When I heard the first part of Luke's story, I realized how much of a mess of a story this was, but little did I know that it was only the beginning.

My mother being gone, the manor’s mansion being burned, the two carbonated bodies discovered inside what was discovered of the mansion have been identified as belonging to two members of the low-ranking noble family who had recently relocated to Louisane.

The bodies' identities having been established, the case was immediately taken over by the church and its envoy.

And, of course, because she was missing and the crime theater was literally her house, my mother was the first person suspected of having a direct connection to their murders.

Although no one from the deceased family members admitted it to the church's envoy, the townspeople were well aware that the two now-deceased aristocrats were openly courting her.

She was to say the ideal suspect,

In that situation, the only thing in her favor was that it made no sense for a commoner, let alone a pregnant commoner, to be able to murder two full-fledged nobles. But even so, there was also the possibility that she received external help, which if she was related to the murder, was most likely the case.

The whole mess was cast aside the moment Luke heard that his mother was pregnant. He realized right away that the baby she carried was most likely his.

Before they parted ways, a few months before, Luke had clearly explained to my mother what would happen if a commoner were to get impregnated by a noble. Notwithstanding this, she was confidently walking around town with a three-month-old belly, indicating that she, despite being well aware of what it entailed, had no intention of aborting.

To Luke, what she was doing was committing suicide, and with the nobles' murder case, she was dragging Luke with her to the grave, for if the church’s envoys were to discover her whereabouts, it would have meant not only her doom but also certainly Luke's.

Though he didn't know what to do at first, he soon realized that only one person could provide him with solid assistance, his uncle Emilien.

Luke told his Uncle the truth.And Grandfather, helpful as he already was back then, from that moment onward, took charge of everything from the moment he was assigned the case and launched a discreet woman hunt throughout the duchy, but it all proved futile.

After three months of fruitless research, both the envoys and the grandfather woman-hunter agreed it was time to call it quits.

She was simply unfindable.

Being in her sixth month of pregnancy, if at that point she hadn't aborted yet, it would've meant that she was most likely dead, and if she had aborted, there would have been no reason to panic because there would have been no proof linking her to Luke at that point.

As grim as it was to say, for a brief moment, Luke and Grandfather felt glimmer of relief that the matter had just been resolved on its own, but little did they know that this was far from the case, as not even a couple of weeks after they assumed the case had been closed, they received word of her reappearance.

She, apparently, having heard that grandfather’s men were looking for her, appeared in one of his health centers where she requested to see him. It didn’t take long for the words to reach Grandfather.

Luke and Grandfather dispatched men to take her to the safest place they could think of: the Rosetta manor, a place where she obediently agreed to accompany them to.

Once she arrived at the manor, and when they saw her, Luke and Grandfather Emilien couldn't believe their eyes. She was extremely healthy despite her pregnancy, having reached her sixth month.

In general, once a noble's pregnancy reaches the sixth month, it can become a veritable nightmare; only a very small minority of pregnant women survive the end of their pregnancy without experiencing the horrible pain caused by the mana the baby unintentionally releases.

Yet my mother, at that point, didn't appear to have any of the symptoms of a noble pregnancy; nor did she look like what she, at that point, should've been: dead. In fact, she even seemed unusually healthy for a pregnant woman.

All of this was so out of the ordinary that both Luke and Grandfather began to suspect that the baby was not Luke's. And Luke committed the error of being brave enough to ask her the question, which tickled both of their minds.

It goes without saying that they immediately regretted their decision, for she attacked him.

And when I say "attacked," I don't mean clawing, slapping, or anything of the sort. She assaulted him with magic, or rather, a raw and brutish rampage of mana.

Nobles were baptized in order to avoid such a rampage, both for their own safety and the safety of those around them. Luke stated that her rampage had almost ripped him off of his right arm and killed two of Rosetta Manor's guards.

If it hadn't been for Grandfather Emilien's presence and healing magic, her attack would have had disastrous consequences for Luke.

It took them some time and a lot of effort to neutralize her without injuring her.

And only after they did, did she, after calming down, confess to being the one responsible for the deaths of the two nobles.

That night where she ran away from Louisanne, she was approached in her manor by the two nobles, they tried to attack her, it was then that they became her outburst very first victims, which is why she realizing she wouldn't be safe in town for much longer, so she set fire to the mansion to buy herself some time to flee.

She's been having these outbursts since her third month of pregnancy.

She was able to remain hidden for three months thanks to the helpful help of some connections she had. However, a set of events forced her to come out of hiding.

The rampages which so far she somewhat held control on have become increasingly frequent, uncontrollable and violent.

The smallest annoyance, the smallest sense of constraint, was enough to set them off.

