Let’s Go to the Academy (1)
With a few exceptions, the Academy’s staff consisted of professors and assistants, and on an autumn day when the entrance ceremony was drawing near, one of those assistants was assigned a special duty.
That duty was to find a talented child and bring them to the Academy.
The foreign woman Ellie had encountered at the orphanage after executing Doloria was the assistant assigned that role this year.
Her name was Melitt Sinceregreen.
She was a striking beauty, with gray hair and gray eyes, and the dark circles under her eyes gave her a strangely decadent air.
In truth, she was just tired.
A few minutes before Ellie executed Doloria, Melitt had been trudging alone along a forest path when she let out a sigh.
“Haah….”
Suddenly, a sense of futility had washed over her. No matter how much she wandered around, it would never count as an achievement for her.
Because finding someone good enough to enter the Academy was, in effect, impossible.
Magic was passed down through bloodlines from the start, so if a child seemed gifted, their parents would simply apply to a magic school that matched their level. And if they were good enough to aim for the Academy, that went without saying.
The only real exception was a special case: a child whose parents were not magicians, yet who still possessed sensitivity to mana. And the area Melitt had been assigned this time was the place least likely, in the entire Empire, to produce such a child.
A place where no magical activity had been observed for the past five years.
In fact, even the last recorded activity was being tentatively attributed to a failed observation or an error, because the reported number had been absurdly high.
Even if she went there herself, the chances that some uncut gem was quietly sleeping there were as close to zero as made no difference.
To be honest, she could have stood outside the Academy, waited over tea for a bit, and then reported that she hadn’t found anyone at all—no one would have blamed her. In fact, that seemed to be exactly what the assistants assigned this job last year and the year before had done.
And yet Melitt still kept putting one foot in front of the other.
Because I have to find them.
If there was even the slightest chance.
She couldn’t leave it alone.
For Melitt, it was just one bothersome errand.
But if, by some chance, she did discover a rough gem, that child’s life would be turned upside down in an instant.
She was a little too diligent, perhaps to a fault.
That was the assessment people gave Melitt, and it was also the reason she was always saddled with work like this.
Still, there was only one orphanage left now.
The local lord had been uncooperative, but he still couldn’t interfere with Melitt, who had come as part of the Academy.
She had walked the forest path without incident—save for the one carriage she had crossed paths with—and at last, the orphanage came into view.
Huh?
Were the children at an orphanage normally all gathered outside like this?
And inside…
“Ellllllllieeeeeeeeee!!!”
It was thunderous.
A savage, ear-splitting shriek, like thunder cracking overhead.
What, wha—
Melitt was flustered, and the faces of the children and staff outside had gone white with terror.
“I’m going to kill you!!! I’m going to kill you!!!”
It wasn’t merely anger.
It was killing intent.
That black, terrible feeling that didn’t end until a person had been killed.
I, I need to stop this.
But before Melitt could act for real—
Whoosh.
“!?”
Goose bumps rose all over her skin.
What was that just now?
Mana?
Of course it was mana.
Melitt herself was a capable magician, so naturally she had to recognize the movement of mana as mana. It was as obvious as seeing red and knowing it was red.
And yet.
If one were overwhelmed, it was no longer a matter of obviousness.
If a farmer who had spent his whole life digging soil and coaxing crops from the earth suddenly got the chance to witness the splendid procession in the imperial capital, and saw a parade carrying bright red banners taller and larger than his own house…
Then even if someone standing beside him asked what color it was, he might not be able to answer.
No, he might not even hear the question in the first place. He would simply stand there, dazed and openmouthed, overwhelmed.
Melitt was the same.
She had been overwhelmed.
Clear.
Transparent, pure.
And vast, dense mana.
A rough gem?
It was a ridiculous way to put it.
If that was a rough gem, then what did that make most magicians, herself included? Pebbles?
And then, suddenly—
“Kyaaahhhhhhh!!”
The voice that had been dripping with killing intent only moments ago was now filled with terror and pain.
“!! …!!”
An exchange she couldn’t make out at all.
And then—
Mana again.
“…Ah.”
Melitt’s mind went faint.
Who on earth was it? What great magician was in there?
At last, the screams stopped.
Silence settled in.
No sound, no mana.
Melitt hurried inside in a frenzy.
“Ah!”
“W-Who are you!?”
She could hear the staff and children chasing after her from behind.
But none of that mattered.
Fast.
Hurry, hurry.
She rushed onward, unable to bear the longing to see the face of that great magician any longer. If she just went up the stairs now—
“Everyone.”
There stood an ordinary girl.
“Please be at ease.”
Her hair and eyes were both a plain black, nothing like the color of a magician.
“The monster has been slain by me.”
She was pretty enough.
