A Sack of Flour Reverses Memories (2)

My childhood passed in a haze of flour dust, hauling loaves as large as my own torso out to the display in front of the bakery, and the occasional scolding when I dropped a customer’s bread left for baking. It slipped away without me ever awakening any special power like a perk from my previous life.

After regaining the memories of my past existence, I could sense that my parents’ eyes on me had changed, if only slightly. They hadn’t uncovered any grand secret; they simply suspected I was a little more mature and quick-witted than other children my age.

It made sense. I had, after all, lived an entire life before this one—in a different culture, a different civilization, perhaps even a different planet. The days here were roughly the same length, but a year lasted a hundred days longer, and the small, pure-white moon waxed and waned twelve times instead of ten. That was the nostalgic old home I still carried inside me.

Even so, I never acted superior or boasted to my peers. After all, half of my soul still belonged to a girl of the proper age.

In this world with so few amusements, nothing was more thrilling than running around with the neighborhood troublemakers. I doubt it would have been much different even if I had kept an adult mind and body.

With Arun, Payna, Doan, Moam, Iseph, and the children from the other shops, we roamed the woods near the capital’s outer wall. When dusk fell we were chased off by the forest keeper shouting about monsters, or we would linger in front of the adventurers’ guild—full of rough-looking types—only to flee without daring to step inside because the burly men terrified us. Those were our days.

Yet because I had already lived once, I knew the truth: childhood ends so quickly it makes you sigh.

Just past thirteen, I realized I could handle a knife well enough to slice bread on my own. I had also grown a little taller than my mother.

…Though she was quite short to begin with. I had inherited that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠blood, so I remained small. When I had stopped growing in my previous life, I measured roughly a hundred and fifty centimeters by Earth standards.

Even after my body grew, time flowed on indifferently and daily life never changed—until the day my father, sweat pouring as he pulled out enough bread from the enormous oven to feed the whole village alongside the stoker, spoke to me in passing while I helped.

“Kaira. Have you ever thought about trying to enter the university?”

The university he spoke of was the Imperial Magic Academy near our house.

Father’s tone was gentle, as though he were merely making a casual suggestion, but I tensed. I was an ordinary girl with no real education or experience beyond bakery work. The academy gathered the Empire’s brightest prodigies. Could someone like me possibly get in?

No matter that this was my second life, or that in my previous existence I had spent many years in academia, those things were separate from this one.

Up to the age of nearly fourteen, the only education I had received was how to read customer lists for flour left to be baked, basic arithmetic for accounting, and whatever bread-baking techniques I had picked up by watching. I did not even know what subjects the academy’s entrance exam covered.

Still, I did not want to disappoint him. I understood his intention.

Father—and probably Mother as well—expected something from me, who seemed more mature than my peers. They must have sensed it from the day I regained my memories. I was not so dense that I could miss a parent’s expectations.

Lacking confidence, I deliberately answered with force.

“All right. I’ll give it a try, Dad!”

The Magic Academy.

Until I actually stepped into the examination hall, I had imagined something like the dazzling academies that filled so many stories in my previous life—noble young ladies one could hardly look at directly, the children of emperors or grand dukes pushed far down the line of succession, and myself… well, since I was a girl now, I would be rescued by the incredibly talented male protagonist and fall hopelessly in love, becoming part of a harem. That sort of dreamy, rose-colored life.

The moment I set foot inside the Imperial Magic Academy for the entrance test and saw the examination room packed only with grim shadows like exhausted students entering a college entrance exam site, I instinctively understood this was no fairy-tale school.

Because there was no mandatory education system like on Earth, the ages of the examinees varied wildly. A few boys and girls around my age or younger were present, but so were fully grown young men who looked well over twenty.

In a world where one was considered an adult at about fifteen, anyone past twenty was essentially a repeater—someone who had failed the entrance exam multiple times.

Is the test really that difficult…?

