“Wh-… it’s so cool!”
Charlotte looks at me with a clearly happy expression.
A glowing sphere flutters around the sky and catches my eye.
Naturally, the appearance of a magic circle in front of me signals that an attack will soon rain down from there.
Such actions can operate as significant weaknesses in a battle against an opponent.
It’s no different from a swordsman shouting the name of a technique while swinging their sword or an assassin who prepares for a kill but then shouts “Hide!”
This is romantic in its own way, but thinking about it, Charlotte generally becomes a character that players tend to avoid.
A wizard whose casting time can take anywhere from a few minutes to several days.
No player would like this character.
There were players who tried to look for gimmicks, but all failed.
‘Except for me.’
In reality, Charlotte’s stats are average.
Strength, intelligence, mana, etc., could all be considered average.
However, she possesses one unique trait.
[Absolute Memory Ability]
She remembers everything she sees, hears, and thinks.
Her memory is like a small universe, and the unique magic derived from it is recording magic.
It is commonly referred to as “Memorize.”
From what I know, a typical wizard calculates with their mind and then casts spells with their hands to attack.
The time it takes for casting and the difficulty of the spells determine the wizard’s ability.
Even the highest-ranked characters, who are candidates for the Chief Wizard position and ultimately become the Chief Wizard, take a moment to cast spells, leading to discontent among users.
However, Charlotte doesn’t need to do that.
As long as she has drawn the magic on the ground once, it gets instantly stored in her memory.
From the beginning of the solution to the middle, and then the end and the answer.
The moment she draws the problem itself and the calculation method on the ground, it becomes permanently remembered in her mind.
Therefore, recording magic is a unique spell that only she can use.
No one else in this world can remember magical knowledge as comprehensively as she does.
Thus, it is understandable that other wizards consider it inefficient.
Remembering the formulas of thousands of problems is usually slower than just remembering the problem itself and solving it on the spot.
However, Charlotte has no casting time requirement for this process.
She only has to pull out from her memory what she has remembered.
But the reason other players don’t notice this is that until they raise their favorability with her to the maximum, she never uses “Memorize.”
They must continuously give her gifts and meet up to raise her favorability.
Moreover, she doesn’t show her full capabilities until their favorability is raised above a certain threshold for several months.
People play games because there are clear goals and rewards, so without that, there is no reason to play.
And it’s not like there aren’t attractive characters in the game to choose from.
“Ah… I never thought there would be anyone who would understand that thought up to now…”
“I think the patterns of the magic circles are beautiful.”
“Right…? Magic has an inherent beauty that comes from the magic circle itself, but no one knows that.”
Holding the book tightly in her hands, Charlotte smiled.
“Oh, speaking of which, you said you need my help…”
“There’s a problem I can’t solve, and I thought Charlotte might help.”
“A problem? Isn’t that something others could solve too…?”
I can’t say that I don’t have any friends to solve a magic problem.
Charlotte seems innocent enough to seem like she’d help me.
So I have to charm her somehow.
“I want to get closer to you than anyone else.”
“Huuh…!”
At my words, she clutched her heart and looked misty-eyed.
“Really…? You want to be friendly with me…!”
“Of course, friend.”
“Huh… huhhh…??”
A deceptively simple action akin to luring a naive child with candy.
No, it might be even easier than that.
Thus, while I felt guilty about using Charlotte, it was okay.
I genuinely wanted to be friends with her.
Despite my generally nonchalant personality, I, too, wanted to meet someone like her as a player.
The only reason I wasn’t approaching them first was simple.
I couldn’t predict the stories and plots that would change by becoming friends with them.
A common dilemma faced by many reincarnators in novels.
That’s why I had no intention of meeting her so early, but… perhaps just Charlotte wouldn’t cause significant twists.
If it were another main character, that might be a different story, but I don’t know if Charlotte is a character deliberately hidden by the developers, but unless players completely exploit her, it wouldn’t heavily affect the overall story.
And I showed her the paper I had.
“Uh… so is this the problem…?”
“That’s right. My head isn’t good, so I couldn’t solve such an easy problem.”
“Hmm… easy problem?”
“What’s wrong?”
Charlotte slowly skimmed through the questions on the paper and tilted her head slightly.
“Umm… no… it’s nothing…”
“Oh.”
Thank goodness.
