Magic Practicum (3)
The Meeting Colosseum, the most magnificent arena in the Empire, stood at the very heart of the Academy.
Four stories of arches, with intricate staircases and passages winding through it like a maze. Within the thick walls of the Colosseum, complex magical formulae were carved in their entirety.
Befitting a stage where the finest talents clashed, it was warded with defensive spellwork as strong as the outer walls of the imperial palace itself.
Just how sturdy those defenses were could be measured by a single fact: the last time so much as a scratch had marred the Colosseum's stones was three hundred years ago, when the Archmage Delin battled the Witch of Ruin.
"So that's built into the walls, huh. I can't really feel it, though."
"Do you believe the legend of Delin, Luid?"
"Yeah. I do."
There was nothing to believe or disbelieve. The Archmage Delin was one of the most pivotal figures in the original story.
Hershey said with a playful smile.
"How fitting for the Fairy of Delin."
"I told you to stop calling me that."
"Ahaha, sorry."
Luid headed for the waiting room with Hershey. It was for the demonstration duel that would come shortly. And waiting inside would be Amelia.
They moved through the Colosseum's labyrinthine corridors several times over. Hershey navigated them with practiced ease, as if she knew the place well. When Luid asked how, she answered:
"I was personally interested, so I memorized the entire map of the Colosseum."
Who memorizes a map out of interest?
Luid sometimes wondered if the real genius here wasn't Hershey. Arriving at the waiting room, he pushed the door open first.
The Colosseum had originally been a place where gladiators dueled. Most of the waiting rooms had belonged to commoners, but at the Academy, the students were almost all nobles.
The waiting room was spacious and comfortable. In the middle of it stood Amelia, arms crossed.
She strode over, visibly annoyed — then, catching sight of Hershey, offered a warm smile and a brief nod before turning her glare back to Luid.
"Lui. Where did you go yesterday?"
"Yesterday?"
Luid cast his mind back to the day before. Hershey offered a helpful hint.
"You said you wanted to watch the clouds, remember? You slept in the straw."
"Oh. The straw. Yeah, I slept there."
He devoted most of his hours to Delin's Lake, but he wasn't always there. Even Luid got bored sometimes.
"Why would you sleep in the straw... when you have a perfectly good mansion."
Amelia muttered with a sigh. She had spent all of yesterday wandering about looking for him.
Something's off?
Amelia's demeanor was a little different from usual.
"Luid. You heard the instructions properly, right?"
"Yeah. They said I'm to duel you."
Amelia took Luid's hand. Then, her eyes hardening, she said:
"I cannot fight you."
"...Huh?"
"My sword exists for your sake. Even if it were only a spar, I could never point my blade at you, not even for a moment."
Amelia was resolute as she said it. Hershey was moved.
So this is chivalry...! So this is what honor means.
She made a mental note. To use on Luid later. Hershey was, after all, someone who was profoundly influenced by the people around her.
"But as it stands, tongues will wag. That doesn't concern me — but if anyone dares speak ill of you behind your back, I think I might be truly furious."
Amelia spoke gravely, then gestured toward the back of the room.
"So I have prepared an alternative."
"?"
Luid blinked.
Because in the original novel, the scene where Luid and Amelia fought had been portrayed with considerable impact. He hadn't imagined even remotely that Amelia would come out like this.
The Amelia of then and the Amelia of now are different...? Don't tell me it's because of me...?
Hard to believe, considering Luid hadn't actually done a single thing.
In the year before entering the Academy, he had done nothing but sleep. And then the 'thing' that soon appeared left him utterly dumbfounded.
Thud. Thud.
The waiting room shook.
Which meant the opponent was big. Very big.
Clank.
Massive chains were wrapped around its neck and arms. Amelia rapped cheerfully on 'its' limb with a bright smile.
GUWOOOO—!
At the ferocious roar, Hershey — who had been beaming at the heartwarming scene — froze solid.
...The White Bearwolf.
A colossal bear cloaked in white fur.
A creature among the very highest ranks of monsters, bearing the epithet 'Monster of Monsters.'
And it was here.
I-it would be so much better if Lady Amelia just fought after all!
That was all Hershey could scream inside her own head.
"He'll make a perfectly fine plaything for Luid."
Amelia smiled with pride.
