The Young Sage
Luke and the young man boarded the bus.
What the crowd had been waiting for was an enormous carriage they called a bus.
It was yet another extraordinary experience, and Luke could not help the way his eyes lit up.
"Say, this carriage… no, this automobile—does it go to the World Tree?"
"Yeah. Just hop on."
Luke thanked the young man and followed him aboard.
"Hey, kid. Got any money?"
"Of course I do. One can hardly make use of such a facility without coin, can one? How much is the fare?"
"For a child, five hundred gil will do."
At the driver's kindly words, Luke drew out the carefully pocketed allowance, unfolded a bill marked one thousand gil, slipped it into the rectangular box, and received his change.
That, too, was a novel experience—but Luke kept his reaction in check.
The gazes fixed upon him from every direction had been rather unsettling for some time now.
"……"
"……"
As luck would have it, Luke and the young man ended up sharing a two-person seat.
The earphones had finally come out, yet the surrounding stares remained sharp as ever.
The young man let out a long sigh, grateful at least that no one had reported him.
"S-sorry about that. Because I dropped my earphones, you…"
"It's fine. It's fine."
Truth be told, a few more moments of that and he might well have found himself on a prisoner transport rather than a city bus—a future far too grim for a student with his whole life ahead of him.
"Well, since fate's thrown us together like this, kid—want to introduce ourselves? I'm Marco Alby. Student at Tenegan Academy."
"Call me Luke Irushi. An academy, you say? Then you are a mage?"
"Well, not exactly… Class Two is mandatory education, so. I don't particularly plan on becoming a mage."
"Class?"
Luke tilted his head at the unfamiliar term.
Class? Class? A mage's rank was measured by the rings of the heart—by Circles. And yet this fellow spoke of Classes. Strange indeed.
Moreover, no Circle could be sensed in the chest of the young man who called himself Marco.
"Uh, Luke? Why are you suddenly groping my chest?"
"Ah. There was a reason, briefly. Forgive the discourtesy."
Marco was flustered, but holiday visits with his younger cousins had taught him thoroughly that trying to understand children only exhausted oneself.
Besides, kids around Luke's age already lived in worlds of their own… and invading those worlds tended to produce considerable fatigue. Far easier, then, to simply pretend not to notice and move on.
"Can you explain this 'Class' business to me?"
"Hmm, it's a pretty broad concept… Well, you'll learn it properly when you're older, but a Class is basically the unit of magic a person is allowed to use in daily life."
"The unit of magic one is allowed to use?"
Luke's interest stirred at the new magical concept.
How had magic developed over five thousand years? And here was a young sage, ready to explain it all.
How could his eyes not shine?
Marco, for his part, found himself rather pleased by the way Luke listened with such bright-eyed attention. It felt as though all that studying had finally paid off. He even caught himself talking more than usual.
"So, Classes are a classification of magic. Class One, Class Two, Class Three, Class Four… The higher the Class, the greater the magic's effect and range—and the more restrictions get attached."
"Restrictions? Of what sort?"
"Well, fines, or jail time… that kind of thing. Because you used magic you weren't authorized for."
"One pays a fine for casting magic?"
Luke reeled with shock.
A world where casting magic incurred a fine?
He shook his head violently and clutched at his temples.
"Preposterous! This is the oppression of magic!"
Luke's sudden outburst made Marco jump; he frantically shushed him—quiet, quiet, your voice is too loud!—and tried to calm him down.
The stares were already sharp enough without someone shouting and making a public nuisance of himself.
Under Marco's restraint, Luke soon mastered his emotions, cleared his throat, and offered an apology.
"Forgive me. I grew rather excited for a moment… Hmm. It is simply so far removed from the concept of a mage I once held."
"Nah, it's fine. Kids your age tend to have that kind of vague fantasy about mages anyway."
In comics and fairy tales, mages were often painted in rather beautiful colors, after all.
Luke soon looked up at Marco with an expression of genuine incomprehension.
"Why place such constraints upon it? Magic is a discipline that pursues freedom."
"Magic's just too powerful for individuals to use freely. Think about it—what if some lunatic mage dropped a Meteor on a city like this? That kind of risk can't be allowed to exist, right? So ordinary people can't use anything Class Three or above without special permission."
"I see."
Luke nodded quietly.
Honestly, he understood—but he did not particularly wish to accept it.
"Still, police and soldiers on duty are allowed up to Class Four offensive magic. And if a mage requests prior authorization for research in a lab, the committee can approve special cases."
"I understand. So according to need and according to station, the unit by which magic is permitted is this 'Class.'"
"Exactly. Nice summary. You're gonna do well in school later, kid."
Luke let the praise wash past him and sank into thought.
Far too different from what I expected. The very premise of the magical system I know has been overturned.
In other words, a Circle was the authority—and the influence—to interfere with the world. Circles created influence.
But in this world, social influence created Classes.
A peculiar structure, difficult to grasp.
And yet that very peculiarity intrigued Luke.
A magical system that had developed in the exact opposite direction from Circles.
He was desperately curious how it actually functioned.
"Then who are those for whom Classes are fully unrestricted?"
