Guardian Summons
Yerna had been resting at the house in the city rather than the lodge in the forest, all for the sake of making Luke's commute to school more convenient.
Being able to truly unwind at home for the first time in a while left her feeling remarkably settled, body and mind both.
No matter how good forest mana was for the body, you could never sleep soundly out there. In a forest where a monster might come crashing in at any moment, from any direction, a forest keeper simply could not physiologically afford to let her guard down completely.
What interrupted that long-overdue rest of hers was the click of the front door unlocking.
Yerna's consciousness, which had been drifting toward sleep, came drifting back. She made a soft sound of waking, and when her eyes focused, what she saw was—
"I'm home, Yerna."
Luke, calling out as he came in.
"Welcome back, Lu."
School must already be over, then.
Yerna brought her eyes into focus and looked at him. Luke set down a tower of books stacked high in both arms with a solid thump just inside the entrance, then straightened his back.
Yerna blinked at the pile in mild surprise.
"My, what are all those books?"
"The school has a library. A rather large one, so I borrowed every book worth borrowing."
"This many? That's fifteen volumes."
"They said one student ID lets you check out five. So I borrowed Shirud's card, and the card of a child named Mary I met today, and managed fifteen in total."
He'd already made a friend, it seemed. Yerna nodded, feeling a little more at ease.
"Is that so? It wasn't too heavy? You should have called your sister. I would have come pick you up by car."
"It's fine. This much is light."
"Hmm… is it, now?"
She shifted the stack of books Luke had set down over beside the box he usually liked to climb into, then asked,
"So, Luke. How was school today?"
It was his first day attending, so she had been rather worried.
Nothing serious had probably happened, but she still wanted to hear about his school life from him.
"Ah. Now that you mention it, there is something I need to tell you about school, Yerna."
"Something to tell me? What is it?"
Yerna suddenly found herself thinking that hearing about what had happened to Luke at school would be terribly fun.
It felt a little strange, almost as if she had become Luke's mother—but well.
Wasn't it always entertaining when a child talked about school?
And the way they chattered on was cute, too.
Yerna fixed her gaze on him and pricked up her ears for whatever he was about to say.
Luke, for his part, slightly averted his eyes from hers, gave an awkward little smile, and spoke.
"I truly am sorry to disappoint you after you've looked forward to it so… but it seems you will have to come to the school once."
"I see, so I need to go to the schoo— wait, what? Why?"
"They called it a guardian summons."
A guardian summons?
That was not the kind of thing she had been expecting to hear.
"Tell me everything, Luke."
"Well, as for how it all came about…"
Luke sat across from the practical magic instructor in the faculty office with his head bowed.
"Luke, I told you that under no circumstances is a student to point a wand at another student, didn't I? You heard me clearly, right? And you remember?"
"Of course. How could I not."
"Right. You're a bright kid. Bright enough to pass the entrance exam with a perfect score. So why did you do it?"
The reason was simple. When Shirud's Circle had suddenly advanced to the Second Circle, his power had far exceeded anything he had anticipated, and the terror he felt toward himself had triggered a catastrophe—one Luke had stepped in to contain.
To explain from the beginning: the only reason Shirud had been able to reach the Second Circle at that precise moment was because of Luke's help. That was what had allowed will to settle into Avet, and in the end what manifested was a bizarre, off-spec spell that was Avet in name only.
In theory, one could predict that the Circle in the wand and the Circle Shirud possessed had temporarily resonated, producing a synergistic surge.
That he had done it by pure instinct alone suggested Shirud's mana sensitivity and control would have ranked among the geniuses even five thousand years ago.
But Shirud, who had no knowledge whatsoever with which to interpret the phenomenon, had fallen into terror at his own power—and as a result, both the magic and the mana had slipped beyond any hope of control.
Luke had simply cleaned up the mess. That was how he explained it.
"It was an unavoidable situation. I had no choice, if I was going to rescue him."
Luke's explanation was reasonably convincing, but the teaching staff still wore faintly troubled expressions.
Even as teachers, they did not actually know much about Circles.
And for good reason: the prevailing trend was to remove a Circle the moment one formed, and the removal procedure itself had become incomparably simpler than in the old days.
As a result, cases where mana sensitivity was so exceptional that removal was impossible, or where a Circle had already burrowed deep into the heart, were almost never seen by anyone who was not a physician.
Ordinary academy instructors simply did not have the capacity to determine whether Luke's account was true or not.
"Hmm…"
Moreover, if Shirud was a dual-Circle case—already rare even overseas—and Luke was the same…
Statistically, that was nearly impossible, was it not?
The teachers glanced at one another's faces, then spoke.
"Aren't dual Circles supposed to be more stable?"
"That's what I always understood, too."
In the modern era, the general perception of a Circle was little more than "a kind of heart disease."
No matter how thoroughly Luke explained the authority and meaning contained in a single Circle, there was no way to verify whether any of it was true.
