Contents

Contents

Cover

Insert

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1 A First-Year Lady from the Empire

Interlude 1 An Encounter with Amethysts/An Encounter with Lightning

Chapter 2 Keym Village

Interlude 2 And the Conclusion

Chapter 3 The Young Imperial Lady Goes Astray

Chapter 4 The Hunt for the Divine Flower

Epilogue Letter

Extra Story The Old Days with Zeonly and Aion

Afterword

Yen Newsletter

Characters

The Magic City of Dirashik

Kunon Gurion

A genius sorcerer who is blind. Possesses a peculiar sense of chivalry.

Rinko Round

Kunon’s maid. Takes after her older sister, Iko.

Reyes Saint-Lance

Saint who lacks emotion. Exceptionally fond of plants.

Serraphila Quartz

Gioelion’s cousin and a new student at the magic school.

Bael Kirkington

Faction representative. Caring older brother type.

Elia Hesson

A beautiful girl with a one-sided crush on Bael.

Shilto Lockson

Faction representative. Powerful young woman also known as the “Lightning Bolt.”

Elva Daglight

A very pretty girl, at least until she starts an experiment…

Hank Beat

Kunon’s classmate. Currently studying bacon making.

Lulomet Gaines

Faction representative. Rare darkness magic user. Very thoughtful.

Cassis Hawk

A girl at heart. Possesses indomitable confidence in her looks.

Riyah Houghs

Kunon’s classmate. A country boy who finds cities a bit scary.

Gioelion

Second imperial prince of the Arcion Empire. Also known as the “Inferno Prince.”

Gray Rouva

The world’s greatest witch. Ageless and immortal.

Satori Glücke

A well-known water sorcerer and Kunon’s idol.

Soff Cricket

A wind sorcerer. Roughly the same age as Zeonly.

Clavis Saint-Lance

A deeply mysterious light magic sorcerer.

Keevan Brid

An earth sorcerer with a large build who specializes in agricultural research.

The Kingdom of Hughlia

Mirika Hughlia

The kingdom’s ninth princess and Kunon’s fiancée.

Grand Master Londimonde

The powerful head of the Royal Sorcerers.

Zeonly Finroll

Kunon’s second magic teacher. A magical engineer whose element is earth.

Prologue

Prologue

“Hey, old man. You enjoy your vacation?”

The elderly man smiled from ear to ear, ignoring his subordinate’s cynical tone.

“Yes! It was wonderful! Knowing I stole your spot made it all the more rewarding! Oh, I brought back some pastries as a souvenir. Share them with the others.”

Leave it to the man who’d ascended to the position of Grand Master—leader of the Royal Sorcerers—to be totally unfazed by the daggers the other man was glaring at him. That took a special kind of mental fortitude. He’d even managed to shamelessly hand over souvenirs.

Ten days. That was how long Grand Master Londimonde Achthard was gone on his little trip. And now he had finally returned to his office in the Black Tower, where he and the rest of the Royal Sorcerers resided.

He was normally forbidden from leaving Hughlia’s royal castle, but he’d managed to find a loophole in the law, using the king’s promise to a certain princess as an excuse to leave. Before anyone knew it, he was gone.

“You don’t say. I’m so happy for you,” the other man said indignantly. This was Zeonly Finroll. The known troublemaker was unhappy because the vacation Londimonde had just returned from was originally supposed to be his. The old man had stolen it from him.

Not that it was technically a vacation, of course.

Still, the Royal Sorcerers had greeted Londimonde with cold eyes, saying such things as, “Welcome back, Grand Master. Did you have fun without all of us?” “Oh, Grand Master. You were gone so long I thought you had been demoted to the boonies,” and “Who’s that old guy? He looks kinda like the Grand Master who quit a while back.”

Currently, Zeonly was in Londimonde’s office.

“Do you have anything to report?” the Grand Master asked, feeling that was enough joking around. Zeonly may have lost his vacation, but it was unlikely he’d come all the way to his office just to complain.

“Well, I wouldn’t really call it a report,” Zeonly said. “I just got an update I know you’ve been waiting on.”

“An update?”

“I got a letter from my pupil.”

“Oh, you heard from Kunon! Excellent!”

Londimonde had a fondness for troublemakers. Especially gifted ones.

Last year, Kunon Gurion—Marquess Gurion’s son—enrolled in magic school in the magic city of Dirashik. Rumors about him had been spreading ever since.

It sounded like he had become a problem child even his instructor Zeonly could be proud of. He was a slightly different brand of rascal, but he caused headaches all the same.

“He should have three months left of his first year,” said Londimonde. “Do you know if he’ll visit home?”

It was spring. The magic school year ended in summer, which meant he was still a first-year.

“I dunno. Anyway, the update—”

“Ooh, what did he do this time? I’m so excited!”

Londimonde’s eyes shone with anticipation, and Zeonly smiled proudly. He looked pleased with his pupil.

“He dueled an imperial prince and tied with him. You know, the one who enrolled last year?”

He could only be talking about one person: Gioelion, the Empire’s second prince and a hot topic of conversation among that country’s high society.

“The Inferno Prince! He intrigues me, too, but… Oh, I see! That certainly is impressive!”

Comprehension dawned on Londimonde.

Kunon was a two-star water user. He was also a year younger than the Inferno Prince. Furthermore, according to Zeonly, he still knew only beginner spells. The odds were clearly stacked against him.

And yet he dueled the Inferno Prince—a three-star fire user gifted enough to have learned advanced spells in his teens—and tied with him.

The fact he had the gall to challenge a prince from the Empire despite the gap in their social positions and the strength of their respective countries was almost as impressive as the result of the duel. That was the action of a true delinquent.

“Isn’t this kid the best?!” exclaimed Londimonde. “That’s exactly the kinda pluck a sorcerer should have!”

His actions showed a disregard for social rank and talent. He fought with nothing but the magic he worked tirelessly to master. That was very like a sorcerer.

“Kunon’s prospects grow ever brighter!” the Grand Master went on. “I believe he will only continue to impress! Please share any more updates you receive!”

“Sure thing. That’s not the only reason I’m here, though. How’s the princess doing?”

Technically, Londimonde’s trip wasn’t a vacation. He’d accompanied the ninth princess, Mirika, out of the capital to an area cleared for development and helped her with construction. He hadn’t spent the whole trip enjoying himself, though he had taken every opportunity to empty his mind and relax.

“If you’re curious, you should go, too,” he said.

“Huh? Can I?”

Royal Sorcerers were not permitted to leave the castle. They could get permission to venture into the capital, but no farther. That was a fundamental rule.

…That was why they were all treating the Grand Master so coldly for his ten-day excursion. He had just broken a highly restrictive rule the rest of them were still bound by.

Not that Londimonde cared what they thought.

“I consulted with His Majesty when I returned. I got him to promise two or three people could go at a time.”

The title of Grand Master didn’t count for nothing. It had appeared as though he’d stolen Zeonly’s spot out of pure selfishness, but he’d actually used the experience as a negotiating chip to earn the Royal Sorcerers more freedom.

He didn’t seem willing to elaborate, but…that was an impressive move.

“Land development is a large and difficult undertaking, and right now, Kunon is tied up at school. I got His Majesty to approve my request by suggesting we provide a little assistance in the boy’s place. Be careful not to push it too far, though. I don’t want you causing any trouble.”

Not that he’ll listen to me, Londimonde thought. Telling a troublemaker not to make trouble was like telling a fish not to swim.

Many more interesting pieces of news about Kunon’s first year at magic school had reached the capital.

He’d helped with the cultivation of a sacred herb.

He’d developed a new medicine.

He’d contrived a new method of exploring the ocean.

Each of these accomplishments inspired the desire to know more.

His achievements over the next few months were no less impressive.

He’d discovered new possibilities in hydroponics.

He’d been involved in the destruction of a school building.

He’d even invented fascinating magic tools such as the Medicine Boxes and the Spell Vault.

Time marched on as these rumors circulated around the capital, and at last, summer arrived.

The young troublemaker’s second year was about to begin.

Chapter 1. A First-Year Lady from the Empire

Kunon’s first year at magic school was finally over.

He and his classmates had acquired enough credits to advance, and after a summer break that was nearly one month long, their second year was set to begin.

“See you later,” Kunon said to his maid as he left the house.

The moment he set foot outside, the sun beat down upon him. It was going to be another punishingly hot day.

Most students went home during the month-long break, but Kunon continued his life as normal in the magic city of Dirashik. The Kingdom of Hughlia was too distant to justify returning.

Instead, Kunon went to school nearly every day. He wasn’t busy enough to stay overnight, but he had much he wanted to do there.

Patrons of Kunon’s sleep service who remained at school during the break had also requested he drop by on a regular basis. In fact, he’d almost gotten caught in the middle of a tedious fight between those of his customers who preferred the giant hairless rat and those who didn’t. Now, however, that was nothing but another summer memory.

Starting today, Kunon was a second-year student. There was no denying it. Still, he didn’t feel any different.

“Good morning. Oh my, I’m a lucky man. It’s not every day one is blessed with the sight of such a beautiful woman first thing in the morning. You look like an angel who descended from the heavens.

“Good morning. Your drooling is in top form today. That saliva possesses the aqueous beauty of a goddess’s tear— H-hey, not on my clothes! Get off me, you fallen angel!”

He greeted his neighbors like the gentleman he was, even sparing the same grace for the dogs as he skillfully dodged their enthusiastic tackles.

The ogre was still smooshed into the back alley, looking hale as ever. He hadn’t moved an inch; he was basically just a part of the scenery.

Kunon walked to school along the same roads he’d used during his first year. His mind went to the friends who’d left over summer break. Maybe I’ll see them today, he thought.

When he arrived at school, the sudden spike in traffic at his business made him abruptly aware that it really was the first day of the new academic year. After going to school every day during summer break, it was abundantly clear just how many more people there were on campus when school was in session. Regular customers from the previous year came to greet him and use the Sleep Sanctuary, trapping him in his laboratory all morning.

It was his first ordinary day at school in a month, and Kunon wanted to immediately greet the Saint, the rest of his classmates, the members of the three factions, and the Inferno Prince’s group, but that would have to wait.

“…Well, I guess that’s life at magic school.”

Every student was busy. Being unable to see your friends as often as you wanted was something everyone grew accustomed to.

After a hectic morning, Kunon finally found time in the afternoon to visit the Saint’s classroom.

“Oh, Kunon. Long time no see.”

The Saint Reyes was there waiting. The sight of her was the first thing that truly gave Kunon the sense the school year had begun. Not that he could actually see her.

Reyes had returned to the Holy Kingdom of Saint Lance over summer break, so they hadn’t met in a month. She and Kunon had spent a lot of time together during their first year collaborating on the sacred herb; only now did he realize how much he had missed her.

“Indeed, my venerable lady. I’m glad to see you’re well.”

“And I am relieved to see you are surviving the summer heat.”

It was actually autumn, but the temperature had yet to drop from the sweltering highs of summer.

“How was your visit home?” he asked.

“I was called back once before break, so it wasn’t particularly noteworthy.”

Reyes had returned to Saint Lance for a ritual in her hometown late during their first year. Kunon was extremely busy at the time developing the magic-containing box, so his memory of everything else was fuzzy. He might have gone a month without seeing her then, too.

But this reunion felt more special.

“How did you spend your break, Kunon?” she asked. “You stayed here, right?”

“Yep. I devoted most of my time to helping teachers and reading books. Not having to think about credits was really relaxing.”

The need for credits had felt quite restrictive the previous year—he couldn’t do anything without them weighing on his mind.

Acquiring credits had sounded so simple at first. How hard could it be to perform ten research projects in a year? he had thought. But he knew now just how challenging the system was.

“There you guys are.”

At that point, Kunon and Reyes’s classmates Hank Beat and Riyah Houghs entered the room. Kunon hadn’t seen them in a month, either. Well, he’d actually seen Riyah a week before—his hometown was also too distant to return home over break—but that was beside the point.

Riyah had spent the whole break working in Dirashik to send money back to his family. He and Kunon had eaten together a few times.

“We’re all second-years already. Time flies, huh?” Hank said.

“Yeah,” Riyah agreed. “We’ll finally have underclassmen.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.” Kunon had yet to meet any of the new students. He was used to everyone at the school being older than him, but that wouldn’t be the case any longer.

It had been a year since his enrollment. Kunon didn’t feel very different, but a lot of time had passed, and his surroundings were changing just as much as he was.

Kunon spent a while talking to his classmates, then headed out to visit the three factions’ bases. He was a member of all three and figured he should make the rounds and greet everyone. There were many acquaintances in the factions he hadn’t seen over summer break and was excited to reunite with. That included each of their representatives, of course.

“Hey, it’s been a while.”

First was Bael Kirkington, the representative of the Ability Faction. He’d returned from his trip a few days ago and had spent the small remainder of his summer break in the city with his friends. Kunon also met with Genevis and Elia Hesson before heading to the next location.

“A pleasure to see you again, Kunon.”

After that, he went to see Lulomet, the Rationality Faction representative. He had gone home as well and returned to Dirashik two weeks ago. That was news to Kunon; he would have invited Lulomet to lunch at least once if he had known he was in the city.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were back?” he asked. “I thought we were friends.”

Lulomet responded that he had spent the whole two weeks in his laboratory without even returning to his dorm. He’d been so immersed in his research that even other members of his faction didn’t know his whereabouts. He’d practically been a hermit.

After Lulomet, Kunon greeted Cassis and Sandra, who both responded with slightly annoyed expressions. He also said hello to Rhadio and Eushida—who responded normally—and then he moved on.

“Did you come to say hello? That’s nice and all, but have you cleaned your room?”

Kunon’s final visit was to Shilto Lockson, the Harmony Faction representative. He kept the meeting as brief as he could.

Have you cleaned your room?

Please. As if he would answer that question.

And that was how Kunon Gurion’s second year at magic school began.

“What happened during break?” said Kunon. “Nothing, really… Oh, right. School Building Eleven was rebuilt.”

It was the second day of the new academic year, and he was at Gioelion’s house for dinner.

Gioelion F’louvain Arcion, known to many as the Inferno Prince, was the second imperial prince of the Arcion Empire. Kunon had met him at the end of his second semester and the two had formed a lasting friendship. They hardly ever met at school anymore because of their busy schedules, so they met at Gioelion’s house two or three times a week instead.

Garthries Gadanthus and Ilhi Bolyle—Gioelion’s friends and bodyguards—were also at the dinner table, which was set with food from the Empire.

The house was a large mansion located in a wealthy residential district. Gioelion was only renting it, but it was a residence fit for royalty—spacious, with a great many rooms.

There were also eight servants! That was eight times as many as Kunon had. He imagined having eight of Iko or Rinko. Every day would be so much fun, he thought.

“Is that the building that was destroyed and turned into a forest?” Ilhi asked.

“It didn’t turn into a forest, exactly,” Kunon corrected him. “Large trees grew from inside it and tore it apart.”

Gioelion was a member of the Second Level class. The Building 11 Forestation Incident only concerned the Advanced class, so he hadn’t known the details.

Rumors had spread when the forest first appeared, but most students didn’t take it seriously. However, when the teachers said, “These things happen at magic school every once in a while,” everyone quickly accepted it. A few small incidents occurred every day, so it wasn’t hard to believe large incidents were normal as well.

The true culprit was the uncontrolled growth of the Sacred Tree, Kira Vera. Due to certain circumstances, Kunon had learned this before the others; the rest of the student body was still in the dark.

The newly reconstructed School Building 11 had been built in a new location, but the interior and layout were almost exactly the same, so its previous occupants had little trouble adapting.

The Saint had told Kunon only the day before how excited she was to start growing new plants. Not that it showed on her expressionless face, of course. She’d lost all the vegetation in her laboratory in the incident, but it seemed she had already overcome her pain.

In fact, her plants weren’t really lost; they had likely escaped their pots and begun growing wildly in the newly sprouted forest.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Gioelion said, his gaze drifting thoughtfully. “I went to look at it once and could tell it was no ordinary forest. I believe it spawned magically. It was a mystery to me otherwise, though.”

He really is sharp, Kunon thought.

The vegetation wasn’t summoned with a spell—the forest itself was magical.

It wasn’t surprising that Gioelion had arrived at that conclusion, if only vaguely. At the center of the forest was a Sacred Tree—a body of supernatural matter, or something very similar.

The forest was still off limits, but if Gioelion was able to investigate it up close, he would surely be able to confirm his theory.

“I am curious about how that forest spawned,” he said. “If those trees truly grew in one night, they could hold the key to revolutionizing the world’s food supply.”

Spoken like a true prince, thought Kunon.

“Yeah, good point…”

Kunon had been thinking along similar lines. He wouldn’t have to worry about it until after he graduated and returned to Hughlia, but it had been decided that he would be given some territory. He would have to provide food for his people, cultivate land, fend off invaders, and deal with weather and disease. He would likely also need to investigate the land and water quality.

Kunon wished he could focus solely on magic, but he also had to consider how he could apply the magic he learned. It would be a good idea to study spells that would be helpful for managing his territory.

Kunon was a sorcerer, and he wanted to take advantage of that. He still had much to learn.

“Your imperial etiquette is perfect,” said Gioelion.

Please, don’t be so formal.

You don’t have to worry about manners.

That was what Kunon had been told when he was first invited there for dinner. However, he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Gioelion. For that reason, he had been studying imperial table manners.

“Your praise honors me,” Kunon replied.

He knew Gioelion wasn’t fussy about such things. The prince had invited him back multiple times, after all. Even so, Kunon always asked Garth a question right before he left: How were my table manners?

Garth would respond by giving him advice, and after repeating that process enough times, Kunon had improved his etiquette quite significantly. Given what Gioelion just said, it seemed he didn’t need to ask that question anymore.

The magic city of Dirashik was a place where no one cared about social standing. At this table, however, they weren’t in Dirashik—they were in the Arcion Empire.

Dessert was served next, and conversation flourished. They enjoyed delicious black tea and baked confectioneries that weren’t too sweet.

Gioelion had plans later that night, so Kunon was going to leave as soon as they finished eating. Not wanting to waste any of their time together, the two immersed themselves in discussing magic.

They were having just as much fun as always until—

“Master Gio, are you sure you don’t want to talk about Lady Serra?”

—Garth abruptly interrupted them.

“It’s not like I’d forgotten,” Gioelion said.

He and Kunon had been excitedly discussing giant flying mice—which took to the air by flapping their ears—so there was a little annoyance in his voice when he spoke. However, he then realized they had been talking for so long their tea had grown cold. It was almost time to wrap things up.

“Kunon. A relative of mine has enrolled in the Advanced class.”

“Really?”

Kunon was surprised—even more surprised than he’d been when Gioelion almost started another schism in his consumer base by suggesting giant hairless rats with large ears.

“By ‘relative,’ do you mean a member of the imperial royal family?” asked Kunon.

“No. She’s a relative of my mother, who married into the family. She’s my cousin.”

Huh. A cousin.

“So that’s why she won’t be in Second Level like you.”

“Exactly.”

The Arcion Empire apparently forbade members of its royal family from entering the Advanced class to ensure they had plenty of time to study for their imperial duties.

“I could not be more jealous of her. I would have entered the Advanced class if I was allowed.”

“I also wish you could’ve been in the Advanced class… Anyway, thank you for the meal.”

Kunon stood up from his seat. Gioelion had plans, and he didn’t want to take up any more of his time. The prince was so busy that the only chance they had to converse was during dinner.

“I’m assuming you want me to watch over this fair lady cousin of yours?”

“She’s too young to be considered a ‘fair lady,’ I’m afraid. And yes, I would appreciate it if you looked after her—but only as much as you are able. I would especially like you to make sure she devotes herself to her magic studies.”

The final part of the prince’s request got Kunon’s attention.

“Is she not passionate about magic?” he asked.

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“Wow… Hmm.”

Kunon laughed. She had the knowledge and magical ability to make it into the Advanced class, yet she didn’t care about magic. That meant she had to be blessed with natural talent. If she started taking magic seriously, just how incredible a sorcerer would she become?

“I’d be excited to meet her even if she wasn’t your cousin!” Kunon said.

His first encounter with Serraphila Quartz, Gioelion’s cousin, would come a few days later.

On the way to school, Kunon encountered the Saint stepping out of Building 11, wearing her usual dazzling white robe. She had a large shovel in her left hand, a basket on her right arm, and a straw hat on her head. Her divine appearance made an ordinary shovel and basket look like holy relics.

When she saw Kunon, she said, “I’m going to the forest to find and retrieve my sacred herbs.”

She could only mean one forest: the one growing around the Sacred Tree, Kira Vera. The collection of seeds and plants from her former classroom were likely growing among the trees, and the sacred herbs were no exception.

“Oh, I wanna go, too,” Kunon said immediately. That sounded like so much fun he wanted to cancel all his plans for the day and accompany her.

The forest was still off-limits. Not even Advanced class students were allowed to enter it, so the Saint would be accompanied by members of the faculty.

“Wait, wasn’t the shi-shilla already recovered?”

“Yes, it was.”

Kunon had walked all the way to the newly built Building 11, but he ended up accompanying the Saint instead of going inside. He needed a teacher’s permission to enter the forest, however, so Reyes couldn’t approve his entry herself. He’d just have to discuss it with the faculty directly when they arrived.

“It seems there was some trouble with my home country over the summer,” the Saint said.

According to her, the Holy Kingdom had aggressively contacted the magic school over the long break, saying things such as “The Kira Vera belongs to our country, so give it to us,” and “We want to confirm it’s the genuine article, so we demand you let an expert from our country investigate the site.” It had been a constant barrage. Reyes hadn’t heard any of this until she returned to school, despite having been at home during the break.

Kunon had expected as much from the Holy Kingdom, but it seemed that was only the beginning.

“The school rejected all their demands,” Reyes continued.

That’s not surprising, thought Kunon. He had heard Dirashik spurned almost all political interference, and that seemed to be true.

This was Gray Rouva’s domain, and the witch had single-handedly protected the city from invasion for many long years. She wasn’t going to give up the Kira Vera, no matter how much the Holy Kingdom wanted it. Not even an enormous sum of money would convince her.

“Saint Lance expected that response, however. They gave up on asking for the Kira Vera and instead provided a variety of seeds for sacred herbs, a divine flower, and more, and asked the school to try growing them in the forest.”

“Whoa, that’s generous.”

Kunon was surprised the Holy Kingdom was willing to share such valuable seeds. He was especially taken aback to hear they’d offered up a divine flower.

Sacred herbs were rare, but you could obtain them by going to a land where they were grown. Divine flowers, however, were different. They were a mythical plant as rare as Kira Vera. Most people would go a lifetime without seeing one.

“Professor Sureyya and Professor Keevan planted those seeds over the summer.”

“They did?!”

Kunon felt a surge of excitement. He had told Reyes he wanted to accompany her on instinct, but this was sounding even more fun than he’d expected.

“What happened? Did they grow? Have you seen the divine flower? Have you observed it? Also, you’re just as attractive as ever today. What’s the secret to your beauty?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

Was that in response to my questions about the plants, Kunon wondered, or about the secret to her beauty?

If Kunon had planted those seeds, he would have gone to observe them every day. This was a rare opportunity to document the growth of some very interesting plants, and he wasn’t about to pass it up.

Professors Sureyya and Keevan were surely doing as he would have done. They loved vegetation even more than Kunon did, after all. There was no way they weren’t looking after such rare specimens.

“I was told the herbs disappeared from the place they were planted.”

“Huh?” Kunon was baffled. How could that have happened? “That sounds like a problem…”

They had planted the precious seed of a divine flower and lost it. The sacred herbs weren’t an issue—they could always buy more of them. Divine flowers were another story. They were so rare that for most people, they existed only in ancient texts, myths, and fairy tales.

“Yes, it is. Hence why I am going to search for them.”

The lack of expression on her face made it look like she was going out for an ordinary stroll. Perhaps this was how she expressed panic. She was, after all, aware of the gravity of the situation. But to Kunon, she seemed as calm as ever.

“Aww, that’s too bad.”

Kunon followed the Saint to the edge of the forest, but when they found Professor Sureyya and Professor Keevan, they did not give him permission to accompany them.

“This is a mysterious forest in which plants are disappearing and moving without explanation,” they said. “It could be dangerous for anyone without a light or an earth attribute.”

The teachers rejected him for his own safety. Students couldn’t be allowed into the forest when the mystery of the Kira Vera was yet to be solved—that was the magic school’s stance.

Sureyya and Keevan gave Reyes permission to accompany them because she was a light magic user and a saint. They thought she might be able to help them find the missing sacred herbs and the divine flower.

The forest would probably be opened to all students one day, but that was still a ways off.

“Oh well. Search with extra zeal for my sake, Miss Reyes,” said Kunon.

“Understood. I will give it my all.”

With her divine farming tools in hand, the Saint disappeared into the forest with the two teachers. Kunon saw them off—even though he couldn’t see them—and began to walk back the way he’d come.

“A divine flower, huh?”

Somewhere in that forest, a mythical plant might be sprouting. Just imagining it excited him. He hoped the others would find it.

Little did he know, Saint Reyes was about to go missing for a number of days.

“What kind of gentleman makes a lady wait?”

“Ah, my apologies.”

When Kunon reached his classroom in Building 11, he found a girl waiting by his door. She was about the same size as Kunon, which suggested she was around his age.

His first assumption was that she was an impatient customer wanting to use the Sleep Sanctuary, but…

“You’re just as described. I was told you were a dashing gentleman with an eye mask. That can only be you.”

She had indigo hair, the shade of the ocean’s depths, and powerful blue eyes. She didn’t look much like his friend, but Kunon knew who she was as soon as he saw the look in her eyes.

“Are you Gioelion’s lovely cousin?” Kunon asked.

The girl gave him a graceful curtsy. “Yes—allow me to introduce myself, Mr. Kunon. My name is Serraphila.”

It was a beautiful curtsy, but something else had caught Kunon’s attention.

“…Incredible.”

He was staring at the object behind her.

Serraphila was possessed by a large crystal that branched out in all directions.

“I’m glad Cousin Gio made a friend. He has many supporters, but only because of his position. He’s also an overly serious bore and comes off as cold, so he usually doesn’t make a good first impression with kids his age.”

Kunon had let Serraphila into his laboratory. She grumbled, “Would it kill you to do a little cleaning?” but he ignored her and led her to a table.

He left the door ajar—neither thought that a boy and a girl who’d just met should be together in a locked room. One might argue children shouldn’t need to worry about such a thing, but they were a full-fledged gentleman and lady. To them, it was the sensible thing to do.

“I heard you’re his maternal relative,” said Kunon.

“Yes, I am. Cousin Gio’s mother married into the imperial royal family. My mother is her little sister.”

“Oh, I see.”

The fact Gioelion’s mother had married into royalty must mean she was from a high-ranking noble family. They were at magic school, however. Differences in age and social standing had no bearing on magic, so Kunon decided not to ask about it.

“You entered the Advanced class, right? Gioelion is really jealous,” he said.

“Tell me about it. I would’ve been fine with Second Level, personally.”

Serraphila sighed sadly. She wore a somber, ladylike expression. Not that Kunon could see it.

“Just dealing with credits is difficult enough, but we need to earn our own living expenses, too, right? Is that what you’re doing, Mr. Kunon?”

Kunon’s heart fluttered slightly in response to a younger girl calling him “Mr. Kunon” and seeking his advice.

“Indeed I am. You may not think it by looking at me, but I am earning my way.”

“That’s wonderful. A lavish income befits a fine gentleman.”

Kunon wasn’t sure he’d call his income “lavish,” but he made enough to live comfortably.

“Well, I am a gentleman.”

But it was an undeniable truth that he was a gentleman, so he allowed it.

“Only a gentleman is worthy of your presence, my fair lady. That’s why I strive to act with the utmost courtesy: You’re gorgeous, like starlight come to life, and it would be a shame if I couldn’t share your company.”

“Wow, you’re a flatterer.” Serraphila laughed. “But this means I have to find a job, too. I must say, I’m not thrilled at the idea of a lady having to work.”

That way of thinking was understandable coming from a high-ranking noble girl. In the Kingdom of Hughlia, noble girls were expected to protect their family’s name, form amicable relations with other nobles, and find and support a husband. Kunon’s own mother, Tinalisa, was a housewife. Things probably weren’t too different in the Arcion Empire.

“There’s nothing wrong with a lady working,” said Kunon. “My tutor when I was a child was a young noblewoman.”

“Oh, really?” Serraphila asked. “Women are encouraged to work in your country?”

“I don’t know if they’re encouraged to. But this is magic school, where social standing is irrelevant. The leader here is the world’s greatest witch, who possesses no peerage whatsoever. Royalty means nothing to her.”

She was known as the greatest witch in the world and a master of magic, but those were the closest things Gray Rouva had to titles. She didn’t have any actual political authority; her power as a witch was simply unparalleled.

“Truly? I suppose I must strive to change my mindset.”

Serraphila’s style of speaking conveyed her noble upbringing, but she seemed to have the flexibility to adapt to her surroundings.

“Anyway…”

Kunon decided it was time to move this conversation along.

Their discussion so far had just been small talk—an appetizer, if you would. It was time to serve the main dish, and his favorite one at that.

“What’s your attribute, and how many stars do you have? What are your best spells and what kind do you like? Oh, I’m also curious to hear what your favorite attribute is other than your own. What do you want to study here? Have you been to the library yet? You’ll never believe how many books it has. You’ll be truly shocked—I certainly was. Then I got super excited. There are even reports there that haven’t made it into books. You’ll never have the time to read them all. It’s so amazing!” Kunon gushed.

