Tsuyokute New Saga (LN)

Thanks to the warm and gentle light showering Kyle’s face, he awakened.

“…This place is…?”

He pushed up his body, and looked around as he muttered these words in a daze. The reason for his confusion was not because he found himself in an unfamiliar environment by any means. Rather, his surroundings were too nostalgic that it left him bewildered. On the wall hung the fake training sword he had received from his father during his younger days, and the bookshelf was riddled with books he was given to by his mother. Not to mention that his thoroughly-used desk and chair still stood at the location he remembered, and the bed he found himself in was the exact same which he had slept in a long time ago.

There’s no way he would be mistaken. This is the same place he spent the greater half of his life at: His own room, located in his hometown which had been annihilated a year ago during the demons’ Great Invasion.

“Why am I…?”

Kyle tried to understand the situation he found himself in with his sleepy consciousness, when the door opened at great momentum, and an energetic voice reached his ears.

“How long are you going to sleep? Hurry and get up already.”

A girl that seemed to be between 15 and 20 years old. Her reddish-brown curly hair was her trademark, and her actions were overflowing with vigor and energy, to a level where you cheered up just watching her.

“Lieze…”

Ever since the day he was born, Kyle had seen her face on pretty much a daily basis. She was his childhood friend, and a person he should not have been able to meet again.

“What, you were awake? For crying out loud…Starting today, you’ll be 16, so pull yourself together, will you.” She put one hand on her hip, as she complained.

She had always been like this. Even though they were practically the same age, just because she was born a few months prior to Kyle, she treated him like a younger brother. Kyle gazed at Lieze’s face in bewilderment, but eventually realized.

“Ah, a dream…” He smiled, devoid of any strength.

It was a kind, yet cruel dream. Being able to have such a dream during his last moments, as a reward for having saved the world, it was such horrible irony. These days nothing happened, this peaceful and irreplaceable daily life, which Kyle only started to miss after it was gone, he could experience it one last time. However, it didn’t matter if it was a dream, or a hallucination. As long as he could return to this time for a few more moments…

“Kyle?” Lieze let out a dubious voice as she observed her childhood friend, but eventually approached Kyle’s bed. “What’s wrong?”

She approached him to a distance where he could feel her breath, as she narrowed her eyes even more. Without answering her words, Kyle merely jumped up to embrace her.

“K-K-K-Kyle!?”

“Lieze! Lieze! Lieze!”

He continued to call out her time, hugging her stronger and stronger, as if he frantically begged for this moment to continue even another second.

“W-W-W-Wait a second, what are you doing!?” Lieze started twisting and turning inside his arms, but she couldn’t bring up the strength to break free. “U-Ugh…”

Eventually, her resistance ended entirely, as she calmed down, her face beet red. Once a few seconds passed, Kyle realized that something was off. He could feel Lieze’s warmth on his body, the flowery scent coming from her hair tickled his nose, and her voice, muttering ‘W-Where did that come from…’ or ‘I need to mentally prepare myself…’, sounded oddly real. Soon after that, his head cleared up fully.

“Huh?”

For a dream, it felt far too realistic. The left hand he had placed on Lieze’s back slowly moved down towards ‘that’ place, and grabbed it fiercely.

“Eeek!?” Lieze’s body twitched in shock.

“Hm?”

Since Kyle received a warm, soft, and comfortable sensation on his hand, he continued groping it.

“Eh? Ah? No…s-stop…Mm!” Lieze let out a panicky voice.

Oh right, I always thought that she had a thick bum despite her age…is what Kyle had in his head.

However, at that time, Kyle failed to realize that, as a natural phenomenon, a certain one part of his had gotten quite ‘energetic’. And, through groping the erotic behind of a member of the opposite sex, who even was his age, this very part turned even more ‘energetic’. In their current position, namely Kyle passionately embracing Lieze, it made sense that she could feel his ‘energetic’ part. If anything, said part was directly pressed onto her.

