Face-to-Face
"What is the final stage?"
The voice of the man dressed in a fine linen shirt and vest had softened compared to before. The way he had addressed Isaac informally in the common tongue during the lecture had shifted to a polite form. It was a sign of respect for Isaac as a scholar.
"Rather than explain the final stage, I'll show you."
Isaac nodded to Enet. She nodded back.
Whoosh—
A flame quickly ignited at her fingertips.
"……?"
It was so natural that the audience didn't grasp what was so special about it.
"She lit a fire without incantation?"
A few realized it belatedly. Implementing magic without incantation meant thinking in the ancient language.
For the fifth and final stage of magical development that Isaac had promised to demonstrate, it seemed rather modest. At least, all the professors gathered here could cast basic spells without incantation.
They acknowledged Enet as a talented mage, but this alone wasn't enough.
Isaac smiled amid the puzzled gazes.
"Remember, this girl's name is Enet. She's been learning magic for less than half a year and doesn't know the ancient language."
The hall of the Magical Academy buzzed.
"Did I hear that right?"
"She doesn't know the ancient language? Then how……."
"What kind of bluff is that? You can't master that in half a year."
It was the kind of statement that made them doubt their ears.
"Let's end the lecture here."
Isaac left the hall with Enet, ignoring the questions. Countless gazes followed them—wariness, admiration, hatred, envy, mockery, confusion, all mixed together.
Yet no one approached Isaac to speak. They couldn't bring themselves to.
The students watched the professors' reactions, and the professors watched their colleagues and the students. Isaac's theory shook the foundations of established magic academia, and asking him questions rashly could earn resentment or undermine their own authority and standing.
Thanks to that, Isaac could exit the hall unhindered.
Except for one gaze that particularly caught his attention.
"Um, may I sit? My legs feel weak; I can't stand."
"Sit. You did well."
Isaac patted the shoulder of Enet, whose body was drenched in cold sweat.
"I don't think I can do it again."
Enet staggered and barely managed to sit in the chair. Her face was deathly pale.
Performing magic under the scrutiny of so many nobles wasn't something ordinary mental fortitude could handle. Especially for a commoner who had never stood in such a place before.
These were people who might hold her life in their hands. She had fulfilled her role to the end because she trusted Isaac.
"You'll get used to it."
"……Yes. Wait, really? There will be more of this?"
"Probably. Someday you'll have to do it alone."
"W-what do you mean?"
"Don't worry. You'll do fine."
Enet made a miserable face at Isaac's ambiguous smile.
"Splendid lecture!"
Marcel Reich burst into the dean's office, his face flushed with excitement.
"Did you see the professors' faces? Those arrogant lot were gaping like carp flopping on dry land. How did you come up with such a genius idea? That orthodox magic and imperial magic follow the same trajectory! I never imagined such an exquisite joke!"
"It's not a joke."
"Eh?"
"Why do you think I requested the communication devices? Enet."
Isaac took a communication device from Enet and pulled another from his own pocket, handing it to Reich. It was a metal lump the size of a palm, shaped like a pendant. Dozens of runes, mana stones, and various minerals to facilitate or disrupt mana flow were intricately engraved into its small form.
"To conduct the lecture without mistakes, right?"
Reich accepted the device. While long-range communication via magitech wasn't possible yet, short-range was, and repeated research had miniaturized it to portable size.
"No. Enet truly doesn't know the ancient language or even how to read the common tongue. Well, she's learning, of course."
"No need to keep up the act in front of me."
"Enet received my intentions through the communication device and simply repeated the ancient words I pronounced."
"I said there's no need. Anyone here might be fooled, but I've seen Enet's performance at the Goethe tournament. You think I'd believe that?"
"The final stage of the five stages of magical development means an era where one can use magic without knowing the ancient language."
"You're joking too far."
Reich chuckled, but then he noticed Enet's expression. She looked utterly perplexed.
"……Is it true?"
"……Yes."
Enet nodded hesitantly.
"Really…… you implemented that magic without knowing the ancient language?"
Reich blinked. Enet nodded instead of answering.
Reich looked back at Isaac, then at Enet.
"No, wait a minute…… I heard something similar at Goethe Manor, but is that possible? It can't be. No way. You're joking too much, Baron Binvelt."
Reich muttered to himself. He had watched the professors' shock in the hall and thought it served them right. But now, that same shock he had viewed from afar was hitting him directly.
It was the shock of the world he had believed in all his life being upended.
"Whether you accept it is up to you, Dean. In a world with magic swords, what's so new about using magic without ancient words?"
Isaac shrugged lightly.
"Don't talk nonsense. Knights and mages…… they're fundamentally different. Knights train their bodies and senses ceaselessly without ancient words to…… to…… manifest aura……."
"If knights train their senses to manifest aura, why can't mages do the same? In primitive magic, originally……."
"Wait, wait. Stop. Just stop."
Reich grimaced, clutching his throbbing head. After several deep breaths, he spoke again.
"I…… didn't come here to talk about that. I requested your lecture because someone wanted to see you."
Reich's gaze went past Isaac.
"Pardon?"