“Hee-hee.” Serraphila giggled. “Oh, Mr. Kunon. It is decidedly ungentlemanly to ask so many questions of a lady at once.”

“Huh? It is?”

“Well, I suppose the fact you’re able to do so with such grace is proof you are indeed a gentleman fit for a white stallion.”

A white stallion certainly would suit me, Kunon thought. He was the inspiration for the fairy-tale trope of a prince on a white horse. At least, that was what he told people.

“My attribute is earth. I’m a three-star. I don’t have any spells I’m particularly good at. I’m equally proficient at all the ones I’ve learned. And… What else did you ask? Oh, yes. My favorite attribute. Wind intrigues me. It would be quite convenient for drying my hair. I haven’t been to the library yet. I am interested, of course… I’m curious to see why it shocked you. I look forward to paying it a visit.”

Though Serraphila answered all his questions sincerely, her responses convinced Kunon of one thing: She was definitely not passionate about magic. Gioelion was right.

If she were devoted to magic, her eyes would have lit up as soon as he broached the subject. She would have gushed excitedly, unable to get the words out of her mouth fast enough. She would have shared every thought that came to her mind without giving Kunon a chance to speak or checking to see if she was boring him.

Kunon and Gioelion both behaved that way when discussing magic, which was probably why they got along so well. They matched each other’s pace and were always interested in what the other had to say. It was impossible for them to spend time together without enjoying themselves.

“An earth element, huh?” he said. “That’s great.”

Serraphila had a giant unpolished crystal behind her back. Most crystals were minerals, so he’d assumed she was probably an earth user.

So far, all the fire and earth users Kunon had seen were followed around by land animals, which made him think this crystal might be some kind of living creature…

But he could observe it more carefully later. He couldn’t see the part of the crystal that was behind her back, so he’d have to get a look at it when she didn’t know he was watching her.

“Really? As a lady, I’m not exactly thrilled about being able to play with mud. I don’t mean to belittle earth magic. I’m just talking about personal taste.”

That’s it, Kunon thought.

That was the reason she wasn’t passionate about magic. It was because she thought “playing with mud” was unladylike. She thought her attribute didn’t suit her as a person.

“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “No attribute suits a lady better than earth.”

“Ha. Surely you jest. I’m not a child who spends her time frolicking in sandboxes. Earth is not for me.”

“You think so? Then would you humor me for a moment?”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen to what I have to say and tell me again that you have no interest in ‘playing with mud,’ as you put it. Fair warning, I’m going to do my best to convince you of your attribute’s appeal.”

Kunon was still a beginner who stood on the precipice of magic’s potential, but there was one thing he knew to be true: The world of magic was so vast and deep, it would be presumptuous for him to believe he could sum up its appeal by himself.

But playing with mud? Playing with sand? Magic was far too impressive to be dismissed so casually.

“…Mr. Kunon, your smile is scaring me. You have indecent intentions, don’t you?” Serraphila said accusingly, and Kunon laughed.

You could say that, he thought.

“I’m just so excited to watch you be seduced by the charm of magic that I can hardly stand it.”

“That boy is dangerous,” Serraphila said to her cousin.

Gioelion had asked if she’d been able to meet Kunon.

He’d invited her over, and they were sitting at his dinner table. She’d chosen to rent a nearby house instead of living in the dorm.

Upon his recommendation, she’d met his friend Kunon Gurion earlier that day and had come to tell him how it went. Gioelion had likely invited her for just that reason.

She’d met Kunon. Her visit had been brief, but they’d had a full conversation.

A full conversation from which she was still recovering.

“He said he was going to seduce me with the charm of magic, whether I liked it or not…”

Just the memory of the look in his eyes sent a chill down her spine. Well, she couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel the intensity of his will and gaze even through the eye mask.

“Whether you liked it or not?” Gioelion repeated.

“Then he started telling me about all these incredibly interesting things. I pleaded for him to stop, saying I didn’t want to hear it, but he just kept going, as if he was a slave to his desires. He was like an animal.”

Ilhi Bolyle, who was also at the table, burst out laughing upon hearing the word “animal.”

“I know just what you mean,” she said. “He always gets like that when he talks about magic.”

“Personally,” Garthries Gadanthus added, “I think the funniest part is that you ran away.”

He was right—Serraphila had run away. She’d stood up, given Kunon a curtsy, and with her hands still on her skirt, sprinted from the classroom like a fleeing rabbit.

It wasn’t easy for a child, even one as graceful as her, to maintain a ladylike appearance while lifting her skirt and running at full speed.

“This is no laughing matter,” she said. “I haven’t sprinted like that in a long time. He might never have stopped talking… I would have been in real danger if I hadn’t run. I could feel myself being seduced by magic, just as he’d said I would be…”

She wouldn’t have said that if she weren’t already seduced.

I knew Kunon could do it, Gioelion thought. To think he would pull it off so quickly.

His friend had thrown his calm and mature cousin’s heart into disarray with just one meeting.

“Is there a problem with being interested in magic?” he asked. “You just enrolled in magic school, after all.”

What was the problem with being seduced by magic? There was no better place to learn, so she might as well let herself get excited.

“There are steps to this, Cousin Gio.”

“Steps?”

“I have a feeling I will surrender myself to magic eventually. I’m sure there is much to earth magic I don’t know and will be interested to learn about.”

She might, admittedly, already be interested…

The things Kunon told her about were quite fascinating, however…

“But this is too fast. I just entered school. It will take more than one conversation to win me over. I can’t let people think Quartz women are so easy,” Serraphila said. “I want to start by exchanging letters. Then we’ll gradually begin to speak in person, until one day when our hands happen to brush… There’s an order to these things. Holding hands right away would be improper.”

Gioelion couldn’t follow her logic. She was clearly comparing becoming interested in magic to the courting customs of nobles, but that made no sense. Allowing herself to get invested in magic now would only save her time.

But Ilhi said, “Spoken like a true maiden.”

Maybe this is just a girl thing, he thought.

…Or was it? Ilhi was a pretty eccentric person, so he wasn’t sure if her idea of maiden-like behavior was entirely accurate.

“What exactly did Kunon tell you?” he said.

“I’m so glad you asked, Brother. First, he told me about…”

Serraphila began to speak of her conversation with Kunon. She gushed with true excitement in her voice.

Sure enough, it looked like she had been seduced already.

“Incredible…”

Kunon was dumbfounded.

Serraphila had just dashed out of his classroom.

She’d run away with impressive speed. She’d stood up and bowed, and she was gone like the wind before he knew it. He had never seen a girl sprint before. Well, he hadn’t actually seen it, but that was beside the point.

“Hmm…”

Kunon pondered what had just happened. Serraphila, who had been sitting across from him moments before, was gone from the room. She had fled.

That meant…

“I’ll have to make sure she can’t escape next time.”

How could he accomplish that?

All Kunon had done was talk about the appeal of earth magic. She’d grumbled a little, but he’d paid that no mind and simply kept talking.

As the words “earth magic” implied, the attribute’s spells primarily concerned dirt. However, the element’s scope was much greater than just that. You could play with mud and sand, as Serraphila had put it, but that was only scratching the surface.

For example, minerals were part of the earth attribute as well. A seasoned earth sorcerer could freely wield not only dirt, but also minerals—and by extension, metal.

Kunon’s instructor, Zeonly, was an earth user, so he was very familiar with the attribute. As the man’s student, he’d had many chances to observe earth magic up close. He found it so attractive that if he had to choose an attribute other than water, he might go with earth.

He’d found himself thinking that again while developing the magic-containing box. The upperclassmen who’d helped him—representative Bael from the Ability Faction, Elva from Harmony, and Rhadio from Rationality—had greatly impressed him with their abilities.

That was why he had so many things to say about earth magic. There was much he would like to try if he were an earth user. He wasn’t, of course, but that only made him more excited to discuss it.

Serraphila proved unable to handle his gentlemanly passion, however, ultimately leading to her flight.

Next time, he wouldn’t let her get away.

“…I think I know what to do.”

Kunon had told her about dreams he was incapable of achieving. Asking an actual earth user to talk about their dreams would be much more effective.

“Okay, time to find Miss Elva.”

She would be able to talk to Serraphila about the appeal of earth magic from a feminine perspective. Kunon suspected she could easily keep going for over a day.

Kunon quickly made his way to a squat little tower—the Harmony Faction’s base of operations.

“Huh? Kunon?”

“Kunon?”

“Oh, it’s Kunon.”

A number of girls and boys chirped at him like little birds as he approached the tower.

Kunon chose to respond to the most familiar first.

“What are you doing here, surrounded by a group of lovely girls who sparkle like morning dew?”

The voice belonged to his classmate, Hank Beat.

“It’s a coincidence that they’re all girls,” Hank said.

He was telling the truth—he was the only boy in the group, but that was by chance. They were gathered busily by the tower’s entrance.

“What are you doing?” asked Kunon.

“Preparing for an expedition,” Hank replied.

“An expedition? Are you going somewhere far away?”

“Not really. We’ll be visiting a lot of different places. Basically, we’re traveling to collect materials for research and experiments. We’re going to get enough to last the members of the Harmony Faction half a year. Most of us are going on the trip, so it’ll be a big operation.”

I see, Kunon thought.

“So the members of Harmony will be sharing the materials.”

“To an extent, yeah.”

That was very like this faction, which attracted students who valued cooperation. The other factions mostly consisted of strong-willed individuals who typically gathered what they needed themselves. But in Harmony, everyone worked together. Kunon had never had a problem with providing for himself, but…

“If our Advanced class had more than ten students, gathering materials would be a lot easier.”

He already knew ten Advanced students working together were capable of exploring even the ocean. Hank and the others would face no issues on their expedition with so many helpers.

“Yeah, I guess… Anyway, what are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re coming along.”

Kunon technically belonged to all three factions, so he could join them if he wanted.

“It sounds really fun,” he said, “but I’m here for a different matter.”

Going on the expedition would take Kunon away from Dirashik for a number of days. If he slept away from home, he would need to take his maid to serve him. He couldn’t make a decision like that on the spot. Besides, he’d come for a different reason.

“Is the lovely Miss Elva around? I came to see her.”

“She is, but she’s busy preparing.”

“Really? What to do, then…?”

Kunon didn’t want to get in her way. But he couldn’t think of another earth user he could entrust Serraphila with. He knew some male earth users, but telling Serraphila to spend time with a boy she didn’t know would probably make her uncomfortable, so he wanted to ask a girl.

He decided to see how busy Elva was and discuss the matter with her if he could. If now wasn’t a good time, he would try again later. Perhaps he should invite her to lunch while he was at it.

Having decided on a course of action, Kunon left Hank and the girls and stepped inside the tower.

Kunon looked for Elva as girls he knew called out to him.

“Hello, Kunon.”

He found Elva among a group of people organizing inventory in a storehouse.

“Good morning, Miss Elva. You illuminate this dark room like the stars illuminate the night sky.”

“Why, thank you. You’re ever the gentleman.”

Nearby students shot them cold looks, but they didn’t pay any mind. Kunon also didn’t care that he’d said “illuminate” twice.

Elva had cleaned up her look; she must not have been performing all-nighters lately. The most beautiful girl in the Harmony Faction was in top form.

“You look busy,” said Kunon. “I have a small matter I would like to discuss with you, but if now isn’t a good time, my beautiful princess, I’ll come back another day.”

“A small matter? Depends on what it is. Unfortunately, I can’t do anything time-consuming right now. But I’ll hear you out if it’s something I can do for you on the spot.”

“Umm… How should I put this…?”

Kunon gave the situation some thought. Elva and the others seemed really busy. He was already taking up her time simply talking to her. It would be best to keep his explanation brief. In that case…

“I was hoping you would be willing to teach a new student who doesn’t know earth magic very well the appeal of the attribute.”

The girls around them spoke up before Elva could reply.

“You should do it,” one told her.

“We can manage without you for a little while.”

“Go talk to them. This is a perfect opportunity.”

“Sounds like an easy mark… I mean, we upperclassmen should be kind to new students who haven’t found their footing. That’s right; it’s our duty as upperclassmen.”

Without hesitation, they all encouraged her to talk to the first-year. Kunon was impressed by their kindness.

“A new student… Huh… You said they don’t understand the appeal of earth magic? Hmm…”

Elva’s beautiful face took on the look of a majestic carnivore that had just spotted some prey. It made her even more alluring.

“Are you sure I’m the right girl for the job?” she asked. “I have to warn you: Once this first-year awakens to the appeal of earth magic, there will be no going back. Is that really okay?”

Kunon laughed.

The pair’s seemingly innocent demeanor was characteristic of sorcerers.

“Of course,” he said. “Earth magic isn’t unique in that regard; no one can be exposed to the appeal of magic without being seduced by it.” Kunon had no ill will as he spoke. Perhaps that made it worse.

“Yeah. One can say whatever they want, but the body doesn’t lie,” Elva said.

“She might fight you at first, but you just have to keep banging her with the appeal of magic until she gives in.”

“I like it when they’re a little resistant. That makes it more fun.”

They both smiled wickedly.

Their conversation sounded more than a little disturbing, but that wasn’t a problem. Not in the slightest. All the other students in the storehouse were wearing the exact same smile.

There was no one in the Advanced class who hadn’t been seduced by magic.

Kunon quickly discussed plans with Elva, then he left the tower.

All in all, it had taken much less time than he’d expected.

But shortly after walking outside, he encountered a sight that jettisoned all else from his mind.

“Huh? What’s this?”

When Kunon arrived at the tower, Hank and the rest of his group had been by the entrance. He’d realized they were doing something, but he hadn’t asked for specifics.

What was this thing?

“Did you get what you needed?” Hank asked after spotting him.

“What is this, Hank?” Kunon replied without answering.

He wasn’t even sure how to describe the object before him. It was a large metal…thing.

“Wow, not even you know what this is?”

Kunon did not. And that was exactly what had him so excited.

“It’s a flying vehicle called a magic airship.”

A magic airship. Now that Kunon thought about it, it was shaped like a ship, but without cabins or a mast. It looked like a metal zucchini.

“Wow, really?! I’ve heard about this!”

He couldn’t remember when, but Zeonly had once told him about such a thing.

I’ve made really large magic tools as well. I once lent my genius intellect to help craft an airship.

He’d explained that it was literally what it sounded like: a ship that flew through the air.

At the time, Kunon was too focused on the idea of a flying ship to ask where it was or what it was being used for.

Now he had the answer. It was right there. He wondered what circumstances had led to its construction.

He’d found yet another mark his instructor had left during his days as a student at the school.

“That’s my teacher for you,” Kunon said. He was awestruck.

Hank allowed Kunon to inspect the interior of the magic airship. It was a mostly empty space, constructed of uncovered metal like the outside. The hollow’s purpose was to provide room for cargo and passengers. The magic airship was essentially being used as a freighter. The designers had probably minimized the number of parts as well, since assembly was required.

The airship had no chairs. That was to maximize cargo space, which was clearly the priority over human comfort. The only furnishings were hooks for keeping freight in place. There was nothing in the way of decoration.

“Hank, is the floor removable?” asked Kunon.

“You mean the tiles?”

“There must be a magic circle, right? I want to see it.”

“I had a feeling this would catch your interest.”

At Kunon’s request, Hank removed one of the metal tiles on the floor. There was indeed a magic circle underneath. This ship was made like a typical magic tool.

The structure was quite big, but…

“…It’s surprisingly simple.”

Making such efficient technology was an artform. The ship looked complex at first glance, but it actually wasn’t. That was what made it tasteful. All unnecessary elements had been stripped away so that every part served a purpose. It was elegant in its simplicity.

Zeonly had made this when he was about Kunon’s age. There was a reason everyone called him a genius, including the man himself.

Over the last year, Kunon had found various traces of Zeonly’s troublemaking at the magic school, but he had discovered many of his great accomplishments as well. The man was clearly a standout student in more ways than one. It all seemed very like him.

“I don’t know much about magic tools,” said Hank, “but the size of this thing is really impressive.”

Hank shared what he had learned about the machine. According to him, it was made a number of years ago in a joint effort by the entire Harmony Faction. Multiple prototypes were constructed, and this was deemed the most complete.

It was a magic tool that allowed people to fly through the sky like birds, regardless of their attribute. All one needed to power it was magic. The appeal of the concept was obvious. No small number of Advanced class students and teachers must have dreamed of making such a device. That was how it had come to be.

It had impressive loading capacity, speed, and safety. The exterior made it look like a crude fishing boat, but it was capable of so much more than that. It clearly boasted a higher degree of perfection than any flying magic tool made before it. It put all prior airships to shame.

“The Advanced class is amazing,” Kunon said.

Now that he thought about it, this magic airship was far from the only incredible thing this school’s students had built. The bases used by each of the factions were marvelous achievements as well.

The Ability Faction had a recreation of an ancient castle from a fallen country. It was so massive that exploring every nook and cranny of the building would take a whole day.

Rationality used an underground facility leftover from an attempt by past students to make an artificial dungeon. It extended so far underground that nobody knew how many floors it had.

As for Harmony’s squat tower… Kunon didn’t know much about it, but he figured it was the work of the Advanced class, too.

“You’ve got that right,” Hank agreed. “I wasted ages working as a teacher’s assistant because I was determined to join the Harmony Faction. And I knew I couldn’t do that unless I made it into the Advanced class.”

Hank’s cautious nature had led him to put off taking the entrance exam for years. As a result, he hadn’t officially enrolled until he was eighteen. He was already an adult.

“I don’t think those years were a waste. You ended up getting in, after all,” Kunon said. Age was irrelevant for sorcerers. Kunon didn’t care that Hank was eighteen, but… “Since we’re classmates, you’d better not expect me to treat you like an upperclassman.”

“That’s fine with me.”

Hank wasn’t aware Kunon had ever considered their age gap. The younger boy had spoken to him as a friend from the moment they met.

“I will definitely not be calling you ‘Mr. Hank.’”

“Why’re we having this conversation now?”

They were already in their second year. There was no use worrying about how they spoke to each other at this point.

After sufficiently admiring his instructor’s work, Kunon left the ship and found Shilto—the Harmony Faction representative—standing outside it. She must have been helping with the preparation, too.

“Are you coming along?” she asked after Kunon greeted her.

“I would love to, but it’s all a little sudden…” Kunon looked pained.

He wanted to ride the airship, and the trip itself sounded like a blast. It would certainly be an interesting experience.

But the new school year had just started. It would be one thing if the trip were only one or two days, but knowing it would take around two weeks made him hesitant. He felt like there were other things he should be doing with his time. If he had been given at least a week of warning, he might have gone. Or if the trip had been a month later. That would have given him time to get ready.

“You’re leaving tomorrow, right?” he asked.

“Yep. Tomorrow morning… Sounds like you can’t go, huh?”

“It would be a little difficult. I wish I could, though.”

“I understand. It was short notice.”

Crying in his heart, Kunon decided not to go on the expedition.

One day later…

“Delivery!”

…a letter arrived at Kunon’s classroom.

“Thank you.”

He took it from the messenger, looked at the sender’s name, and immediately set about opening it.

The letter was from Elva Daglight, the girl he’d spoken to the day before.

Could it be an invitation for a date? Or perhaps something to do with Serraphila?

Elva should have left with the expedition that morning. Did she write this just before her departure, or had she written it yesterday?

Kunon supposed that hardly mattered. He was curious about the letter’s contents, so he set down his book, opened the envelope, and read it.

“…That was fast,” he muttered.

The letter was brief. It said simply, “I’m taking Serraphila with me on the expedition.”

In less than a day, Elva had taken Serraphila under her wing.

I’m sure she’ll be seduced by the time she returns, Kunon thought.

Interlude 1. An Encounter with Amethysts/An Encounter with Lightning

Just after Serraphila walked through the school gate, someone addressed her with a crystal-clear voice.

“Are you Serraphila?”

Yes, I am.

She could have turned around and answered immediately, but that would have been inelegant.

Instead, she waited half a moment before moving. It was important for an imperial lady to avoid disturbing her skirt, her hair, or her hat. Not that she was wearing a hat that day.

Serraphila slowly turned around, according to imperial etiquette—and froze.

The girl before her was pretty and had an attention-grabbing figure. But most stunning of all were her eyes. They shone like clear amethysts.

Serraphila had never witnessed such gorgeous irises. She had seen many different types of beautiful people in her life. But none could compare to the person who faced her. The girl was the most radiant person she had ever met.

“My name is Serraphila,” she said. “Who are you, my stunning, amethyst-eyed beauty?”

“Oh, uh… I’m Elva.”

“Miss Elva… Understood. I shall carry that name in my heart until the day I die.”

“Oh really…”

Elva cleared her throat so she could start over. She was thrown off by how similarly the girl behaved to the boy with the eye mask who’d given her this request.

She’d just have to adjust her expectations. A lot of sorcerers were eccentric; a quirky personality was no reason to avoid someone.

“Kunon asked me to look after you. You know him, right?”

“Yes. He is a wonderful gentleman who wears an eye mask.”

“Yeah, he’s a gentleman, all right. He told me about you, hoping I would take you under my wing as a fellow earth sorcerer.”

Thank you, Kunon! I’m eternally grateful!

The lady’s education Serraphila had received trained her to never let a speck of emotion show on her face. Imperial ladies were modest and never betrayed their feelings unless the situation truly called for it.

“You’ll observe me in close detail, won’t you?!” This time, however, a smidge of excitement might have slipped into her expression.

Elva smiled gracefully. “Uh, sure. Yeah, I’ll do that. Anyway, wanna come with me?”

“Yes! I’d follow a lovely lady like you anywhere!” Perhaps a little emotion had poked through, too.

Elva smiled, satisfied.

“What is this…?!”

It turned out Elva’s beautiful countenance and amethyst eyes weren’t the only surprises Serraphila was in for that day.

The giant ship before her took her breath away as well.

The lack of a mast to catch wind or a figurehead to prevent disaster on the open seas made it look incomplete. But it was undeniably a ship.

As expected of magic school. This place was full of surprises even for Serraphila, a full-fledged imperial lady.

The lovely Elva had taken her to a stout tower. It wasn’t tall, but it was a large building.

What is this place? she wondered.

It didn’t look like a school building… But that hardly mattered.

“This device is called a magic airship. It can fly,” Elva explained.

“It can fly?! You mean, like, through the heavens?!”

The ship sitting before the tower was much more shocking.

“That’s right. I’m about to leave with my factio—er, friends—on an expedition to gather materials for magic. We do this at the beginning of every school year.”

“That sounds fun.”

So this girl was going to spend time with her friends.

As a lady from a high-ranking noble family, Serraphila wasn’t too accustomed to such experiences. She had hoped she might find the opportunity to change that at this school.

“Do you wanna come, too, Serraphila?”

“Yes, absolutely!” There was no way she could turn down an invitation from Elva!

“Oh, really?”

Elva hadn’t expected her to say yes. She had only offered in the flow of conversation, meaning it as a joke. She certainly hadn’t foreseen such an immediate answer.

“We’ll be gone for about two weeks. Are you okay with that?”

“Oh… That might be difficult…”

That was less than ideal. Serraphila hadn’t done anything to prepare for a trip. She didn’t have luggage, a change of clothes, or any daily necessities. Even more troubling, she hadn’t said anything to her servants.

She may have been an imperial lady, but she was still a child. She would need permission before she could leave on a trip that would require her to sleep away from home. Especially when that trip would last two weeks.

“I want to go with you, and I’m really interested in this ship, but I suppose I can’t go on a trip like this on such short notice. I’d really like to, though…”

“Don’t worry. I figured you wouldn’t be able to.”

Elva had only been joking, after all. Now she regretted asking and making Serraphila feel bad.

But a moment later, everything changed.

“We’re about to leave, Elva.”

“…!”

A girl with a ponytail approached them. The sight of her shocked Serraphila speechless.

She was gallant and projected strength reminiscent of a bolt of lightning. Her azure eyes weren’t the strong blue of the imperial family’s— they were somehow more ephemeral. And yet those soft eyes belied their owner’s indomitable aura.

“…Hm? Who’s this?”

The girl’s azure gaze turned toward Serraphila, whose heart fluttered.

Those soft irises housed obvious strength. Serraphila was dazzled by the mysterious contrast.

“She’s a new student named Serraphila,” replied Elva. “I brought her here on Kunon’s recommendation. Should I not have?”

“No, it’s fine. The timing is bad, though. We’re about to leave on our expedition.”

They were leaving. That meant it was already time to say goodbye…

“I’m going!” Serraphila shouted before she knew what she was doing. “Please let me join you!”

Chapter 2. Keym Village

Kunon’s business finally calmed down around midday.

“That’s good enough for now.”

Kunon nodded and put down his pen.

The reason he hadn’t gone on Harmony’s expedition—despite wanting to—was on the table before him.

It was a list of the things he wanted to do during his second year of magic school. He tried writing down all the vague ideas he had for experiments, development projects, and research he’d like to work on. The list represented his goals for the upcoming year.

He wrote down everything that came to mind, so there was no guarantee he would actually do it all. He didn’t know how long each task would take, how much help he would need—if any—or whose assistance he would want.

There was much to consider before he got to work.

“……”

Okay, what to do?

He looked at each item on the list. After observing them all, he picked out a few he felt he could pull off.

His first idea was to produce a high-speed boat.

Technically, he wouldn’t be making the boat itself, but a magic tool that increased the speed of boats.

His interest in this idea waned a little after observing the flying ship, but what he had in mind was different. Kunon wanted to make a conventional vessel that traveled over water. If he succeeded, he thought it could be very profitable.

High-speed vessels already existed; they were propelled by wind sorcerers. But Kunon’s proposed magic tool would allow people other than wind sorcerers to do essentially the same thing. Kunon could use his invention to launch a shipping company, or he could simply sell the tool itself.

He hadn’t yet decided if the magic tool should produce wind or use the water on which the boat was traveling.

His second idea was cultivating sacred herbs.

The Saint had a monopoly on the plant, but Kunon was wondering if someone with a water attribute could grow it as well.

The impetus for this idea was his previous work with hydroponics. Kunon had surprised himself with the fruits of that project. He hadn’t expected the water used to have such a great impact on what grew. Thanks to those results, he’d begun to think he might be able to pull off such a project.

There was one problem, however: He needed to wait for the plants to grow, so this experiment would take time.

And more importantly, sacred herb seeds and seedlings would be extremely expensive. He had savings, but he would quickly drain them if he wasn’t careful, and he felt it wasn’t yet time for that.

However, he could easily cultivate plants while working on other experiments.

He decided to start on a small scale and approach the project with a long-term mindset.

Planting one or two and observing them wouldn’t be a bad idea.

His third idea was to survey holy land.

There were special places in the world called “holy lands” and “consecrated grounds.” Put simply, they were places where the soil was rich with special magic power. There were some varieties of plants, including sacred herbs, that only grew in such environments.

Kunon wanted to see one of these places for himself. He couldn’t see it literally, of course, but that was beside the point.

He was especially interested in the water found there. Holy land was called that because of its special soil. But what about the water?

If the water was special, too, Kunon definitely wanted to investigate it. And once he was done, he wanted to try replicating it with water magic.

“…Okay.”

Those were the three items on Kunon’s list that he could manage right away without any help. The other ideas would require assistance. He would have to approach others and convince them to give him their time, just like last year, when he’d developed the magic-containing box.

“I guess I’ll start with sacred herb cultivation.”

That was a project he could start immediately. He had a plan, and all he had to do after planting the seeds was wait.

Feeling energized, Kunon stood up. Just then, someone knocked on his door.

“Hello, Kunon,” his visitor said after he asked them to come in. It was Jenié, his first instructor.

“Oh my, you’re especially gorgeous this afternoon,” said Kunon. “It must be tough incurring the goddess of beauty’s jealousy every day.”

“Yeah, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jenié replied, brushing off the boy’s frivolous remark. “Are you busy?”

“I have time. But of course, I can always spare a moment for you, no matter how busy I am.”

“Spare a moment, huh? …Are you sure it’s all right?” Jenié asked again.

“Yes, I am,” Kunon said. “I was just thinking about what I want to do this year… Oh, how rude of me. A gentleman should never make a lady stand. Please, come in and find a seat.”

“Thanks, but this will only take a moment,” Jenié politely refused. The room was so messy she didn’t think she could find a place to sit anyway. “I’m just here to convey a message from Professor Satori.”

Jenié hadn’t seen Kunon over summer break, so she was curious about what he’d been up to. He seemed busy, however, so she decided to simply deliver the message and leave.

“Professor Satori?” Satori. Kunon’s eyes light up at the name, though they were still hidden behind his eye mask. “You have a message from the fallen angel who was cast out of Heaven because of the goddess of beauty’s jealousy?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. A message from Professor Fallen Angel,” Jenié said, getting a little annoyed. “Do you remember that bug?”

“The water-dancing bug? Of course.”

That was the creature he’d seen in Satori’s office that could purify water of toxic substances. They’d performed a variety of experiments with it.

“The professor said she’d finished the necessary experiments, so she’s going to perform some field tests. She wants to know if you’d like to accompany her as an assistant.”

“Absolutely! I’d love to! …Is what I’d like to say, but I can’t commit before hearing the schedule.”

This was an invitation from Satori, a teacher Kunon greatly admired. He wanted to accept immediately, but once again, he found himself in the same situation he had regarding the Harmony Faction’s expedition.

If the trip was going to last only a few days, he would happily go along. But if it was going to last longer than that, he’d need to prepare. A longer journey was difficult on such short notice.

“I’m not sure about the schedule, actually,” Jenié said. “I can’t go because of my classes, so I don’t know the details… You should talk to her if you’re interested.”

“Understood.”

Kunon decided to go to Satori’s classroom with Jenié.

“And so, I’m planning on going on a little trip.”

It was dinnertime.

