CH 97

For the past few days, the quintet has been quiet. As far as I’m concerned, Helene’s involvement has been revealed and they’re wondering what to do next, but if the other side gives up and doesn’t get involved with me in the future, then all the better.

Well, I don’t know that… I can’t think that…

I don’t think it’s just the intentions of those girls, including Helene. There must be other adults pulling the strings behind the scenes. So no matter how much those girls lose their motivation, it won’t be the end with their giving up.

If the other side doesn’t want to give up and you don’t know when they’ll rear their heads again, it’s just tiring to keep your guard up all the time. Anyway, what’s coming is just petty harassment and there’s no real harm, so I’ll just have to wait and see for a while.

So let’s change our thinking and think about the future. First of all, today is the first practical magic class after entering school. I’ve learned classroom lectures several times so far, but classroom lectures really only teach the basics of the basics. Moreover, the content of the class is different from the magic I learned.

The magic I learned from Cristoph was extremely logical and simple magic, in which the spell would be activated by constructing a complete formula and pouring the necessary magic power into it. I can agree with that reasoning.

But the magic I learn at school is different. Praying to the gods makes miracles manifest~, or working with spirits at the cost of magical power~, they only told me vague and abstract things. If magic can be activated with such vague processes, there is no need for magical theory. If you just wish so much and pay the price of magic power, you can do whatever you want.

In reality, spells are activated because the required amount of magical power is poured into the appropriate formula. And if the spell fails to manifest properly, it’s because of either too little or too much magical power being used. Yes, not only too little magic power, but too much magic power will cause failure.

You can understand that a spell will fail if the amount of magical power that flows into it is too small. To put it simply, it’s the same as the combustion engine stopping halfway if there isn’t enough fuel. So why does it stop when there’s too much fuel? That’s because the formula clearly states the appropriate amount of magical power.

Roughly speaking, for example, in the spell formula, it is written that “50 units of magical power as upfront intake, 40 units create the Fireball, 8 units launch the Fireball, and 2 units control the Fireball”. Let’s say it’s something like that. If 100 units of magical power are poured into that spell, it won’t know what to do with the remaining 50 units. The surplus magical power is not properly processed and stays in the formula in an unprocessed form, causing the spell itself to fail.

In this way, even with an oversupply of magical power, the formula will not function correctly and the spell will not be activated. No, that’s a slightly different description from reality. The spell is activated until the magical formula ruptures in the process. However, after that, at the same time as the formula ruptures, the magical power explodes, or rather just the surplus magical power explodes, or some other phenomenon occurs, causing the spell to fail mid-way.

Moreover, if the magical power is too low, it will stop there and end just like that, but if it is too high, some kind of reaction will occur. For example, an explosion or something similarly disastrous. That’s why everyone is afraid of putting too much magical power into a spell. If you fail because you don’t have enough magical power, it will just stop, but if you have too much magic power, you may blow yourself up.

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Then if you ask if you can’t use a lot of magical power and use big spells, that’s not the case. As for what to do, it’s a simple matter. You can increase the first “50 units of magical power as upfront intake~” part by 100 or 200 and rewrite the rest of the formula. By doing so, you can use the magic of the size you like by adjusting the power requirements yourself.

But that’s only for the magic that Christoph and I use. The magic taught at the school is “chanting” in the form of prayers to gods and spirits. That “chant” is what constructs the formula. In other words, even those who don’t understand the underlying mechanics at all can still construct the formula and activate the spell by saying a certain “chant.”

But with this, you can’t rewrite freely by yourself. It is difficult to rewrite and activate the formula by simply reproducing the formula contained in the “chant.” It’s just my imagination, but I think there will be quite a few people who won’t be able to use magic with this school’s teaching method.

“Why” goes back to the original problem. The formula constructed by the “chant” is fixed. If I wanted to rewrite it myself, I would have to change it from a “chant”, so it would be quicker to construct the formula myself. A certain amount of magical power must be poured into the “chanting” version of the spell, which is a fixed formula.

Even if there were people who had just started learning magic, would such a person be able to perform the trick of suddenly releasing the amount of mana determined by “chant” magic? I don’t think it’s that easy. At that point, if the magical power doesn’t flow in and the spell doesn’t work, won’t that person become a “person who can’t use magic” or a “person who isn’t good at magic,” and even the chances of being able to learn magic will drastically go down?

This school is attended by highly-educated aristocrats. From what I’ve heard, nobles start learning magic between the ages of 5 and 10, so if they’ve been learning magic for such a long time, they should be familiar with magical power control. However, that ordinary people can’t use magic is probably because they’re failing to adjust their magical power with this “chant” magic.

