The memory of that day felt like a dream. Gaze…
Those cold red eyes looking down.
And the voice, as devoid of emotion as the chill itself.
[There won’t be a second time, Lucia.]
As she lay in bed, closing her eyes and recalling the memory, Lucia, once again, had a nightmare.
“Huh! Hah, hah…!”
Gasping for breath after waking up drenched in cold sweat, she struggled to catch her breath.
It was a memory she could never forget.
It was the first time she, as the second daughter of the Aster family, had been treated that way.
At first, she was just angry. Surely, they wouldn’t leave her alone.
“….”
No one else remembered that day except for her.
Her servants on either side, along with all the circumstances, seemed to side with Iria.
[Did you have a bad dream?]
Iria’s last words seemed to echo in her ears.
Was it really just a bad dream? Had it only appeared as a dream because Lucia had been following Iria recently?
“Ugh, so unlucky.”
Lucia wiped the sweat from her forehead as she propped herself up.
Yeah, if she dismissed it as a fleeting dream, it made sense.
The scene from that day was just too unreal.
Iria, whom she thought was the top student, had subdued her without lifting a finger, knocked out the servants, and disappeared in an instant.
There were too many oddities to call it reality. So, it was as if she was self-hypnotizing to make her head understand.
It was a dream. It wasn’t real.
So forget it. It was impossible for that to have happened.
Only after coming to this conclusion was Lucia able to accept it.
“Yeah… It can’t be.”
It was absurd that Lucia, the recommended student, had been overpowered by someone from the same grade.
If that had been reality, Iria would have seen Lucia for the first time that day; how could she have known her name?
That alone made it impossible. It was merely a brief illusion.
So, she had to take the top student title from Iria as soon as possible.
Only then could she escape this pesky nightmare.
She needed to break Iria down in reality and prove that the memory from that day was wrong.
Iria.
Lucia mulled over someone’s name.
*
“So, you don’t know how to use magic?”
“Yes.”
Iria answered curtly, and Rena scratched her cheek as if feeling awkward.
Having passed the entrance exam as the top student of her first year, she now enrolled in the Combat Magic Department, yet she couldn’t even use basic magic.
It wasn’t an easy story to believe. Still,
“Wind!”
“Hmm…”
Seeing Iria waving her hands in the air made it look like she truly didn’t know how to perform magic.
A top student looking like that? It didn’t match her image at all, but what the heck, she was cute, so it was all good.
“So you want to learn magic? From me?”
“The course content is hard to understand.”
Iria needed to learn magic.
If she couldn’t even use basic spells while sitting in the position of top student in the Combat Magic Department, she would undoubtedly attract unnecessary suspicion.
The academy was a place where she could gather information comfortably.
It guaranteed Iria’s identity and allowed her to use the library while also keeping an eye on who might be the protagonist of a story.
To achieve her goals without being expelled, she couldn’t neglect her life at the academy.
Rena smiled slightly and asked Iria,
“You said you took the magic aptitude test, right?”
Iria nodded.
The magic aptitude test is a type of examination that determines which elemental magic one is suited for.
It’s common to possess one of the basic elements: water, fire, lightning, ice, or wind, but depending on talent, one might wield several elements.
“I can use fire magic and a bit of lightning, and I can use a little wind magic. But, of course, I’m most confident with fire.”
Rena was the same.
In an academy where only geniuses gathered, there were more people than expected who could handle two elements, but being able to wield three was a rare talent even within the academy.
She demonstrated small flames, flashes of lightning, and a gentle breeze in sequence.
“That’s awesome.”
“Uh… yeah, thanks.”
Iria replied half-heartedly.
She had hoped for a more surprised reaction, but it was more of an ‘Iria-like’ response, leaving her speechless.
In fact, it felt even more jarring to see Iria react passionately with shining eyes.
After giving Iria a gentle head pat, Rena asked,
“So, what element do you think you’re suited for?”
“I think it’s wind. It seems I can’t use multiple elements at once like you, Rena.”
“Well, that’s pretty normal.”
The standard for normal seemed to have gotten a bit strange for some time now, probably due to the academy’s ridiculously high averages.
From an average person’s perspective, Iria didn’t fall behind or anything.
By the way, wind, huh?
Rena thought while looking at Iria.
‘It seems oddly fitting, yet it doesn’t quite match.’
In other words, wind somewhat matched Iria’s image, but the other magics just didn’t.
At least it was a magic that overlapped with her own, so it was fortunate. It meant she could demonstrate it directly.
“Alright, then do you remember the basic spell?”
“A little.”
“Okay, I’ll show you just once, so pay attention, alright?”
Rena closed her eyes and reached her hand into the air.