Kunon, who had returned home, was eating and talking to his maid, Rinko, about his upcoming schedule.

“Will you be back the same day?” she asked.

“Yeah. The distance won’t be a problem, apparently.”

When Kunon asked Satori for details about the experiment, she said the site was close enough to Dirashik for a day trip…if they flew.

They were going to a toxic swampland about one day’s journey from the city. That estimate was for travel by horse or carriage, however.

Satori said because Kunon could fly, he could make it a day trip. She would be staying overnight, though.

“Going on a multiday trip without warning would inconvenience you, right?” said Kunon.

“No, it wouldn’t. It’s my job to prioritize your needs above all else, Master Kunon.”

“Really?”

“I would struggle if I was told to choose between you and money, but for anything else, I would definitely choose you. That is how much I love you,” Rinko said, hugging a tray to her chest.

Wow, she really does love me, Kunon thought, touched. I’m probably worth around ten thousand necca to her.

“Now give me your honest answer,” he said.

“I would prioritize my duty to you, but I have relationships to maintain with our neighbors, so a long trip with no warning would pose problems.”

Rinko socialized with the neighbors to support their lives in Dirashik. Through conversation, she gathered information on the surrounding area and its state of affairs. She also absorbed tips for running a household and ate up gossip about marital disputes and other familial troubles. And she built trust with neighbors so she could ask them to look after the house if any sudden business came up.

Not everyone saw building relationships with neighbors as important, but Rinko did, and she thought she was doing a pretty good job at it. Thanks to her efforts, she and Kunon had almost no trouble with those around them, and the neighbors and their dogs made an effort to look after her charge. Kunon had made a good impression on them as well.

“That’s what I thought,” he replied. “That’s why I’m planning on going alone this time. At any rate, I’ll be back the same day.”

“Understood.”

He and Satori were to leave in two days.

The experiment would last between one and two weeks. Kunon could make day trips during that time, and he wouldn’t go to school until the experiment was finished. His curfew would also be slightly extended.

Kunon discussed those details with his maid.

The latest experiment with the water-dancing bug was to be carried out at a toxic swampland. This was what researchers called “fieldwork.”

The two days Kunon had allotted to prepare for the trip passed quickly, and soon it was the day of departure.

He arrived at school so early in the morning that the sky was still dark; the other students wouldn’t show up for a few more hours.

Satori and the rest of their group were standing before the school gate.

The team consisted of four people: Satori, Kunon, and another boy and girl from the Advanced class. They were both upperclassmen who greatly respected Satori. Kunon knew their faces, but he had never spoken to them.

They shared self-introductions for good measure. The boy’s name was Zaricks and the girl’s was Saiha. They were both water users from the Ability Faction.

“All right. Let’s get going,” Satori said once Kunon joined them. “Assistants, carry the equipment for me.”

After Satori spoke, a fish swallowed her. It was made entirely of water and had appeared out of nowhere. The fish lifted off the ground, Satori’s entire body in its mouth.

“Whoa!”

Kunon watched with fascination as the fish floated gently into the air and propelled itself forward with its tail fin. It flew—or rather swam—off with surprising speed, growing ever smaller in the distant sky.

Satori’s flight worked essentially the same as Kunon’s, though she used a different spell. The principle behind it was simple: It utilized water magic with floatation and flight properties to propel the caster into the air.

However, the teacher’s speed was on another level. Kunon doubted he could catch up with that fish even at his top speed. That was the main difference. She was probably using an intermediate spell he hadn’t learned yet.

“Well, that was fast,” Zaricks said.

“No kidding,” agreed Saiha.

“Yeah, look at her go,” added Kunon.

The three students—left behind with the equipment—watched the teacher fly away.

“Have you learned it yet?” Zaricks asked Saiha.

She shrugged and said, “Mine’s still unstable. I’m not confident yet.”

“Well, that’s Professor Satori for you. I’m not surprised she’s already mastered it.”

“You can say that again. I can manage something similar, but not with that speed or stability. The teachers at this school are something else.”

“Yeah. I wonder when she found the time to practice.”

“…?” Kunon felt like he was missing something. “What are you talking about? What did she learn?”

He tried and failed to figure out what they were discussing and eventually decided to just ask.

“Hmm? Oh… Don’t tell Professor Satori we told you this, okay? She cares about her reputation,” Zaricks said. “You know the method of flying with water magic you unveiled?”

Kunon thought “unveil” was a bit too grand a word for it. He’d simply used the spell in lots of places around the school where people could see.

“No one had ever thought of flying with water magic before that. The most common method for long-distance travel was simply hiring a wind sorcerer. So neither the professor nor the rest of us knew how to fly until recently.”

I see, Kunon thought. The topic of their conversation had finally dawned on him. “You weren’t referring to her speed when you said, ‘That was fast,’ were you?”

Kunon had thought they were talking about the speed of their teacher’s flight. His upperclassmen, however, were referring to how quickly she had learned to fly with water.

That explained why he wasn’t keeping up with their conversation.

To be honest, it made sense to him that few people had thought of using water to fly. Kunon had done it because he was uncertain on his feet. He wanted a way to hover above the ground, and that had led to him developing his brand of flight using water. That was probably something people who walked with no difficulty wouldn’t think to do.

“Until now, Professor Satori has always traveled long distances by essentially summoning an ocean and riding it in a boat,” Zaricks said.

“Are you serious?! That sounds way more amazing!” Kunon exclaimed.

Summoning an ocean. Kunon had never thought of such a bold and magnificent method of flight. That said, it was true that it couldn’t really be called flight, since it simply relied on the buoyancy of water to carry a boat. Regardless, it was quite impressive.

Thanks to Jenié’s teachings, Kunon was skilled at performing little tricks with magic. However, those lessons might also have limited his way of thinking and his ability to come up with ideas.

Both styles had their advantages and disadvantages, so there was no use comparing them. But no matter which was his forte, being adept at both was sure to widen his repertoire. Satori was almost certainly good at both. That was why Kunon had so much respect for her.

“We should go, too,” Zaricks said.

“Can you two get the equipment?” asked Saiha. “I still can’t fly without giving it my full attention…”

“I’ll carry them,” offered Kunon.

He promptly created a water fish and had it swallow the cart loaded with their tools for the experiment. He was imitating Satori.

This time, instead of riding on his A-ori, he decided to get inside it. He wanted to try flying the same way the teacher had. He wasn’t able to match her speed because she’d used a different spell, but he still managed to fly comfortably.

And so, the experiment with the water-dancing bug was set to begin.

“Hey!”

Someone shouted, but none of them heard.

A man ran toward Kunon’s group with surprising speed for his appearance—but it was already too late.

“…I failed.”

The boy he’d been chasing was flying off into the distant sky, moving quickly and ignoring the terrain beneath him. There was no catching up at this point.

The water fish continued to swim away until it was out of sight.

“…Haaah…,” The man sighed.

Rudin Gavant was sixty years old. He was a tall and slender man wearing pristine, wrinkle-free servant’s clothes. Despite his age, his stance and the sparkle in his eye were as sharp as a knife.

“……”

He stood for a moment, dumbfounded.

That was it. He had failed.

He hadn’t made a blunder this bad in years.

Many thoughts raced through his head, but the first was…

“Where is Mistress Serra…?” he muttered before turning on his heel.

He walked briskly away, his back somehow lonely.

Rudin was a butler of the Quartz family, and his charge, Serraphila, had yet to return.

Before disappearing, she had left a single message saying only, “Some upperclassmen invited me on a field trip in a flying ship, so I’m going.”

It had been days since then, and Serraphila had not returned to the house once. In other words, she was missing. Rudin had heard nothing about her trip lasting multiple days.

Actually, he had been informed of it sometime later. After the flying ship had already left with Serraphila on board, he’d received a letter conveying more details. It had said: “We’re going on a trip to gather materials. We’ll be back in about two weeks. Don’t worry about Serraphila. I’ll take good care of her.”

Ever since receiving that ridiculous letter, Rudin had been doing everything he could think of to figure out where Serraphila was. But he couldn’t get any clear answers.

Startlingly, no one seemed to know her whereabouts. When he asked the magic school, he was simply told, “Our institution does not monitor the activity of Advanced class students.” Next they said, “You think she was kidnapped? But she went willingly, correct? You can’t call that a kidnapping.” He continued to implore them for assistance, saying he had been told nothing about her sleeping away from home, but they said, “Didn’t she give her consent?” and the conversation went nowhere.

Unwilling to give up, Rudin began questioning the magic school’s students for more information.

He ended up learning Serraphila had met with a boy named Kunon the day before she boarded the flying ship, and that information had led him there.

He had been waiting by the school gate since early that morning, intending to capture the boy and interrogate him. He knew Kunon wore an eyepatch, and he’d managed to spot him from a distance.

Unfortunately, he was too slow.

The boy was swallowed by some kind of water fish and carried off into the sky.

“…Haaah. The lady has gone missing just days into the school year… How can I ever face the master…?”

The old man couldn’t stop sighing.

Because Dirashik wasn’t a nation, per se, it seemed odd to refer to its territory or borders, but Kunon and the others eventually reached a region near the boundary between Dirashik and the Holy Kingdom of Saint Lance.

They didn’t cross the border, so technically they were still in Dirashik.

“Talk about unclear,” Kunon said.

Keym Village was a small settlement constructed on developed land near a forest. He voiced the thought after they’d arrived at the village and received a brief explanation from Satori about it.

Kunon hadn’t gone to the school for noble children, but he had the basic knowledge required for someone of his social position. He knew it was unacceptable for territorial borders to be vague. It had to be clear which nation citizens belonged to.

And yet Dirashik functioned like a country despite not being one. You just had to think of it as a special case where the typical rules didn’t apply. It was the only place where borders could be so ambiguous.

“The forest next to the village is home to rather unique plants and animals. Teachers and students from the magic school often come here to collect materials,” Satori said, continuing her explanation.

Their destination, the toxic swamp, was in that forest.

According to Satori, the poisonous substance found in the swamp was rare and had impacted the evolution of the forest’s plants and animals, turning them into fascinating specimens. One of the reasons this village had been founded was to preserve the swamp and its surrounding environment.

“Does the swamp affect the people who live near it?” Kunon asked.

He figured they were fine, since the village had been built right next to the forest.

“No. The swamp is far enough into the forest that it’s difficult to reach, and the village has antidotes in case of emergencies.”

“Oh, I see.”

The villagers were able to live near the swamp because they had a way of dealing with the poison.

“Greetings, Miss Satori. Welcome back to Keym.”

Kunon and the others entered the village and were greeted by the mayor and a group of elderly people.

“It’s been a while,” replied the professor. “I’ll be in your care for the next couple weeks.”

She had contacted the village beforehand, so their party was welcomed right away.

There were no young people in the crowd, however. They were all off working.

The villagers led the teacher and the three students to a large house built to serve as lodging for any visiting sorcerers.

“We’re departing right away,” said Satori. “Leave your things here.”

After the villagers saw them off, they would head directly for the research site. Kunon intended for this to be a day trip, so he hadn’t brought anything. He ended up waiting with Satori as Zaricks and Saiha set down their luggage in the house.

“This village is surprisingly close to the school,” Kunon said.

“Close enough for a day trip, right?” Satori replied.

“Yes. But now that I think of it, I realize I’ve passed up the chance to share a roof with an incredibly charming woman.”

“Excuse me?”

“Skipping out on an opportunity to spend the night with Professor Satori… This will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, really? What a shame.”

I thought he might have matured in his second year, but nope. He’s still the same old Kunon, Satori thought, refusing to engage.

Zaricks and Saiha returned a moment later.

“Let’s go,” said their teacher.

And with that, they took to the sky again, this time flying to the swampland.

The poisonous swamp had been fully investigated a long time ago. Satori and the students were simply checking the original data against the current conditions to see if there were any major changes. After that, they would move on to the next step in the process.

“Professor, am I doing this right?” asked Kunon.

“Yeah, that’s perfect.”

Kunon had returned after collecting a sample of contaminated soil. Once back, he started to prepare the research tools they’d brought.

Teachers and students from the magic school came to Keym all the time, so a building had been constructed on the edge of the village for research. People from the school were also free to sleep there.

Nobody owned the building, but it was essentially the magic school’s property, since its teachers and students could use it freely. The school paid Keym Village to maintain and clean it.

There was nothing special about the place, but it was spacious and a nice way to escape the elements.

Satori and the three students spread out their equipment in a large room, turning it into a simple research facility.

Kunon helped with the preparations. He hated cleaning, but his love of experiments and laboratory equipment had him excited for the task.

This project would require a lot of water tanks. The four assembled the tanks made with magically strengthened glass panels, then labeled them. Next, they placed the contaminated soil from the swamp inside the tanks.

They each wore a cloth over their nose and mouth to avoid breathing in the poison. Kunon did the same; between that and his eye mask, his entire face was covered.

“I think you know what we’re doing, but I’ll explain again,” Satori began. “This is an experiment using water-dancing bugs to neutralize and purge toxic substances. Its purpose is to determine how many water-dancing bugs it takes to remove a certain amount of poison. We will investigate their effectiveness in water with varying levels of contamination, breed the insects in contaminated environments, and then extract poison from them. We’ll want to test this in as many circumstances as we can think of, so share any ideas you have.”

And so, the exciting experiment began.

After putting soil in the water tanks, they filled each with different samples of water. Foul odors immediately permeated the room.

They’d dried the soil out somewhat, which caused the poison within it to evaporate and spread quickly through the air.

“I’m getting excited,” Kunon said.

“Me too,” Zaricks quickly agreed.

“Come on, Professor! Let’s put in the insects!” Saiha called out impatiently.

The students’ excitement spread as quickly as the poison.

Kunon wondered why he was always so eager at the beginning of experiments.

It was probably because he still had all his stamina. His excitement always waned over time, and it was common for him to begin to pass out from fatigue and lack of sleep if a project stretched on for a week or longer. However, when they were just starting out, he only ever felt energized.

“The sorcerers are coming tomorrow,” said the father to his children. “Be careful not to cause any trouble.”

It was the night before Kunon and the others arrived.

In Keym Village, sorcerers from the magic school were guests of honor. Contaminated plants and animals were nothing but danger to ordinary people, but for some reason, the sorcerers were happy to purchase them for high prices.

Keym looked like a small rural village, but it was surprisingly wealthy. Its financial situation was good enough that the villagers didn’t have to spend all their time tilling fields and growing vegetables. That was because of how handsomely the sorcerers paid. In fact, they sent quite a lot of money just to maintain the building they used in town.

That was why the village welcomed them. The adults all understood their importance and gave the children clear instructions before every visit.

If you see a sorcerer, politely greet them.

Don’t interfere with their work.

Listen attentively to any requests they might have. Even if it sounds impossible to fulfill, consult an adult about it, no matter how trivial it may seem.

Sorcerers were only interested in magic anyway. As long as the villagers didn’t interfere with them too much, there were never any problems. That had always been the case, and it was unlikely to change.

At least, that was what all the villagers had thought, including a certain seven-year-old girl. She’d fully believed this visit would be just as uneventful as all the ones before it.

“Ah!”

She had been playing with a friend in the street when she tripped on a stone and tumbled to the ground.

“Oww…”

She’d scraped up her palms and knees pretty badly. She’d also dirtied her clothes and made a mess of her hair.

Her friend said she would get medicine and hurried off, so the girl decided to stay where she was and wait. She was a tough and lively village girl. Falling was nothing new to her, and this injury hardly hurt enough to cry.

Besides, she knew nothing would hap—

“Are you okay?” someone said.

The girl was startled by the sudden, unfamiliar voice. It was calm and sounded like it belonged to a boy.

“Uhh…”

She turned around and looked up to see a strange young man wearing some kind of belt over his eyes. She had never seen him before. His clothes were very fancy.

He’s definitely a sorcerer, she thought.

“I-I’m okay. Umm, I just— Ah!”

Before she knew it, water rushed toward her and enveloped her body from the neck down. Many small bubbles fizzed to the surface of the liquid.

“Close your eyes and hold your breath for a moment— Yeah, just like that.”

Without thinking, the girl did as she was told and closed her eyes and mouth. She felt the water cover her head and then quickly disappear.

“You can open your eyes now.”

“…Huh? What happened?”

The girl opened her eyes.

Her whole body should have been soaking wet. She’d definitely felt water cover her while her eyes were closed. Yet somehow, her body, clothes, and even hair were already dry.

That wasn’t all—the dirt stains on her clothes she’d thought would anger her parents, as well as those on her scraped palms and knees, were gone. Her disheveled hair had been cleaned as well. It seemed shinier than before and had a nice smell to it.

“Can you walk?” the boy asked.

“Y-yes…”

He held out his hand. Still dumbfounded, the girl took it and let him help her up.

Her heart fluttered at the touch of his delicate white hands. She could clearly feel the gaze of his unseen eyes. They made her feel shy.

“Hello, pretty little miss. Would you let me escort you to your home?”

“…Y-yes…”

The girl was bewildered. She had no idea what to say. Her heart was pounding way too loudly.

Something about this moment felt unreal. Time seemed to pass slowly and swiftly at the same time.

Before she knew it, she was at her house.

“…Mr. Sorcerer…”

Afterward, she couldn’t get her mind off the boy with the eyepatch.

“Wow. Hmm. Interesting.”

It had already been a couple days since the experiment had begun.

Kunon, who was flying to Keym from Dirashik every day, observed how the water tanks had changed overnight. Clear variations began to emerge on the third day. That was when the experiment became very interesting indeed.

Each water tank had a slightly different environment. Kunon studied the growth and change of the water-dancing bugs in each tank, as well as variations caused by differences in water quality. There were visible changes in the tanks, but he’d expected that.

What especially interested him were the foul odors that rose from each.

“They all smell really different.”

On the first day, the strong, toxic odor of the poison had been overpowering, but now the smells had begun to differentiate. This was likely a result of the various factors working on the poison in each tank. That said, the changes to the odors didn’t make them any less harmful, so the sorcerers couldn’t spend much time sniffing them. They might damage their noses and get sick.

“Yeah, they do,” Zaricks said, as if he had been waiting to talk about just that. He spoke as he recorded his observations. “It seems like changes in odor are only occurring in the water we injected with magic potions. Either the potions are increasing the insects’ efficacy, or it’s the other way around. I don’t have the answer yet, but—”

“That’s something we’ll want to determine through careful observation,” Kunon said.

Were the magic potions enhancing the insects’ detoxifying abilities or not?

If so, would that increase the speed at which the poison was purified, or would it have a different, unexpected effect?

Those were the kinds of questions they needed to answer.

Magic potions sometimes caused inexplicable mutations. There were still many mysteries left to be solved regarding magic power. And as long as that was true, changes brought about by magical elements would remain unpredictable.

“On another note, these insects are tough little guys,” Kunon said.

At the bottom of each tank was soil laced with toxic substances. The poison had dirtied the water to the point it was obviously unsafe for human consumption. And yet the water-dancing bugs floated on the water in each tank, camouflaged as blades of grass. The poison wasn’t killing them. In fact, they seemed completely unaffected.

The insects in every tank were in perfect health. Even though from a human’s perspective, they were each floating in a sea of poison.

“That’s apparently what caught Professor Satori’s interest,” said Saiha as she recorded her own observations. “I honestly had no idea there were any creatures so resistant to poison. These insects are fascinating.”

“I agree,” said Kunon. “I’m just as taken by them as I am by you, Saiha.”

He’d just said he found her as appealing as an insect. Not many girls would be happy to hear such a thing. However…

“Really? I’m honored.”

…miraculously, Saiha blushed. Apparently, she was among the tiny minority who considered that a compliment. She was a researcher to the core, just like the rest of them.

Shortly afterward, Satori returned from her trip outside.

“Hey, Kunon. Are you interested in plants?” she said as soon as she entered the building.

“Yes,” Kunon said without hesitation.

“I just collected some grass and seeds from the swamp. I’m considering tossing them into the tanks as the water purifies to see what happens. I want to record the poison content of the fully grown grass.”

“Understood. Should I make more of the magic potion we put in the tanks?”

“Go ahead. I’ll prepare a new water tank.”

The researchers were all on the same wavelength.

“Haaah. What a pain,” said a girl from the village.

She knew well sorcerers were guests of honor. But that didn’t make her task any less annoying.

The girl was sixteen years old and the granddaughter of the village chief. Being related to the chief in a small village like this didn’t mean much to outsiders, who would see her and her family as nothing more than country bumpkins. But in the village, her grandfather was a king. And that made her a princess.

She was walking with a heavy basket in hand.

Normally, she never had to carry anything. The village boys wouldn’t let her; they carried everything for her, light or heavy. She was their princess, after all.

The basket contained the sorcerers’ lunch. Usually her grandfather, grandmother, or mother delivered food to the sorcerers. But they were all busy that day, so the role had been given to her.

Her grandfather, who was usually very soft on her, had issued her a direct order: You do it.

She couldn’t refuse an order from the village chief, nor could she complain about it. As a representative of the village, she had to take responsibility and deliver the basket to the sorcerers.

The girl didn’t have any particular feelings about the sorcerers. From her perspective, they simply showed up at random, shut themselves away in the building outside the village, then disappeared before she knew it.

Despite living in the village her whole life, she had barely ever interacted with them. She only caught glimpses of them from a distance and had never had a conversation with one.

They were cityfolk, and she was a country bumpkin.

They were sorcerers, and she was a regular person.

To her, they literally resided in a different world.

Not that she cared. All she had to do was give them their lunch and leave.

Once that was done, she would hang out with the village boys. She was approaching marriageable age, and they all fawned over her and competed for her attention. Eventually, she would marry the one she liked the most and start a household with him, which she would run.

A modest life like that was good enough for a village princess. She would be satisfied with it.

Or so she thought.

“…Huh?”

The girl approached the building on the outskirts of the village in which the sorcerers were doing…whatever it was they did…and found a crowd of village children gathered there. They were surrounding something and cheering excitedly.

Wondering what all the fuss was about, she looked to the center of the crowd and saw a boy wearing an eye mask who looked to be around her age—maybe a little younger—standing and smiling.

She had never seen him before, and he was dressed in fancy clothes. He had to be one of the sorcerers.

Suspicious about what he was doing, she silently approached the crowd. Once she got close, the sorcerer turned around and looked right at her.

“Greetings, my lady. What do you want me to make?”

“H-huh…?”

His eye mask completely covered both his eyes. Despite that, he noticed her approach and even turned directly toward her as if he could see her.

“Oh, uh, I’m just here to deliver lunch…”

She didn’t even know what he meant by the question, and she found his unusual appearance a little frightening.

“Really? Well then, how about you?” The boy with the eyepatch turned to a little girl nearby. “What do you want me to make?”

“A horse! A pure-white horse!”

What? A horse?

What were these children doing? They were told not to interact with the sorcerers.

She got her answer a moment later.

“What the—?!”

The next thing she knew, a pure-white horse was standing next to the boy.

“Wooow!” the kids all cheered.

The chief’s granddaughter was amazed, too. In fact, she was stunned silent. She had no idea what was happening; she only knew it was amazing.

“Do you want to ride it?” the boy asked.

“Yes, very much!” the little girl who had requested the horse replied.

The boy kneeled before her. “All right, young miss. Allow me to help you up.”

He looked like a prince as he offered her his hand. The girl blushed deeply and timidly put her hands in his.

The chief’s granddaughter was shocked by the sight.

The boy’s graceful behavior. His elegant speech. He was just like…just like the prince riding a white horse she had always dreamed of.

Once that thought entered her mind, she ceased to care about his weird eye mask. The smile beneath it stole her attention instead. He was absolutely as handsome as a prince.

“U-umm! Excuse me!” she called out nervously as the boy hoisted the little girl onto the horse. “I want to ride the horse, too! Can I?! Please?!”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.

She wasn’t an idiot. She knew her selfish and arrogant behavior was only tolerated because of her position in the village. It was only here that she was a pampered princess.

The boy wasn’t from this village. He wouldn’t take kindly to her shoving younger children aside for his attention. But her emotions had gotten the better of her. Even a village princess dreamed of meeting a real prince at least once in her life.

Enough with the weary packhorses of the village—she wanted to try riding a gallant white horse from the city. Preferably with a prince at her side.

Any girl’s dream was right before her. That was why she couldn’t restrain herself.

As the chief’s granddaughter wallowed in regret at her rash words, the boy smiled and spoke to her.

“Why, of course. Right this way, fair princess.”

From that day on, delivering lunch became her job and hers alone.

“Oh, would you look at that.”

It was early in the morning.

Kunon arrived in Keym as the sun began to rise, and due to his high elevation, he spotted something interesting right away.

A magic airship was parked in a grassy field just outside the village. It was the same one he’d seen at the magic school.

The Harmony Faction must have come to this village as part of its expedition to gather materials.

Fall had just begun, and the harsh heat of summer had yet to let up. The days were still long, so Kunon was departing from Dirashik quite early every morning.

As a result, Serraphila’s butler had yet to get ahold of him. Not only was he leaving early, but he was taking to the sky from his house instead of from the school, skillfully escaping the butler’s ambushes. He’d managed to avoid him every single time, completely by accident.

The butler had already deduced Kunon’s place of residence. He was considering leaving a message or a letter, but he was hesitant to take that step.

Reaching out like that would leave evidence of Serraphila’s disappearance… There was a possibility he might harm his charge’s reputation and, by extension, that of the Quartz family, so he was being cautious.

A high-ranking noble girl had been sleeping away from home for multiple days in a row. If any rumors started, true or not, it could cause a scandal. Caution was of the utmost importance.

If only he’d managed to meet with Kunon before this point. They might have had a chance to bring Serraphila back to Dirashik.

“Good morning.”

Kunon entered the simple research facility on the outskirts of the village and found Satori, Zaricks, and Saiha already working.

“Hello, Kunon.” Shilto, the representative of the Harmony Faction, was there, too.

“Oh, hello, Miss Shilto. It’s been a while. I saw the airship, so I thought someone might have dropped by.”

The Harmony Faction was likely there to gather materials from the toxic swamp, so Kunon figured one of them would come to greet Professor Satori.

“You don’t say. We’re leaving tonight, so I wanted to say hello and make sure our plans don’t conflict.”

Shilto hadn’t known Satori was in Keym for an experiment. She’d greeted the villagers first. Then after hearing the teacher was staying there, she’d come to the building on the outskirts of the village. She wanted to make sure she and her faction wouldn’t get in the teacher’s way.

Kunon noted that Shilto and Satori seemed to be acquainted.

“We already have everything we need,” said the teacher, “so we won’t be going back to the swamp. Do as you wish.”

“Understood.”

It only took seconds to get that sorted out. Next, the two moved on to small talk.

“The sun grass in the southern mountains seems really high-quality this year,” said Shilto.

“That’s good to know,” Satori replied. “I should go stock up.”

“Ooh, really?” said Kunon.

“I can lend you some,” Shilto said.

“Thanks, but this experiment is almost done,” replied Satori. “I’ll go get some myself.”

“Hmm.”

“This experiment looks interesting. I’m guessing it’s about neutralizing poison?”

“Yeah. Come to my classroom if you’re interested. I’ll tell you about it and put you to work.”

“Nice.”

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” said Saiha.

She grabbed Kunon by the collar and dragged him away. He had been standing right next to Satori and Shilto, listening to their conversation and interjecting regularly.

“I’m not interrupting them. I’m just interested in hearing what these two lovely, intellectual ladies have to say to each other.”

“I don’t think it’s gentlemanly behavior to eavesdrop on ladies’ conversations.”

After hearing that, Kunon had no choice but to back down. Saiha was right—that was not something a gentleman would do. He reluctantly backed away and resumed recording his observations.

As he immersed himself in the experiment, he forgot all about Serraphila.

“…Phew.”

A woman sighed after finally reaching a shadow and escaping the sun’s heat.

Her feet and back ached, but that was nothing new. The sun—which was punishingly hot at this time of year—was just as bad.

She was over eighty years old and small of stature, and she had a habit of saying she had “lived much too long already.”

This village had been her home since the day she was born. She’d married a man from the village, and her death, which she knew was approaching, would happen there as well.

She had spent all her days in this compact little world, but she didn’t think it had been a bad life.

Now she was long in the tooth and more than ready to join her husband in the next world.

Her body had been wearing down for some time, but her mind was still sharp. Today, however, she felt a little dizzy. The heat may have been to blame.

In winter, the cold immobilized her old bones. The summer was agony, but at least she could move. She did her best to put up with her infirmity.

Well, it was technically autumn. But it was still hot.

“…Oh my.”

Her dizziness suddenly intensified, causing the world to spin dramatically around her.

The old woman looked down. Was it finally her time?

So be it. She had no regrets.

Her children had fine families of their own. Her grandchildren were all healthy.

Old fossils like her shouldn’t stick around too long. She didn’t want to be a parasite to her family. Besides, her deceased husband was waiting for her.

The old woman, who had already made peace with her approaching end, thought her unusual dizzy spell meant she was dying.

She slowly began to fall.

Her cane hit the ground first, and then—

“Whoa there. Are you okay, my lady?”

—someone caught her.

“…Oh, are you dehydrated?”

Her mind still hazy, the old woman cracked open her eyes.

“Leave me be. I’ve lived long enough,” she said to a boy she didn’t recognize.

He was well-dressed and wearing an eye mask. Probably one of the sorcerers visiting the village.

The boy smiled cheerfully. “Ah-ha-ha. Let’s not be so hasty. How could a woman as young and gorgeous as you have possibly lived long enough? Please don’t be in such a hurry to leave us.”

…What did he just say? the old woman thought.

“I don’t even want to imagine the world losing a fair lady such as yourself. Every man alive would weep.”

…What was that?

