Haha, I Control the Weather
The moment I kicked off the Original Plot Restoration Project, I ran straight into a problem.
Before I fretted over anyone else's route, I needed the power to keep my own body in one piece.
The power to not get kidnapped the second a magic circle flared under my feet.
The power to not have to curl up inside a barrier while Noel and Lydia half-demolished a dorm room fighting over me.
And the power to look the two of them in the eye when they came at me with magical-girl outfits and refuse them flat-out.
That last one mattered most.
As I was now, the only answer I had when Lydia and Noel smiled together was to run for my life.
At least, after I escaped Noel's room, nothing particularly catastrophic had happened.
Noel truly did stop calling me without permission, and Lydia promised me more than once that I didn't have to wear anything I didn't want to.
The only catch was that the two of them had started sticking together a lot lately.
One carried scraps of fabric; the other was picking out small magic stones.
I didn't ask what they were making.
Sometimes a person is happier turning a blind eye to the truth.
Instead, I poured everything into mana-manipulation practice.
At first I had to throw my whole mind into moving a single cloud the size of my palm.
When I tried to send it right, it climbed; when I told it to stop, it rained on my head.
But as I kept at it, the feel of it slowly started to settle in.
I gripped the Yeouiju and looked up at the sky.
Rather than wrenching mana out of myself by force, I felt the wind and clouds that were already in motion.
I hooked a finger into that current and tugged it the way I wanted.
It sounded halfway decent when I explained it that way.
In reality I was just praying at the cloud to come over here.
What mattered was that my success rate had climbed.
Out of ten tries, three now went the direction I wanted.
A full thirty percent.
If this were a gacha, it would be a generous rate with no pity ceiling.
And today, the chance to show off those results finally arrived.
A large circle had been drawn on one side of the Second Training Ground.
Inside it stood five mana-lit targets and a row of training dummies the size of people.
The Mana Manipulation Professor looked over the students and spoke.
"Today's lesson is elemental mana's Localized Environmental Control."
When he raised a hand, a blue mana line lit up along the circle's edge.
"Subdue the targets inside the mark. Your mana must not spill beyond it. Control matters more than raw power."
A soft sigh ran through the students.
Telling dragons to hold back their power was apparently a lot like telling someone at a barbecue to eat just one piece of meat.
Erika made no effort to hide her displeasure.
"Can't we just blow everything away?"
"If you blow away the students outside the mark as well, you lose points."
"So I just don't hit them."
"That is Localized Environmental Control, Student Erika."
Erika shut her mouth.
She had lost the logic war.
Training proceeded one student at a time.
A blue-dragon student snuffed the fires with water jets and toppled a dummy's legs.
A white-dragon student froze only the floor inside the circle and toppled the dummies; the ice stopped cleanly at the mana line.
When the red-dragon student's turn came, targets and dummies exploded together.
A tongue of flame leapt past the circle, and the professor sighed.
"Range exceeded. Point deduction."
"I destroyed every target, though."
"Which is why you still have points left."
Truly a dragon academy.
Even the grading scale was hot-blooded.
I fidgeted with the Yeouiju behind the other students.
I could put out fire.
I just had to make it rain.
The problem was those dummies.
The rain I could call wasn't strong enough yet to knock a person down. Get hit enough and you just ended up damp and miserable.
So what if I used wind with it?
Rain while a hard wind shoved them over.
Localized downpour and a gust.
Just saying it made it sound like a proper weather disaster.
If my idea was right, I could kill the fires and drop the dummies both.
If I failed, the students outside the circle got soaked as a group.
Given my track record of raining only on the professor's head, the smart money was on the latter.
"Cheongha."
Lydia called me quietly from the side.
"Are you nervous?"
"A little."
"It's all right to take it slow. Even if you don't do well, no one will say a word."
Kind words.
Somehow they still sounded like she was soothing a baby.
I pouted.
"I've been practicing a lot lately, you know."
"I know. Every night I could see a little cloud in your room."
"How did you know that?"
"Only your window had raindrops on it."
