A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 162 The Pizza Girl's Arcane Festival Dream (8)

[Lin, it's as if we're meeting in person upon reading this.]

First of all, congratulations! You're now a seventeen-year-old girl reading this letter. Happy birthday!

[A jerk always tells me that seventeen isn't an adult, and I'll tentatively agree. But I still sincerely hope you can understand human growth, joy and sorrow, and the meaning of life better than you did at sixteen.]

I'm so sorry I couldn't get back in time to celebrate your birthday with you. So I asked an auntie to bring you this letter and cake. By the way, this cake was made by another auntie; she's a really mean person, but her cake-making skills are amazing—and I must emphasize this repeatedly: the cake isn't for a proposal, you can eat it on your birthday too.

The problem in the Misty Sea will be resolved soon. I'll bring you cream bread and chocolate from the Northern Continent when I return.

I hope to hear from you when I return that you've made friends. —Harry.

In the darkness, the little girl carefully placed the letter under her pillow.

There were several other letters under my pillow: one sent during the New Year, one sent last winter, and one sent on my sixteenth birthday.
She once asked Harry why his birthday was at the Arcane Festival.

Harry said, "It's not that we're choosing the Arcane Festival for your birthday, but rather that we're choosing your birthday as the Arcane Festival."

Lin didn't understand, since she neither celebrated her birthday nor the Arcane Festival. But this year seemed different.

The cake, delivered along with the letter, sat on the table, its box glowing with green runes, the only light source in the room. The box itself was an arcane artifact, far more valuable than the cake inside. Using a box capable of preserving extraordinary materials to keep a cake fresh was insane, but the Holy See's postmark on the box indicated who had been so generous.

As if it were a perverse sense of humor, knowing that the cake was to be delivered to the college, they stamped the cake box with postmarks like graffiti, covering it with sun totems, guaranteed to disgust every college leader who saw the cake box.

But Lin didn't care about the dispute between the academy and the Vatican; she was just wondering whether or not to eat the cake.

Harry said that the cake is only meaningful if it is eaten on the birthday and candles are lit on it.

The little girl quickly made a decision: she would wait for him to eat together.

He should go back to the college tonight. If he doesn't, we can eat tomorrow. Anyway, my birthday isn't important.

The woman who had just arrived also gave her a lot of clothes and a birthday present.

The one with black hair looks a lot like Professor Cavendish from the divination department.

The woman seemed to want to chat with her, but Lin didn't pay attention. Then she remembered that he had said that one should not ignore what others say, so she tried to listen carefully, only to see a somewhat helpless smile on her face.

She patted Lin's head and left. Lin, considering that she had brought Harry's letter and cake, did not activate her defensive magic.

The gift was unwrapped and placed on the bed; it was a lazy-looking shark plush toy, taller than her.

This is one of the few pieces of furniture in the room.

A bed, a table, and the bookshelf that used to be crammed with rare ancient books had been replaced by a wardrobe by Harry, along with a rather girlish pink paint job. Those ancient books that would drive arcanists into a frenzy were useless to her. The older the arcane magic, the more familiar it was to her; it was innate knowledge, as natural as blinking and breathing. Modern arcane magic, on the other hand, required learning, but that would come soon enough.

The wardrobe was just sitting there unused. It contained a lot of clothes that the tailor shop in Sweeper Alley would make and deliver, with all sorts of styles. But Lin only wore her school uniform, just like a cat only likes to lie in that most familiar cardboard box.

Besides the cake, there was a row of identical medicine bottles on the table.

There were no college badges or strict regulations from the academic affairs office requiring them to be displayed; all that remained were sticky notes with the date written on them.

'6.28', '6.29', '6.30', '7.1'.
This is a week's worth.

This is her daily "food," one bottle a day.

The medicine bottle contained only a wisp of ethereal microwaves, as if it were a condensed black hole, devouring light. Just by looking at it, one could feel that the physical laws within the medicine bottle had collapsed, exhibiting an extremely bizarre distortion.

This is nothing special, just mana—concentrated mana. The glass bottles, marked '6.28', '6.29', and '6.30', are cracked, and the mana inside is nowhere to be found—if Lin doesn't use it, the mana will be destroyed after its expiration date.

This bottle is a spatial arcane artifact, its cost enough to make even a kingdom's treasurer shudder, but it's essential. If this concentration of mana were to get out of control, it could probably blast half of Eswell into the sky. The so-called destruction would simply be throwing the mana inside into the spirit world, letting it explode somewhere else.

After thinking about it, Lin decided not to eat 'meal' today; she really disliked the feeling of eating.

It's nowhere near as good as pizza.

She glanced at the clock, a gesture the little girl repeated every minute. Since returning last night, she had stood in this spot, endlessly checking the clock, ignoring the cake and letter the woman had brought her.

The room was pitch black, but she could clearly see the clock hand pointing to six.

She doesn't need lighting.

It's time to go.

A syllable that did not belong to Taymuri or Old Terran came out of her mouth; it meant "rain".

The magic activated at that moment, filling the room with ancient mystery. Fine rain fell on her naked skin; this was how Lynn bathed.

Lin noticed the fine ice crystals forming on her body—her body temperature seemed a little too low.

Only then did she reluctantly turn her gaze to the medicine bottles on the table, walk over, pick up one, and, with a wave of her "rain magic," insert the bottle into her heart.

Her delicate, pigeon-like left breast naturally collapsed, and a wave of mana, like a landslide and a tsunami, spread throughout the room. The terrifying commotion, like the activation of a ninth-order arcane spell, was completely blocked by the ordinary walls of the room. After about five seconds, the mana in the bottle disappeared.

The naked girl walked to the full-length mirror and looked at her skin, which had regained a faint rosy hue.

Petite, slender, and flawless body.

She forced a smile, but it looked awkward, as if the skin at the corner of her mouth was twitching.

After finishing his "meal," his white eyes exuded a cold and dignified aura, devoid of any humanity.

That's why she doesn't like to eat.

It's like falling into an ice hole; the room feels darker than usual, and you forget how to laugh.

She stood in front of the mirror for half an hour.

He awkwardly adjusted his smile with his hands: "Move a little more here, turn the corners of my mouth up a little more, should I show my teeth?"
No matter how much I practice, I just can't understand it.

Until I heard his voice coming from downstairs—

"Lin—are you up? Let's go, or the pizzas will be sold out."

The little girl looked at the mirror with surprise, and the light of humanity returned to her eyes.

Yes, that's a smile.

Then, she picked up her wand and left the room at a speed one-tenth faster than usual.

"drive."

"What are you doing, driving?! Where are your clothes—"

(End of this chapter)