Knocked Out
Whoosh—
A baseball-sized ball of fire bloomed into existence above my left palm.
I stared at it in blank disbelief.
Ordinarily, the word meteor meant a flaming rock plummeting from the sky. At minimum it was larger than a passenger car, and its destructive power was so catastrophic that it was typically reserved for full-scale wars or villainous city-scale terrorism. In most games and novels it ranked as high-tier magic. Anyone who had mastered it was generally treated as a grand mage.
In other words, it was the fantasy equivalent of a tactical nuke.
"My, what an artistic Firebolt form! You must have practiced ahead of time, Pecia!"
Things were not so different here—aside from the fact that you needed to mix in earth magic to produce a proper Meteor.
Look closely and you would clearly see a solid mass at the core, yet Teacher Seo Yunji had registered it as nothing more than a simple fireball. Of course, Firebolt itself was difficult on a first attempt, so her reaction was only natural. Novices clumsy with mana control could learn the casting method from a scroll and still fail to hold a stable form—the fireball swelling without end, flames spitting every which way instead of forming a sphere, or the blaze flickering out and reigniting like a dying candle. Keeping something this tidy and evenly shaped was the work of a seasoned caster.
"Heh heh… Well then, Pecia's afternoon class exemption is confirmed. Adriel? What was it you said earlier?"
Teacher Seo Yunji smiled at Kang Jihun with a pointed I told you so in her voice.
Kang Jihun had already locked his gaze on my palm, struck mute as if he had swallowed honey. Clearly he had never expected me to succeed. The kids who remembered his little "I'll take the hit" remark started snickering. His personality was so thoroughly rotten that no one dared mock him outright, but funny was still funny.
His eyes flashed murderously for a moment—then the corner of his mouth curled up as if he found the whole thing entertaining.
"Fine. A promise is a promise. Come on, then. Hit me."
An ooh of excitement rippled through the surrounding students. I had expected him to dig in his heels out of sheer pride, but he was coming out hotter than anticipated.
If you asked what the most entertaining school activities were, number one was watching a fight, and number two was a wild science experiment. This situation managed to be a fuzzy overlap of both.
But when the children's eager eyes swung toward Teacher Seo Yunji, she raised a firm index finger.
"Absolutely not. This is not a sparring ground. If you're going to do it, you do it properly, with safety measures in place."
"…Tsk."
The sound slipped out of me before I could stop it, and Teacher Seo Yunji looked over, puzzled. I gave her an awkward smile.
"Ah—something stuck in my teeth. I definitely brushed this morning, though."
That was when Kang Jihun spoke up, voice sharp with anger.
"I don't need any damn safety gear to block a pathetic Firebolt, Teacher."
"Don't be stubborn."
"It's not stubbornness. I'm stating a fact."
Teacher Seo Yunji let out a weary sigh.
"Can't you just apologize and let this go?"
"Apologize? You, to me?"
"No? You, to Student Pecia."
"I can't do that. I only stated the facts, and taking responsibility for those words will settle the matter."
"…"
Teacher Seo Yunji stared at Kang Jihun as if she could not believe he existed. How in the world did someone this pigheaded and shameless walk the earth? A single sorry from the start would have ended everything. Instead he clung to that scrap of pride and made everything ten times harder.
But the other kids were already chanting, "Let them try it!" and "I've got a defense artifact, Teach!" egging the experiment on, which made shutting it down awkward. Even the other teaching assistants had stopped their own tests to gawk. She looked at me with an expression that said she had no idea what to do.
"…"
I simply stayed silent. No matter how small it was, a Firebolt and a Meteor were worlds apart in mana density. As an adult, I could not go around injuring a student like Kang Jihun.
"Do it, Pecia! We've got your back!"
"Yeah! There won't be any retaliation or anything!"
Buoyed by their cheers, I carefully voiced my concern.
"Well… Adriel's kind of a weakling, so he might get hurt…"
"…What?"
"No, not that you are a weakling. Just that it could happen—don't get the wrong idea…"
Enraged, Kang Jihun seized my left wrist and started pressing his own forehead against the Meteor.
"You little bitch, you dare provoke me!? Get over here! Fire that thing right now! Fire it, I said! Fucking bolt my ass."
I panicked and tried to hold him back.
"W-wait, that's dangerous! I don't want to hurt you!"
"You goddamn bitch to the bitter end… Fine. Let's go all the way. Yaaaaah!!"
Completely unhinged with excitement, Kang Jihun headbutted the Meteor straight on.
BOOOOOOM!!!!!
With a sound like a cannon going off, Kang Jihun's body launched skyward as if it had simply vanished. He slammed into the ceiling, then the classroom wall—bang! bang!—before crashing upside down into the far corner of the room, flopping limply like a frog mid-handstand.
"…"
Silence swallowed the room. A few kids stood with their mouths hanging open, staring my way, so I covered my mouth with both hands.
Wow. That guy is ridiculously durable. I figured he'd at least get a nosebleed.
For reasons I could not fathom, I found myself summoned to Teacher Seo Yunji's research lab.
She pinched a black fragment the size of a pinky nail between her thumb and forefinger, studying it intently as she muttered,
"Fireball… no. Meteor?"
Sssss—
The spent Meteor shard crumbled like sand and vanished without a trace. Teacher Seo Yunji watched it disappear, snorted a quiet laugh, and looked at me.