“!?” Immediately, her facial color changed from red to blue. “N-Noooooooo!?”

With a sudden influx of strength in her arms, she broke free from Kyle’s hold, slightly lowered her hip, and swung her land like a whip at him. This slap not only used her arm’s strength, but her entire body’s force, like it was one smooth motion, and slammed right onto Kyle’s jaw. As a result, his body danced through the air like a comet, and was slammed right into the bookshelf.

“W-What are you doing out of the blue like that! Idiot!” Lieze screamed, tears in her eyes, as she stomped out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Kyle was leaning against the wall upside down, buried in books, as his brain finally woke up enough to catch onto the pain assaulting his jaw.

“Huh…? It’s not a dream?”

At the same time as he muttered these words, he opened up his right hand, which had been clenched tightly even after he woke up. The sound of something dropping to the floor rang out, and when Kyle looked down, he was greeted by the crimson-colored blood-red gemstone he picked up from the altar.

“So…it’s not a dream, huh.” Kyle sat down on his bed, and gently rubbed the still-stinging jaw of his. “There shouldn’t be a dream where I can feel pain…But then, what exactly is going on?” His consciousness had fully returned, but this reality was hard to accept.

If his memory served him correctly, he should have bested the Demon Lord in his castle, and suffered lethal wounds as a result…However, if this right now wasn’t a last dream before his death, then what in the world…?

“It’s not some hypnosis or hallucination, as that doesn’t work against me…Also, I doubt that a demon would use such a technique on me during its last moments…”

Going along with that train of thought, he looked down at his left arm. It should be riddled with wounds, fully unusable.

“It’s heal—No, that’s not it.”

With the wounds he had suffered, not even high grade healing magic should be able to fully heal it with no scars remaining, not to mention that it didn’t feel numb at all. Speaking from experience, Kyle could tell. However, as far as his eyes didn’t play any tricks on him, it looked like it was brand new, and he could even move it freely. It’s like he never suffered any wounds to begin with.

The same was the case for the countless wounds that should have riddled his body. After testing it, he realized that he was in perfect shape, and the pain he had felt before, as well as the sense of fatigue, were gone.

After thinking about it for a second, Kyle made up his mind, and left the room. As he expected, the outside of the room was exactly as he remembered. And, after confirming his own appearance in the large mirror in the reception room, he was certain.

“Figured as much…I look younger now.”

Because of the endless fighting, he had fully forgotten about his own birthday, but he should have been around twenty. Contrary to that however, the Kyle reflected in the mirror was much younger than that, and all the scars he earned through the fighting had vanished without a trace.

His hometown that should have been destroyed, his childhood friend that should have died, his younger body, and Lieze’s previous words…There is only one conclusion that could explain all of it.

“…Is this the past? Did I travel back in time?”

He took out the red gemstone out of his pocket. As before, it held beauty and eeriness unbefitting of this world, but the mana¹ had vanished from it.

“No, that shouldn’t be possible…I don’t remember there being any magic that could help you travel back to the past…But, there’s no other explanation…” Kyle held his head for a while, but eventually gave up on thinking as his stomach complained loudly. “I guess there’s some things that never change…But, that only proves that this is reality.”

Wondering what he could eat, Kyle made his way towards the kitchen, only to find a breakfast prepared already. Standing on the table was freshly baked bread, together with some soup containing dried meat and vegetables, scrambled eggs, salad, a fruit dessert—a nutritious breakfast.

“Did Lieze make this?”

Since Kyle and his family weren’t the greatest cooks, she would often do the cooking for them. Thinking about how nobody could compete with her, Kyle put some food into his mouth. A nostalgic taste tickled his tongue. It was an unforgettable taste he hadn’t gotten to eat the entire last year.

“Gotta eat this…before it grows cold, huh…”

As if to ride the urge to cry in the face of this nostalgic taste, Kyle gulped down the food like a wild animal.

