Two Stars (1)
The first recruit extended his palm toward the target wall.
Hoo.
A deep breath.
A cluster of blue light gathered at his fingertips, condensing into a mass the size of a ping-pong ball.
Then, he fired.
Boom!
A fist-sized hole punched through the earthen wall.
“Activation confirmed. Power satisfactory. Next.”
I roughly understood the idea.
There were three core steps.
Extend your palm forward and aim at the target, gather your magic power, and fire.
A simple process.
The second recruit succeeded in much the same way. His hole was a little smaller, but the examiner nodded.
“Chloe Winterland, multiple aptitudes? Five? How fascinating.”
It was my turn.
They really had to announce my name and the number of my aptitudes to all the other recruits? It was a little embarrassing.
Still, it did get me some attention, so I felt pretty good about it.
‘Since I’ve drawn their eyes, I can’t afford to embarrass myself.’
I stretched my palm toward the target just as I had seen the others do.
‘…Focus.’
I had an aptitude. I had magic power. If I simply copied what I had seen, I would surely succeed.
Even the conscription officer who had dragged me here, Sergeant Klaus Müller, had said I should be able to use it at least once.
First, I would instinctively try to sense my magic power.
I had never learned how, but it would work out somehow.
The others were no different from me, right?
The moment I tried to feel where the magic power was, something responded to my intent.
Somewhere in my abdomen, just below the diaphragm, in that subtle space between my chest and stomach.
Five warm pools lay side by side.
‘…Is this the A?’
I felt heat gathering at my fingertips.
It gathered, and gathered, and kept gathering…
That was when I realized the problem.
It wouldn’t condense.
The heat simply swirled loosely above my palm; it refused to form a solid mass like the two before me.
So this was what low purity meant.
Sergeant Müller, you were right.
Good grief.
Gritting my teeth, I shoved every ounce of magic power outward.
Puff.
‘…Puff?’
Something did leave my fingertips.
But calling it an attack spell would be too generous. It was a faint, blurry flicker that drifted weakly toward the target.
Tap.
It touched the surface and vanished instantly.
A little dust rose. No hole. Not even a crack.
Silence fell.
“Mis-fire. Next.”
“…Examiner, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Is there a retest?”
“No.”
Despair.
“My condition wasn’t good today.”
“Are you trying to say that tomorrow the power would be different? Recruit Chloe Winterland.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Aptitude does not grow. You will not be able to serve in the artillery. Next.”
It was a death sentence.
The last ticket for the rear-bound train had just been torn up right in front of me…!
Seriously, wasn’t this a bit too much?
After waiting fifteen whole years, the first magic I ever cast was that pathetic puff?
Where the hell had my isekai reincarnation perks gone?
‘…Calm down. I still have B, C, D, and E left.’
The test continued.
The order was B magic, C magic, E magic, then D magic.
Since D aptitude was the rarest, the exam had been arranged in that sequence.
.
.
.
B magic—Defense.
A barrier as thin as my palm formed.
The examiner tossed a handful of sand at it.
Crash.
The barrier shattered with the sound of breaking glass.
“Impractical. Next.”
C magic—Healing.
The examiner pricked the back of my hand with a needle, making a small cut.
Since I was supposed to be playing the part of a mature young lady, I didn’t show the slightest hint of pain.
The examiner-cum-instructor looked at me with a slightly astonished expression.
I cast the spell on the wound. It took four full minutes to heal.
“Four minutes on the battlefield and the patient would die three times over. Next.”
E magic—Enhancement.
I cast the spell on my arm and punched a wooden board.
The board didn’t receive a single scratch. My fist, on the other hand, hurt like hell.
Pretending it didn’t hurt took a surprising amount of effort.
“…Hah. Next.”
I returned to my original spot while keeping my expression as blank as possible.
Obviously, my insides were anything but blank.
My future plans had crumbled in an instant, and it was now confirmed that my magic power was trash-tier. All that remained was D magic.
I wasn’t too worried since it was Level 3 aptitude, but…
‘I’m pretty sure Sergeant Müller said something about it. Magic power is universal… and if you use it more than three or four times a day, it consumes your lifespan?’
Oh, using the lifespan cost to create a despair-inducing situation actually sounded pretty fun.
The fact that Müller knew about it probably meant situations where people burned away their lifespan to cast spells happened quite often, right?
If I pretended to sacrifice myself and casually said something like “This much lifespan is nothing,” wouldn’t that draw a ton of attention?
I was happily sketching out future schemes when the instructor delivered the next order.
“D magic, step forward.”
The ones who stepped forward were me and Anais Shen.
