Chapter 66
Chapter 66
Wizard Ball?
“Splash!”
In an instant, Isolde was drenched.
“Kyaa! I-it’s cold!”
The climate around Visern Lake was mild, but the water itself, being melted glacial water, was so cold it felt like it pierced the bones.
“……”
The students were thrown into confusion at the sight of Isolde, the top student of their year, being completely toyed with.
No one could even laugh.
Because simply copying down the theory lecture that Vuremhied had taught them into their notebooks was already difficult enough.
“Next, Rudolph student!”
“Yes!”
“Since Isolde student has already demonstrated an example, you’ve had more time to think, haven’t you? Let’s begin immediately.”
At that, a startled Isolde warned Rudolph.
“Be careful, brother. That water becomes incredibly heavy!”
“What?”
“…That is valuable advice.”
Vuremhied smiled faintly upon seeing Isolde advising Rudolph, then hurled the water polyhedron toward him.
This time, the water polyhedron curved as it fell.
“Ah….”
Rudolph, flustered, tried to catch the water with telekinesis.
He grasped a portion of the water with his telekinetic force, as if clutching it with his hand. But what happens when you try to grab water with your hand?
It slipped through the gaps between his fingers, tearing apart and spilling everywhere.
Although the water polyhedron shattered in front of Rudolph’s body, allowing him to avoid being completely soaked, he could not prevent the splashing.
“Hm, Mage’s Hand, is it?
A preconfigured asset shaped like a hand to make controlling telekinesis easier.
Using copied code as is—modern mages really do have it easy.
In the past, you had to do everything from scratch, from start to finish, hard coding it all.
Of course, it was inefficient, but it greatly deepened one’s understanding of magical theory.
Didn’t Isolde student warn you? That it’s heavy.
The Mage’s Hand asset can slowly handle up to a total weight of 15 kilograms. It’s insufficient to receive that water polyhedron!
Either hard-code it properly or extend your assets!”
Saying so, Vuremhied once again launched the water polyhedron at Rudolph.
“Enhanced cast!”
Rudolph attempted once more to block the water polyhedron with Mage’s Hand.
He followed Vuremhied’s warning and advice, trying to receive the water with an expanded, reinforced Mage’s Hand.
However, this time the water polyhedron suddenly dipped downward, evading his hand.
Only about 10% of the water polyhedron was caught by Mage’s Hand… the rest struck Rudolph directly, soaking him completely.
“Ugh… this is….”
Rudolph nearly collapsed.
When receiving it with telekinesis, the water polyhedron felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, but fortunately, upon impact it turned into ordinary water.
Still, it was cold and heavy enough to be painful.
He was a healthy young man, so he managed—but if it had been an elderly person with a weak heart, the cold shock alone could have caused cardiac arrest.
“Didn’t I show you it was spinning?
You should have anticipated the possibility of a breaking pitch.”
Vuremhied said this with a laugh after striking Rudolph with the water.
At that moment, murmurs spread among the students.
“Hey… isn’t this that thing? Wizard Ball?”
“A fork ball.”
“The way the water spins… its rotation matches the breaking pitches of Wizard Ball!”
The students realized that the trajectory of Vuremhied’s water polyhedron matched the pitches used in Wizard Ball.
Wizard Ball, a sport of mages, was immensely popular throughout the Holy Eldar Empire—no, across the entire world.
“Basically, it’s baseball. Baseball played with magic.”
Since this was a magic academy, they needed a sport for the students. Rather than creating a new one from scratch, they adapted an existing Earth sport with slight modifications. That became Wizard Ball.
The water polyhedron Vuremhied had been throwing followed the principles of breaking pitches used in Wizard Ball.
“Hm. Seems you’re not all fools.
Good. Next, Fiona student.”
This time, Vuremhied called Fiona.
“…In order of entrance exam ranking.”
Idnia realized that the students Vuremhied was calling were in order of admission scores.
That meant Idnia and Marie, who had not taken entrance exams, would likely not be called up during today’s session.
“Please take care of me! I’m familiar with Wizard Ball!”
“That’s quite promising.”
The tips of Vuremhied’s ears turned red.
Though he didn’t show it on his face, he seemed pleased that she knew Wizard Ball.
As in the original, Vuremhied was a fan of Wizard Ball.
Perhaps pleased by Fiona’s words, he sent a softer breaking pitch—but Fiona too was unable to withstand Vuremhied’s Wizard Ball and was drenched.
“Hmm. So this is the level of students? At this rate, you’ll struggle to even secure a starting position in Division 4. Next!”
Vuremhied’s array of pitches continued to rain down, turning all the students into drenched rats.
One by one, every student stepped up for both theory recitation and practice, but none could withstand it and all ended up soaked.
