Well, How About You Try Spouting That 'Spell' Once?
Well, How About You Try Spouting That 'Spell' Once?
The next night, 11:50 PM.
With only ten minutes left until midnight, I was in the training ground pushing myself to my limit.
With the evaluation on hold, the professor had given the students a week of free time. Thanks to that, I could throw myself entirely into training.
"Huff."
I opened my eyes, gathering both mana and breath at once. My body felt oddly light. I had already stripped off my sweat-soaked top.
Perhaps because I had grown accustomed to this world's training methods, I could feel the mana circulating inside me becoming purer day by day.
It was slow, but my total mana was also increasing. Enough that I could confidently say it didn't look shabby at a glance.
Just then, a corpse walked into the training ground.
"......Hey, Plan."
Looking closer, it wasn't a corpse but a red-haired girl. Staring even more intently, it was Becky.
I had only not seen her for a single day, but her appearance was so haggard it couldn't compare to yesterday.
'The summary should be quite useful.'
As a rule, the quality of an assignment is inversely proportional to the writer's health. I willingly accepted the wad of paper Becky held out.
"You summarized all eight volumes?"
"...I went through all eight. But I can't guarantee the content."
Inwardly satisfied, I nodded. Becky had an excellent talent as a 'slave.'
"Anyway, I did it...? S-So I can contact Trivia now, right? Ugh..."
Becky, who had been holding her forehead and swaying, suddenly opened her eyes wide.
"P-Plan... your body...."
She jabbed her index finger at my body and stared at it with wide eyes, looking up and down.
If anything, I should have been the one feeling embarrassed, but it was Becky's face that was turning red.
"Did your body always... always look this good?"
Naturally, a pure and vigorous flow of mana also affects a mage's physique.
Even this once-shabby and lowly body had finally begun to show changes visible to the naked eye.
My shoulders and biceps were filling out, and my back and abs were slowly starting to take shape.
Granted, it was only the beginning of growth, but compared to before, the difference was clear.
"So, to summarize."
I continued, addressing Becky.
"Last time, and this time. You've been observing my body, is that it?"
"Wha, wha, what?"
Becky's face grew even redder.
"What do you mean! If you're taking your shirt off like that, of course I can see! Do you think I'm some kind of pervert?"
She waved her hands frantically, and steam seemed to rise from the top of her head.
I didn't have time to entertain her eccentricities. I used Telekinesis to hang the summary she'd given me in midair.
With my hands, I opened How Healing Magic Became the Center of Controversy.
Trixie had left this tome at the designated Witch early this morning as I had requested.
However, she hadn't simply left it. I detected that a spell capable of tracking the Witch had been placed on it, and I dispelled it at once.
'Witch tracking, huh....'
In one sense it was cute, in another it was insolent. Since it was her first offense, I decided to take it as a charming gesture and let it slide.
Thanks to Trixie, my thoughts on 'Witch tracking' stretched a bit further.
'Is there really a need to do it like that?'
There doesn't seem to be a need to forcibly insert her own summons into Trivia.
If I modify it properly, Trivia itself could function as a Witch tracker.
I nodded and tucked that thought into a corner of my mind.
Later, when I had time, I would modify Trivia to suit my own tastes.
First, the comparison of healing content.
I compared the summary I held open with Telekinesis against the book I held in my hands.
Every world is rife with variables. Just look at what happened during this exploration assessment.
Without the Spring of Essence, I would have crashed to the ground no matter how well I held out in midair.
At best, a fracture. At worst, death.
No matter how much a mage trains their body, it will never be as sturdy as a knight's.
If a mage's body is harmed because they couldn't react to a variable quickly enough, recovering and regrouping is indisputably the best course.
That is why healing magic is absolutely necessary. In this world where so much remains unknown, it will serve as excellent insurance for me.
"......Nothing special."
Healing in this world is divided into only two ranks.
Surface Healing. And Origin Healing.
Surface Healing merely invigorates the body and mends shallow wounds.
