The glade where Riam had trained me… was the same one where I met the bear.
The sounds were the same: the trickle of the small stream as it poured into the basin, the breeze, the faint chirping in the distance… And Riam's voice.
She was shaving thin slices off wooden blocks with a sharp knife, and the wood shavings had piled up in her lap.
"Not much left," Riam said clearly. "I'll avenge all of you."
Riam was never one to talk much. I'd never seen her speak to herself either. She was a quiet, heavy-tempered person. Even if she made a joke, it wouldn't make anyone laugh. But now she was speaking to herself.
"Of course I'll kill her!" she shouted, looking upward, as if talking to someone standing beside her. "The curse won't end! It won't end unless I kill her. I won't let her live. And she knows that, too! That's why she keeps killing me."
Silence returned to Riam as she resumed scraping the wood.
"So rest easy. Don't follow me anymore."
She went quiet again, and kept carving… and I was truly worried that I'd been noticed.
She couldn't hear my thoughts, which was strange. From such distances, she usually could.
Maybe she needed to see me to hear them.
"Ah!" Riam flinched with a strange cry, and I almost jumped as well. She lifted her thumb and sucked on it.
"Damn it—" she licked her finger. "This body's a failure. Weak. It can't even channel mana properly."
Then she looked up at the air again. "But don't worry. This won't last long. My next body will be better."
At that moment, I began to understand… just a little. My eyes twitched slightly, as if trying to see what she was staring at. But no matter how long I looked, there was nothing.
Riam…
My eyes grew sad, and a weight clenched around my heart.
Riam was insane…
And I knew from my past life that madness wasn't foreign to anyone. It could happen if enough pressure struck a person during a moment of weakness.
No one was truly immune to it.
Madness was a companion that appeared when life allowed it. I had gone through it… and survived. Maybe Riam hadn't yet.
In the end, I didn't know her at all.
I sighed silently.
There was still half an hour before our meeting time. I decided to head back to the main forest trail and return when the time came. I didn't want her to think I had been eavesdropping.
. . .
"Right on time today," Riam said when I came back to the field.
Do I usually arrive late? I thought to myself.
"You're half an hour late."
"I didn't notice," I replied. "I always try to be on time."
"But you're not," Riam said, her eyes calm.
Wood shavings still littered the clearing. Whatever she had been working on was now held behind her back with both hands.
"I wonder if you'll be surprised," she said.
"I only ever get startled."
Honestly, I'd never truly been surprised by anything. But I had been frightened a few times. Fear wasn't a feeling I liked, but I had known it well enough.
As for surprise… well, I was just grateful to be living a good life now.
Riam hummed as usual, then asked me to sit.
Once we were both seated, she revealed what she had been hiding—and my eyes widened in mild surprise.
"A chessboard?" I asked.
"Yes. The game of the greats. Chess."
I wasn't surprised because I saw a chessboard. I was surprised because I saw something shared between the two worlds. And that was not normal.
If the pieces had looked different, or the name had been altered, it would've seemed more natural. Surely, a mind in this vast world would eventually invent something similar to chess.
However, these pieces bore a striking resemblance to those found on Earth.
And the board had light and dark wooden squares, too.
"Who invented this game?" I asked.
"I don't know," Riam replied, a faint smile on her lips. "But the first person to popularize it was a human king named Helen. He's known for strange and hostile policies."
When I heard her answer, I remembered one of Uncle Spike's books… something about King Helen.
I looked at the board, my thoughts drifting to Uncle Spike's library.
I wanted to know more about Kias, this strange world of speaking stone tablets, mischievous fairies, bears that launch their young out of their wombs…
Honestly, I didn't really want to know that last part.
"Why?" Riam asked. "Why are you this curious?"
I lifted my wandering eyes to her.
"Because I want to be special in this place," I said, without thinking.
Then my eyes widened.
Riam smiled. "Did I steal the truth from your tongue? You want to be special? What are you, a praise-hungry brat?"
Her smile grew wider. And I couldn't stop my cheeks from blushing.
Damn it, how embarrassing.
"Of course not. I just… enjoy understanding different sides of this world."
"Good, then. I'll teach you a lot about it. How about we chat while we play chess?"
Riam's smile faded. "Do you know the rules?"
"Yes."
She set up the pawns, then the rooks and other pieces.
"Do you think we're playing?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"No. We're training."
I squinted, staring at the chessboard, trying to see the connection to training.
"You're smart," Riam said. "Your imagination is sharp. Your memory is excellent. You can memorize things after hearing them once or twice. And you're very aware of physical gestures. These are all strengths."
"I'll blush," I replied sarcastically.
She moved her first pawn. I followed, pushing mine two squares.
"Imagination allows you to create whatever you want. Focus makes what you imagine more real. It's easy to imagine a knife. But focusing on its sharpness, its material, its temperature… that gives it danger when manifested."
She had told me these things before.
"And isolation," Riam added—
I completed her sentence: "—enhances imagination and focus. Every point of isolation sharpens those two factors. But isolation has risks. The closer you get to complete isolation, the more you endanger your mind and consciousness."
"Exactly," Riam said. Then, only after I looked her in the eye, she continued. "That's why, Reopard, you must not rely on isolation too much. And if you do, never be reckless with it."
She moved her second piece. I moved mine.
"Then why learn isolation at all if I shouldn't use it?" I asked.
"So you can use it only when necessary."
I went silent, and we kept playing while Riam explained something strange.
She explained:
A free mana manipulator treats their brain as a reservoir for imagination and focus. The more the manipulator draws from this reservoir, the more exhausted their mind becomes. So the true weakness of a manipulator… is their mental capacity. And isolation reduces the strain on the mind—or maybe makes imagination and focus consume less effort—but it has its dangers.
"I don't want you to rely on isolation to enhance your power," Riam said midway through the game. "That's the trap Libra fell into. If isolation expands your reservoir tenfold… we will make your mind ten times stronger without needing to use it."
And something clicked in my head. I started to understand.
"Exactly, Reopard," Riam smiled. "Tell me, what was your fifth move?"
"I don't remember."
"Your fifth move was the bishop—from this square," she pointed, "to this one."
Then I remembered it.
Riam was smart.
"I just practiced more," Riam replied to my thoughts.
"How many moves ahead do you calculate before each play?" she asked.
"Usually two at most."
"Our goal is ten moves ahead. And when the game ends, we'll trace back every move until every piece returns to its original position."
…
Was that even possible? For the brain to remember every move so clearly, could it replay them in reverse like a video?
At first, I found it hard to believe…
Until Riam finished the game—and then rewound every move, hers and mine, like a video in reverse.
It was a strange sight.
And that sight planted a seed of doubt in me.
"Will this really help me?" I asked.
I had preferred to do more physical training like push-ups, jumps, and weightlifting. After all, what was chasing me from my past life wasn't a chess player, but a scrawny boy who looked like a girl.
"I know it's hard to accept," Riam said. "But Reopard… I'm going to tell you something—and you must carve it into your mind. Never forget it."
Riam's eyes sharpened. At the same time, I felt the breeze grow colder.
"A good manipulator needs no body. They need no arm. No leg. Only an exceptional mind."
And maybe there… the conversation ended.
The game continued.
Step by step.
Each round took more than half an hour. She stayed calm, patient with my slow pace. With every move, I felt pressured. I thought deeply, squeezing my mind.
And by the time evening came… We had only finished seventeen rounds.