Ice Road and a Name in the Sand
Splash!
Simon dove into the sea with a burst of energy, his body straight as an arrow as he cut through the waves and swam powerfully onward.
"Oh~"
Dick, paddling alongside him, looked at Simon with an expression of genuine surprise.
"Not bad for a typical mountain-village boy. You actually swim well?"
"……Don't look down on me. Mountains have rivers too, you know."
"Hahaha! True, true!"
Simon shot Dick a brief glare, then drew in one deep breath and dove beneath the waves.
The moment he entered the water, the world around him changed entirely. It was a silent space where nothing could be heard but the murmur of the sea, as comfortable and drowsy-warm as sinking into his mother's arms.
But there was no time to lose himself in the mood.
I'm in the water now — let's start with an offensive spell.
Simon squeezed Jet-Black from his palm and began drawing a magic circle.
Ah!
He had thought drawing a magic circle underwater would be easy. It wasn't.
The circle collapsed at the outer rim before he could even complete the ring. The Jet-Black turned to ink-black and drifted apart into the surrounding water, dissolving without a trace.
The base falls apart before I can even add binding reinforcement modifiers.
Constructing a magic circle above water and constructing one beneath it were problems of a completely different dimension. In terms of perceived difficulty, it felt at least ten times harder.
For now, Simon kept retrying, gathering data with every failure.
I'll have to simplify the circle drastically. Even if I sacrifice power and discharge speed — if I can't form the circle at all, nothing else matters.
He failed again and again, finally managing one successful attempt — but he could tell that this, as it stood, would be useless in real combat.
Still, since he'd built it, he decided to fire it off anyway. He aimed the circle at an octopus paddling nearby — please, let it be today's lunch.
Jet-Black Torpedo!
Shoooooosh!
The Jet-Black projectile launched from the circle, bubbling furiously as it tore through the current.
It flew faster than Simon had expected, and he cheered inwardly.
Thwack!
But it missed the octopus entirely and buried itself in a nearby rock. The startled octopus darted into a crevice and vanished.
Glorp-glorp-glorp!
His breath was at its absolute limit now, so Simon swam up to the surface in a hurry.
"Pwaaah!"
Breaking the surface felt like time itself had started moving again. The sky stretched overhead, cloudless and clear, and from the sandy beach ahead drifted the noisy laughter and chatter of students.
One more time!
Simon raised his right hand over his head — and this time the magic circle began forming at a speed that put the underwater version utterly to shame.
Grrgh, why is this easy formula so hard down there?
The moment the circle was complete, Simon swept his palm down.
"Jet-Black Torpedo!"
He triggered the circle, and the torpedo launched from above the water, plunging into the sea.
The projectile stretched outward in a trail of bubbles, moving at considerable speed. Simon felt confident he could land a hit even on a Kizen student with this.
If only I could preserve this power and still cast it underwater.
Next on his list was the breathing magic circle he'd spent an entire day developing with Meilyn.
Five minutes of careful work later, the circle was finished. When Simon activated the Rune Script, the surrounding air was drawn inward with a whiiiip!
"It works!"
Just as Simon was throwing himself into testing—
"Simon! Simon! Look at me!"
Off to the side, Dick was zipping around recklessly in the flippers he'd developed.
"I made these myself and they're INSANE!"
Mana kept spraying from both of Dick's legs as they stretched the coastline farther and farther behind him.
"Total success! Sell these to the kids before the exams and I'll definitely be rich—WHOAAAAGH!"
Suddenly a hole split open in one flipper, and the mana exploded outward in a single booster blast, launching Dick into the air.
His body traced a gentle parabola through the sky — over the sea, across the sand — and then:
Crash!
He landed on the sandcastle a group of little kids had been building, headfirst.
The smiles on the children's faces froze as the castle crumbled completely to nothing.
Dick's legs wiggled in the air for a moment before he pulled his head out, stood up, and spread his arms wide with a grin.
"Ta-daa~! I am the princess who lives in the sandcastle!"
The children burst into loud, wailing sobs.
……Honestly.
Simon gave an exasperated laugh and turned to look at the magic circle in his right hand.
The direction of the needle inscribed in the formula had shifted from the far left to the far right. That meant the air had been fully buffered.
Simon immediately covered his mouth with the circle and dove back into the sea.
Splash!
It works!
Thanks to the air seeping out of his hand, he could breathe safely.