Origin Healing, on the other hand, as the name suggests, heals the target's 'origin.' Mind, memories, lost body parts... and, unsurprisingly, it is classified as taboo.
"Hmm."
Looking at the formula, the difficulty of Surface Healing was not high. It felt as if I could use it right away.
"Becky."
"Huh? H-Hyah?!"
I placed my hand on the nape of her neck without asking.
The way her body quivered slightly was a little irritating.
I recalled the Surface Healing formula I had engraved in my mind. Soon, the stored mana flowed gently into Becky's body.
"Huh...?"
The tension packed into Becky's body gradually eased, and her complexion improved to the point where it was visible to the naked eye.
She must have felt it too, because she clenched and unclenched her fist.
"What the...? My drowsiness just vanished."
As expected, a success.
I wanted to tell her to go summarize a few more volumes now that her drowsiness was gone, but healing magic had become controversial precisely because of such abuse, so I held back.
What direction should my research take, and how should I use it to cause a great stir in this world? It was a subject I would have to ponder a bit more.
......As I considered these things, I suddenly felt a weighty gaze on me.
Becky was still looking at me. Staring intently, even.
"What."
"No, you can't just say 'what.' Hey, that... Plan."
Becky scratched her cheek and went on.
"Perfume... don't you want to go buy some together?"
"I'm busy."
"What?!"
Becky yelled.
"We said we'd go together! I didn't even wear perfume today because I thought we'd buy some...."
"I'll give you gold coins. Buy it yourself."
"Hey... that's too much...."
Tears began to well up in Becky's doe-like eyes.
"Don't cry. It ruins mana consumption efficiency."
"Wh-What... are you crazy...?"
I briefly retraced the day.
For starters, I had finished every bit of training I could do today.
The research on healing magic was unlikely to be as difficult as I had thought, and handling my assistant solely with a whip was a poor strategy.
I checked whether I had time to give her a carrot. Since I didn't spend much time on meals, I had about thirty minutes to spare.
In the end, I nodded.
"Becky."
I called her name quietly.
"What. Why. Forget it... I'll just buy perfume by myself... I said forget it."
Becky was already fuming. Incidentally, that's also bad for mana consumption efficiency.
"Let's head out."
"Forget it. I'm going back to the dorms by myself...."
"I'm saying let's go buy perfume."
It was only those words.
"......Huuuh?"
In an instant, Becky's face began to brighten like a sunflower drenched in water.
◈
The next day, Violet was having a busier day than ever.
First, she had to think of a substitute exam for the suspended exploration assessment, and she had to adjust the students' future schedules.
The deadline was a little over a week. And that wasn't all.
She was currently sitting in as a guest at a meeting with the Knight Department to report the anomaly that had occurred in the labyrinth.
'...Even ten bodies wouldn't be enough.'
Violet let out a deep sigh. As she propped up her throbbing head with her hand, barely holding on, Sepia swooped in and sat beside her.
"Sis~."
With a "Geez," Sepia immediately slumped onto the desk.
"I'm going to die like this, seriously! It's the period when guilds are active, so I have no time to breathe.... Bring this student's info, bring that student's info."
Violet had no bandwidth at the moment to join Sepia's idle chatter. Sepia poked her older sister's side and let out a sly voice.
"By the way, sis~."
"What."
"You okay? The Magic Labyrinth."
When Violet glared at her sharply, Sepia burst out laughing.
"Ahaha, sorry, sorry. I knew you weren't okay, of course. I just found something interesting. Look at this, I got it from someone involved in the labyrinth's construction."
A few sheets of paper slid quietly onto the table. They were documents detailing, at length, the changes that had occurred inside the magic labyrinth.
"Hey, about returning those last three students. Didn't you say it happened one hour and thirty-one minutes after the assessment started?"
"I did. What about it?"
"Look at this... it says here the entire internal terrain of the labyrinth collapsed at the one-hour-twenty-eight-minute mark. So doesn't that mean three students held out for three whole minutes after that?"
