Aina and Free
Free had found Aina, and the two of them were sitting side by side on a bench.
"It's been a while. Almost a week, hasn't it?"
"Yeah."
Aina's demeanor was no different from usual. The same as always—the Aina that Free knew.
"Have your wounds all healed?"
He nodded at her question.
"Yeah. I'm fully recovered now."
"That's a relief."
Aina had always been a woman of few words. He hadn't known her all that long, but he knew perfectly well how little she typically spoke. After all, he had spent days on end trailing after her. And then there was that stubborn streak of hers—the way she always followed through on anything she had set her mind to.
"Come to think of it, that series of grimoires you gave me was a huge help in the fight against Recas. Thank you."
A little embarrassed, perhaps, Free cleared his throat as he finished speaking.
Hearing that, Aina—still seated on the bench, her long, shapely legs stretched out before her, dark brown shoes on her feet—began tapping her heels lightly against the ground, alternating one then the other. Her gaze had drifted down to the tips of her own shoes as she did so.
Sitting beside her, Free glanced over without thinking. Strangely enough, he found that trivial tapping rather pleasant to the ear.
...What is this? Is that her way of showing she's in a good mood?
He was still turning that theory over when the tapping suddenly stopped. Aina turned her head toward him and gazed quietly at his profile. Free caught it out of the corner of his eye.
He pretended not to notice. Then she spoke, her voice as even and transparent as always, without rise or fall.
"...That magic you used in the duel. What was it?"
"The magic I used in the duel?"
It hadn't been just one or two spells. He wasn't entirely sure why she was asking, but he thought it over.
"You mean the one I used at the end?"
Aina shook her head.
"No. Not that one."
"Then which?"
He looked at her, puzzled, and she gave him a clear answer.
"That polygonal magic."
"Ah. You mean the defensive spell."
She nodded.
Why? Why would she ask about that? The thought had barely formed before Free grasped her true intent. He turned to meet the eyes of the girl watching him from the side, then spoke after a brief pause.
"...Don't tell me you're asking me to teach you that spell too. Right now?"
She nodded.
What a shameless girl.
Or perhaps, he thought, she was simply a magic-obsessed enthusiast—just like him.
Free leaned back on the bench and folded his arms. Then, with the air of someone considering the matter, he closed his eyes and drew his brows together.
"Center Protect isn't a spell I can just teach to anyone."
It was, in its own way, a secret art. He had developed it himself, after all—brought it into existence as a spell of his own making. A defensive magic that generated numerous miniature polygonal shield facets and stitched them together. Its grade fell under the low-tier grimoire hierarchy, which meant any mage could theoretically learn and master it.
Aina tilted her head at his bargaining tone and asked, perfectly earnest.
"Is it hard to learn?"
"...That's not what I meant. I meant it's a spell I can't just teach to just anyone."
"Anyone?"
"That's right."
He looked at her with his arms still folded, head turned to the side—a look that said she shouldn't make him repeat himself. She answered with that same pure expression, those clear eyes.
"I'm not just anyone, though."
Then what exactly are you?
Aina leaned back against the bench and looked straight ahead. One hand rested on her knee; the other she placed over her chest. She spoke with her eyes closed, long lashes on display, a hint of pride in her voice—almost defiant.
"I'm a friend who helped Free. So I'm not the 'anyone' you're talking about."
"...Unbelievable."
It came out as a sound of sheer disbelief. And yet, thinking it over, even if it rankled a little, she wasn't entirely wrong. She was a classmate, and she had contributed in large ways and small during the magical duel with Recas.
Even setting that aside, she had provided him with an entire series of the highest-grade mana cultivation manuals—grimoires that would be nearly impossible to obtain for a mage walking the path he intended to walk. At the time, he had genuinely believed he had given her a fair return. But now that he had actually learned and practiced those techniques, he found them more valuable in some respects than even Magical Eye.
Which meant that, looked at objectively, what she had just said wasn't wrong at all.
"...I suppose so. In a way, you could call us friends who help each other out. Comrades walking the same path of magic, even."
"Right?"
Her shoulders seemed to lift, as if to say, so you've finally admitted it. Her chin had risen a fraction too.
"...Even so, that's that and this is this. If you really want to learn that spell from me, you already know the condition."
"...Yeah."
Rustle, rustle. Once again, Aina reached into the dark brown rectangular book bag she had set on the empty seat beside her and pulled something out. What she produced was, as expected, what looked to be another Advanced-tier grimoire—exactly the kind of trade goods Free wanted.
Faced with that same thorough preparedness of hers, he couldn't help it. A laugh slipped out of him before he could stop it.
After parting ways with Aina at the bench, Free returned to his dormitory, carrying the three grimoires she had handed him. As the condition of their trade, he had taught her the polygonal shield spell—Center Protect—in thorough detail: its generative structure, its verses, the arrangement of mana, and every other particular. In return, he had received three more Advanced-tier grimoires as fair compensation.
The titles of those grimoires were as follows.
Advanced-Tier Grimoire Series
Volumes 1–3
He had, in fact, been thinking about the various problems that arose during instantaneous mana discharge—issues he had become keenly aware of again after the battle with Recas. He had been privately considering how to address those shortcomings when, as if by chance, Aina had handed him exactly these.
The timing couldn't have been better. Aina was helping him far more than he had realized. Of course, it was a fair trade—he was teaching her the unique spells he possessed in return—but privately, he felt he was the one coming out ahead.
She's like a treasure vault, handing me exactly the grimoires I need most right now.
That being the case, shameless personality aside, he couldn't help looking at Aina with a somewhat more favorable eye.
I plan to start attending classes again tomorrow, so I should finish reading through all of these today.
With that thought, he sat down at the desk by the window—standard furnishings of the room—opened volume one to the first page, and began to read with close attention.
And at that same hour, Aina, too, had returned to her room alone. She sat quietly at the desk by the window, a cup of black tea in hand, gazing up at the blue sky still bright above the clouds, the day not yet gone, lost in thought.
It might have looked as though she were thinking about the magic Free had taught her. She wasn't. The scenes replaying in her mind were something else entirely.
The moment she had pulled out the grimoires. The first time today—the first time at all—that the boy with the somewhat stiff impression had smiled at her. Her classmate. Free, with his navy-blue hair and red eyes, and that unfairly handsome face.
The gap between that smile and the impression she usually had of him—a kind of reverse charm—kept pulling his smiling face back into her thoughts, over and over.
Clink—
"Ah."
Sitting there in a daze with the teacup in her hand, the clumsy girl had spilled a little of the tea she'd meant to drink onto her clothes.