Counseling?
"Hello~! I'm Lua Erast!"
"Hi there. So you're the little sister Siena knows? Nice to meet you. I'm Yerna Risphind. You can call me Yerna unni if you'd like."
"Yes, Yerna unni! Then please call me Lua too!"
Lua Erast was a smiling woman with long, abundant hair the color of soft light blue. She was not yet a fully licensed counselor, but for Yerna—who could scarcely afford to take Luke to a real one—she was something close to a lifeline. Being a junior acquaintance of Siena's only made her easier to trust.
"Anyway, thanks for coming, Lua. But… she's just a little kid. Will you be all right?"
"I'll be fine~! I love children! I even volunteer at the orphanage all the time, you know?"
"Is that so? Then that's a real relief. The truth is, Luke has been…"
Luke had been sitting at the desk, diligently working through study sheets, when the sound of the door opening reached her ears. She set down her pencil and hurried out to the entryway.
"Lu, were you good while I was gone? You didn't go anywhere this time, did you?"
Luke stood before Yerna as she hung her coat on the rack and answered.
"Of course. I spent the entire day at home studying. I have no desire to cause you further worry."
She had inscribed only a single Circle—but she had inscribed one. The difference between having even a First Circle and having none at all was night and day. At the very least, she had erased the gnawing unease of being a non-mage, so for the time being there was no need to scramble about desperately carving more Circles.
Yerna grinned at her and gently stroked her hair—careful not to touch the insides of her ears.
Luke found the touch rather burdensome, but watching Yerna's expression melt with pure pleasure at simply petting a child's hair, she decided to let it be. Still, if she left it alone, Yerna would clearly never stop, so Luke found something to say.
"Ah, Yerna. Now that I think of it."
"Hm?"
"You were never of noble birth, then?"
At the somewhat abrupt question, Yerna answered with a puzzled look.
"Well, of course not. I'm just an apartment tenant. Did I look like a noble to you?"
"At first I thought you were. Living in a house like this."
"…Really?"
"But looking closer, it occurred to me that you might not be nobility after all. Well—it was merely my own misunderstanding. Pay it no mind."
Having casually delivered the remark that made Yerna stop stroking her hair, Luke offered a small smile and walked back to the desk, setting her pencil once more to the study sheet she had left unfinished.
Watching her, Yerna found herself considering what the word noble must mean to Luke. She had already been working from the theory that Luke had once been a noble's slave and had escaped using Circle magic—so the meaning came to her quickly.
To Luke, a "noble" probably means someone who keeps slaves.
Perhaps that worried look Luke had worn the first time she saw Yerna's home had not been because she felt she didn't belong here—but because some instinct born of abuse had recoiled. If she had thought of Yerna as a noble, then maybe even her solitary outings had been driven by anxiety over that kind of bondage.
Maybe I was the one in the wrong…
Yerna began to blame herself. Cooping a child up inside the house like that—children Luke's age all loved playing outdoors. And if she had been forced into a life of slavery, it was only natural that she would yearn for the world beyond these walls.
Recalling her conversation with Siena, Yerna spoke.
"Lu, a friend of mine knows someone who's coming tomorrow to look after you in all sorts of ways. Is that okay with you?"
Yerna told Luke about the counselor Siena had introduced.
"Me?"
Luke looked up at her with a faintly puzzled expression.
"Yeah. Especially since tomorrow I'm on night duty and won't be able to come home, so she's agreed to watch you all day."
"That sounds like quite a burden. Well, there is no need to fuss over me so—"
She stopped mid-sentence. The memory of slipping out of the house without a word and causing Yerna such worry rose unbidden, and she closed her mouth. Back then she had not possessed even a single Circle pulsing in her heart, so she had simply grown impatient—but the result had been fretting for Yerna all the same. She would worry this time too, no doubt.
The image of Yerna scolding her—I worry because I worry!—floated up, and Luke answered weakly.
"Well… if it will put your mind at ease…"
The next day.
Ding-dong—
At the sound of the doorbell, Luke set aside her study sheets and called out loudly enough to be heard outside.
"Who goes there?"
"Yerna asked me to come~! Can you open the door for me?"
"Very well. You must be the one Yerna spoke of."
Click.
"So you're Luke Irushi, huh~? I'm Lua Erast."
The person who entered was a gentle-looking woman with striking light-blue hair. The unusual detail was the pair of animal ears atop her head—similar to Luke's own. Those ears, however, were closer in shape to a dog's than a cat's.
"You are a beastman, then?"
"That's right~! Unni's a beastman. What do you think?"
As she said it, Luke's eyes finally caught the tail resting lightly beneath the hem of her dress, swaying gently to and fro.
"Hmm."
In truth, Luke felt little particular reaction to it. In the age she had lived through, beastmen had been classified as non-human races—as monsters. Beastmen. A people who had sided with the demonkin, and so had been reduced as an entire race to slavery. That five thousand years had passed and even beastmen could now live alongside humans in peace was astonishing beyond measure—yet she could not entirely erase her aversion to them.
