“As expected of Chief Professor Deculein!”
The man who looked to hold the highest rank among the police approached. Clad in a gleaming formal uniform, he saluted the moment he saw me.
“Ah, I am Inspector Lopa! Kyaa— but the way you stomped him down just now was a perfect picture! This, this damned murderer! Shall I hit him some more for you?!”
“No. Leave him be.”
“Ah, yes, sir!”
The moment the man lost consciousness, his trait was released.
With telekinesis, I scooped up soil from the road. I lit a flame over it and mixed the two elements. The soft earth instantly took on the properties of metal and stretched into thin strands.
It was the effect of the 「Basic Transmutation」 I had memorized before. With it, I bound Rockhark’s wrists and ankles.
The policemen’s mouths fell open.
“Ooooh······ I’ve seen many, many spells in my time, but I’ve never seen such an elegant manifestation. That cord just now danced.”
“Take him away.”
“Ah, yes! Loyalty! Thank you for your hard work!”
The inspector took a magap from his waist. It was a restraint that suppressed the wearer’s mana to a certain degree.
“The magap is useless. He nullifies magic anyway, so leave those steel wires as they are.”
“What?! Is that so? To think such a man existed! No wonder he escaped prison so easily and never showed up on magitechnical radars!”
Kiya~ But how did you see through that so easily? No, how did you defeat this man who nullifies magic?
The inspector chattered without pause.
“I’m leaving.”
“Ah, yes! Hey! What are you all standing around blankly for? Everyone, salute the Chief Professor!”
Loyalty—! Dozens of policemen gathered in the middle of the cemetery saluted me.
At that moment, a system message appeared.
[ Practical Verification: Trait Linkage ]
[ Due to ‘Mana Quality Enhancement (Stage 1),’ the limits of some traits have been raised. ]
I know this system as well. Put simply, it is expressed as ‘the limits of a trait being broken through—’ and more fundamentally, it means the ceiling has risen.
In other words, if the engine originally had a performance of 100 but, because the fuel had been poor until now, it could only produce an output of 50, then the quality of the fuel had improved, raising the output to 60.
However, because the engine had grown accustomed to fuel rated at 50 for too long, an ‘awakening process’ was absolutely necessary, and that had been the real battle just now.
As expected, one actual battle is better than a hundred practice sessions.
“Professor.”
A familiar voice called me. It was Yulie. As if she had run here in a hurry, she bowed her head with a few strands of hair caught between her lips.
“······Thank you for your hard work. Please rest well today.”
I simply nodded and passed by her.
As I walked, I looked up at the sky.
Through the long-grown underbrush, a crescent moon revealed itself.
Rustle— rustle—
This path, where leaves were trampled so sorrowfully underfoot, felt like the very path I had once walked with you.
A path overgrown with bushes, dark and frightening, leading to a grave.
On that day when I lost my younger sibling so meaninglessly.
You walked with me, cried with me, and helped bury that child.
That is why, even more, whenever I close my eyes, your face appears before me like a flickering vision.
I will remember you only for today, and from tomorrow on, I will forget······
Even so.
In a place where traces of you remained, I did not want to kill anyone.
* * *
Late at night, Sylvia’s mansion in Haillechi, the most valuable district of the Imperial Capital.
“······So that’s what happened.”
Gilteon came up to the Imperial Capital as soon as he received the report. Sylvia acted calm, as though nothing had happened, but Gilteon wanted to burn Rockhark alive.
“In that case, my dear. Deculein saved you, did he?”
Gilteon asked Sylvia in a subtle tone. Sylvia frowned.
“You’re probing me.”
“Huh? No, no, my dear. Absolutely not. This father of yours has grown too used to speaking like that to retainers. Hahaha. Probing you? Absolutely not.”
“Forget it.”
At the head of a table filled with every delicacy imaginable, Sylvia pouted, making an obvious show of sulking.
“My dear. I told you, that’s not it······.”
Using that as leverage to make Gilteon squirm, Sylvia said primly,
“Then, Dad. I’m going to the Bercht Conference too, right?”
“······.”
The Bercht Conference.
For a mage, simply attending was an honor. Gilteon had been summoned as the head of Iliade, and he could bring one companion and one escort knight with him.
“······Ahem.”
Gilteon avoided Sylvia’s gaze. Bercht was an extremely dangerous mountain range. If possible, he had intended not to even run into Sylvia until then······
“I’m going.”
“Phew.”
Gilteon sighed.
Fine. This, too, would be an experience, and there should be nothing especially dangerous.
To begin with, among the twelve traditional houses, there was an unwritten rule that one would bring the next successor or the first disciple as a companion to Bercht. Moreover, the relationships between the houses were not as terrible as they had been fifteen years ago.
If he refused to bring Sylvia again on the grounds that it was dangerous, he might be mocked not as a doting father but as a father crippled by his daughter complex.
