Before I Became a Receptionist - At the Royal School of Magic

It’s been one week since I became a student at Doran’s Royal School of Magic. My studies are, of course, different from what I’ve done so far. We aren’t studying how to levitate things or move them. At this school, they are having us learn a wide variety of magic, including combat and assault magic. Just because it’s my first year doesn’t mean we’re learning beginner stuff. Exactly what I’d expect from a top-level cooking class.

Oh, scratch that—I mean “magic school.”

Before coming to this magic school, everyone had to have acquired a certain level of magical ability, but since the school I had attended was royally certified, I am totally capable of doing all this beginner stuff with ease. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have been allowed to be a student here if I hadn’t gotten that stuff down.

There is something like an entrance exam at magic school. They test things like whether you can levitate objects, use illumination magic, and draw at least five perfect magic circles from memory. A great number of skills like that have to be performed during the test. But it’s not only magic that is tested—there are also common sense things, like the laws and geography of Doran. You must prove yourself to have memorized a basic level of knowledge about the world. My father had told me before the test that certain kinds of magic that hadn’t been taught at my school were also tested, and so I had my parents help me so I could pass this test, spending every day either studying at the schoolhouse or at home.

I would read so many books and other materials until my hands would start shaking with exhaustion, and my parents, upon seeing this, would on occasion force me to go to bed.

Those are pretty good memories.

“Did all of you happen to enjoy the ball held the other day?”

“I was unfortunately unable to attend. Were you able to make an appearance, Hayti?”

Now then.

If I was asked what my first impression was upon starting my time at magic school, I would have to say... there sure are quite a few “dazzling” students, I suppose.

“When I realized I would not be able to go to such a fine event for another half-year or more, I simply could not pass up the opportunity to attend.”

The aristocratic girls are partaking in small talk in the classroom.

As one might expect, there were more aristocrats than “normal folk” here, and because the school did not have uniforms, the difference in dress between the two groups was quite stark. I had brought quite a few clothes from home, but I had selected them mostly on the basis of how easy they were to move around in, and had paid little attention to how I would look. Today I have yet again come to school wearing a blue one-piece dress that hangs below my knees, with a light brown leather belt wrapped around my waist. I’ve taken care to add attachments to the belt so that small tools can be hooked on it, so it’s totally practical as well.

Yes, this is me—one of the commoner children who go to this school wearing normal clothes. All the kids in the village would dress like this too, wearing clothes that were easy to move around in and convenient, the functional form of wear unique to commoners. I, who had believed this was a place meant for those who wanted to study magic, never dreamed that all of the little lords and ladies who came to this school would be wearing frilly dresses or expensive shoes or anything else like that. There’s going to be a lot of practical training, I thought. Lessons where we need to move around, sweat, get dirty. Of course no one would be wearing their finery to class.

Yeah, to be honest—I underestimated the aristocracy.

The aristocratic girls wear long dresses, and while the types of dress and their various ornamentations are different, they all give off the same aura of high nobility. Of course, neither their legs nor their feet are visible, unlike my own. Unlike me.

On top of that, they have cute things like hooded puff-sleeves on the shoulders of their dresses, so their shoulders are actually more exposed than in a normal dress, and in quite a lascivious manner at that. I remember feeling a sudden dizziness upon walking into the classroom, feeling as though I’d stumbled into a party in progress.

The boys are dressed just as I’d always imagined noble boys dressed: with pants and boots, shirts and vests, and fine, long-sleeved suit coats on top. They were the outfits of gentlemen, certainly.

“Ohohoho!”

“Hahahaha!”

Um, have I barged into some sort of party...? *ahem* This is a classroom, just a classroom, Nanalie.

The school buildings and the campus in general were, in a good way, rustic, and did not look new. Well, the school has been around for a long time, so of course everything looks a bit old. The rooms had windows but were rather humid, and while it could be cool indoors on hot days, when it was cold, it felt like it was even colder inside than it was outside. Despite all that, the ceilings of both the classrooms and the hallways were rather high, so they felt like the inside of some rich person’s mansion.

It was as if someone had taken the King’s pure white castle and made the exterior and interior a little browner, a little more dilapidated... No, that’s probably going too far. It wasn’t that fancy. But it did feel that fancy. In a good way, of course.

So there I was, in the middle of all this fancy gorgeousness, but it wouldn’t do to forget the existence of the other students who had commoner backgrounds.

Every grade was split up into three different classes, and ours was made up of 150 boys and girls. The ratio between girls and boys was 1:1, so there were 75 of each. Among the 150 students, approximately 50 of them were commoners. Each class had 50 students. Commoners made up a third of the grade, so while we were in the minority, I took some comfort knowing that I wasn’t the only one who had a common background.

I had seen a boy wearing a rather rumpled coat, and I thought I would go over and talk to him so that we could get through these feelings of being left out together, as allies.

...That said, in this classroom, there were only two commoners, including myself.

“To think that we must study alongside peasants...”

“Oh my, were you not aware? Long ago, apparently there were quite a few more. The aristocracy makes up more than half of the student body now, however.”

“But in the next classroom over, half of the students are peasants. So there’s still quite a few of them, aren’t there?”

“In any case, it would have been quite nice to have everyone in this classroom be part of the aristocracy, wouldn’t it?”

The conversations between the aristocrat kids that I overheard were being held at a volume that could certainly not be called “discreet.” I could very easily tell who was saying what. It’s that group of boys and girls in front of me to my left.

“Whyever would we need those two extras, hmm? Bit unnecessary, no?”

I can feel the stares of the people around me stabbing into me.

Hmm, is that so? Well, I was thinking just the same thing. Like, why are the numbers so out of balance like this?

Commoners make up more than half of the students next door, but in this one there are only two, including me. What on earth is going on here? They should have just gone ahead and totally split up the commoners from the aristocrats.

What were the teachers thinking, dividing up the students like this...

Because of the way they had divided up the students, I was becoming the target of the derision of the aristocrats as they put on airs.

“Look at her clothes. They’re rather unfortunate, aren’t they?”

“They indeed look uncomfortable.”

I could hear some of them giggling. Dammit, they are definitely making it so I can hear them, those freaking dirtbags.

But that kind of stuff doesn’t work on me. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. As if I could allow myself to break down here, in front of them.

Yeah, just you wait, idiots, I’ll earn the best marks of the year and definitely be able to look down at you fools and say, “Oh my, aren’t all of you ladies and gentlemen of aristocratic heritage? My my, and somehow your marks are worse than those that I, a commoner, was able to earn? Oh no, this won’t do. Is. Something. The. Matter. With. You?”

At some point, my goal had changed from getting high marks to getting the best marks. Perhaps now is a good time for me to redefine what I want to achieve. After all, if I am going to aim to get high marks, I might as well try to be the best. It’s more motivating.

Great. Now I just need to work on getting my high-pitched snobby “He-he-he-he!” laugh perfected by graduation.

“......Ahh.”

I sit down at my desk, rest my chin on my hands, and take a look around the classroom.

From the same group as before I can hear some distinguished voice say something like “How vulgar she looks,” but I ignore that. I pay it absolutely no mind.

The classroom windows are to the left from where I am sitting now, and the desks in the classroom are arranged in a sort of ascending staircase manner, with each row a step higher than the previous.

I can see round lights aligned quite cleanly, running along the ceiling of the classroom. I thought it was quite odd that this was the source of illumination for our classroom, at first. I knew several pieces of illumination magic, but as far as I remembered, I had never seen anything like that. It’s probably some kind of magical device.

My seat in this classroom was, as I went up the stairs, on the twentieth level. At first I was uneasy with how high it was compared to the rest of the classroom, but I now think of it as a rather good place for observation, where I can take in the whole classroom at a glance. I don’t stand out in this spot, either.

Having said that, the aristocrats still managed to look at me rather piercingly, their gazes focused on my frugal commoner attire.

“Sir Alois, would you possibly mind if I moved that commoner over there so I could sit beside you instead?”

“My lady, dost thou intend to go before my humble self?! To even think of one such as you, the daughter of a mere baron, speaking to Sir Rockmann before myself...”

“Say what you may, Lady Maris, but are you not also of lower rank than Sir Rockmann?”

“Sir Alois, take no heed of Lady Maris and Lady Nala! Would you care to grace my mansion with your presence sometime soon?”

“Now, now! You too shall learn your place.”

I take my hands that had been supporting my chin and cover my ears.

It may be break time right now, but they sure are going on and on quite noisily. At the schoolhouse I had attended up until quite recently, the students had also spoken in rather loud voices, but those girls would chitter-chatter in a rather cute fashion that these girls did not seem capable of. It feels like I’m being forced to watch some vicious struggle by carnivorous beasts over a piece of meat.

While the other group of kids in front of me and to my left who had been talking earlier hadn’t been too bothersome to hear at a distance, I’m right next to this conversation, so it’s rather irritating. The way that their shiny dresses keep blinding me is rather painful, and if it was allowed, I’d very much prefer to wear a blindfold.

“Sir Alois!”

One of the girls clasped her hands together, cheeks flushed and eyes shining.

“Would you do me the honor of letting me sit next to you?”

“Don’t be so hasty, Lady Maris!”

Now let’s see if he does them the “honor” of noticing them talking to him.

Right now, these girls are fighting over a certain boy. They are rather insistently crowding around him like flies to a honey pot, unable to stay away from the allure of his sweetness.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said, “I went to Maris’s mansion the other day, didn’t I? Thanks for the tea, it was delicious.”

“Oh, that was my pleasure. Please do be sure to visit again.”

Maris, one of the aristocratic girls, was blushing.

Upon seeing their interaction, the rest of the girls who were left out pulled out handkerchiefs from somewhere, bit the tips of the cloth, and began letting out rather frustrated, high-pitched screeching: “hiiiiiiiiiiii-!”

I was thoroughly impressed by the whole performance. It was the first time I had seen people do that sort of thing, ever. While I did have some thoughts about the way they talked about us commoners, being able to look and laugh at them now and then was kind of fun. I won’t say that to their faces, because I’m quite sure they’d find some way to punish me if I did, but still.

“Nala,” the boy said, “would you mind if I came over to your place during the next vacation?”

“M-m-my place?”

And now the next girl’s cheeks are flushing.

“Zelta, I want to talk with you about doing something too sometime before the next vacation.”

“Sir Alois! I will be looking forward to it.”

The girl who had been making a somewhat demonic expression at the girl named Nala brightened up immediately upon being spoken to by the boy.

They sure change their tunes quite quickly. I wonder if he’s using some sort of magic on them...

“Talk to you all later, okay?” said the boy, and the girls, hearing this, turned and went back to their seats without a fuss. The commotion that had been going on so loudly until then ceased, and went away just as quickly as it had come on, disappearing just like magic. Everyone left in high spirits.

“...”

I stare intently at the boy next to me.

“What?”

Yeah, I definitely won’t get along well with this guy.

The problem isn’t with how he looks—well, the face he’s giving me right now might be a bit annoying. The bright smile he had shown to all the girls just moments ago has somehow disappeared. And now he has that face, asking me “What?” It’s not just the fact that his expressionless face is loathsome, it’s also the fact that he was able to switch gears so quickly. That’s a little disturbing. Although, if he had turned to me with a bright shining smile, I would have found that just as creepy.

“It’s nothing,” I say.

“What’re you doing staring at me like that? It’s creepy. And you look ugly with that sullen look on your face, you know.”

Ha??!!

“Nghhh...”

Let’s ignore the fact that I’ve just burst a blood vessel somewhere in my head. This idiot, I’ll admit, is not bad-looking. I may say he’s not bad-looking, and in the words of the world at large, I think they’d say he’s pretty handsome. Just, as like, a general opinion. That other people might have.

He was unnaturally tall, to the degree that it made me wonder if we were both actually twelve years old. He looked about two years older. I can hardly see him as a kid the same age that I am. Honey golden hair as fine and smooth as silk, red eyes, a sharp, shapely nose, thin lips, and pale white skin.

In my opinion, it’s fair to say that one’s fate as a human being is decided based on how well one’s facial features are arranged. In the case of this guy, every single part of his face was carefully placed as though someone had drawn it there. He was, as they might say, a “beauty.” No doubt some goddess made the man just to her liking.

His totally black outfit suited him, and he had the sort of sweet face girls like. Even though he was a guy, he did have something like the looks of a young woman at times.

But setting all that aside, to me, this guy was:

“Ugh, why don’t you just show your true colors? You’re nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Sheep’s clothing? I ripped that off a long time ago, and they all come fawning over me, knowing what I’m really like. There’s no avoiding it, you stupid girl.”

“You shithead.”

Our eyes flashed with anger as we looked at each other. I ground my teeth as I glared at him, loud enough for him to hear.

Alois Rockmann.

Ever since I first saw this guy, for some reason, I felt like fighting him. Why he makes me feel that way I don’t really understand.

We ended up sitting next to each other, but there was no use trying to change that. It’s something that the teacher decided, and at first I hadn’t thought of him as someone who would piss me off this much. I had merely thought of him as a boy with a pretty face. That’s all.

Even so, for some reason I felt a strong desire to not let myself be beat by this person next to me. I felt some desire to beat him, in fact, and the feeling was strange even to myself.

So this is what “instincts” are, I suppose.

There really might be some way of discerning between friend or foe by scent alone.

But on top of all this, he was willing to become my opponent, and his first words to me as his seatmate were:

“Let’s play a game.”

That’s it.

“...Pardon?”

What’s this guy’s problem? I thought, but I didn’t have the guts to say that out loud to someone I just met, so I simply accepted his proposal. Plus he was wearing clothes that marked him out as a rich kid, and that made me concerned about making him angry.

We did rock-paper-scissors. I put out rock, he did paper, and so I lost.

“I win.”

“Wha—!”

I’d no idea what I’d done to make him dislike me so much, but the dark and dusky sneer he gave me told me how he felt. His eyes were shadowed with malicious intent.

All I did was lose at rock-paper-scissors, and yet I feel so utterly defeated. What is it with this guy?

Ah, I am quite incapable of understanding him. Totally incapable.

And so from then on, for a while, as soon as I sat down in my seat, I’d challenge him to another game. He didn’t refuse, and so we kept playing, but with fifty-three wins and fifty-four losses I am, as of yet, losing.

To begin with, though, why did he challenge me to such a game in the first place?

Or so I might have thought at first, but right now I don’t care about the reason why we’re doing this. I just dislike losing.

Thinking about it now, perhaps most of the reason why I want to fight and compete against him is because of our little games. Anyhow, all I could think of was how I absolutely had to beat this guy in our school studies. He’d become my rival.

According to the explanation our teacher gave us, we would not be changing seats or classrooms, ever. In other words, for the next six years, I will be next to this guy the whole time. Even if I’d rather be anywhere else.

Our competition would be decided based on how hard we worked in our studies, not just on luck. If the gods truly existed, this must have been a test made for me.

There is no way I’m going to lose to him.

I overheard some girls talking. “Ah ah, how uncivilized. At this rate I’ll never be able to get any closer to the Prince. Not that I care,” said one of them.

“Which is it? Do you care or not?!” said a girl next to her.

“As if you could ever get close with the Prince!” the other girl shouted back.

The third prince of Doran is also a student in this classroom. His name is Zenon Bal Doran. If Rockmann could be called a pretty boy, the Prince is like a man’s man. With black hair and black eyes, even his eyebrows look manly. Make no mistake, both of them have nice faces, but if I had to say which I preferred, it would be the Prince. His closely-fitted black military outfit makes him look gallantly dashing.

Perhaps this is a Golden Age of aristocrat kids or something, but this year it would seem that quite a few powerful families have children beginning school here, so the girls are practically screeching with excitement.

Not that I’m a part of that nonsense.

The Prince who’s the focus of all the commotion sits in the seat in front of me. The Prince’s fans, unlike Rockmann’s, tend to admire him from a distance. When your object of admiration is a prince, it must be rather difficult to just go up and talk to him. And I’m not sure if blondie here next to me is his guard or something, but he’s always with the Prince.

Even those who didn’t know the two of them that well would think them to just be normal friends from the way that they make casual conversation with each other. What a prince and a commoner actually talk about with each other isn’t that interesting, as it turns out, so I couldn’t recall much of what they ever said to each other.

