Special Instructor

After parting with Ronnie, I headed to the research club. When I opened the classroom door, everyone was already there. It seemed Longo-sensei hadn't arrived yet.

Stefan and Lucien were each thinking up new magic items, while Martine and the two senpai seemed to be researching Purification magic items.

The two senpai had been extremely self-conscious at first, but they seemed to have gotten somewhat used to things. They were researching while occasionally exchanging words with Martine.

I should think about the Purification magic item too. With that thought, I headed toward the other three.

"I'm sorry for being late."

"We only just started too. We tried increasing the amount of mana a little again, but it doesn't seem to work."

"I see..."

We were currently testing whether mana efficiency changed depending on the amount of mana imbued in the magic stone.

We started with a small amount of mana and gradually increased it as we tested, but so far, there had been no change in mana efficiency.

"For now, we'll continue this test, but the prospects seem slim."

Loic-senpai was the one who said that. At first, he hadn't spoken at all unless I asked him a question, but recently, he had become able to discuss things with Martine.

"Well, let's continue without giving up."

"Understood."

Then, a few minutes after we began our research as usual, the classroom door opened and Longo-sensei entered.

"Everyone is here. Sorry for making you all gather today. Actually, I've brought a special instructor with me."

A special instructor? Hadn't he thought of a new magic item? Who could the special instructor be? Perhaps someone from a magic-item workshop.

As I wondered about various things, a man about the same age as Longo-sensei entered the classroom behind him.

I saw the man and froze without thinking.

What!? Why are you here!?

"This is Marcel Roncoli-dono, who will be serving as our special instructor."

"I am Marcel Roncoli. It will only be for today, but I look forward to working with you."

"Marcel is an old acquaintance of mine. He was the one who developed the fire-attribute magic item. Marcel also has the recovery attribute, so you should ask him for advice on the Purification magic item you're researching."

"I don't know how much I can do, but I will cooperate as much as possible. I look forward to working with you today."

I had heard that Longo-sensei knew Marcel-san, but I never imagined he would bring him to the Royal Academy.

I was really surprised.

While I was still frozen in shock, everyone stood up from their chairs and gathered around Marcel-san.

"Marcel-dono, I am Stefan Laaslasia. I look forward to working with you."

"I am Martine Laaslasia. I look forward to working with you."

"Your Highnesses, it is an honor to meet you for the first time. I am Marcel Roncoli. I look forward to working with you."

"I know you as a developer of magic items. Thank you for your contribution to the development of our country."

"Your words are too kind. I will continue to work hard."

Marcel-san greeted everyone, and finally, it was my turn.

"Leon, it has been a while."

"It's been a while. I never imagined Marcel-san would come, so I was really surprised. But I'm happy! This may be rude to say, but when you're here, I feel relaxed, as if I've gone back to my parents' home."

When I said that, Marcel-san froze for a moment, then smiled kindly at me. I wondered if I had said something too rude, but I was relieved.

"I'm happy to see you too, Leon. The house gets awfully quiet when a wild fellow like you is gone."

"Are you saying I'm noisy!?"

"Well, you are certainly rather noisy."

That shouldn't be true. No... I may actually have caused Marcel-san nothing but trouble...

As I recalled my past behavior, Marcel-san suddenly spoke as if he had remembered something.

"That's right, Leon. You registered the improved magic item for the light orb the other day, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did, but..."

"Thanks to that, it looks like I'm going to receive quite a lot of money again, so I figured I should thank you."

Hm? Why would Marcel-san be receiving money?

I thought the only person who would receive money besides me was the original developer of the light orb.

...Wait, could Marcel-san be the developer of the light orb!?

"Was Marcel-san the developer of the light orb?"

"Hm? Yes, I was. Didn't I tell you?"

"You never told me!!"

"Did I not? I feel like I mentioned it, though..."

"I'm absolutely sure you didn't."

"Is that so? Well, I've told you now, so that's all right."

Come to think of it, Marcel-san had said early on that he was going to be awarded a knight's title for developing something.

So that had been the light orb. It would have been obvious if I had thought about it a little. There were only four magic items in existence, after all.