“······Fine, fine. Of course my companion will be my dear. Who else would it be?”
“Oho, my lady. Then the escort knight is none other than~ me~!”
A man who had been sitting at the same table and eating sprang up noisily. He was Sirio, vice-captain of the knight order under Iliade.
Sylvia’s eyebrow twitched.
“I don’t like Sirio. He’s noisy.”
“Aw. Why? I’m better than that Jayrun guy, aren’t I?”
“Haha. True. Jayrun is serious about everything. Even I find Jayrun uncomfortable.”
Gilteon laughed heartily and continued.
“In any case, Sirio will stay at Bercht’s Third Hall. He cannot come up to the Fourth Hall, where we will be staying.”
“What a shame. Oh, my lady, in the Fourth Hall, those of the same bloodline cannot remain in the same space, so acting individually is the rule. Those whose blood resembles each other too strongly—in other words, if you stay too close to Lord Gilteon—your blood will clump together~”
“I know. Be quiet.”
Sirio’s flippant way of speaking grated on Sylvia’s nerves.
As Gilteon cut into a fish, he said,
“By the way, my dear. We will be leaving a little early. This Thursday, two days from now. Is that all right?”
“That’s four days early.”
Sylvia narrowed her eyes.
“We received intelligence.”
“Intelligence.”
“Yes. Expensive information.”
For now, it was probably intelligence that only Gilteon among the Twelve Houses had obtained. Normally, Deculein would have known first, but for some reason, he had completely severed his ties with the underworld.
Gilteon still found the reason puzzling. He had been a man who guarded his own safety with something close to paranoia.
Had he gained confidence in his own ability, or was the fellow he had chosen as assistant professor that reliable?
“Then leave after six in the evening.”
“Mm. I don’t mind, but why?”
“Wednesday’s class is worth five credits, so I need to review the next day.”
Gilteon nodded as well.
“Deculein’s class, you mean. Very well. But how is that class, my dear? Does he teach well?”
“Yes. It’s good.”
“······Good?”
“Yes. Starting next semester, I think it’ll probably be hard to register for it.”
On the Wizaboard, Deculein’s lecture was explosively popular.
Of course, even if the professor’s personality was not very good and he assigned an insane amount of homework, the duty of a mage in the Magic Tower was to learn.
Since he was a professor who faithfully fulfilled that learning, students would flock to his class in staggering numbers from the next semester onward.
“I see······ Ha. So that’s how it is.”
Gilteon snorted as if he were somewhat sulking.
After that, it was ordinary conversation and an ordinary meal.
“······Nom nom.”
As Sylvia chewed thoroughly, she thought of Deculein today.
He, too, had a memory of losing someone.
He, too, had a past that painful.
She had thought he was merely an obnox-prof—current slang in the Magic Tower, short for obnoxious professor—who only pretended to be great and acted cool.
But now she came to think a little differently.
Those comet-like tears kept coming to mind.
* * *
Understanding Elemental Attributes—Week 4.
When I arrived at the Magic Tower by car, for a moment I wondered if we had taken the wrong road.
“Reporters?”
“Yes. It seems so.”
A crowd of journalists was lined up at the entrance to the Magic Tower. I glanced out the window and saw the chairwoman at the center of them.
At first, because she was making such fierce gestures, I thought she was trying to drive them away.
But when I opened the window slightly and listened,
“Chief Professor Deculein has, from the very beginning, truly! Truly cherished novice mages as a Chief Professor! He has been pursuing the Wizard Killer for a long time!”
She was holding a press conference all by herself with tremendous enthusiasm.
“It is presumed that those efforts have borne fruit! Ah, yes! There is no room to doubt Chief Professor Deculein’s combat talent! Though not as much as mine! Any more questions?! Ah, how he subdued the Wizard Killer?! I don’t know either!”
I had the driver go around to the back entrance.
“Good work.”
“Yes. Thank you!”
As soon as I got out of the car, I entered the Magic Tower and stood before A Class on the third floor. I straightened my suit jacket and opened the door. The excited chatter of the debutants stopped abruptly.
I stood at the lectern.
“Good to see you.”
The lecture hall looked ordinary, as always.
As though last night’s events had merely been a dream.
As though this world had originally been mine.
As though that memory was nothing more than something old.
“Before beginning the fourth week’s class, I will announce the first and last place in last week’s quiz. First place is Sylvia with 100 points. Last place is Epherene with 0 points.”
“Aaagh!”
A strange groan came from somewhere. I ignored it and continued.
“The primary element we will use in today’s fourth lecture is ‘earth.’ Everything related to the ground—sand, ore, and the like—belongs to earth. When mixed with fire, it becomes metal; when mixed with water, it becomes mud, clay, and so on······”
When I immediately began the lesson, the mages seemed disappointed. They had probably been expecting a heroic tale of how I had captured the ‘Wizard Killer.’
