Chapter 6: Magic
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 6: Magic
“...You’ve awakened your magic power?”
“Huh? Is this magic power?”
After returning from the bathroom, I explained to Evangeline about the blue haze emanating from my hand. Hearing my words, Evangeline put on a serious expression and raised her own hand.
Fwoosh-! A pink haze, similar to the one that had just come from my hand, bloomed from hers.
“This is magic power. But you’re not a witch, so how in the world…”
“...Um, Eva?”
“Hm? What is it?”
“Could it be something in the fish I ate?”
“The fish from the river? The ones in there are just ordinary fish. The people in the village downstream catch and eat them too.”
If the river fish had such an effect, the villagers would have awakened their magic power long ago—Evangeline dismissed my theory.
With my opinion shot down, I remained silent, my mind blank. Then, a thought flashed through my head, and I opened my mouth.
“If I’ve awakened this ‘magic power’—does that mean I can use magic too?”
At my words, Evangeline pressed her lips together. But this was more important than anything. Magic, magic!
Wasn’t it every man’s dream? Abracadabra, Wingardium Leviosa. To freely use the kind of magic you’d only see in cartoons.
And—there was one more reason I wanted to learn magic.
‘If I become a mage… couldn’t I break the curse?’
I wanted to see Evangeline’s face.
And magic was the perfect justification to achieve that.
However, Evangeline shook her head.
“...Honestly, I don’t know.”
“What? Why?”
“Because a man using magic is unprecedented.”
“...Excuse me?”
What in the world was she talking about? It was a bolt from the blue. Men can’t use magic? Is magic some kind of fucking feminist?
While I was internally cursing the PC culture that had apparently spread to this world, she nodded as if she’d made a decision and called my name.
“Yohan.”
“Yes, Eva.”
“Let’s try to learn.”
“...Learn what?”
“Magic. You said you wanted to learn, didn’t you?”
Evangeline tilted her head and asked as if I’d already forgotten. Recalling what she had just said, I repeated her words back to her.
“Didn’t you just say it was impossible…?”
“Just because I’ve never seen it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. You actually awakened your magic power, didn’t you?”
“Ah.”
I felt foolish for having given up just a moment ago. I clenched my fists, overjoyed at the fact that I could learn magic.
Evangeline, too, seemed to think it would be beneficial for her, as a smile spread across her face. After all, if I, who was more of a slave than an assistant, could learn magic, I would truly become a figure worthy of being a witch’s assistant.
The moment everything was decided, she acted with a swiftness uncharacteristic of a witch, for whom lifespan was not a pressing concern.
“Alright then… shall we go to my room?”
“Your room, Eva?”
“Yes. Oh, and now that you’re officially learning magic, calling me ‘Eva’ is a bit stiff. Call me Master.”
“Yes, I understand. Master.”
I followed her up the stairs to the second floor.
Towards the witch’s workshop, a place I had never once entered since coming here.
Leading Yohan into her room, Evangeline felt her heart pound for some reason. A witch’s sensibilities were quite different from a human’s; thus, a witch is more embarrassed to show her workshop than her naked body.
She was no exception. The fact that Yohan was an ignoramus who didn’t know the first thing about magic was not particularly important at that moment.
“Wow… this is amazing.”
“I-Is it? Don’t just go looking around, though…”
Yohan let out a gasp of admiration as he saw the various magic books, crystal balls, and unidentifiable reagents placed around the room. It was a witch’s workshop straight out of a picture book.
It was only now starting to sink in that she was a witch. I had seen her use magic a few times, but appearances were more important than I thought.
As Yohan looked around the room, he saw Evangeline holding out a book to him and quickly took it.
“This is…?”
“Introduction to Magic. It’s a book with the basics of magic. You can read, right? I saw you reading a letter before.”
“Probably…”
I couldn’t be sure. Hadn’t I just realized this was another world? It would surely use a different language system, so I had no idea how I’d even managed to read that letter.
Fortunately, I could read the characters in the book. Was this some kind of isekai perk? Yohan felt a small sense of relief and began to read. However, being able to read the book didn’t mean I could understand it.
“...Um, Master.”
“What is it?”
“Do I have to memorize all of this?”
“Of course. Why? Is it difficult? It’s extremely easy…”
Evangeline looked at Yohan with a worried expression, as if to say that if he couldn’t even memorize these basics, learning magic would be difficult.
Reading her expression, Yohan carefully continued to read the book.
[Magic is the act of deceiving the world by stimulating the unconscious through the conscious activity of a witch…]
‘What the hell is this bullshit…?’
It was like reading a difficult textbook for a major I knew nothing about; I couldn’t understand most of what was written. I could somehow memorize it, but I couldn’t decipher why things connected the way they did.
Just as memorizing a formula doesn’t mean you can use it freely, Yohan, despite having read through the Introduction to Magic and roughly memorizing its contents, couldn’t use magic right away.
Most people would have hit a wall like this and given up on their dream of magic, but right now, Evangeline was in front of him. The great witch who had declared herself Yohan’s master.