She completely lost the little control she held for the first six months of the rampage. At that time, the outbursts could be triggered by the slightest change in her mood.

The rampages she was experiencing had gotten far too out of hand for the people with whom she had connections to continue sheltering her.

As such, as a last resort, she resolved to seek Luke's and Grandfather Emilien’s help.

Though painful it was, at the end of the day, Luke and Uncle Emilien got the answer to their earlier question.

They had no idea how or why she was safe from the rampage, nor how she could be still alive, but they no longer doubted the identity of the baby's father.

At that point, they had no choice but to place her under their protection and wait to see how things would play out.

It has been decided that Grandfather would take over the duty of keeping an eye on my mother during her stay at the Rosetta Manor. After all, Luke still had a wife and child waiting for him at home, whereas Lord Emilien's absence could easily be covered by a long hunting trip to find oneself.

All things worked well, at least for a month and a half, with the exception of a few rampages triggered by nightmares she'd had, but she'd be able to keep her rampages at bay as long as she was fed five lunches a day and wasn't asked annoying or stressful questions. But everything changed as her pregnancy approached the eighth month.

It started.

Hers arrived later than expected, but it did arrive.

These rampages became more frequent, to the point where they could last all day, with the only difference being that the rampages were accompanied by agonizing pain this time.

The last three months of a noble's pregnancy are difficult for a reason: during that time, both the baby's and the mother's mana are attempting to both balance and accommodate to each other.

In my mother's case, she didn't have any mana, to begin with, so the rampage could be explained by the fact that she didn't have anything to suppress the mana the baby was unconsciously releasing, and the pain was most likely caused by my mana forcing her body to somehow match my constitution as a noble.

Healing magic could not alleviate a noble's suffering during pregnancy, and the same could not be said for my mother's pain.

They had only two options at the time: to terminate her pregnancy or put her in a dream-like state with the help of a friend, who I could only assume to be the masked man from that night, which would not relieve her pain but would help her bear it for the remaining month of her pregnancy.

With the pregnancy already being in the eight month, they opted for the latter. With that, she spent the remainder of her pregnancy in a coma.

It was not so long around that time, and only then, that they decided to enlist the help of Maa, who had her fair share of experience with noble birth deliveries, having assisted both Edouard’s and Aubrecht’s families' births of Luke and Phillip .

The day arrived a few weeks after Maa arrived at the Rosetta manor. After nearly an entire month in a vegetative state, the big day had arrived.

It was, as I assumed, a complicated birth delivery. But, in the end, both my mother and I escaped unscathed or at the very least alive.

On a moonless night, I, Ronandt, was born.

Since I wasn't crying, they assumed I had some kind of physical disability, but their fears were soon dispelled. I, despite being born to a commoner and noble parent, seemed ‘somewhat’ normal.

Having finished detailing the events surrounding my birth, Luke finally, after a long and heavy sigh, began to explain why my mother and I were separated.

My next memories after that event, where I’d woken up confused as I was back then, only to somehow be knocked unconscious, were of being cared for by Maa.

I remember seeing that woman on the bed, I remember them performing the baptismal, but that was all I could remember of that night. That's why I even came to assume that she could’ve died not so long after, but Grandfather Emilien and Maa both confirmed to me that she was still alive, and so did Luke too today.

He, though hesitantly, told me the truth

I was estranged from her, not because she was dead, but rather because shortly after I was born she had lost all of her memories.

She'd lost all of the memories that made her who she was. She, like me, had no recollection of who she was or what she’s been through.

No, saying that she was like me would be incorrect. After all, it would make sense in my case not to have any memory in the first place. So her case, though similar, is different.

In her case, there was something wrong with her because she didn't have any memories left, whereas, in mine, there was something wrong with me because I had memories of not having memories. After all, as a baby, I shouldn't have been as self aware as I was.

The fact that I was born the way I was when I was born gave me the impression that something was missing, such as memory, something which I from time to time found myself longing for, but it didn't make sense for me, as a newborn baby, to have any memory at all to begin with.

For years, I felt constrained by the fact that I was born conscious, or that there was something both missing and misplaced in me.

For years, I tried to come up with an explanation, but as time went by, I eventually settled and accepted that fact as normal.

With Luke continuing, I, for the time being, decided to set those perplexing thoughts aside and focus on the rest of the story.

Since she, having forgotten everything, wasn't in a condition to care for me, Luke and the others decided to move Mother to one of Grandfather's manors in the Duchy's northern region, where they hoped she would recover sufficiently to live as a normal human being.

Luke told me she had since been to somewhere else and that, where she was now, in less than two years, she had regained the independence that a person her age should have, but she still didn't remember who she was.

