After classes, a new item was added to my schedule.
“Formulas aren’t stacked. They occur at once. You mustn’t try to manifest step by step. One spell is realized in a single instant.”
I was getting private lessons from Elodie.
Feeling the need to actually use magic, I had asked her to teach me.
Honestly, she’s far too good a teacher for me.
Right now I’m learning to light a flame in midair the size of a candle wick, and there’s no sign of progress at all.
Elodie teaches steadily without a single change in her expression, so I can’t tell whether my talent is garbage or if this is just how it is when you first learn magic.
Anyway, I was doing my best to learn for now.
“No.”
When I tried the spell again, Elodie spoke.
“This time too, you’re trying to use one part of the array first.”
“Mm. When I watch mages use magic, it looks like they layer arrays this way.”
“Layering is right. It’s not stacking.”
“...?”
“I told you. Arrays have no order. A mage’s chanting, trigger words, and array—those are all preparation for a single manifestation. When the spell is finally realized, everything you’ve assembled must operate precisely, without error.”
There’s no order in the manifestation of a spell. You prepare everything in advance, and at activation the prepared parts run simultaneously and exactly.
I scratched my head.
“That’s too hard. Do all mages do it like that?”
Simultaneous, exact, without error.
In the game, I just watched my allies whip up magic on their own; I didn’t really know how they actually did it. To think every spell was structured that way.
For some reason, Elodie looked almost delighted at my bewilderment. Maybe she enjoys my suffering.
She raised a finger.
“That’s when you need a ‘metaphor.’”
“A metaphor?”
“Mm. Calculation and theory are important, but whether a spell takes effect and succeeds is up to you. That’s why an image that can fix the spell is important. It sounds difficult, but images are easy. In short, use a metaphor.”
Hearing that, I thought.
A spell that occurs simultaneously, exactly, and without error.
By analogy—
“...Like interlocking gears?”
“Not a bad metaphor. But I can’t judge whether your metaphor is correct. Meddling with someone else’s metaphor is dangerous. It’s best for each mage to have a metaphor of their own. If gears help you, then try it that way.”
“What metaphor do you picture?”
“The cosmos.”
...What?
I stared at her in disbelief, but she wasn’t joking.
“Stars rotate of their own accord, they advance toward somewhere, and the whole forms a single shape that never stops. Each star is an element that implements my spell, but stars aren’t born in order. They merely revolve. Magic is taking the constellation I want from among them. That’s my image.”
“...That scale is a bit much for me.”
Well, maybe you need at least that to use magic on her level.
A metaphor for making everything move together, error-free. I hadn’t known, but it seems mages generally have one ready.
...But no matter what else I try to think of, I keep coming back to gears. Even if I try to imagine something like Elodie’s cosmos, it doesn’t all fit in my head, and I don’t feel like I could build an array from it. Gears make me feel at ease—no misalignment. I guess this is what she meant by a personal metaphor.
It doesn’t sound very mage-like, though.
“Do other people have images I can use for reference?”
“Mm, Lunia says she imagines an ‘orchestra.’”
“Oh...”
“You don’t need to pay too much attention to other people’s metaphors. They’re not that helpful.”
“Ah—was it rude to ask?”
“It’s not. Plenty of people answer. It’s just that you can’t follow a metaphor just because someone told you theirs. So there’s nothing to gain.”
If that’s the case, no problem. I was asking purely out of curiosity.
I nodded at her words and looked back into my hands.
The spell is “Will-o’-the-Wisp.” The name sounds fancy, but it just places a flame in midair.
There are two formulas. Specify the element “fire,” and “stop,” which keeps the magic from moving and holds it in place.
Every spell necessarily includes an element, so it’s practically one formula.
'...Attach a small “stop” gear to the large “fire” gear.'
When one gear turns, the other must turn.
As long as they mesh properly.
Sss—
I felt my mana settle into the array.
I’ve never used magic before, but with Weaving, Menosorpo, and Heukcheon, I’ve already gotten more than used to the feel of mana. I’m not failing because I can’t use mana. I’m doing something wrong.
If I focus only on the array’s symbols, I can’t see the whole. The array must become teeth.
Gears don’t wobble, don’t sag, and don’t volatilize out of my thoughts.
Clack.
A distinct, if illusory, sound of two gears catching.
Whirr.
At the moment I turned them—
Fwoom!
“...Oh.”
A flame blossomed in my hand.
Will-o’-the-Wisp.
“I did it.”
I spoke, half joy and half relief.
The relief was because I’d been worried Elodie would get fed up with my disastrous talent for magic and stop teaching me.
It took time, but I managed it. Maybe she’d show a little more patience.
“Elodie. Well? That’s a success, right?”
“...”
“Elodie?”
She stared wide-eyed at the flame in my hand.
It felt like she was scanning my magic from head to toe. Is this what it feels like to be naked under someone’s gaze? It was chilling.
“Elodie. Did I do something wrong?”
“Frondier, is this really your first time learning magic?”
“Huh? Ah, not... exactly?”
“What is that supposed to mean.”
I probably did learn at some point.
Why I think so: before I possessed him, Frondier would certainly have been taught magic.