“I guess I ate too much, huh.” Kyle said with a wry smile, as he looked down at the empty plate in front of him.

There had actually been a good amount of food on it, but it all vanished.

“It’s a bit late for me to say that, but that amount wasn’t just for one person, right…Hm?”

At that moment, Kyle heard the sound of the entrance door opening, with someone entering inside. He was wary for a second, but he could tell who it was a second later. All too familiar footsteps slowly but surely approached the kitchen.

“Sup~”

Entering was a man with short blonde hair, looking like the delinquent neighbourhood kid grew up without changing. He wore clothes that allowed for easy movement, a sword at his side.

“Seran…”

Just as Lieze, he was Kyle’s childhood friend, and one of these ‘rotten connections’ as you would call it. And, this connection stayed intact until Seran’s last moments.

“Rare to see you awake this early. Considering how you’re bad at getting up in the morning.”

“Y-Yeah…S-So…well, how are you doing lately?”

“We met yesterday, what are you on about?” Seran said with a confused tone in his voice.

Kyle got his breathing under control, and took a closer look at Seran’s face. It was different after all.

“…Your idiotic face is still the same, but the Seran I’ve known was overflowing with experience. The way you are right now makes you look like a moron with a bit of talent at best…”

“I got no clue what you’re talking about, but I can at least guess that you’re insulting me, you bastard.”

He was young again, most likely the same age as Kyle. Because of his previous confusion, Kyle didn’t pick up on it, but Lieze had grown younger as well.

“Ain’t got time to bother with you right now. More importantly, breakfast…breakfast…gone!?” Seran screamed in disbelief as he looked at the empty pot. “Did you seriously eat all of that?!”

“Was pretty delicious, you know?”

Oh right, this guy often stopped by for food, didn’t he—Kyle thought to himself.

“God damn it, Lieze seemed busy all day yesterday so I figured I’d come over and maybe snatch some food for myself…She’s as violent as a gorilla, but her cooking is great so I was actually looking forward to it.” Seran complained, as he ran his finger along the pot, getting a taste of the last bit of soup inside.

Watching this, Kyle made up his mind.

“So~ Let me ask something weird…What day and year is it right now?”

“Hm? That sure is a weird thing to ask. It’s the 24th of the 5th month, year 2823.”

It really was the date four years in the past.

“…Are you sure about that?”

“Why are you this shocked by that? I don’t think I’m wrong…” Seran spoke that far, and clapped his hands together with a ‘Ah’. “That reminds me, today’s your birthday, right? Not like I’d care about the birthday of some bastard like you, though…So what, you wanted me to congratulate you?”

“No, I don’t enjoy receiving blessings from a bastard either.”

Seran finished scooping out the last bit of soup, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Aye aye, then your birthday present was today’s breakfast. Aren’t you happy.”

“That? Really? Also, that food wasn’t yours to begin with.”

Seran didn’t bother responding to Kyle’s words, and walked towards the door.

“Where are you going?”

“If I’m not getting any food, then I got no business being here. I’ll look for Lieze and get some from her…Was delicious after all.” He muttered that last part. “If I slam my head against the ground and beg really hard, she might just make me some. After all, she’s got some sweet spots as well.” Seran said, not hesitating at all.

“Ever since…No, as always, you never choose the method to reach your goal, huh. Not to mention that you immediately throw away your pride.”

“Don’t praise me like that, I’m gonna blush.”

“Nobody is praising you.”

“Ah, my birthday’s in the 8th month, 2nd day, so I expect some good money, or a great woman, aye?” Seran waved his hand, as he stepped out.

“He sure didn’t change…does he ever, I wonder.” Kyle watched off Seran, and showed a bitter smile.

It’s been a while since he exchanged such casual words with Seran. Before, it had been part of a dull and never changing daily life, but now Kyle treasured it even more.

“Now then…what should I do.”