Violet shook her head and her hand at the same time.
"I must have miscalculated the time. Yes, that's it."
"Huh?"
"I said I miscalculated. I must have been completely out of sorts. Do you have any idea how deep those strata go? Three minutes? Don't talk nonsense, and keep quiet."
Violet nodded to herself, as though she'd convinced herself of her own claim. But Sepia's smile only grew wider.
"Come on, as if you would ever get a time calculation wrong. This obviously means there's something going on here!"
"Absolutely nothing. I have a mountain of things to deal with right now. So don't you go adding to my headache."
"Aww, but sis..."
Sepia pressed her shoulder right up against Violet's and leaned her face in close.
"So, it'd be okay if I look into these students a little, right?"
"Look into them?"
"They might be seriously impressive kids. And the guilds have been dropping hints nonstop lately, asking if there are any promising students."
"That doesn't sound like your only objective. You think I don't know you?"
"Oh dear, was it that obvious? I'd be investigating on the side, of course. I've heard there are quite a few people lately colluding with the Evil Ones."
Their conversation, caught between two very different temperatures, was in full swing when it happened. The seated mages began rising from their chairs, one by one.
Violet and Sepia got up from their seats as well. By the feel of the room, a figure from the Knight Department had finally arrived.
"They're always late. Always."
"Why act like it's new, sis? Is this the first or second time knights have thrown their weight around?"
Tsk. Violet clicked her tongue and fixed a glare on the scene.
"Let us begin the meeting. The agenda concerns the anomalies that have been occurring with increasing frequency as of late."
Someone near the head of the table announced the start of the proceedings.
At the same moment, Violet found her gaze stolen away.
A wild beast.
Her dignified, haughty stride resembled that of a savage predator.
Hair so black it refused even the touch of light, and eyes where embers flickered like a restless blaze of sparks.
Alone in the broad conference hall, clad in light armor, the female knight carried an air of ease, as though this place were her own home.
That damned composure burrowed into Violet's mind and raked mercilessly at her nerves.
Conet—head of the Magic Department and the only mage among the eight magic ranks to have achieved the 6th rank—spoke first.
"You are late, Scarlett."
"I was in the middle of training."
"We mages did not arrive early because we have time to spare."
"For a spell-chanting lot to even brush the heel of an honored knight, having time to spare would hardly do."
"It seems those who learn the sword never learn courtesy. That is the breed called knights."
The female knight named Scarlett and Conet exchanged a brief glance.
A short clash—but it was more than enough to freeze the air inside the conference hall as though a frost had settled.
Scarlett. So this woman was the Knight of Embers. Even Violet, who had no interest whatsoever in knights or their kind, had heard that epithet before.
The female knight swept her gaze leisurely across the room, then fixed her eyes on Conet and spoke.
"I am a person who values courtesy above all else. However..."
The corner of her mouth lifted meaningfully.
"That only applies when dealing with fellow knights. I have no courtesy to spare for pale-faced bookworms who do nothing but study."
The eyes of a predator locking onto its prey flickered. Even though Professor Audrey had merely been grazed by that glare, she hung her head low.
Violet disliked every single element that made up this situation.
The meeting's agenda. This female knight who treated every person around her with contempt, as if she were the creator of the world herself. The mages who were bowing and scraping without even realizing it.
But she could hardly blame the people around her. When the opponent was the Knight of Embers... anyone would be left with no other choice.
"Tsk."
Conet clicked her tongue with a displeased expression and looked at Scarlett.
"Do watch your words and actions at all times. A single 'spell' would be more than enough to annihilate the Knight Department in its entirety."
"Testing that right now could be amusing. So, how about it—care to mutter out that 'spell' of yours?"
Without either being the first to yield, the female knight and the head of the department faced each other and smiled.
Thin smiles spread across both their faces, but the mages watching the scene were so crushed by the pressure tightening around their throats that they hardly dared to let out a breath.