But if one put it another way, that was all there was to her. Aside from her self-assured bearing, there was nothing unusual at all.
Then what had she just felt? What, exactly?
An illusion?
No.
Impossible.
Then—
Could she really be a rough gem that had appeared out of nowhere?
It was a difficult thing to believe.
And then—
“Ah.”
The girl swayed.
The backlash had finally come. The recoil from using unfamiliar mana.
Dangerous.
If she fell at that angle, she could get hurt.
Melitt threw herself forward in a hurry.
The girl’s weight, which she barely managed to catch, was lighter than expected.
“A-Are yo—”
Her voice trembled because she didn’t know what to say, but—
“Are you all—right?”
Blink.
Clear, beautiful black eyes looked into Melitt’s ashen-gray ones.
And then.
“Thank you, Lady Magician.”
With a bright little smile, the girl looked at her, and Melitt thought she saw something in her gaze.
No, perhaps she only thought she saw it.
This time, though, it was surely her imagination.
Stars.
The symbol used by only one house.
There was no way such a thing could belong to an orphanage child.
Still, separate from that, there was no doubt that she had discovered the bud of a magician with extraordinary talent.
She had found, for the first time, a child she could bring to the Academy.
An achievement she had never had before, and likely would never have again.
Maybe...
A thought flashed through Melitt’s mind. That finding this child might well turn out to be the greatest accomplishment of her entire life.
“What, what’s your name?”
At Melitt’s question, the girl in her arms blinked a few times, then—
“Ellia.”
She grinned mischievously.
“I don’t have a surname.”
That was only natural.
Of course an orphan wouldn’t have a surname.
It was probably just a light joke, tossed out because Melitt, being a magician, would naturally have one.
And yet, for some reason—
Melitt had the strange feeling that there was something hidden in those words.
It was, perhaps, a mere illusion.
So she simply repeated the name the girl had given her.
“Ellia, huh.”
“Please call me Ellie.”
“Then, Ellie.”
She steadied her breathing.
“Would you like to go to the Academy with your big sister?”
Behind her, she heard people sucking in their breath. The staff, the children—everyone did the same.
The Academy.
The weight of that word was felt most keenly by young magicians.
But the ones who dreamed of it most desperately were probably the lower classes of society, like these orphans here.
Perhaps that was why Ellie remained still in her arms.
She must be shocked.
It would be strange if she weren’t.
So Melitt waited.
“….”
She waited.
She waited a little more…
“Um, Ellie?”
When she shook her gently, Ellie swayed in her arms with an even, soft little breathing sound.
She had fallen asleep.
**
When I realized the sudden fatigue had come from using magic, I was already in the arms of a magician sister I’d never seen before.
And when I opened my eyes again.
“…It was an unfamiliar ceiling.”
The bed I was lying on was ordinary enough, but compared to the rotting straw at the orphanage, it was so comfortable my body might as well have melted into it.
“You’re awake?”
The fact that she spoke to me right away meant she had been waiting beside me all this time until I woke up.
“Thank you.”
I bowed politely to the gray-haired sister, and she waved her hands in denial.
“No, no. I was just doing my job.”
“Your job?”
Come to think of it, that was strange.
Why had a magician suddenly shown up?
And hadn’t I been asked before I lost consciousness whether I wanted to go to the Academy?
“My name is Melitt Sinceregreen.”
The gray-haired sister said, gesturing to herself.
“As this year’s Academy admissions officer, I’d like to invite you, Ellie, to become a student at the Academy.”
“…The Academy.”
It was a sudden offer. Half of it, at least.
I didn’t think they’d find me this quickly.
If you kept making trouble, someone would eventually have to come looking.
But I hadn’t expected them to show up right after Doloria was executed.
No.
If that was what Melitt had been assigned to do, then she must have just happened to be nearby at the right time.
Even so—
“Thank you.”
Even if finding me was part of her job, catching me when I fainted and waiting at my side until I woke up wasn’t something I could dismiss as mere duty.
So I bowed my head, but Melitt only looked flustered herself.
“Oh, n-no….”
Seeing her turn away with an embarrassed expression, my instincts whispered to me.
This woman’s a pushover.
I didn’t plan to say that out loud, of course.
“Could you tell me exactly what the Academy does? I need to consider whether it fits my goals first.”
“Well, that won’t be hard—”
Melitt blinked.
“You have goals?”
Then she grew serious.
“Sorry. I’ve heard a little about what that orphanage was like from the other children.”
“Ah.”
Right.
People had trouble keeping long-term goals in extreme environments.
In a place where surviving each day was the entire task, it was normal not to be able to plan even for the weekend, let alone a year from now.
But—
“Yes.”
I smiled.
“I do.”
A goal. One aimed at the very highest place of all.
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