Kyle had to accept the fact that he travelled back to the past, but he hadn’t the foggiest as to how that even worked. Whatever it may be, pondering about it alone would most likely not give him an answer. He would have preferred to consult someone, but he had to be careful as to who.

“…Guess there’s only one person. Just hope they’re awake.” Kyle scratched his head, and headed towards the location of the person in question.

Kyle and the Lenard Family he belonged to lived in the outskirts of the town Rimarze, which was located in the Kingdom of Zilgus. Though not rich, they possessed a sort-of mansion, which offered three floors and a wide garden. Kyle moved to the corner of this garden. At the end of the stone-paved way stood a robust bungalow, which possessed no windows, and the second you opened the door, you were greeted by stairs leading underground.

Once he opened the bulky door on the underground floor, Kyle was welcomed by a dense and nostalgic scent which filled the room. The entire place was riddled to the brim with bookshelves, and even they couldn’t contain all the books that were scattered across the floor. On the windowless wall hung a semi-permanent magic item, imbued with [Light] magic. This was a safety measure so that the books wouldn’t suffer any damage, with adjusted light strength, as humidity was a book’s greatest enemy. It looked simple, but setting up the magic was this was quite difficult, and cost a large amount of money.

Even the collection of books offered a great variety itself, reaching from picture books aimed at children, to prohibited books that had been around during the Ancient Magic Kingdom era. In the center of the room stood a table, with a mountain of books on top of it. The woman sitting in the middle of that, half buried by books, picked up on Kyle’s arrival, and showed him a smile.

“Ah, Kyle-chan, it’s rare for you to come here. Not to mention at this time.”

There she was. Kyle imagined that she would be there, but being able to see her like this made his heart race in joy. He however hid these feelings, and calmly spoke up.

“It’s morning already. Were you reading books all night again, Mom.”

“Eh? Ah, it’s morning…? I really can’t tell the time when I’m in here.” Kyle’s mother, Seraia, let out a yawn as she responded.

She possessed a childish face with shortly-cut hair, and through her small body, she looked much younger than she actually was. She surely passed her thirties already, but with Kyle together, they looked more like sister and brother, rather than mother and son.

“I got a question. Do you have some time right now?”

Listening to Kyle’s words, Seraia looked at him with a bit of puzzlement.

“My my, what is this, asking me something…Ah, if it’s about my first meeting with your Father, then I don’t mind telling you…It all began twenty years ago…”

“Another time, please.” Kyle immediately cut off his mother before she could say anything unnecessary.

The story when his parents met would always go on for hours, and hearing it to the very end induced a trauma inside young Kyle.

“I wanted to ask something about magic.”

“Magic? Are you sure about asking me?”

“I don’t know anybody who’d be more proficient about magic than you, Mom.”

With magic, there are generally three types: Holy Magic, which borrows the strength of the Gods to cause miracles; Spirit Magic, which allows you to use magic responding to the spirits residing in this world, generally split into the four elements of Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire. And finally, there exists Ancient Language Magic, which was developed during the period of the Ancient Magic Kingdom. Out of these types, humans generally used Holy Magic and Ancient Language Magic, and Seraia was an Ancient Language Magic user.

Ancient Language Magic is split up in six grades, which consist of lower grade magic, common grade magic, intermediate grade magic, advanced grade magic, high grade magic, and finally supreme grade magic. At the same time, there exist ranks corresponding to the magic they can use. To be precise, those who can use lower grade magic are called ‘Magician’, common grade users are ‘Sorcerers’, intermediate grade means you’re a ‘Wizard’, advanced grade magic corresponds to ‘Mage’, and high grade magic users are ‘Archmages’.

Since there exist only a handful supreme grade magic users in the entire human folk population, they generally receive individual titles. An example would be the Queen of the Holy Kingdom Shura, [Glorious²] Sakira.

