Chapter 102
Chapter 102
Sizzle—.
Smoke rose in a foul, stinging plume over the melted dirt floor.
In the middle of the Academy's Third Magic Training Ground yawned a giant crater.
If it had been an ordinary mage or professor, they would have blamed property damage or recoiled at the uncontrollable firepower and backed away.
But Iris von Evergarden's gaze never once lingered on the ruin of the wrecked training ground.
'What on earth is this...?'
Her red eyes were completely fixed on Cassian's fingertips, and on the flow of mana inside her disciple's body that she had just examined firsthand while their skin was pressed together.
Iris's white hand trembled ever so slightly.
It definitely hadn't been there.
The basic infrastructure for drawing up and weaving mana—the mana circuits—did not exist inside her disciple's body.
And yet, just moments ago, when Cassian had been casting fire magic.
The formless mana that had only seemed to exist as a mana void inside him had wrapped around his entire body as if flowing through a circuit.
And it had resonated with the mana in the air.
That wasn't all.
Even the way he manifested magic, the casting itself, was a warped and unprecedented ultimate form.
'A composite formula... implemented like that, as naturally as breathing?'
The logic behind manifesting magic is broadly divided into two types.
The internal formula, which weaves magic by using the mana inside the body as fuel.
And the external formula, which draws in the natural mana in the atmosphere and gives it shape.
Of course, the most ideal form dreamed of by scholars at the peak of magical studies was a composite formula that perfectly blended those two methods.
But that was a mirage-like realm that existed only in theory.
Because it demanded a mad computational method in which the equations and interference involved in handling mana became not twice as complex, but exponentially so.
For that reason, even Archmage Iris herself had never dared to attempt it in actual combat.
And yet the student standing before her now, this loose, barely twenty-year-old disciple of hers.
Had torn through that complex calculation and spat out overwhelming flames with the lightness of, "Ah, I ate, so maybe I'll breathe for a bit?"
"......Um, Professor."
Cassian scratched the back of his head with an awkward look.
"This isn't going to get billed as repair costs, is it?"
At the sound of his voice, Iris finally came to her senses with a start.
She glanced at the crater before her and slowly pushed up her glasses.
"Don't worry about repair costs. Do you think I can't even handle the budget?"
In truth, it wasn't just a small gouge.
It was a disaster on the level of a meteorite impact, but Iris decided to be shameless.
To her, the cost of restoring this dirt floor was worth no more than a speck of dust.
Iris realized something.
At this stage, she was not in a condition where she could properly give her student theoretical instruction.
She would first have to analyze and dismantle the intuitive mechanism by which he used a composite formula despite not having mana circuits.
"Cassian."
"Yes."
"Five times a day."
Iris requested in a calm, yet strangely fervent voice.
"Show me the magic I ask you to cast every day right in front of me. I'm going to watch your bizarre mana circulation myself, feel it, and record everything."
"......Huh?"
His eyes widened as if they were about to pop out.
"Five times a day?"
"Why? Is that too little? Considering your total mana reserves, even ten times a day wouldn't be a problem, but let's start with five."
"No, no. Wait a second."
He hurriedly waved both hands, trying to negotiate.
"Five times is too much. Three times. Can we do exactly three times?"
Whoooosh.
A sandstorm circled between the two of them.
Iris's eyebrows twitched slightly.
"Three times? Why three of all numbers?"
Even the academy's top entrants would practically be dripping nosebleeds trying to cast magic in front of a professor all day long.
Why on earth was he trying to cut the number down so sharply?
When Iris asked with a furrowed brow, Cassian answered vaguely.
"Well... it's kind of hard for me to explain it clearly."
"Try."
"I'll listen."
"Just three times. I have this feeling that three times is exactly right for my body, and that it'll be perfect in a lot of ways."
'...What is this? Some kind of unconscious instinct?'
Iris's red eyes sank deeply.
Those with transcendent talent often come to grasp their limits and the laws of mana not with their heads, but with instinct.
Even the fact that he couldn't give a precise reason and merely said, 'I think three times feels right,'
'If he'd instinctively caught the threshold where his mana could manifest at the purest level.'
It was hard to dismiss or ignore her disciple's unsettling intuition merely because there was no clear logical basis for it.
"......All right."
Iris nodded with a short sigh.
"If you're that certain, we'll make it three times."
"Phew. Thank you."
Having succeeded in reducing the count, he casually stretched and asked,
"Then, Master. Is today's lesson over here?"
At his words.
Swoosh.
Iris lowered the sleeves she had rolled up again.
A faint, very slight shadow of dissatisfaction settled across her face.
"......Am I that uncomfortable?"
A chilly question slipped out from between Iris's lips.
It was a tone laced with a strangely personal complaint—something the usual Iris von Evergarden would never have said.
"You always seem especially eager to run away whenever you're in front of me. Yesterday in front of Miss Lily, your eyes were practically dripping with honey."
"What? Dripping with honey? I was just in orphanage-director mode."
