Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

The restart was soon going to end, and then they would experience the truth first-hand.

Zorian steeled himself a little and went out to face the crowd around them.

"Zorian… what the hell happened to your arm!?" Taiven asked him with a horrified expression.

"It doesn’t matter," he said, waving her off with his one remaining hand. "I’ll get it back soon, as good as new."

"So!" said Zach happily. "Who wants to be first?"

"Good morning, brother!" Kirielle screamed, her voice disgustedly shrill and cheerful. "Morning, morning, MORNING !"

Zorian sighed, stretching his arms and legs while Kirielle babbled on top of him. Another restart, another annoying wakeup call from Kirielle. He gave his little sister a silent, complex look, which caused her to hesitate for a second and ask him what’s wrong. Zorian didn’t answer. Instead he suddenly started shaking like a madman, taking advantage of that brief moment of indecision when she loosened her grip on him to push her off to the side. She fell on the floor with a soft thud and an indignant yell. She was back on her feet in a flash, though, annoying him with questions about the academy and requests to show her some magic .

In other words, she was still the same old Kirielle he had come to know over the restarts. He had thought about including her among the many people who gotten a temporary marker in the previous restart, but in the end he had decided bringing her into the time loop would be reckless and cruel. Unlike the others, Kirielle was just a child. Her personality had yet to fully form, and there was no telling how being stuck in a constantly repeating month would warp her thinking. She also couldn’t keep a secret to save her life and had no way to really contribute to their projects. Not to mention that if he failed to find the way to extend the temporary markers before the sixth restart was up, he would have to watch her forget six months' worth of memories… that would be a hard pill to swallow.

No, the idea was definitely off-limits. While he would have appreciated a chance to have more meaningful interaction with Kirielle, it wasn’t worth inflicting existential dread on a nine-year-old and dragging down everyone’s chances of survival just for that.

After a few minutes, he finally coaxed Kirielle into leaving the room. He promptly locked the door and created a single simulacrum. It was a simple ectoplasmic copy. This early in the restart, he had neither the time nor the materials to create the golem bodies necessary for the improved mechanical simulacrums he usually liked to use. However, accessibility was more important than mana efficiency in this case. He needed the simulacrum now and not later.

The moment it popped into existence, the simulacrum gave him a silent nod and then teleported away. There was no need to explain anything. The simulacrum had a simple task, planned out all the way in the previous restart and now simply put into practice. His copy was to go to Cyoria and immediately hunt down and dismantle all four cranium rat swarms lurking in the city. It would doubtlessly alarm Quatach-Ichl if he did that, but it had to be done. With all these new time loopers walking around, the swarms were too much of a threat. They needed them gone, and the sooner it was done, the better.

After dispatching the simulacrum to his task, Zorian went down into the kitchen to eat something while waiting for Ilsa to arrive. He couldn’t help but be a little nervous. While Ilsa’s visit at the beginning of the restart had long since become repetitive and routine, meeting his invocations teacher should be different this time around. She was, after all, one of the people they placed a temporary marker on. If everything went well, she had retained her memories of the previous restart.

He shook his head, trying to collect his thoughts. He was kind of annoyed at himself for being so emotional over this. Previously, when he and Zach were considering going down this road, he had imagined himself facing this scenario with a stoic attitude and cool assurance borne out of years of experiences and conflicts in the time loop… but reality was cruel and his nerves were not as steely as he imagined them to be. Would the temporary markers work as advertised? Would they work at all? Would Ilsa be able to take first-hand experience of the time loop in good grace or would she flip out and start flinging spells at him, demanding answers? He couldn’t help but worry about questions such as this as minutes ticked by. What was taking her so long, anyway? He wasn’t sure, but he thought it didn’t usually take this much time before she–

There was a knock at the door.

"I’ll get it!" said Zorian quickly, rushing for the door. Mother looked amused at this kind of reaction, but said nothing as he ran past her.

He opened the door and found Ilsa standing there. She looked… no different than she usually did at the beginning of the restart. The same clothes, the same judging look, the same stack of documents held in her hands. However, that was only outward appearance. To his empathic senses, she was practically radiating uncertainty and apprehension.

They stared at each other in silence for a while.

"May I come in?" Ilsa eventually asked.

"Hmm? Oh!" said Zorian with a small laugh, wincing inwardly at his behavior. "I guess I spaced out a little. Forgive my manners, Miss Zileti. Come in, please."

"Thank you, Mister Kazinski," she said, stepping into the house.

Although his momentary brain freeze wasn’t the most flattering way to start a meeting like this, it seemed to have put Ilsa at ease somewhat, as he felt a lot of the tension drain out of her in the aftermath.

Like usual, Mother immediately left the house when she realized who had come, taking Kirielle with her. This left Zorian alone with Ilsa to ostensibly discuss his electives and whatnot. But, well…

"Same as the last time, I suppose?" Ilsa asked, waving the academy documents in front of her. When Zorian answered yes, she simply threw the stack to the side and sighed. "Of course. You probably heard this all a hundred times by now. I don’t even know why I brought these along with me."

"Clinging to a sense of normalcy in light of a very bizarre situation," Zorian guessed. "I was the same, back when I was first dragged into the time loop. I spent quite a few loops going through the motions."

"You were a teenager who barely started learning magic, though. I am an experienced adult mage. I should be better than this," Ilsa countered, frowning slightly. She was silent for a few seconds, tapping her fingers against the table as she considered what to say next. "So this is real? We really travelled back in time?"

"It’s a little more complex than that, but yes," Zorian said. He didn’t want to get bogged down in details of how the time loop actually worked. "Did the marker we gave you work?"

"Obviously," she scoffed. "How would we be having this conversation otherwise?"

"What I meant was… did you completely retain your magic and memories?" Zorian clarified. "Any holes in your recollection or difficulty in doing magic?"

"That’s a possibility?" she asked, surprised.

"It might be. As I said in the previous restart, this is the first time we have done something like this," Zorian said.

She gave it a thought for a minute before shaking her head.

"I don’t feel there are any obvious blanks in my memories," she said. "I did forget quite a few things, but I think that’s just me being forgetful as usual. My memory is hardly flawless. As for magic, well… I’m a grown mage that has reached most of her potential years ago and a month is not that long of a time. Plus, it wasn’t like I did any real training sessions in the span of this month."