Episode 12: Magician Academy (3)
“Huh?”
“I didn’t hear you? The entrance ceremony ended yesterday. So won’t you get out? I’m swamped with preparations for the new semester.”
The principal glared sharply at Sid.
At words he could never have imagined, the boy’s mind went hazy.
He felt like collapsing on the spot, but his sturdy legs wouldn’t let him fall.
Only his unfocused eyes rolled wildly around the principal’s office.
‘The entrance ceremony was until yesterday?’
Sid replayed what he had heard.
So when he arrived two days ago after getting a carriage ride, it already meant he was late.
“What are you standing there blankly for? I said get out if you’re done.”
The principal lashed out at Sid with cold eyes.
Indeed, there was no reason to be kind to an outsider who wasn’t her student.
‘Haa, haa!’
That’s right.
Until now, his luck had been too good.
Getting a carriage ride, meeting a girl named Liz, experiencing things beyond his station…….
All of this had been a foretold despair for the boy who had been too fortunate.
‘Hup!’
Sid desperately tried to steady his reeling mind.
The principal’s office filled with unfamiliar objects and Eirena’s red hair spun before his eyes.
The problem from the start was that he had rushed here without even knowing the exact date.
“Um... then what about me? Isn’t there another way?”
“How should I know? Wait another year. Of course, our dormitory is only provided to students, so it doesn’t apply to you. Try finding work around here or something?”
Even toward the pale-faced boy, the principal remained cold.
Sharp golden eyes (金眼) shining between purple eyelids.
Her gaze held nothing but the desire to get rid of the troublesome boy.
“How... is there no other way......”
The boy who hadn’t crumbled even before Rowark’s swordsmanship whimpered as if the whole world had collapsed.
He had thought that once he passed through this door, everything he dreamed of would begin.
He had thought that once he stepped through this door, everything he imagined would come true.
The world was not so easy.
“...However!”
The moment he was about to give up, the principal’s words continued.
Her red-painted fingernails tapped against the desk.
After glancing at the torn recommendation letter, the principal raised her head nonchalantly.
Her already fierce gaze grew sharper as it looked down at the boy.
“I could slip you in after saying you passed early. The semester hasn’t started yet, so it’s at my discretion.”
“Um... really? Thank you! Thank you so much!”
“I haven’t passed you yet!”
The principal’s roar exploded at the boy’s jumping the gun.
The atmosphere seemed to relax, then cold eyes settled in once more.
Sid clasped his hands respectfully.
Her tone had been irritated from the start, so he couldn’t tell what she was so angry about.
Still, since she was giving him a chance, he shouldn’t make a bad impression.
Soon, golden eyes contrasting with her purple makeup swept over the boy.
Worn monk’s robes and a tacky crew cut that had already attracted many people’s attention.
Moreover, his deeply tanned skin made it obvious to anyone that he wasn’t a magician.
“Here.”
The principal held out a palm-sized card.
As the boy who took the card glanced at her for instructions, her sneer continued.
“First time seeing a Level Card? You just have to release mana.”
“Y... yes? A Level Card, you say? Release mana?”
“Haah... you really don’t know anything. I’ll show you just once. Watch closely?”
As if being kind would somehow hurt her, she kept losing her temper.
She grabbed another identical card and released blue mana.
It was mana as vivid as a Magic Sword.
Sizzle... Poof!
The card, burning up as it was consumed by mana, went up in flames with a crack! at some point.
Watching the card turn to ash and disappear above her red fingernails, Sid opened his mouth.
Eirena dusted off the card’s ashes and glanced at the boy.
“You release mana and burn the card. That’s it. See? Don’t even dream of using a cheap trick to cast a fire spell, or your wrists will go flying. Now, try it.”
“I just have to release mana?”
“No, do I need to explain more here?”
“N-no!”
Sid swallowed his breath at the scorching gaze.
Perhaps she was intentionally pressuring the boy.
Of course, having read too many books, he might have even come to believe that this pressure was part of the test.
“Then I’ll begin!”
“Don’t talk, just do it.”
The test began with a curt reply.
Sid gripped the ‘Level Card’ and focused between his thumb and index finger.
Soon, flickering mana was sucked into the card.
10... 20... 30... 50…….
The ‘117 coins’ not stored in his account were exhausted, and the stored 3,872 coins were also sucked in.
‘Burn, burn!’
But the card did not ignite.
Even when dense mana thick enough to emit a Magic Sword wrapped around it, the card remained frustratingly silent.
From the very beginning, Sid and Eirena differed in the size of their vessels, so it was only natural.
[Transaction] Withdrawal
[Amount Withdrawn] *1,237 (Level Card)
[Amount Deposited]
[Balance] *2,635 (Eirena Academy)
[Transaction] Withdrawal
[Amount Withdrawn] *972 (Level Card)
[Amount Deposited]
[Balance] *1,663 (Eirena Academy)
...
‘Please!’
Even though he had already exhausted half his mana, there were no signs of it burning up.
It only flickered and flared with a dense light occasionally.
It didn’t have the vigor to burst into flames like Eirena’s had just moments ago.
Eirena rested her chin on her hand and focused on Sid.
‘What is with this kid?’
The reason the foul-tempered principal was surprised was because the boy’s mana flow was strange.
The mana visible on the outside was pathetic, yet the mana entering the card was strangely smooth.
Could he have such a great talent that he prevented unnecessary mana from evaporating?
When the first approximately ‘100 coins’ were consumed, the mana flickering in his body was used up.
Since that was all he had to begin with, he thought it would be over once the fog-like thin mana disappeared.
But as soon as that mana disappeared, spring-like mana began surging forth from his chest.
