The Saintess Candidate Celebration Banquet (4)
"That woman really is a mystery, the more I look at her."
Calvin let out a sigh of relief as he quietly watched Professor Lemiel melt away into the crowd.
If anyone was a mystery the more you looked at them, it was Calvin himself. I couldn't even begin to guess how far this man's connections actually reached.
"Anyway... are you all right, Camil? After hearing something like that..."
His voice trailed off, and the look he gave me grew a little heavier.
Lemiel was one of the foremost magical experts among every character who appeared in the original story, and even she had called it an incurable constitution. Which meant I might spend the rest of my life plagued by petty illnesses, always bracing for the next bout of heart trouble and the seizures that came with it.
"I'm fine. I wasn't really expecting anything anyway."
Calvin had probably brought her here clutching at straws, hoping she might be able to do something about what had befallen Camil. If even an Archmage couldn't solve it, there was no point looking for a conventional cure.
"Don't worry yourself over it. Even if an Archmage says it can't be done, I'll find a way to cure you no matter what it takes. And if a way doesn't exist, I'll make one."
"You don't have to go that far."
"Don't give up."
The knowledge that his precious child — the kind of daughter you'd hesitate even to hold too tightly for fear of hurting her — had never once known a day without illness had always torn at Calvin's heart. And yet his girl, for all the offhand remarks that sometimes seemed to forget a parent's feelings entirely, was a kind child who always put her family before herself.
Calvin's hand trembled. She wore a face as if nothing were wrong, and she was stronger than he could ever hope to be — but her heart couldn't possibly be at ease. His thick hand came to rest on his daughter's hair, stroking gently, as if she had sunk just a little into herself.
"I won't ever give up on you, either."
"...Yes."
It was a promise with no deadline and no certainty — words, and nothing more. But of every promise I had ever heard in this world, it was without a doubt the most trustworthy, and the one I could lean on the hardest.
"Good. That's all I needed to hear. By the way, where did Daisy go?"
Calvin stopped stroking my hair and looked around. She'd been standing right beside us drinking juice just a moment ago. She must have slipped away while we were absorbed in what Lemiel had to say.
"Good question. She was definitely here just a second ago... Ah."
"What is it?"
A sudden wave of dread crashed over me, and my heart dropped. I'd let my guard down without even realizing it, lulled by the thought that we'd gotten through everything without a hitch so far. I whipped my head around, scanning every direction Daisy had been standing — but she was already gone from sight.
"I'll go look for Daisy over that way!"
"Uh... all right. Go ahead."
Calvin gave me a puzzled look at my sudden urgency. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to explain the situation to him. I had to find her as fast as I possibly could.
Because an omen like this had never, not once, been wrong.
"Hahh..."
Lemiel Daker, who had been quietly sipping her drink among the crowd, let out a long sigh.
Not long ago, Marquis Miseria — an acquaintance of an acquaintance — had asked her to diagnose his two daughters' mana cores. She hadn't been particularly interested. Nobles who thought their children were special were a dime a dozen, and the reality, once she actually examined them, was always the same. They'd force the child through early education far beyond their years, ignore the child's actual magical aptitude and knowledge entirely, and just jack the Circle as high as possible so they could show off some flashy spells. She had seen that song and dance more times than she could count.
But Marquis Miseria's two daughters truly were... special.
Daisy Miseria. A girl whose overwhelming talent was enough to unnerve even Lemiel. If she kept at magic, reaching Lemiel's own position wouldn't be difficult at all.
But it wasn't the younger sister who had truly astonished her. A so-called genius like the second daughter came along once a generation — that much was expected.
She traced the remnants of the mana core inside Camil Miseria's body, painting the flow of mana into the air.
"...Isn't that— isn't that a professor from the Academy?"
"I believe so. That's Professor Lemiel of the Magic Department."
With nothing more than a flick of her hand she was drawing pictures in mana — a feat that was, in truth, nothing special, and yet the exquisite control it required made passing nobles stop and stare. She paid those stares no mind at all, continuing to paint in the air.
At last Lemiel's hand stilled. She looked at the picture she had drawn along Camil's ruined, tangled mana circuits — and she was horrified.
"What... is this..."
The instant Lemiel reached toward the image before her, an enormous mana reaction erupted behind her, and an explosion tore through the hall.