The moment I received the crudely made paper and unfolded it, I realized it was not.

The entrance examination consisted of simple demonstrative geometry and logic. It was a kind of intelligence test that judged only the examinee’s manner of thinking rather than their life history—one relatively free of the influence of status or wealth. The problems were not easy for a child like me, more familiar with the scent of burning firewood in the kiln than the moldy smell of old books, yet they were within reach if I recalled the basic education from my previous life.

In the examination room I had to suppress the ego of a teenage girl and summon the mind of the man who had died on the verge of earning his doctorate. Even then, the old knowledge of placing a ruler against figures and drawing construction lines had been wiped clean from my head even back on Earth, so it was far from effortless.

The result… was a pass. Whether expected or surprising, I could not say.

There was no miracle such as entering at the top of the class. I had simply done a little better than average. When I thought of the systematic higher education I had received in a far more advanced civilization, it felt somewhat shabby. But I quickly accepted that such novel-like events do not occur in reality.

Perhaps passing itself was already a cheat that made full use of my previous life. After all, there had not been a single problem a bakery girl without any systematic education could solve easily.

Whatever slight disappointment I felt at failing to overwhelmingly dominate the examinees of this less advanced civilization even in my second life, my parents were overjoyed. The outcome was a success. I had taken the test to please them, after all.

Yet behind my father’s praising eyes, I glimpsed something else. It was an intuition honed by nearly forty years of life when both existences were counted together. He did not seem purely happy about his daughter’s success. Behind his joy I sensed another kind of expectation.

Now I understand. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He probably believed the academy’s professors could identify the reason behind the strange behavior his daughter sometimes displayed.

Father’s guess was not wrong. The very thing he anticipated happened immediately after I enrolled.

“Next is… Kaira. Please enter.”

By then I had received and was wearing the robe-style uniform that marked me as a new student of the Imperial Magic Academy. I had been waiting absentmindedly in the corridor outside the large lecture hall, probably thinking something foolish like So academies use uniforms in every world, huh…

“Kaira? Is she absent?”

The assistant supervising the freshmen had a sharp voice. It carried the irritation of someone already exhausted from managing so many students, wondering why I could not answer promptly. I snapped out of my reverie, hurriedly raised my hand, and she jerked her chin to send me inside.

“One moment.”

The assistant stopped me as I moved to enter.

“Food and drink are prohibited in the interview room.”

“Pardon?”

I widened my eyes and tilted my head slightly.

“You don’t have a lump of bread or something in your pocket, do you? The smell is reaching all the way out here.”

Burdened by her glaring stare, I answered hesitantly.

“Ah… It’s probably the scent that has soaked into my body or clothes… I’m the daughter of a baker, you see…”

The assistant scrutinized me with sharp, suspicious eyes before finally allowing me into the interview room, muttering as she did so.

“Honestly, these commoners…”

Wow. That was straight out of a novel—a classic line for a low-ranking aristocratic villain extra.

I did not mind being insulted to my face at all. Instead I grinned to myself at having heard such a trope in real life and stepped into the lecture hall.

Inside, several magic professors serving as interviewers stared at me with piercing gazes.

“Kaira… hm, no family name. Grades… considering your background, they are rather excellent. Very well, student Kaira. Do you understand why you are here right now?”

I answered at once. I could not completely hide my tension; my voice trembled slightly.

“Y-yes. I do.”

“Good. Then relax and take a seat. The three of us will now examine you using a spell called Mentia’s Magnifying Glass. We will inspect both your inner and outer aspects thoroughly.”

The old professor who calmly provided the explanation appeared to be the eldest among them. The other two silently prepared their magic formulas.

“As you likely already know, innate talent for magic is not greatly required. The most important factors are the learning ability to comprehend the logical structure of formulas and the capacity to apply them.

However, there are occasionally students with unusual talents, or freshmen whose magic circulation system is congenitally underdeveloped and cannot handle magical flows. The interviewers—those among the faculty most skilled in sensory magic—identify such special aptitudes so that students may choose their path wisely from the start.”