As for Seraia herself, she was one of the few Archmages existing in this nation. Rumours say that she was even recommended to the Galgan Empire as a court mage. However, through the money she earned in her younger days, and the inheritance she received from Kyle’s grandfather, who passed away right before his birth, she is now living in peace, spending her days gathering and reading books. Not even Kyle knows what brought her to this remote location, and his ears would probably fall off if he asked. However, when looking into anything magic-related, she was probably the most reliable around Kyle.

“So…is there a type of magic that lets you return to the past?”

“There is, yeah.” Seraia said like it was nothing special.

“R-Really!?”

“Indeed, it’s not well-known by any means, but there exists magic that can interfere with time.”

“I never heard about such convenient—No, rule-breaking magic.”

“Which makes sense. Even if it exists, nobody can use it. Giving you the detailed logistics behind it would take me days to explain, but I can confidently say that magic that can influence time has been found. The reason that it’s impossible to use however is the amount of mana it requires.”

Mana is the source of energy needed to activate magic, and those who use magic generally hold a certain amount inside of them.

“If you were to put a grade on time magic, it would be ten ranks above supreme grade magic. Let alone humans, not even dragons or gods can use it. If you were to see the flow of time as a large river, us humans would be ants at best. Do you think ants would be able to influence the flower of a river? Even if the greatest Archmage in history were to use their life to generate mana, they would only be able to influence time for a moment’s length, at best.”

That is why people don’t even know that it exists, Seraia added.

“I see…Then, what would you need if you wanted to revert time back to a few years ago?”

“Years? That would need immeasurable amounts of magic. I wouldn’t even know how to gather such an amount.” Seraia said as she shook her head.

“So then…what if you used a magic item?”

“Ahh.” Seraia raised a voice at Kyle’s words. “That sounds interesting indeed. With a magic item, you would be able to store mana…It does take time, but eventually, you might be able to use time magic.” Seraia seemed like she was pondering about it, but eventually shook her head. “No, I doubt that. There’s way too many problems with that. Even if you could store the mana, it would take a single Archmage a thousand years to store enough of it.”

“…What if you were to use the forbidden ritual?”

Hearing that word, Seraia’s face grew grim.

“Indeed, with that forbidden magic, you might be able to gather enough mana, but…How do you know of that?”

The forbidden ritual is a ritual of sacrifices. By exchanging life essence into mana, you can gain amounts of it that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Not to mention that the sacrifices don’t even have to have any mana inside of them. There was once an incident where a wizard fell into darkness, and sacrificed an entire village to experiment on evil magic. As a result of that, this forbidden ritual is known as prohibited magic, and is hidden as much as possible.

“I only read about it in a book, but I don’t really know the details.”

During the closing years of the war Kyle experienced, humans had no other option but to refer to this forbidden ritual in order to fight against the demons.

“I see…But, even if you were to use that ritual, it would be impossible. If you wanted to deal with a few years of time, you would need the greater half of all humans living on this continent as sacrifices.”

“…Right, there’s no way someone would do that.”

That being said, if you were to sacrifice so many people, you would indeed gain the amount of mana you needed. Kyle remembered the mountains of corpses littered around the Demon Lord’s castle. They were all human folk who were abducted and forcefully taken to the demons’ territory, and as proof of them having their mana sucked out of them, they looked like withered tree branches.

“The other problem is the catalyst. With any other magic, you would need magic stones or gemstones or the like, but I doubt any catalyst exists that could carry this vast amount of mana.”

If the catalyst couldn’t carry the amount of mana stored inside of it, it would break apart, and cause an explosion with the mana growing rampant.

“The only item that would make this possible…would probably be the legendary ‘Heart of the Divine Dragon’.”

With these words, Seraia took out a single old book out of the mountain she sat inside. It seemed to be chaotic from an outsider’s perspective, but apparently Seraia herself had marked down all the locations herself.

“Ah, this is it. The ‘Heart of the Divine Dragon’.”

Shown inside the book she opened was an anecdote of the ‘Heart of the Divine Dragon’, as well as a rough illustration of the object itself.

