Chapter 51
There’s nothing more pointless than an all-nighter study group.
First of all, the very idea of ‘pulling an all-nighter’ makes no sense.
How is a person supposed to stay awake? Why try to defy a living creature’s instincts?
It’s called an all-nighter, but if I looked up even once, I’d definitely be nodding off.
And what, study together?
What are a bunch of close little kids supposed to do crammed into one room?
Yeah. For about the first hour, sure, we could halfheartedly study.
But the moment one person’s focus drops and they go uheeeh and collapse?
After that, it’s all just playing together.
Even so, the reason I agreed to Her Highness’s ridiculous proposal was...
...because it was ‘pointless,’ obviously.
If this were a proper session where we seriously wracked our brains to study, I never would have done it.
But.
Face-down on Her Highness’s luxurious bed.
Watching Claire groan through her struggles, then occasionally tossing in a bit of advice.
And when I got hungry, stealing one snack after another that had been presented to Her Highness.
How could I possibly resist that?
Right now, in fact, I’m happily monopolizing Her Highness’s bed and rolling around on it.
Ah... I kept thinking about it. This bed.
Of course, my beloved pillow in my room and the bed custom-made to fit my body are also a wonderful combo, but this bed bearing the imperial seal was pretty dearly missed too.
Even with that uncomfortable maid uniform on, I’d fall asleep the moment my head touched the bed, and now that I’m lying here in comfy clothes, the effect is doubled.
Ah... should I run back to my room and bring my beloved pillow right now?
B-but... this wicked bed won’t let me go...
Ugh, let gooo... I said I’d be right back...
“...Luna, study properly.”
I was in the middle of a fierce love-hate struggle with the bed when that sharp-tongued, nasty Claire suddenly barked at me.
“The whole point of a study group is ruined if you just flop down the second you come into the room! Don’t sap Her Highness’s and my motivation!”
Claire, of all people... giving me a lecture?
“Claire.”
Still lying there face-down, I only tilted my head back and skimmed over the practice sheet.
“The way you derive this problem’s formula is way too much of a leap. Don’t just guess the answer and get it right by luck.”
“Graaah! A-anyway, the answer is right, isn’t it? Then that should be enough, shouldn’t it?!”
“You said your goal was to get into Linea Hall, right? Then you need to care about the solution process too. More importantly, the answer itself is wrong in the first place. The correct answer is 274.”
“Kyaaah! Aaahhh!!”
Claire, defeated.
I really like that scream.
Come to think of it, she has such a satisfying reaction that teasing her is kind of fun.
“Um... Luna.”
At that moment, Princess Celestina carefully came over to me and, as if handing over a love letter, shyly offered her notebook.
“Could you look at mine too? I’m not sure whether I’m solving them right.”
I skimmed over the contents the Princess had written in her notebook.
Yep, definitely. After looking at Claire’s handwriting, seeing the Princess’s feels like a cleansing for the eyes.
“Is my handwriting really that pretty?”
“Ehehe. Really? Th-thank you... No, wait. I wasn’t asking you to praise my handwriting.”
The Princess’s face turned slightly red.
“I wanted you to check whether I solved the problems well too.”
“Well... the logical structure itself is perfect. Enough that someone who knew nothing would nod along.”
“Really? That’s a relief...”
“But the premise itself is wrong, so it’s completely the wrong answer.”
“...sniffle.”
The Princess’s dejected expression looked just like a puppy that had its snack stolen, and somehow that only made her even cuter.
“Princess, you don’t need to force in theories that are too difficult. You can solve everything just fine with only the concepts from the first-year textbook.”
“...Luna, you haven’t attended a single lecture, so how would you know what’s in the textbook?”
She was always skipping class, and even when she did show up in the lecture hall, she’d just nod off.
The Princess had casually poked at a sore spot, and I awkwardly cleared my throat, ahem—
“Well... I may not have listened to the lectures, but let’s just say I know whether it’s textbook theory or not...”
“...Wait. Luna, don’t tell me you memorized the entire textbook?”
“More or less.”
“...”
“It’s all stuff I already know anyway... Besides, it wasn’t all that hard.”
The level of a first-year at the academy is, well, about the same everywhere.
I rolled over and continued talking while lying face-down on the bed.
“Anyway, even if you take a little longer, try finding the answer step by step using only the theories you’ve learned. Then you’ll get good results.”
“But... if I solve it the way Luna says, wouldn’t that take way too long? The whole exam time will be gone.”
“So what if the whole time runs out? It’s better to be sure every one you did solve is correct.”
It’d be such a waste to write something weird and end up not even getting your money’s worth, like Claire, wouldn’t it?
“More than that, isn’t it such a waste to study magic just to solve exam questions?”
I held out my open palm in front of the Princess.
A tiny handful of mana sparkled and gathered into little points of starlight.
“How is it? Isn’t it amazing?”
“Waaah...!”
The faint starlight.
From my fingertips, it became a spark, then frost, then wind, then dust again as it scattered.
“Something that was nothing transforming into such a variety of forms.”
“Yeah... I feel like I’m realizing once again why I loved magic.
The Princess quietly savored my words, then broke into a small smile.
“As expected, Luna is a wonderful teacher.”
In that moving moment, Claire let out an agonized groan.
