A teenage boy walked along an open-air passageway in the middle of a flower garden, the color of morning light transformed by the colorful panels of glass over his head. Leading him at the front was an elderly nun, whom he respectfully caught his own pace while he admired the flowers nearby.

“These are…” The beauty of a bush of blue flowers near him stole his attention, the boy stopped walking.

“What’s wrong, Mister Perun?” The bespectacled nun stopped a second after the other pair of footsteps had stopped, and turned around.

“These flowers weren’t here the last time. Sister, may I touch them?”

“Of course. Mister Perun, this bush has grown just in season. It’s beautiful, isn’t it.” Her eyes on its petals, a splash of purple throughout its leaves.

“Well, a little…” Seeing that it was within an arm’s reach, the boy’s hand brushed past a bush of them. The boy thought that it was a little embarrassing to admit such a hobby to others. Rather, it was something that made him recall the trivia given by one of his late friends, that the type of flowers symbolize different things. This one if he recalled correctly, was a Blue Lilac. He moved his fingers close to his nose and smelt it; a strong, sweet and heady scent that was almost cloying. The fragrance filled his body with a certain strength, causing his eyes to widen.

“Are you surprised?” The nun smiled at his reaction. The boy continued to sniff a few times, and after recognizing that the feeling didn’t repeat itself, his shoulders relaxed.

“...Yes. My mana just reacted to it…”

Still, his hands were all over one of its petals, edging his head closer to inspect it carefully.

“...Strange… while it’s weak, I can definitely feel a little revitalized just by sniffing it… is this not a blue lilac?”

“It is, but these lilacs are absorbent to mana.” The nun answered.

“Absorbent to mana?” Perun looked at the nun in surprise.

“Hm… I think it was… four months ago? Mm...” Folding her arms, the old lady tilted her head as she tried to recall the reason for it.

“Four months ago…” Perun muttered under his breath, trying to remember anything of significance that had happened around the church during that time. He looked around, and saw a change near the left side of the church.

“...Hm? Come to think of it, wasn’t there supposed to be an empty space there? Does that have anything to do with it?” Perun who had a tendency to notice the minor changes in places pointed towards a wide open grassland area over the fence of the church, where many tombstones were laid in rows.

“Ah, I don’t think so. That is the graveyard that was recently erected to the side of the church. They’re using most of the space around here to bury the dead soldiers, I don’t think that’s the reason. If I remember correctly, the first person to notice it was the caretaker of the flower garden, he’s also a new human like you. Do you perhaps want to speak to him?”

The nun was of course referring to the 32-year old Paul, who cleaned and trimmed the garden once every week. Perun had met him before a few times already, although he had never spoken to him. Perun nodded his head to indicate his interest, and added that he would do it after finishing his business here for today. That is, of course his donation to the church again, which was conducted deep inside the church grounds where the god Y’ghan could see. The nun nodded in return, and the two continued walking along the passageway while continuing the talk from earlier. The nun spoke first.

“However, this isn’t limited to the blue lilacs, the entire garden could take the mana within them.” The nun said, her smile unchanging.

“It absorbs the mana… from humans?” Once again, Perun’s face became slightly cautious, hearing that it had the potential to suck up his limited amount of mana. The nun seemed to have guessed what he was thinking, thus she followed up not noticing his strained face.

“Do not worry, it’s not to the point where it becomes life-threatening. I understand that the new humans experience drastic side effects when they lose all the mana in their bodies, but the flowers take them in like oxygen, the amount is to the point of not being noticeable. After all, it is as you’d seen earlier. The flowers are rid of mana once you touched them, there’s not much stored in them. The caretaker does not have enough mana in his body to do anything with it, yet he’s still fine after touching the flowerbeds constantly. Please rest assured.”

Although Perun was slightly dissatisfied with the nun’s answer, he still let it pass. Although he corrected her in his mind that the caretaker simply did not know how to make use of the limited amount of mana.

“...I see. Thank you for this information.”

“No no, it is the least that I could do for the generous donations you make every month. You’ve helped us maintain our operations even through these hard times. I thank you on behalf of our followers, Mister Perun.”

It seemed that she did not know anything beyond that. It wasn’t anything unusual either, as the normalcy of people in this country ran deep. Ignorance rather, where they take pride in being the older generation of humans, calling the mana-influenced the ‘new humans’. It was intended for it to be a derogatory term on purpose, the government had a major part on its propaganda in most poverty-stricken states. However, Perun had a privilege to dispel such a misconception of the church people on himself, and was a welcomed ‘new human’ for he had been of a great help to the church in easing their financial burden since the last year.

