I Don’t Remember the Number of Regressions of the Villainesses Who Have Returned.

“Aaron, it seems you possess an aura.”

Aslan spoke with a serious expression as if contemplating something, with his hand on his chin.

“What?”

I, who heard those words and saw his appearance right before me, unconsciously asked again.

After all, it was content that couldn’t be helped.

“Are you saying I have aura?”

After hesitating for a few seconds, Aslan silently nodded his head.

“Is that even possible?”

Aslan answered my question as if it were absurd.

“Even if I say it’s impossible, you were the one who kept talking about possibilities and whatnot and tried to do it.”

“……”

Ah.

I challenged what was said to be impossible, and now that it worked, I’m asking why it worked… I’m a real idiot.

After taking some time to calm my mind…

“First, let’s organize our thoughts.”

“Okay.”

We decided to somewhat get a hold of our dazed minds and sort things out step by step.

“To begin with, what made you think there is an aura in my body?”

The first question was asked to confirm how Aslan was certain there was an aura in my body.

Seeing me tensing up, Aslan answered briefly in a tone that suggested it was no big deal as if to tell me to relax my shoulders.

“When I flowed my aura into your body, there was already a path for the aura, though still thin.”

“A path?”

“Yes. Unlike the movement of mana, which absorbs natural mana through circles and rotates it recklessly in the body through blood vessels or such, aura is too sensitive and needs a separate path to travel through.”

It felt like he was discriminating against mana, but I kept focusing.

“In the case of mana users, they increase the circle to absorb or store more mana and increase the rotation rate. But for aura users, they gradually widen that path and increase the amount rotated at once rather than the rotation of the aura to increase the firepower.”

“Oh…”

“As a result, in general, aura users who pour out a lot of aura at once have an advantage in firepower, but the longer the fight, the mana users who use a relatively small amount of mana and rotate it a lot have the advantage.”

“I see.”

This was why aura users had high resource consumption in the game.

“I understand that aura exists because there is a path,”

But a question that remains unsolved.

“Then why can’t I feel my own aura?”

Even though there is a path for the aura to pass through, I can’t feel my own aura.

Just until a moment ago, I could barely start sensing it with the aura Aslan flowed into me.

Isn’t it nonsensical that I can’t feel the aura at all, even though it’s enough to create a path in my body?

“I’m also curious about that. Creating a path is not something that can be done unconsciously. They say digging a path inside your own body is a more painful process than you think.”

Even Aslan tilted his head and pondered as if he couldn’t understand this either.

“Hmm…”

I also wanted to try solving it, but I knew absolutely nothing.

What can I do when all I’ve done is read a few lines of dialogue about acquiring and operating basic resources like mana and aura in the game?

After that, we asked each other a few more questions and pondered while holding our heads, but we couldn’t come up with an answer.

“Anyway, it’s quite amazing.”

“What is, sir?”

As if signaling a break from the continuous wrong answers, Aslan changed the topic of conversation.

“I definitely flowed quite a lot of aura into you, but you’re perfectly fine without any problems.”

“It was quite hot.”

“The aura of the Reinhardt family can’t possibly end with just being hot…”

He looked at me drowsily with somewhat suspicious eyes.

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

“Oh my… Not only did you feel the aura in that short time, but you also unconsciously moved the flow of aura?”

“No. It just leaked out through my chest.”

“?”

Suddenly, Aslan’s eyes widened like a toad as he stared at me.

“…?”

I tilted my head as if asking what the problem was.

He told me the reason in a trembling voice as if something was wrong.

“Aura… You shouldn’t feel that sensation of it leaking out unless you consume it with something like Sword Qi?”

“What?”

Not knowing about aura, I stammered and asked what that meant. And the answer I got was:

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

“How much of a problem is that?”

Even I, who couldn’t clearly understand what an aura path was, could tell from his reaction that a hole in the path was a huge problem.

“Well… I’ve never seen a situation where there’s a hole in the aura path, so I don’t know exactly. But my father told me that it’s not a big problem.”

However, the answer that came back was Aslan’s confident reply that it wasn’t a big deal.

I guess he was surprised earlier due to the novelty of the unknown rather than the severity of the problem.

“So what does ‘not a big problem’ mean for now?”

To prepare for the worst-case scenario, I dug a little deeper into that story.

He answered while waving his hand as if it was no big deal.

“It just shortens your lifespan a bit.”

“That’s a freaking huge deal.”

I found the damn faucet of the time-limited bloody fountain.

“What are you saying? It’s not even a visible problem. It’s just a rumor. Even I had only heard about it from my father when I was young, saying it was a peculiar rumor. I haven’t heard about it since then.”

Well, of course. You can’t see or feel lifespan with any sense, so you can’t blame a hole in the path for dying early.

