The Future Archmage
Every member of the household was staring in the same direction, their eyes bright with anticipation.
At the end of those gathered gazes, Daisy stood with a look of fierce concentration, one hand raised toward empty air as she murmured something under her breath.
"Lightning Bolt!"
⟨ Lightning Bolt ⟩
A bright, ringing little voice sang the words from Daisy's lips, and a thick bolt of lightning erupted from her slender hand, slamming into the practice tree standing just ahead.
With a violent crackle, the tree snapped and toppled as if struck by a giant's fist. The household servants erupted, calling out Daisy's name with wild enthusiasm.
"That's our Lady Daisy!"
"She's going to be a future Archmage!"
"Incredible, Lady Daisy!"
"Heh-heh!"
What was I supposed to do with this? What was I supposed to do with a heart that found even that smug little look of hers adorable?
Daisy, who had been thoroughly enjoying the servants' praise with her shoulders puffed as high as they would go, turned toward the parasol where I was sitting.
"How was that, Sister?"
I answered by clapping a few times.
From the outside, it might have looked like the servants were inflating the young lady's ego over nothing. What I was looking at, however, was a genuinely remarkable feat.
This was someone who hadn't even enrolled in the Academy, who'd never received a single formal lesson in magic — and she had taught herself to control mana, then reproduced a spell she'd only ever glimpsed over someone's shoulder a handful of times.
If a professor from the Academy's Magic Department had witnessed that, they might have dragged her straight into graduate school.
"It's hot out today. What brings you all the way out here?"
Calpin, standing beside me and clapping along, asked it mildly.
"My little sister is putting on a magic demonstration. I'd come watch even if I were on my deathbed."
"I'll give you this — nobody loves their little sister quite like you do."
He let out a hearty laugh, then looked at Daisy with a bitter expression.
"...If only your mother could have seen this."
"...Yes. She would have been so happy, wouldn't she. Her own daughter, a mage with once-in-a-generation talent."
Daisy and Camille's mother — Calpin's wife — had rapidly weakened and died right after safely delivering both of them. Neither Daisy nor I knew her except as a faint impression in the last remaining portrait.
"I'll go in first."
"Go ahead, Father."
"Alright."
The way his expression seemed to turn bitter at being called Father was probably just my imagination.
"You saw, right? Sister, you saw, you saw?"
"Yeah. I saw. It looked even more impressive up close."
"Heh-heh. I am the future Archmage herself!"
Seeing her that worked up, I had to wonder if the servants had hyped her a little too hard. Of course, as someone who knew the Daisy yet to come, I also knew the boast wasn't empty.
At the Academy's graduation ceremony — the original novel's ending, her third year — Daisy would step onto the threshold of a 7-Circle core, the gateway to becoming an Archmage. She would need at least that much to even compete against Justia, the Saint candidate, and Kyle with all his protagonist plot armor.
"When I become an Archmage, I'll protect you so no one can ever look down on you for being weak, Sister."
"Yeah, yeah. Quit dreaming and let's go eat."
The sun had already sunk; it was late evening. The servants would be along any minute to announce dinner.
"What about you, Sister? Aren't you coming?"
"I have to eat porridge."
"Eugh..."
I was a little better now, but lately I'd been laid up with enteritis. What am I supposed to do with this damn body?
"I'll bring some macarons and chocolate when I come back!"
"You can't eat that kind of thing when you have enteritis..."
"Why? Is enteritis that dangerous?"
She'd never even caught a cold, let alone enteritis, with that ridiculously sturdy body of hers. Of course she wouldn't know. I was so jealous I could have screamed.
"Okay. I'm going to eat, then?"
"Yeah. Go on."
Daisy glanced back with a slightly disappointed look and left the room. I held my breath in perfect silence until the last of her footsteps faded down the hall.
"Pwaaah—!"
The instant I was sure she was gone, I flung myself onto her bed.
If I pulled a stunt like this in the modern world, I'd get called a crazy lolicon and hauled off by the cops... so what? She was my little sister. Who was going to tell me I couldn't lie on my little sister's bed?
And if I was so confident about it, why did I only do this when she wasn't around? Because even I had some shame. Letting her actually see me like this would have been mortifying.
I pulled Daisy's pillow and blanket over my head and lay still, staring up into the dark. Night had already settled in thick; even with a few candles lit, the room felt dim and close.
"...Haa."
Once I'd calmed down a little, I started turning over the things that were coming.
Starting with the incident at the banquet a few weeks from now, the author's malice-packed campaign to turn Daisy into a villainess would begin in earnest.
"She'll have to go to the Academy anyway... I guess the only option is to steer her so she doesn't cross paths with the protagonist's side if I can help it."
In this world, the children of noble houses were required to enroll in the Academy and complete a basic education through their third year. Some families arranged private tutoring in etiquette, swordsmanship, or magic, but that was separate — Academy education was mandatory. Enrolling wasn't optional.
