1.
“I met an interesting kid yesterday.”
Celia took a sip of tea as she spoke.
Herman, sitting across from her, didn’t answer right away.
The elderly man finished checking every last page of the documents in his hands, left marks on the smudged ink sections, and only then raised his head.
“A kid, you say?”
“Yes. He’s twenty, so I suppose calling him a kid still works.”
“It’s been a while since you brought up a person first, Lady Celia.”
“Have I really been that indifferent to people?”
Herman didn’t reply.
He didn’t think he needed to.
Celia pushed a scroll lying at the corner of the desk with her finger.
It was an old piece of paper, its center burned black.
The Mana Stone Powder on the edges had lost its luster, and more than half of the red Magic Formula drawn on it had been erased.
Herman picked it up.
“This is a spent Fireball Scroll. The Mana Stone is completely consumed, and most of the core calculation unit is lost too.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“‘So you’ve heard’?”
“I don’t use scrolls much.”
Celia cast magic herself.
She didn’t see the point in spending good money to store magic on paper and carry it around.
How much Mana Stone Powder to mix in when making a scroll, or how many times you could fold it before it broke—
The researchers at the Magic Academy would know that better. It wasn’t her specialty.
“So why did you bring this piece of junk?”
“That kid made a Fireball after looking at this.”
Herman’s hands stopped.
He examined the hole burned through the scroll once more, then looked at Celia.
“He made one? From this?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
The answer came quickly.
Herman had studied magic for a long time.
He wasn’t sitting in the vice-Head’s seat of the White Magic Academy for nothing.
Knowing a lot was a good thing.
Except for the habit of declaring anything he didn’t know impossible.
Celia lifted her teacup.
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
“He must have hidden another scroll.”
“He didn’t have one.”
“He could have used a Magic Tool, or someone else could have cast the spell for him.”
“He was alone in that Abandoned Warehouse. The only thing in his hand was that scroll.”
Herman still looked unconvinced.
“Where did you meet someone like that?”
“On the outskirts of the city.”
It was on her way back yesterday.
There was no particular reason for it. The weather was nice, so she was taking a longer route than usual, and she happened to be passing by an old Abandoned Warehouse.
That was when a Fireball whizzed past her face, along with stone dust.
Thinking it might be an ambush, she looked inside, and there was a boy in rags, cheering as he stared at a hole blown through the wall.
He’d been aiming for a Jar, apparently.
It had missed by a lot.
“What did the kid say?”
“He said he used magic for the first time yesterday.”
“That’s a lie.”
“He said he made it by looking at that scroll.”
“That’s also a lie.”
“He said he doesn’t have a master.”
“That one I can believe.”
Celia looked at Herman.
“Why?”
“Because a properly trained mage wouldn’t tell such an absurd lie.”
It sounded plausible.
The boy didn’t look like a mage. His clothes were torn in several places, and his sleeve even had a burn hole in it. His shoes looked like he’d picked up a random pair that didn’t fit.
A common beggar you’d see on the streets.
Which made it all the stranger.
“I called him over to confirm.”
“Who?”
“That kid.”
Herman’s face scrunched up a little.
“You gave him an Invitation to the Magic Academy?”
“Yes.”
“To a vagrant you just met?”
“Yes.”
“Why on earth….”
“You’ll see for yourself.”
Celia turned her gaze out the window.
The White Magic Academy stood right next to the Tower Plaza.
It was a position that overlooked the entrance to the massive Tower and the entire plaza.
Even now, Climbers were lined up in a long queue, with porters and merchants weaving busily between them.
A small commotion was breaking out on one side of the plaza.
A black-haired boy in rags and two guards were squabbling over a single silver badge.
It was the boy she’d met at the Abandoned Warehouse yesterday.
“Right on time.”
Herman also looked down at the window.
“He really is a beggar.”
That, Celia couldn’t deny.
2.
“I’m telling you, I didn’t steal it.”
The guard didn’t believe me.
He held the silver badge up to the sunlight, flipped it over, and even ran his fingers over the emblem several times. His expression didn’t improve.
If anything, he looked at me with even more suspicion after confirming it was real.
“It’s the seal of the White Magic Academy, alright. Which makes it even weirder that you have it.”
“I got it yesterday.”
“From who?”
“A woman with silver hair in a white robe. She was about this tall, and she had a staff too.”
When I roughly indicated the height with my hand, the two guards exchanged glances. Then one of them let out a scoff.
“So you got an Invitation to the Magic Academy from a mage whose name you don’t even know?”
“Yes.”
“For what reason?”
“I showed her some magic, and she told me to come to the Tower entrance today.”
The guard’s eyes slowly swept over my clothes.
Threadbare pants.
A shirt torn in several places.
A sleeve with a hole burned through it from practicing Fireball yesterday.
It pissed me off, but I understood. To anyone looking, I seemed more like someone here to beg in front of the Tower than a mage.
In fact, up until yesterday, I was someone who begged.
“If you tell us where you stole it, we’ll let you off with a trip to the guard post.”
“…Then just don’t let me in and give me back the badge.”
The meal would’ve been nice, but it was better than going to jail.
When I held out my hand, the guard reached for the sword at his waist instead of returning the badge.
Maybe I should just go home.
“Are you Lord Leon?”
A woman’s voice came from the direction of the Academy entrance.
A woman in neatly pressed white robes was coming down the stairs. The guards straightened up the moment they confirmed her face.