He waved his hands in disgust.
"And it's not because I'm uncomfortable around you, Master. I was dead tired after the all-night ordeal at the front gate yesterday, and......"
"Hmm."
"No matter what, I can't exactly sprawl out with my legs wide open and lounge around on your private research lab sofa, can I?"
Then the disciple added with a sly smile.
"Besides, this is your sacred abode, Master. I'm showing your space plenty of respect in my own way."
"Respect, huh."
Iris stared at her disciple's shameless face through her glasses.
In that instant, a fierce conflict flared up in her mind.
'Just...'
Just let him flop onto that plush sofa, or brazenly stretch his long legs out on the table—anything, as long as he could lounge around comfortably in my research lab.
Should I just tell him to rest there, within my line of sight?
The thought of his breathing and warmth filling her personal space made the area around her ears burn hot.
'......No. I'm insane.'
Iris hurriedly shook her head and coldly crushed the stray thoughts rising up.
That was not how a teacher should behave toward her student.
No matter what, this was a research lab for magical studies, and she was the authoritative academy professor who was supposed to guide him.
To blurt out "Stay and rest on my sofa" here would be no different from tearing down every rational wall she had built with her own hands.
"......Understood."
Iris carefully composed her expression and answered coldly.
"Today, since you're tired from yesterday too, go back and rest."
"Yes! Then I'll see you tomorrow, Master."
The disciple immediately turned around without a trace of hesitation.
Thud, thud.
His broad back grew farther and farther away toward the entrance to the training ground.
Iris stood still and couldn't take her eyes off his slouching figure until it disappeared completely from view.
"......Respect, huh."
She rolled the word her disciple had left behind around in her mouth.
It definitely meant that he was respecting her, so why did it feel so rough in her mouth and so hollow inside?
"See you tomorrow."
Iris murmured very softly, quietly keeping watch beside the crater, where the stinging heat still lingered.
* * *
Bang.
The moment I opened the research lab door and stepped inside, Lily, who had been dozing on the sofa, shot to her feet as if on a spring.
"Ah! You're back early!"
A bright smile so radiant it almost felt like a wagging tail.
Over her shoulder, I could see three familiar clumps of fur huddled together on my desk.
Nibble, nibble, crunch.
One squirrel, one rabbit, and one bird each.
The so-called small-animal trio was busily gnawing away at jerky.
"It ended faster than expected. But where on earth do those guys keep popping out from?"
When I pointed at them with my chin, dumbfounded, Lily smiled and answered.
"I think they just play outside together and come by once in a while. They slip in through the crack in the window."
"Hmm."
Somehow, those three.
Watching them chew on jerky until their cheeks looked ready to burst, I found myself thinking they were kind of cute.
Back when they were those bastard pests that kept getting in the way of my life in the early days at the academy, I wanted to skewer them and roast them over a fire.
Human hearts really are fickle. Now that I was seeing them quietly munch away in my own territory, I was generous enough to look at them like pets.
I carelessly hung my coat on the rack and flopped onto the sofa.
The feel of the soft leather seemed to soak up my fatigue at once.
'It's a little disappointing that it ended too quickly, though.'
Still, this is better.
Sure, I did scorch a whole magic training ground flat, which is a little guilt-inducing, but I earned the right to sneak off after just three casts a day instead of hours of suffocating magic tutoring.
'If we could just hang out, honestly, I'd want to stay with her.'
A beautiful, capable older sister who dotes on me like crazy and takes great care of me.
How good is that?
She's just avoiding me because she's trying to spoon-feed me magic theory and is probably afraid I'll be exposed as a three-cast-only guy.
She's only avoiding me because she doesn't want to force me into studying something I don't want to study.
Swoosh.
As I leaned against the sofa and rolled my neck, Lily scurried over and sat neatly down beside me.
"You worked hard. The professor didn't scold you too much, did she?"
"Scold me? Who do you think I am?"
I puffed myself up with bravado and shrugged.
"I went and met her expectations perfectly."
It wasn't intentional, but I did melt the training ground floor flat, so it's not exactly wrong.
Then the pink pup clasped her hands together and looked at me with eyes full of reverence.
"As expected of Cassian-nim. Then......"
Lily leaned a little toward me.
A faint scent of soap washed over me.
"Then from tomorrow on, you'll be free all day like this too?"
The pink pup's question clearly brimmed with deep anticipation.
Now that the grueling Legion tour was over and that disgusting cardinal had been chased off,
there was an obvious wish hidden in it: could I spend all day in this cramped little research lab playing with her?
But that bright question forcibly awakened the damned prior engagement I'd been handed this morning, which I'd shoved into a corner of my mind.
'Ah.'
Right.
I had something scheduled for the weekend.
I blinked and answered.
"No. I have to go on a blind date this weekend."
Silence.
The air in the research lab froze in an instant.
Snap.
Even the small-animal trio on the desk, who had been gnawing away at their jerky, stopped chewing and all turned to look at me at once.