I overheard yet another girl talking. “What’s up with that girl? She’s next to Sir Alois; the least she could do is make some conversation.”

“She’s the one who really needs to learn her place, in my opinion.”

Dammit, I will be the one laughing at you all someday!

Just you wait!

＊　＊　＊　＊

It’s been half a year since I came to this school.

My lessons here have been rather fulfilling, and as someone who wants to study a lot, I am quite grateful for that.

It’s not just one teacher who teaches us. Different teachers instruct us in their own specialties in a very easy-to-understand manner, and more than that they all know their specialty extremely well, so they always answer questions, no matter how detailed they might be.

Yeah, I’m really glad I entered this school.

“Morning, Nikeh.”

“Morning, Nanalie. Your hair is all a mess. A girl should pay more attention to such things!”

She takes me over to the white washbasin and begins brushing my hair. Compared to me, who’s just rolled out of bed, she’s already gotten dressed for the day. Her yellow one-piece dress is quite bright.

I look at her face in the mirror. “Thanks.”

This commoner girl, Nikeh, is one of my roommates in the dormitory. She has pretty blond hair, and she’s more “beautiful” than she is “cute.” But it seems like she actually wants to be called cute, because she usually has her hair done up in two pigtails.

No matter what she looks like, that part of her is cute, in my opinion.

We were awkward around each other the first time that we met, but as six months passed we naturally began to feel more at ease with each other (after all, we are sharing a room). Now we’re almost at the stage where we’re friends with all of the other commoner kids at school.

Just like how we don’t change classrooms or seats for all six years at this school, it seems like we won’t be changing rooms or roommates either, and so I am quite relieved to be able to get along with her. As you might expect, because we’re both commoners we have a connection to bond over, and while our classrooms may be different, we both share the same goal, or something like that.

It of course goes without saying that our goal is to “overthrow the aristocracy.”

All of us commoners place our hands over our hearts and affirm that solitary goal, as firm and unwavering as the northern star.

“What’s this, Nikeh is playing dorm mother againnnn?”

The other girl who shares our room, Benjamine, comes over to the washbasin, running her hands through her beautiful, wavy red hair.

She’s the kind of girl that shows a lot of skin. You can see quite a bit of her legs, only barely covered up by some green cloth draped around her waist. She looks like an older sister, and that’s how she feels to me. Her legs are slender and she’s pretty.

We’ve been spending our time together in this one room ever since we entered the girls’ dorm. In the dorm, the aristocrats are separated from the commoners, and so me, Nikeh, and Benjamine are all, of course, commoners.

But just because we’ve been separated doesn’t mean our rooms are any different. There are other aristocratic girls in the same building and on the same floor as us, so it just seems like they don’t have the commoners and aristocrats room together.

I think it’s the right thing to do.

“Nanalie, instead of spending all of your time studying, it’d be better if you practiced being more feminine.”

Benjamine, shut up.

“Anyway you two, we need to hurry if we’re gonna eat breakfast in the Great Hall.”

“No way, is it already that time?”

I remove Nikeh’s hands from my head upon hearing that.

“But I haven’t finished combing,” she complained, but I ran my fingers through my hair and felt like it had become nice and smooth enough for me to be satisfied. My hair’s not completely black—it has some dark brown mixed in with it—but thanks to Nikeh’s efforts it had become nice and shiny.

The best things to have in life are friends who have all the skills a woman should have.

“Mmmmm, delicious.”

We walk over to the Great Hall.

The only reason it was called the “Great” dining hall was because it was large. During breakfast time, a lot of students from different grade levels mixed together here, from the senior sixth years to us first years, so it was the perfect size to hold so many people.

The food was served buffet style, where you could take what you liked, put it on your plate, and then sit wherever you wanted. The dining tables were the standard rectangular shape, but no longer than three tails (one tail was approximately the length of an adult man’s arm), and several were lined up nicely.

We piled rice and vegetables on our plates and sat at an empty table near the doors of the Great Hall. The ceiling was made up of glass panes, so we were able to see the sky above the island quite clearly. The spaciousness of it all was wonderful.

“Benjamine! I picked that out!”

“It’s because you eat so slow that it always turns out like thiiiis!”

“You thief!”

“Hey, quit spitting all over me!”

I take some of the fried bunny-bird and stab it with a sharp utensil. It’s one of my favorite foods. A “bunny-bird” is what we call the blue birds with long ears. The reason their feathers are blue is because they used to be hunted quite fiercely by humans and other animals, and so in order to be difficult for predators to spot, they evolved to be the same color as the sky. Or so it’s said.

Must be tough being a bunny-bird. They had to turn that color just to survive. But when their meat is this deliciously juicy, they’re rather hard to pass up.

“You got it on my clothes!”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Nooooo, my clothes...”

Some of the grease from the bunny-bird had gotten onto Benjamine’s green waistcloth. Straight across it, quite cleanly, plop plop, it’s stuck on there. It’s rather artistically done, if I do say so myself.

“Now what are you going to do? This was freaking expensive, you know”—is what she doesn’t say to me with any sort of furious expression. She instead becomes more and more crestfallen, losing all of her previous energy.

Perhaps this might be something she does get angry about, but it’ll take time for her to do so.

“Why’d you wear clothes you were so concerned about getting dirty to somewhere like this in the first place? If you care about getting dirty, you should come to eat wearing just whatever.”

“How could you say such a thing, Nikeh? That’s rather heartless.”

“Oh no, Benjamine, I’m really sorry. I’ll learn a spell later that’ll remove that stain and take care of that!”

“Ha. No need to go that far.”

There are no uniforms at this school. All we have are our student IDs. All of us commoners do, of course, pay for our own clothes, and wear whatever we feel like. Nikeh is always wearing a short, one-piece dress with a round collar, and I only wear single-layer clothing with a belt that looks similar to hers. Benjamine, on the other hand, not only wears fancy stuff, but wears something different every day.

Benjamine is always telling me that I lack any sort of “sex appeal” in my outfits, but seeing as “sex appeal” isn’t necessary for studying, I really am not paying any mind to that sort of stuff... I don’t care about it at all, I swear.

“Oooohhh I will definitely learn that cleaning spell, OK!”

After all, we are all still only twelve years old. What’s the point in worrying about how we look?

Well, I suppose for the aristocrats it’s different. How you dress reflects the status of your house. But Benjamine has already seemed to have found someone that she likes, and so because of that, I think she’s paying careful attention as to her appearance. It’s all rather amusing to watch.

“Oh look, it’s Naru!”

A silver-haired boy passes by the corner of our table. Benjamine’s eyes are absolutely sparkling as she excitedly calls out his name. Nikeh, watching her, rolls her eyes as she remarks on Benjamine’s behavior.

“You talking about Satanás again? You really like him, don’t you?”

If we’re talking about who Benjamine likes, it’s this boy Naru. It seems like it was love at first sight for her, as if when they first locked gazes with each other she instantly felt the tremors of fate (or so Nikeh told me).

“Satanás, huh...”

Benjamine’s crush, the silver-haired boy. That boy’s name is Naru Satanás.

He’s the other commoner in my class.

He’s the first one to find out his magic type in class later that day.

“Up until now I’ve taught you standard offensive and defensive magic, but starting today I’ll be having you learn combat magic according to your elemental affinity, or magic type.”

The instant the teacher said that, everyone in the classroom broke out in whispered conversation.

“He said magic type—he means the six types of blood, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

We had all thought this was to be a normal theory lesson and not a practical one, so the sudden shift threw us off balance.

“Within the general field of magic exist six schools. Right now I am going to pass out the ‘Tricks and Tips of the Six Colors,’ so open your books to the section I tell you to.”

The teacher used levitation magic to float dozens of textbooks all at once, each one flying to a different desk. The magic made the books’ pages flap in the air like butterfly wings, and the one that came to me shut itself with a snap before slowly coming down to rest on my desk.

I look at the textbook that’s come to rest right in front of me. There was a picture of a rainbow bridge on its cover. But in front of the bridge was drawn the Devil, or some other creepy creature, and so the book simply looked creepy. I think they could have put in a little more effort to make this book more approachable. I don’t really want to touch that cover.

Having said that, I still have to get on with my studies, so I quickly open the book to the designated section. I saw that the title of the section was “The Six Blood Types.”

“These are the six blood types. I’m sure everyone has heard of them before. The ‘bloods’ refer to magical power. Our magic is in our blood; it’s blood itself. You know that, right? As long as we are alive, as long as we have blood flowing through our veins, there will never come a time when we can no longer use magic. In the textbook, it talks about the six different types: Fire, Wind, Water, Ice, Earth, and Lightning. Each and every one of you belong to one of these six types of magic.”

Our teacher stretched out his hand and from his fingertips I could see sparks of electricity flashing.

“My magic type is Lightning. As such, the only form of combat magic I can use is lightning magic.”

To summarize what the teacher said, “magic types” were essentially the basis upon which our fighting styles were decided. The combat magics that we had learned up until now had been things like paralyzing an opponent, materializing swords and sending them flying towards our opponents, or materializing defensive barriers—all rather tame spells. To be perfectly honest, if you studied, you were able to do the spells. They weren’t difficult.

But with these “magic types,” there were spells that could only be used by those who belonged to that class. If you didn’t have blood in that class, you wouldn’t be able to use that form of magic, no matter how hard you worked. If I was a Lightning type and I tried to learn Water combat magic, as long as I still had Lightning-type blood, I’d never be able to use Water combat magic. It would have been futile to try to learn it.

That’s what magic types basically were, but I was still rather surprised that less than half a year after starting school here we’d start learning this type of magic. With all the other spells we had to learn, I had figured we had another year before we started learning type-specific magic, but here we were.

“I don’t think any of you know your elemental affinity yet.”

Light is still flashing from our teacher’s fingertips.

Yes, we still don’t know our own magic types. Our parents and other adults know how to determine one’s elemental affinity, but there’s a rule against teaching children that spell. Apparently their reasoning is that it’s dangerous for children to know their type without knowing how to properly use that type of magic.

If I had continued studying normally at a village schoolhouse, I wouldn’t know my magic type until I turned eighteen years old. For people who took on jobs that didn’t place much importance on one’s magic type, there wasn’t much reason to know, after all. There wasn’t any particular inconvenience that came with not knowing, and there was no point in possessing a weapon that one had no use for. Standard combat spells were thought to be enough.

But people like us, the students who came to this school, were different. Not only was the absolute maximum power of magic necessary to succeed, we also had the motivation to learn it. The aristocrats and those who would become sorcerers placed even more importance on learning elemental magics. After all, they would be the ones fighting the demons.

I just want to become a receptionist lady, but still.

“Professor, would it not be correct to say that Water and Ice are identical types?”

Lady Maris is once again wearing a rather classy dress today. She does have a serious and hard-working personality, so if the whole Rockmann situation wasn’t a thing, I’d actually quite like her. But she makes a point of singling me out, just because I sit next to Rockmann, and is always digging at me and making me out to be an idiot, so I really can’t deal with her.

If I liked him it would be a different story, but to have all that done to me despite the fact I don’t even like him is quite irritating.

“They may seem to be similar, but they are not the same. To put it simply, the main difference is whether they are able to instantly manifest as solid or not.”

That’s how the professor answered Miss Maris’s question. It would seem that they are, in fact, different things.

“Alright then, starting now, we are going to check everybody’s magic type, one by one.”

And upon hearing that, the entire classroom broke out into conversation again. But unlike before, this time it sounded like there were a few who were excited about the prospect.

Yeah, I’m one of those who is actually a little excited about this. I mean, my magic type is, like, something that I could legitimately call an uncharted territory.

“First... Satanás, come up front.”

“Me, sir?”

“If I always called on someone sitting at the end of the front row, they’d constantly be called on, no?”

The commoner boy named Satanás, with some hesitation, stood up from his seat.

The professor’s right. The front row students, usually the ones on the right side, are often called upon. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call those seats the least popular places in the entire classroom. I had usually sat somewhere in the middle of the classroom back in my days at the village schoolhouse, and with every seating chart change I had successfully managed to avoid sitting in those seats.

But sometimes the teacher had felt like saying things like “Hmmm, today let’s start from the center,” so I was never able to let my guard down.

“Alright, let’s do this.”

“Yessir.”

“Stretch out the arm of your dominant hand and spread your fingers, palm facing the ceiling. Then bend your middle finger inwards.”

Satanás faced the professor as they stood in front of the lecture podium.

“Once you’ve bent your finger in, concentrate. Then, say ‘semeion.’”

“Se-?”

“Semeion. It means ‘sign.’”

Our professor put his hands on Satanás’s shoulders to reassure him. “It’ll be okay,” he said, and then drew his hands away to watch him.

“Semeion.” (Flower of the Sign.)

With everyone watching, he finally spoke the incantation. It was so quiet that I thought I could hear the gulp of someone swallowing in anticipation, and I myself unconsciously clenched my hands a little tighter as I watched.

“Hm? What’s this?”

Satanás had done just as the professor had told him to, and around him I could see things changing.

The textbook on top of the podium flipped open all on its own, breezing through pages, and even though not a single window was open, everyone’s hair fluttered in a gust of wind.

Time passed and finally, above Satanás’s hand, a small tornado spun into existence.

“Professor, am I...?”

“That means your magic type is Wind, Satanás. You’ll be studying combat magic that uses wind from here on out. Give it your best effort.”

“Yessir!”

Whether it was because he was just happy to be the first to discover his magic type, or whether it was because he was a Wind Wizard, Satanás’s eyes were beaming with excitement.

I was opening and closing my own hand in anticipation.

“Just because you’ve now seen how it’s done, don’t go trying it where you’re sitting. Satanás happened to manifest his affinity without incident, but on occasion, the spell can derail and cause an explosion or something like that.”

The kid sitting next to Satanás quickly shoved his hands under his desk upon hearing the teacher say that. Apparently that was exactly what he had been planning to do.

He called on the next student, “Come on now, get up here in order.”

And so as the teacher had said, one by one all of us went up and checked our affinities.

“It would seem that my type is Fire.”

Miss Maris’s magic type appeared to be Fire, as above her palm a brilliantly red blaze of hot flames was burning. I thought it seemed exactly the right type for her. But she’ll have to take care not to burn her dresses, I suppose.

Prince Zenon’s type was Lightning. The instant he spoke the incantation, white beams of light destroyed the teacher’s podium and all the excited commotion ceased for a moment in stunned shock. But no one was injured, so I guess we should be glad about that. The teacher would use restoration magic to restore all of the broken things to their original condition anyway.

Then I found out that the guy next to me was a Fire type. And it wasn’t just some glowing flameball appearing above his palm, it was a massive blaze that took the shape of a dragon and began crawling around on the ceiling. It was extremely hot. He looked at everyone sweating from the heat and smiled, and at that moment I thought I’d very much like to punch his guts out.

“Alois, end it,” our teacher said, snapping his fingers.

Snapping one’s fingers was the most basic way of finishing a spell, and if you did so, the magic you caused would cease.

But my god, what a bastard he is. To be able to produce something like that on his first try.

“Ohhhh! Alois and I are the same! Fire type! It’s fate!”

“Me too!”

But rather than be frustrated that they were all the same type as him, Maris and the other Fire-type girls seemed rather pleased at the discovery and went around smiling and high-fiving each other.

Ugh. I had come to take some amusement in their recent fighting with each other. It was a different story when they wanted to complain about me, however.

Those girls whose types didn’t match watched the girls whose did with frustration, pulling their handkerchiefs out of their pockets and biting down on them in anguish. It’s already becoming a type of performance art.

“Next is Nanalie. Come on up.”

Rockmann had just finished his turn, so that meant it was now mine. I responded to the teacher with a sound, confident voice, but my feet were dragging a little. It felt like I was wearing shoes made of lead.

Why is it that I have to be the one to go after that dragon thing was put out there? It’s unfair. We’re not exactly competing at this very moment, but I feel like in some way I am losing.

Of all the magic we’d learned so far, there hadn’t been an obvious difference in how impressive the spells were from student to student. Everyone seemed to have the same amount of offensive force and defensive capability.

