Work
I had opened that magic book out of curiosity, but the content turned out to be exactly as I had expected.
I already knew it, and there was no problem following along with the class.
That was why I wandered around with Cecil, checking out this and that, and mentally tucked away some part-time work to start. Bail was there too, and sometimes even Sion, as we roamed the halls.
It meant I had spent every last moment of my remaining free time sightseeing.
As a result, Cecil’s balance was almost empty.
“Um.”
“…Sorry.”
“Sorry for what? You’re going to pay me back anyway, right?”
“Of course I am.”
We spent the time like that, and Monday arrived.
The Magic Engineering class at Thunder Hall.
“…So, turn to the illustration on the seventh page.”
“Whoa, amazing. Does this actually work? …Huh? Jedan, where’s your book?”
“Um.”
I hadn’t brought the required textbook to the lecture.
It was fortunate that the professor didn’t seem to care whether I knew the material or not.
The real problem, though.
“…Jedan, I really don’t have any money now.”
After devouring Cecil’s balance, I didn’t even have enough to buy the textbook. I was no longer even able to play the role of the responsible big brother.
What could I do? I had already used it up.
I had to at least listen to the lecture seriously.
***
Magic Engineering was a subject focused on using magic as technology, not analyzing magic itself like the Magic department.
“If you took Circuit Theory, you’d learn it, but I won’t go into detail. The lines that make up the circuit are the same as a biological mana vein. Feeding mana into a mechanical device to make it run is exactly the same.”
Professor Cedric continued the lecture with passionate strokes of the chalk, despite his elegant tone.
“This mana rod is for connecting the [Flare Spell] and the Transformation: Throw Spell. When you activate this artifact, it fires the Flare, producing the effect of a hot fire ball or something like that.”
He drew the picture right on the board, making eye contact with each student one by one, which made me wonder for a second if this was really the cold, sharp-looking middle-aged man I had expected.
“Simple explanation won’t be enough, so I brought the artifact I described earlier. Ah, can you see the one in the back row too?”
“Yes!”
Every time I heard that answer, I realized this was just a first-year class. By second year you’d be as slimy as water-logged slime.
Professor Cedric even used a projection artifact to demonstrate the real thing in case someone in the back couldn’t see it.
“Mana flows into the housing first. Remember that. Housing. You know the artifact runs on a mana stone, right? The position of that mana stone is the housing. But for some artifacts, like this one.”
When Professor Cedric fed mana into the artifact,
with a *ziiing*,
a flame formed at the tip.
“Some artifacts are designed to run even when you pour mana directly onto them. Of course not every artifact does it this way, but it’s common for those that don’t require much power.”
The lecture ended with an invitation to visit the research lab for any questions about this artifact.
Yeah, it had already ended.
After the lecture, as the professor left and the students gathered their things,
I just stared at the board that refused to be erased, thanks to some strange heat lingering on it.
It was a chaotic, self-made drawing made with chalk, but
that very lack of order made the structure crystal clear.
“Jedan.”
The way mana was stored by sending it into the housing looked like the same method as the mana stone.
The mana that flowed through the mana rod connected to the Flare Spell first, prepared the spell but didn’t activate it yet, and stockpiled it.
Then, when it reached the Transformation: Throw Spell, it activated the prepared Flare and simultaneously triggered the Transformation: Throw.
In other words, the Flare fired first, and the already complete spell received an additional variant.
“Jedan?”
At that thought, I remembered the flame that had formed at the tip of the artifact before it was fired.
It had looked the same even if I looked at it with my eyes closed.
It was probably possible to embed the Throw Spell into the Flare and fire it as a single magic.
Still, why divide the magic into two separate stages….
“Jedan!”
Then.
*Snap.*
Something grabbed my cheek.
It was Cecil’s hand.
“…Eh?”
“What are you doing, spacing out. You don’t have to memorize that. The professor said he’ll post the notes.”
I must have been spacing out without realizing.
I often do that when I get lost in thought.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.”
“Money?”
“You know. I left just enough for three meals. You know I’m starting part-time work at the academy cafeteria this week, right? Just until I get my first paycheck.”
“Why does it feel like I’m getting more in debt?”
“You should write a body-replacement contract after scrubbing a bit more. Then… ehehehe.”
“What? Why are you laughing like that.”
It was creepy.
I grabbed my bag, which I hadn’t even taken anything out of, and left the lecture hall with Cecil.
“Cecil.”
“Mm.”