Related texts and grimoires were mostly classified under "hazardous materials" and never released to the general public; they were available only to the physicians and mages who actually handled such patients and phenomena.
And even if an ordinary teacher did read a grimoire or paper covering those symptoms and phenomena, there was the separate question of whether they could understand it on the spot.
On top of that, in this case the speaker's age was a problem of its own.
How did a mere ten-year-old know so much about the phenomenon called a "Circle," and how, exactly, did he know a method for calming such an incident?
"Then how did you know how to handle it?"
If they asked how—well, it was painfully simple.
As an archmage who had trained generations of younger mages, just how many times did they think he had witnessed cases like this?
Of course Class Magic had not existed in his era, so an identical situation would never have arisen—but if anything of the sort had occurred in the past, he would most certainly have stepped in himself.
Circle runaway among mages had been relatively common even back then, after all.
Luke gave a single shrug and answered.
"I've been through it plenty of times. You could call it familiar work."
"…"
The teachers wore slightly blank expressions at Luke's matter-of-fact reply.
A ten-year-old dual-Circle patient for whom Circle runaway was routine, and who was seasoned at dealing with it?
They could not begin to imagine what kind of life one would have to live for that to be possible.
The practical magic instructor shook his head as if he had no other choice.
"This won't do. I think we need to have a talk with your parents."
"What?"
Luke's face colored faintly with embarrassment.
Summon his parents to the academy?
Luke, who had always been capable of protecting himself and who had once held more than enough power of his own, simply could not make sense of the order.
And for a mage of particularly independent temperament, was there any command more humiliating than that?
Besides—he had personally conducted his parents' funeral rites long, long ago, and prayed for their rest…
"What on earth is there left to discuss? Have I not already told you everything?"
"It's not that we don't believe you. We just want to hear the story."
At that, Luke's expression grew even more flustered, and his words began to stumble.
His mouth would not move properly.
Having never once imagined that anyone could summon his parents, Luke found this unexpected situation nothing short of bewildering.
So he flushed with shame and lowered his gaze still further.
"That is… I have no parents to summon, um…"
In that moment, Luke's homeroom teacher, who had been listening from the side, stepped in.
"Teacher, a word over here."
"Pardon?"
She drew the practical instructor off into a corner of the faculty office and spoke in a voice too low for Luke to hear.
"That's a family matter."
"Excuse me?"
"A family matter. Didn't you hear about it beforehand? From Ms. Serena."
"Serena… Shirud's mother? I didn't hear a thing."
"Ah. You weren't at school that day, were you. But no one filled you in?"
"Well… I heard the rough outline. He has a guardian, doesn't he…? So he was adopted?"
"Sigh. Not just a guardian—a temporary guardian. Luke has no parents right now."
"…Ah."
It was a quick, quiet exchange.
The practical instructor glanced past Luke's homeroom teacher at the child's face. It had gone red beyond description.
It almost looked as if he might cry.
Damn.
A child's feelings were terribly delicate.
Even with a guardian present now, the experience of losing one's parents was a wound that did not fade easily.
And in front of a child like that, he had told him to bring his "parents"…
No—I thought he'd been adopted and at least had parents now…
No parents at all, only a simple guardian. He had never dreamed the child was in that kind of situation.
"Ugh, what do I do? Did I just put my foot in it…?"
"What do you mean, what do you do—go apologize to the child right now."
At her advice he hurried back to Luke's side, dropped to one knee, and bowed his head.
"I'm sorry, Luke. I must have misspoken just now."
But Luke was only bewildered by the man's sudden change in attitude.
He waved his hands frantically, caught the teacher's arm, and tried to pull him up.
"Th-that is nothing you need to concern yourself with!"
"So you're forgiving me?"
"Of course I forgive you."
"Thank you, truly…"
The teacher rose, cleared his throat once, and then spoke in an exaggeratedly bright voice, trying to restore a warmer atmosphere.
"Ah, anyway! Then could you at least call the person looking after you now? I'd appreciate it."
"Very well. That much is… fine."
At the sight of Luke nodding in acceptance, the teacher let out a long breath, looking as if a weight had lifted from his shoulders.
Thank goodness the child had not been deeply wounded by a careless remark…
"Luke. From now on, never point a wand at another person. Since this is the first time, I'll let it go… Hah. You can go now."
"Understood. My thanks to you all."
At the teacher's words, Luke stood, offered a polite bow, and left the faculty office.
One of the teachers who had been staring blankly at the space Luke had vacated opened his mouth.
"Well then, Shirud will need to undergo another heart examination."
If Luke's words were true, it meant Shirud was now dual-Circle.
"I suppose so."
The teachers turned their heads and began looking at Emma with expressions of sympathy.
It was the look one gave a homeroom teacher stuck with not one but two children this difficult to manage.
"That must be rough."
Emma smiled with a faintly complicated expression.
"They're not really that hard to handle…"
Ordinarily, they were just cute.