But this time, there was quite clearly an element of individual ability.

“Nanalie, don’t just stand there, hurry up and get down here.”

“...Yes, Professor.”

There is definitely a difference between different individuals this time.

“Nanalie, what’s the matter? Do you feel ill or something?”

“No.”

The teacher called me again, as I hadn’t moved away from my seat at all. I mentally sighed, and then stood up to descend the stairs. Rockmann had been waiting on the stairs for me to get up from my seat, and when I passed by him, he said, “You aren’t freaking out or anything, are you?”

“I-I don’t need a spoiled boy like you worrying over me!” I shouted at him as I ran down the stairs.

That revolting bastard. One of these days I am going to let him have it and he’ll be just frothing incoherently in the corner by the time I finish with him!

“Alright Nanalie, stick out your dominant hand.”

“Yes, sir!”

I let out a self-satisfied “hm!” and stretched out my arm, full of confidence.

“Semeion!” (Flower of the Sign.)

I focused as hard as I could, ignoring the sounds of the whispers I’d heard around me before I started, saying things like “She’s just a commoner” and “I’m sure her ability will be weak.”

The teacher took pieces of chalk and chucked them at a shockingly high speed at the students who had been talking, so it didn’t end up being a problem after all. Thank you, Teacher. (Teachers had quite a lot of authority inside the school.)

After I finish reciting the incantation, I stare fixedly at my hand. I don’t know what’s going to happen, so I take a deep breath and try to relax.

“...Huh?”

Ten seconds had passed and I had seen no special change occur. Wait, hold on a second—there’s no way that I don’t have an affinity, right? Right?! If I don’t, I’ll be the laughingstock of the entire class!

“Nanalie Hel! Your hair!”

I lifted my gaze and looked back at everyone. “What?”

Miss Maris was pointing her finger at me with her eyes wide open. For someone who was usually glaring at me and full of choice insults, the way she was looking at me was clearly different than usual. What on earth was she so surprised about? She said something about my hair?

What about it...?

“...Hm?”

I take my other hand and run it through my hair, and what passes through my fingers is blue, the color of water. Flowing and glossy blue hair.

Blue? Whose hair is this?

“Well, magic is something that resides in our blood, after all. There are some whose hair color changes when they use this spell.”

The teacher was saying this quite calmly. I understood what he was saying a few seconds later.

“M-m-m-m-my ha—”

My, hair, color, has, ch, changed?

“Why?!”

Relax, self. Let’s take a moment to calm down.

I take a strand of hair and pinch it between my thumb and forefinger, bringing it up to my eyes. I had seen it correctly before. The color had changed.

“I said this earlier, but this does happen on extremely rare occasions.”

“I-I understand that, but still.”

“It occasionally happens,” which must mean that it had happened in the past, right? Sure, but, really! Sure I’ve heard stories of that happening, but no one else in the class had that happen to them, and beyond all that, what am I supposed to do with this hair?! If I stop the spell, will it go back to how it was before?!

“But, but Teacher! Can’t this be fixed?!”

“Not unless you use magic to dye your hair. It came about with the full awakening of your magical abilities, after all. You can’t go changing it back now. Don’t like it? It’s pretty, so there’s no harm, right?”

“Seriously, how much more dyed can my hair get?”

Speaking of which, what is my magic type then?! What type is “magic that dyes hair”?! What am I, Beautician-type?!

“What...?”

All of a sudden, the temperature inside the classroom dropped.

Shining white light fell over the entire classroom. Everyone looked up, stretching out their hands, saying “What’s going on?”

On top of my outstretched hand, one of the falling things came to rest.

It’s a clump of something a little smaller than my palm, but it comes to a gentle, floating stop on top of my hand. Just as if it was coming back to its original spot.

Someone whispered, “Is this an ice crystal? It’s so pretty...”

The teacher was nodding his head up and down behind me.

“I get it now. Nanalie is Ice, it seems. The only Ice-type in here is you. I don’t know about the other classes, but just as I’d expected, there’s not too many of your type.”

Wait. Ice?

“There’s a teacher who’s also an Ice-type, so it’s all good. Don’t worry about it.”

While the teacher claimed it was nothing to be concerned about, it’s said that Ice Mages are the least common types of mages not only in our own kingdom, but in neighboring countries as well. It’s not like there weren’t any, but they were the type that made up the smallest percentage of mages.

“Yes, sir.”

I snapped my fingers and released the spell. The crystals stopped falling. But my hair color didn’t revert back from blue. Goodbye, my lovely dark brown hair.

The teacher gently put his hands on my back as I stood there hanging my head, and guided me back towards the stairs. Put in a different way, I was quickly made to return to my seat. Quite flustered after what had happened, I could only think of it as the latter.

“Yes yes, I’m going back. The Blue Ice Woman is going back to her seat.”

“Huh? The color of your eyes is different too, you know,” said Rockmann.

“What! You’re lying!”

“I’m lying.”

“You’re lying?”

“I’m lying about lying.”

“Which is it?!”

Rockmann said all this to me after I’d returned to the seat next to him. I had thought he was joking, but it hadn’t quite sounded like a joke. I wanted to see for myself, but with no mirror, I couldn’t check the truth of the matter.

“You’re definitely lying...”

The color of my eyes has changed too?! What is happening to me?!

I hadn’t loved the dark brown of my hair—there had actually been a part of me that aspired to have something like Nikeh’s blond hair. I had thought Benjamine’s red hair to be nice as well, and Prince Zenon’s perfectly pure black hair was also something that I had been jealous of, as someone who had dark hair.

So... but still. Not blue.

“Hmmmmmm...”

I sat down and made a fist. I’d made my decision. What I had could be called “uncommon,” but from a different point of view, what I had could also be thought of as an “unusual” magic type. This is the hand I’ve been dealt, so there’s no point in brooding over it endlessly.

I’ll perfect this “Ice magic” of mine and get the best grades of the year.

＊　＊　＊　＊

Two years passed.

I’d gotten quite used to the magic type-specific lessons. My grades are, at this moment, extremely good, and at the periodically held practical tests, I’m always showered with compliments like “Just what I’d expect from you, Hel!” that make me feel like I’m walking on sunshine. I believe I’m the type of person that improves the more you compliment them, so if they praise me any more, I’ll be able to practically spit ice.

These periodic magic tests are held at unpredictable times to keep everyone on their toes. Our grades are turned into numeric scores that are publicly displayed, so it’s easy to tell at glance that I’m dominating the top ranks.

The test this time turned out to be just a written test without a practical. It had questions like “What is the definition of a magic circle?” and asked for things like explanatory diagrams. For someone like me, who never failed to do both the pre-lesson reading and post-lesson review, there wasn’t a single question I couldn’t answer. It was actually easy for me.

Back when I had attended the village schoolhouse, I had always gotten the top grades, and I had been eager to show that I was determined and hard-working enough to take the top grades here as well. With that, I could feel the day that I would become an employee at Harré to be near at hand. Easy, easy, easy.

“Second AGAIN?!”

Is what I wanted to say.

“Don’t worry about it. Second place is still pretty awesome, right? I’m going to head off to class, so I’ll see you later.”

After Nikeh had tried to cheer me up with those words, she turned, her two blond ponytails swinging from side to side, and disappeared into the neighboring classroom.

“But, I can’t...”

I let out a sigh. One of my blue hairs, as if taking on my emotions, fell to the ground from my shoulders.

“Why, why aren’t I first?”

The results of the test had come out and, unexpectedly, I was not number one. It’s not like I had to be number one to be employed at Harré—I had been told that I just had to be somewhere in the top ranks—but still.

But still. My pride simply won’t allow this. If I’m going to aim for something, I’m going to aim for number one, or so I had decided.

And beyond that, I had the other goal of striking back at the aristocrats who made fun of the commoners. I was the one who had said, “Oh my, aren’t all of you ladies and gentlemen of aristocratic heritage? My my, and somehow your marks are worse than those that I, a commoner, was able to earn? Oh no, this won’t do. Is. Something. The. Matter. With. You?”

I couldn’t forget that. Overthrow the Aristocracy.

But for some reason, no matter how hard I tried, I was never able to become number one. I’d fallen into this state where I was eternally number two. Each day I worked hard and did my pre-reading and post-lesson review, did more research on things I didn’t understand, and had been so diligent in my studies that Nikeh and even Benjamine had given me bizarre advice like “You should just go ahead and marry your textbooks.”

But if I still couldn’t become number one despite all that, there had to be something I was failing to do in my studies... or so I had let slip out at breakfast the other day, and Benjamine, upon hearing that, had threatened me with “If you keep making ice on your bed, I’m going to roast you with my fire.” So I had decided to just keep on working hard like I had been thus far.

“Second place, second place...”

The test result papers were posted in the hallway. Every single student had their ranking posted. It wasn’t something stupid like “only the top ten students” were posted. All 150 students from all three classrooms had their results posted.

I stood there hanging my head in front of the rankings. The other students, avoiding the ominous aura of defeat that I was creating, slipped around me and went into the classrooms.

“Dang it...”

There was no point in me just hanging my head in front of the results all day, so I pulled myself together and hurried into the classroom. The sight that greeted me was the same as it always was. And, speaking of which, my grades are the same as they always are, aren’t they, hahaha? Or so I thought, feeling myself falling into despair as I let out a desperate-sounding giggle.

“Morning, Nanalie.”

“Morning, Satanás.”

I ascended the twenty stairs and, dodging around the golden-haired obstacle in front of me, was able to relax down into my seat.

“I was playing that ‘Take Two’ board game with Maris until really late last night. I’m super tired. I wanna go back to bed.”

Satanás, who had been sitting in the seat in front of me, comes all the way up to stand in front of my desk. He lets his eyes droop and begins moving his hands as if he was playing ‘Take Two’ while sleeping. He looks like some exhausted old guy at the end of the workday.

He’s the other commoner who’s in this class with me. He had curly silver hair that was spiking out all over the place. His deep blue eyes looked like he was sleepy indeed, and his eyebrows looked a bit higher than they usually did, as if he was forcing his eyes to stay open. He was wearing a crumpled black shirt, and as someone who was always wearing the same simple one-piece dress, I always felt very relaxed around him.

“What’s going on with you and Benjamine?”

“You know what’s up with that. You know I like those older, curvier girls. Someone the same age as me is just not gonna work, you know?”

“It’s not like I want you to like me, but just hearing you say that kinda makes me irritated.”

I felt a vein bulging out of my forehead in irritation as he gestured, making large breasts in front of his chest with his hands. The more I got to know him, the more I realized my first impression of him had been entirely off. I had thought of him as a mature, quiet kid, but the more we talked, the more I realized that he was basically an unfortunate little dude who seemed destined to piss off women. Despite that, Benjamine seemed to like him. I guess it’s actually impossible to understand what different people think is attractive.

To begin with, Benjamine had said something like “Be careful not to let any bad bugs bite you” when the topic of Satanás first came up.

Not only is he a commoner like me, but I had started talking with him in order to get insider information that I could pass along to Benjamine, and at some point while being this mediator between the two of them, I had become friends with him. Even when I was walking to my solo lessons in a different classroom, he would accompany me along the way, and it really did make me feel like it was a good idea to have a real friend in the class.

Ah, what a normal student life I have. I am happy.

“OUCH!”

Something suddenly slammed into my face. That crack was the sound of my happiness being crushed by a fist slamming into my cheek.

“Oh, were you standing there? Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

I rubbed my cheek, which was still stinging from the attack. Sitting back up straight, I gave the guy next to me a hard glare. Standing there yawning and stretching his arms out was Rockmann.

“You did that on purpose! Can’t you treat a lady a bit nicer?!” I said.

“Lady? Who’re you talking about?”

He lifted a hand to his forehead as if to shield his gaze from the sun and began looking around. This wretch isn’t going to be able to yawn ever again, let alone breathe, by the time I get through with him.

Today he is once again wearing black pants and boots, with a white shirt underneath a black vest. In all the right and proper places, he has gold embroidered into his outfit. I can often see his black long coat hanging up on the coat hooks at the back of the classroom.

Damn this pampered idiot.

Up until just a few moments ago, he had been sleeping with his head down on his desk, but all of a sudden he wakes up and whacks me with his fist. What’s his deal?

“I’m sitting right here, you know?!”

I pointed to myself, and that despicable face of his, deemed so sweet and beautiful by the rest of the world, inched closer to my own. What the hell is sweet about this face? It’s shady as can be. Rather, smelly as can be.

“You kicked my back earlier, right? Or did you forget that too, my Lady Ice Idiot?” he said.

“Cut it out with that ‘Lady’ and ‘Ice Idiot’ stuff!”

We glare at each other. We’ve gotten quite good at this staring thing over the past few years. Not like that makes me happy or anything.

My relationship with this guy still hasn’t changed. As if it ever would. With every passing year that we move up a grade level, I feel like the level of our mutual animosity increases as well. We argue whenever we see each other, and whenever one of us sticks out a hand, the game is on, whether that’s in a classroom or anywhere else. If I challenge him he’ll take me on, and if he challenges me I take him on, anywhere, anytime. Our fights are rough to the point right before we would destroy everything around us.

“This time I will definitely freeze your entire freakin’ body!” I said.

“Hm, well you’re welcome to do so, if you can.”

Chill air swirled around my hands, and within Rockmann’s fists, flames erupted.

Everyone in the classroom looked at us with... interest? Interest, or should I say they were interested in cheering on Rockmann with totally insulting lines like “Sir Alois! Don’t allow the Ice Idiot to do you in!”

The majority of the girls watching probably saw Rockmann as a savior while I was seen as a villain. Ha, what a joke all that was. Perhaps I needed to teach them all a lesson: sometimes the hero is defeated by evil.

“Hey, cut it out you two—”

“Satanás, you’re in my way. Move.”

Satanás, who had attempted to calm down both me and Rockmann, was swiftly pushed aside as someone new stepped in front of him. I let my gaze slip away from Rockmann for an instant to look towards Satanás.

“Huh? Well whaddaya know, if it isn’t Mister Noir,” Satanás muttered to himself, irritated at the person who had cut him off.

“I’ve told you a million times to call me by my name. And that’s my seat. You’re in my way—move it.”

“Huh, so you want to go around having people calling you “Prince” like you’re all high and mighty, but that’s just your job title, right? You’re quite something, that’s for sure.”

“You’re the one who’s going around acting high and mighty! You’re taking my seat!”

Right now, right in front us, another set of people seemed to be about to explode into a fight. Rockmann feinted a gaze in their direction, but as he did so he quickly grabbed my arm and instantly blasted it with heat. Distracted by the other two, I failed to react in time and took the blast without dodging. The heat was agonizing.

That’s friggin’ hot! He’s gonna burn me!

“I’m burning up here!” I yelled.

“Now now, Prince. Satanás is your friend, so why don’t you try to get along with him?”

“AAAAAAAH!” Despite my screaming, I was completely ignored by Rockmann as he smiled and addressed the other two.

I tried to resist by icing his hand, but he must have been using a deadly level of heat because all that did was cause steam, so it didn’t freeze. With my icing it wasn’t particularly hot anymore, but Rockmann refused to let go of me no matter how much time passed, and with flames continuing to blaze out of his hand, I couldn’t let my guard down. When I tried to yank away from him, his grip didn’t slip in the slightest.

Goddammit, this year, I am going to start putting more effort into strengthening my arms.

“He’s not my friend!”

“Yeah, he’s not my friend either. Alois, you’re pretty reasonable, so I can be friends with you, but not this guy. No way. He’s ‘Mister Noir,’ after all,” said Satanás.

“Just how many times do you intend to call me that, Silver?!”

Prince Zenon, with his black hair and black eyes, is full of rage. Satanás seems to be calling him “Mister Noir” half out of envy, and the truth was that he was actually jealous of Prince Zenon’s black eyes and black hair. He seemed to be quite dissatisfied with his own hair, and seemed to feel rather unworthy when standing next to the Prince with his straight black hair. I think his curly silver hair is kinda nice, though.

But no matter how much he might dislike him, for Satanás to go around speaking to the Prince so casually meant he was, in one sense, quite daring. Even Rockmann takes care to be polite when speaking to the Prince, and so I thought he might reprimand Satanás for not doing so. Unexpectedly, he didn’t touch on that subject at all.

