The Last Day of the Silver-Blue Festival
Yuri and I headed together to the venue where Tia was scheduled to present.
Every tower and research building at the Academy had its own dining hall. Today, the graduate students of culinary magic had borrowed a bakery to hold their presentation event.
But when we arrived at the site, people were bustling about in a crowded cluster—it looked like something had gone wrong.
“Oh, Mr. Wicker!”
Tia, wearing an apron, spotted me and came running over. Her face was on the verge of tears, and she looked completely flustered. Even so, the way she forced a smile in my direction was endearing.
“I heard the news. Apparently your lecture is the talk of the town? Congratulations!”
“Thanks to you. So what's going on here?”
Tia gave an awkward smile.
“Well, it's… the culinary presentation has been halted.”
“Why?”
“All the main ingredients spoiled.”
“Spoiled?”
“Mm-hm. We were planning to make herring pie with a new recipe we developed this time.”
“You mean that abomination of a dish—an apple pie with six whole fish sticking out of it in place of apples?”
“Wow, what regional dish is that? Sounds delicious.”
Yuri's tail wagged at the mere description.
“That's the one. Except the ingredient isn't herring—it's cod. It's sea fish, so there's no way to get more of it, and now it's all gone bad.”
Tia looked genuinely upset. I could understand why. She'd been studying culinary magic with me during our tutoring sessions, and she'd put a great deal of effort into preparing this alongside the graduate students.
“You worked hard for this. You must have been shaken up.”
“Hing, thank you….”
“How many fish do you need?”
“Six per pie, and we have to make fifty, so with spares, about three hundred and fifty….”
“That's twenty bundles. Item Box.”
I opened a black hole in the air—long and rectangular this time. I pulled out boxes one by one and set them down.
“P-Professor. What are all these?”
“Cod. Bought from Pier 13 two hours ago.”
“Wait, really?! How do you have those?”
“Leftover stock from when I was selling them. To be precise, it's from four years ago.”
“Professor, is your Item Box the type that stops time for whatever's stored inside?”
“It is.”
“Wow, isn't that incredibly rare? I heard fewer than ten people on the continent have one….”
“Keep it a secret.”
“Hehe, yes sir! Mr. Wicker, thank you so much!”
Tia beamed and threw her arms around me. The stock had just been taking up space anyway, so finding a use for it worked out nicely.
When Tia explained the situation, the research students thanked me repeatedly and began carrying the cod away. On the way, I caught snippets of their conversation.
“Did they catch the culprit?”
“The guards say they don't even have a lead….”
The grim words caught my ear, so I asked.
“Tia, what's this about a culprit?”
“Huh? Oh, it's….”
Tia hesitated, then explained the situation—the ingredients had been rendered unusable because of someone's attack.
“Did you try detection magic?”
“Ah, I did, but I couldn't figure anything out.”
“With your skills? That shouldn't be possible. Will you try again later?”
“The presentation matters more right now, doesn't it? Please just wait a little. I'll have everything made up delicious in no time!”
Tia smiled brightly and returned to the kitchen.
But it kept nagging at me.
“Should I look into it?”
“Huh?”
Yuri, who had been quietly standing by until now, blinked her eyes wide.
“Someone hurt Tia. I can't just let that slide. The Academy's security is tight, so anyone who pulled off an incident here must have real skill.”
“Um… w-well, but. Today you were supposed to….”
Yuri started to say something, then shut her mouth.
“I should examine the discarded fish first.”
By the time I returned with a fish sample to use as evidence, Yuri was wearing a look close to tears.
“Yuri?”
“…I-I know I shouldn't whine. But still, I don't like this a little….”
Her fingers tightened around the fabric of my sleeve.
“Yesterday you spent the whole day with Tia, today you went out to protect Tia's presentation, and now you're….”
Yuri dropped her head.
“…No, I shouldn't say things like that. Forget it. Just being with you, Orabeoni, makes me happy.”
Her voice trembled slightly. I'd made her anxious.
“You're right—today is the day I spend with you. Let's walk around, just the two of us.”
“N-no, you don't have to! Do whatever you want to do. I'm sorry for being difficult….”
“The lecture already ate up most of the morning, and that was a shame, wasn't it? Come on, let's head somewhere else.”
“Ah, yeees….”
There wasn't much energy in Yuri's voice, but her swaying tail suggested her mood had lifted somewhat.
I told Tia I'd come back for the pie later, then set off with Yuri.
Truth be told, I wasn't particularly keen on the pie. The visuals were horrifying.
There's no need to leave the fish heads sticking out of the pie. Six of them, no less.
Anyone who saw it would think it was black magic.
Yuri gazed at the silver-blue flowers glowing in the sunset.
Wicker's back as he walked among them was broad, and she always wanted to throw herself at it.
She was glad he was spending time with her instead of giving more of his hours to Tia.
She was worried about Tia's presentation too, but it had been resolved either way.
Right now, she wanted to monopolize Wicker more than anything else.
Tia had already spent the entire day with their master yesterday. They had stayed up all night together preparing the lecture and practicing magic.
Luca had arranged to meet him tomorrow, the day with the most free time.
So surely a greed like this was forgivable.
It wasn't such a bad thing to do, was it?
Yuri regretted so deeply that, because of the eyes around them, she couldn't take her master's hand like she had back then.
…No. What's wrong with a professor and his student?
Plenty of students date their instructors, after all.
And their master was among the youngest of the professors.
If only he would accept—this feeling of hers.
“Yuri.”
“Ah, yes.”
“That looks fun over there.”
Wicker pointed to one side with a relaxed smile. A group of students was gathered on the street, busking.
One of the teams was from Earth House. Bard Seira, Healer Aru, and Martial Artist Xuehua—the three of them each held an instrument and played a gentle melody.
