It's Called Ma-gic
The negative image of barbarians was the product of two things woven together: the Empire's policy of oppressing its minority peoples, and the conduct of certain Wanderer tribes. In truth, the vast majority of them lived quietly, blended in among Imperial citizens.
Telling a barbarian apart was simple. You asked them if they were a barbarian. Because barbarians cannot lie. According to legend, falsehood blackens the soul, and so a barbarian is incapable of telling one. That was why I had asked Volcan whether he was one.
And yet Volcan had answered "no" without a flicker of hesitation. Which meant there was a very good chance he really wasn't. In the game, however, Volcan had been a barbarian. Which meant the likeliest explanation was that his parents were. A perfectly sound piece of deduction, and I'd delivered it without fanfare.
The reaction it provoked, on the other hand, was anything but quiet.
"Now just hold on a damn minute! Different squad or not, what kind of new recruit asks his senior—of all things—whether his parents are barbarians?!"
A guard from Squad 13, who'd been loitering nearby, exploded as if he'd been the one insulted. "This is how the guard corps runs these days, is it?!" Even the other team's men, who'd been in the middle of inspections, piled on to harass me. The atmosphere turned hostile in the space of a breath.
I ignored all of it and kept my eyes on Volcan. His face had twisted into something ugly. Fury he couldn't contain leaked out between his clenched teeth, and his fists gave a low, grinding creak.
Was it the reaction of a man whose parents were barbarians? Or the reaction of a man insulted by the question itself?
"I'll take a short break. My sincerest apologies."
The former, then.
Watching Volcan flee his own post, I nodded with satisfaction.
"Unbelievable! We're busy enough as it is, and this is what he pulls?!"
The moment Volcan was gone, the remaining guards cursed me openly. Even the people waiting in line for inspection joined in.
"Goddammit. You're personally responsible for filling Volcan's slot, you hear me?" A guard seized me by the collar and barked it into my face. I nodded quickly.
"Right."
"What was that?"
"I said I will."
"Ha. What a bold new recruit we've got. Fine—fill it properly, then." The man scoffed and let go of me.
I headed for the carriage Volcan had been inspecting. Milo scrambled after me in a panic.
"Boss, what in the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"Doing the inspection," I replied lightly.
"There's two of us! When would we ever get through all that?!"
"Two? I'm doing it alone."
"Boss, inspections are serious business! Let one wrong thing slip through and we're the ones who catch hell!"
"I know."
I meant it. There wasn't a soul on this campus who understood the importance of inspections better than I did.
"Haah... well, that woke me right up." So he'd been dozing off just now. Impressive fellow.
I chuckled and stepped up to the carriage. Its owner glared at me sourly. "Make it quick. We're already late."
"Will do."
I rapped the carriage lightly with my guard baton.
Thud, thud. A satisfyingly solid sound.
"You're not checking fruit ripeness, so what exactly is knocking on a carriage supposed to tell you—"
I ignored him and moved my mana. A bright light bloomed from the baton, and the carriage owner's jaw dropped.
"M-magic?"
These people, honestly. Anything slightly flashy and they start shrieking about magic. Granted, this time it actually was magic. The light spilling from my baton swept over the carriage.
"Pass."
"...What?"
"I said pass. Move along quickly."
"Uh? Uh, right, sure."
"Next."
I waved the next one forward, and a guard hurried over to me. The nameplate on his uniform read Bex.
"What exactly do you think you're doing?"
"Can't you see? Inspection."
"No, you have to verify everything properly, by procedure—"
"Procedure is for ignorant fools who don't know magic."
Bex bit his lip, staring at the glowing baton. "...You're a mage?"
"Can't you see? Busy. Step aside."
I waved the baton around like I was shooing flies. At the word magic, Bex retreated. The mood around us shifted subtly—the same men who'd been baring their teeth a moment ago now watched me with something like awe in their eyes. Mages were elite; everyone knew that.
"Next."
The next carriage rolled up. This one was three times the size of the last, and so crammed with cargo that its wheels groaned under the weight. I could feel the guards around us snap to attention.
I knocked on it with my baton, same as before. The light swirled around the carriage in a full sweep, and I gave a light nod.
"Pass."
"Hold on. Are you sure you're actually doing this right?"
Bex, the one who'd heckled me earlier, blocked the carriage.
"If you don't trust me, do it yourself."
"If anything gets through on your watch, I'm not letting it slide."
"And if nothing does?"
"...Alright, everybody over here! Now!"
I'd baited him on purpose, but Bex ignored it entirely and called the other guards over. They swarmed the carriage like ants and turned it inside out.
Before long the search wrapped up, and the guards peeled away empty-handed. Bex's face was profoundly awkward. Nothing had turned up—of course it hadn't.
"Tsk. Ignorance makes for such hard work, doesn't it?"
"...Carry on." Bex cleared his throat and looked away. I gave a light nod.
"Next."
"NEXT! Move it along, everyone!"
Bex bellowed like a drill sergeant. The next carriage pulled up, and I swept my baton lazily through the air. Blue light washed over it like a scan. Nothing. "Pass."
"PASS! Keep it moving, keep it moving!"
Bex had glued himself to my side, shouting his head off as if the heckling had never happened. The line of carriages shrank rapidly—three times faster than it had under Volcan.
Naturally. All I was doing was casting Light, the most basic spell there is.
"So this is what magic can do. Amazing."
"Magic is the best!"
As the line flew by, the guards' attitudes transformed completely. Bex especially had appointed himself my assistant, hovering at my elbow and bellowing instructions with all his might. The atmosphere was positively heartwarming.
Nobody asked where Volcan was.
"So... your parents really are barbarians, then."