Is it really okay? For Satanás to talk to him like that?

“Switch your seat for mine in the front row, I hate it.”

“Quit your bullshit. If you’re going to hate something, hate your own bad luck.”

But having said all that, observing the two of them, it did seem like they had a rather good relationship with each other, and like they were enjoying the whole back-and-forth to a degree, so I wasn’t watching them with any sort of nervousness.

Perhaps this was what was meant by “good enough friends to fight with each other.”

“Oh that’s right, Noir—you ranked fourth place this time, right? That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, and you were last place if I recall correctly. That’s amazing, in a certain way.”

Satanás, who still refused to get up from the seat, acted like the desk was his own, placing his hands on it as he praised the Prince.

Prince Zenon furrowed his brow in reaction to the topic being suddenly changed. The Prince was smart and skilled with magic. The other day, in front of everyone, when we had a chance to show off magic we’d learned, he showed us an S-class Lightning spell. He manipulated the weather and brought down bursts of lightning, each a brilliant flashing attack that blinded the enemy. I remembered all of us being quite impressed as we watched him from behind our transparent defense barrier.

Get hit with just one of those and it was “the end” for you, I’m sure.

“But these two did much better than I did, I think.”

Prince Zenon turned and looked at Rockmann and me. Satanás agreed, nodding his head.

Quit it. That’s not what we’re talking about.

Just having this guy next to me is enough to piss me off. Start talking about the test results and I’m not going to be able to keep my cool.

Hadn’t I, at some point, felt my pride push me to become number one, all so I could say something like “O-ho-ho-ho! Commoners are made of stronger stuff than those aristocrats, aren’t they? Ha!” That was something I had especially wanted to say to Rockmann. Him most of all!

“Alois is first every time, and then Hel is second place, right? You guys aren’t just good with magic, you’re both pretty smart.”

Folding his arms, the Prince was now the one going about singing others praises. Different from the rest of the aristocrats, Prince Zenon didn’t pay much attention to whether someone was a commoner or not, and for that reason I rather liked him. Perhaps it’s because he’s only third in line to the throne; I’d heard that in the future he’d a leader in the Order of Knight. Because his job would be to defend the entire country, he said that it would be just irritating to have to go around differentiating between commoners and nobles.

Just what I’d expect a prince to say. So cool.

“Hey! That’s dangerous!” I said.

Rockmann’s hand, which had still been holding onto my arm, was gradually being covered with ice. Rockmann, who’d noticed the crackling of ice every time he moved, grew flustered as he engulfed his hands in flames.

“HA! You can freeze all over for all I care!”

Hel’s second place, every time. Those words have become fixed and true.

As is probably quite obvious, when the Prince had spoken of who came “first every time,” he was talking about Rockmann.

And then I, who must hear “second every time,” feel the weight of those words on my shoulders and feel like crying.

If nothing about this situation changes, even if I do have grades better than the rest of the noble kids, as long as my grades are below those of Rockmann, who is not only a noble but a duke’s son at that, I will never be able to say that one line.

Right now I think even I could pull off that biting-the-handkerchief thing.

Gahhhhh! This is so frustrating!

＊　＊　＊　＊

I am now a fourth-year student. I’m sixteen years old.

I’ve grown quite a bit taller than I was in my first year, and my breasts, which were practically non-existent then, seem to have gotten slightly larger.

Nikeh, however, refers to my figure as “modest,” while Benjamine derides my chest as nothing more than a “steep cliff.”

Just because she has big breasts doesn’t mean she has the right to make insults about other people’s figures. I know that more than most. You shouldn’t go around rubbing salt in wounds created by fire.

I turned and looked over at Maris, who was standing in front of the washbasin. “Hey, Maris, what are you doing over there?”

“I’m putting on some makeup in hopes that Sir Alois will notice me and invite me to spend some time with him during vacation.”

“Huh, vacation with that guy...”

Our fourth year is coming to a close, and we’re going to be moving on up to become fifth years very soon. But before the new year started, we would have a long vacation.

“Us women... You know, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder... so women are able to become beautiful only because men are there to look at us. You yourself have a pretty face, so it wouldn’t hurt if you spent a little more time thinking about romance. That blue hair and those green eyes will just go to waste if you don’t.”

“Hmmm, you think so?”

Maris was sitting on my bed, holding a hand mirror. She was one of those noble girls that I had originally had no intention whatsoever of getting along with, but in the course of years, we had gotten close enough to joke and banter with each other. Well, I suppose it would be rather tiring to have spent the past three or four years inside the same classroom being hostile to one another, so the fact that it ended up like this is actually a good thing.

It all started with something very trivial, if I remember correctly. One day, there had been a noble girl who, it seemed, had confessed her affection for Rockmann, but he had rejected her. She hadn’t appeared to be going to the dorm even though it was time to be heading back, and since I considered myself his enemy, I couldn’t stand someone getting all upset over a guy like him. So I had an idea.

It all started with me talking to her.

“Hey, you know...”

“What do you want?! Did you come to laugh at me?”

“No, it’s not that... It’s this.”

I spoke the incarnation for hail: “karaza.” Right before her eyes, a small, transparent ball of ice appeared.

Inside the ball, snow was falling, and with an illusion spell I made a flower bloom inside it. It was a flower called the “Muse Lamb,” and when given as a gift, was intended to mean “your smile is beautiful.”

I spoke again: “Astrofegia.” (Light of the Stars.)

And with that as the finishing touch, a small, dim light glowed from within the sphere.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You don’t need to always force yourself to smile, but I think you’re cuter when you’re smiling. I don’t really get along with him, so I can’t say I understand why you like him, though.”

She focused her gaze on the sphere.

“I’m going to leave this here. I’m sure it’ll disappear before tomorrow anyway.”

“What?”

“I’m sure everyone back in the dorms is worrying about you, you know. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With just those words, I walked away, leaving her behind.

We hadn’t been good enough friends for me to go home with her, and if I had taken her with me I’m sure the other noble girls would have had something to say about it, but I hadn’t considered taking her home with me in the first place, so there was no point in worrying further about it. There were teachers walking around, so I was sure she’d head home soon anyway.

“Hey, um, Hel?”

Unexpectedly, she’d come over to me the next day and told me she was grateful for what I’d done.

“Thank you, Hel.” Those were her words.

“What? Oh, uh, sure, no problem,” was how I’d responded, acting all calm on the outside, but I was dancing on the inside. For someone who couldn’t manage to be sincere with others, I felt quite frustrated that I couldn’t express how happy I felt at that moment.

From that point onwards, the other girls had grown to include me in their socializing, and so we’d arrived at the current comfortable state of affairs. They still make sarcastic remarks about me from time to time, but in contrast to their earlier insults, they had grown to include a bit more friendliness in their words.

“Why, during the vacation, there’s going to be a party at the royal palace. Sir Alois is the honorable son of Duke Michael Rockmann himself, you know.”

Somewhere during those years, Lady Maris had come to be the one who I spoke with most. You really don’t know what’s going to happen in life.

“Really,” I said.

She had, quite on purpose, come to my room to hang out, and was now, on purpose, making a show of putting on makeup in front of me. Doing whatever she wanted in someone else’s room, despite the fact that we’d all be leaving to go home soon.

She had auburn hair and eyes, with carefully layered hair and delicately manicured eyebrows, pure white skin and peach-colored cheeks. Seeing her up close like this always left me impressed. It wasn’t simply that she was “pretty” or “cute”—she was like a living, breathing, human doll.

Her killer red dress was, in my mind, absolutely necessary as part of the image that came together to create the person known as “Lady Maris.” Her magic type was Fire, and so the red passion of the dress was the perfect match.

“Benjamine, did you finish organizing your luggage?”

“Hold on! I’ll be done in a bit.”

Benjamine rushed over to the wardrobe at Nikeh’s reminder. Once the vacation was over we’d be coming back to the dorms, so we didn’t need to take that much home with us. For me, all I’d be taking home were my textbooks, and they were fairly light. We’d been assigned some homework related to magic circles, so I figured I’d dive right into figuring them out when I got home.

Nikeh was standing in front of the washbasin with not much luggage at all, enough that she could carry it all in her hands. Benjamine was going on about how she wanted to switch out her clothing or some such, and so she was creating a positive mountain of luggage in our room, but for someone who already had so many clothes, I couldn’t understand why she thought it necessary to change out that much of her wardrobe. From what I could see, she already had more than enough to wear on any given day.

“It would seem that his older brother, Bill Rockmann, shall be the one to inherit his father’s seat, and as such, with me being the eldest daughter of my family, I should be most delighted if Sir Alois married me and took my surname as his own!”

“Huh...”

Lady Maris has, for some reason, brought her luggage here, and it’s quite a large quantity. She had three mountains of luggage to Benjamine’s one, and while most of it was probably dresses and cosmetics, it was impressive that it had all managed to fit in her room in the first place. She shared her room with two other noble girls, so they must have all had around the same amount of possessions, but still managed to fit it all in there.

Oh, but that’s right—in our third year, we had learned spells that allowed us to contort spatial volume, and so if they had used something like that to enlarge their storage area or something, I could see how that would work.

“Once he graduates, it looks like he’ll be joining the Royal Order of Knights, and from then on the level of competition will just go that much higher, you know?”

“Really?” I said.

“Why aren’t you taking me more seriously?! Just how long do you plan on staying flat-chested anyway?!”

“Shut your mouth!”

Lady Maris, who hadn’t been at all happy with the way I’d half-heartedly participated in our conversation, took the opportunity to rub salt in my wounds. Good grief, I thought, looking at her as she thrust out her chest proudly. On that point I had no comeback to offer, so all I could do was sit there and sulk. Was I surrounded by enemies in this room?

Nikeh, who’d apparently finished getting ready, turned away from the washbasin to talk to us.

“Come on, Miss Maris, Nanalie’s going home soon as well. We all need to gather at the front gates.”

“Oh my, is it that time already?”

Lady Maris put down the hand mirror, got off the bed, and then put her cosmetics and handkerchief inside her luggage. Benjamine, it seemed, hadn’t finished organizing her things yet, as she hadn’t come back from the wardrobe.

Is it really already time to go home? Feels early.

My time at school this year had sped by. They say that “time flies when you’re having fun,” and it really did seem to be true. I did enjoy my studies, of course, but what I enjoyed most was being together with everyone else. It felt like there hadn’t been a single sad or distressing moment this past year.

“...”

Except that.

If I had to say whether there was one thing I was regretting, it would be that: I’d taken “second place again” this year. That was definitely not fun. But that was about it. No matter how much I thought about it, that was the only thing in this past year that I hadn’t been happy about.

At the end-of-year combat magic exam, which determined whether or not we progressed to the next grade level, I had used every ounce of determination and effort I’d had. If we didn’t pass the test we couldn’t move up a grade, so everyone had taken the test extremely seriously. Unlike the standard competency tests, this one had a bit more of a purpose for me personally, and I’d found it fun. I was able to draw all the magic circles and pull off the difficult teleportation spells without a hitch. I’d memorized several dozen more ice spells than I’d been required to learn, and successfully demonstrated them all in front of the examiner. There hadn’t been a single moment when I felt at a loss for an answer, so I’d been sure all of that would be reflected in my results.

“Second place AGAIN!”

But the exam results were the same as always. I hadn’t been able to get the top marks.

Just what had I done wrong? I must have been lacking something, somehow.

I had been desperate to know just what I had done wrong, so when I had gone and asked the teacher, he’d said:

“What? Oh... mmm... Hel, I think you’re doing well enough, you know?”

“That’s not what I’m asking about! Tell me what I did wrong! I’ll fix it next time!”

“You’re always 100 out of 100, you know. Don’t worry about it.”

“But I’m in second place! There’s no way I could be getting a perfect score!”

But even at that, the teacher just laughed and refused to answer my question. Perhaps what he was trying to convey, without saying as much, was that I needed to figure out what I was doing wrong for myself.

There is still something that I am definitely lacking.

Something that I lack, but he, who got “first place again,” clearly has.

In a test that I thought scored 200 out of 200, it always seemed like his score was something like 202 or 205, and the difference between me and him was the difference between a perfect score and a performance that merited something beyond a perfect score.

Dammit, just what was it? What am I lacking?

It’s not his fault that I can’t get first place. I know that, and I absolutely won’t go around making that complaint, because I’d be barking up the wrong tree to do so.

But still.

“Grr! I can’t do this anymore! Next time! Next time I will absolutely be number one!”

“Yeah yeah, do your best next year too.”

Nikeh, carrying her luggage, glanced back over her shoulder at me and then left the room.

I’d somehow become the last one in here. Ha? When did that happen?

We’re in front of the gates of the Doran Royal School of Magic.

“Alright everyone, please summon your familiar.”

The principal, wearing his signature black robe that contrasted with his white hair, got on top of a platform and lifted his hands.

“Fifth years, over here! Fill in the sides, please.”

The fourth- through sixth-year students gathered in front of the school gates. The first- through third-years had already flown home using magical devices. I had come to school using my mother’s handmade carriage, but during our fourth-year lessons, we had gone through a ritual where we first summoned our familiars. After that, we had begun using them to go home.

“Sorry Maris, but would you mind moving a bit further away?” I said.

“Why, but of course,” she said.

Lady Maris, who had been standing next to me, showed no displeasure at the request, and moved several steps away.

All of us who had lined up according to our classroom placed our luggage to the side, and spread out with enough space between us that we wouldn’t bump into each other as we did our summonings.

“Karomagia Zohon.” (Summon Magical Creature.)

That incantation was repeated all around me. Then, with small bangs, many types of creatures of all different shapes appeared before the students.

“Master.”

In front of me appeared a white wolf.

“Hi Lala, how’re you doing?”

The wolf came closer to me. I lowered my head and she placed her face against my own. Her fur was fluffy and soft. It felt nice.

My familiar was called a “Blanc Lykos,” which was a magical creature that lived in cold regions and took the form of a wolf with white fur. They could freeze objects with their breath, and also possessed the ability to change their entire body into crystal in order to defend themselves.

Magical creatures that had become familiars possessed the ability to fly, and were also able to expand or shrink their own size at will. According to how their master wizard trained them, it was also possible to make them learn different kinds of spells. Those chosen to be familiars were also capable of communicating with humans, and gained the ability to speak.

And so this was my familiar, this Blanc Lykos. She was a girl named Lala.

Maris had told me it was a name that lacked sophistication, but it was several times better than the name she had given her own familiar: “Madorudeeja Libain Sufishcult the Second.”

It’s not like I’m making fun of her or anything. I’d never do that.

“Lala, take me back home, please.”

I rubbed Lala’s back. She let out a joyful bark and grew a size bigger, then lowered herself so I could get on her back.

I pulled a large white overcoat out of my luggage and put it on so it covered my body. I put on my hood as well, just as a barrier against the wind, and I was ready to go.

“Miss Nanalie. Leaving already?”

“Hm?”

Just as I was lifting my leg to get on Lala’s back, someone spoke to me from behind. I turned around upon hearing that recognizable voice, only to see Rockmann’s familiar looking down at me and Lala. It was a big, black cat with sharp fangs. Although it was a “cat,” it was normally bigger than my Lala. It was taller than me, and of course even taller than Rockmann. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I think, Everything’s bigger for rich people, isn’t it?

It’s a magical animal that lives next to volcanoes, a Mavro Lynx. It had the ability to change the length of its tail, and could even stretch it out till it was long enough to wrap around the entire school. It could also spray fire from its maw, and its fur not only didn’t burn, it possessed the ability to protect a person touching its fur from the flames as well.

It was said that dragon scales were firm enough to be fireproof, but in this regard I thought that the Mavro Lynx was even better than that.

“Nikeh’s already gone home, so I thought I’d head off too,” I said.

“Is that so?”

“Where’s your master?” For him not to be standing next to the familiar was unusual. It nodded its head backwards and looked to where its master stood among a large crowd of colorful dresses. “Over there.”

“Sir Rockmann, would you do me the honor of spending the vacation with me?”

