The Northern Grand Duchess Who Couldn't Use Magic
When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in the middle of the Verification Hall in the Northern Grand Duchy.
Knights clad in black armor stood in formation along the edges of the hall. Each of their shoulders bore the Silver Wolf Crest, and beyond the windows, a blizzard howled. The wind hammering against the thick glass sounded like a beast grinding its teeth just outside the castle walls.
And in the center of the Verification Hall, a girl stood all alone. She was small and frail.
Any sense of the gravitas that should have come with being the Grand Duke’s daughter was absent. She looked more like a young apprentice who had dozed off beneath a thick magic tome.
Her long white hair fell past her waist, slightly disheveled, and her pale face carried the traces of several sleepless nights. She was too small, too delicate, and strangely, impossibly cute to be the heir of the Northern Grand Duchy.
But the instant her name surfaced in my mind, ice slid down my spine.
Ivelin Arkenheim.
The only daughter of the Northern Grand Duke.
In the romance fantasy novel The Saintess Saves the Frozen Empire, she was the final boss who would freeze the entire northern region of the empire in the latter half of the story.
Remembering the name summoned the scenes along with it.
The Verification Hall of the Northern Grand Duchy.
The candle-ignition test.
Professor Bermann of the Magic Tower.
The silent Northern Grand Duke Ludwig.
This was the early part of the original novel—the day Ivelin Arkenheim received her final failure verdict from the Magic Tower.
It was not a simple test failure. This was the moment the Magic Tower officially branded her with Mana Circuit Dysfunction and declared that any further magical education was impossible.
The day the Northern Grand Duchess Ivelin would fully bear the label of failure before the entire world.
And then I remembered who I was.
Teor Reinfeld.
In the original story, the 7th-circle mage who would push Ivelin into a forced re-verification, only to be caught in her mana rampage and die.
One fact mattered above all others.
In this exact scene, the original Teor dies.
And right now, that Teor was me.
A death flag the moment I possessed this body. It seemed this world mistook the tutorial for an execution ground.
Professor Bermann tapped the floor with the tip of his staff.
“Your Highness the Grand Duchess. This is the final verification.”
At the word final, Ivelin’s shoulders shrank by a fraction.
The girl did not run. She did not cry. She simply clutched the worn magic book tightly with both hands. Ink stains marked her visible fingertips, and faint traces of half-erased formulas lingered on the inside of her wrist—evidence of countless attempts to write, erase, and rewrite.
Those were not the hands of someone who had given up.
They were the hands of someone who could not give up and had broken in the trying.
Bermann did not look at those hands.
“The verification task is 1-circle daily magic—candle ignition.”
A single white candle sat on a small candlestick in the center of the hall.
Just one candle flame.
Ivelin slowly set her magic book down.
“…Yes.”
At Bermann’s gesture the floor’s magic circle glowed softly. A thin circular formula rose around the candlestick—a rudimentary ignition spell. Even a modest amount of mana should have been enough to spark it.
The moment Ivelin raised her hand, I felt a strange resonance stir inside my body.
The mana moved.
And it was not a sane amount. The protective spells laid throughout the Verification Hall subtly warped toward her fingertips.
It was far too vast and oppressive a power to light a single candle.
What is this?
The magic formula trembled first.
Before Ivelin could even recite the incantation, the basic formula around the candlestick creaked like thin glass. Bermann’s brows furrowed. The knights’ hands drifted to their sword hilts.
Ivelin drew in a breath.
“Fire.”
The candle did not light.
Instead, the magic circle on the floor split with a sound like a scream. Blue light bled through the cracks in the black marble, and the air around the candlestick warped. Frost bloomed across the windows in an instant, and the war banners on the walls fluttered though no wind blew.
Crack!
The candlestick shot away.
A brief silence settled over the Verification Hall.
Before even confirming what she had destroyed, Ivelin first scanned the faces around her. It was the gaze of someone all too familiar with those expressions.
I failed again.
I broke it again.
Everyone will look at me that way again.
Bermann swallowed a deep sigh.
“It is indeed Mana Circuit Dysfunction.”
At those words, Ivelin’s fingertips dropped powerlessly.
“I regret to inform Your Grace, but Her Highness the Grand Duchess cannot wield magic. While a mana reaction is present, her circuits cannot accept normal formulas. With the basic formula distorted to this extent, practical instruction is out of the question.”
Ludwig offered no reply. His silence settled like frost throughout the hall.
