I Was the One Who Granted It
The lectern stood empty. From that vacant spot, a whirlwind of sand began to swirl, spiraling inward until it gathered at a single point. The gathered sandstorm soon condensed into a small, palm-sized miniature — a statuette wearing the golden mask of the Great Emperor. The miniature glared out, reproachful, eyes bulging in a stern lecture.
"You are—"
"Uncle Inom!"
"...That's his name."
The miniature turned its gaze toward the source of the interruption and glowered. Leo tilted her head in response, as if to say, that's right, isn't it? The statue sighed.
"...In any case. I shall ask you, Birang Brenis. Is that paltry excuse for an empire truly great?"
"Paltry? Even if you are our professor, that—"
"An empire forged in an age of peace. It has no rivals and faces no crisis. It has not even completed its conquest of the continent."
The hegemon of the continent. In name, it ruled the land and stood at the summit of all things — and yet, across all those long years, it had never swallowed the continent whole.
Despite waging war dozens, hundreds of times.
Birang gritted her lips.
"That is the Empire's mercy. The Empire reigns above all as a sovereign — it is no butcher."
"Mercy? Rule is not decided by blade and blood alone. A truly great ruler earns loyalty and awe by his very existence."
The golden eyes within the miniature fixed on Birang — the eyes of an emperor who had seen through countless souls across an endless span of time.
"And yet... it seems you do not acknowledge your own ruler."
"...You seem to know the Empire quite well, Professor."
She had been nothing more than Lily's summoned creature. How could she grasp the Empire's affairs so thoroughly?
The miniature laughed.
"Naturally. To the Great Emperor, this much is plain as day."
"The Emperor? Which king would that be?"
Yena, who had been watching them warily this whole time, spoke up. The miniature turned its head and gazed out across the lecture hall — toward the place it had dreamed of for so very long.
"The desert."
"The desert?"
"Every desert that exists in this land is my territory."
The territory of the Great Emperor. No matter how much time passed, that place would remain desert, always.
"There's a desert in my territory."
"Me too, me too!"
"So that means all our land belongs to the Professor now?"
"...Lily will be along shortly. Pay attention to your lessons."
Shff—!
The miniature crumbled away on the spot. The sand left behind on the lectern scattered like dust on the wind, streaming out past the lecture hall, and the door of the hushed classroom swung open.
"Welcome, everyone."
During the short break, I had turned off the stream and dealt with Birang, who had come to see me in the dean's office. Thanks to my conversation with her, I had a rough idea of what Hwangyeolgong was scheming. It left a slightly sour taste in my mouth, but it wasn't something to hash out right now — so I switched the stream back on and stepped into the lecture hall, only to find...
"Did something happen while I was gone?"
Some students were standing. Everyone looked rattled, as though something had gone down — the whole room had a strange tension to it. It didn't seem like an ordinary commotion.
Birang stole a glance at the student sitting in front of her, then answered with an expression even stiffer than the one she'd worn leaving the dean's office.
"...Nothing happened."
"Nothing—"
"Something DID happen!"
BANG!
Leo shot to her feet, kicking her desk back. Small hands, slight frame — and yet the sheer presence of it seized everyone's attention. Birang gave her a look of pure disbelief, but Leo's eyes were sparkling bright.
"We fought with the Cloud Envoy Duke and Gunner! And then Uncle Inom came and broke it up!"
"Uncle Inom?"
Why on earth would the guardian statue show up? He'd said he was far too busy with his own class. Did they end up debating the desert or something?
"Why did you all fight?"
"The Cloud Envoy Duke belongs to the Empire. So a lot of people can't help but hate her."
"Hmm..."
I looked over at Birang. She held her silence, sitting quietly in her seat. For someone who had come to me in person to request a change of major, she was being remarkably passive. In contrast...
"We didn't fight. I just gave her a piece of my mind."
Gunner roughly flipped up her spiky yellow bob, scowling. It was a far cry from the image she'd projected at DCK — back then she'd seemed quite composed.
"I tried to let it slide quietly, but she kept ranting on about how we envy the Empire, how everything that happened was only natural. And then you know what she said?"
"What?"
"Be grateful the great Empire saw fit to grant you its mercy."
"......"
Birang remained silent. So she really had said that.
