Chapter 63
Chapter 63
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 63
Chapter Title: Direction of Fear
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Absurdly enough, Makina was smiling.
It didn't look like she was trying to tease or provoke me.
It was just an utterly businesslike, calm smile, as if she were explaining some incomprehensible natural disaster or phenomenon.
"The direction of fear?"
"Or, to put it another way, a controllable disaster."
"Makina."
Judith, who had been listening to our conversation, slammed her fist down on the table with a bang.
It looked like a light motion, but seeing how the center of the table had sunk slightly, it must have cracked for sure.
It was a high-quality piece made by piecing together marble, but now it was nothing more than trash.
I grabbed Judith's arm.
I felt bad for her stepping in to vent my anger instead, but there were more words we needed to hear.
"What changes if you control that?"
Before Makina could even open her mouth, I recalled the thing that had dominated my mind these past few weeks.
It felt like the moment when Ebon's existence, now firmly etched into my brain and impossible to erase, was finally about to be confirmed from Makina's lips.
"We can graduate more problem children."
"…What?"
The answer I'd desperately awaited wasn't what I wanted.
At the same time, I realized I'd harbored strange expectations toward Makina.
That if she acknowledged 'Ebon's existence' with her own mouth, this vast sense of solitude and fear in my head might subside.
Though it wasn't the response I'd hoped for, Makina continued with shocking words in a different direction, unperturbed.
"Have you never once found it strange? That in an academy raising elite mages with magical aptitude, restrictions on magic are enforced so stringently."
"……That's…"
"That's, 'for the safety of the cadets,' right?"
That was the only answer I could give.
I'd heard it so often over a dozen years at the academy that my ears had calluses.
Not just at mealtimes three times a day, but at seasonal cadet events, memorial rites at the start and end of the year, and even in the student oath and graduation ceremony—phrases related to the above were never omitted.
-Oath. We will not engage in private magical feuds for the safety of the cadets…
The controls woven so naturally into daily life that I hadn't even realized they were abnormal.
Makina was pointing them out.
"Paradoxically, the safest person in this academy is probably only Arma Cruise, the cadet."
""
"You're the only one free from controls aimed at mages."
"So—"
"Yes, so. We've shared our 'fear' with you, the safest among us."
It was sophistry.
It amounted to saying that since my situation was the best among us, I should share the burden with everyone else.
However, even though I knew in my head it was sophistry, I couldn't bring myself to confront Makina about it.
The violence inflicted on Arthur and Theodor, the incident that made Judith truly unable to trust others, the reason Shirley had fled to Aegis Academy—they were all because of their 'magical aptitude.'
"What are you talking about? Why force someone who's done nothing to shoulder it arbitrarily?"
Thankfully, and shamefully, the one who stepped forward first was none other than Shirley.
Shirley yanked off her gloves, still shedding sand, and slammed them down on the table with a thud.
With an angry expression we rarely saw, she began grilling Makina fiercely.
"Talking about freedom? We're all trapped on this island together, aren't we? Without magic controls, you think we can swim off the island or something?"
It was nerve-wracking.
Somehow, it felt like Shirley was about to open a door she shouldn't.
Like approaching some truth I'd unconsciously buried deep…
"Shirley."
I hoped my current pitiful state, evoking pity amid boiling rage, was suitable for reining her in.
Fortunately, Shirley didn't resist as usual when I grabbed her arm and pulled; she was dragged along limply.
"For now… calm down… We won't be leaving here before graduation anyway, so why use that kind of metaphor."
Staying on this island until graduation was the safest for us.
Immature mages always lived with the risk of rampage, and once it happened, they couldn't easily calm down without being prepared to risk their lives.
They were beings who had to put on their own restraints once they became mature mages.
……That is, for mages.
That's what we'd been taught, and I thought it was right……
'Huh…… Something feels off.'
Why can't we leave the academy?
Moreover, I'm not even a mage.
A bell rang in my head, and my thoughts stalled.
""
Somehow, at moments when I should be angry, thoughts kept flooding in, making me miss the timing to protest to Makina.
I pressed my temples and said.
"Isn't that too much? I spent my entire adolescence just eating scraps."
"Yes, I'm sorry. For not stopping cadets from checking or bullying each other."
Hearing it phrased that way made it feel like I was getting angry over nothing again.
But I vaguely knew Makina was an expert in this area.
It was a ploy to downplay the incident, misdirect, and change the subject.
