The Accident

For quite some time, Luke rode upon Gerard's shoulders, surveying the surroundings as he listened to the man's explanations.

"What is that?"

"That applies an array formula that compresses refined mana and sends it out to other households. If you just let it disperse freely, the outlying districts don't get a proper supply."

"Hoh. So this is how mana is transported in this age?"

Compared to the past, when countless mages had to personally ferry mana packed into their own bodies and either brew it into potions or haul it by hand — this method of delivery is truly excellent. Compress it for easy processing, then distribute it through conduits. Extremely efficient.

Lost in such thoughts while touring the facility from Gerard's shoulders, Luke spotted a female mage approaching them down the corridor.

She seemed to have business with Gerard as well, and called out in recognition.

"Ah, Senior Colson. There you are. But who's the little one? Looking at the beastman features, she's not your niece."

A woman with soft pink hair and a plush, gentle air slipped off her glasses and hooked them on her collar.

The deep cleft of her ample chest was rather hard to ignore; Luke turned his head slightly, averting his gaze.

"My, our little lady might grow up just as big someday."

"Th-that is not what ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this is about."

She assumed it was merely shyness that made him look away.

Gerard spoke up.

"Ah, she said she wanted a tour, so I was showing her around for a bit. She's quite interested in magic. Came all the way here on her own, apparently."

"My, this little one? How impressive."

Luke brushed away the woman's hand as it reached to stroke his hair — before that familiar flood of sensation could overwhelm him again — and said,

"What is your name? You may call me Luke Irushi."

"Ah, I'm Miriam Daphne. Junior mage under Senior Gerard Colson. Nice to meet you, Luke Irushi. So, is the tour fun?"

"Most satisfactory. I have gained so much today that I can only offer my deepest thanks."

When Luke nodded with a contented smile, Miriam burst out laughing.

"Pfft — this kid is something else. That way of talking is so weird."

"Right? It's hilarious."

"……."

Was his manner of speech truly such a problem? Luke wondered whether he ought to at least try changing it.

But he simply could not picture himself conversing in the speech of a child.

Changing it on the spot would likely prove difficult.

"Anyway, Miriam. What did you need me for?"

"Ah, right. Where did you put that report you were working on? I looked everywhere and couldn't find it. And you weren't picking up your phone either."

"Whoops — must've missed the calls while I was talking with Luke. That report… isn't it in the drawer? I usually leave it in my usual spot."

"If it were there, I wouldn't be looking. I think you'd better come see for yourself."

"Ah, alright."

Gerard set Luke down and said,

"Luke, wait here just a moment. I'll be right back. Don't go wandering off, alright? Miriam, keep an eye on her for me."

"Got it."

"Understood."

Hearing both their answers, Gerard nodded and strode quickly down the corridor until he was gone.

True to the instruction to stay put, Luke began meditating on the spot, sorting through the knowledge and mana he had acquired that day.

At least, until Miriam spoke to him.

"Luke, are you sleepy?"

"No. This is not sleep — it is meditation. I am organizing what I learned and thought about today."

"Meditation? I see. Hehe."

To Miriam, the sight of such a tiny child sitting with eyes closed, claiming to meditate, was simply adorable.

So she just stared at his face — until Luke, once he became aware of that gaze, found himself unable to concentrate any longer.

At last, when a finger poked his cheek, he opened his eyes.

"Would you kindly stop staring? Am I truly so fascinating?"

"Ah, so you really weren't asleep. Sorry."

Miriam pulled her finger from his cheek with a deliberately startled expression.

"By the way, did Senior Colson teach you well?"

"Indeed. Had he not become a mage, he would have made an excellent teacher. His explanations were rather entertaining."

"Really? That's weird… Senior's explanations are usually terrible."

Miriam tilted her head, studying Luke's expression.

"Then can you explain what you learned?"

"Of course. I shall begin with the mana refinement facility."

And so Luke freely poured out everything he had learned from Gerard that day.

It was not that he distrusted Gerard's information — but cross-referencing it against Miriam's own knowledge would yield an even more precise understanding.

Yet as Miriam listened with a bright smile, her expression shifted into mild surprise.