When Seira plucked her lute, a soft timbre tickled the ear. A beneficial buff, similar to a blessing, wrapped itself around the listeners. Merely hearing it put the heart at ease.
As the piece ended, the audience offered a light round of applause. Xuehua, who had been playing the daf, recognized Wicker and Yuri and waved her hand enthusiastically.
“Can you play anything?”
“No, no. There's no way I could.”
At some point, Wicker was already pulling a mandolin out of his Item Box.
“And singing?”
“Um… if it's a hymn….”
“Perfect.”
Wicker took Yuri by the wrist and led her along. Before she knew it, the two of them had slipped in among the group of bards.
“Welcome, Lady Yuri!”
“X-Xuehua!”
“Glad you're here. Any requests?”
“Ah, um….”
Yuri glanced around nervously. Wicker made an encouraging gesture, telling her to sing to her heart's content.
“W-would a hymn be all right…?”
“Of course! Start whenever you like—we'll follow your lead.”
She steadied her breathing.
Perhaps it was the sunset blinding her eyes, but Yuri slowly let out from her throat a voice she hadn't sung with in a long time.
“Oh….”
Seira began her lute with a light gasp of admiration. Xuehua's daf, Aru's flute, and Wicker's mandolin followed in turn, matching her rhythm.
Around the five of them, white starlight motes bloomed upward—the blessing born of the bards' harmony.
Passersby stopped one by one, their attention drawn into Yuri's song.
…Wow.
When the single, not-so-long song came to an end, a brilliant sense of liberation washed over Yuri.
It was a kind of joy she had never once felt in her life.
As the applause poured down and she came back to herself, Yuri fled the spot with Wicker as if running away.
“Waah, waaah.”
“You were good. Really impressive.”
“I-I only did all right….”
Her cheeks, flushed from Wicker's praise, felt like they might melt. This fulfillment she was feeling for the first time was overwhelmingly satisfying.
“Hee, that was fun.”
“Feeling a bit better?”
“…Thank you for caring.”
She always ended up grateful to him.
She had asked him to treat her as an adult, but in moments like this she could feel how different the weight of their lives had been.
Unlike herself, who still sulked like a child, their master was always watching over the three of them.
“Thank you for today.”
“I had fun too.”
“Yesterday was Tia, today is me, and tomorrow you're meeting Luca. You have to see everyone in Earth House as well—you must be so busy….”
“Hm? I don't have plans to meet Luca tomorrow.”
“What? Did the schedule change?”
“There was never an appointment with Luca to begin with.”
“Wha…?”
Only then did Yuri realize she had been mistaken about something.
“W-wait a moment. Then Luca…?”
Yuri rummaged through her memory.
Throughout these several days, including the Silver-Blue Festival itself, she hadn't seen Luca even once.
“Professor, it's fiiiinished….”
It was the morning of the final third day of the Silver-Blue Festival. When I stepped into the office, Sersi handed me the test results with a bleary face.
“You pulled an all-nighter, I take it.”
“Nyehe. The results were coming out strange, so I ran them over and over, and suddenly it was morning.”
My gut had told me something was off, so I'd asked Sersi to run tests on the cod sample I'd obtained yesterday, to see if there was any clue to be found.
“And the results?”
“They're in. At first I thought it was poison.”
“Hm.”
I examined the test sheets and result tables Sersi handed over. She had run cross-verification several times over, so the chance of error was slim.
“It's black magic.”
“What kind?”
“Soul Exploitation. For a demon-summoning ritual.”
“Do you have a copy of the investigation report from the entrance exam incident?”
“Already finished the comparison.”
“Excellent work.”
“Hehe.”
The demon-summoning spell that had been cast over Bext's heart, as recorded in the report. I compared it against the findings.
Since that incident, I had read through the entries on demon-summoning spells in the wiki to a considerable extent.
Demons are broadly divided into nine ranks: ranks seven, eight, and nine are called lesser demons; four, five, and six are intermediate; and one, two, and three are greater demons.
The demon Bext had summoned back then was a rank-four entity, but the summoning spell itself was a contract made with a greater demon.
Greater demons are few in number and proud by nature, so they rarely deign to make contracts with humans.
And there was the reaction produced by these test sheets.
It appeared to share the same formula as Bext's summoning ritual.
“We can't say for certain at this stage, but I should work under the assumption that this is the same black hand behind Bext. Good work. Go get some sleep.”
“Nepet. Thank you for your hard woooork.”
Sersi staggered out of the office.
Whoever was spreading the spell through food was a black magician. And Tia's presentation couldn't have been the only target—I suspected they had been moving since the very first day of the festival.
Most likely they were casting the spell sequentially across the food of most of the dining halls and stalls. Earth House was fine, since I'd been managing it with artifacts ever since the entrance exam incident.
“Once enough people have eaten food inscribed with the Soul Exploitation spell….”
The plan would be to use them as sacrificial offerings to summon a high-rank demon.
During a festival, the dining halls and street vendors were guaranteed to be booming, so the number of people who had already eaten would be enormous. General attendees, the guard, faculty and staff. There was no way to even tally how far it had spread.
My own students could be among the victims.
First, I sent a courier pigeon to the Principal with what I'd learned. With Mulan as the security coordinator, they'd be able to respond on their end as well.
“As it happens, the timing is perfect.”
Today was the day I was meeting Aisha.
According to the Principal, Aisha had already apprehended some black magicians during her patrol.
Apparently she had noticed this affair and been moving before anyone else.
My guess was that it was Aisha, not an attacker, who had destroyed the ingredients for Tia's presentation yesterday.
I needed to respond, the sooner the better.
First things first—catching the black magician spreading the spell.
I grabbed my coat and stepped out of the office.