This couldn’t be real. Either she was insane or he was.

Maybe the heat was to blame. Anyone could have a mental breakdown in this weather.

She’d definitely lost it.

Wait a minute. This might not even be reality, she thought. It was possible she had already fallen and was hallucinating on the verge of death. That would be fine with me.

She might have lost her mind, but there were worse ways to go than dying on the side of the road while being attended to by a cute boy. This was a dream compared to being seen off by her old, filthy, and decidedly uncute son.

But at the boy’s next words, her eyes opened wide.

“Let’s eat together when you’re feeling better. I want to try your home cooking.”

I want to eat your cooking every day for the rest of my life.

The boy’s offer caused her to recall words from bygone days. That was what her husband had said when he proposed to her.

She had buried those words deep within her heart. So deep it had been years since she last recalled them. Perhaps she’d held them too close.

“…Oh. Sure.”

After that, her husband’s final words flooded back into her mind.

Use the rest of your days to live. Don’t you dare follow me right away. If you do, I’ll send you right back.

Those words had been a curse, prolonging her life all this time. She’d done as her husband said and had no more regrets.

But now, at what she thought was the end of her life, she had accidentally made a promise she would feel guilty not fulfilling.

Her husband would have to wait a little longer.

“Yep. It might be time to wrap up this experiment.”

Zaricks, Saiha, Kunon, and Satori looked over the report they’d all thrown together. Even the professor herself had contributed.

It was early morning on the eleventh day of their experiment in Keym Village. Just like all the days so far, they performed every test they could think of and shared their conjectures.

The three assistants were amazed by Satori’s deep knowledge, while their teacher was impressed by the flexible thinking of their young minds.

The number of water tanks had grown over the course of the experiment. They’d added one each time they thought of something new they wanted to try. It was common for experiments to branch out in unforeseen directions.

The process had been a lot of fun, but they had nearly finished gathering all the necessary data.

“Really? So soon?” asked Zaricks.

“There are still things I want to try,” Saiha protested, “and I’d like to keep observing several of the tanks.”

They both looked unhappy. They’d become even more engrossed in the experiment than the teacher, despite it being Satori’s idea. There was still so much the water-dancing bugs could show them. It would bug them to leave anything about the insect undiscovered, you could say.

“I want to continue the experiment, too.” Kunon was of the same mind.

Actually, his intentions were a little different. He wanted to test the insects more extensively by exposing them to poisons found in other places. It would also bug him to ignore the insect’s potential.

“I understand how you feel,” said Satori, “but you should be able to predict how the experiment will play out from here. We’ve seen the water-dancing bugs adapt to the environment of each tank. It’s only a matter of time until they neutralize the poison. The only question that remains is how long that will take. There’s no need to purify this toxic swamp anyway.”

The toxic swamp near the village was a precious environment where many magical resources grew, and the people of Keym Village had chosen to coexist with the poison.

Satori and her assistants had used the swamp and the surrounding area to perform a limited experiment. It was successful, and they had obtained sufficient data. But the purpose of their experiment was not to eliminate the toxic swamp. It was simply to explore the potential of the water-dancing bug. At least, that had been the intention.

“We either need a new location or a new poison,” said the teacher. “I think it’s time to take the water-dancing bug experiment to its next phase.”

Though she wouldn’t say it out loud, Satori had one more reason for wanting to wrap up the experiment: She wasn’t young anymore.

Her assistants might still be spring chickens, but she didn’t have time to waste on an experiment she could already predict the results of. She lacked the stamina for it, too. She was already quite fatigued.

“…Okay. If you insist, Professor Satori…” Zaricks looked disappointed. But as Satori’s assistants, they had no choice but to obey.

“What do you mean by ‘next phase’? What will you do after this, Professor?” Saiha seemed interested in the teacher’s upcoming experiment. She might have cared more about the insects than the experiment itself; the way she’d stealthily named her favorite water-dancing bug was proof of that.

“I want to study the organs and mechanisms the insects use to neutralize poison. At the same time, I want to see if they can counteract poisons for which there is still no antidote. That will be the purpose of my next experiment.”

Following this experiment, Professor Satori would begin her real research. Her efforts until this point had all been to determine the extent of the water-dancing bug’s adaptability. Before, she’d tested the insects with a variety of well-known venoms. This time, she’d tried an environmental poison. Gaining a sufficient understanding of the water-dancing bug’s adaptability had finally placed Professor Satori at the starting line of her research.

“On that note, we’ll be leaving tomorrow or the day after,” she announced. “Disassemble and clean the tanks we’re done with.”

“Huh?!”

The woman couldn’t believe her ears.

Actually, it wasn’t her ears she doubted.

“Umm, mother, are you sure that really happened…?”

She spent every afternoon alone with her husband’s mother. Her husband brought lunch to work instead of returning home to eat, and her children had already grown up and started their own families, so while they hadn’t left the village, they no longer lived with her.

That meant every afternoon, she—a woman in her fifties—was left alone with her mother-in-law, who was in her eighties. And she had just been given reason to doubt the older woman’s sanity.

Her mother-in-law was quite old. Her physical health had declined, but her mind was still sound. However, this might have been the first sign she was finally losing it.

“Oh, stop it. I haven’t gone senile yet.”

Her mother-in-law was offended. But could she really blame her for reacting this way? Senility was the only explanation for what she’d just said. And if her story was true, then she had lost her mind for a different reason. Either way, she was off her rocker.

“Mother, can you repeat that one more time?”

She couldn’t overlook this. If what her mother-in-law had described had really happened, they could be in big trouble.

As her anxiety grew, her mother-in-law spoke with an irritatingly proud expression:

“A sorcerer hit on me.”

Yep. She’s definitely lost her marbles, she thought. Her mother-in-law was old, and it had been punishingly hot outside. I suppose it was only a matter of time before this happened.

“Hold on. I can explain.”

And yet when her mother-in-law—who insisted she had not lost her mind—explained the story from the beginning, she believed her right away.

In fact, the story was quite plausible.

Apparently, the old woman was about to collapse from the heat when a sorcerer who happened to have been nearby saved her.

The sorcerer had been watching her with concern from a distance after noticing how unsteadily she’d been walking. Then when she began to fall, he rushed over and grabbed her. Afterward, her mother-in-law had promised to make him lunch to show her gratitude.

It sounded like she really had been hit on, though perhaps those words didn’t carry the same meaning she’d assumed at first.

“Are you feeling better now?”

“Yeah. I just needed to drink some water. I have my appetite back, as you can see.”

That was great to hear. In that case, the woman was free to move on to the next issue.

“So is the sorcerer coming here?”

Sorcerers often visited their village, though most people had no chance to interact with them.

Even from a distance, you could tell they were all dressed in fancy clothes like nobles. Would one of them really come to this totally unremarkable villager’s house?

“Yes, he is. I told him to come at noon tomorrow.”

This is a disaster! A noble was coming to eat at their shabby little hovel. Her mother-in-law had lost her mind after all.

“My cooking days are behind me,” said the old woman. “You’ll have to do it for me.”

“No way! I can’t make anything fancy enough for a sorcerer!”

“Don’t worry. That boy won’t be picky.”

“That’s not the problem…”

“He was nice enough to treat an old hag like me as if I was a beautiful lady. He won’t complain about the food unless you serve him a plate of dirt.”

He’d treated a woman in her eighties like a beautiful lady? What kind of kid was this? Had he lost his mind?

One day later, the boy arrived.

“Greetings.”

He’d really shown up. The sorcerer who’d hit on her mother-in-law was here.

He was a well-dressed boy wearing a mask over his eyes.

She had been doubtful he’d come… Thank goodness she’d prepared.

“Thank you very much for inviting me today.”

His manner of speech and the way he carried himself were immaculate. He must have really been a noble.

“Yes, well, please come in. This is only a shabby commoner’s house, so, uh, we don’t have much to offer.”

She had never spoken to a noble before and had never thought she would. There were terrifying stories of nobles who would behead people for a single slight. Panic welled up within her; she had no formal education and no idea how to behave.

But then…

“Be at ease, my lady.”

…she felt something soft touch her.

She looked down and saw the boy had taken her hand.

“Acting flustered doesn’t suit a woman of your stunning beauty. I want you to mesmerize me by smiling as bright as the sun.”

Ah. He really is insane, she thought.

“Something smells delicious. Thank you very much for cooking for me.”

He might be crazy…but he seems like a good kid.

“Please sit here, Mr. Sorcerer,” her mother-in-law said from within the house.

“Of course,” the boy said. “My lady, would you do me the honor of escorting me?”

There was no escorting to be done; the table was right in front of them. It was only a few steps away.

“Uh, yes… Right this way.”

However, while his eye mask and behavior were eccentric—and she still had reason to doubt his sanity—his smile contained an elegance absent from the village children. He was adorable.

“You called this house shabby,” he said, “but I think it’s wonderful. I can tell from how clean it is that its residents are hard workers.”

He showed no dissatisfaction with their poor commoners’ house.

“Mmm, this is delicious. I love a woman who can cook. I’d take you for my companion if I could.”

She’d put her all into cooking every dish, and he praised all of them. When they were young, her husband had complimented her cooking as well. But these days, he never said a word.

“You can tell a cook’s consideration for the people they are serving by the way they cut their vegetables. Cooking is said to be a form of affection, and that is certainly the case here. I feel nothing but love from this food. I’m in Heaven.”

Each of his statements was more frivolous than the last, but he was full of nothing but praise. The woman would be lying to herself if she said that didn’t make her happy.

“Did you fill this food with love just for me?” he asked, and she couldn’t deny it.

By the time the boy left, she found herself thinking one thing: True gentlemen were a treasure.

“Did you two know anything about this?” asked Satori.

She had no idea what was going on. It seemed she hadn’t noticed. She’d only vaguely thought, We sure are getting a lot of gifts this time.

“No, not really.”

“Me neither…”

That morning, when the professor arrived at their humble research facility, she’d asked her assistants a question: Did you know what was going on?

Neither of them had any idea.

“Well, I did find a few things kind of strange,” said Zaricks.

He’d noticed some changes in their surroundings over the last couple weeks, but like Satori and Saiha, he hadn’t paid them any mind.

It seemed a problem had arisen, and Satori had received an official complaint from the village chief and ten other men. The very reasonable criticism went like this: One of your sorcerers is causing trouble by hitting on the village women.

“I don’t have the foggiest idea what you could be talking about” was what Satori wanted to say, but unfortunately, that wasn’t true. In fact, she had a good guess as to who the culprit was. It couldn’t have been more obvious.

After accepting the complaint, she returned to the research facility.

She had an idea of what must have happened, as did her two older assistants.

They had been receiving uncharacteristically frequent deliveries of sweets, fruits, jams, and more, which they had eaten as they worked. But now that they thought about it, all that food had been fairly lavish.

Sorcerers were welcome in Keym Village. The villagers prepared food for them, provided daily necessities, and would perform any favor if asked. All for a fee, of course. Otherwise, the villagers mostly left them alone.

There was never any exchange of information between the two groups. At most, they made small talk when they happened to run into each other.

As guests of the village, the sorcerers were careful not to cross certain lines. That was how Satori, Zaricks, and Saiha had completely missed what was happening.

When sorcerers began an experiment, they tended to devote themselves to it so completely they neglected all else. Many sorcerers struggled to pay attention to their surroundings at the best of times, and that only intensified during an experiment.

“I’m not surprised,” said Saiha. “Kunon is cute, and with no warning about his personality…I can see how naive village girls would fall for him.”

The other two knew what she meant.

Kunon’s behavior was frivolous. He was well-known at the magic school, so all the teachers and students were aware of his quirks. Everyone kept his reputation in mind as they interacted with him, and many simply found him funny as a result.

But what if one wasn’t prepared for his advances? What if a village girl unaccustomed to nobles took his words seriously?

That was the cause of the grievance.

Kunon was probably behaving the same way he did at magic school. He hadn’t restrained himself at all in front of the villagers. Satori, who was used to his personality, hadn’t even considered the issue.

“What should we do about this, Professor Satori?” asked Zaricks.

“We don’t have to do anything,” she replied.

She’d listened to the villager’s complaints, but to be honest, she didn’t really think there was a problem.

“We’re about to leave anyway.”

That was right—the experiment was already over. All they had left to do was to gather their things and return to Dirashik.

They’d remained until that day to clean up, but Kunon, who had been commuting from home, wasn’t there. The previous day had been his last in the village.

“I asked them to drop the matter because the sorcerer who caused the problem has already left.”

The village men had been relieved to hear that. Judging from what Satori had heard, it sounded like Kunon had become very popular among girls and women of all ages in the village, and men were returning from a long day at work to find their daughters, wives, and grandmothers had fallen for him. That seemed to be the gist anyway.

The village chief was also relieved to hear Kunon was gone and grumbled that his granddaughter had been one of his victims.

At least it sounded like Kunon was kind to boys as well as girls when it came to children, so Satori had to give him credit for that. If he treated even children differently based on their gender, she might have had to reevaluate her opinion of him.

“All right, let’s prepare to depart.”

A problem might have arisen at the end of their stay, but fortunately, because they learned of it right before they were due to leave, they didn’t have to deal with it.

Kunon’s behavior may have been…problematic. But at the end of the day, he was a sorcerer who cared for nothing but magic—just like the rest of them. Satori knew that well.

Kunon had no reason to come back. He wouldn’t cause any more trouble. Still, she planned to give him a stern reprimand when she returned.

…Later, a dark cloud fell over Keym Village as news spread that Kunon had left.

The women were depressed, while the men were indignant about being compared to a supposed gentleman named “Kunon” they had never even met.

Old women gained a new lease on life, saying things like “Maybe there’s use for these old bones yet,” and the village chief’s granddaughter began treating him coldly after learning he’d complained to the sorcerers.

Those bizarre two weeks—which ended as abruptly as they’d begun—left a lasting mark on the village, introducing the confusing idea that “gentlemen are all lady-killers.”

“E-excuse me! Young sir! Please wait!”

While Satori and her assistants were preparing to leave Keym Village, Kunon was approaching the magic school. The experiment in Keym was over, so he was attending school for the first time in a while.

But just before he reached campus, an elderly man called out to him.

“Hmm?”

At first, Kunon didn’t think the man was talking to him, but the fellow’s rapid footsteps were clearly headed his way.

“Are you Mister Kunon Gurion? Or do I have the wrong person?”

“Y-yes, I’m Kunon.”

The old man approached him and even used his name. This was clearly no mistake.

He looked around sixty or seventy years old. His nice clothes clearly marked him as a gentleman. He was tall and thin and projected a dangerous aura, sharp as a blade.

“Excuse my rudeness. I am a butler of the Quartz family.”

“…Quartz…?”

That name sounds familiar, Kunon thought. It only took a moment for him to place it.

“Oh, that’s Miss Serraphila’s…”

Not many people used their family name at the magic school, and that went double for those in the Advanced class. These days, Kunon barely ever used his.

“Mr. Kunon.” The old man stepped quickly toward him at the sound of his charge’s name. The air had been tense to begin with, but now it was thick enough to cut with a knife. “I have something to speak with you about regarding Miss Serraphila. Could I please have a moment of your time?”

The old man had phrased his words as a question, but the intense pressure behind them made it clear he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Interlude 2. And the Conclusion

The distant sky had begun to turn crimson.

Looking down from the flying ship, the world seemed so vast. You could see for miles and miles.

A clear membrane surrounded the ship to prevent it from being jostled by strong winds. Unfortunately, that resulted in the deck being quite hot due to the lack of a breeze. It was autumn, but the hot days continued.

The expedition had been even more fun than Serraphila had expected.

She walked onto the deck, rested her hands on the railing, and reflected on the trip as she gazed out at the scenery.

Going along had been her decision, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t anxious. Not only had she not prepared, she didn’t know anyone else in the group. It was also her first flight, and she was terrified of falling or something happening to the ship.

But the first week had gone by in a flash. When she realized she was over halfway through the journey, she began to despair at each passing day.

It was all so much fun. Everything she saw, everything she experienced, every place she went, every person she talked to was more fascinating than the last. She had become fully engrossed.

Magic… It was so much deeper and more mysterious than Serraphila had ever realized.

All the ship’s other passengers were upperclassmen. Some had an earth attribute like her. Most had a different one. Everything they had to say was so interesting.

She was sure many of them were looking out for her because she was a new student. They were probably treating her more like a guest than a friend.

Even so, these two weeks had been incredibly enjoyable, and she had been exposed to so much magic.

In the past, magic was only something she studied with her tutor. The Advanced students, by contrast, involved magic in everything they did. They didn’t set aside time to study magic. They were always studying it.

She wanted to adjust her mindset to match theirs as quickly as possible. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to keep up. And catching up was suddenly of paramount importance.

“Serra?”

Someone called her name. Serraphila followed imperial etiquette, waiting a brief moment before turning around.

“Miss Elva.”

It was her beautiful sis—er, upperclassman—whom she had come to admire so much.

“What are you doing here?” asked Elva. She had been watching over Serraphila for the last two weeks.

“Thinking about how I don’t want this trip to be over.”

There were so many lovely girls. Elva was only one of them. There was also Shilto, whom everyone called their representative, and so many others, each as beautiful, charming, mysterious, and lovely as the last. Was it their magic that made them so captivating? No. Serraphila would have been taken with them even if they weren’t sorcerers.

They had gathered in Dirashik from all around the world to study magic. It seemed Serraphila’s new school was full of beautiful women and girls from many different lands. That thought filled her with excitement for her new life as a student.

“Really?” asked Elva. “I take it you had fun, then?”

“Yes, lots.”

Serraphila prayed more days like the ones she’d spent on this trip lay ahead of her.

That was why she had to change. For the first time in her life, she needed to take magic seriously.

With her current ability, Serraphila couldn’t hope to keep up. This trip had made it clear just how far ahead her upperclassmen were.

Elva, Shilto, and all the other girls were so much more skilled than she was. That went for the boys who looked after her, too, she supposed.

She wanted to spend more time with them, and to do that, she needed to become worthy of the Advanced class.

A powerful resolve pulsed within her heart. She would start intensive study as soon as she returned.

To keep pace with the girls—to avoid being a burden to them—she needed to become just as capable as they were.

It might take some time, but she would definitely get there.

The Magic City of Dirashik came into view.

Serraphila’s trip through the skies was coming to an end.

Chapter 3. The Young Imperial Lady Goes Astray

Dirashik had developed around its large population of sorcerers and thus was unique in many ways.

This was clearly evident in the city’s shops, which offered a range of items only sorcerers would want—things that would seem like junk to most people but were treasure to professional magic users.

Similarly, Dirashik had cafés and eateries that were open for business much earlier in the morning than in other cities to serve the many sorcerers for whom morning, afternoon, and night held no meaning. When sorcerers performed experiments, all concepts of time went out the window. They got less sleep and ceased to eat at regular times. It was common for them to grow hungry and walk outside, only to realize it was the middle of the night. These restaurants opened at unusual hours to accommodate those sorcerers’ schedules.

That was why Rudin, the Quartz family’s butler, was able to take Kunon to a nearby café, despite the early hour.

“I’ll have luccon tea,” Kunon said after a waiter led them to a table and asked for their orders.

Is this really the time to be drinking tea? Rudin thought.

Serraphila was missing; the elderly butler was far too worried to eat or drink.

No, wait, he thought. It would be rude not to order anything after entering a café. Kunon had only done the sensible thing.

“Would you like it cold or hot?” asked the waiter.

“Hmm. Somewhere in between,” Kunon replied.

Is this really the time to be so picky? Rudin thought.

Serraphila was missing; the elderly butler was so stressed he was barely sleeping.

But this café was used to dealing with sorcerers. The employee accepted Kunon’s picky order with a simple “understood.”

Actually, Rudin thought. I could learn from that kind of flexibility. Adapting to unexpected situations was an important skill.

“Oh, and do you have anything sweet?” Kunon continued. “Like cookies?”

He’s ordering more?! Rudin thought.

Serraphila was missing; this was hardly the time to enjoy a sweet treat.

Well, I suppose there’s no time to fuss over trivialities.

“Would you please allow me to sit with you?” Rudin asked.

“Why, of course. I’m just an ordinary magic school student here.”

A servant and the son of a noble. Normally the former would never be allowed to sit with the latter. In Dirashik, however, very few people cared about social rank.

“Thank you very much.”

Having received Kunon’s permission, Rudin sat down across from him.

“What are you going to order, Mr. Rudin?” Kunon asked.

“The same thing as you.”

“The parfaits here are quite delicious.”

“Thank you for the recommendation, but I am at work. I’m afraid I will have to refrain,” Rudin said quickly, shooing away the waiter. He didn’t want to waste any more time. “Now, about Miss Serraphila—”

“Oh, yes. Does she like parfaits too?”

“I don’t know. She does have a sweet tooth. Anyway—”

“You don’t say? I should try inviting her here.”

“…How nice. Anyway, about the lady—”

“Don’t worry. I’m a gentleman. I won’t invite her here until we are better acquainted, and we won’t go alone.”

“……”

This is challenging, Rudin thought.

He had done some research on Kunon, including asking those familiar with the boy what kind of person he was. No two people had worded it the same way. But all of them had said basically the same thing: that he was shallow and frivolous.

He was definitely as the rumors described—as shallow as a puddle.

“Do you want to hear something fun?” he said. “Don’t tell anyone, but this café’s parfaits sometimes contain fruit sold by a saint. Her crops are really high-quality.”

Rudin couldn’t care less about that.

“Mr. Kunon. My deepest apologies for interrupting, but may we please discuss the matter at hand?” He bowed politely.

Rudin had been ready to threaten Kunon if he proved hesitant to talk. But while the boy was difficult to speak to, it wasn’t in the way Rudin had expected.

He was actually quite friendly and talkative. Obtaining information from him was easy. The problem was that it was all useless information. Getting what he wanted out of the boy was proving much more difficult.

He doubted Kunon was avoiding his questions on purpose, but Rudin didn’t have time to waste on pointless small talk.

“Oh. Sure,” said Kunon. “Did you want to talk about Miss Serraphila?”

At last. It seemed like he was finally ready to listen.

“Huh?” said Kunon. “You want to know where Miss Serraphila is?”

Nearly two weeks. Rudin had been waiting for this moment for nearly two weeks.

Kunon’s daily trips to the outskirts of Dirashik had prevented the butler from catching him. And all this time later, he finally had him.

“Yes,” he replied. “She hasn’t been home in several days, so I am searching for her. She never told me she would be gone for any length of time, so… I’ve been worried she might be in danger.”

He had spent much of that time investigating Kunon.

Naturally, he’d considered writing him a letter or leaving a message with his servant. But the situation was too grave for that. Serraphila’s disappearance could easily harm her family’s reputation. This was a delicate matter.

He couldn’t afford to write letters that would leave evidence of what had happened. And he hadn’t left a message with Kunon’s servant because…he had decided she was dangerous. She was always excitedly asking about rumors and domestic trouble in the neighborhood. He figured she must have a very loose tongue. Asking such a servant to keep quiet was foolish. It would be better to tell her nothing at all. Approaching her was not an option.

After much thought, Rudin had decided he had only one option: to catch Kunon himself.

Fortunately, while he wasn’t sure where Serraphila was, he did know why she had gone missing. Thus, he could be reasonably sure she wasn’t in danger.

…At least, that was what he told himself. That was the only thing that kept him going.

Anxiety threatened to overwhelm him. He worried about lasting repercussions to the Quartz family and about Serraphila’s future. And to make matters worse, this terrible incident had occurred under his watch, immediately after Serraphila’s enrollment.

He couldn’t possibly show his face to the Quartz family—to whom he owed so much—before he found her. Thinking about all this made him want to strangle himself.

“I’m pretty sure she went with the Harmony Faction on a trip to gather materials,” Kunon said.

Rudin already knew that. He knew she’d gone off somewhere on a flying ship. The problem was that he had no way of obtaining any further information.

He wanted to know what had happened after she left.

“Miss Serraphila disappeared a day after meeting you. You might be the last person at the school she had an extended conversation with. Please share anything about her that comes to mind. I especially want to know what you talked about with her, and what happened after your conversation. Give me every detail, no matter how irrelevant it may seem. I’ll take anything. Please, young sir. Please,” Rudin pleaded.

The boy with the eye mask was Rudin’s only hope. If he couldn’t learn anything from him, that would be the end of the line.

He would take anything. Even the smallest of morsels. He was desperate.

“Hmm. Miss Serraphila, huh?” Kunon crossed his arms and thought. “I suppose I was the one who asked a student from the Harmony Faction to take her under her wing. As for her current location, though…”

So it’s all your fault, Rudin thought.

That was definitely the reason Serraphila had gone missing.

Rudin’s last hope had turned out to be the one behind all his troubles.

“Oh, I see.”

Kunon seemed to have a different perception of the situation than Rudin, but because he knew what was going on, the butler decided to tell him everything he knew. Much of it was information he couldn’t share with anyone else, lest he harm Serraphila’s future and the Quartz family’s good name.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t change the truth. There would be no way to hide the fact that Serraphila had gone on a multiweek trip to gather resources. Too many others were involved. The group who took Serraphila reportedly consisted of close to twenty students. Swearing them all to silence would be impossible.

“So she left without saying anything,” said Kunon once Rudin was finished. “I can see why you’d be worried. But you don’t need to be. There are many superb, responsible girls in the Harmony Faction traveling with her.”

Elva and Shilto had both gone. Kunon thought their presence would be enough to prevent any problems.

“Miss Serraphila is attractive enough to capture the attention of every boy she meets,” he continued. “She’s totally a mountain girl. But you have nothing to worry about.”

Rudin had no idea what Kunon meant about the mountain, but he knew Serraphila was attractive. That was part of why he was so concerned. He didn’t understand how Kunon could be so calm.

“So what do you want to do, Mr. Rudin?” Kunon asked. “Do you want to bring her back home right away?”

“I would like to, if possible, but…”

It had been almost two weeks since Serraphila left. So much time had already passed. He wanted to bring her home and back under his protection as quickly as possible. But at this point…

“Admittedly, it seems a bit late for that,” Rudin said.

If Serraphila went on this trip willingly, was it his place, as a servant, to oppose his mistress’s wishes? Of course, if it had been only two or three days since her disappearance, it would have been a different story. But nearly two weeks had passed, and rumor had it those on the expedition would soon return.

For all those reasons, Rudin felt he’d already missed his chance. Any effort to bring her back would be pointless.

“I agree,” said Kunon. “If you simply wait, she’ll be back soon.”

“Most likely…but I felt I had to do something.”

Tracking down Kunon and spilling out all the fears he’d been keeping inside had finally allowed Rudin to give up.

No, he wasn’t “giving up.” He was simply admitting to himself it was too late to interfere.

Rudin had spent the last two weeks running around like a chicken with its head cut off, despite knowing his efforts were unlikely to accomplish anything. He was finally ready to stop.

“I wish I had spoken to you sooner, Mr. Kunon. We might have been able to do something.”

“I’m honored. As a gentleman, though, I would rather hear such words from a lady.”

Honored? By what?

Though he didn’t understand why, Kunon’s calm demeanor had caused Rudin to relax as well. He felt silly for letting himself get so worked up and desperate. He was still worried about Serraphila and wanted to bring her home as soon as possible, but it was clear he’d missed his opportunity.

That had been obvious from the start, of course. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself until then.

“I understand why you’re worried about her,” said Kunon. “She just enrolled, and her mountain charm must give you even more cause for concern. But you should get used to this. Multiday experiments and fieldwork are common for students in the Advanced class.”

“So it seems. I just wish she had told me about the trip beforehand, in person.”

At first, Rudin had suspected abduction. He was worried someone had learned she was a daughter of the Quartz family and had dragged her away as part of some nefarious scheme.

However, all the information he’d gathered had indicated otherwise. Many people had testified that such disappearances were commonplace for Advanced students. Even the school’s staff had agreed.

“You should discuss that with her,” Kunon said, picking up his cup in a graceful manner that conveyed his good upbringing. “I’m sure this will be far from the last time Miss Serraphila spends the night away from home.”

“Please watch your wording!”

Kunon was right, and he clearly hadn’t meant to insult her. Still, Rudin couldn’t let that comment slide. He’d just made Rudin’s mistress sound like a delinquent who enjoyed the nightlife.

Serraphila was a good girl. The Quartz family had raised her with much love and care. She came from a prestigious lineage, and her conduct was beyond reproach. She was sure to grow into a fine lady.

“Hm? Did I say something offensive?”

Kunon, meanwhile, hadn’t meant anything by his words and didn’t know why Rudin was angry.

The pair spoke for a little while longer, then parted.

Two days later, the Harmony Faction returned from its expedition.

Serraphila arrived home without issue.

“Hmph! You were just worried for no reason, Gramps! That’s not my fault!”

“M-Miss…”

Well, “without issue” wasn’t quite right…

“I’m going to bed! Leave me alone!”

It seemed she’d come back with a terrible attitude.

“This is definitely the first time an elderly man has invited me out to eat twice.”

Kunon felt a strong sense of déjà vu.

He was at the same café, sitting at the same table, talking to the same old man—it was enough to make him feel like he was living the same day all over again.

“I don’t know who else to turn to,” Rudin replied. “You were the only person I could think of, young sir.”

Kunon reunited with the Quartz family’s butler three days after the Harmony Faction returned from their expedition.

Just like the last time, Rudin had caught Kunon at the school gate early that morning. He’d said he wanted to talk to him and forcibly dragged him back to the café without waiting for his reply.

“I’ll have imperial black tea and a small scone. Do you have apple jam? You do? Then please add some to the side. What do you want, Mr. Rudin? Just tea?”

