I Don't Know The Playthroughs Of The Returned Villainesses - Chapter 26

Returning to the moment Aaron’s aura practice paused…

*

“Aaron, I think you already have aura.”

Aslan spoke with a serious expression, his hand thoughtfully placed on his chin.

“Huh?”

Hearing those words and seeing his expression, I instinctively asked again. It was such an unexpected statement.

“You’re saying I have aura in my body?”

Aslan hesitated for a moment, then silently nodded.

“Is that even possible?”

Aslan responded to my follow-up question with a look of disbelief.

“Well, you’re the one who insisted on trying it, even after I said it was impossible.”

“…”

He was right. I was the idiot who insisted on trying something he said was impossible, and now that it seemed possible, I was questioning him. I lowered my head in shame.

After taking a moment to compose myself…

“Let’s start by organizing what we know.”

“Okay.”

We gathered our scattered thoughts and decided to approach the situation methodically.

“First, why do you think I have aura?”

My first question was to confirm how Aslan could be so certain I possessed aura.

Seeing my nervousness, Aslan responded casually, as if to reassure me it wasn’t a big deal.

“When I channeled aura into your body, there was a path, albeit a narrow one, for the aura to flow through.”

“A path?”

“Yes. Unlike mana, which is absorbed from nature through a circle and forcefully circulated through the body like blood vessels, aura is much more sensitive. It requires a designated path.”

It felt like he was discriminating against mana, but I stayed focused.

“Mana users increase the amount of mana they absorb and store by expanding their circles and improving their circulation rate. Aura users, on the other hand, widen the path, increasing the amount of aura circulated at once, rather than the speed of circulation, to enhance the power of each burst.”

“Oh…”

“Therefore, in short bursts, aura users have the advantage due to their higher output. However, in prolonged battles, mana users have the upper hand because they use relatively less mana and circulate it more efficiently.”

“I see.”

So that was why aura users in the game had such high resource consumption.

“So there’s aura because there’s a path. I understand that much.”

But the question remained.

“Then why can’t I feel my aura?”

Even with a path for aura to flow through, I couldn’t sense my own aura. Just a moment ago, I had only barely managed to detect it with Aslan’s help. It didn’t make sense that I couldn’t feel the aura that had supposedly created a path in my body.

“That’s what I’m wondering too. Creating a path isn’t something you can do unconsciously. Carving a path through your body is quite a painful process.”

Aslan tilted his head, pondering the mystery.

“Hmm…”

I wanted to contemplate the issue, but I needed some knowledge to even begin thinking about it. All I knew about mana and aura were a few lines of dialogue from the game.

We continued to brainstorm, racking our brains, but the answer remained elusive.

“By the way, this is quite peculiar.”

“What is?”

Aslan changed the subject, as if suggesting a break from our fruitless discussion.

“I channeled quite a bit of aura into you, but you’re completely fine.”

“It was pretty warm, I’ll give you that.”

“The Reinhardt family’s aura wouldn’t just feel ‘warm’…”

He narrowed his eyes, looking at me suspiciously.

“It would have been quite hot if it had gathered in my chest.”

“Huh… you not only sensed the aura in that short amount of time, but you also unconsciously controlled its flow?”

“No. It just… leaked out of my chest.”

“?”

Aslan’s eyes widened like a toad’s.

“…?”

I tilted my head, wondering what the problem was.

He explained, his voice trembling as if something was terribly wrong.

“Aura… unless it’s being used for something like Aura Blade, you shouldn’t be able to feel it leaking out.”

“Huh?”

Not knowing anything about aura, I could only stammer in confusion. His response:

“I can’t say for sure, but… I think there’s a hole in your aura path.”

“How serious is that?”

Even I, who knew next to nothing about aura paths, could tell from his reaction that a hole in one was a significant problem.

“Hmm… I’ve never seen a hole in an aura path before, so I can’t say for sure, but I remember my father saying it wasn’t a big deal.”

His confident reply that it wasn’t a big deal was rather unexpected, considering his earlier shock. It seemed his surprise was due to the novelty of the situation, rather than the severity of the problem.

“What do you mean by ‘not a big deal’?”

I pressed him for more information, just in case.

He waved his hand dismissively, as if it were truly nothing to worry about.

“It just shortens your lifespan a bit.”

“That’s a huge deal.”

I had found the source of my damned time-limit, the leaky faucet of my life force.

“Don’t worry too much about it. It’s not a visible problem, just a rumor. I haven’t even heard about it since my father mentioned it as a strange rumor when I was a child.”

That made sense. There was no way to see or feel one’s lifespan, so there was no way to blame a hole in a path for an early death.

