The Magic Tower's Round Table
Three days after Rin finished crafting her Method for Countering Arcane Spirits, the Round Table Chamber convened.
With Magic Tower Master Jerseng away on a state visit to the Benos Kingdom, the session fell under the chairmanship of Axle, head of the Vision Magic Faction.
As always, the first item on the agenda was the Abyss of Magic.
Rin was the first to raise her hand and claim the floor.
She produced the Method for Countering Arcane Spirits, a treatise she had revised and polished through countless drafts over the past three days.
The faction heads seated around the round table read her work in silence.
My Method for Countering Arcane Spirits is flawless. I even simplified the language so ordinary minds could grasp it—far easier than the original draft. Of course they’ll accept it. Another of my achievements will be carved into the Magic Tower’s history.
Arms folded, Rin swept a triumphant gaze across the faction heads. Some looked impressed; others furrowed their brows. Both reactions delighted her. Proving one’s genius to lesser mortals never failed to bring pleasure.
When every faction head had finished reading, Rin flourished a mana quill through the empty air.
I propose that my treatise, the Method for Countering Arcane Spirits, be adopted as the Magic Tower’s official guideline against Arcane Spirits.
The letters blazed with absolute confidence that the motion would pass.
Axle, chairing the meeting, gave a thoughtful nod and spoke.
“Hmm. Using this method would indeed allow us to deal with Arcane Spirits far more efficiently.”
Rin’s brows twitched in surprise. Axle had always flaunted his inferiority complex whenever her genius shone. For him to say something like that now—had he finally acknowledged her brilliance?
That hope lasted only a heartbeat before Axle continued.
“But does our Magic Tower really need to adopt it?”
Had her vocal cords still been intact, a single stunned syllable—“Ha?”—would have burst from her throat. Mages were creatures who measured everything by efficiency. Rin’s Method for Countering Arcane Spirits was the most efficient approach currently in existence. No true mage should have had any reason to refuse it. Yet Axle was openly acting as though the whole matter were a tedious chore.
For a faction head—not some ordinary mage—to react so lukewarmly to a groundbreaking paper was unthinkable.
What exactly are you saying, Faction Head Axle? Are you not a mage? Is it even possible for a mage to reject the more efficient method?
Rin’s expression had gone ice-cold. She glared at him while the mana quill danced once more. Extreme efficiency was the foundational creed of every mage—the very first principle taught upon entering the Magic Tower, handed down from Master Jerseng himself. That was why she invoked it now, delivering a public rebuke.
Even if Axle tried to deny it in some ugly fashion, the other faction heads were present. They had all read the treatise; they would see how forced his argument was…
“I agree with Faction Head Axle. Senior Mage Rin’s Method for Countering Arcane Spirits is astonishingly efficient, yet I cannot see why it must become Tower doctrine.”
Huh?
“Indeed, I too concur with Faction Head Axle. Efficient it may be, but I doubt it is valuable enough to overhaul the Tower’s current defensive guidelines.”
Huhh?
“I also agree with both of you.”
“Same opinion here.”
“I share that view as well.”
Huhhh?
As the other faction heads around the table raised their hands in support of Axle, Rin realized something had gone terribly wrong. Yet she steeled her trembling heart, certain the fault lay with the situation—not with her. After all, she was a genius, and the method she had authored was flawlessly efficient.
Why is everyone opposing this? Anyone can see my method is more efficient.
She gripped the mana quill tighter and demanded an answer from every faction head present. The one who spoke was Sein, head of the Telekinesis Magic Faction—Axle’s bitter rival.
“Senior Mage Rin, the countermeasure you authored is remarkable. Yet it has a serious flaw—particularly regarding the very efficiency you emphasize.”
Sein, who lived in near-open hostility with Axle, was taking his side? Rin reeled at the impossibility even as she clenched her teeth and scrawled furiously through the air.
What? A problem with efficiency? Impossible. I reviewed it countless times. There is not the slightest error in the magic formulas I created. It is incomparably more efficient than the crude methods we use now.