"Could you bring this touching reunion to an end soon?"

While I was thinking about various things, Longo-sensei said that teasingly.

"We weren't having a touching reunion!"

"It wasn't a touching reunion!"

Our lines completely overlapped. I somehow felt embarrassed by that fact, so I stopped arguing.

Everyone, stop looking at us with such knowing smiles! Especially Lucien!!

"All right, all right. Then resume your research. Marcel, go join Martine-sama."

"Understood. Your Highness, I look forward to working with you."

"You can call me Martine. I look forward to working with you."

"Understood, Martine-sama."

This time, the five of us returned to the desk where we had been researching.

"May I ask what sort of research you have conducted so far?"

"Well, until now, we've been testing whether mana efficiency could be increased depending on the amount of mana imbued in a magic stone. However, the prospects seem slim. We're also considering whether mana efficiency changes based on the size of the magic iron, or on the area where the magic iron and magic stone touch. What do you think?"

"Let's see... I think there's a high likelihood that none of those approaches will produce good results. Similar tests have already been conducted many times, after all..."

"As I thought."

At that point, everyone fell silent. The Purification magic item really was difficult. No matter what image I came up with, it had very little effect.

The only thing that had any effect was making the item target a specific thing: by clearly imagining what needed to be cleaned instead of vaguely imagining cleaning something dirty, we could reduce mana consumption.

However, that's already what you do when casting Purification as magic, so even with that image, its mana efficiency remains poor. We needed some completely different idea.

For example, what if we crushed the magic stone? Come to think of it, what happened to a cracked magic stone?

"Marcel-san, what happens to a cracked magic stone?"

"Ah, a cracked magic stone becomes completely unusable. So it is either processed into an ordinary gemstone or discarded. Magic stones are quite sturdy, though, so they rarely crack."

"I see... Wouldn't it work if we melted it once and reshaped it into a round stone?"

"Ah, I heard someone tried that, but apparently magic stones do not melt in the first place."

It doesn't melt...? But in that case, perhaps the temperature simply wasn't high enough. Smithing is fairly advanced in this world, so they must have tried at least the temperature at which iron melted. Maybe it would melt at an even higher temperature. Japan had metals with high melting points, too.

I'd like to try it. This world had magic, and I had plenty of mana, so I felt like I could create a high-temperature flame.

But I couldn't reveal that I possessed every attribute, so even if I tried this, it would have to wait until later. I would definitely try it later.

But if I couldn't try that right now, I needed to think of another method. Was there anything else...?

Wait. When we made the ice maker, we attached two magic stones. Would attaching several magic stones be pointless this time, too?

Back then, we used two stones of different attributes, but perhaps using two stones imbued with the same magic this time would improve mana efficiency.

"Um, what about attaching two magic stones?"

"Ah, we tried that before too, but it ultimately served no purpose. Mana efficiency did not change at all."

If attaching several magic stones did nothing for mana efficiency, then the only difference would be whether we repeatedly replenished one magic stone or attached several magic stones to reduce the number of times they needed to be replenished.

Besides, most people could barely replenish the mana in a single magic stone. If we couldn't find someone to replenish them, we'd end up using only one magic stone anyway. It was completely meaningless.

Hmm... It'd be nice if there were some way to improve mana efficiency by attaching multiple magic stones.

Imbuing each stone separately had no effect. Then what if we stuck the magic stones together? No, if that would solve the problem, someone would have already tried it.

Another possibility was to treat multiple magic stones as one stone and imbue them with mana simultaneously. Was that even possible?

Still, it seemed worth trying.

"Marcel-san, what if we treated multiple magic stones as one stone and imbued them with mana simultaneously?"

"I've never tried that, but normally, filling even one magic stone with mana is all one can manage."

That's right... But it should be possible if we didn't fill them completely, right?

"Wouldn't it work if we didn't fill the stones completely with mana?"

"Indeed... I may not have tried that. Shall we give it a try?"

Saying that, Marcel-san got five magic stones and some magic iron from Longo-sensei, then returned.