Ivelin lowered her head. Long white hair veiled her face. Her small hands clutched the hem of her dress. Few would have noticed how those hands trembled; everyone’s eyes were fixed on the shattered magic circle and Bermann’s verdict.
But my gaze was different.
The direction of the broken basic formula.
The lingering flow of heat around the candlestick.
The angle at which the protective spells engraved into the floor had warped.
This was not failure in the sense Bermann meant.
She wasn’t trying to light a single candle.
Ivelin’s mana had not flowed toward the candle. Too much power had poured in at once, and the basic ignition formula had simply shattered under the strain. It was not filling a cup with water. It was holding a teacup beneath a waterfall.
Her mana was not depleted. Her circuits were not dysfunctional.
It was the exact opposite.
This child has far too much mana.
In the original story, Teor died here. He had insisted on a re-verification in defiance of Bermann’s judgment. Ivelin, driven by fear and shame, had moved her mana again and gone into rampage. The Verification Hall froze solid, and Teor took the full brunt of it.
So if I stayed quiet, would I be safe?
No.
Following the original flow, Ludwig would ask for my opinion as a final confirmation. The original Teor would then foolishly demand a re-verification out of pride.
Even if I remained silent, that question would still come.
There was no escape.
Then only one choice remained.
I had to flip the board myself.
The moment Bermann moved to write on his document, I stepped forward.
“The judgment is incorrect.”
The air in the Verification Hall froze.
“Sir Teor. Are you challenging my verdict?”
“Yes.”
There was no time for polite detours.
“Her Highness the Grand Duchess could not even maintain a 1-circle ignition formula moments ago. Everyone present witnessed it.”
“It was not Her Highness who failed to maintain it. It was the ignition formula itself.”
“That sounds like mere wordplay.”
“I sincerely hope it is wordplay. Only then might I manage to keep my life.”
“Explain.”
A short command.
I walked to the broken magic circle. The blue afterglow on the floor differed from ordinary mana residue. It was too dense, spinning far too rapidly.
“The ignition formula is a basic spell designed to deliver a small amount of heat to a candle. Yet the instant Her Highness’s mana entered it, the entire formula lost its center and exploded outward. The reason is simple. This formula is not a vessel capable of containing Her Highness’s mana.”
A cynical smile curved Bermann’s lips.
“Claiming the basic formula collapsed simply means the user cannot handle even a basic formula.”
“No. It means the basic formula was too small.”
Silence rippled through the hall once more.
I looked at Ivelin.
She was still looking down, but unlike before, she was slowly raising her eyes. Those were not the eyes of someone waiting to be called a failure. They were eyes desperately trying to seize words she did not yet understand.
“Her Highness the Grand Duchess is not unable to use magic.”
Her shoulders flinched at my words.
I deliberately turned away from Bermann and spoke directly to her.
“The methods taught to you until now have simply not suited Her Highness.”
Bermann slammed his staff against the floor.
“Irresponsible! Giving a student false hope only to plunge her into deeper despair is not education!”
“You are correct. Which is why I am not speaking of hope.”
I pointed at the lines of the shattered circle.
“I am speaking of evidence. Her Highness did not merely touch the heat around the candle. She drew in the entire thermal balance of the Verification Hall. While attempting to light one candle, she rearranged the temperature of an entire room.”
“Does that not make her even more dangerous?”
“It does.”
“Her Highness is dangerous. Therefore we must not abandon her as a failure. If we ignore dangerous talent, it will only grow in a dangerous way.”
Ludwig’s fingers slowly drummed the armrest of his chair.
“Teor.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“According to your words, this child does not lack the ability to use magic—rather, magic itself has been unable to handle her?”
“Precisely. The existing basic formulas are incompatible with Her Highness’s mana characteristics. It is closer to over-resonance than circuit dysfunction. It is not that she lacks mana, but that her mana reacts so powerfully the formula collapses first.”
“Can it be fixed?”
Everyone in the hall turned to me.
Ivelin as well.
Looking into those eyes, I knew I was about to speak words that could never be taken back.
I had to survive.
To do that, I needed to teach this child.
“I will find a way.”
Bermann let out a low, derisive laugh.
“A way. You choose remarkably light words in front of His Grace.”
“A mage who seeks a way tends to live longer than one who spits certainties. I belong to the former group.”
“Can you prove it?”
The moment had arrived.
“I will not perform candle ignition.”
Mockery rose on Bermann’s face.
