Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: The Magic You Chose (1)
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After roughly patching up the series of incidents surrounding the canteen, there was only one thing left.
"Hehe, you came?"
Keeping my promise to Adella, who had been minding the canteen in my place while I was away at the Merak Magic Tower for a few days.
I wiped the grimy soles of my shoes as best I could and headed straight to the basement as soon as I entered the canteen.
Then Adella came scurrying in with a gasp. No way?
"I-I didn't touch anything!"
Hmm. The snack bags in the display case had been torn open.
There were no signs of anyone tampering with the door to the inner basement.
Everything else seemed generally fine.
She hadn't gone up to the second floor, and while the number of loaves had decreased, the cash on hand was ridiculously low in comparison—but I'd fully expected as much.
"No one came looking for me while I was gone?"
"Um... probably not? There were some bird noises outside last night, but that was it."
"Got it. Good work."
I ruffled Adella's hair casually.
She'd probably skipped quite a few classes, but she'd done a decent job regardless. Reliable enough to entrust it to her occasionally.
"Teacher, so then I..."
"Ah, right. Magic, huh?"
"Hehe..."
Hmm, what to do.
I'm not a professor at the hero academy.
I know plenty about killing people—or things that aren't people—but I don't have any superior teaching methods for instructing Adella in magic.
The time until the inter-class tournament isn't long.
Even if I brought in Terra, it would be impossible to turn her into a proper mage in such a short period.
But if the goal was simply to make Adella pull her weight in the tournament, there was one method.
"Alright. I'll teach you."
"For real!?"
"But it might be tough. Brace yourself."
My body bears the twelve unique magic circuits that Terra Ernisten painstakingly engraved with the help of the shaman of the crescent moon, Nova Rate.
When I first heard that these circuits would imbue my hero's body—already several times tougher than a normal person's—with magic, I was over the moon.
Not just one or three, but a whopping twelve ultimate moves.
In truth, our adventures gained tremendous momentum thanks to those magics, tailored one by one to specific situations and opponents.
No matter how formidable the enemy—a demon general or one of the four great calamities—once we survived and escaped an encounter, we could face them again armed with a counter-magic.
The tattooing process was a bit extreme, making even Saintess Eris burst into tears each time, but good is good, right?
It was work that only a hero like me could handle.
"D-Does it hurt?"
"Nah, not really."
Anyway, one of them is a magic that absorbs the opponent's karma.
Strictly speaking, it's a bidirectional ability that can also release the karma accumulated in one's own body.
What is karma, anyway?
It's taught to academy freshmen as a counterpart to mana—another pillar of magic activation with similar properties—but in reality, karma is demonic energy (??). And extremely potent at that.
The main ways to accumulate it are through mass slaughter or contracting with demons, and annoyingly, the deeper you go into the demon realm, the more karma permeates the air.
If it builds up in your body, it gradually corrupts your magic's nature, halving the effectiveness of pure white magic like healing spells in particular.
To keep my comrades at full strength, I took on their karma myself. Even now, it strikes me as an incredibly rational choice.
A hero's body, possessing three divine artifacts (??), boasts durability that won't crumble from a bit of karma.
The magics I wield all operate through spell formulas optimized by Terra, so the amount of karma was irrelevant anyway.
To begin with, my body—a human summoned from another dimension, Earth—didn't contain even a speck of mana.
"Th-Then let's do it."
"You sure? No take-backs later."
"I won't complain! Promise!"
"For real? Come closer then."
I beckoned Adella over.
Grinning ear to ear at the thought of learning magic, she scooted her butt across from the other side of the table.
"What kind of magic is it? The tournament only allows up to third-circle spells, so... um, invisibility or levitation maybe?"
"Closer."
"Even closer?"
Once we were side by side, close enough to gaze into each other's eyes, a faint, sweet scent wafted from Adella's body to my nose.
Her skirt was dirt-stained, her family crest askew, and she didn't look particularly prim at first glance—but up close, she was unmistakably noble.
Beneath her removed cape, her unexpectedly provocative figure stirred an urge to claim her defenseless form.
"Teacher...?"
"Closer."
Though puzzled, Adella inched toward me bit by bit. As her body tilted, her cool fingers brushed my thigh.
Finally feeling a touch of embarrassment, she blushed—a rare sight—and opened her mouth.
"Ah, r-right! We need a wand. I'll grab one of yours too. Where was it? I think they were selling them over there... Hmph!?"
But my hand snatched her cape faster than she could babble and tense up to pull away.
"Mmph, mmf!?"
A sticky kiss. Adella's entire body went rigid.
Undeterred, I pinned her like a beast biting the nape of grazing prey, forcing my lips deeper.
Unique Magic Circuit: Evil Transfer Metastasis
[Karma infusion in progress]
For a very long time, the karma within my body flowed into Adella through our saliva.