Ugh, but still.
Since it was just a rough patch of hand over mouth and nose, water came in along with the air.
Simon couldn't hold out long and popped back up to the surface.
I was so focused on the formula's completion that I overlooked something this basic……
Still, it seemed like an easy enough problem to solve. He swam back toward the beach.
Meanwhile, Meilyn and Camibarez were busy setting up a sunshade.
The shade was large enough to comfortably seat all four of them, and beneath it they'd arranged folding chairs and a table, with the magic circle blueprints spread out across the tabletop.
Meilyn was even installing a protective barrier circle with her own hands. She was thorough about security to a fault.
"Anything I can help with?"
When Simon, fresh from the water, came over, Meilyn didn't even turn around — she just snapped and began firing off complaints.
"Hey! It's like some people work and some people lounge around, huh? What took you so long?"
"Sorry, sorry. Guess I got a little carried away."
"Well, the shade pole keeps wobbling, so take a look at—"
Meilyn turned her head, and her words stopped dead.
Her face flushed scarlet, and Camibarez likewise covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes darting everywhere but at him.
"What's wrong?"
Simon blinked.
Completely oblivious as he was, he had no idea that his thin shirt had been soaked through by the water and now clung shamelessly to every line of muscle.
If anything, the fabric made his chest and abs stand out even more prominently than bare skin would have.
"Wh-what are you doing! Go check the shade pole, I said!"
"Got it."
While Simon hurried off to inspect the pole, Meilyn and Camibarez exchanged a furtive glance.
"You really couldn't tell under the uniform, could you," Camibarez whispered, very quietly.
"N-no, you really couldn't."
They spent a moment admiring his back. When he groaned and hefted the pole upright, his well-balanced back muscles shifted as if in protest.
"There! All fixed. One of the poles was put in backwards."
The instant Simon set down the pole and turned around, the two girls whipped their heads in the opposite direction.
"Th-thank you, Simon!"
Camibarez forced out a smile.
"Would you like something to drink?"
"Sure, thanks."
She scurried off to fetch juice, and Simon approached the table.
WAAH!
When he suddenly came closer, Meilyn shouted, her face going red.
"Hey! Stop right there!"
"Huh?"
"You just came from the water! You'll soak all the blueprints — sit over there!"
Simon was an obedient sort.
He sat in the chair, spread out the magic circle he'd just made, and began checking it over with a serious expression.
……So hot.
Meilyn fanned herself furiously with her hand, trying to cool down.
* * *
The three of them revised the magic circles based on the improvements Simon had discovered.
Each of them contributed ideas eagerly, refining everything into forms that first-years could actually use while remaining efficient.
"How's this?"
Meilyn unfurled a Jet-Black Torpedo circle with its bindings reinforced even further, and fired.
Thoom!
The torpedo shot off, traced a gentle arc… and dropped limply to the ground.
Simon shook his head.
"You can cast it underwater this way, sure, but you've sacrificed way too much. If speed and power drop this far, there's no point using it at all."
"Hmm."
Meilyn seemed to agree, and fell deep into thought.
"What if we set the Jet-Black Torpedo aside for now?"
Camibarez suggested cautiously.
"For offense, I think it's better to adapt our own specialties for use in the water than to try inventing some new shared spell from scratch."
Simon agreed with that too. Developing the breathing circle together was fine, but adapting an offensive spell for water meant sacrificing too much of what made it work.
The best approach was to form the circle above the surface, then dive in and cast it.
"Still, it wasn't a waste. Building the Jet-Black Torpedo taught us the formulas for use at sea, so if we apply that to our major spells……"
"I'm baaack!"
Dick came dancing into the shade. Meilyn stopped mid-sentence and glared daggers at him.
"Why are you so late, you sandcastle prince?"
"The little tykes were crying so hard I just built them a new sandcastle."
Dick breezily made his excuses and took his place beside Simon.
"So, what's the verdict from the meeting?"
Simon explained: for offense, they'd each lean on their own specialties, and focus on breathing and swimming techniques usable at sea.
Dick readily agreed.
"Then it's my turn to go out for a swim?"
Meilyn said as she stepped out of the shade.
"One of us has to stay and watch the stuff. Who's it gonna be?"
"Me! Me! I'll stay. Playing with the little kids is exhausting me to death."
Dick plopped himself into a chair, chin propped up.
"I'm still not a great swimmer either, so…… you two go on ahead!"