“Somehow, I’m glad I came to the academy.”
The students who had come to the academy.
There was nothing special about them. Luke had sent a notification about two days before enrollment.
Go to the academy.
No real purpose.
I hadn’t even planned to enroll in the first place.
Still, since I was already here, I figured I’d make the most of it.
I had to find a job anyway, right?
My home, bath, and luxurious meals. Those three things cost a fair amount of money.
My plan had been exactly that far.
I intended to learn how to earn money properly.
But after actually attending the lecture, I realized something.
It wasn’t just about earning money; the fact that I was learning this knowledge itself was strangely enjoyable.
I wanted to know more.
What was the size of the mana stone that entered the housing, whether a mana rod and spell alone could count as an artifact, how the mana rod was engraved, and what materials were needed to engrave it.
The lecture kept spinning around in my head and wouldn’t let me escape.
Cecil stared at me blankly at my sudden comment,
then laughed heavily.
“Haha, me too.”
She answered with a heavy laugh.
If asked whether the lecture was a great one, I could say yes.
But if asked whether it made a person stupid, well…
It was a good lecture, but just a lecture after all.
That strange feeling was probably…
the artifact.
The magic engineering that came with it.
That was what it had been about.
***
After eating lunch, I headed straight to the library with Cecil without any small talk.
Finally. The work time that held the key to escaping debt.
On the way to the library, I double-checked the work application form.
Monday 12:00–15:00. Library.
Tuesday 15:00–18:00. Training Hall.
Friday 12:00–18:00. Library.
I had applied for three-hour shifts from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and that was the schedule.
Twelve hours a week, forty-eight hours a month.
The lowest hourly wage was one silver, so the monthly salary would be forty-eight silvers.
A meal at the student cafeteria was 0.5 silver. About fifty copper. If I ate two meals a day, it would be around thirty silver. Even without snacks, textbooks, or other expenses, it wasn’t exactly a huge surplus.
But what major was this, anyway?
The production major. Among them, the magic engineering one.
Faster production than alchemy, cheaper materials than potion-making.
One of the three production majors where money was easiest to earn.
Usually, from the second year on, people sold their creations, and some even said they were making and selling decent things as early as first year.
The main income was probably from that.
Production was somewhat unstable, but still.
“Cecil, Jedan?”
“Yeah.”
“Right. I’m Victor Owl. Even though I look like this, I’m a second-year, so I’ll keep it casual. Anyway, confirmed. I’ve issued the work cards, so punch in before coming to work from now on. Don’t forget to punch out when you leave.”
Victor, a tired-looking man who looked like an owl beastman, handed us two cards.
Black background with a single red line drawn in a strangely elegant pattern, the cards looked sophisticated.
Cecil took her card and immediately opened her mouth.
“What kind of work will I be doing? The part was blank, so I couldn’t check.”
“…What? Blank? Haah…”
Victor seemed to understand from Cecil’s words and sighed, propping his chin on his wing.
“That’s my bad. I had a slacker on my hands. I used to handle that guy’s duties myself, but lately I’ve been too busy to even do my own work.”
Then he stood up from his seat and began flapping his wings for a moment.
…A person-sized wingspan, but could they fly?
That alone was a bit scary.
But just as his wings were flapping, he suddenly stretched his foot.
“Kyah!”
“I caught you, you little rat.”
He had grabbed a palm-sized blue mouse.
“Eh? Talking mice? Gross!”
“…?”
“…What are you staring at.”
“No.”
Victor extended his leg and rested his chin on it on the desk.
“I handle administration, and the real work falls to her. Ask her for the detailed duties.”
I was about to answer, “You talk to mice?” when…
“…?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
I stopped when I saw the squirrel with its mouth shut and Victor tilting his head.
Again, I was the only normal one.
“He’s a slacker, so he doesn’t try to take initiative. He uses the search bar like a tool.”
“Ah… yes.”
We entered the library, leaving Victor treating mice as objects behind us.
The library looked even more massive than I remembered.
A beautiful blue flow was now visible, flowing through the shelves.
How pretty.
It was the beginning of the semester, so there were almost no people in the library.
…Hmm.
Good. When I get money, I’ll build a library too.
I don’t know. The original goal was to set it high anyway.
“Jedan. Work time has already started.”
Ah.
Right. It was time to sightsee.
“Senior… Sijo? What’s your name, by the way?”
“Second year… Gwen… Magic… Practical?”
Um.
