Tokyo Magic University Opens

A year and four months after the Gremlin Disaster, the future-seeing mage learned from Ohinata's report that the long-desired resolution of the food crisis had finally been achieved, and rejoiced.

"So this is what the future in which Ohinata comes to me with good news looks like after all!" he shouted, hoisted Ohinata aloft as she blinked in bewilderment, and wept tears of joy.

Resolving the food crisis had long been the future-seeing mage's dearest wish.

The future-seeing mage had originally been an ordinary company employee.

Living alone and single, he avoided extravagance and steadily saved money. He dreamed of taking early retirement in his forties, buying a modest house in the countryside, and spending his second life farming in fair weather and reading on rainy days.

But just as he reached his late thirties and, after years of patience, finally came within reach of making his dream a reality, the Gremlin Disaster occurred.

All the savings in his bank account, along with his digital assets and stocks, vanished, and by the time he finally awoke from the coma that accompanied his transformation into a mage and went to work, the company had been abandoned.

With his plans for life destroyed, the future-seeing mage became an empty shell for a while.

However, as he rescued neighbors in his company housing from monsters, helped people at shelters being attacked by monsters, received sweets as thanks from children he had saved, and tossed scrap wood into a drum in a park with refugees driven from their homes to light a fire and keep warm, a sense of mission gradually began to grow within him.

He could see the future, his body was tough and strong, and he could answer the cries of those seeking help.

In this latter-day world, if he did not do it, who would?

The future-seeing mage began helping people not because he was swept along by events, but of his own free will.

As he became famous as a mage, the scale of his humanitarian work grew.

At times, people mocked him as having childish fantasies of being a hero, called him a hypocrite, or sneered that some middle-aged man was desperately trying to bask in attention. Yet the people with the loudest mouths were invariably idiots who helped no one, put themselves first, and would not attempt even hypocrisy, let alone a genuine good deed.

He was hurt by the snide criticism as much as anyone would be, but he also experienced ordinary joys.

The future-seeing mage had not devoted himself selflessly to preserving social peace.

Being treated like a hero felt good, doing good deeds was exhilarating, and being fussed over made him proud.

Though the future-seeing mage could see the future, he worked himself to the bone for the praise right in front of him, throwing himself into the straightforward and easily understood task of maintaining law and order in his home district of Bunkyo.

It was the vampire mage, who organized the Witch Gathering, who gave the future-seeing mage a long-term perspective.

Through the vampire mage's advice and persuasion, the future-seeing mage used a powerful future-sight spell he had avoided until then for fear of feedback damage from mana backflow: a spell that let him see three orbital periods ahead, or three years into the future in Earth time when used on Earth.

Having vaguely imagined "devastation by monsters" and "a large-scale war between witches" as the worst possible scenarios, the future-seeing mage now devoted himself wholeheartedly to avoiding "an unprecedented great famine caused by food shortages," driven by an urgent sense of crisis.

The future-seeing mage worked even more desperately than he had during his corporate days.

He had repeatedly appealed to the Witch Gathering about the food crisis, but the only person who truly understood its threat was the future-seeing mage himself, the sole person to vividly see the living hell in which people ate other people to stave off starvation.

The future-seeing mage proposed one policy after another to solve the food crisis, and with the vampire mage's behind-the-scenes support, managed to put some of them into practice.

After repeated meetings with a mermaid witch whose intelligence had declined and whose speech had become difficult after fusing with an electric eel, he somehow managed to communicate with her and partially revive the fishing industry in Tokyo Bay.

He cultivated Katsushika Ward, which had been reduced to a wasteland immediately after the Gremlin Disaster and left uninhabited for a long time, turning it into a large-scale farm, though monsters later wiped it out by eating the crops.

He publicized and encouraged the use of human-waste compost and planter gardens, promoting food production at the household level.

He raced around the country securing seeds and seedlings, protecting agricultural workers, and pouring enormous resources into reviving farming tools that did not require electricity or machinery, along with forgotten know-how.

Even while tackling the food crisis, the future-seeing mage had to continue maintaining law and order in Bunkyo Ward as before.

The future-seeing mage was working on more than just the food crisis.

Though it was an achievement known only to him, he had identified a fraud among the religious figures earnestly volunteering in Bunkyo Ward, a man fated to become the leader of a murderous cult with some 100,000 members, and quietly dealt with him before the proselytizing and brainwashing began.

It was work excessive enough to kill an ordinary person from overwork ten times over, but his body, transformed by magic, kept him alive.

