It had been three weeks since Lencar moved in with Rebecca and her siblings. The quiet rhythm of their lives was… disarming.
Every morning began with the same sound — a wooden ladle clinking against an iron pot, the bubbling scent of vegetable stew filling the air. Rebecca's laughter, the kids' chatter, the cold wind slipping through the cracks of the old window.
Lencar sat by that window every morning, staring at the pale sky with a small notebook in hand. He wasn't writing about emotions or dreams — just data. Spell velocity calculations, mana flow efficiency, and notes on Reverse Replication stability. But lately, the margins had been filled with small doodles of fire runes and stick figures that looked suspiciously like Rebecca yelling at him to eat breakfast.
Rebecca leaned against the counter, watching him from across the small kitchen. "You've been staring at that notebook for an hour," she said, stirring the stew. "You planning to eat the paper instead of food?"
"Paper's cheaper," he said without looking up.
"Less tasty, though."
"That depends on the seasoning."
She threw a dishrag at him. He caught it mid-air, flicked it back, and it hit the wall beside her head.
The kids burst out laughing. "Miss Rebecca! He's fighting back!"
"Oh, he's getting bold now," she said, narrowing her eyes in mock offense.
Lencar hid a small grin behind his hand. "Experimenting with trajectory prediction."
"Uh-huh. You're about to experiment with starvation if you don't eat before the food gets cold."
He sighed but stood anyway. "You're remarkably persistent."
"Someone has to make sure you don't live off caffeine and arrogance."
He actually laughed at that — quiet, short, but genuine.
After breakfast, when Rebecca left for the market, Lencar began his day's actual work.
His table was covered in fragmented spell diagrams — attempts to perfect Reverse Replication. The current version worked, but it consumed too much mana and risked unstable duplication when performed on higher-stage grimoires.
The challenge wasn't the replication itself — it was stability. Each grimoire contained a unique magical frequency, like a heartbeat. To reverse it safely, he had to mirror that resonance perfectly.
He thought of Rebecca's earlier comment: "Someone has to make sure you don't live off caffeine and arrogance."
He smiled faintly and reached for his quill. "Fine," he muttered. "Let's do this with less arrogance."
He began channeling mana slowly this time, layering each rune of the Reverse Replication circle with precision.
Silver lines glowed across the table. The magic pulsed in rhythm with his own breathing.
"[Reverse Replication: Controlled Pulse]."
The air shimmered. The target — an old broken charm he'd bought from the market — lifted and trembled. The damaged glyphs along its surface began to reform, glowing faintly with restored energy.
Lencar watched as the charm stabilized, its enchantment returning at a steady mana flow.
He exhaled. "Success. Efficiency improved by 12%. Mana cost reduced." He noted the results quickly, but this time he allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.
It wasn't just working — it was evolving.
That evening, Rebecca came home carrying bags of flour and vegetables. She found Lencar sitting outside, the charm still glowing faintly in his hand.
"What's that?" she asked, setting down the bags.
"Market scrap. Fixed it."
She blinked. "You fixed it? That thing's been dead for years — the vendor said it couldn't even hold mana anymore."
"It can now."
He handed it to her. The charm pulsed with a warm light, resonating like a living thing. Rebecca turned it over in her hand, awe and curiosity mixing in her eyes.
"How did you—"
"Experiment," he said, cutting her off gently but not unkindly. "Call it a side project."
Rebecca tilted her head. "You do realize normal people's side projects involve gardening, right?"
"I tried that once," he said. "The plants died."
She laughed. "I'm not surprised."
But then her smile softened. "Still… that's amazing, Lencar. You brought something broken back."
He looked at her — not the charm, not the data, but her. "That's the point," he said quietly. "Replication wasn't enough. Restoration… feels closer to progress."
There was a silence between them. Not awkward — more like an unspoken understanding. Then Rebecca broke it with a grin.
"You know, for someone who never smiles, you say some pretty poetic things."
"Must be a side effect," he muttered, looking away.
She laughed again, and he let out a quiet chuckle.
Later that night, Rebecca and the kids gathered by the small hearth. It was cold enough that even the firewood complained with every crackle.
Lencar sat nearby, reading through one of his rune books. The kids, as usual, gravitated toward him.
"Tell us a story!" Arin said, tugging on his sleeve.
"I don't know any stories."
"Yes, you do! You told the one about the frog that exploded!"
"That was a potion experiment, not a story."
Rebecca tried not to laugh from the other side of the room. "You might as well make it one. They loved it."
He sighed. "Fine." He looked into the fire for a moment, thinking. "Once there was a boy who wanted to fly. He wasn't strong or gifted — just stubborn. Everyone told him it was impossible, so he studied magic. But instead of wings, he built a broom."
Arin frowned. "That's cheating."
"Efficiency," he said. "He flew anyway."
"And then?"
"He fell," Lencar said simply.
The kids gasped. "That's sad!"
Rebecca glared at him. "You're terrible at bedtime stories."
He shrugged. "He fell, yes. But he learned the difference between falling and flying. And then he built better wings."
That silenced everyone for a moment. Even Rebecca's teasing expression softened.
"You're full of surprises," she said quietly.
"Just good design," he said.
But when the kids finally drifted to sleep, she caught a small, private smile on his face — one that wasn't forced, or calculated, or masked by analysis. Just human.
The next morning, Lencar tested the latest version of Reverse Replication outdoors.
Rebecca stood at the doorway, arms crossed. "You're not going to blow up my yard, right?"
"Probably not."
"That's not comforting."
He raised a hand, and the Reverse Replication circle expanded in the air. Instead of creating a copy, it reversed a broken object — an old wooden bucket — to its prime condition. The cracks sealed, the metal handle straightened, and the wood regained its sheen.
Rebecca's jaw dropped. "You just… unbroke a bucket."
He nodded. "Matter-memory restoration through mana imprinting."
"English, please."
"I fixed it."
She laughed, shaking her head. "You could have just said that."
He smiled slightly. "But where's the fun in that?"
Then she tossed him a cloth. "Congratulations, genius. You've just promoted yourself to house repair duty."
He caught it easily. "I regret everything."
Rebecca smirked. "Too late."
That night, while he sat alone, reviewing his results, he realized something he hadn't noticed before.
Reverse Replication wasn't just a spell — it was a principle. It was about undoing damage, about giving form and purpose back to something lost.
And somewhere, quietly, that principle was doing the same to him.
He wasn't just repairing magic anymore. He was… learning how to live again.