Kunon’s tone was as casual as ever as he placed his order, though the elderly butler had so grave an expression you’d think he’d just lost all his money gambling.

“Is this about Miss Serraphila?” Kunon asked after the waiter left them. “I’ve been worried about her since our last meeting, too. But I haven’t seen her once since the expedition.”

Of course he hasn’t, thought Rudin.

“The young miss has not gone to school once since her return… In fact, she has not left her room once in the last three days.”

“Oh? Why? Is she lovesick?”

Rudin wished that were true. In that case, he could simply eliminate the one responsible. But the truth was, he had no idea what Serraphila was upset about.

“Her current behavior is why I wanted to speak to you. But it seems you also have no idea what is troubling her.”

Last time, Kunon himself had been responsible, but now he seemed to know nothing.

“She won’t come out of her room at all?” the boy asked.

“Yes. If I call out to her, she simply yells at me to leave her alone… She’s never raised her voice at a servant before, but ever since her return, she has been shouting at me constantly.”

“Hmm… Interesting. Maybe she really is lovesick?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What do you think?” Kunon asked, turning to the waiter as she delivered his food.

She hadn’t heard any of their conversation and looked at him in confusion. “What?”

Their waiter was a woman around twenty years old with a calm demeanor, and Kunon figured this was a perfect opportunity to get a female perspective on the matter.

He gave her a simple explanation of Serraphila’s situation, without mentioning her name, of course.

“Lovesick, you say? …Well, this is just my experience, but girls in love typically look happy, like they’re walking on clouds.”

Kunon and the butler both nodded with interest. Neither of them understood a woman’s heart, so this was very informative.

“Based on what you’ve told me, I’d say it sounds less like she’s lovesick and more like she’s suffering from a broken heart. Maybe she was dumped or rejected by someone she likes.”

“What was that?!”

“Calm down, Mr. Rudin,” said Kunon. “You look positively murderous.”

Unfazed by Rudin’s open display of malice, the waiter simply said, “Enjoy” and walked away. As expected of a citizen of Dirashik—she had nerves of steel.

“How rude,” Rudin muttered angrily. “She thinks the young miss could have been ‘dumped’ or ‘rejected’? That’s an insult to the Quartz family.”

“Slow down. Let’s forget about her family. We’re in Dirashik,” Kunon said, soothing him. “I can’t say whether she’s lovestruck or heartbroken. I wasn’t on the expedition, so I can only guess at what happened. Wouldn’t it be best to speak to someone who was there?”

“Do you mean the girl called Elva?”

We’re going on a trip to gather materials. We’ll be back in about two weeks. Don’t worry about Serraphila. I’ll take good care of her.

A letter with those words had been delivered to Serraphila’s house the day she had left on the expedition. The sender hadn’t written their name, but pinpointing their identity proved to be a cinch for a butler of Rudin’s talents. He’d tried and failed to find Serraphila for two weeks, but he hadn’t let that stop him from doing everything in his power.

In the end, Serraphila had returned home safely, so Rudin had decided to overlook Elva’s actions. She hadn’t lied about anything in her letter, and if that was how the magic school operated, Rudin figured he would simply have to accept it.

But while Serraphila had returned home safely, she could hardly be said to be well. And in that case, Rudin had no choice but to track down this Elva person and interrogate her. If he could elucidate the cause of her troubles, he would eliminate it. In fact, he felt like eliminating something either way.

“What kind of person is this Elva girl?” he asked.

Before he could start his work, he needed to find out more about his target. If she was a delinquent, he might forbid her from interacting with Serraphila ever again. Essentially, he needed to know if she was worthy of associating with a girl of the Quartz family. In his own investigations, he’d merely determined she was an ordinary student in the Advanced class, and no more. So he wanted Kunon’s thoughts on the girl before making any decisions.

“Elva is a remarkable person, though she’s more of a beach girl.”

Rudin wasn’t sure what Kunon was trying to say about beaches, but it seemed Elva wasn’t some ne’er-do-well, at least.

With that cleared up, Rudin asked Kunon to summon Elva for him.

“This is Miss Elva. Miss Elva, this is Mr. Rudin. He’s Serraphila’s family’s butler.”

Kunon acted quickly. Serraphila was in need, and he wasted no time when it came to helping a member of the fairer sex.

He’d brought Elva to the café that very morning.

Kunon had left, headed to the magic school’s reception desk, and asked the receptionist Loubella to summon Elva, who had come right away.

She was beautiful and stylish that day, with no sign of fatigue.

“Nice to meet you,” she said.

“Thank you for looking after the young miss,” replied Rudin.

They greeted each other inoffensively and took their seats at the table.

“So Kunon, what’s wrong with Serra?” asked Elva.

She’d come to the café right away because Kunon had asked for “advice regarding Serraphila.” If he had given any other reason, she might not have come so quickly. She probably would have said, “I’m busy right now, so we’ll have to meet another day.” If Kunon had simply invited her to tea, she might have rejected him outright.

Well, it was a nice excuse to get breakfast, but she would have taken her time if that was the only reason.

The truth was, she’d only woken up very recently. She’d taken the time to make sure she looked presentable, but that was it. She figured she might meet Serraphila, and she wanted to do her best to serve as a role model for the girl.

“According to Mr. Rudin, Miss Serraphila has not left her room since returning from the expedition,” explained Kunon. “She’s holed up, refusing to come out.”

“Huh? Why?” Elva asked, puzzled.

“Maybe she had a lot of fun on the expedition and she’s depressed it’s over,” suggested Kunon.

Rudin couldn’t be sure, but judging from Elva’s reaction, it seemed she was just as clueless. And so, he decided to explain a bit more about Serraphila’s situation.

“The truth is…,” he began.

When he was finished, Elva furrowed her brow in thought.

“I see… It seemed like she had fun on the expedition. I didn’t notice any problems…”

“Truly? You mean to say you didn’t kidnap…abduct…take her on a multiweek trip with no warning?” Rudin said with obvious anger.

“No,” Elva replied calmly. “Well, I might have been a little pushy when we were leaving, but I said I could take her home any time she wanted. I told her multiday trips are common for the Advanced class, and she said she wanted to go to get accustomed as quickly as possible. Everyone in the faction loves her. She’s brave and cute.”

She is, isn’t she? Rudin thought. The young miss can appear haughty, but she’s actually brave and cute. This girl understands her. I can trust her.

“Oh, don’t tell anyone how the faction feels about her. We’re not allowed to recruit until a month into the semester.”

Because of Serraphila’s presence, the students had to avoid treating the trip as a faction activity; officially, they were just a large group with no particular affiliation. They all had to keep quiet about the factions.

Despite that, Elva was positive Serraphila would join Harmony. The girl had clearly enjoyed herself, and she was truly adorable. She came off as haughty and cold, and it felt like she used her manner of speaking to emphasize her high birth. But in reality, she was just a nice girl. She was friendly toward everyone and even volunteered to do chores. And she frequently sought advice from Elva and the other upperclassmen about magic and things she didn’t know.

Everyone had doted on her during the trip. Some even grew to regret they weren’t an earth user like she was. Elva, in particular, had formed a special bond with her.

“She looks up to me so much that she calls me ‘Sister Elva.’ I grew to cherish her, too.”

Elva ended up looking after Serraphila for the entire expedition. The girl was surprisingly tenacious for one of her lofty birth, so it hadn’t taken much effort.

She was selfless and she didn’t complain. But at the same time, she didn’t push herself too hard and asked for help if she needed it. It was obvious she had a good upbringing.

“‘Sister’ Elva… I see.”

Thank goodness she’s not a boy, Rudin thought. If Elva had been a boy, he would have had to have a long talk with her.

…That wasn’t to say he had no concerns about their relationship, but he could ignore such things for now.

“So do you think Serraphila’s behavior is unrelated to the expedition?”

“Surely it’s related somehow,” Kunon said. “I don’t know her well enough to speak about her, but no one shuts themselves in their room for no reason.”

That was a good point. However, it didn’t sound like anything had happened on the expedition.

“That said,” Kunon began, “if you don’t have any ideas, Miss Elva, that leaves us no choice but to ask her directly. Like gentlemen.”

It seemed like there were no problems on the expedition. And yet Serraphila had shut herself in her room upon her return. Had something happened after she got back to Dirashik but before she returned home? Or was there some other cause they couldn’t even imagine?

They were in the dark, which left them only one choice.

“I admit that would be the fastest solution,” Rudin said before grimacing and looking down. “Unfortunately, she refuses to answer my questions…”

Serraphila had completely rejected Rudin and the other servants. If she had been willing to talk, he would not be at this café asking for advice.

“Should I try asking her?” Elva suggested. “I like Serra, and what I’ve heard has me worried.”

“I doubt she will speak to you.”

Serraphila wouldn’t even speak to Rudin, whom she had known all her life. He couldn’t imagine his beloved mistress would open up to a stranger she’d only met two weeks prior.

“There are some things that are difficult to speak about with family, you know?”

“Hmm. I suppose so. In that case, Miss Elva, please give it a try.”

There are some things that are difficult to speak about with family.

That’s true, Rudin thought. She’s having trouble telling me because I’m family. That must be it. She sees me as family.

“Let’s get going. There’s no time to waste,” Kunon said, standing up for some reason.

The other two asked why he needed to accompany them, and he replied, “Because I’m worried about her, too.”

They found no good reason to refuse him, so the three headed out together.

Rudin stood before Serraphila’s door and called out, “Young Miss, may I please speak to you for a moment?”

“I told you to leave me alone! What part of that don’t you understand?!”

It was just as the elderly butler had said. Serraphila yelled with an anger that shocked Kunon and Elva.

“She’s been like this for three days,” Rudin said, sighing.

“Can I speak to her?” Elva asked, and Rudin nodded.

“Serra? It’s me.”

The door swung open immediately. “Sister Elva?!”

It took less than a second. They didn’t even have time to blink before Serraphila dashed out of her room.

“So this is where Miss Serraphila lives,” said Kunon.

Her house was located in an affluent residential neighborhood near the prince’s. Naturally, that meant Serraphila was living in a luxurious mansion. In fact, it was such a nice place that Kunon began to worry. After all, Advanced class students had to earn their own living expenses.

The school paid rent, so that wasn’t an issue. An excessively spacious residence, however, was difficult to maintain. The need to pay servants out of pocket made hiring large numbers of them risky. That was especially true directly after a student enrolled, when they hadn’t yet secured a stable income.

“This place looks like it requires a lot of upkeep. Is she doing okay?”

Kunon and Rudin had just arrived at a table in the mansion’s overly large yard.

This was Kunon’s third teatime that day. He had tea twice with the elderly butler at the café, and he was having another round at Serraphila’s house.

“Changes will be made starting next month. Honestly, Miss Serraphila was recommended to join the Advanced class based on her results on the entrance exam. She originally intended to enter Second Level,” Rudin said, standing by the table in a serving position. His butler’s clothes made him look very natural in that role. “In the end, she chose to enter the Advanced class.”

That explained it. Second Level students could receive an allowance, which would make a house of that scale no problem. Serraphila had ended up in this situation because she’d thought she would be in Second Level.

“We plan to send multiple servants home and search for a more suitable house. We don’t yet know how much money the young miss will be able to earn, so there is still much uncertainty.”

That reminded Kunon. The magic school had two entrance exams: one specifically for the Advanced class and another for general admission. Kunon had taken the former.

Which test a student took depended on whether they had a recommendation from someone connected to the school. Kunon assumed his recommendation had come from his instructor Zeonly, but…the truth was, he didn’t actually know.

Serraphila had taken the latter exam, and she had done so well she was recommended to enter the Advanced class. Gioelion had likely received the same recommendation, but he’d turned it down because of his background.

“Will you stay in Dirashik, Mr. Rudin?” asked Kunon. “Or are you going to leave?”

“That is a good question. I originally intended to serve Serraphila here until she graduated, but circumstances have changed…”

Serraphila had disappeared for two weeks right after enrolling. Now she was acting rudely and shutting herself in her room.

Part of Rudin’s duty was to act as her guard. He owed much to the Quartz family and would risk his life to defend Serraphila. And yet he had just made a mockery of that resolve. He had already committed a fatal error from which he could never recover. Multiple errors, in fact.

So what if his charge had returned home safely in the end? That didn’t change the fact that she had disappeared on his watch. Whether he stayed or left, he would need to return to the Empire at least once to apologize to the Quartz family.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Rudin,” said Kunon.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll look after Miss Serraphila if you leave. As a gentleman, it’s the least I can do!”

I find that more frightening than reassuring, Rudin thought.

Kunon was the boy he least wanted getting close to Serraphila. He was as shallow as a puddle. He hit on girls as easily as he breathed, and it deeply unsettled the elderly butler.

“And Miss Elva seems quite taken with Miss Serraphila, so I’m sure she’ll look after her, too!”

At this point, that would be even more vexing, Rudin thought.

He had taken care of Serraphila since her birth. While presumptuous, he thought of her like a daughter or a granddaughter. That was how important she was to him. And now she had been stolen away by a girl she’d known for only two weeks.

He couldn’t help but feel jealous. If he were a little younger—say, by four or five years—he wouldn’t have been able to handle it. He probably would have gone to his room, buried his head in his pillow, and screamed. Such was the degree of his frustration.

He hadn’t known it was possible to get so worked up at his age. Dark emotions swirled in his heart. But the elderly butler let none of it show on his face.

“Please lend the young miss a hand whenever she requires it.”

Rudin would probably need to leave Dirashik temporarily.

But I’ll definitely be back, he thought.

Shortly afterward, Elva joined the cheerful boy with the eye mask and the elderly butler at the table, with no inkling of the darkness broiling in the latter’s heart.

“Hey. So I talked to her,” she said, sitting down in the chair Rudin had pulled out for her.

“What did the young miss say?” he asked, pouring Elva’s tea gracefully despite his impatience.

“She can give you a more detailed explanation, so I’ll keep it short.”

Earlier, right after Elva had effortlessly drawn Serraphila from her room, she’d sent Kunon and Rudin away. It had only taken one look at the girl for Elva to guess what was going on. Her indigo hair was disheveled and there were bags under her eyes. Her clothes were worn out and wrinkled.

Elva recognized the symptoms right away—Serraphila was doing something she herself had once done when she was younger. And in the end, her hunch had turned out to be right.

“She was training,” Elva declared.

“…What?”

“She was training at magic. She locked herself in her room to devote herself to the task day and night.”

“……”

Rudin’s mind went blank at the unexpected answer.

“Wh-why…?” asked Kunon. “Why did she lock herself in her room? Why wouldn’t she let anyone near her?”

Serraphila wasn’t doing anything wrong. Was there really any reason for her to shut herself away? Both men were at a loss.

“Think about it. What girl would want a guy to see her working so hard that she starts neglecting even her appearance?”

There were times when girls had to abandon their feminine side, such as when they were so engrossed in a project that personal grooming fell by the wayside. Serraphila was only twelve years old. That was a sensitive age. It was only natural that she would be self-conscious. Even Elva had needed a little time to accept how slovenly she became when she immersed herself in a project.

“I will explain the rest, Sister.” Serraphila walked up to the table. She had cleaned up her appearance. The bedraggled girl who had emerged from her room earlier was no more. “My apologies for worrying you. Thank you for coming, Mr. Kunon.”

“This is the least I could do for you, fair lady.”

“It sounds like my butler caused you trouble. My apologies.” Serraphila bowed, causing the elderly butler to grow flustered.

“Y-Young Miss…”

“Gramps.” Serraphila stared at Rudin. She had spent the last few days yelling at him from behind her door, but now she was back to her usual self. That didn’t mean she wasn’t angry, however. “I told you to leave me alone multiple times. Why didn’t you listen?”

“I, well… I could not simply leave you in your room like that. I was worried.”

“You would have just fussed over me if I told you what I was doing. I didn’t want that. I really just wanted you to leave me alone. That was all I asked of you. Instead, you got so worried about me you bothered Mr. Kunon. You even made Sister Elva come all the way here.”

“…Young Miss…”

If possible, Serraphila had wanted to avoid telling anyone what she was doing. At this point, however, she had no choice.

“I witnessed something special on the expedition: true magic. I saw it over and over again, and each time it made my own abilities look like child’s play. I came to believe that, as I am now, I have no chance of keeping up with the Advanced class.”

That was why she’d decided she needed to train. She had no time to lose. If, over the next month, she saw no potential for her magic to grow, she would consider transferring to Second Level.

Serraphila was a daughter of the Quartz family. She had to avoid shaming her house. She couldn’t allow others to think she was clinging to her position in the Advanced class despite insufficient magical ability.

“If you had told me that, I would have left you alone!” exclaimed Rudin.

“Oh, Gramps. No, you wouldn’t have.”

“Please trust me!”

“I’m saying this because I trust you. I’m training so hard I’m staying up until I collapse and forgetting to eat until my body can’t take it anymore. But I have to keep going. I have no choice but to push myself to my limit. I can’t rely on anyone else, either.

“I know you can’t simply sit back and watch me treat myself like that. The other servants can’t, either. I appreciate your concern, but I really don’t need it right now. I want to become a sorcerer. This is the first time in my life I’ve felt this way. So please, don’t stop me.”

Serraphila’s eyes shone brightly as she spoke. Some fatigue was still visible on her face, but the strength of her determination was obvious.

“…Young Miss…”

Rudin could clearly see how much Serraphila had grown. He knew she was steadily leaving his side. She was saying she didn’t want to be a child any longer. She wanted to be independent. She was trying to walk on her own two feet.

Trying to stop her would be a mistake. He had no choice but to watch over her. In other words, he had to do as she said and leave her alone.

“Besides, I want to spend more time with Sister Elva. I must remain in the Advanced class.”

“…Huh?”

…Rudin would be lying if he said those words didn’t make him anxious. But for the time being, he would let Serraphila do as she wished.

“Anyway, I’m glad she’s doing fine,” Kunon said after he and Elva had left.

The problem with Serraphila had more or less been solved.

The elderly butler had panicked because his charge had shut herself away in her room. That was something she had never done before, so he had come to Kunon for advice.

But now the butler knew the reason for Serraphila’s reclusive behavior. In fact, she had emerged from her room and explained it to him herself.

The case was closed, so Kunon and Elva had departed. The rest was for Serraphila and her servants to figure out.

“Yeah. Thank goodness she’s not sick or anything.”

Kunon and Elva were both sorcerers in the Advanced class.

“She’ll be just fine,” Elva said.

“Yes, she will,” Kunon agreed. “She’ll probably surpass me in no time.”

They both had an idea of what Serraphila was feeling. After all, they had both been down that same road. The rest of the upperclassmen in the Advanced class surely had as well.

“Was there something that helped you get over the wall, Miss Elva?”

“Wall? …Oh, I see what you mean.”

Kunon was talking about something that was hard to put into words, but Elva understood.

“Hmm. How should I put it…? There are stages. To a sorcerer’s growth, I mean.”

As fellow travelers, they both knew what a sorcerer’s journey entailed.

The first stage was simply using the magic you were taught. If you could apply that magic on a practical level—even if only a little—you would be considered a full-fledged sorcerer.

From a non-sorcerer’s perspective, that might be good enough. Most would be satisfied with magic that was helpful in everyday life.

Beyond that line were Advanced class students and those above them. There were exceptions, of course—such as Gioelion—who were great sorcerers despite not entering the Advanced class. But such cases were extremely rare. He probably would have been their classmate if not for his family background.

“Serra told me she’s the type to quickly master anything she tries. She gave horse riding and book learning as examples. Even magic came easily to her, apparently. I guess she’s just a prodigy.”

That had probably been the source of Serraphila’s initial indifference toward magic. She’d mastered the spells she was taught so easily she hadn’t developed any special attachment to the art. But that was all there was to it.

“A prodigy, huh?” mused Kunon. “I’m jealous.”

As if you’re not a prodigy, too, Elva thought, but she didn’t say it.

She knew how much time and effort Kunon had put in to achieve his current level of skill. He’d probably had to work even harder because he was blind. She felt like ignoring that and simply calling him a “prodigy” would belittle his hardships.

“Miss Serraphila must have felt the wall for the first time on that expedition.”

There were so-called full-fledged sorcerers, and then there were those who went even further. Serraphila was currently one of the former. But she was now aware of the boundary—the wall that existed between her and her classmates—and she had begun her efforts to break through it.

Kunon and Elva had once been in her place, so they knew she would be fine.

This was a natural part of any sorcerer’s growth. Kunon had first felt the wall after a careless remark from his first instructor. Thinking back, he had pushed himself really hard, too.

Using magic to create eyes had been quite a challenge to take on for a child who knew basically nothing about theory. But he had never once thought it impossible. That was why he hadn’t given up.

In fact, he was still on that journey. Should he continue to improve the Glass Eye, or should he come up with something different? There were countless things he wanted to try.

He and Elva reflected on their past selves as they walked in relative silence. They were headed back to magic school, just like always.

“Miss Elva,” said Kunon, breaking the silence. “I had a thought I want to share with you. It’s nothing serious, though.”

“What is it? Do you want my advice on something, too?”

“Not advice, per se. I just want your thoughts on something I’ve been wondering about. Oh, but first, please forgive me for thinking of something other than you while at your side. You’re a mystical flower that shines brightly enough to illuminate the darkest of nights and should always have the full attention of those around you.”

“Uh, thanks, I think. I let my mind wander while at the side of a cute little gentleman like you, too. So don’t worry about it.”

After this preamble, Kunon continued. “You know the wall Miss Serraphila is trying to overcome? I’m on the other side of it. So are you and Bael, for example. That’s what I think.”

“Okay.”

Beyond the wall was an endless road leading toward the abyss of magic.

Everyone on their side of the wall—including Elva, the other Advanced class students, and even the teachers—walked that road and occasionally found themselves lost.

It was a difficult concept to explain, but all sorcerers felt it once their growth reached a certain point.

“My thought relates to that,” he said, his tone casual. “I was thinking, what if Gray Rouva isn’t there with us? What if she overcame another wall beyond the first one?”

“…!”

Elva’s head snapped toward Kunon. She felt as if he had slapped her, though she felt no physical pain.

He was speaking nonsense. But somehow, she thought she understood what he meant.

It was just a feeling. She didn’t know if Kunon was right. There might not be another wall. But despite her better judgment, a part of her felt he might be onto something.

He had no evidence to support his theory, of course. But because they were in the same place on their respective journeys, she knew how he felt.

“Yeah… She is different somehow, isn’t she?”

Gray Rouva was considered the world’s greatest witch. Elva had never seen her magic before. She had merely glimpsed her Mysterious Shadow Box, and only from a distance.

If she thought back, however… The witch’s magic certainly felt like it came from a different place than the magic she and her peers used. There was something fundamentally different about it.

That was what Kunon meant when he said he thought she might be beyond some other wall.

His explanation made a surprising amount of sense. Gray Rouva’s magic was different in nature from theirs. That was why they couldn’t understand it. They couldn’t single out any of her spells or figure out how to replicate them.

“Are you saying she uses magic that goes beyond the four major magical elements? That theory would turn the foundation of the magic world upside down.”

And yet it would explain a lot. All of Elva’s accumulated knowledge and experience told her Kunon was right. They had nothing to support this idea but a feeling, and yet Elva was confident—there was another wall on the road of magic they had yet to reach. There might even be multiple walls. And the fact that they couldn’t even see them meant they had a long way to go as sorcerers.

“…It’s so far away,” she said.

“It is. We might have been happier if we remained on the other side of the wall.”

They both knew there was no end to this road. Was there any point in going down a path they would never reach the end of? There had to be many byroads that led to happiness.

“You know that’s not true,” she replied.

“Yeah, I know.”

But those byroads didn’t look the least bit attractive to either of them. Kunon couldn’t even see them in the first place.

The abyss of magic was frighteningly deep, but they had no intention of giving up.

Chapter 4. The Hunt for the Divine Flower

“Oh, Kunon!”

When Kunon and Elva reached the magic school, it was still morning, despite all they’d done.

They arrived to find a number of students running back and forth across the school grounds. There had obviously been some kind of incident.

That was nothing special; there were incidents every day at magic school. It wasn’t even rare to see people racing around campus. But that didn’t mean Kunon was any less curious to know what happened. Perhaps another school building had been destroyed. A major incident like that had happened quite recently. At the very least, he wanted to know if what was going on was related to it.

He was just about to stop someone when a student ran up to him.

“Did something happen, Riyah?” he asked.

The student who’d approached him was Riyah Houghs, Kunon’s classmate.

“I just learned about it myself, but you’d be better off asking what didn’t happen!”

It sounded like a major incident after all.

“Well, that’s exciting. You sure have a way with words. If only you were a girl.”

“Don’t flirt with me, Kunon. I don’t even know everything.”

To be honest, if Riyah had taken him seriously, Kunon wouldn’t have known what to do. He’d simply said the words on impulse.

“What happened? Does it have something to do with me?” Elva asked.

“I don’t know,” Riyah said. “It all started when Saint Reyes went missing a few days ago.”

““What?””

That was a shocking way for the story to begin.

It seemed the Saint had gone missing, too. Was this a new trend? After all, Serraphila had been missing, too, from Rudin’s perspective. People were disappearing left and right.

“What happened to her?!” Kunon asked.

Unlike Serraphila, Kunon had known the Saint for a year already, and he hadn’t heard anything about her going on a trip. News of her disappearance scared him so much he started to sweat. His heart ached with worry.

“Oh yeah. She’s fine. She’s not even hurt. It was only when she showed up again that anyone realized she was missing.”

She’d disappeared, and no one had even realized it? Of course, Kunon hadn’t noticed she was gone, either, so he was in no position to say anything.

“Where is she now?” Elva asked.

“I assume she’s back in her classroom,” replied Riyah. “She mentioned not being able to tend to her plants for a few days.”

Kunon felt relief wash over him; that sounded just like the Saint. It seemed like there really was nothing to worry about. She was safe and acting like her normal self.

“That’s where it gets interesting—”

“Riyah!” A pretty girl ran up, interrupting him. “Have you found the representative?!”

It was Cassis from the Rationality Faction. She was wearing her usual miniskirt, which exposed a distracting amount of thigh.

“Hello, Miss Cassis. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it has! Let’s save the greetings for later, though! There’s no time!”

Kunon hadn’t properly spoken with Cassis since before summer break. She didn’t ignore his greeting, but she was clearly in too much of a hurry to catch up. She looked just as busy as the other students running around the school.

“What happened?” Elva asked.

Cassis just stared at her. The two had never interacted before. Cassis was shy, and because they didn’t share a faction or attribute, they had nothing to bring them together.

Until this, that is.

“You’re an earth user,” said Cassis.

“Huh?”

“You’re an earth user! Help us! This could be a disaster!”

“A disaster, huh…? Well, I’m willing to help, but I have no idea what’s going on.”

Incidents were commonplace at the magic school, and it wasn’t unusual for students to ask others for help when they occurred. That said, you couldn’t lend a hand if you were totally ignorant of the situation.

Plus, Cassis was in Rationality, while Elva was in Harmony. If the situation was serious enough to merit crossing faction lines to ask for help, they needed to be cautious.

If the Rationality Faction couldn’t solve this issue on its own, there was a high chance the incident was truly dangerous. Careless action might only worsen the situation.

Riyah left again to find his faction’s representative, while Cassis explained the situation in his place.

“I’ll keep this short. I don’t know the details of the incident, either, and a proper investigation has yet to be performed. Some of this will just be my own conjecture, so take it with a grain of salt. But you’ll at least get the gist,” she said, putting their expectations in check. “Saint Reyes was missing for about two or three days.”

Kunon and Elva nodded to show they had heard that already.

“It’s not uncommon for Advanced class students to go missing,” Cassis continued. “She ended up being totally fine, too. That isn’t the issue.”

Students often left for fieldwork without warning, only to return days later. That alone would not have caused such a panic.

“The issue is where the Saint turned up.”

Where she turned up?

“She emerged from underneath the Rationality Faction.”

“Underneath… Do you mean she came up from the artificial dungeon you use as your base?”

“Yes. She suddenly emerged from the dungeon’s depths.”

That could only mean one thing. The quick-witted Kunon and Elva both saw where this was going.

“I had been under the impression Miss Reyes was investigating the newly sprouted forest,” Kunon said.

Just two weeks before, the Saint had told Kunon she was heading into the forest. It had stuck in his mind because he’d wanted to go, too, but had been rejected.

He hadn’t seen her since. In fact, he hadn’t even heard mention of her. He had assumed that meant she was still investigating and had been planning to visit her within the next few days.

The forest in question had appeared without warning. It was caused by the blooming of the Sacred Tree, Kira Vera, and there were still many unanswered questions about it. Fascinated by it as he was, Kunon was looking forward to hearing about the results of the Saint’s investigation.

But if she hadn’t yet finished, she must have disappeared while exploring the forest. And then, a few days later, she’d emerged from below the Rationality Faction’s base. That could only mean one thing.

“Then are the forest and the artificial dungeon connected underground?” Elva asked.

She had reached the same conclusion Kunon had.

“If only that were all,” Cassis said, her expression grim. “You know how all vegetation in that forest grows at an unusually fast rate? If that caused the plants to penetrate the dungeon, and they continue to spread, what do you think will happen?”

What would happen, indeed?

“Miss Reyes would become queen of a verdant underground empire?”

“Kunon. I don’t need your jokes right now.”

Cassis wasn’t just being her usual crabby self; she was actually quite serious as she warned Kunon to stop messing around.

Serious girls sure are nice, Kunon thought. Cassis was physically a boy, of course. But she was a girl at heart.

“Kunon’s eccentric wording aside,” said Elva, “there is a chance the plants could take over the entire dungeon… In fact, it seems pretty likely. Or is it already happening?”