Moreover, since it was the left chest where the circle would be, the principal couldn’t notice the existence of the account.
Unlike Sid, who saw mana as ‘numbers’, Eirena saw mana as ‘density’.
To her eyes, the mana being withdrawn from the ‘account’ was a difficult sight to understand.
‘Ugh! It’s about time for it to work!’
The Level Card was flickering in a color deeper than a Magic Sword.
It was to the point where a blade might spring forth at any moment.
But even after pouring in mana collected all day, the card showed no sign of igniting.
As the mana stored in the account dwindled, anxiety began to show on Sid’s face.
[Transaction] Withdrawal
[Amount Withdrawn] *1,231 (Level Card)
[Amount Deposited]
[Balance] *4 (Eirena Academy)
[Insufficient balance.]
“Uwaaah!”
“Geez! You startled me, brat!”
A loud noise burst from his anxious mouth.
It was enough to startle even Eirena, who had been focused on Sid’s mana flow.
Soon, warning numbers marked in red floated before the boy’s eyes.
The slowly falling countdown numbers thumped like a heartbeat.
[Balance] *4
[Balance] *3
[Balance] *2
‘Haah, I’m going crazy!’
Sid’s face contorted at the remaining mana balance in his account.
Even slamming it in by the hundreds had been difficult; inserting the remaining single-digit coins wouldn’t make the card burst into flames.
Whether she knew this situation or not, Eirena’s urging continued.
“Hurry up and burn it. What are you hesitating so much for? Didn’t I say I’m busy?”
“I-I’m almost done! I’m sorry!”
Thinking he might be kicked out after coming this far made his mind go hazy.
Eirena, who had been watching with a sulky expression from earlier, was not someone he could rely on like Chepesh.
If the light wrapped around the card disappeared here and now, Eirena would chase him out.
As this urgency grew closer, Sid’s expression hardened.
‘Haa, just a little more!’
Thinking of the coins that would soon run out, the boy swallowed his saliva.
That was as far as it went.
The rewards of his efforts and his luck until now seemed to end here.
But then the account’s voice was heard.
Hearing the voice at the moment of crisis, Sid opened his mouth.
[“Though belated, here is your entrance gift. Our Hope Bank always strives for our customer’s success.”]
[Transaction] Deposit
[Amount Withdrawn]
[Amount Deposited] *1,000 (Entrance commemorative gift)
[Balance] *1,001 (Eirena Academy)
“Thank you, Miss!!!”
Poof!
The blue-flickering card blazed up along with the account’s gift.
Even Eirena, who had believed he would barely fail, raised an eyebrow.
Watching the card scatter shrouded in purple embers, her heart trembled.
As the fiercely burning card disappeared, turning to ash, a smile spread across Sid’s lips.
‘I did it!’
He had entered the academy.
Despite many hardships and mistakes, he had overcome them all and truly entered the academy.
“I passed you, that’s all. Who are you calling ‘sis’?!”
“S-sorry! It just slipped out!”
Eirena’s roar shattered this joy.
In his delight at passing, it seemed he hadn’t realized he had called her ‘sis’.
Even while hearing the angry scolding, Sid smiled brightly.
With the mana deposited at the last moment, the remaining balance was ‘989 mana coins.’
It had been a close call, as if exactly 4,000 coins needed to be inserted for it to ignite.
If he had failed due to lacking ‘11 mana coins’, he would have been beating the ground in regret.
“You seem like a decent fellow. Your mana releasing skill isn’t bad either. I like it.”
Eirena dusted the ash off the desk.
A slightly loosened smile welcomed the boy.
“There are many fools who waste mana just because they cast big magic. Seeing you regulate it smoothly, you have decent skill. I permit your admission.”
“Thank you! I’ll do my best from now on!”
“Hmph. How dull.”
The principal had permitted his admission through a ‘special’ method.
Eirena raised her eyebrows and looked at Sid.
There were a few things that bothered her, but she intended to watch them going forward.
“Here.”
She handed over a certificate bearing a seal and a book containing the code of conduct.
Sid, who had already wanted to see the academy, anxiously shuffled his feet.
“First, take those and get assigned a dormitory. They’ll give you a uniform too, so tear up those tacky monk’s robes. If I see those robes one more time, I’ll send you out buck naked, got it?”
“Yes! Understood! Thank you, Principal!”
“Yes, now get out.”
With her gesture as the final signal, Sid exited the principal’s office.
The book he felt as he ran down the yellow brick road couldn’t have felt better.
Thud!
“Hmph.”
Eirena closed the door the boy had left open with a flick of her fingers.
And leaning back in her chair, she looked at the recommendation letter bearing a name she longed for.
Soon, as she spread her hand and swept it, the torn recommendation letter returned to its original form and rose onto the desk.
‘But the end was strange.’
For now, she had passed him, but Eirena harbored an uneasy feeling.
Because a strange sight had caught her eye the moment the card burst into flames.
Surely, the mana he had been blowing into the card had been blue just like an ordinary magician’s.
But the mana that explosively surged at the last moment tangled with the blue and changed to purple.
‘Violet mana.’
She had never seen the color of mana change before.
At the moment the blue mana was exhausted and its limit was imaginable, red mana flared up from the boy’s fingertips and tangled into purple.
It was as if he had ‘received mana support from outside’ to pass the test.
Perhaps it was a power embedded in Sid’s potential, but even Eirena, who had been principal for nearly 20 years, didn’t know everything about magic.
She simply resolved to pay attention to and watch over the boy Chepesh had sent, then closed her eyes.
Deep golden eyes disappeared between purple eyelids, and a low breath escaped.
‘I’ll have to watch him closely from now on.’
- To be continued in Episode 13 -