If it weren’t for my own time limit, this would have been something I would have laughed off.

‘Penalty window.’

[Yes.]

I called upon the penalty window to confirm.

‘Can you answer with a simple yes or no?’

[Most of the questions you are likely to ask will be answerable in that format.]

Hearing that, I immediately asked,

‘Is the hole in the aura path related to my time limit?’

[Yes.]

An immediate, unhesitating response.

‘Is that related to my lifespan?’

[Yes.]

The responses were clear and concise, unlike the usual vague and hesitant answers.

‘Is this why you said it was impossible for me to awaken aura when I asked?’

Since the aura path was damaged by the time limit, it probably couldn’t provide any related information.

Returning to the main topic, I continued my questioning.

‘If I close the hole, will my lifespan stop decreasing?’

Hope began to blossom in my chest. Perhaps I could stop the constant blood loss caused by my time limit, the reason I had to deactivate body reinforcement every day.

Even if I still coughed up blood, the thought of living a longer life filled me with hope.

However, the penalty window’s response:

[No.]

It was negative.

‘But you said it was related to my lifespan.’

[Yes.]

‘Then if I close the hole, my lifespan shouldn’t decrease anymore.’

[No.]

Judging by the penalty window’s terse replies, it seemed it could only answer in the affirmative or negative.

‘…One last question.’

I took a deep breath and asked the only question I could think of that the penalty window might be able to answer.

‘Are there other problems besides the aura path, and if I solve them all, will the time limit disappear?’

[…Yes.]

It wasn’t as immediate as the previous responses, but it was enough for now.

‘There’s a way to remove the time limit.’

This alone was enough to shift my outlook from utter despair to a slightly less bleak shade of grey. I was still concerned about how to use aura, but I figured I would be able to use it naturally once I fixed the path.

I had found a way to address my time limit and gained additional information about it. This was more than enough.

“Aaron? Where are you looking?”

Aslan’s voice snapped me back to reality.

‘Oh, right. Aslan’s here.’

The same thing that happened during my duty had occurred again. He was giving me that look, the one that said I was an idiot.

“I apologize.”

I immediately bowed my head. No matter how close we were, there were boundaries. Ignoring someone right in front of you was crossing the line.

“Don’t worry about it. You just found out you have a problem with your aura path. It’s understandable to be a little dazed.”

Despite being ignored twice in a row, Aslan responded casually. I was truly grateful.

“Well, at least I know my condition now.”

“Indeed, it’s a good thing you found out now.”

At that moment…

A shiver ran down my spine.

“Aslan.”

My slightly amused expression hardened.

“Yeah.”

“What’s that?”

A sudden chill, like pins and needles, washed over me, accompanied by a gust of mana. There was no mistaking the signature of this mana.

‘It’s Sephir’s mana.’

She had never used magic in front of me, but perhaps from being around her so much, I had become familiar with her mana. And that same mana was now swirling around me in a gale.

“Uh…”

Aslan, who had also sensed the ominous mana fluctuations, responded with a dazed expression.

“A catfight.”

“…”

What was he talking about?

“This isn’t the time for jokes.”

I quickly circulated my mana at the highest speed I could manage.

“I’ll be going now!”

Aslan’s aura would undoubtedly be faster than mine, but this wasn’t the time to think about that.

I leaped onto a tree, using the thicker branches to propel myself forward with all my might.

The closer I got, the more certain I became.

‘I’m much faster than when I arrived at the academy.’

Following the flow of mana seemed to have been quite effective.

Of course, that was just by my own standards. I couldn’t compare to Aslan’s hawk-like speed.

Focusing mana in my throat, I shouted,

“Sephir! What’s going on?!”

It was impossible to explain the situation right now. The fact that she had unleashed this much mana meant she was facing a formidable opponent. Even if I went, I might just be a burden, but I could at least create the illusion of reinforcements.

‘Get there quickly and force the enemy to retreat.’

That was my current objective.

The distance between Sephir and me rapidly closed. The overflowing mana had subsided, but I could still sense its presence.

“Sephir! I’m…”

What kind of enemy was she facing?

I landed in front of Sephir, filled with anticipation.

And what I saw was…

“Huh?”

Sephir stood alone in the middle of a clearing, scratching her head, surrounded by felled trees. It was so out of place in the forest that it looked like a barren wasteland.

“What? Why are you alone? Where’s the enemy?”

I ran towards Sephir and asked about the situation. With this much devastation, the enemy must have been someone I knew. So who was—

“I was training.”

Sephir answered quickly, as if trying to dismiss my concerns.

“Training?”

This didn’t look like the result of training, no matter how I looked at it—

“Yeah. Anyway, I was training.”

“…?”

What was she talking about?