Perun still was a little fidgety now that he had the knowledge that there was the existence of a potential ingredient for a mana-replenishing medicine in this garden. If this was true, then Perun just might have stumbled onto a gold mine. The world was in need of such a product right now. Looking back over the fence where he’d just been curious of, Perun noticed a person there.

A little girl with long and messy grey hair sitting on a tombstone, her short feet swinging to and fro. Had she no idea that she was in a graveyard? Her childish and innocent demeanor seemed to convince Perun of such. What was she doing in such a place?

“Ah sister, do you know that girl?” Having caught the nun’s attention, Perun pointed towards the little girl. The nun squinted her eyes to see, and suddenly sighed.

“...Oh, that child?” The nun removed the pair of spectacles and pressed her nose, her face creased with wrinkles as she did so.

“That child’s name... is Leilan. She is from an orphanage nearby, but... she doesn’t talk much.”

“...Are her parents…”

Wearing the spectacles back, the nun continued.

“I think you’d know, but her situation… is very tragic. If you can take it, then…”

“...Please, if you don’t mind. I’ll hear it.”

The nun stopped and pointed towards a bench in the garden.

“...Let’s take a short break.”

Perun and Pixie had finished bathing, and moved down to the first floor of the three-storey terraced house. The living room had the size of a studio apartment, and it had a rather minimalist feel to it. Shelves, chairs and tables were all in alternating monochromatic colors, and the side of the stairs was a long aluminium rod acting as support and a panel of glass under it.

On a large couch at the side of the living room, there was a girl who looked around 20 years of age playing with her smartphone. She had grey and lustrous hair down to her waist, and a hairpin stuck to the side of it resembling a yukata hair accessory. She was wearing a rather fashionable set of clothing, and a pair of stockings which was raised up rather high as the girl was huddled up together where her feet were resting on the cushion of the couch.

“Oh, you’re early, Leilan.” Perun greeted his daughter.

As if she had been waiting the entire time for Perun to call out to her, Leilan returned the phone to the pocket in her dress and slid her right leg forward on the couch. She placed her palms together in front of her chest and turned to stare at her father's direction silently without returning his greeting.

Was she waiting for something? Perun thought, as he finished the flight of stairs. Seeing this, Pixie pinched his back.

“O-ouch! Wh-what?”

“...Hug me.”

“What’s this about again…?”

Perun received another pinch.

“Okay okay!”

Perun lowered his waist and hugged his wife dumbfoundedly. He could hear Pixie breathing softly beside his ear. Her heartbeat raised, just a little. Then, to his unguarded ear, Pixie whispered coquettishly, “...Princess carry me to the kitchen like this.”

“Ehhh… but its t- Ah, ouch! Okay, stop it! A-ah! It tickles, it tickles! I get it already, so stop doing that...”

To this, Pixie stopped, and extended both of her arms upwards, like a baby expecting a carry over the shoulders. Perun was a little weirded out by his wife’s unexpected behaviour, but he quickly compromised to the Pixie who was currently puffing her cheeks. He couldn’t bear to make this small squirrel angry, Perun swept his wife off her feet and moved over to the kitchen area on the same level.

Why don't you just die already.

"Huh?" Perun turned around from the immense amount of blood lust behind him, but it was just Leilan playing with her phone still, she wasn't paying the couple any attention at all.

...He thought he felt a cold, piercing glare behind him, but it was probably just his imagination. Leilan was one of his cute daughters, she would never do something like that. As expected, Perun felt that his sense of perception was getting rather rusty over the years being out of service. Turning his head back again, he could see his wife snickering for some reason.

"...Uh, you look happy?"

"Fufu, do I? Do I? Fufufufu, I'm happy I think. I'm reaaaaaally happy." Pixie spoke out in a louder voice on purpose. The shoulders of the girl sitting on the couch twitched violently, but Perun could not see it.

"Well then, I'll cook up breakfast so you can sit in the living room or something."

His wife was in a strangely good mood, and was already putting on her apron and moving to the refrigerator for the egg tray. Leaning against the open fridge door, Pixie appealed her body to her husband and wriggled her butt.

"Although... I don't mind if you stay here and watch~"

"...I'll go chat up with Leilan. It looks like she wants to talk to me about something."

"Tch." Pixie's mood immediately turned sour, it could be seen on her face. She immediately retracted her gravure pose, took the ingredients out of the fridge and shut the door loudly.

...

Perun left his wife to her own shenanigans and walked back over to the living room.