Genius Wizard who sees Rainbows- Chapter 329

**#329. Side Story 2. The Girl Inside the Marble (5)**

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**The past. Memories. Restoration.**

Words that held little value on their own came together in a sentence to emit the light of tremendous meaning.

*Thump.*

Her heart pounded heavily.

Her mind went blank.

What happened next was beyond her control.

Curiosa lunged at the desk and began tearing through the research documents atop it like a madwoman.

*Flip! Flip! Whirr! Rustle!*

She opened, turned, and rifled through the papers.

Every sentence in every document, not missing a single character—she read through all of them at an incredible speed.

*‘All the handwriting is the same.’*

The documents, all presumed to be written by the owner of the lab, dealt with a magic she’d never heard of before: **restorative magic**.

A magic that could restore forgotten memories of the past.

That was the core idea of the research.

*‘That’s absurd.’*

There are things in this world that can never be reversed, no matter what one does.

Words once spoken.

Memories once forgotten.

Hair once fallen out.

And yet—restoring memories?

She couldn’t believe it.

But the logic and structure presented in the documents suggested otherwise.

This was a magic that *could* be realized.

*Flip.*

When she finally closed the last page, Curiosa’s back was soaked in sweat from the chills and excitement.

And as she snapped out of her immersion and turned her attention to her surroundings—

**“A very interesting theory, I must say.”**

**“Oh crap—!”**

She nearly toppled over at the sudden appearance of Ray, who was standing right beside her.

**“…Kid, how many times have I told you not to appear so suddenly?”**

**“That wasn’t sudden. I’ve been standing here for a while now.”**

Curiosa checked the time.

Over an hour had already passed.

Veronica and the siblings had come downstairs as well and appeared to have finished exploring the lab.

*Spin.*

Ray turned his body and looked around the lab as he continued speaking.

**“I think the owner of this lab had an illness that made him gradually lose his memory.”**

**“An illness that causes memory loss…?”**

**“Yeah. That’s what I gathered from the journal.”**

Ray waved an old, thick leather journal in his hand.

The lab’s owner had been a young 4th-circle mage from decades ago.

> *“I’ve wandered the world and gained enough experience. Now, I’ll dedicate the rest of my life to research and invent a spell that will astound the world.”*

Returning to his hometown, Sector 49, he had grand ambitions and set out to build his lab.

Inventing a unique spell the world had never seen—

It was one of the ultimate goals that all mages dreamt of.

Of course, the difficulty was near-impossible, but he had the passion, time, and talent required to reach his dream.

But tragedy struck.

One morning, upon waking, he realized something.

> *“What… What was my name again…?”*

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t recall his own name.

A sudden, indescribable fear and terror overtook him.

*Crash!*

Panicking, he tore through everything in the house.

Eventually, he recovered his name by finding it signed on some documents.

And the next day—

> *“Where… is this place…?”*

He stood dazed, looking around, and only then realized it was his own home.

He knew instinctively.

That what had happened wasn’t some fluke caused by fatigue.

> *“Why is this item here…?”*

> *“I don’t know…! I don’t remember…!”*

> *“I don’t know who you are or what our relationship is…!”*

At first, the memory loss was mild—he’d forget the names of objects or places.

But over time, it grew worse.

He realized he was crumbling like a sandcastle.

It was an illness.

With no name, no known cause.

Every morning, another memory disappeared.

He desperately fought to regain what he had lost—but it was only a temporary fix.

It wasn’t merely an issue of no longer being able to live a normal life.

> *“Who am I? Who… am I, really?”*

A mage, whose sense of self was far more developed than the average person.

To such a person, losing oneself was an unthinkable catastrophe.

There was only one thing left he could do.

Invent a magic that could restore memory.

The passion, effort, and time he had originally prepared to pursue his dream—he now used them for his survival.

Fortunately, the research was successful.

He completed the magic before he had forgotten himself entirely.

*Tap.*

Ray closed the journal and said,

**“But it probably wasn’t easy. He must have had to use the restoration magic every single day without fail to hold himself together.”**

He used objects imbued with traces of himself as conduits for the memory restoration magic.

Objects he used frequently.

Places he visited often.

He even built the lab shallow underground near the sector on purpose—because Sector 49, his hometown, was filled with memories.

His daily routine began by checking the note he had left on his bedside the night before.

> *“You are … Find and visit the listed places below in order and use the restoration magic. That will help ease the confusion in your memory.”*

By following the note, he could remember who he was.

He could live the day as his true self, and by night, he would write a new note for the next day, just like the one he had read.

Strictly speaking, the notes weren’t all the same.

The amount of memory he lost grew over time.

So too did the number of places he had to visit each day.

**“And one day, he must’ve failed to remember himself.”**

**“……”**

**“Either he made a mistake while casting the magic or couldn’t keep up with the rate of loss. That’s why he never returned to the lab.”**

Sustaining one’s identity day by day was like walking a tightrope.

And the tightrope grew longer with each passing day.

**“……”**

Curiosa felt somber.

Perhaps because she too harbored a similar kind of struggle with memory, albeit to a lesser degree.

