Vasileo shuffled into the gym.
I looked at him for a moment, then dispelled the wisp in my hand.
At last, I had succeeded in producing Will-o’-the-Wisp as a mana crystal. It was unruly, but worth the strain to control.
I asked Vasileo,
“When were you there?”
“S-since you said, ‘Please let it work this time,’ sir.”
So he’d seen from the very start.
Feeling a little awkward, I scratched my head.
My Sixth Sense hadn’t kicked in. Inwardly, I was rather flustered.
The Sixth Sense excels at detecting hostility, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s poor at ordinary detection.
It’s originally a power that perceives all things supernatural, a straight upgrade over basic mana-sensing.
I’d even noticed hidden assassins back in the Imperial Palace while guarding the Empress—its performance is outstanding.
And yet I hadn’t noticed Vasileo. No—that’s not right. I did sense something, but no alarm went off.
I had sensed mana outside the gym. I just didn’t think much of it.
If I practiced here in the gym, someone was bound to hear eventually. I wasn’t especially hiding it. There just wasn’t a better place than this.
But of all people, it turned out to be Vasileo.
'Did he feel trivial to me because he came without using any magic at all?'
When I first obtained the Sixth Sense, it was oversensitive and quite hard to adapt to.
Unlike others who build up detection ability, I’d gotten something too good all at once. So my adaptation went the other way—I learned to sense less.
I once called myself “a pig that accidentally saw the sky” when I got the Sixth Sense. It’s like how, at first, you can’t help noticing the sky, but if you deliberately avoid looking at it and enough time passes, you eventually stop minding it.
That’s what the Sixth Sense is to me. A sky I can look up and see anytime; when it rains or snows or thunders, of course I’ll know.
'But a single piece of cloud drifting by isn’t worth fussing over—even if I noticed it.'
“Um, sir.”
Vasileo called to me then.
“What did you just do, exactly?”
Mm. As expected. I’d been fretting over what to answer.
Telling the truth was out of the question. Whether he believed me or not aside, I wouldn’t even know where to begin ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) explaining.
“Ah, well, it’s part of combining my skill with magic...”
The moment I said that much, Vasileo’s eyes changed.
Thud!
He dropped to both knees hard enough to make a sound, then bowed flat, as if offering a great prostration.
“Teacher! Please teach me magic! Please become my magic teacher!”
“...I already am teaching you.”
And I already am your magic teacher.
“The art you just displayed—it was a move that shook my entire understanding of magic to its foundations! To broaden my paltry horizons, even a fragment of that realm—if I could grasp it, I would not regret it even if my life and soul trampled down a cliff!”
“Your wording is so dramatic I’ve no idea what you mean.”
This kid seems to string together grand expressions first and think after. If that’s a mage’s talent, then it’s a talent. In inflating the scale of his words, he could give Selena a good match.
'So he won’t let that excuse slide, after all.'
Vasileo saw straight through my attempt to gloss things over. He might not know exactly what I did, but he understood the gist.
He didn’t know about the existence of mana crystals, so he kept colliding with the theory he already had.
'I didn’t want to get too entangled with Atlas’s students if possible.'
Teaching these students isn’t my original purpose. I just needed a decent base where my companions could stay, a library to research, and knowledge to acquire.
I can teach them regardless, but what I’m wary of is something else.
'I don’t know who the “good side” is here.'
Unlike at Constel, I don’t know these characters at all. What they’ll become later, what they’ll go through and how they’ll change—
Vasileo, standing before me now, may be a somewhat clumsy but passionate student—but who knows what he’ll be later.
If I teach him and he becomes a villain, that would mean I made evil stronger.
Lately I’ve been feeling my own ignorance keenly.
When Belphegor fell and this world reached a point I knew nothing about—
I worried about what came after, and half of it unfolded exactly as I feared.
I got swept up in events I didn’t know, ran around trying to figure them out, and in the end I was branded a demon in the Terst Empire and came here.
I’m far too unseasoned about situations I haven’t tried beforehand. So going forward, I’d like to avoid creating unforeseen circumstances myself.
“...”
“...”
I looked at Vasileo for a moment.
At the very least, his eyes looked sincere. Unless he had acting skills on Selena’s level.
“Sorry, but I can’t explain what I just showed you.”
“...”
His shoulders drooped in disappointment.
I said to him,
“Because your achievements aren’t enough. Not yet.”
At that, light returned to Vasileo’s eyes.
He asked,
“...If my achievements improve, will you tell me?”
“Improving somewhat isn’t enough. You’ll have to achieve growth incomparable to what you are now.”
In the end, I decided to make Vasileo grow.
Of course, I don’t have the heart or the qualities of a proper teacher, so I can’t employ excellent pedagogy to raise him. I don’t intend to, either.
“I’ll at least let you follow the path to that achievement.”
“Really?!”
That was a lie.
I’ve never had such achievement in magic to begin with.
But Vasileo would believe me—because of the magic I just showed.
He would surely believe I possessed exceptionally high magical attainment.
I’m not raising Vasileo because I’m amazing as a mage.
My magic is meager, I know nothing of instructional method, and I’m not a suitable mentor. I won’t raise Vasileo with such abilities.
“Vasileo, as you know, in the end, growth is your own work. No one else’s.”