So we shared the same aptitude. This must be what people called a fated encounter.
Anais stood beside me, fidgeting with her fingers.
The examiner flipped through his documents indifferently.
“Anais Shen, B Level 2, D Level 2. Dual aptitude.”
Having two or more talents was rather rare…
That was what Sergeant Müller had said.
I had been born with aptitude in all five magics and suffered the backlash, but perhaps Shen was a little different.
The reactions around us were already different, weren’t they?
The surrounding recruits were buzzing.
Ah, I loved it.
It felt like buying a doll at a secondhand market only to discover it was a limited edition.
Becoming close with Anais Shen had been the correct choice.
“Winterland first.”
“Yes.”
“The task is simple. Three markers have been hidden within a three-hundred-meter radius of this clearing. Describe their location and shape.”
“Understood.”
I closed my eyes.
After using A, B, C, and E magic, I had realized one thing: magic in this world was ridiculously straightforward.
You simply thought of it, formed the image, and activated it.
With such a simple process, magic completed itself effortlessly.
The only difficult part was creating unique spells and reaching the realm of the stars.
Using basic magic was as easy as eating rice cakes while lying down.
I predicted that D magic would be just as simple, so I immediately moved my magic power and spread it out like radar.
Among the five pools, the deepest and warmest one.
The instant I poured magic into it, the world expanded.
My normal vision narrowed, yet everything outside that vision became crystal clear.
The moisture held in the soil from the wind, the disgusting number of legs on the insect crawling across a blade of grass—ugh—even that.
Everything was perceptible.
“North, two hundred seventy meters. Red cloth on the third branch of a pine tree. East, one hundred eighty meters. Brass button beneath a rock. Southwest, two hundred thirty meters. One spent cartridge buried a handspan deep in the soil.”
“……”
“Additionally, the cartridge in the southwest was buried very recently.”
The examiner stared at me. His pupils dilated.
The emotion I sensed was astonishment.
Ah, what a wonderful expression!
I loved it so much!
This was the first proper harvest I had gained today.
The humiliation I had felt during the other magic tests felt like it was being washed away, even if only a little!
“All correct.”
“Thank you.”
“Next. The markers will be moved. I will give the signal afterward.”
Anais took one step forward. She clasped both hands together as if in prayer and squeezed her eyes shut.
The sight looked exactly like someone praying. It was rather cute.
After quite some time, the examiner gave the signal.
“Begin.”
“North… something on a tree to the north… and, to the east, something cold? Metal…? Near the rock…”
“And?”
“I don’t know. I-I’m sorry.”
“Excellent for Level 2.”
Anais opened her eyes.
Suddenly, the B test came to mind.
Anais had stretched both hands forward, and a blue barrier had spread out in a perfect circle.
It was a translucent membrane large enough to cover an entire person. Honestly, I felt a twinge of envy.
The examiner had thrown a stone at it, but the barrier hadn’t budged.
Just a little. A very little bit of jealousy.
The other recruits were sending interested glances toward Anais Shen, who had handled two spells quite competently.
It was attention that should have been mine. I had essentially lost a portion of my share.
Anais Shen came running toward me.
“Chloe! Did you see? I-I did it!”
Flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes.
Two fingers awkwardly raised in the air.
A V.
It was the peace sign for victory and peace that I had taught her just a little while ago.
“Yeah. I saw.”
“Hehe…”
She smiled so brightly it was almost stupid. So wide it made me wonder if this was really something to be that happy about.
The timid, stuttering girl who had no friends and had spoken to me first…
My feelings were complicated.
Was I happy because my toy’s value had risen? Or was I jealous because a luxury toy had stolen some of my attention?
It was ambiguous.
Suddenly.
Something was caught in the detection magic I had yet to withdraw.
I immediately looked behind me.
South forest, roughly seventy meters away.
Two people approaching.
One was wrapped in sharp reinforcement magic from head to toe. The other… I couldn’t identify.
An alien magic power unlike anything else floated through the air, heading straight for the training ground.
I reported at once.
“Examiner, sir.”
“Hm? What is it? If this is about a retest, wait—your nose is bleeding.”
“It’s not about a retest. Two individuals are approaching from the south forest, seventy meters out. One is using reinforcement. The other cannot be identified.”
A trickle.
Blood flowed from my nose.
Having finished my report like an exemplary soldier, I looked at the now rigid instructor and began to feel tense alongside him.
Clap, clap, clap.
The sound of applause drifted from the forest.
—
[Static]
In that examination hall, the fates of two children diverged.
One child sold the other to survive.
The one who was sold… was me.
—