The Bearwolf's natural habitat was the far northern reaches. It could occasionally be found in colder climes, but for the most part it was a monster famous in name only, rarely ever seen.
Yet to the Windsor family in the North, it was a beast encountered fairly often.
Amelia had brought it back because she sometimes missed the scent of the North. She hadn't known it would be put to use like this.
Which meant, naturally—
-GUWOOOO!
"Th-the Bearwolf..."
"Is that real...?"
"What do you think, that it's fake?!"
It was a monster none of the Imperial Academy's students had ever laid eyes on before.
"Ah-ahem. Therefore, the demonstration duel shall proceed as follows... a match between student Luid Christopher and the White Bearwolf."
The students who had been disappointed by the Sword Princess's refusal to duel became like dumbstruck fools who'd been fed honey.
Amelia was obviously stronger than a Bearwolf. But human beings could never disregard the effect of pure visual spectacle.
Amelia was a girl of refined, elegant bearing. The Bearwolf carried a far heavier weight of menace than a blonde girl ever could.
Worse still, contrasted against the slight frame of Luid, the gap only felt more dramatic.
An earthquake was rumbling through Hershey's pupils.
"Will he be... all right?"
Amelia beside her looked at her with puzzled eyes.
"Is something the matter?"
"The matter is..."
Of course there is!
But she couldn't very well say that to Amelia. Hershey gave a small cough and said:
"Nothing at all. But even for Luid, a legendary monster like the White Bearwolf seems a bit... much, wouldn't you say?"
"Hm? A legendary monster?"
"...Isn't it called the pinnacle of all monsters?"
Amelia looked at Hershey with those clear blue eyes.
"It is not. Lady Hershey, the Bearwolf is classified as a common monster in the North. I couldn't say where such rumors come from."
"Y-yes?"
Hershey was considerably flustered. Well, of course she was — it was the White Bearwolf. The beast called the King of Monsters. And this was a common monster?
"What I said about him being a plaything was no exaggeration. Luid really does go off to play with White Bearwolves whenever he's bored."
J-just what on earth is Windsor...?
She had known they were extraordinary, but with each new detail of the truth she heard, she couldn't suppress her astonishment.
"Well, it's true that I am making use of that perception, though."
"Making use of it...?"
"If we had skipped the duel entirely, it would have invited scandal. From claims that Luid's magical ability was mere bluster, and so on... So when it comes to quelling rumors, the White Bearwolf offers excellent value for the effort."
That was right. Amelia hadn't thrown Luid at the Bearwolf without a thought. She had chosen the very best option for her brother's sake. And from Luid's perspective, a Bearwolf really was nothing worth mentioning.
Hershey's eyes went wide. She'd been so flustered that she hadn't even thought of that.
...What would I have done?
If she had been Luid's older sister, what approach would she have taken?
Having never stood in that position, there was no way to know — but she suspected she would simply have avoided the duel, or deliberately lost.
As expected, they're different. Windsor is.
Hershey lowered her head.
It struck her anew that keeping company with geniuses was no easy road.
She felt her own limitations and lack of ability keenly.
But soon enough, she straightened her back with a snap.
I simply have to work even harder!
"That aside, I am curious. What magic will Luid use?"
Amelia said.
"So am I. Everyone must be anticipating it — what wondrous magic Luid will show us. Do you have any guesses, Lady Amelia?"
Amelia was the one who had watched him most often and longest, right at his side. Hershey asked with hope in her voice.
Amelia shook her head.
"I couldn't say. I have never once seen Luid cast the same magic twice. So I have no way of guessing either."
"What?!"
Amelia gazed at Luid with a soft smile.
"Luid's magic is creative, after all."
Every time I see it... terrifying, but kind of cute.
That, precisely, was Luid's review of the White Bearwolf.
The enormous star-shaped scar stamped across its chest. The gash carved into its right eye — the mark of a bear that had risen to the top of monsterkind.
Above all, a body so massive you had to crane your neck all the way back just to see its face. And yet its fluffy-looking fur and its adorable little black nose gave it a strangely pettable quality.
-GUWOOOOO!
The Bearwolf rattled its chains and bellowed to its heart's content, both eyes swimming with madness, as though it were dying to tear a human apart.
