Chapter 1: The Day the Barrier Disappeared

Some time after my little visit to the elves’ territory, Teto and I stood in the middle of our forest, looking up at the sky.

“Lady Witch, it’s happening!”

“It is.”

By channeling mana into our eyes, we could see the dome-shaped barrier Liriel had erected around the region ages ago. Now having fulfilled its purpose, the barrier had begun to disperse.

“It’s so pretty,” I commented.

“It looks like flower petals dancing in the wind!”

The goddesses had warned me that the barrier would eventually collapse, and it seemed that today was the day. A hole opened at the very top of the dome, gradually spreading as the barrier crumbled away. The broken fragments fluttered in the wind like so many flower petals, gradually dissolving in the air and showering over the land.

“I thought the barrier would last a little longer, but it seems that it’s served its purpose, huh?” I mused out loud.

This land, once known as the Wasteland of Nothingness, had been left barren due to an accident caused by a precursor civilization. All the mana there vanished instantly, and the entire land became a sort of mana vacuum, gradually absorbing the energy of the surrounding territories until the goddess Liriel raised a barrier to stop it. Without the barrier, the mana concentration of everything adjoining the wasteland would have plummeted, leading to the extinction of all the fauna and flora that depended on mana. On top of preventing mana, people, and monsters from entering, the barrier also pulled unused mana from Earth, slowly revitalizing the land.

However, things changed drastically when I was reincarnated into this world.

Having been summoned alongside an infusion of mana from Earth, I, along with Teto and my other friends, spent decades ref