Cassis nodded meekly. “Our representative has gone missing, too. We’re looking for him, but…he’s been gone for days. No one has any idea where he is.”

Lulomet, the Rationality representative, was apparently unaccounted for. Going missing really was in style.

“We’ve decided to temporarily block off the areas of the dungeon leading to the forest to hold the plants back. I’d like your help with that.”

“I fell into a weird hole in the forest.”

That was the first thing Reyes said to Kunon when he visited her.

The Saint appeared to be just fine. Despite going missing for a few days, she had apparently gotten out with nothing more than disheveled hair and dirtied clothes.

Once Cassis had led Elva away, Kunon had gone straight to the Saint’s classroom. He was too worried to wait any longer. Riyah had said she was safe, but Kunon wanted to confirm that with his own two eyes. Not that his eyes could see anything, of course.

And so, he’d traveled the familiar route to the Saint’s room, this time under slightly more unusual circumstances.

Upon his arrival, he found his classmate tending to her plants, looking a little tired—no different than any other time he’d visited her.

“The hole quickly became an incline. I rolled down like a helpless pebble and, before I knew it, I was in a stonework dungeon. It was pitch-black and I got injured when I hit the ground, but fortunately, I’m a light user.”

That simple accident was the cause of her disappearance. If she had fallen down the hole totally unprepared, she would have been in great danger. But such a situation was no problem for a saint. She had spells both to heal herself and to produce light.

“Also, the teachers I was with quickly noticed my absence. They fell down the hole on purpose to save me.”

I see, Kunon thought.

They’d been investigating a mysterious forest, so they were likely wary of any danger lurking in its depths and had forbidden acting alone. If they were together, they could handle any unexpected crises. The teachers had been ready for any accidents and had quickly rushed to her side.

“I heard you were missing for a few days,” said Kunon.

“The vegetation had spread into the dungeon, so we decided to investigate it. The plants had somehow laid roots into the stone paving. There was even some shrubbery. The professors and I were very curious to learn how they grew without sunlight.”

That explained a lot.

“So you got so immersed in your research that you spent a few days down there.”

“Yes. We couldn’t tell the passage of time while underground and ended up investigating for longer than intended. We were surprised when we came back above ground and were told it had been a few days.”

That certainly would be surprising. Kunon knew the feeling, though—it was common for time to fly when one was immersed in a fun project.

“I think we did lose consciousness multiple times, though.”

That was probably from fatigue. The same thing happened to Kunon when he got obsessed with something and pushed his mind to keep working all day long. The body was more honest than the mind, however. Even if you didn’t feel it mentally, that kind of thing would inevitably lead to physical exhaustion.

“What’s the forest like?” asked Kunon.

He hadn’t yet gotten a chance to explore it. He had heard stories of moving plants and holes opening up in the ground, and now it turned out the vegetation had penetrated a dungeon. His curiosity simply couldn’t be suppressed.

The Sacred Tree, Kira Vera. Kunon knew it was an incredible plant, but he was also coming to realize just how troublesome it was.

The Saint was in the same boat—she was endlessly fascinated by it, but she knew it was dangerous to leave it alone.

She had just fallen down a hole and gotten injured. The forest was clearly unsafe.

“It’s quite interesting. The plants within are being altered by their environment. This world and the mysterious depths of the life in it are a miracle of the Radiant Goddess.”

While Saint Reyes’s expression was as blank as ever, she appeared more at peace than usual as she mentioned the goddess. She truly was a devout saint.

“Those plants will probably fill the entire dungeon in half a year. This is clearly the work of the Goddess. Ha… Just half a year, and I’ll have the environment I’ve been dreaming of… My underground city of plants is almost a reality… Ha-ha…”

Kunon had never seen the Saint laugh before. Her smile was endlessly pure. Her excitement and passion for satisfying her intellectual curiosity was plain on her face.

She’s so beautiful, Kunon thought. Though he thought others might find such an expression rather wicked.

Because of that, Kunon couldn’t bear to tell her the truth. He couldn’t tell her the plants taking over the dungeon were about to be exterminated. He could see how upset it would make her. Well, he couldn’t see, but that was beside the point.

If he told her, she would probably try to stop it. But if the plants’ advance wasn’t halted, they could end up destroying the dungeon. Human lives had to be prioritized over intellectual curiosity.

The Rationality Faction would suffer if the plants’ roots broke through the stone and caused the artificial dungeon to collapse. There was nothing else to be done.

Kunon was curious about the plants, too, but there was nothing he could do.

“Miss Reyes,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Let’s do another experiment together sometime.”

“…? Sure.”

Before long, perhaps in a matter of days, the Saint’s spirit would be crushed.

Kunon knew that, but he didn’t say anything.

That pain would surely be essential for her emotional growth.

That was what he told himself, at least.

A few days later, the Saint learned her dream of an underground city of plants had been dashed.

“…Oh. I see.”

She looked the same as ever, but sorrow permeated the air around her.

The Saint went missing and, at the same time, plants burst through a wall in the Rationality Faction’s underground base.

This incident occurred right at the beginning of the new academic year and was said to have been quietly resolved in only a few days. Apparently, the whole thing had gone surprisingly smoothly.

“Oh. Long time no see, Kunon.”

Upon hearing these rumors, Kunon headed to the Rationality Faction base. He wanted to talk to Lulomet, their representative. The older boy had been missing when the incident occurred, but he was now in his room at the base.

“I’m curious about the incident from the other day. Can I ask you what happened?”

Kunon was visiting Lulomet for one reason: to get details. He was also hoping to find out anything that might cheer up the Saint, who was sure to be depressed when she heard the results. He wasn’t sure if word of the cleanup had reached her yet, but even one piece of good news might make her feel better.

She wasn’t the main reason he was there, though. Simple curiosity about the incident made up at least 80 percent of his motivation.

“Oh, you mean the thing from the other day,” Lulomet replied. “That wasn’t such a big deal. Cassis was just making a mountain out of a molehill.”

As expected of a faction representative. He was probably used to cleaning up other students’ messes.

“Part of the dungeon collapsed and the forest pushed its way in. There’s nothing more to it. Would you mind making clean copies of these documents, Kunon?”

“Oh, sure.”

Lulomet was telling him to work instead of wasting time talking.

“Is this for an experiment?” Kunon asked, readily agreeing. “Your experiments are always so fascinating.”

He was interested in Lulomet’s research. Any experiment involving an attribute other than water was always fascinating to him, and that was especially true of experiments involving the rare darkness attribute.

“I knew it,” Kunon said after giving the documents a quick scan. “To think you were performing such a fun experiment… You know you can invite me to help you anytime.”

“I reached out to you multiple times last year, but you were always busy. I gave up because our schedules seemed to never align.”

The more talented a person was, the busier they tended to be. That was part of what it meant to be a sorcerer.

“This most recent incident gave me the sense that light and darkness are opposing forces.”

Kunon wound up absorbed for some time in copying the documents. He’d reached Lulomet’s room a little after noon, but before he knew it, the sun was already setting. His curfew was approaching.

He’d nearly let himself get lost in the work. If someone hadn’t brought them tea and purple cookies to eat, he might have spent the whole day simply making copies.

Kunon and Lulomet sat at opposite ends of a table as the latter looked over the copies.

“The particular traits of dark magic are debilitation and decay,” he said calmly. “It is best suited for weakening things. Light, on the other hand, tends toward preservation and growth. I think that forest might be imbued with light magic. The plants are not growing at a normal rate.”

Lulomet didn’t know about the Sacred Tree—Kira Vera—and the true nature of the forest. But he realized the forest was abnormal.

Kunon knew about the Sacred Tree, but he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about it.

“By the way,” said Kunon. “I heard you were missing the day Miss Reyes emerged from the dungeon.”

Riyah and some other Rationality students had been racing around the school in search of him. Kunon was wondering where he had been.

“I was sleeping at an inn,” Lulomet replied.

“Really?”

“I needed to catch up on my sleep. I didn’t want anyone bothering me, so I reserved the room without telling anyone or even going home. I surely would’ve been woken up if anyone had known. That was a close call.”

So he’d been catching up on his sleep. What’s more, he’d gone to the trouble of reserving a room at an inn just to do it. That probably meant he’d devoted several days to this experiment. Kunon, too, was sure if anyone had known, they would have disturbed his rest.

“I ended up hearing about the incident the next day,” Lulomet continued. “I told everyone I didn’t want to be summoned for such trivial matters…which made the girls very mad at me.”

“They got mad? Why?”

“They were afraid of the basement becoming a breeding ground for bugs. They were fine with the plants, apparently, but drew the line at insects. They went on about how it would be ‘all over’ once they started multiplying. You wouldn’t believe how upset they were. I’d never gotten so harsh a scolding in my life.”

That explains it, Kunon thought.

Mirika didn’t like bugs, either. He wasn’t surprised to learn other girls had an aversion to them as well. Of course, some girls loved bugs enough to give them names—such as the one who’d worked on the water-dancing experiment with him.

“Then… Oh, I understand.”

Kunon almost asked how they’d solved the issue, but then he remembered what Lulomet was just talking about. The sorcerer before him was a dark magic user.

“You killed the plants using darkness.”

He must have used his magic’s traits of debilitation and decay to wither the plants. The members of Rationality weren’t looking for Lulomet because they wanted his leadership. They were looking for him because of his darkness attribute. They’d guessed he would be able to quickly handle the situation.

Because the outbreak had happened in the underground facility, they had multiple options for removing the plants. They could have burned or extracted them. If possible, however, simply killing them was the safest, fastest option, and likely to cause the least damage.

“Yes, I did. It took a few days of walking around the dungeon, but I cleared them out. I blocked the hole, too, which should prevent any more issues for now.”

The plants were dead.

Kunon didn’t know how far into the dungeon they had spread, but if it had taken Lulomet multiple days to kill them all, they must have covered quite a large range. In other words…

“The plants aren’t gone…?”

“We’ve removed nearly all the withered vegetation… Are you referring to the seeds?”

Lulomet was spot on. He’d quickly figured out what Kunon meant.

“Yes! Are there any left?”

“There are.”

“Yay! Thank goodness!”

The plants were unrecoverable. But the seeds could be used to grow more.

“The fruit was delicious, so we kept some. I imagine they’re full of seeds.”

Lulomet had apparently collected ripe fruit as he killed the plants.

Coming to his room had been worth the trouble after all. Kunon had gained a nice piece of information to share with the Saint.

Eighty percent of his motivation was simple curiosity, of course. The rest was just icing on the cake.

Kunon had the information he’d wanted. It was already evening, so he decided to leave Lulomet and head back.

When Kunon stood up, Lulomet asked, “Are you going to see the Saint next? If so, I have something to talk to her about, so I’ll go with you.”

“Oh, I’m actually going straight home.”

Kunon didn’t need the seeds right away, and since he’d only just spoken with Lulomet, he doubted the Rationality Faction was ready to hand them over yet. There was no reason to rush anybody. He could get the seeds another day, and talking to the Saint could wait for the next day.

For now, Kunon could simply head home. Besides, his maid would be upset if he broke curfew.

“You have something to tell Miss Reyes?” he asked.

“I did, but… Hmm.”

Lulomet had figured that if Kunon was headed to see the Saint, he might as well accompany him. But now that he thought about it, perhaps she wasn’t the one he really needed to talk to.

The Saint was part of the team investigating the forest. He didn’t know why, but she was given permission to join the team while the forest was still off limits to the rest of the student body.

But she wasn’t in charge of the investigation; the teachers were. And in that case, it would make more sense for him to speak to one.

However, he didn’t know where to find the teachers at this time of day. They were easily accessible in the morning, but many began working on experiments and research in the afternoon. The Saint would be a lot easier to track down, and he could ask her to pass his questions on to the teachers.

“…I guess I’ll just go alone.” After some thought, Lulomet decided he didn’t need Kunon to accompany him.

“Oh, you’re going? Can I come with you?”

“What?” This caught Lulomet off guard. Hadn’t Kunon just said he was going straight home?

“Whatever you want to talk to her about is clearly important if you’re willing to visit her on your own. I’m certain it will be interesting.”

That’s Kunon for you, Lulomet thought.

He knew the teachers were unlikely to divulge any classified information. If anyone was going to let something slip, it would be the Saint. That was another reason he’d decided to talk to her instead of the teachers.

“Well then, let’s go,” he said.

Lulomet had no reason to refuse Kunon, so they headed out together.

“Hello, Kunon. Hello, Lulomet.”

Saint Reyes was in her classroom.

A few days had passed since her disappearance, and she’d returned to her daily life as if nothing had happened.

The news of the unfortunate setback regarding her plans for an underground city of plants had indeed reached her, but luckily, she had accepted the extermination as inevitable. The plants’ roots could break even stone. She knew it would be a tragedy if the underground facility collapsed, so she was glad the plants had been removed.

She was still a little disappointed, however. And so, she resolved to create her ideal environment herself one day in the future. Perhaps a whole city would be difficult, but she might be able to manage a small village of plants. She wasn’t yet aware this was what people called “ambition.” Lacking in emotion as she was, she still didn’t realize what she was feeling.

“So this is your classroom,” said Lulomet, looking around the room with curiosity. “I’d heard rumors, but it really is quite unique.”

The Saint had many potted plants protected by Sanctum, a spell unique to saints. Some of them were clearly not in season, but they grew rapidly within Sanctum’s barrier. The sight was very interesting.

“Is this your first time here?” Kunon asked.

Lulomet nodded. “I’ve met Reyes before, but I’ve never been to her classroom.”

The Saint had assisted Lulomet with multiple Rationality experiments during the previous year.

He’d tried to recruit her, but she’d ended up deciding not to join any of the factions. It was rare for an Advanced class student to remain unaffiliated, which made her a valuable presence.

“My apologies, but I am about to leave,” she said. “If you have business with me, please make it quick.”

The Saint had been scolded by her guards for her multiday disappearance.

She often stayed at school overnight, but she had never done so without giving prior notice. Not even explaining the reason and providing written testimony from her teachers had been enough to save her from her guards’ wrath. For the time being, she was saddled with a much stricter curfew.

The Saint always kept her promises. In fact, the thought of breaking a promise had never even occurred to her. There was no chance she would miss her curfew.

“I see. Then I’ll keep this short.” Lulomet sat across from her as she organized some papers and launched straight into the matter at hand. “Do you know anything about a ‘shining plant’? I saw something that might fit that description while underground.”

A shining plant. Kunon had lowered himself halfway into the chair next to Lulomet’s when he froze. He couldn’t believe his ears. That sounded like what the Saint had been searching for in the forest—the divine flower. Kunon was sure of it—that must have been what she was trying to find.

“Maybe. I’m not sure,” the Saint responded nonchalantly.

Her lack of emotions prevented her from lying. She’d just admitted she might well know what Lulomet was talking about. Or rather, she knew, but only vaguely.

“Please tell me more,” she said.

“I would like to, but it’s possible my eyes were playing tricks on me. I’m the only one on the team who saw it. And I only glimpsed it once from a distance. Besides, whatever it was, it was fast. I’ve never heard of a plant moving on its own two feet. I’m not even sure it was a plant. It looked like a plant, but I have no idea what it actually was.”

Plants certainly didn’t walk around on feet. Roots, perhaps, but that still seemed wrong, somehow. Either way, Lulomet was right—most plants were not capable of self-propulsion.

“Furthermore, more plants seemed to sprout along the path the shining plant traveled on. It was as though it was turning the ground green beneath it. We followed its path, and it took us deeper into the dungeon.”

Lulomet had told Kunon earlier that it took multiple days to clean up the dungeon. Perhaps that wasn’t because the vegetation from the forest had spread farther than expected, but rather because the vegetation kept expanding as Lulomet and his team chased it.

“It’s all a little hard to believe,” the faction leader continued. “If I wasn’t a sorcerer, I probably would have immediately denied what I saw.”

Sorcerers frequently came into contact with mysterious and inexplicable things. Used to this, Lulomet was able to believe what he saw.

“But if such a shining plant exists, it would explain everything,” he concluded.

They still didn’t know who or what had bored the hole in the forest leading into the dungeon. It would be one thing if tree roots had simply pierced through the dungeon’s ceiling. But a hole had been created that was large enough for a person to fall through. What could have caused it?

Lulomet was talking about a plant that could walk around by itself and leave a trail of new growth in its wake. Maybe this shining plant had made the hole.

It sounded quite unnatural, but so did everything about the situation. In fact, in context, it seemed like the most logical explanation.

“So what happened with the shining plant?” asked the Saint when Lulomet was finished.

The faction representative had chased the shining plant deep into the dungeon. But now he was here, claiming the issue had been resolved.

That meant the plants in the underground facility had been exterminated, and they’d handled the root problem.

Had he caught up to the mysterious plant? Had he captured it? Had he killed it by burning, cutting, or uprooting it? Perhaps he was about to give it to the Saint as a present.

No, that doesn’t seem likely, thought Kunon.

Lulomet was a thoughtful and skilled sorcerer. He wouldn’t simply brush aside such a mystery. He also wasn’t frivolous like Kunon and didn’t go about hitting on girls and giving them presents.

No, he would strive to solve the mystery, no matter what it cost him. Kunon doubted he’d done anything rash with the plant.

“We lost sight of it,” said Lulomet. “The trail of plants stopped, so we turned back. That’s part of the reason I’m here talking to you.”

The Saint and Kunon—who had been quietly listening—both saw where he was going with this.

“This is totally our chance!” Kunon said excitedly. “If all the entrances have been closed off, doesn’t that guarantee the shining plant is still underground?!”

Lulomet and his team had sealed off all paths of escape. That included the hole leading back to the forest, so the plant should still be in the dungeon somewhere.

“Well, I guess it could have bored another hole and gone somewhere else,” said Lulomet. “But…I think that is highly unlikely.”

The underground facility that served as the Rationality Faction’s base was an artificial dungeon, and it was quite old. It was so ancient, deep, and expansive that no one had seen the entire thing. The structure was strengthened magically, but there was still a chance it could collapse. There was even an alarm that would ring if any part of it changed shape—which could signal a partial collapse. That was why Cassis and the others had been in such a panic.

However, this was a magic school. Incidents were an everyday occurrence. They’d never expected a hole to suddenly appear, leading into the dungeon, and yet they’d still managed to handle it. The members of Rationality were taking every precaution they could think of.

…But Lulomet didn’t feel like explaining all that, so he simply gave them his word that there were no more holes.

“That means there’s a high chance it’s as Kunon says,” he continued. “The shining plant should still be underground.”

They might be right, thought Reyes.

Kunon, excited as he was, was already thinking several steps ahead.

“Isn’t that a problem?” he asked.

“You’ve already figured that out?” asked Lulomet.

The incident was being treated as solved because the spread of the plants had ceased. But the culprit could still be underground. And if that was true, the fundamental problem had yet to be fixed.

“It’s possible more plants are growing down there as we speak. The higher floors might be safe, but they could still be creeping across the lower ones…”

“Or they could still be boldly turning the place green at a breakneck pace!” suggested Kunon.

Lulomet wasn’t sure he’d phrase it like that, but he said, “sure” all the same.

“That’s dangerous!” Kunon’s eyes were hidden behind his mask, but it was easy to tell they were shining. “We have to go capture it! That plant is like a radiant lady waiting for a gentleman to take its hand!”

I knew he would reach that conclusion, Lulomet thought, though he ignored the “lady” and “gentleman” nonsense.

In fact, this was Lulomet’s ultimate goal: He desperately wanted to capture the mysterious plant. He was also afraid of letting it roam free underground, of course.

A shining plant. A creature that left a trail of new growth in its wake. He had never heard of such a thing and couldn’t repress his curiosity.

It was surely a highly magical and valuable being, and that was exactly why he wanted to learn what little he could about it. It would be unbearable if he pursued it prematurely and lost sight of it forever.

He had to capture it. Lulomet didn’t need to be present when the plant was secured; he was even planning on telling the teachers about it. He was willing to set aside his personal desires and prioritize securing this valuable specimen.

Even if it didn’t end up in his hands, just learning about it would satisfy him. He might be able to obtain a shining plant the next time one appeared. But for now, he would be satisfied just knowing it had been captured.

The worst-case scenario would be losing it because of a small mistake. That could seriously damage magical society’s progress.

Lulomet just wanted knowledge. He’d probably have to entrust the rest to the teachers, but he hoped they would give him at least a few morsels of information from their discoveries.

What exactly was that plant? Was it even a plant?

He would be happy with even such small details.

“What do you think, Reyes?” he asked. “Do you have any idea what it could be? I think it might have some connection to that forest.”

“I do have an idea, but nothing to prove it,” replied the Saint.

The Saint thought it was likely this “shining plant” was the divine flower. She hadn’t been able to find it despite extensively searching the forest. Perhaps that was because the divine flower had fled from them and ended up slipping into the Rationality Faction’s base. That seemed like a plausible explanation.

“Also, I am forbidden from sharing that information with you. I’m afraid I cannot tell you any more.”

Reyes was still forbidden from revealing anything about the forest and about the Kira Vera. Naturally, that meant she couldn’t discuss anything within the forest, either. Kunon was an exception because he already knew about it, but she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone else.

“I see. You’re the only student who was allowed to join the investigation, so I figured you might know something. I also guessed you had been sworn to secrecy.”

That was all just as Lulomet had expected. Still, he’d thought the Saint might be more likely to let something slip. She’d already told him she had an idea about what the plant was, and that alone was valuable information.

“Oh! I know, I know! Let’s apply to join the exploration team, Lulomet!”

“Huh?”

Lulomet had not, however, anticipated Kunon’s overly optimistic suggestion.

Wait a moment, he thought.

He might not be allowed to know the full details of the case, but he could apply to join the exploration team. There was no harm in trying anyway.

In fact, now that he thought about it, there was a good chance the teachers would let him come along. Lulomet knew exactly where the vegetation had ceased inside the dungeon—in other words, where they’d lost sight of the shining plant. The exploration team would consist mostly of teachers, but they would need a guide. The underground facility might be empty of wildlife, but it was still a dungeon. It was easy to get lost if you didn’t know where you were going.

It was true the layout had been designed to prevent people from getting lost, but you still needed some familiarity with the place to navigate it without difficulty. The presence of a guide who knew where they were going would significantly speed up the expedition.

“The idea was so obvious it didn’t even occur to me,” admitted Lulomet. “Let’s do it.”

Lulomet had planned on leaving the rest to the teachers and hadn’t even considered trying to join them. He resolved to negotiate with the faculty right away, and in no time at all, he’d convinced them to let him take part in the exploration.

Kunon—who had gone with him to speak with the teachers for some reason—was added to the team, too. He managed to convince them his presence would make various things go more smoothly.

Seeing this, Lulomet reconsidered some things. He’d always thought it was important to know when to give up. But perhaps there were times when it paid to be persistent.

Regardless, it was decided they would begin exploring the artificial dungeon the very next day.

“Are you saying you might spend tomorrow night away from home?”

That evening at dinner, Kunon—after barely making his curfew—spoke of his plans for the next day.

It had been a year since he’d arrived at the magic city of Dirashik. Unsurprisingly, after attending school and visiting his older friend’s house on a daily basis, he’d grown quite accustomed to the city. Slightly more surprising was the extent to which Rinko, his maid, had done the same.

She had even become famous in their neighborhood. She was so familiar with its residents that they had developed a saying about her: “There’s no fight Rinko won’t stick her nose into.”

“It’s possible. I don’t actually know how long it will take.”

The search for the shining plant would kick off the following day. Kunon and Lulomet had spoken with the faculty after paying a visit to the Saint. That was why he’d almost broken his curfew.

Lulomet said he’d spent days walking around the underground facility. He’d quickly realized he would be at it for a while, and had returned to the surface to prepare. Even so, he’d spent two entire days underground.

First, the exploration team would go to the location where Lulomet had lost sight of the shining plant. Then they would begin the search. That was the general plan.

Kunon expected they would reach the location fairly quickly. The search would be the difficult part.

They had no idea where the shining plant had gone, and the deeper into the dungeon they went, the longer the search would inevitably take.

“What?” said Rinko. “You’re telling me I’ll have to spend a night without you?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave your side, but my work demands it.”

“Is work more important to you than I am?”

“Before I answer that, let me ask you this: Do you prefer me with money or without money?”

“Take care on your expedition. I’ll pass the time eating alone at expensive restaurants. I’ll have you foot the bill, of course.”

What a quick change of heart. Her tone even suggested he’d asked her a very stupid question. The response was just like her.

Thank goodness she didn’t disapprove, Kunon thought.

He’d discussed things with the Saint earlier and learned of her tighter curfew. It would be a disaster if Rinko inflicted a similar punishment on him. He would lose the ability to get parfaits with ladies on the way home from school.

“Assume I’ll be gone for two days at the longest,” he said. “If you enjoy the restaurants, we can go to them together in the future.”

“Yes, I’ll make sure to savor all their best dishes. On your necca, that is.”

The next day, Kunon packed a small bag with enough supplies for two days and left the house.

The weather was dreary. It looked like it could start raining at any moment. That wouldn’t matter, as they would be underground, where the rain wouldn’t reach them. That said, as a water sorcerer, Kunon would have welcomed the added moisture. It would only benefit him.

Kunon greeted the neighbors and local dogs as he walked to school.

That day, he was headed not to his classroom, but to the Rationality Faction’s base.

His business would be fine—he’d put up a sign the day before saying he would be gone for a few days. It wasn’t uncommon for sorcerers to disappear suddenly. His customers would likely just think, “Oh, something must have come up,” and move on.

When Kunon arrived, he found Lulomet standing at the base’s entrance.

“You’re early, Kunon.”

“So are you.”

They had both arrived much earlier than the designated time. They’d been so excited they simply couldn’t wait.

“What’s the dungeon like?” asked Kunon.

“It’s nothing special. There are no traps or creatures. It’s just a maze.”

The two continued to speak as they waited, and soon the three professors leading the search arrived.

First was Professor Keevan, an earth sorcerer with a large build. “You’re both early. Have you been waiting long?”

Next was Soff Cricket, a wind sorcerer who helped Kunon out last year. “Good morning, you two. It’s been a while, Lulomet.”

And lastly—

“I’m Clavis. I’m familiar with Kunon, but I don’t believe we’ve met, Lulomet.”

—was a silver-haired light user of unparalleled beauty wearing a hood low over his eyes.

“…Are you a light sorcerer?” asked Lulomet.

The faction representative had been attending this school for years, but he had never seen this teacher before. The strange magic power emanating from the man felt like light magic. It was fearsomely powerful.

“Bingo,” Clavis replied. “I normally spend all my time on experiments, so I rarely go out in public.”

Lulomet was surprised to learn such a teacher existed. Kunon felt similarly. The team’s lineup had thrown him for a loop. Though to be honest, he felt more dread than surprise.

“All right, I wonder who’s arriving next! Miss Reyes said she wanted to go!” he said, acting unusually restless.

He refused to believe this was everyone. So who was late? Could it be the Saint?

She’d said emphatically she wanted to go and even boasted she would be able to convince her guards to let her.

“Oh, Reyes isn’t coming,” Keevan said. “She told me a little while ago she couldn’t convince her guards, so she would have to reluctantly withdraw. It hasn’t been long since she went missing, after all. She said there was no chance of her being able to join us.”

Kunon couldn’t believe his ears.

“That means it’ll be just the five of us,” Soff said. “We chose a small team and made sure each member had a different element so we’d be able to deal with any situation that might arise. We chose not to bring fire, though. That would be too dangerous underground.”

Keevan was earth.

Soff was wind.

Clavis was light.

Lulomet was darkness.

And Kunon was water.

As Soff said, they didn’t have any fire users. The team also lacked anyone with foul magic… But that was a rare attribute, so the professors probably couldn’t find anyone on such short notice.

There were also three teachers. Kunon didn’t want to admit it, but he couldn’t have asked for a more reliable team.

“I haven’t worked with kids in forever,” said Clavis. “This’ll be a short mission, but let’s do our best together.”

He looked young enough to be in his twenties or thirties, though he might have been much older.

“…You can’t be serious…” Kunon was shocked, flabbergasted, and above all, disappointed. “There’s not a single girl on the team…!”

What a sham. Did this even count as a “team”?

Had he ever been part of such a depressing group? He didn’t think so.

If there had been at least one girl—one was all he needed—he would have been able to work so much harder. Age was irrelevant. He just needed someone female to help boost his motivation.

“Professor Soff.”

“Hmm?”

“Would you mind swapping yourself out for Miss Shilto?”

“Ha-ha-ha. It’s too early in the morning for jokes, Kunon.”

“He’s a funny one, isn’t he, Keevan?”

“He sure is. In more ways than one.”

The older teachers laughed off Kunon’s rude question, and the capable yet disappointingly male team departed.

Ignoring the crestfallen Kunon, the guys moved out.

They started by entering the Rationality Faction’s base and heading for the basement.

This team of five would have drawn quite a lot of attention among the Advanced class students, but it was still early, and no one was around. They made their way through the base unseen.

“Did you say Kira Vera?” Lulomet asked dubiously as they walked. “Like from the myth?”

The sausage-fest team had an immediate problem: How much information should be shared? (Incidentally, no matter what Kunon thought, his desire to switch Soff for Shilto was too idiotic to consider an issue.)

“I probably wouldn’t have told you about it if you hadn’t noticed my attribute,” admitted Clavis, “but you realized right away.”

Among the three teachers and two students, Lulomet was the only one who wasn’t informed about the trouble surrounding the forest.

That said, students would eventually be allowed to take samples of the Kira Vera to use for research, so it would one day become common knowledge. Lulomet was just learning about it a little earlier than everyone else. That was all.

