The Mage Division (2)
To be precise, the Mage Division was split into a few factions.
The officers Kise had raised herself had moved with me, so they knew my exploits well enough, and Kise herself liked me to a degree that bordered on brainwashing. But some of the others did not look on me kindly at all.
"Ha. Being good at magic only gets you so far. Recovering Crad Castle? Don't make me laugh. As if Eldacrad's grudge could be settled that easily."
"That's right. Exactly. Lady of Ashtar, let us be clear from the start—we cannot accept this."
Allow me to explain a little.
The Empire was such a vast country that even its provincial noble system was a bit unusual. The Ashtar Territory had schools that were not Attelina, and the Ashtar Mage Division was essentially a magic academy in all but name. The elite selected from among them formed the Mage Division units. Of course it was far smaller than Attelina, but because the number of seats was so limited, the children of local nobles living near the Ashtar Territory often attended as well.
Among them, the young ladies who handled mana with particular brilliance made up the core of the Mage Division. The nobles living in and around Ashtar Territory had long known of Eldacrad's renown; the stories and fairy tales about him that circulated through Ashtar had made him an idol to those young ladies—a prince on a white horse, more or less. So when they heard that I had avenged him, they felt either resentment or jealousy. Not knowing my true ability was part of it, but that was the larger reason.
The one silver lining was that, unlike the mindless nobles of Attelina, these ones actually had brains. If anything, their level seemed higher than Attelina's. You could tell just by looking at the training grounds. The Mage Division had not simply let people in because they were nobles.
"You entered the Mage Division on the strength of some achievement, and that is frankly galling. Even if you are a princess, this is still the Mage Division."
"That's right. Even commoners are treated as equals here. Receiving special treatment from the moment of your transfer is genuinely unpleasant, you know?"
Those who had entered on pure ability found me extremely offensive. The exact opposite of Attelina—they made a point of bothering me. It could not be helped. Even Kise had once doubted my skill while half-mindlessly elevating me. The fact that she had dismissed Celia as a mere doll-maker was the only real mercy. If word got out that I had brought a Magic Tower mage with me, and that said mage was a formidable talent, the rumor would spread that the achievements belonged to Celia of the Magic Tower. It was not entirely wrong, but not many people knew that Celia had smashed Berna's head into the ground. At least that particular detail had not reached the Mage Division, so things were only this bad.
"Haa. You have nothing to say, I see. In other words, you have no intention of leaving of your own accord."
"We already know how rotten Attelina is. Show us, Princess, that you are someone we can acknowledge."
Honestly, I could have simply said I knew nothing and left it at that. Or I could have said I could return to Attelina whenever I liked. But if I did that, what would set me apart from any other noble young lady? Besides, they had just prodded my pride as a mage—inside the Mage Division, no less. That I could not tolerate.
"Very well. I shall demonstrate my skill."
I addressed the young ladies with a princess's bearing and tone.
"Even so, we are all people who live in the Ashtar Territory. There is no need for a full-scale magic duel. Why not have everyone participate and show off the magic they possess—commoners included?"
"Yes. That sounds fine."
Whether they were mild or spicy I still could not tell, but one thing was certain: they were better than the Attelina lot.
And so I found myself in a magic contest. Celia was, of course, watching from the sidelines.
"Oh my. Magic teddy-bear crafting? My little siblings would love these. They're so pretty."
"Ah. Y-yes. Th-thank you."
"I heard you plan to open a doll shop someday. When you do, I will definitely come buy one. Are you a commoner?"
Celia had somehow been branded a doll-obsessed girl whose future dream was running a teddy-bear shop. Kise must have been nursing a truly deep grudge in her chest.
Anyway, the magic wager began.
"Well then, shall we start?"
"We will grant you the first move."
The noble-born majority yielded the opening to me. In that case, I should yield as well. I had a duty to observe their skill.
"No. It would be better if the young ladies went first."
"Hoh. Quite confident, aren't you? Try not to be too shocked later."
"The Princess may even disgrace herself in her undergarments from sheer terror."
Kyarrurruk.
Fine. Laugh all you want. Let me see your skill first. I needed to witness with my own two eyes just how impressive the Ashtar Mage Division's level truly was.
"Fireball!"
Puh-bung!
A young lady launched a crimson flame that struck the wooden dummy target dead-on. In an instant half the dummy was gone. Unlike Croissant, they did not use complicated chants. Frankly Croissant's destructive power was probably greater, but watching them cast so quickly with one hand and a light incantation made it clear that Croissant would lose on mobility.
"Enhanced Magic Bullet!"
Tu-kwaang!
Another young lady fired a reinforced magic bullet. The non-elemental mana projectile flew like a cannonball and blew the wooden dummy apart. It did not set anything on fire, but it destroyed the dummy all the same. She was above Croissant as well, and because it was pure reinforced magic bullet rather than elemental magic, her casting speed was even faster.
"Thunderbolt!"
Pajijijik!
