I Want to Read Minds (1)
Magic is a mysterious miracle.
With a single person’s body one can snatch away countless lives, or raise a barrier that shields an entire imperial capital. One can call rain from a clear sky, or even teleport people in an instant.
That is why magic has been revered since ancient times, and why the Valencia Empire—the greatest empire on the continent—is a magic empire.
But right now, to me, magic was something slightly useful yet utterly useless.
"……."
Having arrived at the Academy a full hour and a half early, I was slumped over my desk. More precisely, my arms dangled limply, and with the dead-eyed stare of a rotten fish I had my cheek pressed flat against the wood.
"Why is Young Master Katram like that?"
"Surely he’s sunk into some profound contemplation befitting his station."
"Perhaps he’s despairing over the new horizons of magic?"
"Then we should leave him to his meditation until Her Highness arrives."
The way the magic-class kids were talking was itself one of the reasons for my despair. If the magic I wanted actually existed, they wouldn’t be reacting like that.
Yes. I was despairing right now. And the reason was only one.
Last night, the young lady had ignored me. To be precise, the moment she saw me she went Hmph!, turned her head, and scurried away.
In ten years of butler life, this had never happened. I hadn’t done a single thing to her—so why was she suddenly acting like this?
If magic could read hearts, I would have soothed her feelings in an instant. But magic can destroy a nation and still cannot read a single person’s heart. Useless thing.
I had learned magic because I thought it was useful. Maybe I should just transfer to the knight class? There’s that saying, after all—when you cross blades you can understand the other person’s heart, or something like that.
"Haaaaah. What even is life?"
"Isn’t that question a little early?"
"Hm? What—Karl?"
"What’s with that tone, like you’re looking at a pebble on the roadside?"
Karl Laupen sat down at the desk in front of me. For a noble he was pretty delinquent.
"Why are you sighing like the ground’s about to collapse first thing in the morning?"
"According to the idiots, I’m despairing in magical contemplation."
"That would never happen with Young Master Katram. Care to tell me what’s really bothering you?"
"Talking to you won’t help."
"Some worries, they say, show their solution just by being spoken aloud. Or at least the heart feels lighter."
"Oh. Nice line. But right now my conscience twinges a bit about unloading my troubles on you."
"Conscience? Why?"
"Silence."
I lightly cast a soundproof barrier that covered Karl and me. He looked at me with a thoroughly fed-up expression.
"You discarded the chant and spread a soundproof barrier in an instant…"
"What? You just designate the range—it’s easy."
"That’s not the point… Never mind. Young Master Katram has always been like that. So what is it?"
"Things ended up that way with Irina."
"Ah, that part? It’s fine. She’s not the narrow-minded type. She’ll definitely be watching for a chance to claim you."
"That’s kind of a headache."
"So just let it slide. What’s your actual worry?"
"I don’t want to say."
"Talking doesn’t wear anything out. And I happen to like Young Master Katram."
"I like girls."
"What a coincidence. I like girls too."
"Pfft."
Ah, this guy. When I first met him I thought he was a stiff type, but he was more fun than expected.
"But it’s really meaningless. I just want a magic that can read hearts, that’s all."
"Hmm. Mind-reading magic, you say?"
"Yeah. Magic can’t do that, right? Distinguishing truth from lies is possible, but…"
"Hmm. There is a way."
"What? There is? I’ve never heard of it."
The Laupen count family wasn’t particularly famous for magic. How did he know something like that?
But the words that followed made me almost swing a fist.
"If you pull out the other person’s soul and put them into a brainwashed state, you can learn every secret they hold."
"That kills them!"
"Weren’t you fretting over how to extract information from someone?"
"You crazy murderer!"
I was the idiot for expecting anything. Of course—the mindset of a born noble and a born commoner like me would be completely different.
But the Academy was scary. Guys thinking things like that were everywhere, huh?
"I just want to know the heart of the person I’m talking to."
"Unexpected. I thought Young Master Katram was the type to uncover the world’s secrets and blast open the horizons of magic."
"You watch me bicker with Airen every day and still think that?"
"It’s hard to grasp the true nature of a great person from outward appearance alone."
"Yeah, you need to learn the phrase ‘what you see is what you get’ first."
"Aren’t people fundamentally two-faced?"
Tsk. He left me with nothing to say.
"Karl, what do you do when you want to know someone’s true feelings? Besides asking them directly."
"Is Young Master Katram bad at that sort of thing?"
"It used to be my specialty."
A head butler is a job you can’t do without sharp intuition. You can’t afford a single mistake among all those high officials and great nobles.
But with the young lady and Airen, I simply couldn’t guess what was going on inside. Why on earth?
"Lately there’s someone whose heart I can’t read at all."
"Hmm, then wait a moment."
Karl stood up and left the classroom. He returned twenty minutes later with a bellflower in his hand.
"Why’d you bring that?"
"It’s a bellflower."
"I know that much."
"It’s also the key ingredient for a truth elixir."
"Why is everything you say…"
In the end he was telling me to rely on a drug’s power.
"I’ll give you that the method is gentle. But I don’t want to feed someone a drug."
"Why not? The bellflower elixir has no side effects, and the other person just feels good."
"Have you actually used it?"
"When I was little, on a friend who kept asking to borrow money."
"And the result?"
"That friend now works as a maid in the Laupen household."
"Okay. Stop right there."
"Still, it’s worth trying on someone you can trust. Here."