“Faction leaders sure are a step above. I don’t think telling you will be a problem,” Clavis said. He didn’t intend to tell him very much, though.

Clavis had a high opinion of Lulomet’s decision not to try to capture the shining plant himself. He’d shown great maturity by not chasing it too far and by being careful about whom he shared his information with. The same was true of his decision to bring what he’d seen to the professors and relinquish control of the search.

Either Lulomet had assumed the plant was truly valuable, or he’d simply wanted to tread carefully around such an unusual phenomenon. Either way, it was a commendable decision, and uncommonly thoughtful for a sorcerer still in his teens. Most kids his age were eager to achieve personal glory as quickly as possible.

Clavis was convinced after meeting Lulomet that it would be fine to fill him in.

“The Saint grew it? No way… I can’t believe Kira Vera are real…”

Lulomet caught on quickly. What Clavis told him was hard to believe, but considering the teachers were taking action themselves, he easily accepted it as the truth.

As they spoke, the exploration team made their way down a staircase, heading farther underground.

“We only use the two top floors of the dungeon, though the lower one is basically just a storage area.”

The first floor of the base—where the entrance was—and the top floor of the dungeon were intended to be used for living quarters and laboratories and thus had simple layouts.

Starting with the next floor down, however, the base became a maze—a true dungeon. But when Rationality students didn’t know where to put something, they dumped it underground, as if the place were a storage facility. They had been doing so for many years, and generations of junk had piled up down below, cluttering the corridors. It was a deplorable sight.

“Why aren’t you a woman, Professor Soff?”

“I’m afraid I’m underqualified to answer that question, Kunon.”

There were obstacles of all sizes on the floor, making navigation difficult for Kunon, so Soff had to lead him by the hand. As if joining an all-male team wasn’t bad enough, Kunon now had a man escorting him, too. His despair knew no bounds.

At first, he’d considered flying, but he didn’t know how long this search would take, so he figured it would be best to preserve his magic. That was why he decided to behave himself and let Soff lead.

“A divine flower, huh…?” said Lulomet. “That plant is even more precious than I expected.” Once Clavis had filled him in, he’d started to sweat nervously.

He was absolutely positive his decision from a few days before had been correct. If he’d done anything to harm the plant, he would have regretted it for the rest of his life.

Things like Kira Vera and divine flowers only appeared in fairy tales. Such a rare organism had been within his reach. But if he’d stubbornly tried to capture it himself, he could have caused an irreversible tragedy.

That thought scared him for multiple reasons. He couldn’t blame himself for being ignorant about the plant. Even so, ignorance wouldn’t have absolved his guilt.

“I’m guessing it’s on the verge of death, though,” Clavis mused.

““Huh?”” Lulomet and Kunon said together.

The conversation had been between Clavis and Lulomet, but Kunon couldn’t keep himself from butting in. In fact, Keevan and Soff were surprised, too.

“On the verge of death?” asked Kunon. “The divine flower?”

“Yeah. It’s still a newborn, so it hasn’t yet mastered its power. It likely overexerted itself and collapsed…or rather, started wilting, I suppose. It could have recovered above ground, but not down here.”

The plant had probably used a lot of energy opening a hole in the ground and making new life sprout in its wake. Perhaps even shining had been detrimental.

“You’re really knowledgeable, Professor Clavis,” said Lulomet.

He’d never seen any literature about divine flowers. Neither had Kunon. And yet Clavis was clearly well-informed on the subject.

“You tend to pick up a lot of knowledge when you’ve been around as long as I have. That’s all it is.”

Clavis looked and sounded young, but perhaps he was much, much older.

The group descended to the third floor of the underground dungeon. Finally freed from the shame of being escorted by a man, Kunon decided to lodge a few final complaints.

“If you think I’m starting to find you surprisingly capable, strong, and dependable,” said Kunon, “then think again, Professor Soff. You’re most certainly mistaken.”

“Sure, sure,” the teacher replied.

“I’m at least as much of a gentleman as you are.”

“Sure, sure.”

Once this exchange was done, it was time to officially begin the search. Clavis and Lulomet were finished speaking as well, so the group focused solely on covering ground.

The rest of the facility was an endless stone labyrinth. There were no objects cluttering the corridors, nor were there any flora or fauna.

Despite the dark and unsettling nature of the place, there was hardly any danger. Inconspicuous marks all over the walls indicated the locations of ascending and descending staircases. At the end of the day, this structure was an artificial dungeon. It may have been a maze, but it wasn’t meant to trap people or make them lose their way. The layout ensured anyone who carelessly wandered in would be able to find their way back out on their own. There were no traps, either. There were some vacant rooms, but the place mostly consisted of winding corridors.

“Are there any more obstacles?” Kunon asked.

“No,” replied Soff. “The path is clear.”

The disorderly state of the floor above made that hard to believe, but Soff was telling the truth—there was nothing ahead of them but empty corridors and an impenetrable darkness ready to overwhelm the weak lamp light.

“Good. Please wait a moment.”

It was finally time for Kunon to strut his stuff. The teachers had let him join the group because he’d convinced them he would be useful in the dungeon. He’d made his case with great enthusiasm, and now he would prove his claim.

“There,” he said, extending his left hand toward the darkness.

Countless tiny A-ori shot forth and fell to the ground. They bounced along the floor and walls, traveling down the corridor. For a while, Kunon continued to spawn more A-ori and send them into the darkness.

Then he said, “Ah, that seems good enough.”

He’d sensed the A-ori begin to descend. They had found the staircase leading down.

Kunon lifted the staff in his right hand and struck the tip against the floor once.

“Freeze.”

There was a creaking sound in the corridor as the A-ori joined together into one body of water and froze. A little extra moisture finished his creation.

“Shall we be off?” he asked.

Kunon made little sleds on the bottom of his feet, then used more A-ori to form a cart. Lulomet and the teachers climbed in, and they all slid quickly down the newly created road of ice.

After that, Kunon repeated the same process multiple times.

“We’re moving much faster than I expected,” noted Keevan. “It’s probably not even noon yet.”

To Keevan’s surprise, the team had already reached the ninth floor of the dungeon.

Kunon had convinced the teachers to bring him along specifically so that he could help out by creating roads of ice, and the technique had turned out to be even more effective than they’d expected.

The walls had symbols indicating the way forward, but walking for hours in the dark would have been physically and mentally taxing. And no matter how quickly they walked, they couldn’t have reached this far this quickly.

“I can only use this technique in very specific places, though,” Kunon admitted. “Thankfully, this dungeon checks all the boxes.”

The facility was narrow, but relatively airtight, and there were no living creatures or pitfalls. As long as those conditions were met, Kunon was free to make his roads of ice.

“I’ve heard of using water to check terrain,” said Lulomet, “but this is something else entirely.”

Kunon nodded. “I could probably use water, too. This way preserves magic power, though.”

Sending A-ori down the hallways was less wasteful than simply using water. Manipulating each individual drop of a body of water was challenging. If you condensed it into little balls, however, it became much easier to manage. That also prevented the water from seeping into the walls or floor or slipping into cracks. Besides, there was no need to search every inch of this dungeon.

All Kunon had to do was find a descending staircase on each floor, gather his A-ori along the fastest route, and collapse them into one body of water that he then froze. That was all it took to get them down another level.

If they were lucky, the way back would be quick, too. It was still hot outside, but because they were underground, it was quite cool. If they started back up before the roads of ice melted, they could slide along them in the opposite direction.

“Okay, on to the next floor.”

Kunon completed his road of ice leading to the next floor, and the group resumed their progress.

Kunon skated down the road of ice, guiding the cart containing the rest of the team. All the teachers and Lulomet had to do was sit inside and enjoy the ride. They never would have imagined a dungeon could be explored in such comfort.

“We’re stopping on the fourteenth floor, right?” Clavis asked.

“Yes,” Lulomet replied. That was where he’d lost sight of the shining plant.

He and the other members of Rationality had followed the divine flower on foot while taking time to wither and collect the plants it spawned. As a result, it had taken them quite a while to move through the dungeon.

This time, however, they were advancing with incredible speed. If they found the divine flower quickly, they could easily return before the day was over.

“Professor Clavis,” said Keevan, steeling himself. “What exactly are divine flowers?” He’d been waiting for a chance to ask this question and was quite nervous.

Not even the other teachers knew much about Clavis. He didn’t often go out in public and few people knew where he was most of the time. He was an enigma. However, the teachers knew one thing about him: He was Gray Rouva’s disciple.

Keevan and Soff had only learned that Saint Reyes would be unable to join them right at the last minute. No one knew anything about divine flowers. They didn’t even have a clue what they were. The faculty had been counting on the Saint, with her extensive knowledge of plants, to figure something out. Plus, they’d hoped she would be able to trap the flower with her Sanctum spell if necessary.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to come, so they’d needed a light user to replace her. They knew there was a chance they would need the light element in some form, even if Sanctum wasn’t an option. Keevan’s friend Sureyya Gaulin had been busy and wouldn’t be able to help. So they’d gone to the school’s leaders for assistance, and Clavis was added to the team. Gray Rouva’s pupil himself had joined them.

“Divine flowers are… How should I explain? You can think of them as magically charged flowers. They can be just as difficult to handle as sacred herbs, but they don’t normally move. They’re powerful, but at the end of the day, they’re just flowers.”

You wouldn’t know by Clavis’s casual tone that he was talking about a mythical plant.

“This incident might be the result of a light spirit choosing to inhabit the divine flower instead of a tree. The spirit is what’s making the flower move. They are highly compatible with divine flowers.”

It seemed he even had a vague idea of what had caused this incident.

“If that’s the case, I’m guessing the spirit used up the divine flower’s energy with all its activity down here. That is why the plant is on the verge of death… It’s wilting because its power was drained. That’s what I think, anyway.”

Regardless of whether or not his guess was correct, Clavis’s knowledge of divine flowers would certainly come in handy. The other team members were sure he’d help them solve this problem in no time.

“You were just talking about something really interesting behind my back, weren’t you?” asked Kunon, suddenly turning around to skate backward.

He was the only person who didn’t hear a word of the group’s conversation.

The group continued their trek without issue—though perhaps “trek” was the wrong word for a journey spent mostly skating or riding in a cart—until, at last, they reached the fourteenth floor. It was still morning when they arrived.

“I’ll take the lead from here,” said Clavis, moving ahead of the group.

The divine flower was somewhere beyond this point. There was a chance it had gone back upstairs, of course, but Kunon had paid careful attention on the way down and hadn’t sensed it. Because he hadn’t searched every inch of the higher floors, he couldn’t make a definitive declaration, but his A-ori certainly hadn’t made contact with the target.

They were simply playing the odds. There was a higher probability of the flower being on or below the fourteenth floor, so they were starting their search there. That was all there was to it.

“Let’s see… Is this how you did it?” Clavis said, lifting his left hand and producing countless balls of light that fell to the ground. They bounced along the floor and walls, traveling down the corridor. The balls looked different, but they behaved almost exactly like Kunon’s A-ori.

“Wow…!”

Kunon rarely saw light magic in action, so he was very intrigued. But they had more important business to attend to.

“Let’s go.” Clavis started walking, and the other four followed him.

“…Hmm.”

Kunon was sure of it—something had appeared behind Clavis’s back when he performed that spell.

It had looked like a headless goddess statue emitting a faint light. Though it was normally invisible to Kunon, that must have been the thing possessing Clavis.

Kunon was fascinated.

His mind spun as he walked. He had been leading the team up to that point, but now he was at the very back of the group. So many things had caught his interest.

For example, Clavis’s balls of light. They moved just like Kunon’s A-ori as they bounced deeper into the dungeon. What was their purpose?

Kunon didn’t understand at first, but after some thought, it finally dawned on him: The balls of light were infusing the surfaces they touched with a little bit of light. It was like they were stamping the corridor with glowing ink, providing the team with a light source. Kunon had initially missed this because light and darkness held no meaning for him.

Clavis must have devised the spell after witnessing Kunon’s A-ori earlier. Even Satori, whom Kunon deeply respected, took days to research, develop, and master a new spell. And she was thought to be quite fast. And yet Clavis had taken one glance at Kunon’s A-ori and reproduced the technique without even needing to practice. That alone gave Kunon an idea of how well-versed Clavis was in magic.

In fact, perhaps it was more useful to consider the matter backward: How well-versed in magic did one have to be to pull something like that off?

It seemed unfathomable. Kunon was curious about that, but…he was even more interested in the thing behind Clavis’s back.

He normally couldn’t see it. In fact, he couldn’t see it now. But it had definitely appeared when Clavis used that spell.

At the time, Kunon had instinctively thought, “Oh, he’s about to use magic!” and activated his Glass Eye. And when he’d used it to observe Clavis, he’d seen the headless goddess statue.

Light sorcerers were possessed by things that emitted light. Kunon didn’t have a very large sample size because light sorcerers were rare, but the common trait for their apparitions seemed to be luminescent matter. No, perhaps it would be more accurate to call it white matter. Well, he could think about that later.

Why was Clavis’s something normally invisible? Why could Kunon only see it when Clavis cast a spell? Kunon still understood very little about the Glass Eye, but he’d never seen a case like this before. There was nothing else that even resembled it. This gave Kunon much to think about. Most importantly, it increased the chance that there was meaning to the things that followed people around. It was possible that he was seeing them for a reason, and that they weren’t simply random.

He could think that all he liked, of course, but he still had nothing to prove it. He couldn’t yet discard the possibility that they didn’t mean anything at all. But for now, at least, he had a new case to consider—a something that was only visible under certain circumstances. What did that mean? Despite the lack of evidence, it seemed significant.

Perhaps Clavis wasn’t normally a sorcerer and only became one temporarily when he cast a spell.

That was a plausible theory. The opposite was also possible: Maybe sorcerers didn’t perform magic at all but ordered their something to do it for them. In other words, sorcerers could only use magic because they were possessed by something.

Or maybe…

Kunon’s mind continued to race, and he entered his own little world as he followed the others.

“Ah, I detected something,” Soff said.

After searching the fourteenth floor, the group had decided to proceed further down, and they were now on the fifteenth floor.

The teachers were all using different kinds of detection magic, and just now, Soff had sensed something. He had been using his wind magic to check for variations in temperature, and he’d just found an abnormality.

Kunon, who had been deep in thought, returned his attention to the search upon Soff’s comment.

“Then let’s head that way,” Clavis said before illuminating a large swath of the dungeon with his balls of light.

“I’m not sensing any movement… It does feel like some kind of plant…”

Soff studied it, observing it with the air instead of the wind.

Something small was sprawled on the floor. It didn’t feel like a flesh-and-blood creature, but rather some kind of vegetation. As soon as the group arrived in the general area, they found it.

“I think that’s our target,” said Clavis.

The object sprawled limply, withering on the floor, was undoubtedly a flower. It had light-pink petals, green leaves, and exposed roots. It looked like it had either been dropped by someone, or had used its roots as legs to walk there before collapsing. It was so small, lying there alone in the expanse of the dungeon.

“…Professor Clavis, can I approach it?” Keevan asked, hesitant to go near it without permission.

He was the member of their group who was most interested in the divine flower. It was clear even in the dark that his face was alight with curiosity.

“Yes, as long as you show no hostility,” Clavis said.

As long as you show no hostility. Clavis’s nonchalant words made the flower sound like a wild animal. Did the strange warning not bother Keevan? Or did he simply not care?

The teacher eagerly knelt before the flower and studied it closely.

“Hmm… I’ve never seen a flower like this.”

Once he was done observing, he took out a pen and gently poked the stalk. He probably intended to pick up the flower to get a better look at it. However…

“Whuh?!”

…the flower began to glow faintly, and before anyone knew it, there was a blinding flash.

“Ngh?!”

The whole group had been staring directly at the strange flower. Unfortunately, that meant they all got an eyeful of the bright light. Over the last few hours, their eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the dungeon. The light was too much for them, forcing them to tightly shut their eyelids. It felt like they’d been stabbed.

“Whoa there.”

One member of the group was perfectly fine, however.

The flower had used the diversion to scamper off into the dungeon at full speed, using its roots as legs like a wild animal.

It didn’t get far, however, before it was trapped in a ball of water.

Kunon couldn’t see to begin with, so the flash of light had no effect on him.

“Thanks. I let my guard down.”

The flower floated in the air, stuck inside an A-ori.

Soff, Keevan, and Lulomet were still immobilized after being caught off guard by the flash of light. Clavis, on the other hand, was just as unaffected as Kunon; he must have avoided it somehow. He looked totally unperturbed as he started to lay a spell atop Kunon’s A-ori. But just then…

“Huh?”

Kunon, who had been touching the flower with magic, noticed something was wrong before anyone else.

It was expanding.

The light inside the A-ori was getting bigger.

“Dispel it now! I’ll put up a shield!” Clavis ordered, and Kunon dispelled the A-ori.

Right then, something green expanded past the light and exploded from the flower. Hard clumps scattered in all directions, including toward Kunon and the others.

But they ended up splatting against an invisible wall, painting the space before them green.

“Phew… That was close,” Kunon said, though he was blind and wasn’t sure what exactly had happened.

If he could trust his senses, it seemed like the divine flower had exploded. The expanding light within the A-ori had transformed into green material and been flung in all directions. If Kunon hadn’t released the flower, the explosion would have been much more powerful. The more pressure it was under, the stronger the blast would have been.

Soff, Keevan, and Lulomet were still blinded and hadn’t seen anything. It was likely that only Clavis, the sole member of their team to react, had witnessed it.

In response, he had created an invisible barrier of light that completely guarded them against the explosion of greenery. It probably would have held strong even if Kunon hadn’t freed the divine flower, thus weakening the eventual explosion. The vast stores of magic poured into it made it very stable—it might be clear like glass, but it was far less brittle.

“You have good reflexes, Kunon,” said Clavis.

“That flower got us good,” remarked Soff. “I can still barely see.”

“I knew it could light up,” Lulomet added. “I should have prepared.”

It seemed like Soff and Lulomet’s vision had returned. Keeven still looked dizzy, but he didn’t let that stop him.

“…These are weeds,” he said, observing the green clumps that had fallen to the floor once the barrier was dispelled. Sure enough, the green stuff that had exploded from the flower was vegetation. The divine flower could spawn plant life, just like Lulomet had said. “This stuff wouldn’t have hurt us at all.”

The clumps of grass were strange, but grass could only do so much damage, no matter how hard it was flung. At most, it might have stung their skin a little.

Unsurprisingly, the divine flower had vanished after scattering its vegetation, leaving a path of greenery that extended into the depths of the dungeon. It might have just exhausted the last of its power to escape capture.

“Well then… Should we pursue it?” Soff asked.

Clavis turned to look at the group. After a brief pause, he said, “Aren’t you bored? Kunon helped us a lot by getting us down here quickly, far surpassing my expectations. He even outdid us by briefly capturing the divine flower. And Lulomet uses dark magic. We’ll need him to help us wilt the plants and clean up, since light, wind, and earth aren’t suited for that. That leaves us teachers with nothing to do.”

The idea that the teachers weren’t doing anything wasn’t strictly true. They could help if something went wrong and were thus a reassuring presence on the team. But when Clavis put it that way, it did seem they had little reason to be there.

“But you know what? This is a rare opportunity to show our dear students what their teachers are capable of,” Clavis said.

Soff and Keevan looked at the two students in question—Kunon and Lulomet. The sight of the two boys listening to their conversation filled the teachers with conviction. If they didn’t do something, their students would never take them seriously. The boys might tell their classmates things like, “There were teachers with us, but I’m not sure what they did” and “Wait, did they do anything at all?”

Soff and Keevan weren’t just teachers—they were sorcerers. Being underestimated as teachers was one thing, but it would be a blow to their pride if anyone doubted their abilities as sorcerers. They were also graduates of the Advanced class, and they couldn’t stand the thought of their juniors being unimpressed by them.

“Let’s do this, Keevan,” said Soff.

“You bet.”

Kunon and Lulomet were surprised. They didn’t have many chances to witness their professors’ magic, and they were quite pleased by this development.

The rest of the search passed in a flash.

“Our teachers are amazing, aren’t they, Lulomet?” said Kunon.

“Yes, they are.”

A few quick words were all the three men needed to get on the same page.

“I’ll search for it.”

“I’ll catch it.”

“Then I suppose I’ll secure it.”

That was all the communication they needed before they sprang to action.

Soff would detect the flower, Keevan would catch it, and Clavis would make sure it didn’t escape. They were leaving the last part to Clavis because he was the only one who knew how to handle divine flowers without harming them.

After deciding on a simple plan, the teachers went forth into the darkness.

Keevan produced some yellow sand. “All right, Soff.”

“Here I go.” Soff’s gentle breeze picked up the sand and blew it deeper into the dungeon. “I found it!”

“Capturing now!”

Soff’s wind detected the divine flower. Then, on his signal, Keevan concentrated the sand the wind was carrying and hardened it.

“Good work.”

The ball of sand fell to the ground, and Clavis collected it.

Their job was done. They had caught the divine flower in no time at all.

This was only a small taste of the teachers’ prowess, but Kunon and Lulomet were happy to have witnessed it.

The men had used their spells in unconventional ways and displayed an impressive adaptability and level of experience. They were also skilled enough to combine their spells on the spot without arranging anything beforehand.

Their actions appeared simple, but everything they did was very high level. Any group of Advanced class students probably could have pulled off the same thing, but not nearly so smoothly. And Lulomet and Kunon were skilled enough to understand that.

Once they’d caught the divine flower, Lulomet disposed of the plants it had spawned, bringing their operation to an end.

“Let’s head back,” said Clavis. “Keevan, drop the sand.”

“Got it.”

The floating sand ball crumbled, revealing the divine flower.

“Wow, so this is what it looks like…”

“Hmm…”

Soff and Keevan observed the divine flower with great interest. It was still floating in the air, trapped in a membrane of light.

“…?!”

Meanwhile, Kunon was shocked by something else.

No way.

He couldn’t believe it. He had thought it might be similar, but…now that the sand was gone and he could perceive it clearly, questions rattled in his mind. Still, he said nothing. After all, it was impossible. Completely and totally impossible.

The light membrane Clavis had produced couldn’t be the Saint’s Sanctum spell. No matter how identical it was, or how similar it felt, that spell was exclusive to saints. It could only be used by women with the light attribute who held the position of saint. Clavis was a light user, but he was a man. He should be incapable of using that spell. Could he secretly be a woman? And a saint at that?

Kunon considered that for a moment but ultimately rejected the notion. Clavis was very good-looking, but not in a feminine way. So what was going on? What was this spell that was totally identical to Sanctum?

The Saint was Kunon’s classmate and business partner. He’d witnessed and felt Sanctum practically on a daily basis. This spell seemed entirely its equal. The likeness was striking; he couldn’t find a single difference.

“That sure was quick,” Clavis said casually. “We might be able to make it back for a late lunch.”

“It’s glowing,” said Soff.

“This small light that looks like a firefly… Is that the light spirit?” asked Lulomet.

The two of them studied the flower closely from many different angles. This mythical plant was so rare they were determined to get a good look at it while they could. Keevan was even sketching it.

Kunon, however, was more interested in the membrane surrounding it.

“…Um, Professor Clavis—?”

“Let’s head back. Kunon, carry us up,” Clavis said, as if avoiding Kunon’s timid question.

He clearly didn’t want to talk about it. He’d shut Kunon down before he could even finish his sentence. Yet somehow, Kunon was satisfied.

He felt like Clavis was saying this: “I won’t tell you what it is, but I will show you. Do your best to figure it out.”

The teacher had given him a homework assignment, so to speak.

One day, when Kunon figured out the answer, he would ask Clavis about it properly.

“So this is a divine flower…”

The group was nearly back at the dungeon’s entrance. They’d stopped at the second level, however, because the floor was littered with junk, and Kunon couldn’t spread out any ice. They would have to walk the rest of the way.

This gave Kunon a little break, allowing him to finally get a good look at the divine flower. He had already dispelled his A-ori, leaving the flower floating in the light membrane that resembled Sanctum.

It was a white flower tinged with a faint crimson hue. Its true coloring was somewhere between white and pink. Kunon had expected it to be bigger, and he was most taken aback by how lethargic it looked. The petals and leaves were drooping. If he’d passed this flower outside, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it. He didn’t feel any special power from it. He was having a hard time believing it was really a divine flower at all.

In addition, there was a small light drifting around it, about half the size of a fingertip. According to Clavis, this was a light spirit. That had piqued Kunon’s interest, but…upon closer inspection, it just seemed like an ordinary ball of light. Like the flower, it didn’t feel special in any way.

In short, the flower appeared so ordinary as to be anticlimactic.

“It exhausted its power,” said Clavis. “That goes for the flower and the spirit. They’re both still newborn children.”

Kunon didn’t know enough about divine flowers or spirits to form a response.

“What do you intend to do with it, Professor Clavis?” asked Keevan. “If you don’t know yet, would you mind entrusting it to me?”

He clearly wanted to continue observing the divine flower, but Clavis shook his head.

“This isn’t an ordinary plant, so I don’t think you would be able to take care of it. If I gave it to you, it would likely link up with the spirit and run away again.”

It sounded like the flower was still a flight risk.

“Should we give it to Reyes, then? Or return it to the forest?”

“The current Saint doesn’t seem to know much about divine flowers, and returning it to the forest would just allow the same thing to happen again. This flower is newly born and not used to people. I think I’ll take care of it until it’s properly domesticated.”

A flower that needed to get used to people? Clavis spoke of it as if it were a puppy. That was more than a little weird, but it was probably the truth. The divine flower had run deep into the dungeon, after all.

“How are you going to help it get used to people? I want to know, too,” Kunon said, figuring there was no harm in asking.

“Using a method only light users can employ. There’s no point in me telling you about it.”

“But isn’t knowledge about divine flowers really difficult to come by? I might never get another chance to learn how to domesticate one. I want to know for future reference.”

“Hmm.” Clavis crossed his arms. “You’re not ready… Do you understand what I mean by that?”

I knew it, Kunon thought.

He’d asked that question knowing Clavis probably wouldn’t answer.

The teacher had probably held back for the same reason he hadn’t told Kunon about the Sanctum-like spell: It would have been premature. Kunon lacked the groundwork needed to learn these things. Clavis was telling him to ask again after he’d advanced further in his magic studies and sharpened his skills.

“…By the way, you’re not a woman, are you, Professor Clavis?” Kunon asked.

“Huh?”

Clavis’s calm demeanor slipped for a moment. Kunon’s question had thrown even him for a loop. The other sorcerers were taken aback, too. They had no idea why Kunon was asking such a thing.

“I mean… You know…”

You are using Sanctum. Kunon refrained from voicing that thought to avoid confusing the others, but Clavis likely understood what he wanted to say.

“I’m a man. Want me to prove it?”

“No! I’m good! I believe you! You didn’t trigger my lovely lady sensor, after all! I can recognize any woman in an instant! I’ve spent a lot of time training that ability!”

It had only taken one look for Kunon to realize Cassis was physically male, despite her dazzling thighs. Well, he couldn’t see her, exactly, but still. He was confident in his judgment on such matters. He’d even trained.

Anyway, that meant there had to be another explanation, and he could find it.

Clavis was a man. He wasn’t a Saint, but he could use Sanctum or a spell that looked just like it. But why?

“Well, do your best to figure it out,” said Clavis.

After asking his outrageous question, Kunon quickly lost himself in thought.

The light user watched him, amused.

Clavis Saint Lance’s next stop was his instructor’s private room.

“We recovered it, Gray.”

He opened the door without knocking, then stepped into the pitch-black darkness.

This space existed in between the second and third floors of School Building 3. It was his instructor’s private room and one of her many laboratories. Well, it was more of a library than a laboratory.

Clavis closed the door, cutting off the light from outside and plunging the room back into darkness. Soon, a faint light illuminated the room.

The only furnishings were a sofa, a low table, and bookcases that lined all four walls. In the bookcases were an immense number of books. The ceiling was so high it disappeared out of sight, as did the highest shelves. Looking up into the darkness felt just like staring into the darkened corridors of the underground dungeon.

“Well done.” A shadow shaped like a person seeped up from the floor—Gray Rouva. The shadow woman closely surveyed the divine flower Clavis had brought her. “Hmm, it’s quite weak.”

“What do you intend to do with it?” Clavis asked.

“Nothing. I got my fill of divine flower research centuries ago. This thing would just bore me now. I suppose it will make a nice sample for the students. The same goes for the Kira Vera.”

“You’re not giving it to the Holy Kingdom?”

“I’m not. It would be completely wasted there. It’s better to make practical use of resources like this than to store them away as objects of worship.”

Good point, Clavis thought.

That country probably would just use the divine flower or the Kira Vera as religious tools. Clavis didn’t feel like judging that particular practice, but this was a magic school, and they had other priorities. Since the flower was born here at the school, it should be used appropriately.

“Hey, you know that faction leader?” asked Gray Rouva. “The girl with one arm?”

“Do you mean Shilto Lockson?”

“Yeah. She’s right at the cusp of advancing into biomancy. I’m sure she’ll be happy.”

Divine flowers could create life. They were the life source for daemons and their artificial counterparts—beings which were once called the servants of the gods.

Records of daemons and divine flowers survived in myths and fairy tales, and while most people believed they no longer existed, the truth was that they did. They were, however, extremely difficult to handle.

Divine flowers had a will of their own and chose their users. If this flower chose Shilto, and she had the ability, she might be able to make a daemon arm. If she could do that, it would last for the rest of her life. The temporary arm she was using had to be inconvenient.

“You really did catch it much faster than I expected,” the witch remarked.

“I was surprised, too. You know that kid you told me about? Well, he…”

Clavis told her about the group’s search in the dungeon. A number of interesting things had happened, but most noteworthy was the water sorcerer’s method of rapid travel which had greatly shortened their journey. The kid had proved himself useful. He truly was talented.