"Wow, you really know it all perfectly. You must have listened so carefully."

"Is that so. Then there are no errors in my knowledge?"

"Of course not. It's perfect. Still… is Senior actually good at explaining?"

Don't tell me I just failed to understand because I'm an idiot…

Miriam cut the thought short, shaking her head vigorously in denial.

He had always been good at studying — but explaining things was another matter entirely. He was hopeless at it.

Because he was the classic bookish type who assumed that whatever he knew, the other person already knew as well.

That shortcoming shone brightest whenever he tried to explain a concept someone was hearing for the first time.

To grasp one concept, you needed the subordinate concepts beneath it — and as he explained those, and then explained further, his words inevitably stretched into something interminably long and nearly impossible to follow.

It was also a matter of temperament: he never used analogies, simply recounting things exactly as the textbook taught them, exactly as he himself understood them.

Luke, however, already knew the nature of mana better than anyone — and Gerard had at least made the effort to unpack the technical jargon — so understanding his explanations had been quite easy.

What he had explained was foundational knowledge of mana usage and the like, which made it possible.

To Luke it was closer to a new paradigm; if one approached the principles with an open mind, it was not particularly difficult.

Of course, anyone who did not already know the basic principles of mana would surely have failed to grasp even a quarter of it.

"If Luke becomes a mage, you'll end up far more amazing than this unni."

"Most likely, yes. But that too will be thanks to mages like yourselves who cleared the path ahead. Had I been alone, I probably never would have conceived such thoughts. So I offer my gratitude. Truly, I thank you."

He meant it.

His thinking had always been confined to Circle Magic, and thus inevitably ran up against the wall of "talent."

Knowledge piled too high becomes a fence of its own, locking one's mind so that ideas beyond the known range simply never arise.

Even if Luke had lived several more centuries, whether he could have conceived of Class Magic was far from certain.

Hearing that lengthy speech, Miriam pinched Luke's cheeks and stretched them out as she spoke.

"Aww, what a precious little thinker you are!"

"Thash not ih. I'm not a chil'."

Luke calmly remonstrated with Miriam as she pinched and pulled at his cheeks — but his words seemed not to reach her ears at all.

"Uwah, so cute. So soft and squishy…"

"Shtop iiiit!"

Struggling free of her cheek-pinching, Luke scrambled a good distance away.

If she caught his cheeks again, being treated like a child was a foregone conclusion.

Even if he currently wore the form of a child, such treatment somehow made him feel diminished — and he judged it dangerous.

"Do not lay hands upon my person any further."

At Luke's frosty warning, Miriam whined,

"Hiiing, fine. Still, Senior's taking forever. Hasn't found the report yet, I guess."

Miriam pulled out her phone and began calling her senior.

"Ah, is that so? Alright. Well, nothing to be done then. Yes, yes. Good luck, Senior!"

Watching her hang up, Luke felt something was amiss.

"What is the matter?"

"Luke, I'm sorry, but you should head home. Looks like something important came up for Senior."

"Hrm. A pity. I had hoped to tour the entire facility before nightfall."

But there was nothing to be done.

If the facility's overseer said to leave, then a guest such as himself could only leave.

He could hardly blame a man who had so earnestly entertained an unannounced visitor who had simply barged in.

Guided by Miriam, he walked through the facility.

Unlike Gerard, she was not so tall, so she could match Luke's stride reasonably well.

Even so, she kept a firm grip on Luke's hand, ensuring he would not wander off somewhere else.

Of course, the pleasant feel of a small, soft child's hand was an added benefit.

After walking the corridor for a while, Luke asked,

"By the by — you seem rather young for a mage. How old are you?"

"Me? I'm twenty-eight now. Why?"

"Twenty-eight is still young. And yet already a mage — truly impressive."

As if overreacting to the word "young," Miriam cried out,

"Yes, I am young! Senior always teases me about my age, you know? Always calling me an old maid…!"

"How unfortunate. Still — unmarried at twenty-eight? Is something the matter? Is twelve not the age of adulthood?"