Not a chance.
“······Now. Before we begin the most basic lesson, we will start with a warm-up exercise.”
Snap— I flicked my fingers, and Allen entered. Allen was holding a bag in his arms, and I lifted all of its contents with telekinesis.
The mages widened their eyes as they looked. A total of 150 blue stones rose into the air simultaneously.
“Each of these is a mana stone worth 3,000 elne.”
I held the mana stones with my 「Basic/Beginner Telekinesis」.
For reference, it was called Basic/Beginner because basic and beginner levels were mixed half and half.
“I will leave them like this. Interfere with my telekinesis and try to take them. If you can take one, I will give it to you.”
Mana stones were extremely important materials for mages. They were used in magical research, spell creation, and as magical catalysts. If held in the hand while casting a spell, they could also serve as a temporary amplifier, slightly strengthening the spell’s output.
They were truly ‘all-purpose tools limited to mages.’
Looking at those mana stones, Epherene’s eyes shone in particular.
“If the primary element of today’s lecture is earth, then the first topic of the lecture is ‘Pure Elements and Magical Interference.’”
Magical interference.
In other words, the act of one mage interfering with a spell manifested by another mage and obstructing its execution.
“For a caster, preventing interference is just as important as carrying it out. Of course, the defending side is far more advantageous, but do make an effort.”
In truth, I was curious as well. I wanted to know to what extent my 「Basic/Beginner Telekinesis」 could withstand the debutants.
For reference, among manipulation-type spells, telekinesis was the foundation of the foundation. It was one of the many subjects in the entrance exam to the Tower, and there were even mages who reached an advanced level through intuition alone without looking at theory books.
Even if they were debutants, they should have learned at least intermediate-level telekinesis, so I should set the output of my 「Basic/Beginner Telekinesis」 somewhat high.
Even if I specialized in 「Manipulation」 and 「Earth」, these debutants were the greatest talents on the continent. If I let my guard down, I might embarrass myself.
“······Begin now.”
I stood still and waited.
At first, I expected it to take about three minutes.
I was holding 150 at once, while the mages only had to take one of them.
“······.”
But three minutes passed,
five minutes passed,
ten minutes passed,
and no matter how long I waited and waited.
My telekinesis did not waver.
“······.”
I looked only at the clock. My mana was being consumed little by little, but I was still at ease.
“Hmm.”
Could it be that they were not making any effort at all?
That was my suspicion, so I activated 「Vision」.
Ziiiiing— ziiiiing—
The tremendous mana emitted by 150 mages filled my sight. Every bit of that mana was touching my psychokinesis.
The vast flow of mana was dizzying, so I immediately turned 「Vision」 off.
“Try harder.”
After about five more minutes passed like that, the mages began groaning—nnngh—as if they were straining on the toilet, drooling from sheer concentration, bleeding from the nose, and staring so hard their eyes grew bloodshot, and yet…
My 「Psychokinesis」 repelled all of their interference.
It was then.
Tremble, tremble… A mana stone in the third row on the right began to shake. It was a clear, unmistakable movement.
I looked at the mana connected to that mana stone.
As expected, it was Sylvia. Having finished her interference, Sylvia had her head hanging low as she gasped for breath.
“Sylvia, good work. You’re first.”
Sylvia merely nodded without answering, and about three minutes later—
A second mana stone stirred.
“Next, Epherene.”
It was the moment last week’s first and last place had been reversed into first and second place. The other mages stared at Epherene in great shock.
“Hoo!”
Her face flushed bright red, Epherene took a deep breath and looked at Sylvia. Sylvia made a point of ignoring Epherene, who was smiling confidently despite the twin streams of blood running from her nose.
“There seem to be no others.”
I was bewildered. I hadn’t expected them to struggle this much.
No, it wasn’t merely difficult.
The mages, who had truly been trying hard enough to bleed, began one by one to groan and slam their heads down onto their desks.
Judging by their faces and complexions, they were in a grave state, almost on the verge of collapse.
“Stop.”
I had been wrong.
No matter how much they were mages, they were still Debutants. They might know more spells than I did, but they could not overcome me, who had invested everything solely into 「Psychokinesis」.
“Stop. Everyone, halt.”
I had set the difficulty incorrectly. Acknowledging my mistake, I immediately withdrew my psychokinesis, but the mages, who had fallen too deeply into concentration, groaned like zombies and collapsed from exhaustion.
“…”
I tried to say something to them, but the state of the lecture hall was a spectacle.
Drool and nosebleeds were smeared everywhere, and some strange, rank smell was beginning to creep in.
For a moment, my head grew slightly dizzy, and I lost my composure.
“Pathetic fools…”
A somewhat harsh remark slipped out before I knew it. The already heavy atmosphere sank even further.
Whatever the case, I no longer wanted to remain here.
“…It’s break time. Clean up what you spilled yourselves.”