For a moment, a sense of dread that even Charlotte couldn’t solve washed over me, but perhaps it wasn’t anything like that.
She picked up a pen lying around and began to quickly and neatly write down the answers.
Minutes passed as she wrote.
The pen that had been moving with a flourish then stopped.
“I-it’s done! The answer should be this…! As far as I can remember…”
“Thank you. But have you solved this before?”
“I think I’ve seen it in some book before…”
“……”
For a moment, she looked lost in thought, as if recalling past memories.
No, in this case, the expression ‘bringing in a memory’ would be more appropriate.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
With her definitive answer, I smiled and expressed my gratitude.
Honestly, I wanted to know her phone number, but I couldn’t because I didn’t have the money to buy a mobile phone.
Even if I asked her, she would likely refuse for now.
“I’ll ask you again next time.”
“Sure… anytime…!”
After breaking up with Charlotte, I read some books in the library and then headed home.
None of them matched my level.
The following day, I submitted the answer sheet that Charlotte had written on behalf of the professor in the Magic Department at the Academy.
In reality, this was almost the same as using AI for the report, but… the professor said that using additional materials was fine, and since Charlotte could be treated as an aggregate of human information, it should be okay.
Without this method, a fool like me wouldn’t even be able to solve the basics.
Moreover, even though the given time was until next week, I submitted it immediately because I might forget it.
After all, I could get drunk and accidentally lose the paper.
“Haah…”
I’m a bit worried about having to ask Charlotte every time new problems flood in like this.
If I say I’m her friend and ask for help, she would probably do it due to her nature… but that’s a part that my identity as a human can’t allow.
“……”
Sigh, I really don’t want to study.
It’s the worst to have to look at those terrible combinations of letters again after reincarnating.
With a sigh, I prepared for the next class.
***
The Chief Professor of the Magic Department.
Hergel Haina.
“Ugh, I don’t wanna work!!!”
She struggles not to get out of bed, feeling the same fatigue as always.
“I only slept for 4 hours again today…”
Chronic fatigue that always plagues her brain.
Vwhhhh…
Starting the day with her brain jumbled by caffeine and lack of sleep.
She skips breakfast.
Why? Because it’s a hassle.
Besides, it’s dangerous to doze off while cooking.
She simply grabs a coffee from the café inside the Academy and chugs it down.
“Hmm…”
Even so, this year there was one student she was looking forward to.
‘Andre Hellicia.’
A freshman aiming for the position of the next Chief Wizard, a position that she herself coveted in the past but ultimately could not achieve.
That intelligence was indeed remarkable.
He produced the answer in less than an hour after the problem was presented.
The problem she had called easy was just a way to encourage students to try a little; in truth, it was a very difficult question.
It could be said that she had two purposes: to gauge where Hellicia stood and to see how much ambition the students had.
[Solution to the concentration of mana and variable constants based on gravitational position.]
A magical formula that clearly defines the relationship between gravity and mana, which many in the past called a conundrum and attempted to solve.
Though it has been somewhat resolved in modern times, optimization is still ongoing.
Swish.
She re-reads the paper written by Hellicia as she sits down.
“Indeed, this is worth a try.”
Then, she looks at the numerous papers piled on her desk.
There were hastily written answers from students who had already given up, and some with no answers at all.
Some had even completely copied previously submitted answers.
Although it was an open book exam, she sighed, shoving the papers to one side, and took another sip of coffee.
“Wait, there’s one more.”
Then, she discovered another sheet of paper placed elsewhere.
Expecting it to be the same, she looked at the content of the paper and paused her coffee for a moment.
Thunk.
“……Huh?”
Establishing the relationship between gravity and mana.
That means it creates a constant concentration of mana regardless of position.
Drip.
The coffee she had been holding in her mouth dripped out.
A new attempt she had never seen before.
“Let’s verify… yeah, let’s verify.”
A sequence of characters overwhelmingly fewer than the existing magical formulas, only about five lines.
However, after simply expanding it, Haina realized.
“Where on earth… did this monster come from?”
A perfect optimization that seemed to have reconstructed all existing systems.
Simple and fast.
And when she looked at the space for the name, she widened her eyes even more.
“There’s… no name?”
***
“Damn.”
While munching on chocolate in the classroom, I realized one major mistake.
I didn’t write my name.