So she had figured it out just from the glass.
I briefly repented for the suspicion that had crossed my mind.
With Lydia, there had been a non-zero chance she had been hanging outside my window out of worry.
Just then Erika finished her run and came back.
Every target inside the circle was blackened; the dummies were past recognizing.
Even the ground outside the mark was a little scorched.
"Range exceeded. Excessive power."
"I hit everything."
"In a real fight next time, do you plan to hit your allies as well?"
"They can just dodge."
The professor pressed his temples.
Erika paid it no mind at all and stopped in front of me.
"You going to make it rain again today?"
"I can do more than rain."
"That so?"
Her red eyes glittered.
I shouldn't have said that.
"Should be more fun than last time."
"This is not a combat class, you know?"
"Looks the same to me."
As expected, conversation with a red dragon never quite connected.
A short distance away, Selene had opened her notebook.
This clearly wasn't even her class—why was she watching ours again?
When our eyes met, she said flatly,
"Continue."
"I haven't done anything yet."
"So do it."
The observation subject's human rights were nonexistent again today.
"Next, Student Cheongha."
The professor called my name.
I cradled the Yeouiju against my chest and walked up to the circle.
Every gaze around us locked onto me at once.
The odd new student who had rained only on the professor.
The troublemaker who had turned the entire Training Ground into a lake mid-duel.
The center of the rumor who had been kidnapped by the black-dragon princess and dragged the Saintess and student-council president into it.
In just a few days the list of labels had gotten far too long.
Today I wanted to add at least one decent one.
The professor pointed at the targets inside the circle.
"Begin when ready."
I drew a deep breath.
The sky was clear.
A few white clouds drifted slowly over the training ground.
Before, I would have looked at them and prayed for rain.
Now it was a little different.
A gentle current flowed from the Yeouiju in my hand.
Not a heartbeat.
More like water slipping between my fingers, wind brushing past.
I raised my hand slowly so I wouldn't lose that current.
A cloud moved.
One very small cloud cut across the training ground and stopped exactly above the circle.
The students went quiet.
I was a little surprised myself, but I didn't panic.
It was the same current I had caught in practice.
Good.
This far was good.
I clenched the Yeouiju tight.
"Rain."
The instant the short word left my mouth, thick rain poured from beneath the cloud.
Shaaaaa!
The flames swallowing the targets died in an instant.
White steam billowed up.
First success.
But the dummies were still standing.
Now, wind.
I couldn't scatter it in every direction like last time.
Only inside the mark.
Only the spots where those dummies stood.
I looked down at the rain falling from the sky.
I could see where the rain was falling.
More precisely, it felt like I could see it.
The paths of wind threading between the raindrops.
I pushed those paths to one side.
"Go."
KWA-AAAANG!
With a roar, a gale tore through the circle.
The rain sheets bent hard to one side.
The training dummies ripped free of the ground. One, two, three. The heavy figures smashed into each other and flew all the way to the far side of the circle.
The last dummy, fixed in place by mana, seemed to hold for a moment—then it too was torn up by the roots and slammed into the wall.
Thud!
The training ground shook.
I squeezed my eyes shut on pure reflex.
Did I mess up?
Did I blow the students away too?
Carefully, I cracked one eye open.
The inside of the circle was a wreck.
Every fire was out; not a single dummy remained standing. Rainwater soaked the floor; steam and dirt swirled together.
But outside the circle was fine.
Even the hair of the students standing at the edge hadn't stirred.
Right in front of the mana line, the rain had stopped as if cut.
Storm inside the mark.
Clear sky outside.
I had done that.
This time I had truly done it myself.
A brief silence settled over the training ground.
The professor looked back and forth between the toppled dummies and the boundary of the mark.
"The power is excessive."
So I was getting scolded after all.
"But Localized Environmental Control was a success."
Success.
The word success had definitely come out of the professor's mouth.
I didn't hear whatever came after that.
The corners of my mouth climbed on their own.
My carefully lowered shoulders squared; my chin tilted toward the sky like it had forgotten gravity.