"……Are you starting too? And what do you mean twelve is adult age?! You're a minor until you're nineteen!"

"……? I-is that so?"

At the sight of Miriam puffing out her cheeks in mock anger, Luke was mildly shocked.

Twenty-eight was young for a mage, but for a woman it was a thoroughly ripe age.

That such a woman was puffing her cheeks like a child — Luke found the reality hard to accept.

No… is this because she thinks of me as a child?

He thought he finally understood why her manner toward him had felt so thoroughly like addressing a little one.

In the age he had lived, women came of age at twelve and men at fourteen — that had been the universal custom.

So even if he was not yet an adult, he had not expected to be treated as a complete child. To think the threshold of adulthood had been pushed back this far…

Outwardly I look about ten years old, so I supposed one might still reasonably judge me near enough to grown…

Shaken by a world's common sense so different from his own, Luke stopped walking for a moment and asked Miriam,

"If one is truly a minor until nineteen, then is it common sense that marriage, too, is forbidden until nineteen?"

"Of course!"

"I see……."

Luke nodded, though understanding still did not come easily.

Why had the standard of adulthood been extended so far?

At this rate, an age would come when twenty-eight itself was considered young adulthood.

In which case, Miriam was not yet hopelessly past her prime.

He still did not fully grasp it, though.

"Certainly, if that is true, then by society's measure you are young. Still, I hope you find a partner sooner rather than later. Such things only grow harder the longer one delays."

Miriam pinched the little girl's cheeks and pulled them as the child rattled off something that sounded exactly like a mother's holiday nagging.

"……You mustn't tease your unni, Luke!"

"Owwh. Shtop ih."

And so, cheeks stretched, Luke walked the corridor — when suddenly an unfamiliar phenomenon appeared in his Mana Sight.

This array… I've never seen this pattern, not even in Gerard's explanations.

Having nearly completed a full circuit of the research facility, he had accumulated knowledge of every kind of mana pattern there.

To satisfy that curiosity at once, he tugged on Miriam's sleeve.

"Miriam, what is that place?"

"There? That's where the highly concentrated mana is stored. It's dangerous for you."

"Is that the high-pressure mana zone?"

"Yes — ultra-high pressure, even among high-pressure zones. The mana density in there is a full four hundred times the natural state. Absolutely no one can just walk in."

Compressed that far — what on earth do they intend to use it for?

Mana compressed to four hundred times its natural state would be so violent that any living creature merely touching it would burst apart under the rampaging force.

The only life-form that could take such wild mana into its body would likely be a dragon.

Miriam asked,

"Senior didn't show you this?"

"Correct. He said high-pressure mana was dangerous for me."

Indeed — Gerard had deliberately steered the tour clear of the high-pressure mana zones.

But Miriam, knowing nothing of that, simply took the fastest route toward the exit, and so Luke felt the aura of high-pressure mana for the first time.

"……."

Luke found himself seized by the sense that the mana was calling to him.

Pure mana could not hold will — and yet, somehow, right now…

That was when it happened.

Crimson light flooded the corridor, and a high, grating, unpleasant noise assaulted Luke's ears.

He immediately clamped his hands over his ears, trying to shut it out — but the sensation still slipped past and rang inside his skull, forcing a scream from him.

"Kyaaah!"

Luke was not the only one startled by the sudden warning klaxon.

Miriam, too, stood flustered, waiting only for the guidance broadcast.

"What on earth is going on?"

Sector B-21 — that was right here.

Miriam's face turned grave as she looked straight at the blast door sealing in the highly concentrated mana.

Confirming the fine score marks that had appeared on the sturdy blast door, she grew even more serious.

"Luke, take my hand! We have to get out of here! Now!"

"Understood."

As Miriam ran with Luke in tow, her thoughts raced.

The marks on the blast door — they looked as if someone had cut them from the inside…

That can't be right.

No one could enter the high-concentration mana zone without authorization, and if authorization had been granted, she — as an administrator — could not possibly have forgotten.

Moreover, without specialized protective gear, an ordinary person would die the instant they stepped into a high-pressure mana zone like that. For something inside to damage the door…

There was nothing but a spirit.