“It was such a pleasure to spend the last vacation on the islands with you. Why don’t we go again?”

“And then there’s the matter of the party...”

Some sweet smell wafted through the air from that direction. It was less of a “smell” and more of a “fragrance.” That was the smell of perfume. I glanced at Lala next to me, crouched low to the ground, holding her paws over her nose. That’s right, for a wolf’s sense of smell, that perfume was positively injurious. Well in that case, I thought, looking at Rockmann’s familiar—but it wasn’t reacting to the smell in the slightest.

“Is your nose alright?” I asked.

“Yes, madam. I’m accustomed to this.”

“Ooh, Yuri!” I said.

It was his familiar, but still, I felt an overpowering urge to embrace the creature. “Yuri” is, by the way, the name of this familiar.

“That sounds good. I’ll send letters to you, Zelta. Salia, we went to the island last time, so why don’t we go somewhere different?”

“I can’t bear it, Sir Rockmann! Please make me your one and only.”

He appeared to be totally unaware that I was watching him, and merely continued to stand there amongst all the noble young ladies, smiling and chatting. He seemed to have grown even taller, because he now looked to be about two whole heads taller than them. Because of that, his hateful face stuck out from the rest of the crowd. I kept seeing it no matter where else I focused my gaze. I wished he had grown shorter.

I diverted my gaze away from him, and noticed Maris had also joined the group, and had begun fawning over him as well. The girls’ familiars didn’t seem to be able to enter into that crowd, so they were all standing around the girls, watching their masters. It was a rather bizarre sight to see.

“Sir Alois!”

“I cannot give my affections to you alone. All girls are cute, so I must take care of them all.”

Hold up. Who is this guy?

“But Sir Rockmann—”

“I can’t.”

He took a finger and softly traced it against the forehead of the girl pressing into him. He was, as of now, referred to as the “fungus of high society”... Excuse me, “flower.” I meant “flower.” Ahem.

“Let’s do something fun during the vacation.”

He, Alois Rockmann, the second son of the Duke, was being praised to the heavens as the “flower of high society.” His alluring golden hair; his crimson eyes that harbored a deep passion, contrasted against skin as pale and brilliant as porcelain; the subtle, tasteful shape of his lips—it all seduced women far and wide. Many had been intoxicated by his beautiful looks, and impatiently waited for a chance to bring him back to their nests.

Pursued by both those older and those younger, all of the honeybees simply wished to be the object of that butterfly’s affection, working themselves into a frenzy with their fevered efforts to deck themselves out in an ever more extravagant fashion. He’d even caught the intense interest of a neighboring kingdom’s princess, and it seemed like she might come to Doran during vacation to visit him.

“It’s all quite farcical.”

Or at least, those had been the words from Lady Maris when she had conveyed to me the other nobles’ opinions of Rockmann. Agh, I had been made to listen to so many of her complaints about him that I felt like I had been drilled another earhole. My head really hurts at times like this when I am confronted with how good my memory is. Ugh, I wish I could just forget all of these inconvenient, contradictory things she had told me.

“Sir Alois, I shall be sending you a letter.”

“Thanks, Nala.”

Rockmann is, sure, good looking. And on top of that, his outfit today seems a little more formal than usual, possibly because he’ll be going home to his mansion today. On a normal day he wears almost all black, but today he’s wearing a long white coat decorated with golden embroidery, creating an aura even more intoxicating than usual.

Well, of course the girls would start going crazy over that.

“Ahhh!”

One of the girls, whose hand he had been kissing, turned beet red in the face and then promptly fainted.

No surprise there, I thought. He’s like a prince in the picture books, after all.

“Oh no! Make way!”

And then Lady Maris went out of her way to go and kick the girl who had fainted.

“There’s Alois, same as always, isn’t he?”

“Oh, Prince Zenon.”

Prince Zenon came over to me, shaking his head in exasperation as he looked out over the rather dispiriting scene.

The true prince has arrived.

Today, as always, he was dressed excellently, wearing something like a navy blue military outfit. Now that I think about it, I realize that I’ve never seen the Prince in casual clothing. I’ve seen him wearing shirts, but even with those he wears a black vest, so perhaps that doesn’t count. In my mind, his “normal” is what he’s wearing now.

“Lady Nanalie, Dame Lala.”

“Dord,” I said by way of greeting. Next to the Prince stood a large phoenix. It was his familiar, and its name was Dord. It was a boy bird. The symbol of the royal house was a bird, and so it was the fitting familiar for the Prince.

“Will you be flying with Prince Zenon?”

“Yes, my lady. My master wishes to wait until all have returned home before leaving himself.”

We were on the King’s island, and so of course there was no reason the Prince had to fly down to the country below, but it seemed he was staying behind to see everyone off. Just what I’d expect from him. Everything he says or does is cool.

“Just what I’d expect from the Prince.”

“It’s not like that at all. I just get bored once you guys all leave,” said the Prince.

While Prince Zenon himself didn’t have the height that Rockmann did, he was somewhat taller than I was, and so I did end up looking up at his face whenever I spoke to him. His masculine and imposing features were not at all less beautiful than those of Rockmann.

Even now I can see some noble young ladies and commoner girls watching Prince Zenon from a distance. The girls who liked the Prince were always watching over him discreetly, and certainly never initiated a conversation with him. They just admired him from a distance.

At me, on the other hand, they directed rather piercing gazes, for the offense of speaking to the object of their affection.

“Heeey Mister Noir, Nanalie, whaddaya two doing over vacation?”

The two of us and our two familiars could hear Satanás calling down to us from above.

Hm? The Prince and I glanced at each other before turning to look up at the sky, where we could see Satanás floating in the air, riding his phoenix. His silver hair was blowing rather charmingly in the breeze.

Unable to disguise his displeasure, Prince Zenon frowned. “Hey, Curly! You need to hurry up and start calling me by my real name.”

Satanás had a familiar of the same type as the Prince—a phoenix of a different color. The Prince had a brown one, Satanás a black one. Yeah, when we had done the summoning ritual in class, it had been quite amusing to see both of their reactions when they had realized they had the same type of familiar. There had been other kids with phoenixes, but still, they ended up glaring and grinding their teeth at each other, both looking as if they were about to crush an insect. It’s quite amusing to think about, even now.

They were certainly friendly enough to fight.

“You’re quite stubborn about that, aren’t you?” Satanás slowly descended on his familiar. Once he had climbed down from its back and placed his feet on the ground, his phoenix shrunk itself and hopped on his shoulders. If you didn’t look closely, it seemed no different than any other small bird. Cute.

“Why do you care about what I do on vacation?” Prince Zenon answered Satanás’s earlier question. Well, “answered” probably wasn’t the right way to put it.

“Huh? Oh, you know, we got homework, right? Thought we could do it all together, finish early.”

“You’re definitely planning on just having someone else do it for you.”

“Hey man, it’s all good anyway, riiiight?”

If we do it together, we’ll finish earlier...

Together... Yes, I’ve got it! “Satanás, I like that. Let’s do it together.”

“What, really? Sweeeet! With Nanalie there, it’ll be like having a hundred people helping me!”

“I want to send you a letter to invite you, so tell me where you live. Let’s knock it all out together!”

“Awesome!”

After I had given Satanás a piece of paper to write his address on, I searched for Benjamine. As usual, she was wearing clothes that showed quite a bit of skin. I felt like I had seen her out of the corner of my eye just earlier and... there she was! She was just about to fly off on her familiar.

“Benjamine!”

“Nanalie! Come hang out with me during vacation, okay?”

“There’s something else,” I said.

I grabbed her leg just as she appeared to be about to leave. I needed enough time to tell her about the thing with Satanás. After all, if we were going to do this, it would be a good idea to invite Benjamine as well. She always seemed to hold herself back right at the important moments, so she hadn’t made any plans to meet with him over the long vacation. She could have invited him to come hang out at her place at least once! Satanás had also realized that Benjamine liked him, but in this kind of situation she was the type to completely pull away from him, and so it seemed like he hadn’t been able to figure out how to approach her.

...But still, did all this mean she was really in love with him? I tilted my head, wondering. I had no experience with all that myself, so I didn’t know.

“Really?!”

“Why would I lie about this? And on top of that, we’ll all be able to do the homework together, so it’ll be a two-for-one. You coming?”

“Nanalie! Why, of course I’m going to come!”

She slapped my back several times. It was rather painful, but she was happy, and that was what was important. That’s right, I was going to need to invite Nikeh later. It’ll be more fun with everyone.

“All right then, let me know the deets later!”

Benjamine landed a kiss on my cheek and then leapt into the sky atop her familiar.

“Hey, Be-Benja—”

“You know, Nanalie! Even if he isn’t there, I’ll be happy to see you! See you laterrrr!”

She waved her hand and disappeared into the sky above the kingdom. I stood there watching her go until I could no longer see her red hair.

Wha-What was that all about, Bennie? You’re so cool. I think you might have just gone ahead and sparked a little joy in me by accident. For a second I had seen you as some handsome gentleman, even though you’re a girl, like me... No, this won’t do. Her name does sound kinda manly... Right? No, no. Absolutely not.

But still, is this... is this love? I place my hands against my heart, thinking.

“Hey, you.”

There I was, my heart stolen away by Benjamine’s words. That’s likely why I hadn’t detected the presence of someone approaching me from behind.

“What? A-ouch!”

I felt something slam into my side, and I was thrown onto my back against a wall of the school building. It had already been too late to react when I had registered the words. Taking the brunt of the assault without any sort of effort to defend myself, I had been sent flying back towards the school. The building hadn’t been damaged, but my back really hurt.

I had let my guard down at the prospect of going home. That bastard, he had aimed right for my solar plexus.

“Caught you off guard, did I?”

Right in front of me, as I stumbled around holding my stomach as I struggled to get up, was the very person who had sent me flying: Rockmann.

Due to the difference in height, the feeling of him looking down at me was overpowering. His cocked eyebrow and challenging gaze were thoroughly irritating, and I somehow managed to find even his white coat that was flapping in the wind hateful.

To think that he’s beating me not only in the grade rankings, but also in the height department!

“Could you PLEASE give me a FREAKING break as I’m HEADING HOME!!”

I covered my fists in ice as I shouted at him and then slammed a punch into his cheek. At this point, I don’t give a fig if I end up bruising his pretty face, or even if I knock off his chin all together and make him look like a freaking nutcracker. He was the one who hit me first. I’ve decided I’m going to pay him back tenfold.

I’d been training not only in the magic department, of course, but also working on my physical strength. I never knew when this fool was going to come and attack me, so I couldn’t just go and allow myself to lose like a boy.

“Like hell you are the ‘flower of high society’! Sure they didn’t mean the ‘laughingstock of high society’?!”

“Nnn. Ouch... Did you get stronger again? I go through all this effort to put on formalwear and still, look what you do to me.”

“Ha?! You hit me first!”

Right at the beginning of our third year, I’d discovered a book in the library that dealt with magic that temporarily increased one’s physical abilities. I’d been so pleased upon finding that, I’d hummed happily to myself all day. With the help of the teachers, I’d often used our break times to practice the spell. Those were nice memories.

One time during practice, a teacher had warned me: “Don’t go all out against a man as your opponent, you hear?” All I had done was ask for their help, but at some point they had realized what my goal was.

I wonder why.

“What’s it going to be, Ice Idiot? Shall we have a game before heading home?”

“Never mind about that! What happened to all the girls?!”

“They’re all cheering for me over there.”

I looked in the direction that Rockmann was pointing and noticed all the girls were saying things like “Hey Ice Dummy, get a hint, won’t you? Hurry up and looooooooose.” They were waving their hands, watching us from far away.

Th-the-the-MA-mAY-k-mE-soooooooo-n-gry! (Translation: “They make me so angry.”)

Perhaps because all of the teachers standing around had seen Rockmann and me fighting many times before, all they said was “Get home before it gets dark,” and then turned and went back inside the school, as if they were talking to children playing in the park. The teachers have it rough with all the other things they still have to do.

Oh! I can see the principal saying something quietly to Prince Zenon. Right after the Prince takes a quick look in our direction, he gives the principal a thumbs up, after which the principal leaves him and goes back inside the school himself.

What they said was probably:

“It’s alright. I’ll watch them.”

Or something like that.

Hold on a second. Was it really okay for the Prince to do something like that? No, it’s not like I know what they actually talked about, but even if they hadn’t, I couldn’t do anything that would cause any trouble for the Prince right now.

Speaking of which, I couldn’t just hang around here forever; I had to get home. There was no end to this.

“Hm. We’ll continue this after the long vacation is over.”

“Well, I guess you aren’t a complete idiot then. If you had taken me up just now, everyone would know you for a fool.”

He lifted both hands in a sort of shrug and sneered at me.

Um, hold up a moment. You were the one to start this. The first one to be hit was me. Just saying.

“Lala!”

I pulled my hood snug over my head, and with one, two, three! I was off, flying into the sky with Lala.

“So long, Fire Fool. You better wipe your neck and get it nice and loooooong for my axe when I return! Next time I am definitely going to be number one!”

And so, I, who laughed with an “A-HA-HA!” down at Rockmann, who looked so small below me, turned my back on the School of Magic and returned to my much longed-for home.

Next year, I will try again.

＊　＊　＊　＊

It’s been five years since I started school here.

I’m seventeen years old now.

“What am I going to do? I can’t sleep,” I said as I sat on my bed playing with my hair.

“Just hurry up and go to sleep. If you end up holding us back tomorrow because you’re sleep deprived, I’m not going to be happy about it.” Having said that, Benjamine threw a pillow at me.

“Hey! Ow!”

All I had been saying was that I couldn’t sleep. Surely that didn’t deserve getting pillows thrown at me.

That pillow, by the way, was a really hard one. A really bad pillow.

Benjamine was the one who had gone on and on about how all of the soft dorm pillows were “suuuuuuper uncomfortable.” She went as far as to bring her favorite pillow from home during our second year, and had come up to Nikeh and me bragging, “See? See?” But no matter how I looked at the thing, or rather, touched the thing, it was far too hard for someone to sleep on, and even now I remember how my lips had, quite involuntarily, twitched in disgust.

Later on, Nikeh and I had argued for three days and three nights about whether or not it was appropriate to call “it” a pillow. That whole discussion stood out vividly in my memory even now.

Yes, so that’s the reason why it had hurt. I felt that if a pillow fight broke out, someone would definitely be killed. I sat there rubbing my forehead where it had hit me, whimpering in pain.

I would very much like her to understand the fatal potential of her pillow just a bit more.

Nikeh was lying on her bed, looking up at the ceiling. “I would never have thought that all the dorm roommates would be placed in groups together,” she said.

“It is surprising,” Benjamine agreed, turning back from her side to lie facing the ceiling.

I, who had been cowering in agony, saw them both facing the ceiling and rolled over myself as well, all the while caressing my poor forehead. From my bed next to the windows, I could see the starry sky really well.

“Who’da thought?” I said.

When you get to be fifth-years like ourselves, you start taking a new type of lesson: “Practical Combat Competitions.” The Practical Combat Competitions were what we called the fights where students competed using their magical abilities against each other in a formally sanctioned arena. They were more like “tournaments” than actual lessons, and were held in a place we often used for our practical lessons, in the stadium next to the school building. All fifth-years would fight each other in that arena.

There were plans for many distinguished guests to come. The King and Queen Consort, the kingdom’s Knight Commander, various other luminaries from the aristocracy, and even someone high up at Harré would be coming. The teachers were all saying that this was the ideal opportunity to sell yourself to future employers. The school had arranged for this tournament with that in mind, or so I’d heard.

It appeared to be the case that if we showed off our talents in this tournament, there was a possibility that, during our sixth year, we’d receive an offer of employment from where we wanted to work.

I’m absolutely going to take FULL advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove myself!

“You don’t suppose that they decided our roommates based on this tournament in the first place?” Benjamine said.

“Hmmm, you think so? That would be kinda scary...” Nikeh said, crossing her arms with a sort of practiced extravagance upon hearing Benjamine’s words.

The tournament is tomorrow.

