anything, and even demonstrated eating dirt for Sally on the spot. That was precisely what had led to Sally feeding Lu Minghao butterflies now.

As she put it, "We already caught it, so wasting it would be bad."

"By the way, Minghao, will you eat this?"

The next moment, Sally cheerfully pulled a half-meter-long little snake from behind her and waved it in front of Lu Minghao. In fact, this was what Sally had wanted to catch just now. The butterfly had merely been incidental.

"Keep it. I'll give it to you as an extra meal later."

Lu Minghao looked at the little snake writhing in Sally's hands. A slender icicle appeared out of thin air and froze the snake's twisted body. The sudden change startled Sally, and she instinctively released the now rock-hard snake.

"Was that magic?"

The next moment, Sally realized that Lu Minghao had done it. Her large eyes fluttered as she looked at the slime in her arms. Since childhood, she had scavenged for food in garbage heaps, and she had seen adventurers on the streets wearing armor or robes and carrying all kinds of weapons.

She had especially envied the magic used by adventurers. She had once dreamed of being able to use magic herself, because if she possessed such power, she would never again have to worry about hard-won food being snatched away by wild dogs. She could also hunt on her own and fill her stomach.

In short, to Sally, magic was the power that let her stop worrying about going hungry.

Put simply, magic = being full.