CH 5

What is magic class like?

An ambiguous sense of anticipation welled up within me ever since I was shown magic at the welcome party.

It is said that your aptitude is what determines whether you can become a mage, but it shouldn’t be something like you will be able to use magic as soon as you hold a magic stone and chant.

If that were the case, it would have been enough to get people to hold magic stones at the exam. They’ll probably teach something special.

I greeted the morning of my first day of school with excitement.

Classes will begin immediately.

I packed my favourite shoulder bag, which I had used to carry my experiment tools, with my handmade notebook, ink, and pens, then I changed into a dress that I had worn at the apothecary and put my light blue robe over it.

I finished packing and squatted at the opening on the floor only to find that the ladder was missing.

They played a prank on me while I was sleeping.

I’ll jump down!

I held my bag and landed with no difficulty. It wasn’t that high.

The ladder was next to the window at the end of the hall, so I quickly put it back into its place and headed to the dormitory cafeteria.

There were several chairs along long tables, and the seniors and juniors were eating together. One of the girls, who came in later, was surprised to see me eating a piece of bread. So, you’re the one who took away the ladder? She looks familiar. Probably a classmate.

I won’t take her seriously. She only harassed me a little and confronting her would be more trouble than it’s worth. It’s cute if I compare it to the time when Theo and his friends threw rocks at me.

Instead, I’ll save my energy for the day ahead.

The meals in the dormitory are surprisingly simple. Baskets of bread were placed on the table and the servants brought everyone one side dish and a bowl of soup.

The bread was freshly buttered and delicious, and the side dish was either a meat side dish or a fish side dish. Last night it was meat, and this morning it is sauteed fish.

The way Anna-san seasoned her food was better, but I think the ingredients here are higher quality.

Well, I feel like my side dishes have smaller fish, tougher meat and soup with less ingredients compared to the others, but it doesn’t matter since I’m not demanding for seconds.

“Despicable.”

A girl sitting one seat away from me muttered with disgust, but I pretended that I didn’t hear her.

A school is still a school even though it’s a magic school.

The classroom was quite normal with only a few desks with enough space for three or four students to sit at and a blackboard. There were no allocated seats and each student sat down where they wanted.

I’m the type who prefers to sit in the front half of a class I’m interested in since it’s easier to ask questions. The seat at the front was still empty, so I sat down and a female student who was next to me immediately started poking me.

“Don’t sit there.”

“Why? It’s empty.”

I replied normally which seemed to irritate her even more.

The girl, whose forehead was showing, raised her eyebrow and said in a high-pitched tone that pierced my ears, “How rude!”

Annoying.

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry. May I sit here?”

“Look carefully. There’s no place for you to sit.”

She said as she spread her notebook and put it on the chair.

Her actions were so childish that I lost all interest in getting angry.

Well, alright. The classroom is only large enough for 30 students, so I don’t need to be in the very front to hear the lecture.

But when I tried to sit behind that desk, the students all did the same thing, one after the other.

Even the people sitting next to them were doing their best to open their notebooks. This looks stupid.

I was getting tired of dealing with them by now, so I sat down and the student behind me pushed me out of the chair.

I don’t know why, but they don’t want me to sit down. They wanted me to stand and listen to the lecture? Fine, I’ll do that.

Someone called out my name as I was pondering.

“Come here, Aime. There’s an empty seat here.”

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed gentleman showed me where I could sit.

Oh yeah, I had an ally. The most powerful ally.

I quickly settled down in the seat next to Alexei in the last row before anyone could complain while they were all whispering to themselves.

The attendant boy that always accompanied him was sitting on the other side. He’s always next to Alexei with his pale face which makes him seem like a spirit guide.

“Thank you very much.”

Alexei shook his head when I thanked him.

“Your Highness, you shouldn’t have such a person…”

The students around me were flustered and the noble boy sitting in front of us was trembling as he cleverly phrased his words, but Alexei silenced him.

“I only need enough space to have one book opened, and I’m only a student here. So, there’s no need to worry.”