“So you dodge it after all.”
“After nearly freezing the entire Verification Hall while trying to light a candle, repeating the same task would not be education—it would be property destruction. I have no desire to receive a repair bill on my first day in the Northern Grand Duchy.”
I met Ivelin’s eyes.
“Your Highness the Grand Duchess.”
Only then did she seem to realize her name had been called. She lifted her head slowly.
“…Yes.”
“Forget the candle.”
“But the verification…”
“The verification just now was not designed for Your Highness. It was an average task for average students. What you require is not average.”
Her hand moved to rest on the worn notebook.
“Then… what should I do?”
I erased the broken lines of the magic circle with the toe of my boot, then drew a tiny circle in the air with my finger. The mana of a 7th-circle mage flowed out as a thin line and formed in midair.
“Today we will not light a fire.”
The small circle drifted down to hover before Ivelin’s hand.
“We will not create light. We will not force the mana outward.”
“Then…”
“We will only feel the flow. Where the mana inside you wants to go. Where it collides. Where it threatens to burst. That is all we will observe.”
At my words, Ludwig was the first to raise his hand.
“Very well. Proceed.”
No one in the Verification Hall could object any longer.
I extended my hand toward Ivelin, stopping a hand’s breadth away. I did not touch her.
Exactly that distance.
“Your Highness. Do not suppress it.”
Her pupils trembled.
“I have always been taught to suppress it. That it must not overflow.”
“Struggling to block it is what causes the backlash. Today we will learn how to open the channel and simply let it flow.”
“What if I break something again?”
“Then I will fix it.”
Ivelin raised her hand. The small circle in the air settled near her fingertips. Once more the colossal flow of mana stirred. The cracked lines on the floor glowed blue, and the blizzard outside the window shook as though matching someone’s breath.
I watched Ivelin’s mana flow.
It did not move in a single direction. It splashed everywhere, collided, rebounded, rampaging as if trying to tear itself apart.
I unfolded a thin correction formula at my fingertips.
I did not press it down.
I did not block it.
I simply created a path.
Part of the overflowing current drained into the floor, another part circled along the ring in the air. Only the thinnest stream remained at Ivelin’s fingertips.
Crackle.
A small sound rang out.
Ivelin instinctively tried to pull her hand back.
“Stay exactly as you are.”
My voice pressed low throughout the hall.
“Do not run. Stay. Just like that.”
Ivelin bit her lip.
When a faint light gathered above her small fingertips, she stared at her own hand in blank amazement.
“Did I… just do that?”
I let out a breath of relief.
I had survived.
“Yes. That was done by Your Highness.”
The corners of Ivelin’s eyes grew wet and red. Yet she did not cry. As though afraid the light would scatter, she held her breath and gazed only at the faint glow clinging to her fingertips.
“Was I… not broken after all?”
Forgetting every gaze around us, I looked only at Ivelin.
“It is not Your Highness who was broken. It was the teaching methods until now.”
The corners of her lips trembled faintly.
This time Ludwig’s low voice filled the hall first.
“Teor.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Can you continue teaching this child?”
I recalled the final scene from the original novel.
“I will teach her.”
Ludwig gave a slow nod.
“From today onward, you are Ivelin’s exclusive magic instructor.”
Exclusive.
The word sounded like a lock clicking shut on the doors of the Verification Hall.
I had begun this simply to survive. Somehow I had ended up shouldering the heavy role of exclusive teacher.
At that moment Ivelin approached cautiously, tension still visible in her tightly clenched fingers.
“Master.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“You can’t pretend you didn’t see what just happened.”
I was momentarily speechless.
The words were so small, so desperately earnest.
“I will not pretend I didn’t see it.”
“Then…”
Ivelin looked up at me with infinite care.
“Can’t you tell me I did well?”
Ah. This child had never once been praised.
Realizing that, I forgot the phrase final boss of the original story for the briefest instant.
“You did very well, Ivelin, Grand Duchess.”
Ivelin froze as if turned to ice. Then, as though she could scarcely believe it, a smile slowly bloomed across her face like a flower opening.
It was then I realized.
What I had changed was not merely one event from the original story.
It was the moment Ivelin Arkenheim first considered the possibility that she might not be a failure.
I had created that moment.
Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, I could not yet tell.
But one truth was certain.
The final boss who would destroy the north in the original novel was now smiling in front of me at a single word of praise.
And I had become that final boss’s teacher.