“Lunaaa... why, why are you only strict with me? Teach me gently and kindly toooo...!”
“Be quiet, Claire. And you, the magic circle for the problem you’re solving is wrong too. Redraw it.”
“Kyaaaah!!”
At Claire’s scream, the Princess let out a snicker of laughter.
Then, tilting her head, she asked me.
“By the way, where did you learn magic, Luna? Did you study it on your own?”
“Well— not exactly...”
Should I say I was abused as a child, or that I got a brutal early education...
“Hmm, I had a pretty decent teacher... I guess?”
“Really? What kind of person was he?”
What kind of person, you ask?
For a moment, my lips froze.
Looking back, ‘I’ never spent even a single second with Grandpa.
He only existed vaguely in this body’s memories.
“...Luna?”
So if you ask what kind of person he was, I have nothing to say...
What kind of person had he been, anyway?
“Luna, are you... crying?”
“What are you talking about, Claire. Why would I be crying... uh...”
Then, tears suddenly streamed down my cheeks.
“...Huh.”
When I casually wiped my cheek with my hand, it came away soaked with tears.
...Why?
“A-ah, what do we do! Luna, I’m sorry. I asked something I shouldn’t have...!”
In a fluster, Princess Celestina hurriedly pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to me.
“It’s okay. This is just from yawning... ah, I’ll use the handkerchief, thanks.”
I was wiping my eyes with the handkerchief.
But I still didn’t know why tears had suddenly burst out.
“...He must have been a good person.”
The Princess said in a careful voice.
“If you miss that person... that much.”
“It’s not really like that...”
He was the kind of person who kept trying to shove me into the Imperial Mage Corps.
He must have been an exhausted man with nothing in his head but the Empire.
...
Whether that was also true of ‘Lunaris’ and Grandpa...
I had no way of knowing.
*
It had been a long time since he gave up the life he had lived as head of the Imperial Mage Corps.
His clothes, worn by wind and rain and dust, had long since faded.
The staff at his waist had been polished smooth by his hands.
Now he was simply a mage.
He did nothing but walk and walk across the Belhart Empire as a nameless wanderer.
As for the purpose of the journey, well,
To find a successor who would carry on his will.
It was a journey to pass on everything he had learned from one person to another.
*
The mage wandered the mountains, fields, rivers, and seas of the Empire.
The Empire as seen with his own two feet was incomparably vast compared to the one on the map in the imperial palace.
So vast that he wondered whether he could cover it all even if he devoted the rest of his life to it.
There were plenty of people, given how vast the land was, but the ‘sprout’ he was searching for never stood out.
In truth, magic was more a matter of bloodline and early education than of talent.
The saying that dragons would appear in rural wheat fields didn’t apply when it came to magic.
Only those born with mana as dense as the children of the magical Bellka Count House,
or those who grew up learning all manner of rare medicinal herbs and efficient meditation methods from a young age,
could grow into proper mages.
That was why most mages came from noble families.
Even if a commoner child miraculously awakened to mana, the lord of the city would snatch them up right away.
In an age where every single magic user was precious.
They were the weapons that protected cities.
The heavy equipment that helped with construction.
The factories that mass-produced magical tools.
Their numbers were limited, but the places that needed them were far too many.
Unless you hid away deep in some forest, being noticed by the nobility was only natural.
What this mage sought was not ordinary talent, but the kind good enough to enter the Imperial Mage Corps.
With the bar set that high, the journey had no choice but to grow even longer.
One day, while he was wondering whether he should search beyond the Empire instead,
the mage met a girl by chance.
*
It was already a ruined village.
He couldn’t tell whether it had been bandits, a foreign interloper, or a black mage’s experiment.
He had seen this same sight several times on the way here.
The farther from the capital, the more common such things became.
Amid that heap of ashes.
The mage found a girl.
“It’s empty.”
That was the first thing the mage said upon seeing the girl.
He couldn’t feel even the slightest trace of mana.
Well, for a street kid around that age, that was only natural.
But.
Even her eyes being empty was, no matter how you looked at it, abnormal.
Since ancient times, the eyes have been called the windows of the soul.
But those vacant eyes merely reflected the dull sky and held nothing at all.
At this rate, she was no different from a soulless doll.
Ironically, that was also why she alone had been able to survive in this village where everyone else had died.
Even whatever had swept through the village had mistaken this child for someone already dead.
Or maybe it had decided she wasn’t even worth killing.
For the mage, someone like this girl was actually better.
A child like this, a blank white canvas, was far easier to accept than a child already half-stained by the world.
The mana of a great mage.
The knowledge of a great sage.
Even the spellcasting ability of a legendary witch.
In short, anything at all.
The mage crouched down in front of the girl to meet her at eye level.
“What’s your name?”
The girl’s chin rose with a creak, creak.
Those empty eyes quietly stared at the mage.
Her eyes moved slowly.
Blink, blink.
Her parched lips had no intention of parting.
The mage took a breath to steady himself and looked around.
One of the broken buildings caught his eye; a signboard had fallen off completely.
[Inn, Lunaris]
The mage quietly spoke that name.
This too might be fate.
The mage rolled up the sleeves of his dusty old robe and carefully held out a hand toward the girl.
Wrinkled and rough, but very warm.
“Would you care to come with me?”
“...”
“Lunaris Evermoon.”