"In all my years, this is a first."
"Pardon?"
"Not only did you compress an area-of-effect spell this small—you pulled it off on the very first try? Are you sure you're a beginner?"
I blinked as if I had no idea what she was talking about. Fortunately, I had a rather round and adorable face; standing there like this, I looked for all the world like a rabbit who knew nothing of anything.
"Hmm…"
Even under that suspicious stare, I had to play dumb to the end. Aegis enrolled ability users of every level, which made the academy extremely sensitive about school violence. If anyone got the wrong idea that I had deliberately injured Kang Jihun, I would take a hit to my grades—and a phone call would go straight to my guardian.
"I'll ask you straight. How exactly did you do it? For the record, even I can't make a Meteor like that."
"Pardon?"
But it turned out Teacher Seo Yunji's real interest lay somewhere else entirely. Her eyes lit up as she pressed me for the secret of the spell.
"…Even you can't do it, Teacher?"
"I could if I had to, but it would take practice. And it would be a complete waste of time—at least as far as combat is concerned."
She explained that training physical reinforcement techniques would be far more efficient. You could fling a person like that with simple mana manipulation alone. There was no reason to burn mana and run complex calculations in your head just to produce a flaming rock. A Meteor was, first and foremost, an area-of-effect spell.
I nodded.
"I understand what you mean. I did something thoroughly abnormal, didn't I?"
"Not abnormal so much as just fascinating. How did you do it? Tell me."
"You just said it was inefficient. Do you really need to know…?"
"If you can cast it instantly, that's a different story. There are all kinds of applications. You could even fake a Firebolt and catch someone off guard, the way you just did."
"Ah."
Even so, answering was a problem. It wasn't as if I had expected the spell to actually work. I had casually picked Meteor, and it had simply generated at one-hundredth its original size. Besides, as far as I knew, Pecia could not cast magic spells raw. Her deck of cards let her copy and store spells—a broken advantage—but the moment that deck was destroyed or entered cooldown, she was left with nothing.
"It was my first attempt, so I'm not sure I can explain it in detail."
"…Then could you try making it one more time? I'll give you a mana potion."
It shouldn't work.
Burning a magic scroll to cast a skill was a one-time cheat. You weren't formally calculating the spell yourself—you just poured in mana, and the scroll vanished.
Fwoosh—
"Huh?"
And yet, the moment I thought of Meteor, a fireball bloomed above my palm. Once again, it was one-hundredth the size. It ate a bit more mana than expected, but it formed properly all the same.
Teacher Seo Yunji immediately leaned her whole upper body forward, studying the Meteor as if she meant to devour it with her eyes.
"…"
After a moment, still fixed on the Meteor, she spoke.
"Pecia."
"Yes?"
"Would it be all right if I used this for my elemental magic society paper this time?"
"…?"
Come to think of it, she was an elemental magic major. Researchers the world over apparently lost their minds the same way the moment they found something novel in their field.
Still, she had looked after me well enough that I agreed to cooperate with the paper. Teacher Seo Yunji was delighted at the prospect of one-upping Teacher Alked, and she promised to grant me every convenience short of grades. On a whim I asked her to look into materials for my next toy, and she cheerfully agreed to dig around.
Mm-hmm. This much is only fair.
I had coincidentally delivered a lesson, scored some materials, and overall had a pretty productive day. All that remained was to confirm Kang Jihun's final condition, and the day would be perfect.
"By the way, Teacher."
"Hm?"
"Kang Jihun—Adriel—didn't take the test today, right? That means he still has to attend afternoon class, doesn't it?"
"…?"
"What? He only broke his nose a little. Right?"
Teacher Seo Yunji narrowed both eyes and fixed me with a long, flat stare.
"Yes, yes, I understand. Oh, no misunderstanding at all. It's fine. Yes, go ahead and hang up~."
Kang Jiye ended the call and laughed like someone who had lost her mind.
Just what had that child done at the academy? Barely two weeks in, and already a teacher was calling to suggest a personality evaluation!
They claimed the regulations had changed and they were simply asking as a matter of course, but that was a lie. Aegis was not some elementary school—why would it meddle in a student's character?
"…I can't live like this. This ridiculous little shrimp."
She frosted the floor-to-ceiling glass of the deputy director's office opaque, then pressed a speed-dial button on her smartphone. The moment the call connected to Pecia, she asked in a tone meant for a light scolding,
"Hey. Spit it out honestly. What did you do this time?"
She deliberately raised her voice to sound angrier, and for several seconds the girl on the other end hesitated, unable to form words.
"…Um. What exactly are you asking about?"
So something does weigh on her conscience.
"I already know everything. Do you have any idea what kind of call I just got?"
"Huh? Wait—don't tell me those people already went and told Auntie too…!"
Of course they would call Kang Jiye. She was the guardian.
Heh heh. If I scold her here and then wrap her in a warm hug, she'll be moved, right?
She did not actually believe Pecia had threatened or harmed anyone for real. At worst, the girl had probably driven someone up the wall with impossible logic or pulled a prank. Little habits like that faded naturally once a child grew up a bit.
The corner of her mouth lifted as she raised her voice even higher.
"Talk, now! If you tell me right this second, I'll forgive you!"
A sigh of relief drifted through the phone.
"Actually, they found out I'm a magic beast. The Director of the Hunter Administration and that safety guardian guy. You'll forgive me, right?"
…?