Anime(?) about an old high-level female mage who wanted to ended her life but instead awakened as a young child

Question

I'm fairly certain this was an anime. It starts off with an old high-level female mage with an eye patch who was basically the main hero of her nation. She has a small group of followers/students that she collected. One is a male noble type, definitely wealthy. The other is the male ninja type. The other is a male leader of a guild/group/faction. The other is a female woodsy type with earth-type magic.

They are all obsessed with her but she is old and tired, so she travels to her winter holdings, looking to die as she had lived a long life. She lays in her coffin and chants a magic spell, dispersing all her mana into the world to make it look like she died as her followers can sense her mana as she has the most powerful mana. Except her plan backfires, and as her mana disperses, she awakens as a young child.

As a child, she goes seeking the noble guy to help her set up a new life as she sees it as a chance to do all the things she couldn't do in her old life and makes him promise not to tell the others. In this life, she makes friends with twins or really close friends who are nobles. One is a boy and the other is a girl. Slowly she starts getting sucked back into the life of her past followers. And then we have flashbacks on how she met them and why they mean so much to her and why they are so obsessed with her.

One of my favorite stories was about the follower, who is the faction leader, was so obsessed with her that he would have his followers gather groups of people with her features and bring them back to his holding to soothe his soul, as the mage was the only one who could. Then free them at the end of the day with a big bag of coins. So he ended up picking out an old man from the group and placed her eye patch on his face sat next to him and complained and cried. But then an evil faction began to pose as him trying to use this rumor to do evil deeds, kidnapping people and hurting them.

Answer 1

This is likely Charlotte and Her 5 Disciples, a Korean Manhwa.

Magic grants what the heart desires… at least that’s what the grand sorcerer Charlotte Eleanor always believed. Charlotte saved the world while also forming a following of five disciples to learn her magical gifts. Despite all that, she still couldn’t find the true love that her heart desires. Now, after her death, she’s been reborn into Aria Lisen! With the help of the Grand Duke Louister, can Aria finally find her true love, while keeping her new identity a secret from her former disciples?

The main character is an extremely powerful mage. The opening of the story is her fighting against a demon lord-type character. At this time she's shown wearing a bandage over a bloody eye, and later appearances give her a proper eyepatch.

At the request of her own master, she gets 5 disciples of her own. Much later, as she's old and getting ready to die, she escapes to a solitary wintry area, away from them. And lies in a coffin to chant a spell.

   

The intent is to die and disperse her mana, but instead she revives as a young child.

Her disciples all receive a letter that magically appears in front of them, informing them of her death. I don't believe they are aware that she's still alive, but they're also shown to be extremely obsessive with her, to the point of casting tracking magic on her or her belongings. It's been a while since I read this so I can't confirm the archetypes of the characters, except that one is a king.

After coming back to life she enlists the help of the duke in the synopsis (not one of her followers) to assume a new identity. She tries to use this as an opportunity to avoid her regrets, most notably having never fallen in love.

The scene with the kidnapping of the old man is in chapter 7. Several white-hooded people confront a middle-aged man on the street. They're collecting people that match a certain description. The reincarnated Charlotte sees this and insists she be taken along, as she recognizes one of the people involved as being high up in her disciple's group.

After being "kidnapped" the people are treated to tea and snacks and chat amiably with one another. Shortly after, they are asked to line up one by one and put on an eyepatch that resembles the one Charlotte wore before her death and present themselves before her third disciple, Dan Montes.

   

The old man is the closest fit to his old disciple and spends some additional time with him. Dan Montes is unable to sleep due to his master's death. It is later revealed that he has always had anxiety issues. The reincarnated Charlotte and the others that were taken are given a large bag of gold coins and kindly asked to not tell anyone about this.

Shortly after she gets kidnapped again by a group of scoundrels pretending to be her disciple's group, only they're truly kidnapping people.