NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 1 part 6
Anna-chan’s mother rested in a cemetery about a five-minute walk from their house.
“That’s a grand grave. Is this where Mama sleeps?”
“Yeah.”
I gently placed my hand on the gravestone.
The carved letters on the processed stone felt both inorganic and oddly warm.
Beneath this stone, “death” lay in slumber.
“I already know the truth,” Anna-chan murmured.
“About what?”
“Mama won’t wake up anymore, right?”
She didn’t look at me as she spoke.
Her expression didn’t change—calm, unwavering.
Yet, I sensed she was holding back an overwhelming sadness, struggling to contain it.
At that moment, something clicked in me.
I had underestimated the quiet resilience that such a small girl carried within her.
I see.
Anna-chan had known all along.
That her mother was gone.
That they would never meet again.
That she wouldn’t come back.
“Hey, Onee-chan.”
“What’s up?”
“Even a witch… can’t wake Mama up?”
For a brief moment, I hesitated.
How should I answer?
But I didn’t want to lie.
“No one can wake up your mother, Anna-chan.”
I nodded quietly.
Anna-chan gazed at me in silence.
“There are zombies, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know why they attack people?”
“No, why?”
“They were in a deep sleep, and someone woke them up by force. So, they’re pissed off.”
“…So, if we wake Mama up, she’ll get mad too?”
“Furious. That’s why no one dares to do it. Not even God.”
“Mama’s been sleeping too long.”
“She worked that hard. Let her rest. That’s just how people are.”
“…That’s just how people are, huh?”
Bringing the dead back to life.
Many sorcerers throughout history had dedicated their lives to that research.
But none had succeeded.
My master had told me many times—
That resurrecting someone was an act of arrogance.
That magic existed to understand the flow of the world, to listen to the voices of reason, and to honor them.
That there were things we had to accept.
“Even if I make flowers bloom, Mama won’t wake up. Do you still want me to do it?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because… I know Mama would be happy.”
I lost my parents when I was little, but I never truly understood the sorrow or pain of losing someone dear.
Even now, at seventeen, knowing that I would die soon, I still couldn’t quite grasp what that meant.
Yet, this small girl…
Somehow, she understood death far better than I did.
That’s how it felt.
“Hey!”
A sudden voice called from behind, and when I turned, I saw a man walking toward us, waving.
It was Hendy-san.
“Good, I finally caught up with you two.”
He was slightly out of breath, as if he had hurried to get here.
“Hendy-san, why are you here?”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I pushed back my afternoon appointments.”
“Go do your job.”
Even as I scolded him, Hendy-san just smiled sheepishly.
Honestly, what a useless dad. Absolutely hopeless.
And yet, I knew… I needed to give this hopeless dad a little push forward.
I placed my hand on the gravestone.
“Anna-chan, in the East, there’s a tree called the Somei-Yoshino.”
“Some?”
“Somei-Yoshino. It’s a type of cherry blossom. It blooms in early spring.”
The pink snow Hendy-san had talked about.
When I had spotted “it” among the herbs on the shelf, I realized what it really was.
It was cherry herb.
A herb made from cherry blossom petals.
Normally, it’s used for tea, but today, I had something else in mind.
“Let my voice be heard.”
I held the herb in my palm and gently placed my other hand over it.
Then, I began chanting a twelve-verse spell.
“O bounty of the earth,
O splendor of the trees,
Hear this miracle and grant its return,
Let colors once lost be reborn,
Illusions take form,
Forms weave dreams,
Dreams bestow hope,
And in this miracle, the East shall rise again.”
Light gathered around my hands, and the surroundings darkened, as if night had fallen.
The light wrapped around me, glowing like fireflies in the dark, creating an ethereal scene.
With the right knowledge of trees, I could temporarily alter their nature.
Even if there were no seedlings or saplings here, I could reconstruct the surrounding vegetation into cherry blossoms.
And the key to it all—this cherry herb.
This was a miracle no science could replicate.
Magic interfered with nature, changing the scenery itself.
Light surged, creating an impossible vision.
Cherry blossoms burst into bloom.
The trees, once cloaked in green, transformed in an instant—now adorned with the delicate pink hues of the East.
“Show us your beautiful form.”
The moment I uttered the final verse, the world changed.
“Whoa…”
Hendy-san and Anna-chan gasped in wonder, their eyes fixed on the sky.
Pink snow.
Countless cherry blossom petals fluttered down, covering the entire area.
“Amazing…”
“This is a cherry blossom reconstruction spell. Well, technically, it’s more like a temporary illusion.”
As I proudly sniffed, Hendy-san suddenly spoke.
“I remember now… The trip we took to the East, before Anna was born.
Iris saw the petals dancing in the air and said, ‘It’s like snow.’”
“Mama said that?”
“Yeah… She was smiling. She looked so happy.”
At that moment, tears quietly traced their way down their cheeks.
A soft clink echoed, drawing my gaze to the small bottle in my pocket.
It was glowing faintly.
A single tear had fallen into it.