It was the process of bringing the mana flowing in her body outside. Her golden hair fluttered.
And then,
“Can you see? Focus on the flowing mana and bring it out. Then, you cast the spell on the mana.”
With a short incantation, a blue-green light enveloped her body.
It was the natural element of wind.
Rena gathered the wind that surrounded her body and sent it towards Iria.
A gentle breeze brushed through Iria’s hair. It wasn’t a strong wind, but refreshingly pleasant.
“I’m still clumsy with wind magic too, so I can only do things like this. But when you’re dueling, you could use it to deflect incoming spells. Want to give it a try?”
Iria nodded.
She closed her eyes and reached her hand into the air, just like Rena had done.
It wasn’t an easy task to find an extremely small amount of mana within a body filled with magical energy.
Iria concentrated harder to bring out the mana to her fingertips. It was the first time she touched such an alien substance.
What was a given for someone else felt unfamiliar to her.
Iria had a substance named ‘magical energy’ that replaced mana.
Thus, it was hard. She struggled right from the basic process of finding mana.
But,
“Concentrate, Iria. No, handle it a bit more gently.”
Rena grabbed Iria’s hand.
Iria’s unstable mana gradually found stability.
With Rena’s help, she was finally able to bring out the mana.
After that, it flowed smoothly.
She extracted the mana, applied the spell, and manifested the element in the form of magic.
–Whooooosh!–
Like the wind Rena had demonstrated earlier, a blue-green light swirled around Iria’s body.
“That’s it! That’s it!”
Rena shouted.
When Iria opened her eyes, she had already succeeded in casting the spell. She had grasped the sensation of manifesting magic.
‘It feels like I could do a bit more.’
Once she pulled out the mana, controlling it wasn’t difficult at all. Normally, it would be hard, but not for Iria.
As always, she just borrowed someone else’s memory.
Iria enveloped her right hand with the blue-green wind. A furious gale surged like a storm.
“Iria…?”
This wasn’t the skill level of a beginner learning magic.
It was more precise than Rena’s, sharper, and the firepower was overwhelming.
Rena gazed, half in disbelief, at the spectacle unfolding before her.
Iria, clad in wind, jumped forward and punched the large tree before her.
–BANG!!!–
The sound of a massive hole being punched into the tree echoed out.
As the tree fell with a thud, it looked oddly unreal.
Had she really broken it with her fist? A massive tree that seemed to be a meter thick?
Rena, rubbing her eyes in disbelief, stepped closer to Iria.
“What did you just do…?”
“Magic.”
“…..?”
“A wind punch.”
Was Iria actually a magic genius?
Rena scratched her cheek while alternating her gaze between the fallen tree and Iria.
Well, that must be why she was the top of her year. She was clearly an exceptional individual.
With remarkable physical abilities combined with magical talent, they probably created a serendipitous synergy.
“Now the wind isn’t coming out anymore.”
Iria said while extending her empty hand.
“You must have run out of mana. No way around it, that firepower was insane, Iria.”
“Ah.”
Iria’s mana amount wasn’t substantial. She couldn’t even come close to the academy average, let alone that of a regular person.
Using such powerful magic with that amount of mana meant it would be exhausted in one go.
“How’s your body? Not dizzy or anything?”
Iria nodded.
“You’re amazing, Iria. Typically, when someone uses up all their mana, they collapse from exhaustion.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course. Mana is a substance that makes up the bloodstream. If you draw it to the limit, your skin can change color, and you might show symptoms of anemia too. So, be careful.”
What’s commonly known as mana depletion.
But there wasn’t a hint of such symptoms in Iria.
“But Iria seems a bit…”
Rena paused for a moment.
And then,
“It seems like there’s another substance filling you up instead of mana. So even when your mana drains, you don’t seem to have any issues.”
“…..”
“But that can’t be possible. Iria, you’re human. Right?”
Rena’s pure curiosity sparked a child-like question that momentarily left Iria speechless.
Rena suspected the identity of Iria, which many top magicians had failed to notice.
Could she have noticed something during the moment they held hands and conjured magic? Iria pondered for a moment whether she should erase Rena’s memory.
But she decided against it. The act of erasing memories had far more side effects than one would think.
Erased memories would leave gaps in the mind for a long time. And someday, they might return, creating a sense of discomfort.
For people she wouldn’t see again, she could use it as much as she wanted, but Rena wasn’t one of them.
The moment she saw Iria’s face again, the erased memory would create something uncomfortable.
Hence, she didn’t erase it.
For now, it was merely a hint of suspicion.
“Let’s go to class.”
“Has it really gotten that late?”
“Yes.”
Still, she thought it would be wise to restrain herself from using magic in front of Rena for the time being.
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