Although the setting was a lakeside surrounded by snow-capped mountains, the climate around Visern Lake itself was mild. However, the water was ice-cold, enough to make one’s bones ache upon impact.
“Ah, um… s-sensei?”
“Use magic to warm your bodies.
You’ve learned drying magic, haven’t you? Hmm?
You haven’t learned it yet?
Didn’t they teach you laundry?
Ah, you’ve learned sustained rotation magic? I see.
Then for now… use this spell.”
Vuremhied wrote a drying spell on the blackboard, then summoned assistants when the students still could not follow.
Surprisingly, the assistants arrived at Visern Lake through a transfer gate, not from the academy.
Seeing this, the imperial nobles, including Prince Karl, were all taken aback.
“They can summon them anywhere in the world?”
“Wait, doesn’t that mean they can deploy an entire battalion of battle mages anywhere?”
“What if they summoned them into a palace and assassinated a king or ministers?”
Everyone realized that the Dunaice Academy’s power to dominate the world was not an exaggeration.
The assistants, demonstrating the academy’s overwhelming capability, helped the students properly learn the drying spell.
A spell capable of dominating the world—yet used merely to dry laundry.
Unlike extraction magic, this spell existed solely to remove moisture from clothes.
“Eh? Could this spell be used to dry a person to death?”
Percifier, a student with an adventurer background, asked.
“First, you’d need to reduce casting time to use it in combat. How long does it take you to cast this spell?”
“Uh….”
Usually over a minute. Naturally, no opponent in combat would sit still for a spell requiring such prolonged concentration.
“Moreover, such utility spells are heavily affected by resistance.
If used on a person, even slight movement would make the target feel slippery.
Even if you somehow restrained a person, knocked them unconscious, and then cast it, the best you could manage would be chapped lips or dry eyes.
It’s utterly impractical in combat. Even against creatures like mud elementals, which are harmed by being fully dried, it likely wouldn’t work well.
If you truly want to use drying effects in combat, use higher-tier spells like Drought or Sulfuric Cannon.”
“Sorry for the unnecessary comment.”
Percifier apologized, realizing his own foolishness.
But unexpectedly, Vuremhied’s reaction was not negative.
“No need. The fact that you asked means you’re paying attention.
And it’s good that you didn’t come in with prior training. I’m used to first-year blockheads making idiotic remarks.”
“……”
Everyone felt dizzy hearing Vuremhied deliver harsh words with a smiling face.
Most students at Dunaice Academy were nobles or wealthy enough to be granted permission to use family crests—yet to be spoken to like this was a novel experience.
“So getting angry about that would be rather immature—”
“No, you bastard!
The pitcher is already in the pitching motion and you stepped out of the batter’s box?! Are you mocking Wizard Ball?!”
The calm, gentle Vuremhied suddenly erupted in anger.
“Ah, um… m-me?”
“Yes! When the pitcher begins the pitching motion, stepping out of the batter’s box results in a strike if the catcher receives the ball!
Unless you’re moving to avoid a dead ball strategy or making space for a runner stealing bases—there’s no runner here, and you step out of the batter’s box?! That’s a balk! A balk!”
“……”
Idnia asked Dupon, who was nearby.
“Why is he like that?”
“Ah, it’s a kind of custom in Wizard Ball. Doing that when there are no runners tends to cause bench-clearing situations.”
“I see. Kind of like not celebrating excessively after hitting a home run.”
Idnia nodded, comparing it to baseball from Earth.
Meanwhile—
“Argh!”
“Good grief…”
“Isn’t it harder than regular Wizard Ball if you have to catch it with telekinesis?”
Some students objected.
“Then shall we use a proper Wizard Ball?”
Vuremhied took out a Wizard Ball. It looked exactly like a baseball, with stitching and all.
When he threw it—
A flash, and a column of water erupted from the center of the lake.
“……”
No one could even see the ball.
The result was like a cannon blast, leaving everyone speechless.
The impact was so strong that rainbow trout floated up to the surface, belly-up.
Everyone understood that getting hit by that would tear a body in half.
“You could throw it a bit gently for practice…”
“Hahaha, what a delightful joke. What pitcher throws gently to make it easier to catch?! Of course, since this is catch practice and not batting practice, your point has some merit—but once you seriously train Wizard Ball, such easy throws become meaningless.
Once you actually play Wizard Ball later, you’ll realize how necessary this training was.”
“Wait, we never said we’d play….”
Students thought that, but seeing Vuremhied use telekinesis to retrieve the dead rainbow trout, they fell silent.
“Now then, since it’s troublesome, all of you come at once.”
Vuremhied called them together and fired water polyhedra like a machine gun, soaking them all.
Most students couldn’t even attempt to block the incoming water and collapsed.
“Next… hmm?”
At this point, most of the practical sessions were over.
Remaining were Idnia and Marie—the two saint candidates.