It seemed like a Gwen in the second-year Practical Magic department.
The senior-picking process had gone wrong.
That was why I wandered around with Cecil, checking out this and that, and mentally tucked away some part-time work to start. Bail was there too, and sometimes even Sion, as we roamed the halls.
It meant I had spent every last moment of my remaining free time sightseeing.
As a result, Cecil’s balance was almost empty.
“Um.”
“…Sorry.”
“Sorry for what? You’re going to pay me back anyway, right?”
“Of course I am.”
We spent the time like that, and Monday arrived.
The Magic Engineering class at Thunder Hall.
“…So, turn to the illustration on the seventh page.”
“Whoa, amazing. Does this actually work? …Huh? Jedan, where’s your book?”
“Um.”
I hadn’t brought the required textbook to the lecture.
It was fortunate that the professor didn’t seem to care whether I knew the material or not.
The real problem, though.
“…Jedan, I really don’t have any money now.”
After devouring Cecil’s balance, I didn’t even have enough to buy the textbook. I was no longer even able to play the role of the responsible big brother.
What could I do? I had already used it up.
I had to at least listen to the lecture seriously.
***
Magic Engineering was a subject focused on using magic as technology, not analyzing magic itself like the Magic department.
“If you took Circuit Theory, you’d learn it, but I won’t go into detail. The lines that make up the circuit are the same as a biological mana vein. Feeding mana into a mechanical device to make it run is exactly the same.”
Professor Cedric continued the lecture with passionate strokes of the chalk, despite his elegant tone.
“This mana rod is for connecting the Flare Spell and the Transformation: Throw Spell. When you activate this artifact, it fires the Flare, producing the effect of a hot fire ball or something like that.”
He drew the picture right on the board, making eye contact with each student one by one, which made me wonder for a second if this was really the cold, sharp-looking middle-aged man I had expected.
“Simple explanation won’t be enough, so I brought the artifact I described earlier. Ah, can you see the one in the back row too?”
“Yes!”
Every time I heard that answer, I realized this was just a first-year class. By second year you’d be as slimy as water-logged slime.
Professor Cedric even used a projection artifact to demonstrate the real thing in case someone in the back couldn’t see it.
“Mana flows into the housing first. Remember that. Housing. You know the artifact runs on a mana stone, right? The position of that mana stone is the housing. But for some artifacts, like this one.”
When Professor Cedric fed mana into the artifact,
with a ziiing,
a flame formed at the tip.
“Some artifacts are designed to run even when you pour mana directly onto them. Of course not every artifact does it this way, but it’s common for those that don’t require much power.”
The lecture ended with an invitation to visit the research lab for any questions about this artifact.
Yeah, it had already ended.
After the lecture, as the professor left and the students gathered their things,
I just stared at the board that refused to be erased, thanks to some strange heat lingering on it.
It was a chaotic, self-made drawing made with chalk, but
that very lack of order made the structure crystal clear.
“Jedan.”
The way mana was stored by sending it into the housing looked like the same method as the mana stone.
The mana that flowed through the mana rod connected to the Flare Spell first, prepared the spell but didn’t activate it yet, and stockpiled it.
Then, when it reached the Transformation: Throw Spell, it activated the prepared Flare and simultaneously triggered the Transformation: Throw.
In other words, the Flare fired first, and the already complete spell received an additional variant.
“Jedan?”
At that thought, I remembered the flame that had formed at the tip of the artifact before it was fired.
It had looked the same even if I looked at it with my eyes closed.
It was probably possible to embed the Throw Spell into the Flare and fire it as a single magic.
Still, why divide the magic into two separate stages….
“Jedan!”
Then.
Snap.
Something grabbed my cheek.
It was Cecil’s hand.
“…Eh?”
“What are you doing, spacing out. You don’t have to memorize that. The professor said he’ll post the notes.”
I must have been spacing out without realizing.
I often do that when I get lost in thought.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.”
“Money?”
“You know. I left just enough for three meals. You know I’m starting part-time work at the academy cafeteria this week, right? Just until I get my first paycheck.”
“Why does it feel like I’m getting more in debt?”
“You should write a body-replacement contract after scrubbing a bit more. Then… ehehehe.”
“What? Why are you laughing like that.”
It was creepy.
I grabbed my bag, which I hadn’t even taken anything out of, and left the lecture hall with Cecil.
“Cecil.”
“Mm.”
“Somehow, I’m glad I came to the academy.”
The students who had come to the academy.
