Dragons and Magic Levels
"Alright, alright. Shall we get started for real? Since I'm a year older, I'll talk casually from the get-go, okay?"
"Yes!!!"
"Sheesh. No need to shout like that."
"...Yes, ma'am."
I was watching Ha-yan and the trio with a faintly uncomfortable look on my face.
The place we stood in was neither the officetel nor Ha-yan's house. Until recently, this training room had been the exclusive domain of Ha-yan and me alone. Now it had been opened to the three of them as well.
Naturally, it was Ha-yan's unilateral decision. Me? What say did I have in it? If Ha-yan said we were doing it, we were doing it.
"U-um, but did Master Siu create this entire enormous space all by himself?"
Among the trio dressed in the same three-stripe training suits as Ha-yan, Silvi—the only daughter of an alchemy family—was the first who could no longer hold back and directed the question at Ha-yan.
Once Silvi opened her mouth, Lily and Teave chimed in as though they had been waiting for their cue.
"That's right! An underground space this vast! It's not on the scale of the Japan or Antarctica headquarters, but the idea that he built something this size alone is completely beyond imagination!"
"And Master Siu's mana flooding every corner of this huge space... We ordinary mages can't even begin to guess at just how high his level truly is."
As they spoke, the three of them turned sparkling eyes toward me, standing some distance away with my arms folded. In the end I couldn't endure those gazes and had no choice but to flee the training room as if escaping.
Tch. He ran off. He could have at least kept the kids company a little longer. With no other option, I would have to answer their questions about Siu's lair myself.
Of course the word "lair" would never pass my lips.
"So? H-how did he make a space like this? Magic? Alchemy? Or some other method?"
"Hey! Silvi! That kind of question is rude! It's a breach of manners!"
"Ah. Uh. Um... s-sorry. I-I was just too curious. As an alchemist, if he created a space like this all by himself, I really wanted to know the method."
"It's fine. As a mage I think it's natural enough to wonder. Especially since Silvi's family is an alchemy house."
I had been just as shocked the first time I set foot in this place. Was it first year of middle school? Siu had barged into my room one Sunday afternoon wearing the biggest grin, grabbed my hand without warning, and teleported us both.
When I first entered this space I had reacted exactly like these kids—
"Wooooow!!! Th-the magic power is way too strong!"
"Turn it off!! Hurry up and turn it ooooff!!!"
"Hey hey hey hey!! Both of you calm down!!"
"Sigh..."
—because the potency of every spell became several times greater, and I had a miserable time getting it under control.
Silvi, still peppering me with questions about the space, savored the mana that filled every inch of the room, then seemed to try casting a simple fire spell in her palm.
But its power was... uh... wow. Enormous.
The flames that bloomed from Silvi's hand swelled in an instant until they nearly kissed the training-room ceiling. She flailed, trying desperately to cut the spell short, yet she could not shut off the mana pouring into her body and therefore could not extinguish the fire either.
I flicked a finger and casually snuffed out the magic still swirling above her palm.
"Uweh...?"
Startled for a second by the sudden disappearance of her spell, Silvi looked up at my smiling face, her eyes sparkling, and began to edge closer to me.
...Why?
Even if Silvi is like that, why are the other two coming too?
The three of them stopped in front of my flustered face, bowed their heads in perfect unison, and cried out together.
"Master!!!"
"Huh? No. Uh. Well. I mean... yes, I am your master, but..."
Was that little bit of magic really so astonishing?
"Ha-yan still doesn't really understand how strong she is."
Having retreated to my office to escape the trio's stares, I was monitoring every detail through the CCTV feeds installed throughout the training room.
Creepy? Ha-yan already knows all about it, so what of it.
My office had been set up so that every corner of the lair could be viewed on the monitors. The training room under Rhea's purview was no exception.
"Just leave her be, Master. This is a perfect chance for Miss Ha-yan to realize just how extraordinary her skills truly are, is it not?"
"Those three only ended up in our remaining classes because they couldn't concentrate thanks to us, but their fundamentals are all top-tier, right?"
"That is correct. They are all children of wealthy houses, so they have been posting rather impressive results in magical subjects—within their own little world, of course."
"Comparing them to Ha-yan would be almost unfair?"
"It goes without saying."
Until now, standing in my shadow, Ha-yan had been known as little more than a lucky young mage. Yet as I had mentioned before, she had already stepped a little outside the bounds of ordinary mages.
Exactly as the scene playing on the CCTV was proving right now.
"See? Easy, right?"
"...?"
"No? Hmm. I already mastered this magic back when I was in middle school. Is it hard?"
"...Teave. Are we the weird ones, or is Unnie the weird one?"
"Uh..."
"Wooow... Unnie is freaking awesome..."