"Well, there is one flaw in that statement."
"Right? No matter how great they are, that kind of—"
"The mercy was granted by me, not the Empire."
Why on earth would they think the Empire had been the one to grant it?
Gunner nodded along — then froze, lifted her head, and went, "Huh?"
"Oh... right. Yeah."
"Let's save that discussion for later. Class is beginning."
And so, Eli Academy's very first class began.
The freshly launched first class of the academy. Everything should have felt new, but I had already run these lectures any number of times. The core material was already up on replays and posted across my channel, so there was no reason to teach the same content twice — and no need, either. Those attending online could simply look up the archives, and those attending in person had, by the mere fact of sitting in this room, already grasped the fundamentals.
Calling it 'in person' is a bit of a joke, though.
If we were meeting inside DeoEn, should it count as online or offline? Most users would say online without a second thought, but for me, the answer was a little murkier.
"So far, you've all studied the basics of mana — its nature, its transfer, and its Manifestation. Correct?"
"Yes~"
"That's right."
"I've watched it on stream."
"Of those, 'Manifestation' is something most of you have yet to master. And even those who have would have grasped only the barest rudiments of it."
As I'd explained before, users — unlike the residents of this world — activated their techniques and skills through the system. The 'skill system' reduced what even a grand archmage who had devoted decades of their life to magic found difficult down to the simple act of pressing a hotkey. Because of it, users grew strong at astonishing speed and carved their names into this world — but their ceiling was fixed. They had earned the right to ride a power that was easy and mighty, yet they could advance no further than that.
"Manifestation is the art of wielding a technique in 'a different way' — not as a skill."
"How do you do that?"
At Leo's question, I casually extended my hand. Flutter! The pristine white papers resting on the lectern took flight, one sheet settling onto each student's desk. Anyone who had attended my lectures before would have seen this paper at least once.
"This is..."
"Some of you received one before, and some of you are getting it for the first time."
"A magic scroll."
Birang picked hers up. A scroll inscribed with magic in its most elementary form. I'd handed them out as homework after the last class, but never actually told anyone to work through them, so chances were most of them had simply set the things aside. Even Leo, who had shown the fastest progress in every single lesson, didn't appear to have solved hers either.
"Correct. Today, we're going to seriously tackle the foundation of Manifestation — 'casting magic'."
I lifted the remaining scroll from the lectern. To the eye it was an ordinary scroll, blank of any script, but pour mana into it and it transformed into a simple magic scroll. Of the countless spells in existence, the most fundamental one. A mana circle — the bedrock of all magic — with a simple magic formula drawn within it, radiating heat and light.
"Fireball?"
"Fireball."
Fwoosh!
The scroll blazed up in an instant, working its miracle of mana. Manifestation — the act of adding a new law to the world. Flame roared briefly in my palm before guttering out.
"Everyone, try it once."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Got it!"
The eight students channeled mana into their scrolls and called forth the miracle of fire. Up to this point, they managed it without the slightest difficulty — success, as expected. I checked each of them one by one, then dealt out fresh scrolls.
"The scroll you just used was one that employs mana transfer. What you just did was summon fire without invoking a skill."
"Ooh."
"Then can anyone tell me what we do next?"
"We have to cast it without the scroll!"
"Exactly."
From now on, they would have to conjure the spell on their own, without the aid of a scroll bearing a pre-drawn magic formula. This was the foundation of 'Manifestation' — its very first step.
I cast the spell without a scroll. A magic formula of flame etched itself into the empty air, and from it rose the miracle of fire. The rankers, who had been watching with studied indifference, began trying to mimic it, one after another. It started with confidence to spare...
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
"Why won't this..."
The fire formula simply refused to take shape. The mana circle wobbled and wandered as though drawn by a toddler, and the structure of the magic formula wouldn't coalesce even a little. Even Redberry — a 'fire mage' of the mage class, no less — couldn't manage to draw the Fireball formula.
Amid the universal confusion, I turned my gaze to Birang. Her face said she couldn't make sense of the situation at all.
"Birang?"
"Yes?"
"Why aren't you attempting it?"
"...Must I really display it?"
"Of course you must."
Birang glanced around at the others, then, with visible reluctance, waved her hand 'roughly' through the air. And from her hand, the miracle of fire bloomed.