“Looks like something’s not working out?”
“...Yeah, well. Putting everything else aside, I don’t even know where to start with ‘moving my magic power.’”
“You’ve already awakened your magic power, Yohan, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. Just a moment.”
Evangeline said this as she approached Yohan from behind. She then hugged him, holding both of his arms from the back.
He could feel the sensation of two breasts pressing against his back, their tips crushed and rubbing against him haphazardly. Encountering that heavenly softness, Yohan froze solid.
“Now—try to release your magic power like you did before.”
“Ye-Yesss…”
As if to hide his swelling lower abdomen, he carefully extended his hands forward. A blue haze bloomed from them.
Impressed by his speed, Evangeline let out a small gasp. She held onto Yohan’s arms and began to knead them.
“Inside this arm, you should feel something like a thin thread of energy.”
“A-A thin thread of energy…”
“Yes, concentrate. You can do it, Yohan.”
Gulp. At the sound of her voice whispering in his ear, Yohan swallowed hard and focused on the thin thread of energy she mentioned, while her hair, which had cascaded down, tickled the nape of his neck.
It was a situation where concentrating was impossible, so Yohan simply passed the time in silence. A normal person would have gotten annoyed long ago, but Evangeline waited patiently for him to succeed without a hint of irritation.
Perhaps her long wait was not in vain, because Yohan finally succeeded in feeling his own magic power. By tracing the sensation he had grasped, he also realized that it spread throughout his body from his heart.
“...I felt it.”
“Really!? That’s amazing. I honestly didn’t think you’d be able to do it this quickly.”
“Huh?”
“Normally, this is something that takes even a witch several years. Is it because you first awakened your magic power after becoming an adult?”
Hearing Evangeline’s words, Yohan carefully looked down at his hands. He looked at the flaring blue haze and thought.
‘Am I… actually a genius? Do I have some SSS-rank magic talent or something?’
Dropped into another world, given a cheat called ‘talent,’ and now all that was left was to gather a bunch of women—his heart began to pound at the thought of an isekai cheat harem life.
But that was only for a moment. Yohan felt a gaze on him and lifted his head.
“Uh… Master?”
“—You were just thinking something strange, weren’t you?”
“Wh-What? No. Nothing at all…”
“Hmph. Really? It didn’t seem that way to me…”
Lifting his head, Yohan finally remembered why he had wanted to learn magic in the first place. Right, he didn’t need a harem or any of that. Wasn’t he learning magic to see her face?
Having succeeded in feeling his magic power, Yohan looked at Evangeline with a face full of anticipation at the thought of finally learning proper magic.
“So, am I going to learn magic now?!”
“Yep. Alright—Yohan, try using magic.”
“...How do I use it?”
“Hmm?”
Hearing Yohan’s question, Evangeline tilted her head as if he were asking something obvious and opened her mouth.
“Use your magic power with a feeling like… shwoong- kwaang! Fwoosh- pshooo-!”
“...What?”
“I said, try using your magic power with a feeling like pikoong! Paaak!”
Hearing her explanation, Yohan realized one thing.
Witches are beings who use magic, but this ability is innate.
Just as a bird cannot teach a human how to fly, a witch cannot teach a human how to use magic.
Realizing this fact, Yohan fell into deep despair.
In the end, I couldn’t learn magic.
“...I’m sorry. I’m a failure as a master.”
“No, it’s not your fault, Master. It’s because I don’t have any talent…”
“No. I’ve never done anything like this before…”
No matter how skilled a witch was with magic, she couldn’t do everything. Magic was versatile, but not omnipotent.
However, as I listened to her, I noticed something strange and looked at her.
“Master.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“In that case, how do witches learn magic?”
“Oh, that’s simple. At some point, you just suddenly can.”
“...You can just do it at some point?”
How could that be called magic? By all rights, shouldn’t magic be learned by gathering in an ivory tower like a magic tower or a magic academy, putting heads together, and scribbling magic circles on parchment?
I had believed that there would be formalized magic, like a mage in an RPG game, so her words came as a shock.
“...Then what kind of magic can you use, Master?”
“This is a secret… but actually, witches can only use one kind of magic.”
“...One kind of magic?”
I tilted my head. One kind? Hadn’t she already used several types of magic?
The fluffy blanket was magic, the seasoning that made food delicious was magic, and there was also the magic that blew a cool breeze to ventilate the inside of the cabin.
But she was saying she could only use one kind of magic?
“What on earth is the magic that you can use, Master?”
“Should I show you?”
Evangeline said this and raised her finger. At that, the objects around her began to float up.
Pointing to the furniture floating in mid-air, she smiled lightly and opened her mouth.
“My magic is ‘the magic to control love.’”
“...Love?”
“Yes. Right now, I’ve made gravity hate the furniture.”
She said this and snapped her fingers. Gravity returned, and the objects fell back to the floor.
However, I could only let out a groan as I mulled over what she had just said.
‘Making gravity hate them so they float in the air…’
What kind of nonsense was this? It was enough to make Newton burst out of his coffin.