It was structured in a two-stage format: at first, all of the students would split up into groups that would contend against each other, and only students from the groups that were successful would move on to the solo battles that followed. The groups, speaking of which, were all made the same way: students from the same dorm room would be grouped together. In other words, me, Nikeh, and Benjamine would form one group.

“Well, we’ve done what we can about our magic... There’s no knowing what’s going to happen until tomorrow.”

“Benjamine... you’ve got a point.”

In order to face this new challenge to the maximum extent of our abilities, the three of us had trained together ever since we had entered our fifth year. After lessons were done for the day, almost all of the fifth-years had either practiced magic in the stadium, or crowded together in the library poring over spellbooks. Everyone had gotten all worked up as they tried to learn magic more powerful than what anyone else knew, and with that competitive studying, everyone glared at each other with flashes of anger when they made eye contact.

Nikeh had drenched me with her Water magic many times during our training sessions together, and Benjamine had singed my eyebrows from time to time as well. “Oh, sorry about that,” she had said, only to burn them again just a few seconds later. The longer our training sessions went on, the more I felt like I was receiving some sort of punishment.

The training was, just as it sounds, taking pieces of me with them every time it occurred.

“But Nikeh, the real thing I’m nervous about is fighting Rockmann’s group. I’d really rather not.”

“I don’t want to either, you know... Nanalie feels differently, I’m sure.”

“What? You say something about me? I don’t want to fight him either...” I muttered, half-heartedly.

“Quit lying!” Nikeh yelled as she threw her pillow at me.

At some point, all this turned into an opportunity to throw pillows at me...

“Hey! That hurt... Ahhh, but who cares about that! Tomorrow, I get to fight Rockmann. I am readyyy to rummmmmble!”

“Look, just as we thought.”

“Indeed.”

Ugh. Putting those two smug people aside. For all five years that I had been sitting next to him, I was, same as always, still locked in a rivalry with Rockmann. Recently, it had come to actual, physical blows between the two of us—one of us a boy, the other a girl—but I had already come to think of those scuffles as a type of training. I’m not sure if it’s okay to put it like this, but Rockmann was absolutely merciless when he fought me, so in a certain sense it was easy for me to answer in kind. Still pissed me off, though.

On top of that, he’d aim for the times after I’d finished training, when I was most tired, to come and attack me. My anger at him has not merely built up over time; it is primed and ready to explode. So that’s why I had tried to catch him off guard the last time he’d attacked me. I’d used a magical device designed to create traps to create a pitfall that had successfully trapped him. With his sudden disappearance from my line of sight, my rage had abated quite rapidly. With this, we are even. If he were to do something to get back at me now, I was determined to deal him a revenge ten times worse.

“You were, after all, second place again,” said Benjamine, jolting me out of my musings.

“Second place is fine, isn’t it?” Nikeh chimed in. “Why don’t you try sharing some of that intelligence with last-place Satanás for a change? That boy needs all the help he can get.”

“Nikeh, that’s an awful thing to say!”

At the test the other day, it had happened again... Ugh, I’m tired of even talking about it.

I had successfully gotten second place in the mid-term magical exams that had been held recently. Yes, “successfully.”

Let’s try thinking about it this way: I have what it takes to get second place. Not in either first or last place, but I am, in effect, the immobile guardian spirit of second place. Sometime in the future, after my death, my devoted worshipers might throw festivals in my honor, crying out “Long Live Lady Hel, Goddess of Second Place!”

But having said all that, I still think that first place is way cooler. No matter what I say to try to convince myself, I still hate being in second place.

I don’t want to be second-class. Why on earth would anyone want to become a devotee of the “Goddess of Second Place”? There’s no way I’m going to be able to stand being in second place until the day I die.

But beyond all that, what I want most is to crush the meaning of true defeat into that guy, that bastard, who once again took first place. Along with becoming a receptionist at Harré, I’ll become a better mage than he is, and I shall have my vengeance.

While I may be agonizing over being “eternally second place,” I am still in the top ranks of the class, even though I’ve never once taken first place in the rankings. Rockmann is always, always above me, so... No, that won’t do. If I acknowledge his superiority, the game is up and I will have lost.

Anyhow, I know that in order to become an employee at Harré, it’s not just my grades that are important. I am, after all, aspiring to be a receptionist, so it’s important that I’m skilled in clerical work and having good relationships with other people as well. My magical abilities are merely what will get my foot in the door, and everything I’d need beyond that involves things other than magic.

I am absolutely not giving up on taking first place, but once this tournament ends, it might be a good idea for me to expand my horizons. If I looked in the library for books that dealt with matters like clerical work or how to make good first impressions on other people, I’d likely find some.

But before I do that, Rockmann, you just watch me—tomorrow, we are going to clear those group competitions in a veritable flash, and we shall stand tall at the top of the rankings while you are somewhere below us, utterly crushed by your defeat.

“Let’s get to sleep now.”

“Yeah.”

Benjamine came over to me to retrieve her pillow and then went back to her bed. After I gave Nikeh’s pillow back to her, I wished them both good night, and they drifted off to sleep.

I extinguished the lamp on the nightstand next to my bed, and whispered to myself a small, quiet, “Good night, Nanalie.”

All 150 fifth-year students stood gathered in the center of the arena field.

In the seats surrounding the field, I could see many parents and VIPs in the audience. Just from a glance around, it looked as though around three or four hundred people had come. My parents, of course, were here. Some students from the other class years were also here to watch.

The arena was about half the size of the school building itself, and it had no roof. If the weather ever took a turn for the worse, the principal would create a transparent, defensive magical barrier over the arena that would protect us against rain, so even then we could still use it.

I’d very much like for the principal to teach me that particular spell someday.

“I think we’re all feeling a bit nervous today, don’t you think so, Lady Maris?”

“Oh my, nervous? If I allowed myself to get nervous, the competition would take me lightly. No matter when or where, one must act with full confidence in oneself.”

I heard the aristocratic girls’ conversation happening somewhere behind me. Right now, we were all lined up in our groups, waiting for the teachers to give further instructions. The aristocrat kids were in front of their parents and the VIPs, which was probably why they were dressed even sharper than usual. But it wasn’t a flashy sort of style—the clothes they wore possessed a sort of sophisticated grace. Nothing like the frilly dresses and long coats they had worn during our first year. Their attire looked easy to move around in, practically radiated an aura of nobility, and, it seemed, had been designed with an eye for functionality...

Anyway, it was obvious that all of them were taking this tournament completely seriously.

Us commoners, on the other hand, were wearing the same clothes that we always did. It had always been important for us to have clothes that were easy to move around in. Practice like it’s the real thing and the real thing will be like practice, in other words. So all we had done was wear the same clothes we wore while practicing. It wasn’t like we didn’t have any other clothes. We were just deadly serious about the whole affair.

Little Miss Maris, however, has said that my whole line of thinking was “simply an excuse” for not wearing anything different. Apparently the commoners’ determination to win hadn’t come across that clearly to the aristocrats.

“Look.”

I take a quick glance behind me and who, of all people, do I make eye contact with? Him.

Rockmann’s hair had grown longer and now reached down to his chest. It suited him, so I didn’t really mind, but the other day it had just irritated me, so I had said in a loud whisper, “Stupid idiot. You look like a freakin’ girl.” He had promptly burned off some of my own hair upon hearing me.

For some reason, it appears that I am fated to have my hair burned on a regular basis.

I thought I’d do something to piss him off, just because, and as a result of having done so many times for the past several years. I made a face at him and said “dummy!” sticking out my tongue. His reaction was unexpectedly mellow—he glared at me for just an instant before giving me a small smile and then turning away.

Flustered at Rockmann’s weird response, I turned back around to face the front.

One teacher stood in front of all of the fifth-year students. “Alright then everyone, we will be starting the Practical Combat Competition now. The competition will be held as we discussed the other day. First, you’ll be competing against each other in groups to complete a specific task. Following that are the one-on-one matches. But we don’t have time to have all one hundred and fifty of you fight against each other in pairs, so we’re only going to have members from the groups who successfully clear the group challenge move on to the solo fights. Are we clear?”

The teacher looked out over all of us from atop the stage where he stood.

“I’m just going to say this one more time, okay? If your group doesn’t make it through the group matches, you won’t move on to the solo fights.”

The teacher had, quite carefully, repeated himself.

For him to have held one hand in the air and repeated himself so seriously, he must have thought he was saying something extremely important, I guess?

“Now then, we’re going to have the boys and girls split up and do the group matches separately. Let’s start with the girls. The boys can watch from over there.”

All of us, boys and girls, had lined up according to our dorm rooms. Now we did as the teacher had instructed. All of the boys moved to the seats in the arena, and the remaining seventy-five girls split up into twenty-five groups that remained on the field.

In such a large arena, our group of seventy-five looked tiny.

“Commoner girls! Do your best!”

“Hel, don’t go losing now, you hear!”

“Show them the true power of the aristocracy!”

“Watching girls fight is always a thrill, don’t you think?”

All of the boys, who were now sitting in their seats, were looking at us with amused expressions.

Must be nice to be just a spectator.

“Huh? Am I shaking?”

I had been looking over at the seats without a care in my mind when all of a sudden, I felt like something had, ever so slightly, shook me where I stood.

Had I just been shaking out of nerves? Probably not.

It wasn’t me that had shook, it had felt like the ground was shaking.

“Hey, Nikeh—”

“Alright then, the first task the girls need to do is...”

“AAHHHHHHHH!”

Before the teacher could finish speaking, both of my friends, Benjamine and Nikeh, had started screaming.

“Nikeh? Benjamine?”

Vines of fire exploded out of the ground. They instantly grabbed my two friends, twisted around their limbs and held them up, suspended in the air. They showed no sign of coming after me.

The slight shaking earlier must have been an omen of their arrival.

“Are you guys okay?!”

Both had their arms tied up and were unable to move. Furthermore, Nikeh wasn’t good with heat, and her face was twisted up in discomfort. Even though she should have been hot, I could see her face turning blue, as if all the blood were draining away from her head. Benjamine was a Fire-type, so she appeared to have some resistance to the effects of the vines, but it didn’t change the fact that they were quite hot. She didn’t look happy at all.

All of the other groups were in the same situation as us—two out of three group members had been taken by the vines and hung suspended in the air.

“Haha, look at all of them hanging in the air like that.”

One of the teachers was holding a book he’d pulled out from somewhere and looking at us like he was enjoying himself.

He was freakin’ laughing. What a total brute!

“Teacher! Whatever is the meaning of all this?” someone from Maris’s group shouted. She was watching Maris, who seemed to be about to burst into tears as she hung up there in the air.

“This is your first task.”

“This is a task?”

Everyone looked at the teacher, confused.

“Two of your friends are being held captive right before your eyes. You can use magic to cut through the vines, but you can safely save only one. If you save both of them, the vines will retaliate and come for you. The vines are designed to burn. You won’t die, but it will be pretty hot. You have five minutes. In that time, use your magic to rescue your friends. Oh, by the way—for those who are trapped in the flames, it’s pointless to try to escape. The King himself has put his powerful magic to use in creating them.”

Everyone glanced up at where the royal family sat. I could see the King waving down to us with a smile on his face. So Prince Zenon’s father, the King of Doran, had used his own Fire magic to make these vines. It was rather intimidating to think about. I’d never seen the King’s magic for myself, but I had heard him referred to as the kingdom’s best mage. Those vines probably wouldn’t be severed very easily.

“So we save one of them, but what about the other kids who are left?”

“We’ll have them withstand the heat of the flames for a brief while, but their lives are not at risk. Their skin may be a bit burned, however... Once released, head to that place up there.”

The teacher pointed at the sky. I looked up and saw that at some point, a large, floating glass platform had materialized in the air above the arena.

“If you reach that platform, you’ll have achieved this task, and will proceed onto the solo fights. Hey, everyone, quit making those faces at me. Once five minutes pass, they’ll be released from the flames. Relax.”

“Relax,” he says. Even though he just said their skin might get burnt.

“Why, that’ll just be a piece of cake, won’t it?”

“Cutting the vines... sounds difficult, but if I don’t do it quickly, they’ll burn.”

The kids still on the ground, aristocrats and commoners alike, spoke to each other in strained voices.

“Those vines were created from the King’s magic, right? And... wait, did he say they’d be burned?”

You didn’t mishear that. The teacher had just said as much.

But really, would burns be all they had from the flames at the end of those five minutes?

Those of us not trapped by the vines looked at our own group members.

Due to Rockmann constantly blasting me with fire, it’d seemed like I was the one suffering from burns myself all the time, but in those instances I had usually had a teacher who specialized in healing magic fix me up, so my burns hadn’t developed into anything serious. I was really quite grateful to that teacher who had always healed my wounds, without even the slightest trace of a scar. One time, when my injuries had been a little more serious than usual, she’d gotten quite angry with me. “Miss Nanalie?! Why! You’re a girl, so you really need to stop all this rough-and-tumble!” It was a good memory.

So that’s why, in my opinion, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if everyone ended up with a few injuries because of the vines.

“Alright then everyone, best of luck in the next five minutes.”

The teacher lifted up the book he was holding in his hands, opened it, and showed the pages to us.

If I looked closely, I could see “5.10” in large writing on the page. The “10” portion changed to 9, to 8, and so on, counting down to zero.

Is this the timer? Is that showing how much time we have left?

When the number 10 had counted down to 1, the book floated up into the air and took the shape of a round clock. There was no second hand, only the long minute hand.

My father and mother were here today. I couldn’t spot them sitting in the arena seats, but they had come all this way to see me compete, so there was no way I was going to show them anything that made me look like a loser. Next to the royal family, in the area where the Knight Commander and the other aristocrats were sitting, a VIP from Harré was also seated, so I couldn’t allow my mind to wander.

Even if that hadn’t been the case, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to relax, but still.

“Begin.”

Our five minutes had begun.

At the teacher’s signal, all twenty-five of the unrestrained girls went into spellcasting mode. I, of course, was one of those twenty-five. If we didn’t cut through the vines quickly, we wouldn’t be able to pass on to the next stage, and even after freeing our group members we still had to carry them up to the glass panel floating above us. Within the five minutes we had been given, the time we had to both move and carry our group members with us was limited.

This task. Less of a group assignment, and more of a pass-fail test of the judgment and skill of the remaining twenty-five girls still standing. If our group failed, it would, of course, be my responsibility.

...Ugh. I did not want to think about that.

If we failed, Benjamine would be throwing something much harder than a pillow at me.

That red hair of hers looked like it was already on fire. I could easily imagine her exploding in fiery rage at me if we failed.

“What should I do?”

The teacher had told us to sever the vines, but there was a decision we had to make before we did that. It wasn’t going to be a quick decision to make.

I looked at the group next to ours. Miss Maris held out both hands in her spellcasting stance, but she wasn’t moving.

“‘Pick one,’ he said, as if that’s supposed to be easy. They’re both my friends. This isn’t going to be easy at all.”

Miss Maris sounded like she was in pain as she spat out those words, even though she wasn’t the one covered in flames. She, of course, also had friends who were important to her. They were girls who had spent the whole past five years living in the same room—girls who were to her like Nikeh and Benjamine were to me. It wasn’t unusual for her to be vacillating; it was exactly what you’d expect.

The sleeves on Miss Maris’s fine red dress are shaking.

“Nanalie.”

I could hear Benjamine’s voice through the blazing flames.

“...Nanalie.”

Faintly, I could hear Nikeh’s ragged, pained voice as well.

It seemed that around half of the groups had already chosen one or the other to save and had left the area, leaving the other girl to the flames.

It looked very painful. It must have been hot inside those flames.

If I didn’t act soon, the two captured members in my group would soon succumb to heat exhaustion. The teacher had also said something about “skin burning,” so while he had gone on to say that they would receive healing treatment afterwards, the girls being burned were, right now, feeling that intense heat and the accompanying pain.

I looked up to see the time on the clock floating in the air above the stadium. We had three minutes left.

“Is it that time already?”

The teacher had said that the power of the King flowed through these vines, but severing them didn’t seem to require sophisticated spellwork. I had thought it might be a multi-step procedure using different spells in succession, but that turned out not to be the case. I had just seen a girl rescue one of her group members from the vines by simply cutting through them and then carrying the girl up into the sky.

