Chapter 14
The prodigy of the age.
It was a phrase Shaty had heard to the point of exhaustion ever since she first began learning magic as a child.
Most students enrolling at Lua Academy would have encountered it at least once, but for Shaty it went beyond mere external praise. She herself was utterly convinced she was a genius.
Was it because others had lavished her with such acclaim? No. Was it because she could wield magic more skillfully than any of her peers? No.
Shaty’s certainty in her own genius had crystallized the moment she surpassed the father she had revered above all else since childhood.
Her father, barely into his forties, already bore the title of Archmage—a rank few attained even after passing fifty. Yet Shaty had eclipsed him at the tender age of ten.
She still remembered the look in his eyes that day. The way the celebrated Archmage had gazed at her as though beholding pure radiance. The words declaring that she alone was the successor who would carry on the family legacy.
The instant she was named heir over her older sister and brother. The same instant her father acknowledged that she had surpassed him.
From that moment onward, Shaty believed without the slightest doubt that she was a true genius.
And so she also believed, without the slightest doubt, that she could effortlessly shatter the scarecrow conjured by the professor named Meiel standing before her now.
“Cutting through the clouds of the sky comes a giant hammer that shatters the earth. A divine punishment clad in flames as brilliant as the sun itself.”
"Cutting through the clouds of the sky comes a giant hammer that shatters the earth. A divine punishment clad in flames as brilliant as the sun itself."
⟨ Meteor ⟩
Shaty closed her eyes and recited the most powerful offensive elemental magic currently available to her.
Incantations served as a medium to solidify the image. They were indispensable for raising the success rate of a spell, so Shaty enunciated each syllable with meticulous clarity, never slurring a single sound.
Even a mid-tier spell from her arsenal would have been more than enough to destroy the scarecrow. The reason she chose to chant a supreme-tier spell was simple.
She wanted to demonstrate her caliber to the professor. It was a deliberate display meant to show that she was not on the same level as the other children in this class.
Honestly, I doubt there’s anything I can even learn from this professor…
If she were to speak her true thoughts, Shaty believed there was little Meiel could teach her. After all, she had already surpassed her own father, an Archmage.
She knew such thinking was arrogant and presumptuous, so she never voiced it aloud, but that was how she genuinely felt.
Still, since she had come to Lua Academy, she would at least learn what there was to learn.
With that in mind, Shaty focused on the task at hand, finished the remaining lines of the incantation, thrust her staff toward the sky, and shouted.
“Meteor!!”
The moment the spell name left her lips, the clear blue sky turned a blazing crimson as an enormous magic circle etched itself into the air.
From the ten-meter-wide circle descended a colossal meteor wreathed in flames.
A massive amount of mana drained from her body, bringing a sudden wave of exhaustion, but Shaty smiled with the sweet taste of achievement. All around her, the other students gasped in awe and fear.
“Th-that’s Meteor…!”
“I’ve never seen it in person before…”
“But if that thing falls here, isn’t it kind of dangerous…?”
That’s right. This was who she was. Let them look upon her with even greater admiration!
The urge to shout those words burned inside her, but Shaty had something more urgent to do. Fighting the heavy fatigue in her limbs, she raised her hand.
Whoever had spoken was right. If the Meteor she had summoned fell on this spot, it would be catastrophic. With what little mana she had left, she needed to cast protective shields over everyone.
“Shie—!”
“Ung… this seems a bit dangerous, doesn’t it…? Artidect Shield.”
Artidect Shield
Just as Shaty tried to deploy a shield large enough to cover them all, Meiel murmured softly—quiet enough that only Shaty could hear—then swept her staff in a wide arc.
Kagagagang———!!!
A translucent barrier unfolded in a perfect circle around the students, as if the hard shell of some mythical beast had spread open to protect them.
The shield had appeared in less than a second. The students gasped in renewed amazement, but Shaty’s eyes widened at the name of the spell Meiel had uttered.
“Artidect Shield…?”
If she hadn’t misheard, that was exactly what Meiel had said.
Artidect Shield.
According to the grimoires, it was an absolute defensive magic capable of blocking any attack in existence—every force that could harm a living being.