The final young lady's lightning slammed into the wooden dummy. The wood shattered in an instant. Again, far better than Croissant. Casting speed ranked Magic Bullet first, then Thunderbolt, then Fireball. All of them surpassed Croissant. In pure destructive power Thunderbolt was strongest, followed by Fireball, then Magic Bullet—but with different casting speeds and attack methods, it was hard to declare a clear hierarchy. Overall the level was high. Attelina did not even compare.
"You are all impressive."
"Huhuhu. Well? Amazing, right? Can you manage something of this level?"
"Understood. Then—"
Back in my Attelina days I might have held back. But this was Ashtar, so I needed to show overwhelming power. I needed them to understand that I was not simply swaggering on the strength of my status and position as the Princess of Ashtar. I needed them, as nobles of the territories that followed Ashtar, to be able to follow me—to show them something good that even Attelina had never seen.
"Just do it halfheartedly and try to brush us off with 'this is enough for you,' will you?"
"Admitting cleanly when you have lost is also a virtue."
"That's right. Being less skilled is nothing to be ashamed of."
Right. Right. So that is how you want to play it. You are looking down on me far too much. This cannot be helped. I would have to display truly overwhelming skill. If they were going to come at me like that, so be it.
"Then allow me to show you my magic. —Void."
Void was Void Magic, and it was also space magic. It created a massive mass of emptiness in midair—a catastrophe of a spell that turned everything around it into void.
Kudududuk.
The small void floating in the air began to swallow its surroundings.
"Everything into the void."
The shattered wooden dummies nearby were all sucked into the emptiness.
Kwarrrrrrk.
That should be enough. I stopped the Void Magic. The black sphere hanging in the air vanished, and the wooden dummies were cleanly erased, leaving only bare ground.
"Well? It is not an attack spell, but I believe this is sufficient explanation."
"Uh? Uh?"
"Now then, everyone? What do you think? Attelina's level was so low there was no reason to show this, but I will ask the members of the Ashtar Mage Division."
The young ladies blinked their eyes.
"Even if my transfer was sudden, with ability of this caliber, would it not be fair to say that sharing the same space with you would never bring shame to the name of the Mage Division?"
"Y-yes. Yes, please do so."
One of them seemed to accept it more or less. The problem was the other two.
"Why is there no particular reaction from anyone except one of you?"
At first I had expected a certain amount of pushback. Even if they were different from Attelina, they were still nobles. I had assumed they would have a noble's characteristic arrogance.
"How on earth do you use that magic?"
"Void Magic? I have never heard of it. Could you teach it to us as well?"
"Huh?"
Why were they reacting like this?
"I have heard that there are ancient magics that vanished long ago. Is Void Magic one of those?"
"No, Void is, um."
To be honest, I was extremely embarrassed right now. I had expected something of the sort, and I had intended to firmly put them in their place. But when they reacted like this, I just felt mortified.
Only after I managed to borrow the commander's office from Kise was I able to escape the Mage Division members.
"Ugh. Their reaction is completely different from Attelina's."
"Well of course. This is the Ashtar Territory, for one thing, but more importantly, back at Attelina there was the Lily incident first. On top of that, Lady Olivia, you had just been dumped by that idiot prince and were in the absolute worst position a noble young lady could be in. Normally nobles either attach themselves to a house more powerful than their own or live by flattering them."
Celia said this while fiddling with her bear. It was a common sight even in the kingdom—clinging to a strong house for the prosperity of one's own family.
"True."
"Actually, if you think about it, even this Mage Division is a little different. Despite being nobles, they evaluate people solely on magic. If this had been some other school the local nobles attend, they would all have been fawning over Lady Olivia and submitting on the spot."
I could picture it clearly. Celia was genuinely sharp about this sort of thing. I supposed it came from having noble blood of her own.
"Is that so. Hmm. Even if you put it that way, it still feels a bit..."
"Because of the previous Olivia? Another identity crisis?"
"Something like that."
Whether I was Olivia or Noah, it felt as if a bizarre soul mixed with Noah was receiving the human relationships the previous Olivia should have enjoyed.
"Lady Olivia is difficult to express with any discipline of magic or science, but it is certain that you are both Olivia and Lord Noah. Honestly, feeling guilty about it is the strange part. What if Lady Katrina were killed or injured by someone?"
"That would definitely feel bad."
Mm. Anyone who killed Katrina I would kill the same way, and if she were injured I would kill them to an appropriate degree—or erase every trace of their existence from the world entirely. Either way, it did not really matter.
"And if the next head of the house, Lord Lockton, were to collapse?"
"I would worry, at least?"
Probably. I might even get a little angry. No—maybe a lot. Imagining it, the feeling was quite unpleasant. That really did not seem right either.
"It is not as if you would grieve simply because you need Ashtar as a support base."
"Ah. I see."
Mm. Maybe I should just stop thinking like this. The longer I kept at it, the more pathetic I looked even to myself.
"How many times do I have to say this? It is not as if you have dementia."
"Wow, that is harsh."
At my age, having to hear the word dementia...
※ The collab illustration is complete! Casual-clothes concept—the one on the far left is Miss Olivia rejecting mint chocolate!