Their reactions were strange. I had only brought out what I considered an extremely low-level spell to demonstrate. Ah—had my casting speed been too fast?
Then I should try it more slowly this time.
"Is it because it was too fast? Okay, I'll go slowly this time. Got it?"
I let the ice and flames I held in either hand vanish, then began gradually enlarging a new pair of ice and fire.
Watching that, the kids only grew more agitated.
"...Uwaaaaah......."
"In...sa..."
"Huff huff huff huff..."
Their responses only intensified. Looking at the three of them staring at me with increasingly grave faces, I stopped the magic once more, walked over, and asked with genuine puzzlement,
"Um... is something weird? Does the way I use magic look different from other mages? Is that why you're reacting like this?"
I asked the question in complete sincerity, yet
"..."
their reactions were even stranger than before.
Teave was staring blankly into empty air with a hollow expression. Lily and Silvi, by contrast, dashed forward with sparkling eyes, seized both of my hands, and cried,
"Ama-ama-amazing, Unnie!! How can you cast magic that slowly?!"
"Th-that's right!! Double casting was already incredible, but casting that slowly is something even our own Master finds extremely difficult!!"
"Uweeeh???"
The flood of stories about other mages that poured from their mouths was more than enough to jolt me fully awake.
I too was briefly dazed by what Lily and Silvi had said, but I quickly shook my head, regained my senses, and steered them over to the nearby chairs.
Lily and Silvi still looked ready to bounce off the walls with excitement, while Teave wore the expression of someone whose entire understanding of the magical world had just been denied.
Leaving the still-stunned Teave alone for the moment, I carefully asked the other two,
"Is the magic I use... a bit difficult? I've never really experienced mage society, you know. The only other mages I've known are my mom and Siu. You three are the first mages my own age I've ever met."
"F-first... Ah. That could be. You said Korea only has Unnie and Unnie's mother as mages, right?"
"Yeah. Strictly speaking Siu is there too, but Siu is... well, he's human, so."
"Th-then you m-might not know..."
Lily and Silvi nodded as if that explained everything.
I had known, of course, that I used magic far better and possessed far more mana than other kids my age. What I had never known was the precise level of that difference. Aside from myself, Mom, and Siu, the only magic I had ever seen belonged to homunculi like Rhea and Sia; I had glimpsed other students during evaluations, but I had always assumed their skills were bottom-tier. I had always believed the reason I took first place every time was simply because Siu stood right beside me.
But... looking at these three now, it seemed I had been completely wrong the whole time.
I began listing every spell I could currently use. If they were reacting this strongly, I was suddenly very curious about where I actually stood in mage society. Mom didn't seem to know much about it either, and Siu always changed the subject whenever the topic came up.
When I finished speaking, their reactions were:
"...Unnie, even without Master Siu you look strong enough to take first place in every evaluation no matter what."
"A-and learning magic by reading someone else's mana flow is a method from almost fifty years ago... It was the most effective, but the risk was so huge that almost no one uses it anymore..."
"Simply put, both Master and disciple are incredible people. From the beginning, just as our parents said, the two of you really do seem like figures out of legend. No wonder our parents feel competitive toward you... Mmph!!!"
Teave, who had finally come back to his senses, looked ready to say something more, but Lily clapped a hand over his mouth before I could hear the rest.
Still, I could guess the answer. Jealousy. Rivalry. Things of that sort.
I scratched the back of my head and said,
"I-is it really that big a deal? I learned magic from Siu that way my whole life without ever feeling the slightest burden."
"Your hearts match that perfectly, and you trust each other enough to entrust your very lives. That's why it works. If ordinary people tried the same thing, both of them would end up crippled. There used to be a lot of cases like that in the old days."
"I see... so that was the method..."
It was the first time I had ever heard any of this. No one else used the technique. It let you learn magic extraordinarily quickly, yet if the mana wavelengths twisted even a little, both parties could be left magic-crippled. I could understand why it had fallen out of favor.
"Anyway, putting that aside—my magic skills are really that good, right?"
Learning magic itself had never been a problem. If it had been, Siu would have fixed it long ago. I would set that matter aside for later and focus on what I needed to do right now.
At my words all three kids' eyes lit up and they shouted together,
"Of course!!"
"Master Siu is amazing too, but... I can't even describe how lucky we are to be able to learn magic from Unnie!"
"H-honestly, I think your magic is better than our parents'..."
Ahem. Praise like this. Very nice to hear. Hehe.
"Is that so? Everything I've been doing all this time could have turned Ha-yan into a vegetable?"
"Oh my? Could it be that you truly had no idea until now?"
"Nobody told me! It's not like I know every single thing there is to know about magic!"
"Did you ever ask?"
"...No."