The House of Roach protects people from monsters. It makes no sense for a child of that house not to have learned various disciplines.
Whether combat or magic, Frondier’s parents—Amper and Malia—would have hired famous tutors.
Of course, he must have been judged talentless in both.
'Back then, Frondier was under the Curse of Sloth.'
And the sense for handling mana that’s helping me now—Weaving—wasn’t originally Frondier’s skill.
If, as Jeanne d’Arc said, Weaving arose because I possessed him, then the original Frondier didn’t have it.
Originally, Frondier had nothing to do with Weaving; deciphering ancient language was probably his innate talent.
But while he suffered under the Curse of Sloth, whether Weaving existed or not, learning anything would have been hard.
“I have vague memories of learning a little when I was very young.”
I had no such memories, but it was probably the case, so I told Elodie.
“I—I see? So that’s why you’re this fast...?”
She tilted her head. I asked,
“This is fast?”
“Of course it is! You didn’t chant, you didn’t use a trigger phrase, and you still made a Wisp!”
Apparently people shorten Will-o’-the-Wisp to Wisp.
I was taken aback.
“I thought I lacked talent because I kept failing...”
“No way. Even after learning the chant and trigger words, most people take a week for this spell.”
She stared at me like I was absurd and sighed.
So her calm look even when I failed wasn’t an act—it was normal.
“The metaphor must have helped.”
“Even so, this fast...”
She seemed genuinely shocked.
Oh. Maybe I have more talent for magic than I thought?
Still looking stunned, Elodie muttered,
“Only an hour slower than me...”
“So you buttered me up just to get to that line?”
This brat just wanted to brag. Though the shock didn’t seem to be an act.
Right—thinking of challenging Elodie on magical talent is nonsense. If most people take a week, I’ll believe her and think positively. That’ll help me.
“By the way.”
A thought struck me, and I asked,
“Do you think the headmaster’s similar to you? Since he’s on the verge of becoming an Archmage, ‘the cosmos’ would suit him.”
“Headmaster Ospreit? Hm...”
At my words, her eyes lifted as if picturing Ospreit. The way her brows knit in thought was rather cute, but for a moment her gaze seemed to carry a mage’s way of thinking.
“...No. Maybe the headmaster has no metaphor.”
“He implements spells by seeing the ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) array as itself, without an image?”
“Mm. It’s not impossible without metaphors. The reason I didn’t teach you metaphors first is because it’s closer to the orthodox way. Since you’re learning a basic spell now, given time you can do it without a metaphor.”
“Then why would he avoid metaphors? Isn’t it harder without one?”
Even I kept failing until I pictured gears. Is there a reason to eschew metaphors?
Before that—why does Elodie guess Ospreit doesn’t use one?
“The headmaster’s magic, as I see it, is probably ‘coordinate designation.’”
“Coordinate designation... So that’s how he can cast at range?”
Ospreit’s spells don’t form at his side. They burn, blast, and freeze right where the enemy stands.
Even a simple flame applied at range is a world apart from igniting on the spot. It’s not only harder to dodge or block; the damage is fatally different.
Even this Will-o’-the-Wisp I’m using now—if it were Ospreit, he could probably light it inside the enemy’s body and inflict grievous harm.
“But if you use a metaphor, you can’t do coordinate designation.”
“Why?”
“Coordinates always change. The enemy is always moving. An image is easy to grasp, but that means you’re trapped inside it. You can’t keep attaching variables that are constantly changing.”
“...Ah. I see.”
I understood, having just cast while picturing gears.
Trying to do ever-shifting coordinates my way would be as reckless as jamming random parts into a completed gear train and hoping it still runs.
“The headmaster is just absurdly smart. Even without importing an image, he does magic the way you’d do grade-school arithmetic.”
“...That’s our headmaster all right.”
“He’s not our headmaster anymore, though.”
Heh heh, she joked, though it was a joke grounded in fact.
“In any case, you’ve got talent for magic. It’d be a waste to let it rot.”
“I didn’t know.”
In Frondier’s body, the Curse of Sloth kept many things from being done properly. There’s a lot of homework piled up.
The flip side is: latent talents were delayed, not bloomed.
“...Gears.”
I thought for a moment.
It’s awkward to say, but the metaphor is better than I expected. I succeeded immediately, and for me it’s highly intuitive.
'Elodie said she constructs magic like the motion of stars, but to me magic feels like design. That’s probably why I thought of gears.'
And today I learned the symbols for the formula corresponding to “stop,” which don’t change much when applied to other spells. My workshop is packed with knowledge, so I can cross-check it right away.
“Design... design...”
“Hm?”
As she tilted her head at my mutter—
Knock, knock.
There was a rap at the front door.
“Professor Frondier, it’s Arald.”
And a familiar voice.
The moment he stepped into the room, Arald spoke with a delighted face.
“The prototype of the three-dimensional map is complete.”
“...Design.”
“Yes! The three-dimensional map we made, referencing your three-dimensional schematics!”
Arald nodded vigorously at my words.
Elodie looked back and forth between us, noticing the two of us weren’t even on the same wavelength.
...Hm.
Design.
