Mana Aptitude Test (1)
A restless murmur filled the air.
A great throng had gathered before the lord’s castle gates. Nervous boys stood stiffly in line while their parents prayed at their sides. Merchants hawked their wares among the crowd, and soldiers worked to keep the press of bodies in order.
“Ellen, just think of it as giving it a try.”
Among that press of people stood Ellen and his family.
“I know. But Mother, Father looks more nervous than I do.”
“Ahem! Absolutely not.”
Today a major event was underway in Ellen’s hometown of Los. Mages dispatched from the Magic Tower were touring the entire Prode Kingdom, testing every boy under the age of twenty for mana aptitude. Those who passed would earn the right to enroll in the Magic Academy.
Mages were a strategic asset to any kingdom, and the tuition fees from the Academy provided a tidy revenue stream as well. The Magic Tower itself grew stronger within the realm the more mages it produced, so both sides poured every effort into finding as many talented children as possible.
Hmph. Just looking for more suckers to bleed dry. That’s mages for you.
Ellen already knew their true motives, and the knowledge left him thoroughly unimpressed.
What if our boy has it?
What if it’s our son…?
Most of the parents, however, clung to precisely those hopes, which was why the Magic Tower’s testing parties always drew massive crowds wherever they went. For a commoner, becoming a mage was nearly the only path to true advancement.
What if our Ellen…?
Ellen’s own parents were no different.
So I’m standing in this line again.
While he waited his turn, Ellen’s mind drifted back through the years. In this very place he had once been judged to possess the aptitude for magic by those same damnable mages. When his parents heard the verdict they had wept with joy right there on the spot.
“The boy has the gift to become a mage. He possesses the talent to grow into a fine mage one day.”
At that single arrogant pronouncement his parents had bowed again and again, overflowing with gratitude.
“Of course, he’ll need to complete the Magic Academy course first. I’ll write you a recommendation. Take it to the registration office over there and enroll him. A boy of Ellen’s caliber should graduate with excellent marks and enter the Magic Tower without difficulty. Twenty years from now he might even be standing here again as one of the examiners, just like me.”
To the boy he had been, those words had sounded impossibly grand. He had pictured himself standing tall in a long robe, staff in hand, back straight with pride. If he became a mage, providing his parents a life of ease would be no great feat. With status equal to a noble’s, no one in the village would ever dare slight them again.
I was such a fool back then.
The memory of that rosy future he had once dreamed of made him feel sick.
If only it hadn’t been that bastard…
Ellen glared at the mage currently examining the boys at the head of the line. He had learned later that examiners received extra pay for every student their judgment sent to the Academy, and those numbers even counted as points toward a professorship. Small wonder the testing parties tried so hard to pack as many children into the Academy as they could. What kind of life those middling talents would actually lead afterward never once entered their calculations.
And the price of falling for that smooth-tongued sales pitch had been ruinous. One year’s tuition at the Magic Academy cost a full forty gold—more than a commoner family of three needed to live on for an entire year. No ordinary household could possibly afford such a sum. The examiners, of course, never concerned themselves with that detail. They simply urged parents to take out loans if necessary.
“Once he becomes a mage, that kind of money will be pocket change. Think of it as an investment.”
It was true that a real mage could call forty gold pocket change. Above all there was the status—nearly equal to a noble’s. In a society of rigid class distinctions, commoners understood all too well what power nobles wielded. A noble could take a life simply because someone had annoyed him. The thought that one’s own child might one day stand among them was enough to make parents borrow any sum and send their sons off to the Academy.
That was how Ellen’s parents had ended up in debt to the vicious loan shark Baisha, just so they could enroll him. At the time Ellen had sworn he would become a mage and repay every copper.
The problem was that those words only applied to actual mages.
Of all the Academy students, only a tiny fraction ever entered the Magic Tower and became true mages. The vast majority graduated only to fail the Tower’s entrance exams and end up as Magic Assistants. Magic Assistants could still cast spells of the lower circles, so they were popular among mercenary companies and could earn decent money if they worked hard. Even so, for most of them the debt from tuition remained a crushing burden.
If I had never been chosen back then… would I have been able to live happily with my parents?
Baisha, who had claimed he would wait until Ellen became a mage, had suddenly begun hounding Sien for repayment. Ellen’s father had taken on dangerous mercenary work to keep up with the interest and had died because of it. Maria had followed him not long after. Ellen himself had worked like a madman as a mercenary to clear the debt that then fell on his shoulders. He had finally paid it off, but by then nothing remained. Only later did he learn that Baisha’s inexplicable pressure had been over a loan taken out even before Ellen’s Academy days—money his family should have been repaying together rather than sending him off to school.
I will never let that past repeat itself!
A hard light of resolve burned in Ellen’s eyes.
I’ll fix every mistake, one by one.
His fists clenched tightly at his sides. Seeing him like that, his parents assumed he was simply anxious about the test.
“Ellen, truly—you don’t need to be nervous.”
“Don’t give it another thought.”
Maria’s gentle voice reached his ears, followed by his father’s rough but warm tone. These were the people he had longed for so desperately. He would never lose them again.
“I’ll put everything back the way it should be.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Maria could make no sense of her son’s words. She only fretted that he seemed far too tense for what was supposed to be a simple trial run at the examination.
“Next!”
The damnable mage called for the next boy. Ellen stepped forward with an expressionless face and stood before him.
“I’m Ellen.”
“Stand right here.”