Even among Archmages specialized in defense, only a handful could use it. And even those who could required at least ten seconds to cast it on themselves alone.
Yet Meiel had deployed it over everyone present in the span of a single breath? That was impossible.
But the evidence was undeniable. The golden-tinged translucent barrier, distinctly different from ordinary shields, forced Shaty to accept the reality.
While she stood frozen, caught between disbelief and undeniable truth, the voices of the surrounding students pulled her back to her senses.
“Amazing! The entire training field is covered by the shield!”
“As expected of the professor!”
“That’s practically a barrier at this point.”
…The entire field?
At the unknown student’s words, Shaty looked down at the ground, then up at the sky where her Meteor was descending.
What she saw drew a stunned laugh from her lips.
“So I wasn’t the only one who was worried from the start…”
The Artidect Shield hadn’t simply enveloped them. It had expanded far beyond, forming a perfect rectangular prism that enclosed the entire training field without a single gap.
All the way up to the altitude where her Meteor would strike.
In that instant, Shaty accepted the truth. She was nothing more than a frog in a well. The distance between her and the woman before her was so vast it could not be measured.
KWAAAAAAAAAAAANG———!!!!!
Shaty’s Meteor slammed into the scarecrow with a deafening roar and a billowing cloud of black smoke. When the smoke finally cleared, the scarecrow stood completely untouched, without so much as a scratch.
Hmm, this is quite something~
“Out of one hundred points… I’d give it about forty-seven. That’s higher than I expected… Still, the rest of you? If you destroy the training field, I’m the one who has to pay for the repairs… So from now on I’ll keep a shield up the whole time…”
Shaty had boldly declared Meteor and launched her attack. Feeling the damage dealt to the scarecrow, I judged it at roughly forty-seven out of one hundred points.
I had honestly expected something in the ten-to-twenty range. As expected of Shaty—she really would reach my level in the future. The score far exceeded my predictions.
I patted Shaty’s head in recognition of a job well done, then glanced around at the other students and added a few more words.
I had told them they could use any magic they wanted, but Meteor-class spells were dangerous. If the training field actually got destroyed during my class, the one footing the bill would be me.
Though to be precise, what Shaty had cast wasn’t truly a Meteor but more of a Falling Star. Still, pointing that out would only wound her pride, so I kept quiet.
A real Meteor didn’t drop a single rock—it rained down boulders twice the size of what she had summoned. So this was still on the cute side.
In another five years or so she’ll stand on the same level as me… No. Since I’m the one teaching her, she’ll probably end up even stronger than I am.
But since I would be the one guiding her, her current weakness was no problem at all. In the future she would become a powerhouse capable of mowing down demons like fallen leaves in a storm.
However, the girl currently receiving head pats from me seemed to have taken a rather severe blow to her self-esteem.
The confident smile she had worn moments ago had vanished. With a listless expression, Shaty looked up at me and asked.
“How can I… become that strong?”
“How…? Ah, I see. Before we measure your abilities, I should probably teach you this first…”
How to become as strong as me. I mulled over Shaty’s question, then recalled the sight of her chanting earlier. I clapped my hands together.
Shaty reciting an incantation she had clearly never needed to memorize before. The children watching her in awe. The confident look on her face after casting such a spell.
I had thought it best to measure everyone first and adjust the class level to the average. But that approach had been fundamentally flawed from the start.
Measuring them with “magic that wasn’t really magic” would be meaningless anyway.
With a low rumble, I tapped my staff against the ground, turning the scarecrow back into ordinary dirt, then dismissed the Artidect Shield I had spread over the training field.
The students tilted their heads in confusion at the sudden change, but instead of explaining I soared into the air and landed back on the platform where I had stood earlier.
“Chalkboard and chalk.”
With a sweep of my staff I created a chalkboard and a piece of chalk beside the platform. Holding the chalk, I looked at the students who had turned their gazes toward me and spoke.
“Since none of you even know the first letter of the word ‘magic,’ I’ll explain the absolute fundamentals… Pay close attention. I’ll only say it once, all right…?”
It was time to teach them how to walk before they tried to run.