They eventually decided to allow her to lead a life without telling her who she was or what she had done.

First and foremost, to give her a fresh start, but also for my sake.

A noble couple's chances of having a child are extremely low, even lower for a second child, and having a third child may be considered a miracle for the nobility.

Here in Altaira, only men were allowed to become the heads of ruling families. And in Luke's case, he'd blown two of his best chances.

His first child was a girl. And that fact, the fact that Luke's first child was a girl, favored me. Wanting to take advantage of the absence of a legitimate male heir, they thought they would be able to introduce me as a child of light with unusually crimson eyes.

Their initial plan was to keep me hidden until Luke would take the Ducal family's throne and introduce me as a child of light who had managed to remain hidden from the church for years. But for that plan to become a reality, it became clear that there was no room for my mother.

My black hair was quite unusual in this corner of the world, and when combined with my crimson eyes, it made my appearance even more unusual. So, in order for their plan to succeed, they had to eliminate all traces of my parents' existence, since if the church were to inquire about me, and it was sure they would, they would, if they put effort into digging the past, definitely make a connection between my mother and what she did years before.

But their plan fell apart four years ago when Maa was summoned to the Ducal family to assist Ramia's mother in giving birth to Luke, the Ducal family's first official son, Eliel.

At that point, introducing myself as a child of light could only make me appear suspicious.

Since if I were adopted into the Aubrecht family as a child of light after Elliel's birth, I'd be placed on the same level as Elliel. In fact, given that I'm five years older than Elliel, that would put me directly at the top of the line of succession, which would make no sense in the eyes of the nobility and the church unless there was a hidden reason behind these moves.

For years, they were lost as to what to do with me, until very recently, when they got the letter announcing Luke's grandfather's arrival in three months.

***

From this point on, I knew everything there was to know about the story, except for one thing.

"What does her father think might have caused her amnesia?" I finally asked, after having held back that question for almost half of the second half of his explanation.

"Are you sure you want to know?" Luke asked, even more solemnly than before, after a long pause.

To these words, I felt my heartbeat quicken and anxiety creeping up on me. I had a feeling I wouldn't like the answer I would get, but I knew I had to confront it anyway.

"Yes," I answered quietly, my body quivering.

Luke looked at Syrius for a moment, who nodded at him, before holding out both of his hands as if to demonstrate something with his palms.

Suddenly, orange flames appeared on his left palm, and yellow lightning appeared on his right hand.

"Our Aubrecht family is well-known for producing exceptional fire and lightning users, of which I and your great-grandfather are prime examples. We can tell what element or type of magic a noble will be skilled at based on the color of the mana he is unconsciously releasing at birth. In Ramia's case, she presented mana that was a blend of red and yellow, whereas, in Elliel's case, he presented mana that was pure yellow; the yellow color remains in both cases. We could tell from the color that Ramia, like your great-grandfather and me, will become an expert in lightning and fire magic in the future, whereas Elliel would most likely become an expert in lightning magic.``

"How was mine?" I inquired, my heart thrumming.

"The color of your mana, in your case, was gray dark fog with a shimmer of red." We assumed that your mother's prolonged coma had caused her to forget everything. However, when we used it on her, a magical item that allows its users to peer into a person's memories, we discovered that the only memories she had left were from after her coma, and her memories had been completely erased. There could only be one explanation for something so extreme..."

“Magic… my own magic," I said, squeezing my fist tightly to keep myself from shaking.

An overwhelming desire to vomit arose.

"Yes, we believe you, like my uncle Edouard's family healing, have developed the unique ability non-elemental magic to erase people's memories or at least something approaching, but you shouldn't feel bad about it because you didn't do it on purpose. And even if you did, then there were the-''

His words were cut short by a flurry of strangled coughs from me.

"Are you all right?" "Young Lord, are you all right?" Syrius and Luke both said the same thing.

If their assumption is correct, which I am confident is the case here, and if I truly have the ability to erase people's memories,

Then, my mother must have been my first victim.

That could also imply that I gained sentience through the same process.

I was filled with dread, revulsion, and, of course, guilt at the prospect of being a ripoff of someone whose entire existence had been obliterated from her memory by me.

"Ronandt!" "Young Lord!" I vaguely heard Syrius and Luke shouting from a distance.

In my chest, I felt a tearing sensation. I'd fallen out of my chair to the ground, attempting to suppress the ghostly yet painful sensation in my chest before I realized it.

For the second time in my life, I passed out, but before I did, I don’t know if it was the fact that he earlier mentioned gray with a shimmer of red, but for some reason I felt as if I was being submerged with something I deemed similar in color.