Despite never having seen the man’s face, she felt a deep sympathy for the hardship he must have endured.

*‘I thought maybe I could use this magic to recover my own memories…’*

But was that really right?

To use the legacy of someone who had passed—for her own selfish desire?

That might be…

*Whoosh!*

**“Then I’ll just burn all these documents.”**

**“No, no, wait a second, kid, let me finish my thought first! Hey! Put that fire out!”**

Curiosa frantically stopped Ray, who had conjured flames to burn the documents.

**“So you *are* thinking of trying the magic?”**

**“Hmm…”**

Curiosa hesitated for a moment.

But the answer had already been decided.

*Who am I?*

It was the kind of question—a wall in life—that would always stand in place until it was finally broken through.

**“…Kid, help me.”**

**“Got it.”**

Restorative magic was a new form of magic not seen in existing schools.

Though the elemental requirements were few, the formulas covered the lab’s entire walls, long and complex.

An unimaginably high level of difficulty that no one but the original inventor could dare attempt.

But that didn’t matter.

*Whummmm!*

Because standing here was someone who could cast any magic at his fingertips.

Colored mana rose into the air and intertwined like threads of yarn.

Veronica and the two siblings approached, eyes tense.

Curiosa took out the snow globe.

**“…If this really is mine, I should be able to recover the memories.”**

Her voice trembled slightly.

She couldn’t hide her nervousness.

The snow globe floated in the air between Ray and Curiosa, wrapped in multicolored mana.

**“According to the documents, the basic principle of restorative magic is that the memory contained within the medium is reawakened in the target’s mind.”**

*Whuuummm─!*

**“But there are variables. The strength of the memory within the medium can affect how the magic manifests. The target’s current mental state also plays a big role. In other words—”**

*Whuuummmmmm──!*

**“We can’t know exactly what will happen when the magic is cast. Are you still okay with this?”**

The decision was already made.

Curiosa nodded.

As the mana wove together to form the spell, it continued to resonate.

*Creak— Creakkk—*

The pressure wound the snow globe’s key on its own.

*Whoooooosh—!*

Sand swirled inside the glass orb.

And just as the girl on the base began to move—

*Flash!*

A burst of light engulfed the room.

*
*
*

*Twitch.*

Curiosa, regaining consciousness, slowly raised her body.

She noticed a substance trickling down the black cloth and muttered absentmindedly.

“Sand…?”

She slowly looked around.

An endlessly stretching barren land.

An all-too-familiar landscape—the wasteland.

Why am I here?

She had definitely been in the underground lab beneath the bookstore just moments ago.

She was bewildered.

No, dumbfounded.

Trying to make sense of the situation, Curiosa forced herself to form a hypothesis based on what made sense to her.

First: the little brat transported me here as a prank.

“…Mm, rejected.”

That kid wasn’t completely incapable of mischief, but this sort of out-of-nowhere stunt wasn’t his style.

Second: the formulas on the wall weren’t actually for restoration magic, but for ordinary spatial teleportation.

“This doesn’t add up either.”

The formulas on the wall were definitely authentic.

As Curiosa continued racking her brain, what snapped her back to her senses was a sharp stinging sensation.

“?”

To be specific, it was the sting she felt on the skin covered by the black cloth.

She jerked her head up, and the blazing sun in the sky entered her vision.

It wasn’t unusual.

After all, this was the wasteland at midday.

The problem, however, was that she normally used a cooling spell to regulate her body temperature and had no reason to feel heat.

*Did the magic dispel while I was being teleported?*

A phenomenon she’d never experienced before.

Curiosa tilted her head in confusion and tried casting her cooling magic again.

And then—

“?”

She was hit with intense bewilderment.

“No, why isn’t this working?”

She tried several more times, sweating profusely, but the magic refused to activate.

Turning her focus inward, Curiosa soon realized that she couldn’t sense a single circle.

Nor could she feel any mana in the surrounding air.

It was as if mana had never existed in this world to begin with.

A complete mana vacuum.

She had never experienced anything like it in her life, nor had she ever seen such a phenomenon mentioned in any magic tome.

“Am I dreaming right now…?”

Muttering to herself, Curiosa quickly turned her head to the right.

It was the perfect moment for the white-haired brat to pop out and startle her.

Fortunately, no one was there.

Just as she was about to relax and turn her head back—

“The reason there’s no mana around is probably because this isn’t the real world.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Curiosa clutched her chest, startled by the sudden appearance of Ray to her left.

“Why are you doing this to me? Huh? Why are you doing this to me?”

“At first, I thought my magic had failed or I misunderstood the formula, but after checking carefully, that wasn’t it.”

The brat ignored her outburst and just kept talking.

Curiosa entered a state of mental resignation.

“…Wait, what did you say? This isn’t the real world?”

“Yup, I’m sure of it.”

Did this kid eat something weird?

Mana may have disappeared, but everything around still looked like the real world.

At that moment, Ray raised his hand.

“If my guess is right, this place is—”

He pointed a finger toward the sky.

“—the inside of the snow globe.”

Beyond the clouds, a massive glass dome glittered, covered in countless scratch marks.

—