Well, it’s not as simple as saying that everyone should learn magic theory and build their own formulas. Even I, who had knowledge of my previous life, found magical theory difficult, and even now I don’t fully understand it. Even I, who has knowledge of my previous life and studied for 10 years, is like that, so it’s almost impossible for poor people who don’t have the opportunity to study and learn such things.

As a result, it is common knowledge that magic can only be used by nobles who have too much money and spare time on their hands. Louisa, whom I taught magic, became a talented person who can use magic even though she was a commoner, but such a case is rare.

Well, it’s not for me to say anything about magic education in this country. However, today is my first practical class, so I’m a little excited. I wonder what kind of magic the children of other nobles use. I headed to the training ground in hopes of encountering unknown magic that I didn’t know about.

I came to the training grounds with high expectations, but… I wonder what it is… this feeling of sadness… aren’t nobles’ children learning magic since childhood? What is with this disaster?

First, the instructor explained and everyone started shooting spells at their targets, but most of them failed to cast. Moreover, it’s Lighter, a beginner-level spell.

Lighter, as the name suggests, is just a Fire magic that ignites a flame the size of a pocket lighter, and it is only a rudimentary magic that can be learned at the very beginning. I thought there would be no one who couldn’t do such rudimentary magic… but most of them failed to do so.

It’s not just Lighter. In addition, all the magical attributes such as Wind, Earth, and Water are all failed casts. What is this disaster?

“Wait! You should practice over there!”

“Huh? Okay, I understand,” I said.

After a long time, Emma called out to me and moved me to the target right next to the Class 2 students practicing with us. It’s the same for any target, so there’s no problem. This is harassment to the extent that they want to show Class 2 that I’m a failure. It’s nothing to worry about, so I’ll obediently humor her.

“A~hn! Geeze! It looks like I’m not compatible with the Fire attribute! Next time, I’ll try Wind magic!”

Driven to the edge, I eavesdropped on the voices around me. It’s funny. I’ve never heard of attribute compatibility or anything like that. Any kind of magic can be activated if the magic formula is constructed properly and the magical power is injected. There is no such thing as compatibility there…should it be?

No… is the magic I learned weirder? People around me say things like, “I can do Water magic,” or “I have the best compatibility with Wind magic!” or something like that. Maybe the magic I learned is weirder…

Come to think of it, the person who taught me magic was the twisted wizard Christoph. I heard that Christoph was exiled from the royal capital because of all his eccentricities. I don’t have any prejudice against Christoph, nor do I hate him, but I might have to consider the possibility that Christoph’s teachings were off.

But from what I’ve seen, the reason everyone is failing in the first place is that they’re failing at the amount of magical power they inject… it’s not about compatibility, it just looks like the spell isn’t working well because you’re failing to adjust the right amount of magic power. Or is there something I can’t see?

Hm? … Something I can’t see? Could it be that there really are spirits or something in this world? Do they all see the spirits and borrow their power? Is it because my soul is from another world that I can’t see or feel the spirits of this world? So the magic I use and everyone elses’ magic is fundamentally different?

Besides, if you ask me, it’s difficult to control spells that are said to be elementary magic, such as Lighter. A very small amount of magical power has to flow, so delicate magical power manipulation is required. In that case, I think that magic that requires a large amount of magical power is more suitable for beginners.

Ah! That’s what it is! Isn’t it really easy for everyone to use a spell that’s fuzzier on power requirements? However, they’re trying to learn delicate magical manipulation by using magic that is as small as possible, aren’t they? That’s the purpose of this class!

No wonder everyone is trying to use only small spells. This class was for those who can use magic to learn more delicate magic manipulation. Oh no, oh no. If I hadn’t noticed this, I would have shot the target with a large amount of magic. It’s not that kind of class. That’s why nobody uses big spells.

And everyone is using the chanting they learned in class. Could it be that instead of constructing and controlling the magic formula yourself, I should use the magic formula I learned in class to control the optimal amount of magic power?

…… This is bad. I didn’t listen to the chants in class so I don’t remember much. I pretend to chant appropriately and imitate the same technique as everyone else’s and construct the spell on my own simultaneously. At least I hope the teacher doesn’t find out…

“Eh~…, the spirit of… something, something… uuhm, ahh~…, your power~?… Manifest now~… Lighter!”

I intended to deceive them appropriately, but I wonder if it’s okay… I will emphasize only the last word, “Lighter”. It was an appeal that I had chanted properly.