“But I want to save both of them.”

I needed to pick one or the other.

Even on a normal day, Nikeh was bad with heat. No matter which one I picked, I doubted the other would complain about it later.

Benjamine was a Fire-type, but given the fact that she couldn’t use magic right now, she was just as defenseless as Nikeh. It didn’t change the fact that the flames still felt hot to her, and like any other person, her skin might get burned.

“...”

I’m good at studying.

I don’t dislike learning new things, and just knowing more stuff tends to be helpful in a lot of different situations.

The reason I’ve worked so hard in my magic studies is because what I learn will be necessary for what I want to do in the future. It was nothing more or less than that. If I had to say whether I had any malice in my motivation to learn magic, it would be that I simply wanted to crush that Fire Fool. That was about it.

“Nanalie?”

“Prost.” (Frost Armor.)

Once I say the incantation, a layer of frost covers my body and clothing. Every part of my body, from the tips of my toes to the top of my head, and every place with exposed skin is covered with it.

This was a spell I had recently learned from the Ice-type teacher I worked with. I tend to be attacked with some kind of fiery assault on a regular basis, and I had muttered a complaint about that fact at some point during our lesson, wondering aloud if there weren’t some way to defend myself. The teacher had suggested this spell, and that had led to me mastering and using it now. Controlling such a fine layer of frost was a delicate operation; if I messed up the spell, it was quite possible that I’d freeze the deeper layers of my skin. The teacher had taken a great deal of time ensuring that I had learned it properly.

In the end, it had turned out that the only Ice-type in my grade level was me. It seemed like there were a few more in other grade levels, but even so, Ice-type kids were in extremely small numbers. For every magic type lesson, the students would split up according to type, so as a result every single lesson was just me and the teacher working with each other. I had felt lonely at the prospect of studying alone, but because I was the only student I got a great deal of personal attention, so now I had begun to be glad about it. I was also glad that my elemental affinity was the complete opposite of his.

“You, you aren’t thinking of...?”

Miss Maris, still in her spellcasting stance, looked over at me covered in my frost armor.

“You’re torn, aren’t you, Maris?”

“What?”

I take a step back and try to think once again about what exactly this task is forcing us to do.

I thrust out both of my hands at my two friends in front of me.

“Pagano.” (Freeze.)

The flame vines holding the two of them froze over.

I take one hand and twist it around to direct the spell at all of the other girls who were still trapped in the vines. The magic flowed out to cover a wide area and froze all that I wished it to. Forcing it to freeze only certain things took a good deal of concentration and skill. Even though my body was covered in frost, sweat dripped from my forehead.

I absolutely had to avoid freezing all of the girls by accident.

“Nanalie!”

“Nanalie?! Don’t do that!”

Benjamine and Nikeh are shouting at me, but I pay them no mind.

This is ice against fire, and as ice is on the attack, I’m the perfect match for this situation. The more time goes by, the happier I am that my type is Ice.

“You’re going to be burned to a crisp! Stop!”

All of the vines have frozen, cracking under the weight of the ice. With a snap, I disintegrate them all. The instant they disappear, my two friends fall towards the ground, so I cast a levitation spell to keep them in the air.

Apparently all of the vines I had tried to freeze had been successfully covered in ice, and all the other girls who had been left alone, struggling in the vines, were lying on the ground.

“Enough! I’m gonna use a levitation spell to send us flying all the way up there, so just hold tight!”

If I was mistaken in what I was thinking, we might, in rather short order, fail to proceed to the next stage of the tournament.

But to complete the task by saving just one of them and then abandoning the other was something that sounded awful. There’s no way I’d be happy by doing that. Sure, I’d be happy to get that recommendation for employment at Harré, but to get it at the price of abandoning one of my friends? My dream job wasn’t worth becoming an awful person.

But if I failed to pull this off, I’d have done something bad to both of them as well. In that case, I decided, I’d allow them to throw their pillows at me, as much as they wanted.

“The teacher said I wouldn’t be able to rescue you both safely! But really, that’s all he meant—I wouldn’t be able to pull this off without endangering myself as well. But without saving both of you, we fail! We have to go up there as a group!”

Flames were slowly beginning to cover my legs. I’d saved both of them, so of course the flames would come after me. I’d even cut up the vines holding other people. I’d somehow managed to cover my whole body in frost, but it was melting and evaporating. Perhaps I wasn’t as skilled with this spell as I’d thought. Or rather, the power behind these vines was the King’s himself, so that was probably part of it.

But mysteriously, they weren’t all that hot. If I had to say which was hotter, it was certainly Rockmann’s fire, the barbarian that he was. Subconsciously, I must have been training my mental resistance to heat during those fights with him.

Nikeh and Benjamine were both looking like they were about to cry as they watched me burning in the flames. I hadn’t gone to the trouble of saving them at the same time just for them to make those faces at me. I certainly hadn’t intended to make two beautiful girls cry.

It seemed as if they were trying to levitate me as well. When they turned their hands towards me, however, I could see traces of the burns from the vines still red on their skin.

I slowly lifted them towards the glass platform above us.

“Nanalie!”

“This is just a little singe! A weak flame like this isn’t going to kill me, and Rockmann’s flames are hotter anyway!”

It hadn’t been my intention to do so, but at some point I’d gotten used to the heat. It’s all because Rockmann had... (Rest of Complaining Omitted.)

“Hnh—! Karomagia Zohon!” (Summon Magical Creature.)

I made a circle with the forefinger and thumb on my left hand and waved my hand to the side. With a pop, Lala appeared right in front of me. I think she was larger than she usually was because I’d wanted her to be bigger. The white wolf looked at me and barked.

“Master! What is the meaning of this?!”

“Lala, take me... up there.”

Ignoring the heat, Lala rubbed her face against mine. “Understood!”

Lala crystallized her whole body and placed herself under me so that I was riding her. I wrapped my hands around her neck and collapsed onto her back. One of the abilities that comes with Lala’s crystallization is that she is totally invulnerable to any attack, so the flames around me caused her no harm.

She ignored the fiery vines that clung to me and leapt into the sky with ease.

My hair was slowly burning up right before my eyes with a snap crackle pop. It was totally the wrong place and time, but I found myself worrying about what I would do if I went bald. The frost had fallen away already, and as I was using my remaining power to levitate my two friends, I wasn’t able to use any more magic to shield myself from the flames at the same time.

There’s no way this could be happening! I hadn’t predicted it at all, but if my hair went on burning up like this, it’d all turn to ash! My hair had turned blue, but recently I’d finally grown to like it... and my hair was being burned up all the way to the roots.

No, no, no! I can’t go bald! I can’t take it!

“Ughhhhh...”

My hair is, for some reason, destined to go up in flames no matter what I do, it seems.

About two minutes later, the teacher signaled that it was over.

I had kept my eyes closed ever since we had arrived at the glass platform floating up in the sky. Now I opened them at the sensation of the heat disappearing. The flames that had covered me slowly faded away until they were finally gone. Without those flames, my body felt so good that I almost found myself relaxing, but the wind against my skin stung too much for that.

“Benjamine, the fire’s gone!”

“Nanaliiie!”

Right after we’d arrived on the platform I’d collapsed on the spot, and so wasn’t exactly looking around to see what was happening around me. Now I could see Nikeh and Benjamine beside me, looking as though they had both been holding my hands the entire time despite the heat. Lala was sitting next to them.

My skin hadn’t been crisped black, but it had been burned to a brilliant white, as if my skin had turned inside out. It hadn’t hurt until I’d looked at it, but when I did, I felt pain lancing through my body in flashes and waves. Even the weak breeze caused an agonizing pain.

“I’d said I wouldn’t forgive you if you held us back, but to push yourself this far! Stupid!”

“I-I’m sor-ry, Nanalie. I tried to ease the flames but my Water didn’t have any effect on them. I’m sorry.”

Benjamine’s and Nikeh’s hands were white with burns as well. When I saw their injuries, I forgot my own pain for a moment and felt myself about to cry. These two beautiful girls had delicate, pale hands that had been ruined with bright red blisters. How am I going to apologize to their parents for my mistake? Perhaps I should say something like, “I shall take full responsibility for their future health and happiness, so please allow me to take them as my brides.”...No, I couldn’t say that; their parents would just tell me to stop screwing around. I guess I wouldn’t be doing that. It seemed like it would be better to assign Satanás to take care of Benjamine anyway.

“I am here to heal the injured; please let me through!”

I heard the healing teacher’s voice as she headed straight towards our group.

The teacher gently removed the hands of the other two girls from my own and led them away towards other teachers who had come after her. When she came back to me, she got on her knees and took a look at my face.

“It’s alright, I’ll heal you now,” she said.

“Tea-cher...” I whispered.

“Oh no, your pretty face has turned into... I’ll begin right away. This girl spent the most time within the flames so she’s top priority.”

The teacher grimaced and gently placed her hands on my brow. A wind different from the usual sort flowed from the teacher’s fingers. It was a wind that even if it brushed against my skin did not hurt in the slightest. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was the teacher’s healing magic. Perhaps because I was always having her heal me, I finally felt able to relax.

As I let out a relieved sigh, the teacher instantly launched into lecturing mode and began muttering things like “You’re a girl, so you really shouldn’t be doing things like this...” Am I really being lectured right now? That’s the last thing I need. My mother was the only person I needed to scold me for this, that, and the other thing.

What she said to me next, however, was quite unexpected.

“But Nanalie, really, you did very well.”

“I, did...?”

Behind the teacher I could see both Nikeh and Benjamine getting their wrists and arms healed by another teacher. What a relief.

“Now then, I shall announce the groups that have passed.”

While I was in the middle of getting healed, I heard the amplified voice of the teacher who had given us this challenge reverberate around the stadium.

That’s right. I’d been so distracted by my injuries that I hadn’t thought to ask if we had passed the challenge or not.

I take a deep breath, listen closely, and shut my eyes.

“The groups with Sally Bonne, Maris Kyarominz, Nanalie Hel, and Kara Yakkurin as members have passed this challenge. Only they and the other two members from their groups will proceed to the next stage.”

And with that, he finished speaking.

My name was written among others on a large paper floating in the air above the arena. Those were the names of all group members that had passed.

I look around for Maris as I remain lying down on the ground. If she had passed, she should be nearby.

I couldn’t move my neck due to the pain, but by shifting my gaze, I could see a girl that looked like her lying on the ground, the same as me.

It seemed strange to me at first that her red dress didn’t seem at all burnt, but I looked more closely at her limbs and saw bright red burns covering her arms and legs as she lay there in agony.

Miss Maris had apparently saved both of her group members as well.

“Teacher, please wait! What about us?”

The girls who had been first to escape to the platform began to air their objections to what the teacher had said.

“I made myself very clear, didn’t I? The groups that didn’t complete the challenge wouldn’t move on to the next stage. Maybe it wasn’t possible to save both of them safely, but it was possible. I never said anything about ‘if you save one of them you pass.’ I very clearly said that you needed to save your friends.”

“That is not fair!”

The teacher had indeed said that we wouldn’t be able to “safely” rescue both of them, and he had also said nothing suggesting that we would pass if we saved just one of them. He had been quite insistent and repeated himself: “Alright, I’m gonna say this again, okay? The groups that don’t pass won’t move onto the next stage.” And then after that, in the midst of explaining the challenge, he’d said, “If you can make it up there you pass.”

“Group” meant all three members. If one of the members was abandoned and didn’t come up to the platform with the others, that wouldn’t be considered a “group” success.

“Some of you aspire to be sorcerers. There are also those of you who will enter the Order of Knights, or inherit roles in a great house in the future.”

The teacher had once again begun speaking in a loud voice.

“From now on, what will you do when your friends or important people are taken as hostages? It’s important to be able to understand the motivations behind your opponents’ demands, but this wasn’t that kind of situation. I’m not telling you to be overconfident in your own abilities, but with the limited possibilities you have for rescue, will you be able to choose one and leap into action?

“It seemed like the four unbound individuals from the groups that passed were confused at first, but following Hel’s example, all of them made the final decision to put themselves in danger. Those decisions are why we have the results we do. This challenge was certainly a test of magical ability, but the real goal was as I said earlier—for the adults who are gatekeeping the paths to your desired future to see you, the real you.”

He must be referring to the Royal Knight Commander and the other members of the nobility.

Oh, I suppose that there’s that Harré person for me.

“There are times when it’s necessary to be strong enough to abandon one’s allies, but for this challenge, we wanted you to show that you had the strength to save your friends. The ones who were captured might not have been able to do anything about how this all turned out, and for that, I’m sorry. For those groups whose members were seduced by the prospect of a false success and made their cruel decision to abandon a member—I declare them, now, to have failed this challenge.”

As the teacher had finished speaking, I closed my eyes again and released my grip on consciousness.

Before I closed my eyes, I saw that the sky above the stadium was a pure, beautiful blue.

I feel like I’m about to cry.

“Nanalie Hel, congratulations on taking first place.”

That moment I’ve been waiting and waiting for has finally arrived.

That supreme number that I had sought all the while during these past five years. The holy number. God’s number. “First place,” that title I’d been awarded not even once since entering school, was at last right before me.

I’m glad I’d worked so hard to get here. I’d been seen bearing the title of “second place,” sobbing as I stood next to him, but after this no one would ever be able to call me “Hel of the Eternal Second Place” ever again. It’s not like anyone had called me that to my face, but I know what people went around whispering about behind my back.

But I no longer have to worry about any of that.

After all, I’m first place.

“Now then, for the boys: Alois Rockmann, you are in first place. Congratulations.”

Applause breaks out. “Thank you very much,” says Rockmann, who is standing beside me.

I am now standing on the arena’s award stage. Only those who got first place in the solo tournaments were allowed to come up here.

The view was great from atop the platform, and I could see the whole arena from here. I could spot where my father and mother were sitting in the stands. They were able to see me when I made a really exaggerated wave with my hand, and they waved back. Below the award stage stood all of the fifth-year students. I could pick out Nikeh, Benjamine, and Maris easily.

Next to me, Rockmann is being given a golden egg from the teacher. This golden egg is a very interesting little object. If we warm it up with some hot water, one item, whatever we want, will come out from inside. But the item has to be something that could fit inside the egg, so we were limited in the size of things we could wish for—relatively small items. It was a rather miserly prize, if you ask me.

I look at the egg I hold in my own hands. I’m trembling.

Why, why, why—

“WHY ARE BOYS AND GIRLS NOT RANKED TOGETHER?!”

If we have separate rankings then it’s all completely meaningless!

The teachers had never said a word about boys and girls being ranked separately!

He had the nerve to tell me to “shut up” after I complained.

“Bu-but—”

Yes, I had taken first place, fair and square.

But in an unexpected turn of events, the girls and boys were separated for the solo spars, same as for the earlier group challenge.

Why was it like this? There was no way I was going to be able to say that I’d really gotten first place in a situation like this. Our teacher had said something about how nice it was that I’d gotten first place, probably thinking I was tearing up because I’d never gotten first place before, but I felt like crying for a different reason. I really, really wanted to cry.

Ever since I’d become a fifth-year, I’d spent day after day training for this moment when I’d finally defeat Rockmann and take first place, but with the tournament being structured as it was, my whole plan had gone to waste. I’d thought that I’d not only defeat that idiot, but stand out from the rest and appeal to the VIP from Harré that way, but now...

I don’t think that I made a poor impression by being ranked number one for the girls, but it still didn’t sit right with me.

It was, of course, frustrating to lose to him, but to be praised like I had won even though I was still losing was simply insulting. I hadn’t won anything at all.

I didn’t think that I was losing to him in the slightest, but when everyone took a look at the grades we’d both received thus far, the only way of looking at the situation was that “Hel of the Eternal Second Place” had merely become first place for the girls.

“Thanks, Teacher.”

“Don’t go pushing yourself that hard again, okay?”

After all that.

After we had finished the group challenge, the healing teacher had somehow completely healed every injury I had. Her magic was really amazing. I could use healing magic myself, but I couldn’t handle it as well as she could. The way that she had taken those scary-looking burns and made them disappear entirely so that my skin looked exactly as it had before was nothing less than the work of a goddess.