It was Conet who parted her lips again before long.
"Shall we proceed with the meeting, then. Have you read the report on the anomalies?"
"It was the stuff of a child's tantrum."
"A child's tantrum?"
The department head's eyes curved like crescent moons.
The Magic Department professors swallowed hard at the sight of Conet's face, which contained not a single speck of good humor.
They knew all too well that such a smile was a signal declaring that the department head was in a state of considerable fury.
"A child's tantrum... good heavens, a child's tantrum, she says. I consider this a matter of grave severity."
"Grave it would be—for such a feeble lot."
Conet's head tilted askew.
"Knight of Embers, Scarlett. Rumors of your childish insolence have long since reached my ears... but words, once spoken, cannot be unsaid."
Even in the face of words laced with a sharp blade, Scarlett remained unruffled.
"The world must have been far too peaceful, it seems. Ah, yes. Seeing the spectacle of creatures who try to settle every formality with nothing but their mouths, I'm inclined to think that truly is the case."
Scarlett continued, perfectly composed.
"Riding on the coattails of a peaceful world, mages have merely pretended to be competent, never once facing a proper opponent."
"Hmm."
"Calling a meeting over something of this level—it's nothing short of laughable."
"Sir Scarlett."
Conet ran a hand down her face—long, elegant, fine-boned fingers performing a dry wash. On the face that emerged afterward, not a trace of a cordial smile could be found.
"How agonizing this situation must be for you, having to sit face-to-face with incompetent spell-chanters. My apologies. We shall conduct the meeting among ourselves."
With a face hardened into cold stone, the department head continued.
"You may return to the training grounds and finish chopping at your straw dummies."
A biting, razor-sharp current swept through the room, as though an ice age had descended. Everyone was dabbing at cold sweat and adjusting their collars when it happened.
"Blah blah blah—is that how you chant your spells?"
Crunch—Scarlett drove her sword, scabbard and all, into the floor.
Scarlett's and Conet's gazes collided in midair.
"As it happens, there do seem to be quite a few straw dummies in this very room."
The other professors were the only ones dying a slow death from the standoff between the two. Everyone merely groaned under the immense pressure.
"Haah, good grief."
Conet let out a shallow sigh.
In this world, it was not only mages who were born bearing something blessed.
Those born with 'mana' in their bodies are given the chance to handle magic. But those born bearing an 'Inherent Ability' can become knights who exert superhuman strength by that very nature.
An example of that stood right before Violet's eyes.
Ember.
Scarlett Yudit's Inherent Ability: a dying flame.
Unlike a mage's Meteor, it could not call forth an explosive inferno—but her embers burned for eternity.
The moment when the spark is completely extinguished will never arrive.
To put it another way, Scarlett possessed an immortal flame that continued to burn even after death.
And so, the fruits of magic that mages wring out with desperate effort were wielded by knights under the simple name of an 'Inherent Ability,' as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Shall we proceed with the meeting?"
"Let's."
At last, Scarlett and Conet took their seats. Only then did the frozen air begin to thaw, little by little.
Violet, who had watched this entire spectacle, could only clench her fists as her best form of resistance. Her nails dug into her palms until beads of blood welled up, but she felt no pain.
'...God-forsaken wretches.'
She hated knights.
No, she loathed them.
Violet could not bear the disgust she felt for the breed called knights, who rode on innate abilities surpassing mana attunement and held the weak in contempt.
This structure—this world where knights reigned as the strong—sickened her. She would one day witness the collapse of that imbalance of power.
'...Damn, damn, damn.'
But that was always nothing more than empty rhetoric. Mere words, winds that simply rode the air and scattered, never to be realized.
With Violet's strength, it was impossible.
Even if she combined the strength of every single mage in the Magic Department, reality stood lamentably unchanged—not even a scratch would appear on the scales of power.
'Someday... someone must...'
All Violet could do was chew on those words inside and spit them back down.