In that case, if I simply cut off every event that might send Daisy down a dark path before the original's ending — Academy graduation — wouldn't that be enough?
...Could I do it? With this pathetic, frail body?
Slap.
I struck both cheeks hard with my palms. I could not afford to think like that. The question wasn't whether I could. I had to make it happen. If I didn't, both Daisy and I would end up with our lives on the line.
There was no combat power to be expected from Camille's body. But I, who was not Camille, had information — everything that was going to happen in this world, and all the stories buried underneath it. So I would do my best.
I would never again watch my favorite character's neck hang from the gallows.
Gurgle.
"Why isn't the porridge here yet."
Before any of that, though, I was pretty sure I needed to eat. When on earth was the porridge arriving? A little sulky that dinner was running late today of all days, I buried my face in Daisy's pillow.
At this rate I was going to starve to death.
"...!"
A familiar porridge aroma drifted in from the hallway. The food I'd eaten more than anything since transmigrating into a novel was porridge. Absolutely killing me. But hey — a person still had to eat.
"Sister— I brought your porrid—"
"Porridge... huh?"
"...What are you doing in my bed, Sister?"
But why are YOU the one bringing my porridge.
"You always put up a wall whenever I ask to sleep together."
Water roared down in a warm cascade. The communal bathhouse inside the estate was for Miseria family members only, and Daisy had come along to wash as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The scene she'd walked in on earlier must have been quite a shock, though, because she was still keeping her distance with a thoroughly sulky face.
"I-it's a misunderstanding. I was so tired I mixed up the beds—"
"You don't actually think that's an excuse, do you, Sister?"
"...Yeah. Sorry."
I caved immediately. If I made any more excuses, she might actually stay mad for real. A strategic surrender was in order.
"You only ever eat porridge, so you never put any weight on, Sister."
The naked body that said it had developed so quickly it was hard to believe she was the younger one. Unlike me — a stick, without an ounce of softness even in the places that were supposed to look feminine — Daisy already had curves, her body already showing the shape of a young woman. In the original timeline she would mature even further than this...
"I'm jealous."
"Hm? Of what?"
"Nothing."
So you sucked up all the good genes, huh. You little brat. But I forgave her. Yeah. Better that I was the frail one and my favorite character was healthy than the other way around.
I surrendered myself to the warm water falling like a waterfall and let the day's fatigue rinse away. Back when life in this household had still felt unbearably foreign, I'd followed Daisy around watching her every cue, and I couldn't even manage a bath properly on my own. I'd been living in this body for months now, and my usual speech and mannerisms seemed to be turning, little by little, into a girl's... it was terrifying.
"Honestly, I'm more jealous of you, Sister."
"...You're jealous of me? In what possible way?"
"You, um. That's it. You've got this grown-up quality about you, but the way you act is super clumsy, and your body's so frail it's cute. The type that makes people want to protect you, I guess?"
"Eck—"
What kind of horrific, nauseating things was this kid saying like it was nothing.
"You're the type who'd be popular. Eisia said so — in real life, guys swarm the cute type more than the sexy type?"
"What kind of bizarre things is she teaching a child?"
Eisia would be the maid who usually cleaned the rooms. Really teaching her the important stuff, huh. Sexy? Men?
"Pbbt. A child? You're only a few weeks older than me anyway, Sister."
"Even so, an older sister is an older sister."
To her it was a few weeks. Add in my age from my previous life, and we were practically uncle and niece.
"...Hey, Sister."
"Yeah?"
Daisy, who had been half-submerged with her face in the water, splashing droplets across the surface, looked up with a suddenly serious expression.
"What are you going to do after you graduate from the Academy?"
"What am I going to do?"
"You know. Like — I'm going to be the world's greatest mage. Or I'm going to be the world's richest person. That kind of dream."
A dream, huh. Come to think of it, once I got her through Academy graduation in one piece... what happened to me? Was I going to live as Camille Miseria in this world for the rest of my life?
"I don't know. I've never really thought about dreams."
"Hnn."
Daisy let out a meaningful little laugh, as if my answer hadn't satisfied her at all.
"What about you, then? What do you want to be?"
"Well. I'm still thinking about it too."
"...What."
And here I'd thought she'd brought it up because she had some grand ambition ready to go.
"I don't know about a dream. But there is something I want to do."
"What is it?"
"I'm going to become the greatest Archmage in the world, and..."
She paused, then smiled — a pure, unblemished smile, without a single shadow in it.
"So you have to stay healthy until then."
"..."
...She knew how to say something this precious, too?
It was so far removed from the original Daisy — the very embodiment of venom and severity — that they barely seemed like the same person. But that was exactly why I loved it.
"Yeah."
For now, I decided to set aside every worry about the future and simply love the adorable girl in front of me with everything I had.