Thanks to the future-seeing mage's efforts, which pushed him to the limit, exposed him to tremendous stress, and aged his face by ten years in a single year, Bunkyo Ward became famous as one of the safest and most livable communities in Tokyo. Every day, people from other districts continued to seek permission to move there.

The preservation of Bunkyo's cityscape was nearly as good as that of Ome City, where the Blue Witch hunted monsters swiftly and flawlessly. Thanks to the good security, freelance technicians had gathered there—carpenters, water and sewage managers, blacksmiths, auto mechanics, and others—and repairs and renovations were functioning, though they were nowhere near keeping up with demand.

The removal and dismantling of the broken-down cars that had overflowed onto the roads was progressing, as was the restoration of old technology, and charcoal-powered vehicle transport using the former Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line was scheduled to begin next year.

Even Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo's hope as the city advanced step by step toward recovery, should have been devastated by starvation two years later.

The future in which that happened was changed thanks to a historic achievement by the magic-language research team that had been sheltered after fleeing Minato Ward.

The future-seeing mage had been terribly anxious about how much he could trust the Blue Witch, who had said, "I have a lead," and whether Ohinata, supposedly from Ome and the last remaining member of the magic-language research team, would be abducted by the Blue Witch. But the announcement that research into Abundance Magic had been completed made all of that irrelevant.

He had no idea how every problem had been solved in a single day, but he no longer cared.

The future in which Japan sank beneath the disaster of a great famine had been averted.

That fact alone was enough.

The future-seeing mage, who had struggled through dark futures precisely because he could see them, trembled at the sight of a bright future opening before him.

So delighted that, if emotion could make him fly, he would have soared all the way to heaven, the future-seeing mage asked Professor Ohinata if there was anything she wanted.

As the professor in charge of an important project, Ohinata had already been granted various special considerations, including high-quality food rations, priority access to medical care, exclusive use of a private bathroom, and guards stationed at her laboratory and home. But such a major achievement demanded a special bonus to match.

Professor Ohinata had fulfilled a responsibility far too heavy for a mere twelve-year-old girl, and done so brilliantly.

She could ask for any selfish thing she wanted and be forgiven. The future-seeing mage would make it happen with all his might.

That was the only repayment available to an adult who had been forced to entrust Japan's future to a child.

Professor Ohinata refused the bonus with politeness far beyond her years and said, with heartbreaking earnestness, "I want you to use my reward for Bunkyo Ward." But that only spurred the future-seeing mage on even more.

She was a girl at an age when she should naturally have been inconveniencing her parents with selfish demands, on the verge of entering her rebellious phase, yet she was showing a level of devotion rarely seen even in adults.

It was heartening, yet heartbreaking.

The fact that a child could not straightforwardly make selfish demands, and the harsh society that had forced things to become that way, filled the future-seeing mage with unbearable sadness.

The future-seeing mage kept pressing her about what she wanted, and finally persuaded her with what was almost a threat: "If you don't accept a special reward, it will set a bad precedent in which people who work hard are not rewarded." At last, Ohinata timidly said,

"Then... I want to become a university professor. Like my father."

Moved by the bashful, childlike smile with which she spoke of her endearingly innocent aspiration, the future-seeing mage was deeply touched by Professor Ohinata's innocence and set about fulfilling her dream with all his might.

Fortunately, Bunkyo Ward had educational institutions, including universities, scattered throughout it, and they were in good condition.

The future-seeing mage brandished "the resumption of school education" as a pretext, sent people to restore the best-preserved university, named it "Tokyo Magic University," and appointed Ohinata Kei as its first president and, simultaneously, its first chief professor.

At first, the resumption of school education had been nothing more than a pretext for fulfilling Professor Ohinata's dream. But as he heard the residents' hopeful voices and Professor Ohinata's excited question, "Should I make entrance-exam questions and things like that?" he realized it was becoming a much bigger undertaking than expected.

He had planned to recruit some children at random and have them attend as students, but he changed course and, after deliberating with his advisers, incorporated the university into public policy.

In other words, he decided to teach Abundance Magic's Bypass Incantation at Tokyo Magic University.

When he used future-seeing magic, he learned that if he sent Professor Ohinata on a journey to teach Abundance Magic throughout the country, she would be caught up in a conflict between witches along the way and lose her life.

Avoiding this was extremely difficult. Even if it was avoided once, she would get caught up in another conflict in a different region.

In that respect, Tokyo was relatively safe thanks to the remnants of the political achievements left behind by the vampire mage, and the Blue Witch had declared that she would protect Professor Ohinata and was keeping a close watch. Nothing too serious was likely to happen.