Even so, I had no way to break through the situation.
Makina had apologized, and the bullying was in the past.
'It was the choice of the majority, too.'
Yes, more than one or two had turned their arrows toward me to vent their insecurities.
Makina had merely effectively utilized that naturally occurring situation.
I was sick of this incident where the target of my anger wasn't clear.
"So, you gathered the students' anger in one place, using me as a sacrifice?"
"That's how it turned out."
"What a ridiculous statement. If the anger gathers on me, what can you control?"
"Campus unrest."
"Haa…"
Every student at Aegis Academy, except me and a few wooden cross cadets, was a talent worth a hundred men each.
If campus unrest broke out, Aegis would surely have to expend a lot of forces to control the cadets.
"And the result is this? Nothing's resolved, and instead, a shadow has fallen over the academy, hasn't it?"
"It was the best choice among what could be done. Sorry, but."
"I'm saying it wasn't the best choice."
If expressing hatred toward someone had reduced the peak of fear, that would be fortunate.
But it wasn't— the composition department's summoning ritual proved it.
The cadets' anger and fear focused on me was unprecedented, and if it were truly controlled, the composition department wouldn't have summoned anything.
Summoning a depraved being required a space polluted by negativity to that extent, and the greater the pollution, the stronger the being summoned.
Can't you see it from the synergy sparked by the already maximally swelled anger and fear?
"Yes, what's past… we can't pretend didn't happen, but let's move on for now. It's time to face the problem squarely."
I looked in turn at the four who had been silently listening to Makina's and my conversation.
Was it coincidence that all four people who met death directly or indirectly because of me in the dream—no, the future—were gathered here?
Probably not.
That crisis would come upon us again, and I had to stop it.
"We need to tell people outside the school. At least the professors."
"Arma Cruise."
"It's a problem beyond what we can handle."
"Arma Cruise, it won't help. Who do you think truly holds the life-and-death power over the cadets?"
""
By this point, I could tell even without Makina spelling it out.
Usually pretending to have all power stripped by the student council and standing by, but when decisive judgment was needed, it was always the chancellor-led professors who made the final call.
"In other words, you're saying the professors now… the 'adults' are abandoning us?"
"They're only interested in completed talents. Defective products isolated and collapsing on their own are easier to dispose of."
It made my chest tight.
Makina's logic seemed flawless, but something felt off.
The feeling that she was still hiding the most important secret persisted.
'They're definitely waiting for something……'
To me, at least, the current Makina was a hypocrite with a saintly face.
Even after shoving my adolescence into the muck, Makina's conviction didn't waver.
Was this really the best?
'Controlling the direction of fear to graduate more problem children……'
A misguided conviction, but it had internal consistency.
In some sense, throwing a tantrum about ruining my adolescence might be the more immature behavior.
Amid the fever making rational thought difficult, my intense deliberations clogged my words.
The reinforcements who appeared at that moment were unexpected.
"If they become 'complete' mages that way, is that truly complete?"
"Arthur—"
"Can guys who choose to harm others just because they can truly become mages loyal to the kingdom?"
This was both rebelling against Makina's will and asserting his own conviction.
-Arthur has spent most of his life proving he 'belongs' here.
Theodor's words came to mind.
Arthur, who possessed power to easily destroy a city if grown, chose to live as a human in society, enduring even mental suppression.
So, Makina's words couldn't help but sound ridiculous to him.
Makina, in the exact same posture as when she first greeted us, smiled only by pulling the corners of her mouth, without the slightest movement.
That artificial rigidity unconsciously inspired awe in me toward Makina.
Makina said.
"We have to make it so they can."
No further conversation had meaning.
To Makina, the series of events so far were merely patches and stitches to prevent as many cadets as possible from falling behind.
"Anyway, this time I admit failure. If a devil has been summoned, we must catch it. As you said, we'll inform the faculty. Anything else you want?"
"A sincere apology."
This time, Judith answered faster than me.
Makina had already apologized to me countless times, so more apologies rang hollow.
I shook my head to calm Shirley, who looked ready to bolt out snarling, and Judith, whose jaw clenched with gritted teeth.
"That's enough for the rest. It would be nice to have proof you'll definitely inform them."
"That's not necessary now."
It was a low, gravelly voice unique to middle age.
I turned around.
There stood Sir William Reynolds, the chancellor of Aegis Academy, who occasionally appeared in the student council room.