And so this time it was Simon and Meilyn who headed down to the sea.
They didn't exchange a single word on the way to the water's edge.
Nowhere to look.
Simon walked staring straight ahead, purely because of her outfit. That particular kind of swimsuit was far, far beyond what Simon's composure could handle.
……When is her shirt going to dry.
Meilyn, for her part, was just as acutely aware of the person beside her.
When they finally reached the water, she spoke up.
"Go ahead first, Simon."
Meilyn prepared her dark magic, sky-blue hair whipping in the sea breeze. Simon nodded and dove in ahead of her.
He was cutting quickly through the current when he glanced back — Meilyn had drawn magic circles on both feet and was leaping high into the air.
Ice Road
Shaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Ice poured down beneath her feet, and her body launched itself along the frozen path toward the beach.
Simon's mouth hung open. She was running across the sea, riding the ice.
That's incredible!
Her cryomancy was at such an impressive level that it made him wonder why she hadn't been training it all along.
Perhaps if she hadn't been so preoccupied with Serne, the master of Jet-Black flames, she would have reached an even higher realm by now.
"AH-CHOO!"
Of course, there remained the small problem that she was terribly sensitive to the cold.
She cleared her throat with a dignified ahem, halted the Ice Road, and dove into the sea like an Olympic diver.
The moment she was underwater, she activated a spell she'd prepared in advance. Watching sheets of ice burst outward into the sea, Simon couldn't help but marvel.
She was upset about dropping in the rankings at the last BMAT, and now she's gritting her teeth and preparing like this.
He couldn't afford to lose. Simon drew a skeleton out of subspace.
"!"
He'd meant to cast Bone Armour, but the instant the skeleton emerged, it couldn't do anything at all — it just bobbed up to the surface of the sea.
And Overlord was out of the question too. Underwater, he couldn't perform the trigger motion he'd set for activating subspace in the first place — stomping his left foot against the ground.
Watching Meilyn vent her frustration in glorious bursts of underwater ice, Simon pondered beneath the waves.
What's the best way for ME to fight underwater?
* * *
"Haaaah-aaaam."
A man sprawled on a sunbed beneath a parasol let out an enormous yawn. He had sun-bronzed skin and a white cap perched on his head.
He rubbed his eyes and clicked his tongue.
"Do we really have to come all the way out to the sea to train?"
At his question, the friend sprawled on the sunbed opposite answered with a grin.
"Cut them some slack. If our squadmates get expelled from Kizen, it ends up costing us in the end."
"Group assignments. Ugh. Besides, what more practice do they need to fight at sea? They're already fighting at sea."
The friend snorted and shrugged.
"You're a Special Admission student and a naval warfare specialist, so of course you wouldn't get it. But the rest of them were absolutely floored when the 3rd exam theme turned out to be the ocean."
The man readjusted his white cap with a swipe.
"Is it worth all that fuss? Fight at sea, fight on land — a fight's a fight, either wa……huh?"
Out in the middle of the sea, he spotted a pristine ice path stretching onward. He sat up and pushed the brim of his cap upward with one hand.
The sight of a girl with sky-blue hair in a swimsuit racing across the ice was breathtakingly beautiful.
"That girl's amazing. Know who she is?"
At that, his friend let out a weary laugh.
"……You really don't know anyone besides the handful of people in our own class, do you."
"I haven't even memorized all my squadmates' names yet."
He suffered from such severe selective memory that if a person didn't interest him, he'd forget them ten minutes after meeting them.
"Hahaha! Well, she's fairly famous in her own right. Meilyn Villenne of the Ivory Tower."
Whoosh!
At that moment, the man on the sunbed abruptly launched himself sideways. His friend, whose collar he'd seized in an instant, wheezed and cried out.
"R-Raheim?! What's gotten into you—!"
"Say it again. Say it clearly, exactly."
His eyes gleamed.
"Who of the Ivory Tower? What was the name?"
His friend's face went blank with confusion. They'd been attached at the hip all semester, but this was the first time the man had ever reacted to a person's NAME.
"M-Meilyn Villenne!"
"Wasn't Serne Aindark the Ivory Tower's freshman this year?"
"H-how should I know! They said she was Ivory Tower too!"
At that, the man released his friend's collar. His friend hit the sand on his backside, wheezing.
Raheim's expression hardened into dead seriousness.
Of all places — to hear that name here.