One hand planted itself on my hip.
My tail couldn't hide its mood either, swishing behind me.
"Ha."
I tried to hold it in, but a laugh slipped out.
"Hahaha."
I raised the Yeouiju high.
"Did you see that, Western dragons?!"
The stares around me stabbed in hard.
I understood.
Anyone who witnessed overwhelming talent right in front of them would lose their words.
The fact that only a few days ago I had moved a single cloud and then yelled about it in the dorm was already purged from memory.
"This is what an Azure Dragon is! I control the weather!"
I slowly swept my gaze across the students.
"Well, don't be too shocked. It may be a bit too high a realm for ordinary dragons to grasp."
Someone muttered quietly behind me.
"Wasn't her hand shaking right before she started?"
I pretended not to hear.
In moments like this, the bold one won.
It was a perfect victory.
Aside from the tiny detail that mere moments earlier I hadn't even known if it would work and had closed my eyes.
"Looking at that smug face makes me want to hit her."
"Isn't that a weird way to be impressed?"
"Azure Dragon? What's that?"
"No idea. Is she sick or something?"
See? The reasons might be a little off, but they were still reeling from my greatness, weren't they?
Erika laughed loudly.
"Yeah, that's more like it."
She slammed a fist into her palm.
"Now fight me again."
"How did you land on that conclusion?"
"You're way stronger than last time."
"That doesn't mean we have to fight."
"Why wouldn't you fight if you got stronger?"
The conversation had looped right back to the start.
Lydia had her hands clasped, beaming.
"You did wonderfully, Cheongha."
"Right?"
"Yes. You're not hurt anywhere, are you? You're not dizzy from using so much power all at once?"
"Could you just stick to the praise?"
"You did well. Which is exactly why we need to check your body."
She looked like a mother holding both arms out, ready to catch a baby taking its first steps in case it fell.
The problem was that I was starting to get used to it.
At this rate I really might turn into a baby.
Selene's pen was moving fast as well.
"Simultaneous localized heavy rain and gale. Localized Environmental Control confirmed. High combat applicability."
"You didn't write down my cool line, did you?"
"I did."
"Please erase that."
"Records must be accurate."
I regretted it a beat too late.
My first success destined for the history books had been recorded together with black history.
Even so, my mood wasn't bad.
No—honestly, it was fantastic.
Ever since enrollment I had always been the one causing accidents or receiving help.
I hadn't even understood how I made it rain in the duel, and the shower that fell on the professor's head hadn't been intentional in the first place.
But today was different.
I had called the cloud.
I had moved rain and wind by my own will.
I hadn't exactly planned to slam the dummies into the wall, but a success was a success.
The professor clapped once.
"Attention."
The students' eyes gathered forward.
"Basic mana manipulation ends today."
Already?
I had only just succeeded.
"From the next class we will conduct practical application evaluations."
The air among the students shifted.
Erika's eyes brightened further; a few students eyed one another with tense faces.
The professor stretched a hand toward the academy outskirts.
"The location is the Forest of Demonic Beasts managed by the academy. It is an artificially constructed zone, and dangerous monsters are controlled."
The Forest of Demonic Beasts.
At last a properly fantasy-sounding term had appeared.
I vaguely recalled practical classes early in the academy arc in the original, too.
I couldn't remember the exact details.
Something about raising affection if you ended up in the same group as a capture target, and an event where bad choices got you chased by monsters.
Anyway, since the academy managed the place, it probably wouldn't be that dangerous.
Something more important stood out.
Practical combat.
Not just toppling targets like today, but a chance to show my power against living monsters.
Erika, Lydia, and Selene had all just watched me.
The other students' eyes were different from before as well.
A few days ago I had been the crazy new student who carried her heart outside her body.
Now I was the crazy new student who carried her heart outside her body and also moved the weather.
…That didn't sound like much of an improvement.
No.
The important part was that I moved the weather.
In the next class,
everyone would look at me again.
In that moment, the Yeouiju in my hand flashed blue once.
I decided to take it as a good omen.