7. Berserk

The next day, Lord Tris came to the lab empty-handed. Usually, he’d have a plant and seeds he wanted me to make, or a scroll, or even just a tray for the seeds to go on, so this was odd.

“We’re going to the field today!” he announced happily.

“Ah, I’ve heard from reports that they’re growing amazingly,” Lord Glen replied.

“Yep! I want Miss Chelsea to see it with her own eyes!”

“Where are the fields?” I asked, only to get a huge smile from Lord Tris in return.

“The field for the seeds you make is outside of the capital. We’ll be going there using a teleportation circle.”

“Teleportation circle...?”

When I tilted my head in confusion, Lord Glen spoke up to explain, “Teleportation circles are magic tools that bring you to another set location when given mana.”

“I didn’t think anything like that existed.” I’d just thought that they’d have a little field within the citadel, so I was shocked. “But that means Ele will have to stay here, huh.”

«Yes. I cannot leave the Spirit Tree until it grows.»

I gently put the kitten-formed spirit down from my arms onto the couch. Following Lord Tris’ lead, we left the lab, and headed to an area in the eastern part of the Institute. On the northern side were doors lined up with barely any space between them. Lord Tris went ahead and opened one of them. The room inside was only about the size of two beds, and there were no windows. Towards the right was a copper box on a table with a lamp above it, and in the center of the room was a big drawing of a circle.

Lord Glen gently pushed me to stand within the circle, while Lord Tris locked the door from the inside and put his palm on the copper box.

“The copper box and the circle on the floor together are called the teleportation circle. The box is to make sure you have permission to use the circle, and also how you supply the mana. For it to work, you need to stand inside the circle and give it the signal to work,” Lord Glen explained as I looked on confused. “Also, since there are cases of people getting separated during use, always make sure to be holding onto another person when using it with two or more people.”

“O-Okay!” I immediately clung to him. He gave me a soft smile before putting a hand onto Lord Tris’ shoulder when he stepped inside the circle.

“Let’s get going to the fields~!” Saying that, Lord Tris tapped his heel three times. Immediately afterwards, the circle shined bright white, and our surroundings changed. The gray walls became logs, and I could smell wood.

“This circle goes to this little wooden cabin,” he explained, stepping out of the circle. Following him, we stepped into a hallway before leaving the log cabin. Outside were wastelands, not fields.

“These are the training grounds. The fields are to the south.”

Looking towards where Lord Tris pointed, I could see a big palm tree.

“Huh? It’s already that big!?” Looking even closer, I could see the ground around it was covered in greenery.

“Yep. It grew fast!” he replied with a smile, nearly skipping along the path.

The closer I got to the fields, the more I saw, but... What’s going on!? There were six big sunflowers pointing towards the sun. The ground was thickly covered in green leaves, with little pumpkins peeking out. And in the very center was the tall palm tree. I could also see baby’s breath growing off in a corner. My jaw just about hit the floor.

“I’d heard about it, but... This is just amazing,” Lord Glen said in shock, covering his mouth with a hand.

“It’s really amazing! And every single seed sprouted! It doesn’t matter the temperature, all of your seeds just immediately go to bud! If you mass-produced edible plant seeds, hunger would be wiped out!”

Wait, does that mean that even if I’m sent back to the Eucharis manor after my Skill is researched, I could just make seeds for myself and never go hungry again? Thinking that, I could tell just how amazing it was.

Afterwards, I went around checking every plant. The coconut palm didn’t have anything growing from it yet; the strawberries were blooming little white flowers; the melons were spreading another green carpet of leaves away from the pumpkins; and the peach tree was about as tall as I was, but the trunk was still thin.

I’m so excited for them all! While I imagined how the fruits looked in my book, I heard a big explosion from far away. It looked like it came from the wastelands immediately in front of the cabin. I could see groups consisting of both adults and children facing each other. The adults all had red stoles on top of their white robes, while the children wore gray robes.