Keeping Professor Ohinata at the lectern of Tokyo Magic University and sending students gathered from all over the country to her so she could lecture to them all at once was the safest and most efficient approach.

First, after thorough consultations and preparations, he had the Information Bureau's Letterpress Printing Division print a huge number of advertisements reading "Magic University Opens—Students Wanted," and gathered an outstanding first cohort.

Until then, magic had been almost exclusively the preserve of witches, mages, and monsters.

First, the pronunciation of incantations was abstruse, and some sounds were impossible to pronounce. In other words, magic was difficult to learn, and in some cases impossible to learn at all.

Second, although it varied from person to person, most humans had little magical power. Even the shooting-magic core spell 'Shoot,' which consumed the least magical power among spells with pronounceable incantations, caused them to run out of power and faint after a single use.

Third, many witches kept their magic secret and were unwilling to spread their incantations.

People who had been shut out of this new technology—magic—and resented that exclusion now seized the chance to learn it.

There were more than 6,000 applications for the 30 available places, and the future-seeing mage subjected them to a rigorous selection process. Age was not considered, but the examinations would separate the candidates.

First came an intelligence test and an explanatory-ability test.

The first cohort at the Magic University had to master Abundance Magic's Bypass Incantation in a short time, then take on the role of teachers afterward.

Even if Professor Ohinata taught Abundance Magic alone, she would not be able to solve the famine in time. Her 30 students each had to teach 30 others, producing 930 people in total, who would each teach 30 more, and so on in an exponential chain.

The first cohort would form the first 30 links in that chain, so they needed the intelligence to learn the spell correctly, reliably, and quickly, as well as the ability to explain or teach it effectively.

Next came the magical-power test.

Both the original Abundance Magic spell and its Bypass Incantation were low-consumption spells, using roughly the same small amount of magical power as 'Shoot.' But if the first cohort, who were expected to serve as teachers in the future, fainted after casting it just once, they would hardly be able to demonstrate it for others.

The testing hall rang with incantations that sounded like screaming beavers. Only those who could chant the spell at least five times without passing out remained; those who fainted failed and were carried outside the testing hall.

The last test was one of enunciation.

Even if someone was intelligent and had sufficient magical power, poor enunciation would still make the difficult pronunciation of the magic language, so far removed from Japanese, impossible.

The Bypass Incantation for Abundance Magic was pronounceable given the structure of the human body, so anyone could learn it given enough time. But the first cohort recruited this time had to master it quickly and reliably so they could serve as future teachers. Poor enunciation was a major disadvantage.

Professor Ohinata's magic-language pronunciation test was administered. In the end, 30 students qualified for the first cohort, while applicants who had failed solely because of poor enunciation were promised places in the second cohort.

The recruitment, selection, and education of the first cohort at Tokyo Magic University proceeded smoothly. That was only natural, since the future-seeing mage had eliminated any obstacles likely to cause trouble in advance.

For example, when he foresaw a resident becoming the source of a malicious rumor claiming, without the slightest basis in fact, that "ordinary humans turn into monsters when they use magic," he fabricated a suitable crime and had that person locked up beforehand.

The future-seeing mage did not have enough magical power to foresee every danger awaiting him, and there were many cases where seeing the future would not help. This time, however, was one of the cases he could deal with.

Everything was proceeding smoothly. His efforts to keep it that way were paying off.

All that remained was to send the educated first cohort to surviving communities across the country as teachers, after which the number of people capable of using Abundance Magic would increase on its own in every region.

The food problem was serious everywhere. Users of Abundance Magic would undoubtedly be valued in every community.

The world would be remade by the development of just one new spell.

The potential of magical research was limitless. Until now, he had invested only in magical linguistics and had not had the resources to invest in anything else, but once the food problem was solved, he would be able to catch his breath and have a little room to spare.

It might even be worthwhile to recruit new researchers, flesh out the Tokyo Magic University framework he had gone to so much trouble to create, and develop it into a center of magical research. No matter how much she wanted the role and enjoyed it, he could not leave one child to serve as a university professor forever.

May the research findings and talent produced at the Magic University become the foundation of peace.

May the power of magic spread more widely among the people.

Once the world could maintain a tolerable degree of peace without relying on the personal force of witches and mages who acted according to their moods, he would finally take early retirement and live a slow life farming in the countryside...

The future-seeing mage smiled at the future he envisioned and placed his hopes in the years ahead for Tokyo Magic University.