"I-I will release the chains upon your signal."
There was nothing to hesitate over. It was an old friend, after all. Luid nodded.
-Grrr.
Where any other beast would have charged on the spot, the Bearwolf circled Luid, keeping its distance and warily sizing him up.
Its instincts told it what would happen if it lunged headlong.
Luid considered.
What spell should I show them?
Amelia's intent was plain as day. She meant for him not to get tangled up in needless scandal — a sentiment Luid fully shared. Nothing irritated him more than complete strangers badmouthing him. He wanted to make absolutely certain, once and for all, that no more bothersome affairs cropped up.
And for that, he would have to unveil a magnificent spell. A grand magic that no one else could hope to touch.
...Ahem. Should I use it one more time?
Casting it in front of this many witnesses would certainly make a strong impression.
But he wasn't keen on the idea.
That spell was, at its core, an imitation. He'd cast it once out of curiosity; it wasn't something worth adopting as a signature.
In that case.
Something original. At this point, it was about time he built himself one proper signature technique.
Luid extended his hand. The Bearwolf sensed his mana and came charging straight in.
To Luid, its charge felt achingly slow. Not because time itself had slowed, but through the sheer power of his focus.
Really, magic comes down to explosions.
The idea came to him at once. An explosion. Stuff something into one place and blow it up. In his old world too, and always throughout history, humanity's strongest weapon had been a matter of what you could detonate.
Luid paid the oncoming Bearwolf no mind whatsoever and set a vast ocean of mana into motion.
In an instant, countless magic circles rose around his body from every conceivable angle.
This is a bit tricky.
A spell cast for the first time was always difficult. To make the casting smoother, Luid chanted.
"Mana, take unto yourself the energy of the earth, the flow of water, the burning flame, and the swirling wind."
The four prime elements wove themselves together at the heart of the Colosseum. The number of magic circles was doubling, doubling again. The relentless cascade of new formulae soon blanketed the sky above the arena entirely.
Luid clenched his fist.
"And let them be superposed."
CRACKLE—!
With the sound of space itself being wrenched apart, the summoned circles of the four elements warped and folded in upon one another.
The energy of every element converged on a single point, whipping up a colossal vortex.
Whew.
The moment the sphere of the four elements was complete, Luid allowed himself a breath of relief. At once, the flow of time snapped back to its normal pace.
"——!"
The White Bearwolf was shredded into particles and swallowed whole by the sphere of elements. Luid's eyes flew wide open.
It mustn't get in there!
He'd struggled this hard to cast it — no way it could end at the setup stage. He had to detonate it, and fast.
Luid cried out in desperation. The name of this precious spell, sweated over drop by drop, was—
"Elemental Explosion—!"
Luid severed the thread of mana feeding the circles. The energy crammed into that sphere smaller than his palm was released in a single instant.
Luid watched the sight with a radiant smile. The sphere, so densely compressed it had turned pitch black, burst forth in a blaze of every color of light.
It was beautiful, like fireworks. And then—
Wait, isn't this way too strong??
Action outran judgment. Like a puppy with its tail on fire, Luid hastily threw up barriers before the blast could reach the outer wall.
KABOOM—!
"—!"
A shockwave hit him hard enough to stop his heart. One wouldn't be enough. He added ten more barriers.
Krrrk. Krrrk—!
A-are you kidding me.
The detonated elements were thrashing and writhing, doing everything they could to break through the barriers.
Luid gritted his teeth and thrust out his hand. He clenched his fist. The stack of layered barriers shrank inward, and the raging blast seemed at last to be dying down.
But holding it in entirely was impossible. Left alone, the elements would simply gather into a point again and detonate. So Luid bored a hole through his shield, giving the energy somewhere to escape.
FWEEOOOM—!
Like a laser, the five-colored light shot free and slammed into the wall.
Thankfully, Luid's Elemental Explosion finally ground to a halt.
CRUMBLE—!
...And one whole side of the Colosseum's outer wall came collapsing down.
The pride of the Academy, unblemished for three hundred years, had fallen.
...Yeah, I'm sealing this one away.
Watching the Headmaster stretch out his hands with the expression of a man watching the heavens fall, Luid broke out in a cold sweat.
When that wall came down, the Headmaster's composure had clearly come down with it.