In the past, Luke Irushi had stood at the vanguard of war, and so had been forced to kill countless beastmen.
Compared to those days, the world has grown truly peaceful.
Still—set against that great war of the past, when one had to kill simply to survive—this was a fine age indeed. Luke may have been called a hero of that war, but a truly good world would be one that had no need of heroes like her.
Renie… did you think the same as I?
In the moment Luke's mind drifted back to the battlefields of the past at the sight of Lua's tail, Lua offered a soft smile and spoke.
"Luke. So, what were you doing?"
Counseling, by nature, was not a matter of exchanging a few words and handing over a solution. Whatever a person you had just met might say, it would scarcely reach the ear—and a single conversation could never peer into the depths of a heart. To open a child's door, the first priority was simply to become friends.
"I was studying a bit of magic."
When Luke pointed to the desk, Lua answered with a pleased smile.
"Want unni to help you study?"
"You know magic as well?"
Luke asked, letting a faintly surprised expression show. As far as she knew, beastmen had never possessed much affinity for mana, nor much interest in scholarly pursuits. That even a beastman could claim to "know" magic spoke to how thoroughly Class magic had taken root.
Whoever refined it, it truly is a remarkable system of magic.
Seeing Luke's surprised face, Lua declared with confidence,
"Of course~! Obviously~!"
Any adult of this era was at least a Class 2 Expert, so for Lua, saying she "knew" magic was more than enough.
How hard could a little kid's studying possibly be?
She had miscalculated.
"Kids these days sure get ahead of themselves with the prep work…"
Lua clutched her head and groaned over problems far harder than expected.
Class 4? Is this kid already prepping for Magic Academy?
She had heard Luke dreamed of becoming a mage, but wasn't this getting a little ahead of schedule? Forgotten formulas and magic equations made Lua's head spin—and harder still to bear was that pitying look on Luke's face.
"Well. It cannot be helped."
Luke had not expected much to begin with, so she was largely unmoved. Lua's pride stung a little under that gaze, but there was nothing for it. She was the one who had lost a study contest to a child who barely looked ten years old.
I was a high achiever in my own right, you know…
That a child could possess adult-level knowledge of magical theory—if that was something you could achieve simply by believing yourself to be "Luke Irushi," then Lua rather wanted to try it herself. She asked out of pure curiosity.
"Luke, do you really enjoy studying that much?"
"Of course. Learning new knowledge and turning it over in one's mind is always a matter that sets the heart racing."
"Is that so?"
She had been warned this was a truly special child—but wasn't this a bit too special?
Leaning back against the sofa, Lua watched Luke's profile as she studied, checking whether she was truly absorbing the material.
She really does seem to understand it…
Otherwise there would be no way to keep notes that cleanly organized. And somehow, even the handwriting looked antique. Lua had no idea what any of it said, but—
The letters are strangely pretty for a child's… still no idea what they say, though.
From Lua's perspective they were ancient script from five thousand years ago, mixed with expressions and characters no longer in use—so deciphering what Luke had written in her notebook was difficult. Even if she could have read them, she might not have understood the content. Magic was not her field of study.
This was the shortcoming of Class magic. Learning pre-made spells was easy, but few people could fully grasp the principles behind them. Just because the majority could use magic did not mean they all knew magic.
The difference between a user and a developer. That, too, was a concept born from the change in magical systems. Unlike Circle magic—which demanded absolute understanding of a spell and its phenomena before it could be cast—Class magic could be used without being understood.
Luke had learned that today.
Certainly, compared to Circle magic, Class magic makes spell creation far more complex. Far more calculations required. And yet, in the end, a completed spell produces the same effect no matter who uses it.
A new insight. Having organized it in her notes, Luke closed the book with a soft thump.
Continuing to mind only my own affairs with a guest present would also be poor manners.
Meeting Luke's gaze, Lua immediately brightened into a smile.
"Taking a break now~?"
"Indeed. You seemed to have brought quite a lot of things. What is in that bag?"
"Ah! So that's what you were curious about~! Just a second!"
Ah! Thank goodness—everything I prepared won't go completely to waste!
Lua turned with a radiant smile and rummaged through her bag. She was so pleased she made no effort to hide the way her tail swayed. Watching that tail swish and sweep the floor beneath the hem of her dress, Luke felt something almost instinctive rise within her.
"…"
It was an impulse.
—Smack!
"Kyaa!"
And a scream.
"Ah—I, I apologize! Instinctively, I simply—"
Startled by Lua's cry, Luke released the tail she had seized. Lua hastily twisted her hips around to hide her tail from Luke.
"Wh-what was that all of a sudden…? Luke, you can't just grab a beastman's tail! You don't have one so you wouldn't know, but it's connected to the spine—if you squeeze hard it really hurts!"
"I… seeing it sway like that, I simply could not help myself…"
Even Luke herself had no idea why she had done it.