Volcan retched. And retched again. It was only when there was nothing left to bring up that he finally stopped, then scrubbed at his face with both hands until it was raw with spit and tears.
Volcan's parents were barbarians. Not just any barbarians, either—his father was a chieftain.
"You are our vanguard. You must grow stronger. You do not eat—you become one."
Forcing up a memory he'd worked so hard to bury stirred a surge of rage toward Grave. But Volcan fought it down and shook his head.
He was probably just curious. That's all.
Most everyone who saw Volcan's dark skin thought of the barbarians. The new recruit had simply been one of them. And the reason Volcan hadn't been able to answer was that his parents truly were barbarians. The recruit had done nothing wrong.
If anything, the fault was Volcan's own. Walking off duty without a word—what a shameful excuse for a senior.
I need to get back. Quickly.
With the inspections piled up like a mountain and him missing, there would be chaos. Volcan scrubbed his face one last time and headed for the checkpoint.
When he returned, the new recruit was running the inspections entirely alone. The other guards had clearly dumped it all on him. The poor man must have been floundering.
Suppressing a swell of sympathy, Volcan made his way toward Bex, the squad leader. "Forgive me, something urgent came up, and—"
"Oh, right, there was a Volcan too. You're fine."
Bex waved a hand like it was nothing. An unexpected response. The backlog was a mountain, and he was fine?
"We've got Grave, after all."
Why is the new recruit's name coming up here of all places— Puzzled, Volcan turned to look—and froze.
Stretching out beyond the back gate, the line of carriages had dwindled to a mere handful.
"Next," the recruit said at that moment, giving his baton a lazy flick. A remarkably insolent attitude for a new hire. And the real problem was—
"NEXT! Move it, move it!"
"GRAVE! GRAVE!"
The moment the recruit finished speaking, the call echoed back from every direction like a military refrain. They were even chanting his name. It was, frankly, a bewildering scene.
Just then a carriage rolled to a stop in front of the recruit, who sauntered up to it with his baton held at a careless angle.
Just how good at this job is he?
If the recruit truly was that skilled, Volcan needed to watch and learn. He sharpened his gaze and studied the man intently. The recruit extended his baton toward the carriage, and a cluster of light spilled forth.
...Magic?
The light washed over the carriage in a single gleaming wave. Ooooh. Gasps of admiration burst out all around—it really was dazzling.
"Pass."
"PASS!"
"Move it along!"
At the recruit's word the guards snapped into flawless motion, and the carriage rolled straight through.
"WAIT!"
Volcan darted forward and blocked it. "What's the matter?" Bex asked, looking at him—and his eyes were brimming with open hostility.
"Did you search that carriage properly?"
"Oh, for the love of—do you not know what MA-GIC is? MA-GIC."
Bex preened as he drawled it out.
"I know it's magic. But magic is not omnipotent. If detection spells that simple actually existed, Elysium Academy would have installed them long ago."
Volcan raised a perfectly reasonable objection, and received the exact same answer.
"Ignorant, honestly. It's MA-GIC. MA. GIC."
"Can't even recognize MA-GIC. Tsk tsk."
Everyone was chanting MA-GIC now. It was not an atmosphere that lent itself to being argued down with words.
Flustered as he was, Volcan couldn't just let it go. Inspection was a matter of the Academy's security itself. Which left him exactly one option.
"Better safe than sorry. I'll check it a second time."
Volcan held the already-cleared carriage in place. The guards clicked their tongues at him, loudly and pointedly. "Some people just go looking for extra work."
Volcan searched the carriage in silence, moving faster and more meticulously than before.
And found nothing.
Nothing at all.
The guards' jeering and finger-pointing swelled. Some of them were outright barking at him to clear off already. By that point, even Volcan couldn't help but waver. He turned his eyes to the recruit.
Does magic really do that?
The recruit gave his baton a lazy flick.
"Pass."
Volcan's heart grew very heavy indeed.
"So magic really can do inspections?"
Milo asked with a grin, absolutely bursting with swagger. I grinned right back.
"No."
"See, I knew— huh?"
"It can't. If you could inspect something with a snap of your fingers, I'd be an Archmage by now."
"Th-then what was all that?!"
"Light. It's a basic spell."
"...Then it doesn't inspect anything?"
Milo's voice cracked with disbelief.
"Light has no inspection function whatsoever."
"Then the inspection—"
"Instead, it leaves a mark. One that says 'inspect me.'"
"...Sorry, what? A mark on who?"
"The Chairwoman."
The confusion in Milo's eyes deepened into open alarm. I gave my baton a lazy twirl.
The Chairwoman—the witch's mother, an Archmage—was a profoundly cautious woman. Cautious enough to lay magic circles even in the guard recruitment exam. Wherever she deemed it necessary, she installed a magic circle first and asked questions later. The front gate and the back gate, naturally, included.
The high-tier magic circles embedded in both gates were her handiwork.
Of course, they didn't trigger on just anyone. High-tier circles devoured mana stones. Thousands of people passed through the Academy's gates every day; even with the Chairwoman's fortune, running a high-tier circle on every single one of them would be absurdly wasteful.
So her circles only activated above a certain threshold. In other words: anyone who left traces of sufficient caliber was guaranteed a personal inspection from the Chairwoman herself.
That was why I'd been coating each carriage in mana.
No matter how meticulously Volkan searched, he could never out-search the Chairwoman's circle.
Granted, the system had one glaring flaw. Because it was high-tier, its mana stone consumption was astronomical. Deploying that kind of circle for gate inspections was like driving a tank to swat a fly—a catastrophic waste of resources.
But frankly, I couldn't have cared less.
It's not my money, after all.
It was the Chairwoman's.