If I heard that without the damn time-limited passive, I would have brushed it off, asking what that was while waving my hand and laughing.

‘Penalty window.’

[Yes.]

I actually called the penalty window to check.

‘If you can answer with just yes or no, how much is possible?’

[Most of the questions you are expected to ask now will be possible.]

Hearing that, I immediately asked.

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

[Yes.]

An immediate answer came back without hesitation.

‘That relation, is it about lifespan?’

[Yes.]

What kept coming back was not the vague answers that were always full of hesitation but clear, immediate answers filled with certainty.

‘When I asked the penalty window about how to awaken aura, was this the reason it said it was impossible?’

Since the part damaged by the time limit is the aura path, it seems it couldn’t tell me the related information.

I turned back my mind, which had gone off track for a moment, and continued the questions.

‘Then, if I block that hole in the path, will my lifespan not decrease?’

The hope that was gradually filling my heart.

I can stop the damn time limit that makes me vomit blood every day.

I might still vomit blood, but I had the hope that I could at least live longer.

However, the answer from the penalty window was:

[No.]

It was a denial.

‘Hey, you said the path was related to lifespan.’

[Yes.]

‘Then if you block the path, the thing that makes the lifespan disappear should be gone.’

[No.]

Judging by how the penalty window said that without any other words, answers other than that method seemed to be regarded as impossible.

‘…This is the last question.’

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

‘Besides that aura path, are there other problems, and if I solve all of them, will the time limit disappear?’

[…Yes.]

It wasn’t a perfect immediate answer like the previous ones, but for now, that was enough.

‘There is a way to solve the time limit.’

With just this, my pitch-black life without hope had risen to at least gray.

I pondered what to do with aura, but if I fix that path, I should naturally be able to use it.

I found a method for aura and obtained additional information about the time limit.

This was more than enough.

“Aaron? Where have you been looking?”

At that moment, Aslan’s voice came from in front of me.

‘Ah right. Aslan was in front of me.’

The same situation happened during the medical examination.

He looked at me with eyes that seemed to have seen an idiot from somewhere before.

“I’m sorry.”

I immediately bowed my head to him.

No matter how close you get, there is a line.

Ignoring someone right before you is crossing that line by a mile.

“Don’t worry about it. You just found out there’s a problem with your aura path. You can space out for a bit.”

Even though he was ignored twice right before him, Aslan replied as if it wasn’t a big deal.

I was really grateful.

“Well, it’s fortunate that I found out about my body’s condition at least.”

“Indeed, it’s fortunate that you found out now.”

At that moment

-Shiver

“Lord Aslan.”

My slightly smiling expression stiffened rapidly.

“Yes.”

“What is that?”

With a sudden chilling shiver throughout my body, a wind of mana rushed over me.

The mana flowing in this wind was unmistakable.

‘It’s Sephir’s mana.’

She had never used magic before me, but maybe it was because we were always together.

I could recognize the feeling of her mana.

And that mana was being felt in the wind, blowing like it would devour me.

“Uh…”

Next to me, Aslan, who was also feeling this terrifying mana impact, said:

“A fishing ground.”

“……”

What are you saying?

“Now’s not the time to joke around.”

-Wooooong

I quickly rotated the mana in my body.

At the highest rotation speed I could achieve.

“I’ll go ahead first!”

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

I jumped onto the trees, focusing on the thick branches with all my might.

As I progressed, I could definitely feel it.

‘I’ve gotten much faster than when I came to the academy.’

Following the flow of mana seemed to have had quite an effect.

Of course, I got faster by my standards. It couldn’t be compared to the speed of Aslan, who was flying like an eagle in the sky.

I focused mana on my neck and shouted loudly.

“Sephir! What’s going on!”

Right now, it was a situation where conveying the circumstances was impossible.

If she had released this much mana, it also meant the opponent was quite troublesome.

So even if I went, I might just be a burden, but I could deceive them as reinforcements from afar.

‘Quickly join up and make the enemy retreat.’

That was the goal I had to achieve right now.

The distance to Sephir had gotten close before I knew it.

The flowing mana had decreased, but I could still feel the remaining mana.

“Sephir! I’m-”

What kind of enemy could she have been facing?

I arrived in front of Sephir, full of tension.

I jumped out of the last tree.

And the sight I saw was…

“Huh?”

In the middle of a barren field that was strange to see in the forest, where all the surrounding trees had been cut down, Sephir stood alone, scratching her head.

“What the heck, why are you alone? Where’s the enemy?”

I ran to Sephir and asked about the situation.

If the surroundings had turned into this much of a mess, it must have been an enemy I would know.

Then, at least who came-

“I was training.”

As if to erase my concerns, Sephir quickly replied.

“Training?”

No matter how I looked at it, these weren’t traces of training-

“Yeah. Anyway, I was training.”

“…?”

What the heck are you talking about?