Pop! A tiny bottle sprang out from inside the bellflower petals. I’d thought he’d only brought the ingredient, but he’d brought the elixir too.
"There will come a time when you really want to use it. Use it then."
"Can I put it in your mouth right now and hear the truth?"
"Oh dear, I’m a two-faced person. Still, I can tell you one truth."
"What?"
"I want to become friends with Young Master Katram."
"Call me Frey first. Ah, hurry up and go."
The classroom door opened and the usual blue-tinged person walked in. Airen. I released the soundproof barrier.
Karl bowed his head to her.
"Good morning, Your Highness."
"Morning. Karl, what are you doing with Frey first thing?"
"I was giving a friend a little advice about his worries."
"Worries?"
Airen stared straight at me. I smiled brightly and said,
"Good morning, Violent Airen."
"Karl, does Frey want to be absent today?"
"Ah, please stop with those vicious jokes!"
"Does it look like a joke?"
I quickly shut my mouth.
Airen seemed in a foul mood; she practically threw the bag she normally carried so elegantly onto the desk hook. Then she picked a fight out of nowhere.
"Why do you look so comfortable today?"
"Excuse me?"
"Can’t you look a little more wilted and pitiful, like the whole world is against you?"
I was doing exactly that until you arrived, you know.
"Why are you like this first thing in the morning? I’m the one who got hit yesterday."
"Haa, for a future attendant to be this dense…"
"I keep telling you I’m not becoming an attendant."
"Then will you become my prince consort?"
"What a dreadful thing to say… That was a joke. Please don’t shoot magic."
"Hmph."
Airen scattered the mana she’d been gathering in her hand with a look of regret. If that had hit me I really might have had to skip class today.
First period today was illusion magic practice. Professor Violet drew a human head on the blackboard.
"I-Illusion magic has no physical force, but i-it’s the best for toying with people. Y-You remember the first class, right?"
Most of the students shuddered. Everyone except Airen and me had been unable to break the spell until the lecture ended.
"A-As a mage, breaking illusion magic is important, but practical use is also important. Anyone who can use even simple illusion magic, please raise your hand."
Only about one-fifth of the students raised their hands. Professor Violet sighed.
"T-This is serious. I-In such a peaceful age, w-why is demand for illusion magic steadily dropping? Then I’ll teach the basics first, so let’s practice."
The basics were things I already knew well. First seize the brain with magic, then slowly spread mana through the five viscera and six bowels to lock down the opponent’s mind and body. After that, simply show them the illusion you want—that’s illusion magic.
A simpler method was to interfere only with the optic nerves and display an illusion, but that lacked realism. You couldn’t even neutralize the opponent.
And most of the students who had raised their hands earlier only knew the optic-nerve version. Of course Airen and I could use proper illusion magic.
"Then shall I cast first?"
"Me? You go first, Airen."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because even I don’t know what I’ll show right now."
It seemed the number of people whose hearts I needed to read had just increased by one.
Why was she so angry? Was four hours of unconsciousness yesterday not enough?
"Huu, then at least tell me what you want."
"Me putting a collar on you and taking a stroll around campus."
"Professor Violet would see that clearly—you want me to show something that embarrassing?"
"Oh my, you know it’s embarrassing? I thought someone so dense had no sense of shame either."
"Huuuu."
I’m going to die. Seriously.
"At least cheer up a little. Cooking Vision."
I cast illusion magic on Airen. She blinked.
"Where is this?"
"You like it, right? The dessert café on the capital’s main street."
I recreated the dessert café we had visited over the weekend. The tables, the waiters circulating through the shop, everything—perfectly.
And since it was a dessert café, I implemented the desserts too. On the table I prepared scones and Farshan black tea.
"Please eat."
"It’s just an illusion anyway."
Even as she said that, Airen picked up a scone and ate it. Then her eyes went round.
"This is…?"
"How is it? Delicious, right?"
"How did you do it?"
"Simple. Illusion magic interferes with the brain and deceives the optic nerves. So shouldn’t it be able to deceive the sense of taste as well?"
"It’s not simple. Unlike sight, taste is something you can only feel, not see—closer to an abstract sense. You reconstructed every bit of that and fed the information into me?"
"I’m this kind of person. Possible because I’m the talent the Third Princess herself covets."
"Hehe, what’s that supposed to mean."
Airen burst out laughing. Her mood seemed to have improved a little.
"But it’s a bit embarrassing. To everyone else it must look like I’m grabbing empty air and eating."
"Don’t worry about that."
"Why? Unlike you, I’m someone who knows shame."
"…I already interfered with the others for that reason."
"What?"
Airen hurriedly looked around.
The true identity of the people thronging the dessert café was none other than the magic-class students. They were panicking at the suddenly changed space.
Among them were quite a few who muttered things like “This is a fairly high-level illusion magic” and started analyzing it.
"For the other students I’m only interfering with their optic nerves. They can’t taste anything, but they’re all inside the dessert café."
"You really do pull off outrageous things, don’t you?"
"I told you it was simple. Please enjoy the tea time at your leisure."
"Hehehehe."
Airen laughed brightly. By now I’d thought about it so much it was almost cliché, yet—
Why was her smiling face so beautiful? I couldn’t understand it. Why did my heart pound just as hard as it did for the young lady?
"Nice. You caring about me."
"Are you a teenage boy? Getting happy over something like this."
"That’s just how girls are. Fine. My mood’s better. I’ll give you special advice."
"Advice?"
"Mind-reading magic was never developed because it isn’t needed."
No.
How the hell do you know about my worries?