I wonder how many people wouldn’t worry. Everyone was whispering to each other.

If they want to distinguish me, a commoner, then I’m sure they distinguish royalty as well. Alexei is just like me, he’s out of place.

Let’s start by making friends with those who are not part of the group.

“Can I treat you like another student?”

I whispered to him.

“Can I call your name and talk to you normally?”

Alexei looked surprised, then he smiled happily.

“Of course. I’d rather you did.”

He joyfully gave me permission. His voice sounded as if it was bouncing. It was as if he was happy that he had made a friend.

He may be somewhat of an unusual person in this society with social statuses.

By the way, the person on the other side of him was glaring at me intensely.

“Hmm, who’s that?”

I couldn’t ignore him anymore, so I asked who he was.

“Roderick Bastide. He’s, well, like a childhood friend.”

“I am His Highness’s attendant.”

He may have thought that being called a ‘childhood friend’ was too friendly because he corrected Alexei. He must have a high status.

He was quite handsome and had a good physique, but it was ruined because he was glaring at me the whole time. I know you don’t like me but tone it down.

He was also blonde like the few of the other nobles around. His hair was slightly more reddish than Alexei’s.

He said he is an attendant, but I wonder if he entered the school to accompany Alexei. He even took the test? I’ll ask him why he wanted to attend Magic School if I get the chance.

The bell rang and the teacher came into the classroom.

The white-robed mage opened an old book on the podium and stammered as he explained the origins of magic.

We have to know what magic is before we can use it.

Magic was first discovered about a hundred years ago. That’s surprisingly recent.

But that’s only to the people who established this kingdom. Magic has been used by a specific ethnic group for much longer.

They were called the ‘Mitoa people’ or the ‘demon-kin’.

They are not humans. They are a mysterious tribe who lived deep in the forest, and they had their own language and culture.

It’s not known how exactly they acquired their magic.

It is said to be a blessing of the Sky God Vishvelia (argh, seems like I’ll bite my tongue while saying that) who is still widely believed in many nations, but I don’t think that explains it.

But, regardless of if this god actually exists, I honestly don’t know what to think about them calling something given by God ‘Demon Act’ [1]. Are they saying that demons and saints are the same?

A hundred years ago, during a period of warfare, the Mitoa people invaded other nations and thus magic spread throughout the world.

Mitoa people, who had their knowledge stolen from them, are now said to have been completely wiped out.

The magic stones respond to Mitoan[2] words and the nature of the magic stone changes when their letters are engraved on the magic stone.

The spell the teacher chanted at the welcoming ceremony was Mitoan and the words engraved on Giedt’s prosthetic eye was Mitoan.

So, what we are here to learn is Mitoan.

We can’t cast spells if we don’t understand their language, and if we can’t cast spells then we can’t use magic.

Is that all it takes to use magic?

Anyone can learn a language if they study it.

There must be something else that makes a mage, but the teacher didn’t go into the details and informed us that we would study Mitoan for a year.

“Whether you can become mages or not will be determined after that.”

The only thing that was said to the dumbfounded students were profound words.

It was a boring start, completely different from what I had imagined, but I couldn’t continue to think it was boring as soon as language class started.

Mitoan is a very complicated language.

There were so many vowels. There were sounds that I had no idea how to produce, and I didn’t know the difference between the letter I had just pronounced and the one that was said before that. It was hard to distinguish the sounds.

And then there was the vocabulary. Mitoan had words that were difficult to understand since it didn’t have any concept to it and there are thousands of words with mysterious characters.

In a metaphorical sense, it was like an English-speaking person trying to learn Kanji.

I had to put in double the effort since I had to learn phonetic symbols to assist with the accurate pronunciation. We were also going to learn more about Mitoan culture in order to understand the concepts that we don’t know.

I now understand why mages are required to be intelligent, and why the exam was mostly a memorization test.

This was all about memory.

I wonder if I will be able to learn a language I’ve never heard of before in just a year…?

But no matter how insecure I was, I knew that I had no choice but to complete this plain and harsh course to open the door to glory.