“The Head is waiting for you. I’ll escort this person.”
“A guest of the Head?”
“She gave the order personally this morning.”
The guard’s face stiffened.
I got the badge back from him.
I’d expected at least an apology, but the guard just worked his lips a few times and never said a word.
“Please, come in.”
I followed the woman into the White Magic Academy.
3.
The inside of the Academy was far more spacious than it looked from outside.
The ceiling was several times higher than the roof of the Abandoned Warehouse, and the floor was so clean you could drop bread and still pick it up and eat it.
Not that I actually planned to do that.
Today I’d get a proper meal anyway.
“So, that woman I met yesterday—”
“Yes?”
“Is she the Head of the White Magic Academy?”
“Yes. She is Head Celia.”
Head of the White Magic Academy, Celia.
Spending time around the Tower, you’d hear that name a few times whether you wanted to or not. A mage who climbed to the higher floors, someone even the kingdom wouldn’t treat carelessly, the strongest mage in the White Magic Academy.
No one ever told me what she looked like, though.
No wonder her clothes were so clean.
Still, I didn’t expect her to be the Head.
“The Head is waiting in her office.”
“Can I eat first? I’m about to die of hunger here.”
“You can see the Head first, and then have your meal—”
“Ugh… After starving for a week, I think I’m losing consciousness…”
The woman studied my face for a while, then let out a deep sigh.
“…Fine. I’ll take you to the Restaurant first.”
She called over a staff member standing nearby.
“Tell the Head that I’ve brought Lord Leon to the Restaurant first. Let her know he’ll come see her as soon as he’s done eating.”
“Understood.”
The staff member hurried off toward the corridor where the conference rooms were.
“Let’s go.”
“Haha. Thank you.”
See, you have to speak up for yourself.
As we passed through the hallway, messages kept flashing before my eyes.
[Unregistered Magic Formula detected.]
[Recording observational data.]
[Insufficient samples for analysis.]
The patterns carved into the walls, the lights floating from the ceiling, and the metal boxes moving up and down on their own—all of it was running on magic.
The samples I’d been searching for over the past twenty years were so plentiful here they were practically tripping you up.
I wanted to take a closer look, but the smell of meat drifting from up ahead mattered more.
As soon as I entered the Restaurant, food came out as if it had been waiting for me.
Soup with meat in it, freshly baked bread, and even a vegetable dish I couldn’t name.
My mouth watered just from the smell.
“I’ll come back to fetch you in twenty minutes. Please eat at your leisure.”
“Thank you.”
I grabbed the bread the moment I sat down.
The outside was crispy, but the inside was soft enough that my fingers sank right in. When I split it in half and dipped it into the soup, the warm broth soaked in almost instantly.
I took a bite.
“…Delicious.”
There was meat in it too. And not just small scraps—pieces bigger than my thumbnail.
As I moved my spoon, my vision suddenly blurred.
At first, I thought it was just steam rising from the soup.
“…Sniff.”
There was no time to wipe my eyes.
Clatter. Clatter.
Before long, the Restaurant door opened.
The silver-haired woman from the Abandoned Warehouse yesterday walked in first. Behind her was a grim-looking middle-aged man.
“You really were eating first.”
The silver-haired woman looked at the bowls in front of me and spoke.
“…I was hungry.”
“Good. Keep eating.”
With permission granted, I fished out another piece of meat left in the soup and ate it.
The silver-haired woman sat down across from me.
The middle-aged man took the seat next to hers and placed the burned scroll on the table.
It was the exact item I’d picked up from the Junkyard.
“Sorry for the late introduction. I’m Celia. I serve as the Head of the White Magic Academy.”
“Yes. I heard earlier.”
“Not even surprised?”
“If I get surprised, I get hungry.”
Celia let out a short laugh.
“You’re a fun kid, after all.”
Then she gestured to the middle-aged man beside her.
“This is Herman, the Vice Head of the White Magic Academy.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
Herman gave only a brief nod in response to my greeting.
Then he pushed the scroll on the table toward me.
“So you used a Fireball after looking at this?”
“Yes.”
“Who taught you?”
“No one.”
“Then who restored the lost Magic Formula?”
The hand moving my spoon stopped.
If he asked who did it, of course it was the AI.
But if I said the nano AI inside my head reconstructed it by cross-referencing twenty years’ worth of collected data, would he even understand?
‘Of course he wouldn’t.’
I’d have to explain what a nano was, then what artificial intelligence was, and maybe even get into the fact that I originally lived in another world.
The moment I opened my mouth, the whole thing would spiral out of control.
“Well, that is…”
Herman waited for my answer.
I took an unnecessary bite of bread.
Chewing for a long time didn’t produce a good answer.
“Anyway, I can make another one.”
I gave up on explaining.
Herman’s eyes narrowed.
“So you’re saying you don’t even know what principles your own magic operates on?”
“I do know.”
“Then explain it.”
“I don’t know how to explain it.”
Herman’s expression hardened even further.
The more I talked, the worse things got.
Celia watched me for a moment, then pointed at my empty bowl.
“All done?”
“Yes.”
I wiped the remaining broth from the bowl with a piece of bread.
Celia stood up first.
“Then instead of explaining with words, can you show us?”
“That, I can do.”
I looked at the bread left on the table. It was fairly large to just leave behind.
“Can I take this?”
“Help yourself.”
I tucked the bread into my shirt and followed the two of them.