“Your formulas themselves are efficient—that much is clear from the principles woven into them. But the efficiency I speak of is not the efficiency of the formulas alone.”
Then why on earth is there a problem with efficiency—
Sein answered before the quill could finish the sentence.
“Rin, the formulas you created are simply too difficult.”
Rin’s industrious hand froze mid-stroke.
“The ones currently handling Arcane Bombardment against the spirits are the intermediate and lower-ranked mages of the Vision Magic Faction. Their level is nowhere near high enough to comprehend your formulas. That is why the method is inefficient.”
The hand holding the mana quill began to tremble.
“To force ordinary mages to learn formulas they can barely understand, all for the sake of handling Arcane Spirits a little more efficiently when a simple Arcane Bombardment already works—that is neither efficient nor rational.”
Every word from Sein’s mouth was reasonable. The reason she, of all people, had sided with Axle was precisely because his stance was rational.
“Therefore I oppose the adoption of Senior Mage Rin’s Method for Countering Arcane Spirits. It is inefficient. It is not rational.”
Rational.
That single word reduced all of Rin’s efforts to scrap paper. For a genius whose brilliance itself was irrational, it was a cruelly precise blade.
“……Heh. Well then, let us move on to the next item. The next agenda is……”
Axle’s brief snicker of laughter rang on and on in Rin’s ears.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
The moment the meeting ended, Rin stormed out of the Round Table Chamber, cursing nonstop inside her head. A collective that treated innate talent as poison—today of all days she wanted nothing more to do with this place.
If Master were here, they wouldn’t have dared spout such nonsense……!
Mages pursued ultimate efficiency, yes—but that did not mean efficiency was the only thing that mattered. If they had cared solely about efficiency, the Magic Tower would never have grown into a power rivaling the great nations of the world. They weighed efficiency while simultaneously striving toward transcendence that lay far beyond it. That was the true essence of a mage.
What? They won’t adopt it because the intermediate and lower mages handling Arcane Bombardment can’t understand it? Then they should put in the effort to understand! How the hell does that even count as an excuse?
Yet the faction heads had rejected a new set of formulas simply because mid- and low-tier mages would find them hard. Something that should never have happened within Rin’s understanding of the world had just occurred.
Even I, a genius, keep struggling every day to overcome my disability. And those talentless idiots……!
Rin stalked through the streets of Birama, the satellite city under the Magic Tower’s domain, her entire body trembling with rage. If only her throat had been whole she would have screamed her fury to the heavens. But her vocal cords had been torn out long ago; she relied on a mana-engineering device, so she could not even vent with a proper cry.
Desperate to cool the boiling anger, she headed for an ice-cream shop in Birama. When she arrived, a rather rustic-looking man and woman stood outside, marveling as they ate ice cream from cups.
“Y-Young Master, w-what in the world is this? It’s soft and cold and sweet. To think such a dessert exists……!”
“Holy crap, Rina, once we make enough money let’s open an ice-cream shop on the estate. This stuff is seriously good.”
The brown-haired woman wore a neat maid uniform; the golden-haired man was dressed in a dark-blue suit. They looked every bit the noble and his maid. Birama was a famous tourist city that drew people from every nation, so the sight of a noble with a maid was hardly unusual—yet Rin found herself stopping dead and staring.
That woman…… there’s something unusual about her aura. What is it?
The power radiating from the maid was anything but ordinary. Having served as the mage of the Hero’s party and met countless heroes, Rin could tell at a glance: the maid before her was no ordinary servant.
She was still frowning at the extraordinary maid when a petite blonde maid came trotting out from behind the pair.
“I-I’m so sorry. Baron Offen, Head Maid. Y-you waited, didn’t you? Ehehe……”
……Huh?!
“Huh? Rin? O-oh, long time no see!”
The maid who had appeared from behind was none other than Rin’s old comrade—Eve, the Hero.