She flailed her legs like a water strider on the surface at first, but by the time saliva pooled steadily in her mouth and she began swallowing bit by bit, she only trembled occasionally.
*Smack.*
When our lips parted with a wet sound, I checked her condition, wondering if I'd injected too much karma.
Tears glistened in her wide-open eyes.
"You okay?"
At my question, she slowly raised a hand to touch her lips. And then—
"Hic...!"
She bolted from her seat with a massive hiccup and dashed outside.
After the spring rain passed, flowers bloomed in profusion across the campus and gardens. Some freshmen who had started dating early in the semester made plans to rent carriages and head out to the suburbs for picnics over the upcoming holiday.
Lina had also been invited by a group of friends but couldn't easily accept.
The reason was Adella, who had been in rough shape for the past few days.
She'd been acting off during every class lately. No, she was always odd, so eccentric behavior would have been reassuring instead.
Adella no longer dozed off in class. Instead, she stared blankly ahead with her pen pressed to her lips.
Friday, third period. Professor Marco's liberal arts class.
In Pharenchia Academy, which aimed for well-rounded martial and scholarly education, lessons on noble etiquette were mandatory.
Even as a low noble, Lina had learned things at home she never had before: how to distinguish panniers by purpose, how to blend perfumes to match fabric colors, and more.
As everyone sat quietly focused on the lesson, a small hiccup echoed from the back.
—Hic.
Professor Marco was strict, but he wouldn't nitpick over something that minor.
Students with urgent physiological needs occasionally slipped out quietly through the door.
—Hic.
But as the incessant sound continued amid the ongoing lecture, students' gazes began to focus.
Lina, sitting beside her, identified the source and swallowed dryly.
—Hic, hic.
"Adella, you okay?"
"......"
Even to Lina's concern, she made no reply, merely shaking her flushed head slowly.
This only left the other students and Professor Marco more flustered.
For the first time that year, they witnessed Adella Sylvestra de Roshiar sitting demurely, mouth shut, instead of chattering like an eager puppy on a walk and disrupting class.
"Ahem, Adella Sylvestra. Come up and demonstrate the Bachran tea ceremony."
She quietly stepped forward, placed water and tea in the vessels, and preheated the cups and teapot with practiced ease.
"......Hic."
Occasionally, her tremors made the flames from the heater roar explosively, but her posture, gaze, and hand movements were near flawless.
"Well done! Not a flaw in sight. I can't fathom why you've caused such chaos until now when you can perform like this. Return to your seat, and visit the chapel after class."
"......Yes. Thank you, Professor."
Who would have thought the day would come when this troublemaker called him "Professor" instead of "Teacher"?
Professor Marco was moved to tears, and the male students present naturally saw her in a new light.
After class, worried about Adella lingering in her seat, Lina waved her hand in front of her eyes.
If she'd learned the Roshiar unique magic circuits, would she be like this? Adella's current aura made her hard to approach.
"Adella, Adella...!"
"Uh, yeah? What is it, Lina?"
"Class is over. Time to get up for classroom cleanup."
"Okay."
Even that simple nod seemed heartbreakingly pitiful. What on earth had happened to her?
Was it some illness from scavenging bread at the canteen every day?
"Lunch plans?"
"Not really. Hic."
"Huh? You always sing about heading to the canteen at this hour... Want some bread? I can grab some on my way."
"Canteen?"
"Yeah. That uncle's canteen... Adella?"
"Hic! Hic...!"
Startled by Adella bowing her head and hiccupping nonstop, Lina supported her.
Checking her face out of worry for a possible choking hazard, Lina glimpsed the bright red cheeks hidden behind blue bangs and momentarily lost her words.
"Hic! N-No... I'm fine... The canteen... it's just..."
"Just what?"
"I-I don't know!"
'Mana Coercion' is a principle stating that when mana and karma—the two sources of magic—flow in the same direction through a spell formula, boosting output actually enhances stability.
Of course, I didn't discover it; Terra, who loved bragging about her knowledge whenever she had the chance, taught it to me while sharing this world's lore.
For the first-years to win the magic tournament, Adella simply must not drag the team down.
No, that's not all. Even if she resents kissing me, as long as she accepts it, I can turn her into the key to victory in one go.
Forcibly infuse karma to increase her magic capacity.
Though "infuse" sounds harsh, I'll stop just before a Litvice test paper turns crimson, so she'll return to normal in a few months after the matches—no issue there.
'The real question is whether she'll come back on her own...'
Quite some time had passed since Adella, who used to knock on the canteen door daily, stopped showing up.
Was planting one on her lips out of the blue too inconsiderate?
But I did warn her, and she consented.
She probably just needs time to sort her feelings. She'll return with an answer before the tournament.
It's the magic you chose. Endure it with evil and grit.
If Adella comes back, those were words I definitely wanted to say— a famous quote from the veteran magic soldier of the royal guard.