"Aaaaah—!"
"Run! Guards! The guard!"
"W-what's going on?!"
People poured out screaming. Furniture reduced to powder and dust rising from the floor filled the blast radius in a hazy cloud.
"...What."
A colossal mass of mana swelled violently, on the verge of bursting. Professor Lemiel had taught countless students at the Academy. She might have been younger than the other Archmages, but she had never once considered her experience lacking. And even she had never seen anything like this.
A mana rampage.
A catastrophic accident that occurred when a mage used magic without being able to control their own mana. Mana that slipped its user's control became a colossal mass in its own right and reduced everything around it to ruin. Naturally, a mana rampage was far less likely to happen to anyone who had learned magic properly. Which was why, when one did occur, it was almost always a beginner — someone who'd only just started learning — forcing a spell they couldn't control.
But the explosion in front of her, and the sheer mass of this mana, was no beginner's work no matter how she looked at it. This was at least Academy-graduate level. Or higher. And it was about to go completely out of control right here.
"Kh— cough, cough!"
She was the only one here who could stop this. With that thought, Lemiel tried to step forward—
"...What is this."
The mere brush of the expanding mana made her mana core scream. She knew it instinctively. If she went in there, she would die. Pushing through this mana storm to save the mage inside was impossible.
The one mercy was that the explosion had gone off at the very edge of the banquet hall, so there weren't many people nearby. Lemiel bit down hard on her lip. She was just about to raise a magical barrier to keep the mana from leaking any farther when—
"Stop!"
A familiar voice cut through the chaos.
Clean white hair, nothing like her father's or her sister's. Beautiful golden eyes that called amber to mind. A body so thin and wasted it was hard to believe she was a nobleman's daughter. That girl's name was one Lemiel would never be able to forget, even if she wanted to.
"...Miss Camil?"
Why was this girl here. And why was she running toward the place where a mana storm was raging.
"Stop it. Hah— stop it right now!"
The girl, looking as if she might collapse from lack of air at any second, frantically stopped Lemiel from raising the barrier. If she didn't put the barrier up now, the mana storm would spread much farther. The damage would be catastrophic.
"That's— hah... that's my little sister in there, so please, just stop!"
"...!"
The person causing the mana rampage was Daisy Miseria?
"How could you possibly know that...?!"
"Because she's my sister! Enough talking — get out of my way!"
Lemiel stared at Camil, her face full of disbelief. She was barely holding the line at the edge of a storm made of mana. What lay ahead of her was a horrific space — one that would shatter a mana core and tear a body to pieces just for stepping inside. And she was saying she was going in there?
"Have you lost your mind? Come back here right now! You'll die!"
Lemiel grabbed Camil with one hand as the girl tried to throw herself into the mana storm. Even if her little sister was inside, she could not go in there.
"Can't you see what's in front of you? If you go in, you die! I understand you're upset because your sister is in there, but look at the situation first!"
Anyone who suffered a mana rampage, of course, took permanent internal damage to their mana core. They might never be able to use magic again. In severe cases, they could be left a wreck. Given the scale of Miss Daisy's mana core, the aftermath would be enormous — she would very likely be ruined. But she wouldn't die. Even if rampaging mana destroyed a mana core, that was internal damage. A mage was never harmed by their own mana.
But anyone who threw themselves into a storm of this colossal mass would die. No exceptions.
"What do you think you're going to save with that body? You'll die for nothing. That's not a sacrifice — it's just throwing your life away!"
"It's not a sacrifice. And it's not throwing my life away."
There wasn't a shred of hesitation in the girl's voice. Lemiel's pupils widened as she stared at her.
She was weak. Her arms and legs trembled as if they might snap at any moment. The force she was putting into breaking free of Lemiel's grip was almost cute. Even her mana core was so fragile it was hard to call her an ordinary person.
But the girl's voice, and both of her eyes, did not tremble even a little.
For an instant, a pressure rolled off Camil — and before Lemiel even realized it, her hand had let go.
"W-wait—"
"Please put the barrier up. Otherwise Father will lose his mind trying to come in after me."
The white-haired girl glanced back one last time and smiled. Then, one step at a time, she began walking into the mana storm that would tear a body to pieces just for drawing near.