Legends say there existed a dragon stronger than the gods themselves. The remains of this dragon harbored more strength and power than the gods who had lived for all eternity. The ones who managed to salvage this item were the human Ancient Magic Kingdom Zaales³. And, this Zaales succeeded in extracting the mana inside. Thanks to this unfathomable amount of mana, Zaales has prospered for a thousand years and more.

However, after being used for this supply, the ‘Heart of the Divine Dragon’ eventually used up all of its mana stored inside. This incident eventually led to the ruin of humanity’s greatest and longest prospering Ancient Magic Kingdom Zaales.

“And, because it ended up completely empty, you can store new mana inside of it. If I had to guess, it probably would be the best container for that amount of mana needed. But, now that Zaales is gone, and we don’t even know where its ruins could be, this item stayed in darkness for the past thousand years. Does it even exist anymore? Maybe it’s already in the hands of the demons, we have no way of knowing.”

“I…see…” Subconsciously, Kyle grasped the object currently located in his pocket.

It looked identical to the drawing in front of him.

“Basically, to return to the past, you would need the legendary ‘Heart of the Divine Dragon’, and sacrifice about half of the entire human population on this continent…right?”

“That’s what it boils down to, yes. Impossible, right?”

“Yeah, that sounds like nonsense…” Kyle muttered, without looking Seraia in the eyes.

“It’s rare to hear you ask about something like this. It’s almost like you came from the future, Kyle-chan.”

“Haha what are you talking about there’s no way that would be the case Mom.”

“Right, what was I thinking.”

The two were smiling at each other (with Kyle forcing out an awfully awkward one).

“Still, it’s been quite some time since I got to talk with you this long, Kyle-chan.”

“Is…that so?”

“Of course. As of late, you’ve been avoiding me after all.”

“Ahh, I didn’t mean for it to seem that way…”

I remember something like that, Kyle thought to himself. Right around this time, he started avoiding his mother, despite there being no major reason. It probably was a choice influenced by his adolescent growth, but thinking back on it, he didn’t understand it himself.

“I was really lonely, you know. I thought I’d be a failure of a mother, since my own son started to hate me.”

“Well…your looks and attitude really aren’t doing it, I think. You’re sloppy, a homebody, and you don’t really care about anything but books. Since you’re even bad at housework, you really aren’t the image of a perfect mother I have in my head.”

“I’ve been aware of that for a while now, but hearing it directly from my own son sure hurts…”

“…Even so, you’re the only Mom I have, and I wouldn’t want anybody else.”

More than anything, he didn’t want to lose her a second time.

“Really, you say the cutest stuff at times~” Seraia embraced Kyle with a smile.

Since Kyle was bigger than her, it looked more like she was clinging to him. If it was the former him, he would have pushed her away by now, but now he was fighting hard to hold back the tears, as he was overwhelmed with nostalgia, happiness, and bashfulness.

“Now I’ve gotten hungry from all the talking. I think Lieze-chan made breakfast today. Her cooking is great~”

I’m looking forward to it, Seraia said as she headed towards the stairs on light steps, when Kyle’s expression tightened up.

“Ah…sorry, I already ate all of it.”

Hearing these words, Seraia’s face froze up.

“…I see, then it can’t be helped. Guess your Mom will munch on some snacks instead, hehehe.”

“I’m sorry, really.”

“No, it’s okay…Oh yeah, today’s your birthday, isn’t it. As for your present, you can have the breakfast today then…Hehe.”

“Again, isn’t that a bit cheap as a birthday present?”

1 Originally ‘Magical Power’ but for the convenience of the manga readers, I kept it as mana.

2 Written as [Radiance], in this volume she’s called [Glories], but the later volumes call her [Glorious], so I’ll go with that here

3 Apparently it’s Zeeles according to the manga tl, but the raws here say Zaales/Zares/Zales. Having checked, the manga raws called it like that as well, so I’ll be taking that instead.