"Well… probably the president, more or less?"
"Hmm. Is that so."
Luke had no idea what a president was, but the thought of becoming one crossed his mind all the same. Watching him, the young man smiled faintly.
I wanted to be president at that age, too.
Luke stepped off near the World Tree with Marco and exchanged farewells.
"I've got to head that way. See you around—enjoy the World Tree."
"The conversation was truly delightful. Should fate allow it, let us meet again, Marco Alby."
It was a parting full of genuine goodwill, offered to a young sage.
Worried his short arms might not be visible enough, Luke waved them high and wide—and Marco waved back just as broadly, calling out:
"Yeah, Luke Irushi! And when you become president someday, don't forget me!"
"Of course! Should you come seeking me, I shall receive you with full hospitality!"
He shouted with all the force his child's fragile throat could muster, though whether it reached Marco—already sprinting off into the distance—was another matter entirely.
Wishing he could have used Amplification Magic, Luke turned toward the World Tree.
He had just received an explanation of this era's magical system—Classes—but that was no reason to abandon Circles.
Marco had possessed none, true enough, but Luke reasoned that to learn new magic, one first needed to lay a foundation in the system one already knew.
Circles were a kind of insurance.
Like picking up even a single stone in a dungeon whose depths you could not yet see.
Besides, however novel the Class system might be, it seemed unlikely to clash with or repel the old Circle methods.
Both were merely different ways of handling mana—ultimately the expression of will that moved mana to produce the phenomenon called magic.
If anything, Circle techniques that increased the volume of mana a body could handle and the precision of its control could only help, never harm.
Then he would simply learn Circles as Circles, and Classes as Classes.
"Very well. Let us prepare."
Luke strode confidently toward the interior of the World Tree—only to be stopped almost immediately by a guard.
"Hold it, kid. You can't come in here alone. Where's your guardian?"
Luke nodded and answered.
"I came alone. Is a guardian required, then?"
"Of course it is. This place is way too dangerous for a little one like you. No guardian, no entry."
An Artificial World Tree was, quite literally, a critical facility that supplied mana to an entire city.
Unregistered personnel could not simply be allowed to wander in, and there were high-pressure mana zones besides—children could not be permitted to roam freely.
But Luke had come too far to simply turn back. He looked up at the guard with every ounce of earnest pleading he could pour into his eyes.
That he was consciously exploiting a child's body never once crossed his mind.
"But to become a mage, I must enter this place. Is there no way? I… do not have much money, but…"
Recalling past experience of slipping bribes to sentries, Luke dug out every last coin from his pockets.
Even without a firm grasp of modern currency, this was only the modest allowance Yerna had left for a child—surely no great sum.
Still, experience had taught him that having something was vastly different from having nothing.
To the guard, however, the scene landed rather differently.
"……"
The pointed animal ears atop Luke's head drooped like a rain-soaked puppy's, and the sight of those small hands fishing out crumpled bills and coins was almost painfully pitiful.
The guard finally looked away from those eyes.
Could this little one already want so desperately to become a mage?
"So. You want to be a mage, do you?"
"I do. Is there truly no way?"
"……All right. I'll ask if a tour might be possible. Wait here a moment."
"You have my deepest thanks! I am moved by your kindness!"
"Hmm…"
For a beastman, this one's quite well-read.
Not sure what kind of beastman—cow and cat hybrid, maybe? Still, awfully cute. If I had a daughter like this, I'd probably spoil her rotten.
With such thoughts, he dialed the phone in the guard post.
Luke sat tensely on the visitors' bench, sipping cocoa from a paper cup.
A cup made of paper. In the age he had lived, paper had been a luxury.
One flayed a sheep, tanned the hide as thoroughly as possible, and worked it soft and white—that had been paper. And now they made cups from it.
He had vaguely suspected, from the abundance of paper and books filling Yerna's home, that paper in this era was vastly cheaper than in his own—but seeing it like this stirred fresh wonder all the same.
Perhaps Yerna is not a noble after all.
Well. And if she wasn't?
Her kindness had been genuine either way.
He blew gently on the scalding cocoa and sipped it in the tiniest increments as he waited, until the guard called him over.
"Hey, kid."
"Y-yes! What is it? Has it proven impossible, or…"
"Nothing like that. They're sending someone out from inside. Stick close to that person, all right?"
"I shall! I am indebted to you—I will surely repay this kindness one day!"
"Yeah. Grow up into someone great and fix my fortunes for me, will you?"
The guard absently ruffled Luke's hair—only for Luke to make a small protesting sound and push the hand away, leaving the man to wonder if the child was simply very shy.
"……Huh?"
Then he noticed that the cocoa in Luke's cup had barely diminished, and asked in mild puzzlement:
"What, don't you like cocoa?"
"No—it is simply hot, so I am cooling it gradually as I drink."
"That so…?"
It was a little awkward to say, but the phone call had taken quite a while.
No steam rose from the cocoa at all anymore, and a glance at that dull, foamless surface—the hallmark of thoroughly cooled cocoa—suggested it was not particularly hot…
Those ears are definitely more cat than anything else.