“Looks like they’re doing control training outside today,” Lord Tris piped up, looking towards the wastelands. “I had to do ’em when I was twelve, too.”

“What do they do in control training?” I asked, staring at the students.

“A bunch of stuff, but I’m not sure what they’re doing today...”

“It’d be faster to see rather than to explain, so why don’t we watch on the way back to the cabin?” Lord Glen spoke up while Lord Tris was thinking.

The three of us looked towards the training grounds as we walked, and saw that the control trainees were making small balls of things like fire and water before showing them to the researcher who was observing. Then, the researcher would use magic to destroy the balls.

“Reduction training today, huh...” Lord Tris murmured ahead of me.

“People with High-level and above Magic Skills almost always end up casting strong, destructive magic when they don’t specify what they want. They need to learn how to make small, weak magic instead. That’s why they take control training, and that’s exactly what they’re doing today,” Lord Glen told me from his spot beside me.

“Isn’t that your sister, Miss Chelsea? Mirabel’s going hard on her.”

Following Lord Tris’ gaze, I saw Lady Margaret with her bright red hair, glaring at Lady Mirabel. I stopped to get a better look. Lady Margaret whispered something, before making a big ball of fire the size of a human head.

“Uwah, that’s huge. Something reduced would be like this — [Earth Magic],” Lord Tris said, casting his Skill to make a tiny ball of dirt the size of a pumpkin seed float before him. Then, it dropped to the ground.

Lady Mirabel made a big ball of water and erased Lady Margaret’s fireball, giving her a warning.

“Let’s get going.”

“Okay,” I nodded. Since I now had a better idea of what control training was, I started walking back to the cabin again. But then, I heard Lady Margaret’s voice.

“Hah!? [Fire Magic]!”

Turning around, I saw a flame giant, more than twice the size of a human, barreling towards me. I couldn’t hear it, but Lady Mirabel and the other researchers were using magic to lob balls of water at it in an attempt to stop it, but it didn’t work at all.

I was frozen in shock at the sight of it. If that thing got to me, I’d be burned to a crisp...

“[Earth Magic]!” With an irritated growl, Lord Tris summoned an earth giant that grabbed the fire giant. The fire giant struggled, still trying to run towards me.

“...Freeze. Barrier...” This time, Lord Glen cast in whispers, holding his right hand out towards the fire giant, which started freezing from its feet up. The fire didn’t disappear, only froze. How...

While I just stood there with my mouth gaping, the fire giant started shaking both its arms, lobbing fireballs towards me. But they were repelled by something invisible.

A few seconds later, the fire giant was completely frozen, and Lord Tris’ earth giant crushed it to bits.

“You okay, Chelsea?” Lord Glen asked, but I couldn’t get any words out. All I could do was nod.

“Didn’t look like that was a mistake.”

“Yeah, that was completely deliberate.”

While Lord Tris and Lord Glen spoke, the researchers on the wastelands all restrained Lady Margaret, putting something on her wrist.

“No, I didn’t mean to do that! She’s tricking you all!” Lady Margaret screamed. “That trash is seducing Lord Glen... That’s right, this was disciplining her! It’s her fault!”

“It’s a simple one, but looks like they’ve got a Mana Sealing Bracelet on her now. She won’t be able to use her Skill anymore. I wish they’d seal her mouth, too,” Lord Tris grumbled.

I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Who was I tricking? It was rude of her to say I was seducing Lord Glen. And I knew now that her “discipline” was just plain abuse. Discipline was something for parents and adults to do, not your younger twin sister.

For a while, Lord Glen just stared coldly in her direction. Then, a bunch of knights came running towards the training grounds from the log cabin. Just as Lord Tris wished, they gagged Lady Margaret so she couldn’t scream anymore.

“Let’s leave the rest to them and get going,” Lord Glen urged, and we headed towards the teleportation circle in the cabin once again.