I sat rigidly, occasionally fidgeting my tense legs as I listened to the professor’s explanation.

“Do not be nervous. Even if you are judged unable to wield magic, that does not mean you cannot engage in magical research. Since you have already passed the written exam, we do not discard such students.

Just as there can be deaf composers or blind painters, a student completely unable to use magic can still become an outstanding magic researcher and produce excellent theories, provided they possess basic intellect.”

The old professor added in a peculiar tone.

“Well, it would be difficult to call such scholars ‘mages,’ but it is common for researchers of magic to achieve greater accomplishments than ordinary mages. After all, they can devote themselves solely to research without becoming mired in adventures or practical affairs.”

The professor concluded his rather lengthy explanation. It seemed he had patiently given the same speech to the dozens of students who had come before me.

Even here, being a professor is no easy task.

At the time, such frivolous thoughts were all that occupied my mind.

The professors opened their spellbooks and pointed at various sections while muttering intently. Since this was my first time witnessing actual magic, I simply stared at the three professors’ spell formulas without much thought.

The young female professor on the left twitched her eyebrows. The expression was not pleasant. Feeling uneasy, I studied the faces of the other two. Next the middle-aged professor on the right gave a slight start. Finally, the kind old professor who had explained everything slowly closed his eyes and pondered for a long while.

The three exchanged glances. Having apparently confirmed something in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one another’s expressions, they each nodded once. The old professor in the center let out a deep sigh.

“Student Kaira.”

The atmosphere no longer felt friendly. Extremely tense, I barely managed a crawling reply.

“Y-yes…”

“Have strange occurrences frequently happened around you since childhood?”

My heart plummeted. Had they discovered my second life? But aside from the moment I was struck by the flour sack and regained my past memories, no such miraculous events had occurred again. I had certainly never stopped time.

“N-no… none…”

If it had been a lie, that magnifying glass magic might have exposed it, but what I said was the truth, so it was fine. They had not asked whether I had a previous life. I comforted myself with that thought.

“Hmm…”

The old professor gestured toward the assistant watching us with a bored face from the lecture hall entrance.

“Assistant McGrain, would you step outside for a moment? We have something to discuss among ourselves. And Kaira, please rise from your chair and come stand before us. We wish to speak quietly.”

The assistant’s eyes widened briefly, but it was a professor’s order, so she left without protest. Hearing the heavy thud of the door closing behind her, I walked hesitantly to the front of the professors.

Silence fell.

I should have just stayed home baking bread with Dad.

I repeated that thought roughly six times before the old professor finally spoke.

The old professor’s expression was refreshingly bright, as though he were sharing truly delightful news.

“To me it smells like the nostalgic aroma of freshly baked white bread… but I suppose each person perceives it differently.”

The middle-aged professor, catching the cue, smacked his lips once and answered.

“I see. To me it was the sour tang of coarse black bread made from dough aged several days.”

The young female professor watched for a few seconds, unsure whether to interrupt, then finally spoke.

“To me it smells like flour dough baked in the ashes of a dead campfire.”

The old professor turned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back to me with a kindly smile.

“That is how it is. Why such a thing counts as a talent, I do not know. It is minor yet mysterious, but it is nonetheless your innate gift.”

…What?

Come to think of it, the friends I played with as a child had often said my body smelled of bread. I had simply assumed it was the scent of the bakery soaked into me, just as I had told the assistant earlier.

Could that have been some kind of previous-life bonus granted by that intermediary realm? It felt like a cruel joke. What in the world could you accomplish with an ability that made you smell like fresh bread?

“But if that were all, we would not have sent the assistant away. Kaira, you possess one more important talent. What follows is the main point, so listen carefully.”

The professor’s face, which had been smiling while discussing bread, hardened. He spoke as though delivering a verdict.