Vasileo himself will raise himself.
At my words, his eyes shone even brighter as he exclaimed,
“Of course I know that!”
If he knows, all the better.
Thanks to that, I won’t have to feel a shred of guilt.
***
“...You’re here again, sir.”
“Yes. Thank you for your work, as always.”
I entered the library and exchanged a light greeting with the librarian. It didn’t sound all that light on her end, but mine was light enough.
Right now I was devouring knowledge of the continent of Agoris.
History and nations, relations with demons, and the gods.
If a book looked even slightly related to those, I pulled it out immediately, flipped from the first page to the last, and tossed it all into the workshop.
There was no need to read or even look. If necessary, I could pull it out from the workshop and read anytime.
Flip.
Flip.
Flip.
Focusing only on storing them into the workshop, my page-turning speed was under a second.
“...”
“...”
And like this, I could feel people’s gazes gathering bit by bit.
The librarian’s sour look was probably about that. She must think I’m fooling around.
It’s not like I’m making a ruckus, so she can’t exactly scold me, and I’m a teacher besides, so sanctions are hard—and yet I’m distracting others.
But well, not my problem. If they can’t focus over something this small, that’s on them.
“Teacher.”
An unexpected student appeared.
She sat across from me and stared with a prim little face.
“...What is it, Miss Jenita?”
This child was Jenita di Sindri. One of my homeroom students, and if I remembered right, she sat next to Vasileo.
Jenita flinched, surprised at my words.
“They said you remembered every student’s face and name—so it was true.”
“I don’t remember everyone. But at least my class, I should memorize.”
Of course, the workshop deserved credit for that, and it was also true I didn’t know them all.
My workshop had their photos and names, but that didn’t mean I could instantly match a face to a photo.
“About last time, when Vasileo made a mistake, sir.”
“Gathering Wind, you mean?”
“Yes. You told him then—not to make mistakes.”
“I did.”
“Do you not make mistakes, sir?”
Hoh.
What a bold question. It gave me a strangely nostalgic feeling.
And her tone and phrasing held a trace of personal feeling.
When I looked at Jenita, she flinched a little, but still met my eyes squarely.
Smiling slightly, I said,
“Of course I make mistakes.”
“In that case, that kind of advice from you—”
“And because of that, I lost many people.”
The words she’d been so ready to spring ceased on her lips.
I moved my eyes back to the book.
“If you’re going to do it, better to fail.”
“...What’s the difference between the two?”
“There’s no difference at all.”
“...?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her face crumple in puzzlement.
As I had from the beginning, I turned the pages and said,
“There’s no difference, and yet people believe there is. Failure is something I must fix and overcome. But a mistake—just this once, and next time I won’t do it. Believing that, they make another mistake.”
“...!”
“You’ll all graduate soon and face demons and monsters.”
This continent is surely less exposed to danger than the Empire I came from, but—
So long as you walk the path of fighting the enemy, death is always nearby. I can’t say the sort of thing you’d hear in an ordinary school to people like that.
“It’s too late to say, ‘one mistake is fine.’”
“...”
A brief silence followed.
The instant she heard me, Jenita seemed ready to retort; she glanced aside, then, hemming and hawing, lowered her head.
I thought she’d leave like that, but apparently it wasn’t enough—she didn’t rise from her chair.
While I turned pages, her eyes darted here and there, as fidgety as a squirrel searching for fallen acorns.
“...Right, sir!”
She just said right.
“What is it?”
“Th-that—are you really reading that book?”
She pointed at my book. I was still turning pages at a steady clip.
To someone else, it would look like my purpose was flipping pages, not reading.
“I’m just skimming.”
I neither wanted to brag about my ability nor have it mistaken for sheer memory, so I kept it vague.
“I, um, read that book already.”
“Excellent.”
“How about I quiz you on it?”
“No. I won’t get them right anyway. Like I said, I only skimmed.”
I would get them right—but then she’d only find me stranger.
I was nearly at the last page of this book. Let’s borrow the others. Jenita clearly wanted to keep interfering.
“Let’s make a bet.”
“No.”
“If you answer all my questions, I’ll give you one thing you want.”
“...?”
I looked at her, not understanding the offer.
Jenita said,
“As you know, our house, Sindri, is among the most powerful in Atlas in both wealth and influence. I could give you almost anything. You can trust me.”
“That’s not it.”
I hadn’t known the Sindri family was that kind of house, but that wasn’t where my doubt lay.
“Why make such a bet with me?”
When she first spoke to me, I’d thought it was because she disliked how I rebuked Vasileo.
But this bet brought her no benefit. It had already become an issue unrelated to Vasileo. If she just wanted to beat me, the risk was too big.
Jenita lifted a finger.
“Hehe. Since it’s a bet, if I win, I should get something too, shouldn’t I?”
“You want something from me?”
“Of course.”
So that was her aim. From her perspective, she didn’t think she’d lose to someone who, to her eyes, was only flipping pages.
“What is it you want?”
“If I win, I’d like to request a personal commission from you.”
“What’s the commission?”
“I’ll tell you if I win.”
An unfair bet. She wanted me to accept with less than half the details on the risk.
But well.
“Very well.”
She was confident she’d win.
I couldn’t possibly lose this bet.