A spirit.

A mental life-form born of mana.

The only thing that could "exist" in a high-pressure mana zone was a spirit, whose entire body was mana itself.

But the severing of connections with them was a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠matter of such ancient history that even pinning down when it had happened was difficult.

An age when countless spirit mages — even the elves themselves — had lost their bond with the spirits.

In modern times, when even the rare spirits still observed as phenomena had declined so far in intelligence that conversation was impossible, spirits were little more than creatures of fairy tales…

"Ah. Is that it? Are you saying you offer this mana to me?"

Miriam looked down at Luke, who had suddenly begun talking to himself.

In the chaos, she had not caught a word of it.

"Luke, what did you just say?"

Luke let go of Miriam's hand.

"Luke? What's wrong?"

"I am fine. Leave me and go on ahead."

"What? I can't do that! Luke, are you struggling? Your face…!"

"I said I am fine."

When inscribing a Circle, another's touch was nothing but interference.

Luke felt the mana surging into his body and thought,

It seems about to overflow — yet it does not. Still, I can feel a fierce current.

Watching an unnamed blue spirit dance and undulate before him, Luke understood.

This little one is regulating the mana to a level I can accept.

Following its movements, he took the mana into his heart as a Circle.

"Kh…!"

It hurts — but it cannot compare to the first time I inscribed one. Is that because my capacity has grown so much?

No person could ever experience inscribing a First Circle more than once.

That was why fortune mattered as much as skill and talent.

Correcting a poorly inscribed Circle demanded far too much effort and time.

"Ngh…"

Luke groaned through the pain as he watched the Circle being carved into his heart — and yet felt a deep fulfillment of the spirit.

Perfect.

At last, the completed First Circle.

A circle of absolute perfection.

The moment he realized it, this First Circle felt as though it were a Tenth Circle.

The mana within it, the arrays, the rules — all of it was perfect.

The most ideal form of "Circle" he had envisioned across a hundred years of handling ten of them.

To finally hold that within his heart filled Luke with something close to rapture.

He immediately set his Circle in motion.

Mana and will, passing through his body, manifested through the world —

and Luke's vision went black.

The crimson-lit corridor returned to its original colors.

Thunk.

The corridor lights went out, and only the pale yellow guide lamps remained, just bright enough to make out the walls.

At the announcement confirming stabilization, Miriam forced ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her trembling body upright.

"What in the world…"

The mana had stabilized all of a sudden?

Magically speaking, it was impossible.

Mana did possess a natural tendency to stabilize on its own — but not under high pressure.

High-pressure mana was extremely dangerous, and contrary to its usual stabilizing nature, it grew violently unstable of its own accord.

To stabilize it once exposed required at minimum a Class 5 Mana Burn to incinerate it, or a Class 6 Chain Slow to forcibly calm it.

No other realistic method existed.

And yet for it to stabilize like this, for no reason at all…?

As a mage she hated to speak of miracles — but a miracle it was.

"Luke, snap out of it. Luke?"

Finding Luke collapsed on the floor, Miriam immediately scooped her up and patted her cheeks.

A sudden mana leak accident.

Under the crushing pressure of that mana, a child could not possibly have endured.

She herself had been sprawled on the floor, unable to so much as twitch a finger.

And this little one had spoken to her in a tone that said, I'm done for — go on without me.

And had let out such agonized groans…

Perhaps it was already too late.

They had known each other only a few hours — yet watching a life snuffed out before her eyes was unbearably sad.

All the more so for the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠goodwill she had felt.

Swallowing her tears, Miriam bowed her head — and in that moment…

"Miriam? Why are you acting so? I told you I am fine."

Luke's voice reached her.

"……Luke?"

Teal and golden eyes turned toward her as one.

Luke spoke to her with an expression of the most profound satisfaction.

"Yes. Truly a remarkable day. I have had so many fine experiences. I shall never forget this day."

"Are you — are you really alright?"

"Of course. May we go home now?"

Miriam wore a briefly incredulous look at Luke's words, then shrieked,

"……Go where?! You're going to the hospital for a full checkup!"

"Ehk."