“I assume you mean Kunon Gurion? I’ve been hearing that name a lot.” Several times, in fact, since the end of last year.

Students like him were rare even in the Advanced class. It was unusual for any student’s name to reach Gray Rouva’s ears. It was a good year if she heard the names of two or three students. It was even more unusual for her to hear the same name multiple times. And she almost never had a conversation with a student. That was why his name had stuck in her mind.

“He noticed that,” said Clavis.

“That? …Do you mean Sanctum? Oh yeah, I think I remember him saying something about being friends with the Saint.”

Kunon didn’t know any personal information about Clavis, but he knew Sanctum well enough to recognize it.

I’m sure his mind is full of questions right now, Gray thought.

How was a man using Sanctum? If Kunon could find the answer, it would change his life as a sorcerer significantly.

“Has he caught your interest?” asked Clavis.

“All sorcerers have my interest. Do avoid pointing out the obvious.”

Every sorcerer stared into the abyss of magic, and Gray Rouva was interested in them all as kindred spirits, no matter how far they made it down the path.

“So what do you think? Will Kunon reach the boundary?”

“Who can say? I feel like his type tends to do a lot without much self-awareness. Perhaps he has already reached the boundary—or he’ll cross it before we know it.”

There was no correct way to pursue magic. You could take the shortest path by studying only what you were taught, or you could take large detours through self-study. The wall, or boundary, as some called it, could be reached by more than one path.

It was also possible Kunon would touch the abyss of magic in a way they couldn’t anticipate.

“Anyway, that ends my report, Gray. I’ll see you later.”

“Hmm? Are you going somewhere?”

“Soff and Keevan invited me to lunch. I like to spend time with the youth every now and then.”

“What? I’m a little jealous. Was I not invited?”

“You didn’t even come up. You’ve never been popular, you know.”

“Tch. You can be such a brat. Run along now.”

Gray’s bratty pupil left the room, and his unpopular instructor disappeared back into shadow. Once more, the library fell silent.

“Long time no see, Mr. Kunon.”

It was early in the morning, and yet again, someone addressed Kunon right as he was about to pass through the school gate.

At the sound of the voice, however, all the questions he’d been dwelling on for the past few days flew straight out of his mind.

“Miss Serraphila!”

“Y-yes?”

Serraphila Quartz, the Inferno Prince’s cousin, stood before him. She was a girl he had been quite invested in until recently. Specifically, until he entered the dungeon.

He hadn’t forgotten about her, exactly…… Well, okay, he’d forgotten about her.

He had been spending all his time pondering what happened in the dungeon, and that had left no room for any other thoughts. But until then, she had definitely been on his mind a lot.

Now that he remembered her, those emotions revived within him.

“Your cousin asked me to do all I can to look after you. Are you doing okay?! …Huh?! Did you already choose a faction?!”

Not long ago, Serraphila had been roped into going on an expedition with the Harmony Faction. The experience had left her feeling ashamed by her lack of skill as a sorcerer, so she’d shut herself away for multiple days to train at magic… Kunon knew that much.

He was in the dark about what she had done after that, though. How many days were they into the new school year? Kunon never paid much attention to the passage of time. That was especially true recently, given how eventful this school year had been right from the start.

“I did,” she replied. “I chose the Harmony Faction.”

“I’m sorry! I totally neglected you, didn’t I? I must have made you feel as lonely as a little bird all by itself in the great night sky! I’m ashamed as a gentleman!”

After Serraphila began training, it was no longer possible to meet her at school. But Kunon had intended to drop by her house and check on her.

Despite that, he had forgotten all about her. He’d even shared multiple meals with Gioelion in the interim, but her cousin hadn’t mentioned her, so Kunon never thought of her, either.

“Please, don’t concern yourself. This is my first time back at school since then. You look as gentlemanly as ever, Mr. Kunon. I can tell you keep your eye mask nice and polished. Its black luster is genuinely captivating.”

By “since then,” she must have meant since she shut herself in her room.

“…Did you finish your training?” he asked.

“I wish I could say yes, but you should understand better than anyone, Mr. Kunon. Magic isn’t that simple.”

He agreed with her there. He felt that especially keenly at the moment, given how occupied he’d been by the unsolvable questions he’d encountered in the dungeon.

“But if you left your room… Does that mean you have some business here?”

“Yes. I came to see you. I want to talk about making money.”

Ah. Money.

Advanced students had to earn their own living expenses. In some ways, that was their very first assignment.

“I’m really sorry,” said Kunon. “Your cousin asked me to help you with that, too, but I’ve been kind of busy lately.”

“Oh, it’s okay.”

Kunon truly regretted he hadn’t done more to help her. Serraphila sensed that and hurriedly continued.

“This is my problem, and I’ll need to show some initiative in order to solve it. But I have discovered doing so will necessitate consulting you and others. It is because of my own negligence that I failed to realize that earlier,” Serraphila said. “Even so, will you please hear me out?”

The two went to a café.

Kunon’s classroom would have been a fine place to talk, but his obsession with his current research had left his room a little cluttered, so he decided they should go elsewhere. Kunon didn’t have a problem with the mess, but he figured most people would have trouble navigating it without tripping.

They ordered riri tea from the Holy Kingdom and got right to the point.

“So what’s your current situation?” Kunon asked.

Serraphila said she had chosen a faction. If the grace period during which the factions were not allowed to recruit new Advanced students had passed, that meant they were more than a month into the school year.

“Do you remember the expedition? I received a reward for helping, giving me an income of five hundred thousand necca last month.”

“You received a reward for the expedition?”

“Yes. In addition to research materials, we collected items we believed we could sell. I received a share of the profits. That money will keep me afloat for at least a little while.”

She had already moved and done a lot to cut down on her expenses. Her new house was small, and she was sharing it with just one servant. Even so, in only two more weeks, she would run out of money. Serraphila wanted to apply herself to her training a little while longer, but her financial situation had gotten in the way.

“I want to find a way to make money and live a little more comfortably.”

She was paying her servant a very low salary and trying to eat as little as possible.

Serraphila wasn’t particularly bothered by her current lifestyle. All she wanted to do was improve her magic. That desire dominated her mind. However, Rudin—her elderly butler—had briefly returned to the Quartz estate, and when he came back, he told her something.

“Such a low standard of living will put you in danger.”

She understood what he meant. The Quartz family was one of the highest-ranking noble families in the Arcion Empire. If word spread that a young Quartz girl was living alone in the city like a commoner, people might try to take advantage of the situation.

If she couldn’t find a way to make money, her father would probably order her to transfer to the Second Level. If that happened, she would have no choice but to obey.

But she had already discovered the Advanced class’s appeal. The Second Level could never satisfy her now. Most importantly, she couldn’t stand the thought of being separated from Elva. There were so many other wonderful girls among her upperclassmen, too.

“Hmm, an income for an earth user… Did you consult Miss Elva and the other Harmony members?”

“I told them I would join their faction. But I have not asked them for advice.”

Kunon understood the reason without having to ask. “You don’t want to be a burden to them.”

Serraphila wasn’t yet confident in her ability. Right now, there was nothing she could do to help her faction members. In fact, her presence would only inconvenience them. That was why she couldn’t spend time around them yet.

Kunon had been through a similar experience. When he first became Zeonly’s disciple, he was totally ignorant of the man’s field of expertise, magic tools. He had no hope of keeping up or helping him in any way.

He responded by studying feverishly until he eventually became a capable assistant. Before he reached that point, he’d felt completely useless as a sorcerer. Of course, at the same time, he’d been overjoyed to have so much to learn. After all, the more he learned, the closer he would come to his goal of making eyes with magic. Or at least, that was how he felt about it.

“Well then, shall we brainstorm? We need to think of ways to make money using your earth attribute.”

Epilogue. Letter

To my beloved fiancée,

How are you faring in this late summer period of blazing sunlight and vibrant life?

The sun’s rays are still harsh here.

It has now been a year and a half since we have seen each other. I was surprised when I realized that much time had passed. Our time apart feels so long.

But time’s advance is unceasing. I am sure our reunion will be upon us before we know it. However, I still find myself anxiously awaiting that day.

The season will soon change. Please pay attention to your health.

I advanced a grade and am now a second-year student.

It was a relief that I managed to get enough credits.

I had to find and organize all my documents from the collapsed school building.

That was a living nightmare. I’m so thankful to be past that horrid experience.

How are you doing, Your Highness?

You said you were busy and you may be somewhat late replying to my letters.

You can write back whenever you wish. Please take care of yourself.

It is still summer break as I write this letter.

I considered returning home to Hughlia but decided to stay in Dirashik.

As you said, it would be painful to part again after meeting for such a brief period.

Let’s both take care of our respective duties until our next meeting.

I pray it will be an occasion of joy with no sorrow in our hearts.

I’ve been going to school every day during the break.

Over half the student body went home, so barely any of the girls I know are here.

As a gentleman, that makes me feel lonely.

Even Professor Jenié and Professor Satori, both of whom I respect so much, are spending the break away from Dirashik.

Being a student is better with company.

My second year is fast approaching.

This means there will be students who are younger than me.

Honestly, that still doesn’t feel real.

My upperclassmen looked out for me so much last year. Can I do the same for these new students? How can I look after someone if I can’t even see them?

But I can’t spend all my time feeling unsure of myself.

It’s a gentleman’s duty to help girls in need. And that goes double for younger girls.

I’m going to work hard to become a gentleman worthy of standing by your side.

Feel free to take your time responding to this letter.

I am, however, very curious to know what has you so busy.

Once you are able to tell me of your current affairs, please do.

I sincerely wish for your good health.

With passion as strong as the height of summer,

Your Kunon Gurion

Extra Story. The Old Days with Zeonly and Aion

The sun was stupidly hot.

It was almost autumn, but doing anything outside still made Zeonly feel like he was melting.

That was still preferable to freezing, of course. Working in the winter months was miserable because the cold would numb your fingers and make you sick. It was easier to move around in the heat.

Just outside the Black Tower—the base of the Royal Sorcerers, located near Hughlia’s royal castle—Zeonly Finroll was conducting an experiment.

He was designing a new magic tool called the Totally Automatic Well-Maker. The completed designs were taking shape in his mind as he tinkered with what he’d built using various instruments.

His colleague, Victo—a water sorcerer—spoke to him.

“Zeon, you got a letter.”

“A letter? From who?”

“From your darling disciple.”

Zeonly had only one disciple.

He would have put off any other matter, but reports from his disciple took precedence. There was nothing he was more concerned about at the moment.

“Hand it over.”

The seal hadn’t been broken. Royal Sorcerers’ letters were inspected when sent from the tower, but not when received, so long as the sender’s identity was clear.

“I told you to hand it over.”

He reached out and grabbed the letter from Victo, but the younger man refused to let go. The two sorcerers struggled over the envelope, pulling it back and forth. They fought so hard their arms began to tremble.

“It must be nice to have such a precious disciple,” said Victo. “Given the time of year, I’m guessing he wrote about the magic school’s entrance exam. Man, I’m so jealous. How did someone like you who has no interest in training his juniors end up with a disciple?”

“Will you drop it already? I’m gettin’ sick of hearing it.”

“No! I’ll never drop it! I wanted him as my disciple!”

“Oh, shut up! Keep your voice down!” Zeon ignored Victo’s complaint and snatched the letter out of his fingers.

“What does it say?”

“Get lost, man! This has nothin’ to do with you!”

“That’s not true! It’s an update from a kid who could have been my disciple!”

“Yeah, ‘could have’! He’s my disciple, not yours!”

It had been years since Zeonly became Kunon’s teacher, but his colleague had yet to give up. Well, perhaps he had given up. He just hadn’t gotten over it.

Just then, more voices chimed in.

“Are you talking about that boy who could’ve been my disciple?”

“I still haven’t given up on Kunon, Zeon.”

Their loud argument right outside the base had attracted a crowd of sorcerers from nearby.

“Don’t come over here!” shouted Zeonly. “Go focus on your own work!”

“Calm down.”

“What’s the big deal? This is about the boy who was all set to be my disciple, right?”

“If you don’t open that letter soon, I’m gonna interrupt your nap again.”

“Let’s make sure his next meal has extra vegetables.”

“I like that. You’ll never get more than scraps of meat from now on.”

The sorcerers pestered Zeonly relentlessly.

Marquess Gurion’s second son had visited the castle just once a few years prior. After that, he became Zeonly’s apprentice and started assisting his experiments and research, which led to the boy’s name coming up quite a lot in the Black Tower.

To Zeonly’s annoyance, that ensured the Royal Sorcerers didn’t forget about him. In fact, their inability to see him had only increased their obsession with him.

There was also the problem of Zeonly’s personality. As Victo said, he wasn’t the type to take a disciple. And yet he was doing quite well as an instructor. That was another reason for other sorcerers’ dissatisfaction… If he let them start complaining, they would probably never stop.

“Okay, okay! Don’t touch me!” he exclaimed. “I’m opening it now, so keep your distance!”

Zeonly was confident in his skill. However, you didn’t become a Royal Sorcerer for nothing. Annoyingly, his stupid colleagues were also quite talented.

He could handle any of them in a one-on-one fight, but he doubted he could beat anyone one-on-two. He was currently outnumbered and had no hope of escape. This situation would only become even more of a headache if he resisted.

And so, he decided to just do as they wanted and chase them away afterward.

“How nostalgic,” said one of the other sorcerers after Zeonly had read the letter and summarized its contents aloud.

There were some things he wanted to keep to himself, so he didn’t let the others read it directly.

As expected, Kunon had written about the entrance exam. He’d passed without issue. Zeonly hadn’t been concerned at all about that. He’d known that boy would be just fine.

…What he was concerned about was whether his own troublemaking in the past would negatively affect his disciple. There were still many people at the magic school—and in the rest of Dirashik, for that matter—who had known Zeonly when he was a student.

That said, for better or worse, the school was a place where magic and ability mattered above all else. For that reason, Zeonly had asked an old acquaintance to make the entrance exam more difficult than usual. He figured if the boy proved his ability, his status as “the infamous Zeonly’s disciple” wouldn’t affect him as much. People would act differently around him if he proved himself from the start.

His disciple was truly skilled. So much so that he would likely be worthy of the lowest position among the Royal Sorcerers after just two years of study.

As Kunon’s awkward instructor read the letter, his mind was full of such thoughts.

But Victo and their other colleagues reacted differently. As one of them put it, the contents made them feel “nostalgic.”

“…Yeah, I miss those days, too,” said Zeonly. To tell the truth, he felt the same way.

He had also gone to the magic city of Dirashik, taken the entrance exam, and been admitted to the magic school, just like the rest of his colleagues.

Because they were all different ages, he hadn’t seen many of them at school. But they had all studied in Gray Rouva’s domain. As a result, they had a lot of things in common to chat about.

The more Zeonly learned about his disciple’s situation, the more it lined up with his own experiences. The school building he spent every day in. His total mess of a classroom. Getting carried away with his mischief and having to run from the teachers… That had all happened to Zeonly more times than he could count. He recalled a time when he’d made Gray Rouva mad enough that she chewed him out directly. On another occasion, he’d gotten a reputation in the city for being dangerous and wound up banned from a bunch of shops. He could remember so many faces, though most of them were frowning…

Now that so many years had passed, however, there was one thing he could say for sure: He was grateful to all the people who had spent time with a delinquent like him, even if their displeasure showed on their faces.

“Speaking of the good old days, Zeon,” Victo said, seeming to remember something. “Wasn’t the Hexer of Doom one of your classmates? I’ve heard you were close.”

Hexer.

I haven’t heard that word in a while, Zeonly thought.

“She was one year above me, and we weren’t that close,” he said. “Circumstances just brought us together for a bit.”

“Oh yeah?” said one of the others, starting another chorus of replies.

“I’m curious about the hexer, but I wanna hear stories from your student days, too.”

“Me too. You were a big-time delinquent, weren’t you? I heard you were constantly getting into trouble.”

“I heard he caused his classmates no end of pain.”

Oh, gimme a break, Zeonly thought, grimacing.

Back then, he’d let his considerable talent go to his head and gotten a bit overzealous. There were a lot of memories he would rather not revisit.

“Haven’t I given you enough already? If you slack off anymore, ol’ smiley Londimonde will show up and talk you to death.”

The Royal Sorcerers fled immediately. They clearly wanted no part of that.

Zeonly was only one of many troublemakers among the Royal Sorcerers, and Grand Master Londimonde oversaw them all. He was experienced with handling their type and knew exactly how to get under their skin.

“…Oh, damn it all.”

Talk of his past brought memories flooding back into Zeonly’s mind, whether he liked it or not.

He thought of his young self, and of Aion, the Hexer of Doom.

Hexer.

Just like heroes and saints, the title of hexer could be traced back to the Great War of the Seventeen Kings, and had belonged to people with significant accomplishments.

Back then they were considered very special individuals, but these days the word simply referred to sorcerers who could use unique spells. This was an era in which saints went to magic school like anyone else, so they weren’t so rare you had no chance of ever seeing one, though they were still very few in number.

Because a hexer’s spells were unique, they were difficult to research or incorporate into experiments. Their versatility was extremely low, and others had difficulty reproducing them.

For that reason, and because of their special characteristics, hexers tended to be shunned by more narrow-minded people.

The spell unique to hexers was called Execration.

Put simply, it allowed them to use curses.

“Heck yeah! Not that I was worried!”

Zeonly’s results had arrived. He opened the letter immediately and saw he had been accepted into the magic school’s Advanced class.

“Did you pass?” asked the old lady who had given him the letter. She managed the inn where he was staying.

As if she needed to ask.

“Duh!” the boy boasted. “I’m Zeonly! I’m a prodigy whose name will be remembered forever in the magical world!”

He was way too cocky for his own good, but he was undeniably talented. Otherwise, the twelve-year-old Zeonly—who didn’t yet possess the name Finroll—was just an ordinary child.

“I have a question for you, Mr. ‘Prodigy.’ When are you gonna pay your bill?”

“You’ll have to wait a little longer for that.”

Zeonly was broke. He had been staying at a cheap, run-down inn—if you wanted to be nice, you could call it “modest”—for the whole summer, but even that was too expensive for a poor boy from a rural village like him.

He’d traveled to the magic city of Dirashik alone with only enough money for a one-way trip. Though he’d managed to reach the city, he’d arrived well before the entrance exam and had nowhere to live in the meantime.

He’d negotiated with the proprietress of this modest inn, and she’d agreed to let him pay his debt after he was admitted to the school and started making money. He promised to perform whatever chores she asked in the meantime—an offer she took frequent advantage of.

But now, at last, he’d been accepted by the school. That changed his situation completely.

“I’m gonna go find a dorm! Goodbye forever to this crappy inn!”

“Hey, where d’you think you’re going, you damned brat?”

He pretended not to hear the old woman as he dashed out of the inn.

Advanced class students had to earn their own living expenses.

However, household expenses were an exception. The school agreed to shoulder the cost of rent. All Zeonly needed was an address. After that, he should be able to handle food expenses for one person.

If he’d failed the exam and ended up in Second Level, he would be in a totally different situation…but that was never going to happen.

“Let me into the dorm!”

Zeonly approached the school’s female receptionist once again. He’d already tried to bargain with her multiple times, but now he thrusted his results certificate before her. The woman looked as bored as ever.

“I’m a student now!” cried Zeonly. “You have to listen to me!”

“Fine, fine.” The woman sighed with exasperation and flipped through some papers. “Ah, a dorm room is about to open up. I’ll reserve it for you.”

“Really?!”

“Yep. Looks like a kid is graduating.”

Finally, Zeonly would obtain a stable lifestyle. No more being worked to the bone at that shabby old inn. No more getting complained to by general store employees for standing around and reading books without buying them. No more having to put up with that female employee desperate for a husband saying things like, “If you spend any more time staring at our products without buying them, I’m going to make you marry me.” Now he’d be able to spend his every waking hour in the school library. And as for food… Well, he would figure out how to pay for that somehow.

He’d also be able to experiment and research all he wanted. And he’d never again have to listen to his neighbors argue on the other side of his paper-thin walls.

He was truly grateful to the old proprietress, but those inn rooms were way too cramped to live in any kind of comfort. He just needed a place to live and—

“…Hmm?”

Zeonly’s eyes flicked toward the entrance to the school. He hadn’t been through that gate since his exam, but now he spotted a tall girl with a hood over her face approaching. She looked like a shady sorcerer straight out of the olden days, which in this city actually made her fit right in.

Zeonly casually watched her as she walked toward him. Well, technically she was heading toward the receptionist, not him.

“Umm. I’m Aion from First Level… Can I have the paperwork to move out?” She was as quiet as a mouse.

“What?” The receptionist couldn’t hear her from the other side of the counter.

“She’s Aion from First Level and she wants to move out of the dorm,” Zeonly said casually.

“You got it,” the receptionist replied with a bored expression.

The girl looked down. “Umm, thanks…”

Zeonly glanced up without thinking and was shocked by what he saw. The girl had a flower pattern in her left eye—a curse crest. Zeonly could only vaguely make out the girl’s face under her hood, but her curse crest shone with a faint light.

“Are you a hexer?!” he asked.

He had once read about people with features like hers. He’d never seen one in person, but her appearance matched what he’d read exactly. She had to have been a hexer—a special kind of sorcerer that used Execration, a spell that had been lost long ago.

“……”

The girl turned away silently.

“…Wait a second, did you just say you were in First Level?!”

Hexers were sorcerers just as special as heroes and saints. They possessed unique magic no one else could imitate. No matter how much of a genius Zeonly was, he couldn’t perform Execration.

Technically, all hexers were blessed with natural talent. And yet this one was in First Level, the one that taught the fundamentals of magic for sorcerers who needed to start from the very beginning.

A hexer was in First Level. Not only that, but she was moving out of the dorm. That almost certainly meant she was leaving the magic school.

“You’re graduating? From First Level? As a hexer?”

He would understand if she was in Second Level. That was what most sorcerers graduated from.

The Advanced class was for the elite. A graduate from that level could pursue a career as a Royal Sorcerer in their home country.

He had heard that even for beginners, the common path was to start in First Level, move up to Second Level, and then graduate. So what was this girl doing?

“Everyone has their own circumstances. Don’t give her a hard time when you know nothing about her,” the receptionist said in a low voice, clearly upset.

“Oh, gimme a break,” Zeonly said, sounding even more disgruntled. “What’re you doing lettin’ such an obvious talent go to waste? Do you care about your job at all? Doesn’t the magic school exist to help students like her grow into elite sorcerers?”

“I’m just a receptionist, bud.”

“She has unique magic. Isn’t that fascinating? You should help her develop it.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

She was telling him to direct his complaints to a teacher.

“Oh, forget it. You’re clearly not gonna help,” Zeonly said, completely missing the receptionist’s point. “Hey, your name’s Aion, right?”

He tugged on the girl’s sleeves and spun her toward him, then looked up into the curse crest shining beneath her hood.

“Tell me why you’re leaving the dorm. Are you going back home? If you are, teach me about curses first. If you’re graduating from First Level, it must mean you’re giving up on being a sorcerer. Am I right? If that’s the case, give your magic to me.” Execration was a form of magic unique to hexers. Zeonly was well aware of that, but he didn’t let it stop him. “I’m a genius. Reproducing unique magic will be a walk in the park for me.”

Zeonly didn’t know anything about Execration, so he couldn’t help but be curious about it. He was also confident enough in himself to believe he could do what he said. He believed in his own talent.

“Let me go,” Aion protested weakly, but Zeonly didn’t listen.

“No way. Any sorcerer abandoning magic should at least pass on their knowledge and skill first. If you don’t, your presence at this school will have been pointless. I’ll inherit your magic. That’ll give your time here meaning. Stay a little longer and help my genius gro— OW!”

The receptionist hit his head with a clipboard hard enough to produce a loud thump.

“Can you not waste my time with your crappy attempt to pick up a girl?”

Zeonly released Aion’s sleeves and held his head in pain.

“Also, Aion has already graduated, so she literally can’t stay here any longer. She’s moving out regardless of whether or not we do this paperwork.”

That meant Aion wouldn’t have a place to stay. And that gave Zeonly an idea.

“Then I won’t move into this dorm! I’ll look for a house this girl and I can live in together!”

““Huh?””

The other two were taken aback.

“I’m in the Advanced class. The school pays rent for Advanced students. I’ll look for a house for us, so…” Zeonly grabbed Aion’s sleeves again. “Live with me and teach me how to perform curses. After we’re done, you can go home.”

“Huh? Th-this is really sudden…”

“I don’t know anything about your circumstances, but do you really want to leave school so soon? Will a hexer like you truly be satisfied with graduating from First Level? That’s a sure sign you’ve given up on magic. And if you’re giving up, at least lend me a little of your time first. Think of it as your final job as a sorcerer. Surely you can handle that.”

Her final job as a sorcerer.

Aion felt her heart stir just a little at those words.

“…Umm… I-I can’t do magic…”

“…Huh?”

Aion looked down as Zeonly looked up.

The girl’s eyes trembled with fear, while the boy’s radiated confidence.

That was the day Zeonly, a sorcerer who would later be known as a genius, met Aion, the Hexer of Doom.

Afterword

Afterword

Good evening. I’m Umikaze Minamino.

The fifth volume of Kunon the Sorcerer Can See, which is perfect for a long autumn night, has just been released. I’m afraid it’s winter now, though.

I can hardly believe we’ve reached Volume 5. I think this book would fit really nicely on a shelf next to Volume 4. It might even look nice next to Volume 6. That said, you could put it literally anywhere and it would remain exquisite. I mean, it’s Volume 5. It has a special presence.

I’m writing this afterword at the end of November 2023.

A lot has been happening recently, including Japan winning the Asia Professional Baseball Championship, a bear possibly calling a local government and saying, “Dirty humans! Come at me with your bare hands!” in response to exterminations, the Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End anime airing and being a lot of fun, and Persona 5 Tactica coming out. Incidentally, I’m the type who waits for a whole season of anime to be released and then watches it all in one go.

To share some personal news, I finally bought an electric toothbrush after meaning to do so for a long time. It was on sale on Amazon! But my teeth felt weird after brushing them with it, so I stopped using it. I wonder if I’m just not accustomed to it? Or am I damaging my teeth? If I keep using it and hurting my teeth, will I eventually grind them to powder? I’m jealous of people who can use an electric toothbrush without issue. Envious, even.

Also, I’m hoping Japanese scallops get less expensive this winter. I’m not sure if I’ll end up buying any. What will future me do with my passion for smoked hotate scallops? They’re really delicious. I’d like to try making a hotate rice bowl, too.

I can’t forget to mention the Next Light Novel Award.

Kunon the Sorcerer Can See was nominated for the 2023 Next Light Novel Award.

If you’ll allow me a small digression, another of my novels—Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden—was also nominated. It has a different publisher, so I’m not sure if I should say the name of the series, but I wanted to sneak it in. It’s just one brief mention, so please forgive me. I would appreciate it if you could just close your eyes. Two seconds is long enough.

Regardless of the results, I’m pleased that people voted for me, read my works, or even just learned about them from the contest.

That alone is enough for me. I am very happy and honored.

Hmm. I wonder if, from a commercial standpoint, I should be publicizing and pushing my novels as much as I can right now.

Will the voting be finished by the time you’re all reading this afterword? I don’t think the results will be announced yet. At least not if you bought it on the release date, anyway! I don’t mind at all if you bought it after the release date, of course!

If you want, make sure to check out the list and read any light novels you think look interesting. I want to read something, too.

Thank you to Laruha for this volume’s wonderful illustrations.

As of the time I’m writing this, I’ve only seen a rough draft of the cover. I can’t wait for the finished product.

I’ll bet that scene, that scene, and that other scene were all illustrated. Wait, did that scene get illustrated, too? You’re kidding, right? Isn’t that a little daring?

…There might be illustrations that inspire such a reaction! I can’t help wondering! Please check them out, everyone!

Thank you to La-na—who is responsible for the manga version of this story, which is serialized in Monthly Comic Alive—for always making the manga so much fun.

The third compiled volume of the manga is releasing at the same time I’m writing this! I’m so happy! I’ve been looking forward to it!

I think the cover is wonderful. Gentlemen look so great smushed between two maids.

Picture two girls hugging each other. Precious, right? Now imagine some guy slipping between them.

What the hell are you doing?! You’re ruining a beautiful thing, loser! Get lost!

But if a gentleman slips between them? It’s as you can see on the cover.

I must admit my shock at discovering a boy can look so good positioned between two girls. I want to be a gentleman, too. And I also want to be smushed by girls.

To O, my editor, thank you again for all your help.

My deepest apologies for once again misunderstanding deadlines, ignoring them entirely, and for generally causing you trouble.

I’m always making mistakes, aren’t I?

I really run the full gamut from small mistakes to seriously terrible ones.

If I were a war general, my small mistakes would become a terrible gust pushing my tens of thousands of soldiers, impeding their progress, and threatening to blow them off a cliff.

It’s a good thing I’m not a general…or is it? I need to stay strong.

Finally, to my dear readers.

I couldn’t have reached Volume 5 without your support. Thank you very much.

Your thoughts and reactions continuously energize me.

I apologize for mentioning the web novel, but it is undoubtedly thanks to you all that a slacker like me is able to continue making regular updates.

From here on, you can expect predictable events as well as unpredictable ones. Fun episodes, as well as some that are surprisingly not so fun. You may see some fascinating characters and various secrets revealed, or you might not.

There is much to come, and I’d appreciate it if you stayed with the story for the long haul.

I hope to see you again in Volume 6, which will surely happen!