There was nothing special about them. Luke had sent a notification about two days before enrollment.
Go to the academy.
No real purpose.
I hadn’t even planned to enroll in the first place.
Still, since I was already here, I figured I’d make the most of it.
I had to find a job anyway, right?
My home, bath, and luxurious meals. Those three things cost a fair amount of money.
My plan had been exactly that far.
I intended to learn how to earn money properly.
But after actually attending the lecture, I realized something.
It wasn’t just about earning money; the fact that I was learning this knowledge itself was strangely enjoyable.
I wanted to know more.
What was the size of the mana stone that entered the housing, whether a mana rod and spell alone could count as an artifact, how the mana rod was engraved, and what materials were needed to engrave it.
The lecture kept spinning around in my head and wouldn’t let me escape.
Cecil stared at me blankly at my sudden comment,
then laughed heavily.
“Haha, me too.”
She answered with a heavy laugh.
If asked whether the lecture was a great one, I could say yes.
But if asked whether it made a person stupid, well…
It was a good lecture, but just a lecture after all.
That strange feeling was probably…
the artifact.
The magic engineering that came with it.
That was what it had been about.
***
After eating lunch, I headed straight to the library with Cecil without any small talk.
Finally. The work time that held the key to escaping debt.
On the way to the library, I double-checked the work application form.
Monday 12:00–15:00. Library.
Tuesday 15:00–18:00. Training Hall.
Friday 12:00–18:00. Library.
I had applied for three-hour shifts from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and that was the schedule.
Twelve hours a week, forty-eight hours a month.
The lowest hourly wage was one silver, so the monthly salary would be forty-eight silvers.
A meal at the student cafeteria was 0.5 silver. About fifty copper. If I ate two meals a day, it would be around thirty silver. Even without snacks, textbooks, or other expenses, it wasn’t exactly a huge surplus.
But what major was this, anyway?
The production major. Among them, the magic engineering one.
Faster production than alchemy, cheaper materials than potion-making.
One of the three production majors where money was easiest to earn.
Usually, from the second year on, people sold their creations, and some even said they were making and selling decent things as early as first year.
The main income was probably from that.
Production was somewhat unstable, but still.
“Cecil, Jedan?”
“Yeah.”
“Right. I’m Victor Owl. Even though I look like this, I’m a second-year, so I’ll keep it casual. Anyway, confirmed. I’ve issued the work cards, so punch in before coming to work from now on. Don’t forget to punch out when you leave.”
Victor, a tired-looking man who looked like an owl beastman, handed us two cards.
Black background with a single red line drawn in a strangely elegant pattern, the cards looked sophisticated.
Cecil took her card and immediately opened her mouth.
“What kind of work will I be doing? The part was blank, so I couldn’t check.”
“…What? Blank? Haah…”
Victor seemed to understand from Cecil’s words and sighed, propping his chin on his wing.
“That’s my bad. I had a slacker on my hands. I used to handle that guy’s duties myself, but lately I’ve been too busy to even do my own work.”
Then he stood up from his seat and began flapping his wings for a moment.
…A person-sized wingspan, but could they fly?
That alone was a bit scary.
But just as his wings were flapping, he suddenly stretched his foot.
“Kyah!”
“I caught you, you little rat.”
He had grabbed a palm-sized blue mouse.
“Eh? Talking mice? Gross!”
“…”
“…? What are you staring at.”
“No.”
Victor extended his leg and rested his chin on it on the desk.
“I handle administration, and the real work falls to her. Ask her for the detailed duties.”
I was about to answer, “You talk to mice?” when…
“…?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
I stopped when I saw the squirrel with its mouth shut and Victor tilting his head.
Again, I was the only normal one.
“He’s a slacker, so he doesn’t try to take initiative. He uses the search bar like a tool.”
“Ah… yes.”
We entered the library, leaving Victor treating mice as objects behind us.
The library looked even more massive than I remembered.
A beautiful blue flow was now visible, flowing through the shelves.
How pretty.
It was the beginning of the semester, so there were almost no people in the library.
…Hmm.
Good. When I get money, I’ll build a library too.
I don’t know. The original goal was to set it high anyway.
“Jedan. Work time has already started.”
Ah.
Right. It was time to sightsee.
“Senior… Sijo? What’s your name, by the way?”
“Second year… Gwen… Magic… Practical?”
Um.
It seemed like a Gwen in the second-year Practical Magic department.
The senior-picking process had gone wrong.