"That's enough, Marcel. Good work."
A man now stood at the dean's office entrance. Reich bowed his head to him.
"Could you give us the room?"
"As you wish. Miss Enet, let me show you around."
At Reich's words, Enet looked to Isaac.
"Go ahead."
With Isaac's permission, Enet followed Reich out of the dean's office.
Clunk—
The heavy door closed, leaving a brief silence in the office.
The man was the one who had questioned Isaac about the final stage of magical development. Dressed in a linen shirt, vest, and leather coat, his demeanor made it hard to guess his class or age. His face was ordinary, the kind seen anywhere. Or rather, vague.
If passed on the street, one would forget him in a few steps.
"Was the lecture satisfactory? Isaac von Binvelt Goethe?"
"The response was better than I deserved."
Isaac scratched his cheek.
"You've dropped the honorifics?"
"That was during the lecture, acknowledging you as the instructor. But the lecture is over. I'm no longer a student, and you're no longer the instructor."
"Reasonable."
"Not as reasonable as you. The five stages of magical development."
The man brushed back his hair.
"Shall we sit and talk?"
"If you'll allow it."
"Gladly."
The man smiled and took the seat of honor in the dean's office. Isaac followed suit.
"You seem to know who I am."
"I don't know. Just guessing. I do know this appearance isn't your true self."
The man had black hair and rust-colored eyes. His jaw was blunt, nose low, but the lines and shape of his face were oddly slender and elongated. At a glance, it was easy to overlook, but upon closer inspection, something felt off.
"Understand. I'm not so free. So even if you know who I am, pretend you don't."
"What should I call you, then?"
"Call me Johan."
"A common name. Then, Sir Johan. Why did you want to see me?"
"Marcel made such a fuss, it piqued my curiosity. Embarrassing to admit, but I'm no slouch in magic academia myself. Artificial circles? No matter how eccentric Marcel's mentor is, he wouldn't lie for research funds like that."
"So you funded the artificial circle research, Sir Johan."
"It ended up that way. There was some back-and-forth with the Blue Tower Master. I was skeptical too. If Marcel hadn't staked his life on it, it wouldn't have happened."
Johan stared piercingly at Isaac. Behind his relaxed facade lurked a sharpness that dissected Isaac piece by piece.
"And recently, I heard you'd completed the artificial circle design. Still hard to believe, but with the Blue Tower Master and elders acknowledging it, I couldn't ignore it. So I asked Marcel who first proposed that insane idea."
"You came to verify."
"Yes. How could I believe it? Marcel praising a northern wastrel as a god-sent genius. I thought my old mentor had lost his mind."
"What's your impression now that you've seen me?"
"Impression…… well, it gives me pause. Whether to let you live or kill you."
Johan's face hardened.
"Marcel's evaluation of you is mostly right. But one thing. You're not a god-sent genius. Your genius is demonic. Implementing magic without ancient words…… If it reached my father's ears, you wouldn't escape death. Or even if today's lecture changes the academy's methods."
"……."
"Fortunately, Father's illness is too advanced for such news. And one lecture won't change the academy. No one wants to relinquish their privileges."
"……."
"You need to study history more. During the Reformation, the New Faith claimed magic wasn't the privilege of chosen clergy but God's grace for all. Do you know how many died for that claim?"
"Do you know how bored I am, Sir Johan?"
Isaac yawned in response.
"Hahaha!"
Johan laughed heartily, but the mirth vanished from his face in an instant.
"The point is, everything you do shakes the kingdom's foundations."
"Would the kingdom's foundations really shake from a wastrel like me spouting a few words?"
"Ancestors burn the capital, descendants try to topple the kingdom. Impressive lineage."
"That's why you came in person."
"Sigh, yes."
Johan's sigh mixed indignation and lament.
"I must be getting old. In my hot-blooded days, I wouldn't have let you live."
"Lucky me."
"You're still disagreeable no matter how I look at you."
"Same sentiment here."
"What can we do? Seems we have no choices. Baron, swear fealty to me."
Johan commanded with innate solemnity.
Isaac smirked.
"I refuse."
"Are you mad!? Do you know who he is and still spout such insolence!?"
"His Highness the First Prince, right?"
"You know and still say that?"
Reich jumped up and down.
"What choice do I have? Does Your Highness plan to block Botmer for me, or move troops to protect Goethe? The north is crawling with council factionists. You want me to become their target?"
"No, even so……."
"Pay the lecture fee. I have a long way to go."
"Ha, have you ever seen such a lunatic?"
Reich handed over a pouch full of silver coins, sighing repeatedly.
"You're not right in the head. What you said today, that irreverent attitude……."
"If you're going to keep calling me mad, I'll be going."
Isaac brushed past Reich and exited the academy.
"What's that?"
"It's pretty."
Carlson and Enet eyed the ring Isaac was fiddling with. It bore a golden laurel wreath emblem.
It was what the First Prince had given Isaac—a mark of royal protection, signifying the prince had marked him as one of his own.
"This? A pass."
Thanks to the ring, Isaac's group had an easy return to the inn. Whether council faction checkpoints or royalist ones, they all opened immediately for them.