The spell itself worked. Well, it’s natural. It’s natural that the same spell will be activated because I built the same formula as the Lighter chant. Magical theory is the same as science, and it is established as a theory because it is reproducible. It is not a theory if it cannot be reproduced.

A small Lighter-sized flame flutters and hits the target. It popped with a snap and had something like a burn on the surface. It’s quite far away and the scorched surface is small, so I wouldn’t have been able to see it with the naked eye in my previous life. In this life, my eyesight is pretty good, and I can see even small things in the distance.

“Is Carruthers a success? That’s a pity…”

“Huh?”

The teacher who was watching me from behind muttered such a thing. What is such a pity? Ah……. could it be that my chanting was unsatisfactory and that I constructed the spell on my own? Does this mean that I will not get good grades?

“(If I’m being honest I want to give you a good grade, but I have my family to worry about… so I’m sorry, I can’t. I can give you points for casting the spell, but I can’t give you a high score for hitting the target.)” 1

Finally, I saw the teacher who left while muttering something. It seems that my wrongdoing has been exposed. I wasn’t criticized for the time being, but let’s be careful. From now on, I will properly memorize the chants of this type of spellcasting…

And when I had that exchange, I suddenly felt a large surge of magical power from the side. Even though it’s big, it’s just a matter of comparing it to the Lighters around it. Compared to the spells I usually trained with Christoph, it’s only a 10th or so of its level.

And I feel like that giant spell was shot toward me. When I looked back, it was still heading this way.

“Fuh.”

Even if it hits me as it is, it will probably be repelled by the magical power I’m radiating around me like a shield, but I’ll erase it for the time being. I blew it out as if I was putting out a normal flame, but of course, I didn’t do that. As I explained, spells are composed of and activated by a formula and magical power. So how do you stop a spell?

During my training with Christoph, I thought about various ways to defend against magic. The simplest is something like the so-called defensive magic that covers my body even now. In order to counteract spells, it’s quick and easy to throw an equal amount of magical power or disrupt the spellcasting process. The defensive magic that I am wearing cancels out spells that touch me. That’s why if a spell that is greater than the magical power you have flies at you, you will receive damage. This is something I always try to radiate as a last resort.

What I did just now was just blow out my mouth and expel magical power through there to offset the Fireball. If you use a method that disturbs the formula, the magical power that has lost control and direction may detonate. It depends on how the spell is disrupted and the means for disrupting it, but the magical power does not disappear by itself, so a disrupted spell will have some kind of effect on the surroundings.

Compared to that, if you hit the same amount of magical power as I did just now, they will cancel each other out, so the impact on the surroundings will be minimal. This is an excellent thing that can be done without affecting the surroundings at all if done well. Simply put, if you cancel it with the same amount of energy of the same quality, you can completely eliminate the opposing force without any unintended consequences.

During training, I can’t worry about such details, so I roughly intercept them with the same amount of magic. That’s why it explodes into its surroundings and has some collateral damage. I can’t make it explode now, so I annihilated it by hitting it with exactly the same amount of magical power.

Even so, I wonder if he’s a child who isn’t good at manipulating magic when he can only use big spells like this Fireball when everyone else is polishing their control with minimal magic like Lighter. When I looked over there, a weak-looking boy was looking at me with a panicked expression. It seems that he was surprised because he failed to control the magic and sent it flying at me.

Well, he’s a child who can only use large magic when everyone is trying to precisely control the minimum amount necessary for Lighter, so I’m sure he’s not good at magic. It flew towards me so it was fine, but if it was another child, there is a possibility of them getting badly burned.

“Hiii, ah… I-I’m sorry!”

As I approached, the boy apologized with a pale face. Well, if you fail the spellcasting and almost injure someone, you’ll be in a panic. It would be pitiful if he gave up magic because of this traumatic event, so I’ll follow up and do damage control for a while. Even if this kid is not good at spellcasting, if he doesn’t give up, he will be able to use magic properly.

“I think everyone makes mistakes, but please, do be careful,” I said. “It would be a massive problem if the other students got hurt. I can handle anything that comes my way, so I’ll be alright. Okay?”

When I said that to that pitiful boy, I returned to my target. The boy seems to have lost his nervous tension and collapsed, but I don’t follow up that far. He’s originally a student of Class 2, so if I get involved with him too much, it would be tragic if he becomes the target of bullying as well by association.

After that, I secretly listened to the chanting around me and tried the chanting that I had somehow memorized, but as expected, the chanting was wrong. That’s why I had no choice but to continue the class by pretending to be chanting and constructing the formula by myself to cast it.