Following that, I had remained lying down on the bed for a while, but I returned to the arena around the time the boys’ group challenge was ending. It seemed that Miss Maris and the other girls had gone back before me, and when I’d realized that I was alone in the first aid room I had panicked a little.

I’d lectured myself for such carelessness. Just how long do you plan on sleeping here?

I hurried over to the doors leading to the arena and opened them. I, who had not known what sort of challenge the boys had been tasked with completing, was shocked at the sight that greeted me once I found my way back to my seat.

For some reason, half of the boys—no, more than half of them—were lying on the ground nude. (They were still wearing their underwear.) It felt like I had stumbled upon a Nudist Festival.

Yet again, I felt a sudden dizziness at having somehow joined a party, all quite unexpectedly.

“Give it up, aristocrats!”

“You’re the one who needs to give up, you COMMONER!”

Um, what was going on? Why were they all in their underwear? Weren’t they supposed to be completing the challenge?

What’s all this? I’d moved over to where Nikeh and Benjamine were and asked them what the heck was going on.

They answered by saying that the boys’ group challenge “seemed to be something where they had to try to take everything their opponents had on them without using magic (except for their underwear).” If two or more group members were stripped to their underwear, those groups were disqualified.

Satanás was yelling at one of the noble boys. “I’m gonna take those expensive clothes and wear them myselfffff!!!”

No way. This is absurd. Surely this is all a joke. What on earth is the point?

The challenge us girls had completed had held quite a bit of meaning, which seemed very different from what was going on with the boys right now. Why would the teachers want to have the “gatekeepers” of the boys’ futures watch this spectacle? Was the point to have them see their burly bodies? What were they thinking?

Then there was the fact that this was a tournament where magic was supposed to be used—what was the intention behind not letting them use magic? After all, removing your opponent’s clothing actually required a fair bit of skill, didn’t it? The commoner clothing wasn’t easy, but the coats and shirts and vests and whatever else the aristocrats were wearing, especially the pants, weren’t going to be removed that easily. If you landed a punch on your opponent strong enough to knock them out, I could see how it was done, but still.

“What a complete disgrace,” said one of the nearby noble girls.

“Oh, but those muscles...” said another.

The noble girls were blushing and covering their eyes with their hands, but it seemed that they were peeking out from the gaps between their fingers to watch. At the sight of the nude boys, their masked identities as “ladies” had completely fallen away.

And then—“AHHH! Sir Alois!”

Without thinking, I looked back at the arena field when one of the girls next to me shouted his name.

He was there, trying to pull Satanás’s clothes off of him.

The very same voices that had been cheering for Rockmann until just a few moments ago suddenly switched to chanting, “Satanás! Finish him off!”

Ladies, please, why do you want to see him in the nude that badly?

He wasn’t getting stripped, but rather he was punching Satanás so hard all over his body that it looked as if he was punching holes in his opponent. It was kind of amusing to see him that desperate.

Among all the other voices I heard Benjamine’s join the chorus, only she was cheering on Rockmann: “Rockmann! Take off his clothes! You must take off his clothes!”

Does she really want to see him nude that badly?

Anyhow, there was no mistaking that the spectacle before me was a confused, chaotic mess.

Prince Zenon appeared to be a master at chasing and undressing people, because every boy that came after him was stripped in short order. He was untouchable. The Prince and Rockmann shared the same room, so they were in the same group. I didn’t think it was likely that their group would fail the challenge.

The groups who cleared the challenge turned out to be only Satanás’s and the Prince’s groups.

But that means there are only six boys moving onto the solo battles. That seems rather few.

The nude boys who had passed out were lying in the center of the arena. I quietly put my hands together, as if in prayer, and thought of them. None of you have done anything wrong. The bad people are the teachers who made you do this challenge. It wasn’t so bad that the commoners had participated, but for the noble boys to have been stripped to their underwear as well...?

If complaints from the families of the undressed came later, I would not be taking any responsibility for this farce.

Then came the real problem—the solo fights.

The teacher had, unexpectedly, come out and said: “Boys, girls, we’re splitting you up for the solo battles.” I doubted what I had just heard.

Wait—did he just say that us girls are doing them separate from the boys?

Come on, what’s the deal with that? It was ridiculous. For us to have come this far together, only for our fights to be separated. These battles that we’d have weren’t with our fists, but fights using magic. There should have been no difference whether one’s opponent was a boy or a girl in that case.

But upon reflecting more deeply on the matter, I realized that when he had been explaining what we were doing during the Practical Combat Competitions, he hadn’t said anything about separating boys and girls, but neither had he said anything about pitting us against each other in the competitions.

“I jumped to the wrong conclusion?!”

Even so, I’d been totally unable to accept this new reality and began immediately objecting, but he had laughed with an “a-ha-ha” and paid me no mind. The solo battles had been fought separately. The results of such battles had resulted in me becoming first for the girls, and Rockmann first for the boys.

“No more. Quiet already,” said Rockmann.

“But, but... the only thing I had thought about was getting the chance to fight you!”

A tiny screech! sounds out on the podium. I’ve tried to sink my teeth into the golden egg in frustration, but they are quite hard.

The battles with the other girls hadn’t been boring or anything, and both Nikeh and Benjamine had been formidable opponents. I had almost had my hair burnt off again by Benjamine at one point, while Nikeh had shown me no mercy when I had seemed about to drown in her water.

But I had always had confidence in myself that I’d never lose to anyone, and so I had never felt like losing. I’m just going to say this to make it clear here, but this type of thinking wasn’t overconfidence in my own abilities. It was just a visualization strategy. If I thought I was going to lose, I would, and I’d never get beyond that.

Rockmann had been locked in tight battles with both Prince Zenon and Satanás, but as anyone could see, he had still managed to reign supreme in first place.

“Alright, well in that case, once this is all over I’ll come and punch you, so wait for me.”

“As if I would!”

“So you feel like running away?”

“I’m not running away!”

It’s not that I want to hit him, it’s just that I wanted to completely defeat him on a formally sanctioned occasion like this.

I’d forgotten that everyone was paying attention to us standing there atop the stage, and we’d begun arguing. Standing next to Rockmann, who was much taller than me, I realized that to everyone around us it must look like I’m some mouse trying to latch onto him. Dammit, my neck hurts. Why is this guy so tall? Perhaps it’s not entirely due to genetics, but my own father is, quite frankly, not that tall.

I didn’t have as pretty a face as he did, I’d lost out to him in the height department, and not only was this guy super popular with the ladies, he was both intelligent and skilled in the use of magic.

...Hold on a second, I’m not beating him in anything beyond grades, either.

“Now now, Nanalie, stop fighting here.”

The teacher had gotten angry at us.

“Oh, uh, sure.”

“Rockmann, don’t try to rile her up.”

“...Why am I also being lectured here?”

“If we don’t finish this ceremony, the VIPs can’t go home. Anyway, what do you two want to do after graduating?”

Speaking of which, neither the King nor the Queen Consort had gone home yet. I’d wondered if it was indeed the case that they couldn’t go home until the ceremony finished, but after hearing the teacher’s words, I realize well and good that this is my fault.

Sorry for postponing your return home. We had a pointless argument, please excuse us.

“I’m going to enter the Royal Order of the Knights.”

“I want to be a receptionist at Harré.”

“Huh?”

Our teacher had known about my desire for a while so he didn’t appear surprised, but Rockmann hadn’t heard the reason why I’d entered this school nor what I wanted to become upon leaving it, and because of that, he had on a shocked expression that looked more stupid than anything I’d ever seen. It seemed like I could just fill his gaping mouth with ice and he’d still be making that face. That’s how weird it was. But even his stupid-surprised face was kinda good-looking. It suited him.

I had certainly been focused on going around telling everyone that I wanted to be ranked number one, and simply hadn’t ever spoken about the future with anyone. Nikeh had said she was going to join the knights, while Benjamine had said she’d become a sorcerer. But whenever I had been asked what I, generally, wanted to do, I’d respond with the rather unclear answer of, “I can’t think about that until I’ve beat Rockmann!” Well, perhaps it wasn’t that unclear, but I’d always shifted the topic of conversation in that direction, and likely had never told anyone about anything else.

No, it wasn’t merely “likely” that I’d never told anyone. I was sure.

“Receptionist...? You go working on your magic that much, but you want to be a receptionist?”

“Yeah, got a problem with that?”

I’d heard from Miss Maris that Rockmann had wanted to join the Knights or something, so I wasn’t surprised at all. But the way he said “receptionist” made it sound like he was underestimating just what, exactly, the job involved. When it came to things like this, spoiled, rich brats understood nothing.

“Right now, right here, I am prepared to send those places recommendation letters for both of you.”

The teacher turned to us and handed us each a sheet of paper.

My name was written right there at the top, and after skimming through the text I understood what the rest of it said.

“To the Director of the Sorcerer’s Guild of Harré Mooren, the Honorable Theodora Locktiss. Doran’s Royal School of Magic would like to recommend one of our students set to graduate next year, Nanalie Hel, to become an employee of your company. This student is highly capable, and we believe that she would be a great asset to you and your company. We look forward to you conducting an optimistic review of her abilities, and hope for your goodwill and cooperation in this matter.”

And that’s how’d I’d interpret the meaning of the letter.

This was, essentially, a recommendation letter to become an employee at Harré?

“Teacher, is this—?”

“Both of your desired places of employment saw your fighting today and told me they’d absolutely want to have you come and work with them following graduation. That’s why I was able to make these so quickly.”

“Hooray!!!”

I, I-I-I can’t believe it!

I won a recommendation letter to Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Harré!

I feel all of the uncertainty and stress that had piled up till now disappear instantly. I’d never dreamed that I’d be able to have him write me up a recommendation letter this early.

So this meant that I was receiving a recommendation letter for Harré, and Rockmann was getting one for the Order of the Knights? I tried to take a sneaky glance at his paper, but he must have noticed me doing so, because he instantly blocked my view by covering the paper. He was a little too sharp-sighted for his own good.

“During your sixth year, if your intentions remain the same, you will begin studying from materials sent to you by your future workplace. I’m not giving you permission to slack off on your other studies during your sixth year, but just try to do as much as you can and it’ll be all good, okay?”

“Yes, sir!”

I descend from the stage with Rockmann and join the rest of the students.

Upon looking up towards the seats of the royal family, it seemed like they were just then leaving, and everyone else around them was shuffling in a little, awkward dance as they moved up and then back down in their seats. All of the parents and guardians of the students who’d sat there watching their children from morning until evening must have been so tired. I wanted my mother and father to hurry up and go home and rest. I’d be able to see them again during the next long vacation, and once I’d graduated, I’d be returning home, so I didn’t feel sad to see them leave.

“Congratulations, Nanalie.”

I’d gotten back to where my friends were standing, and Satanás and Nikeh and the others had all come up wanting to touch the egg. I smiled and gave my permission. Benjamine, for some reason, did the same thing that I had done earlier and bit into it. “What are you doing?” I’d asked her, and she’d said that the egg had “looked hard, and so she’d felt like biting it.” She really did seem to like hard things.

“Thanks.”

In this manner, my fifth year went on.

But at the end of the year, I was only able to get second place, again.

In first place was, of course, Alois Rockmann.

I had finally become a sixth-year student.

I was eighteen years old, and graduation was coming up soon. From the beginning of the year, I and everyone else had started taking steps to prepare for our new lives after graduation.

Miss Maris said that she was in line to inherit her family’s title of “Marquise,” so once she graduated she would be going back to her “real life” as an aristocrat. She’d told me that she would have her parents teach her how to manage her family’s territory and various other things she would need to know for her role as Marquise. “I’m the only future ‘Marquise’ here, you know,” she’d told me. And it seemed that all the other noble girls would go back home and spend their days enjoying parties and having fun.

But should a war or other conflict break out, they were expected to do their part in defending the realm, so they would continue their training in magic at home. Maris had told me that the at-home magic training that the other noble girls would do was considered one form of “homemaking” that they’d need to master before marriage.

“I’ll become a sorcerer, same as my parents.”

Benjamine had told me she’d begin her new life as a sorcerer. She’d spent the long vacation accompanying her parents to Harré, and it seemed that she’d kept herself quite busy learning the basics of getting rid of demons by taking on simple assignments.

“It’s the Royal Knights for me.”

Nikeh was going to enlist in the Kingdom’s Royal Order of Knights, so she spent day and night strength training or honing her magical abilities. Sometimes I’d train with her. The last time we’d done that, we’d sparred until we’d given each other a good beating.

Nikeh had gradually stopped holding back in our fights, so it had actually been quite fun to spar with her. The entrance exam for the Order had been held just last week, and we still hadn’t heard back about the results. Regardless of whether she’d passed or failed the test, the results would, without fail, be delivered to the school, so throughout the whole week, Benjamine and I had been watching over her with bated breath every time we checked the mailbox.

For me, the school had sent a recommendation of employment letter to Harré during my fifth year, and they had accepted it unconditionally, so I was set to start working there after graduation. I’d had them send me materials related to the actual work I’d be doing for them at the beginning of the year, and I’d been trying to commit as much as I could to memory, along with the rest of my sixth-year studies.

When I looked at the reference materials, I noticed that right at the top was written: “Harré is a place that offers work for sorcerers.” I had, of course, already known that.

The first paragraph described the main duties I’d be performing on the job. First, I’d need to manage all the information clients gave us regarding the job they wanted performed. Then I’d need to check to make sure that all of the details of the assignments were described in the request, and verify each one with the client. Following that, if it was a request for an exorcism, using the information I’d received from the client, I would need to go make a preliminary investigation of the assignment—what was going on and where, what was the local terrain like—and assess what an appropriate fee would be for such an assignment and negotiate the final price with the client.

Harré bore some responsibility as the party that offered the jobs, so employees were obliged to go to the work site before the sorcerers, and with what little information we had, verify the situation at the risk of our own lives.

I aspired to be one of the receptionists, who were responsible for one aspect of Harré’s work. It seemed that most of the receptionists were women who worked in alternating shifts. You might think their job would be just like any other “receptionist,” but considering all the factors they had to take into account—the details of the job assignments, information about the sorcerers themselves, and many other things—they needed to be able to perform all of the work Harré did, not just “reception.”

That’s why all employees at Harré needed to be intelligent, highly skilled mages, or so the papers said.

Huh. So that’s why I had needed to get top marks at school.

“My shoulders...”

I lay down my pen and stretch both of my arms up into the air. My shoulders had gotten stiff. I’d been here for two hours looking at all this stuff.

This specific library was for the exclusive use of sixth-years from the time when lessons were over until ten minutes before lights out. I looked at the clock on the wall and saw I still had over an hour until then. In that case, I guess I can allow myself to take a thirty minute break.

Even though about twenty other students had been sitting in the chairs around me when I’d arrived, now the only people left in the room were me and this other boy who was standing in front of the bookshelf.

“Um, Hel?”

Just as I’d been about to let out a sigh and close my eyes for a bit, someone started talking to me.

“What?”

I turned slightly to the side and saw a boy holding a book in one hand. It was the same boy who’d been standing in front of the bookshelf a few moments ago. I believe his name is Titos Hamilton. He’s in the class next to mine and a commoner, like me.

“Hel, if you’d like, I was thinking that we could...”

“We could?”

“We could—”

“Nanalie dearest! You’re still in here?”

Miss Maris interrupted whatever Hamilton had been saying as she entered the library. It was the library, so in normal circumstances I would have preferred for her to be quiet, but I decided not to worry about it, considering Hamilton and I were the only other people in the room.

“Why, there’s no chance that you forgot the promise you made me about tonight, right?” she said.

“What? Whatever might you be referring to?”

“Why, just yesterday I told you that I would do you the honor of teaching you how to dance tonight, so you were supposed to wait in your room! Oh my, are you, perhaps... in the middle of something?”

Her dress is flaming a brilliant red.

That was, of course, a metaphor, but the way it flowed, twisted, and turned with her body made it seem like fire. But to get back on topic, it was my fault for having forgotten (on purpose) any such promise to learn dancing from her.

“Um...”

Hamilton had frozen up at Miss Maris’s question. I did feel honestly bad for him, so I said that “we were just chatting,” and Maris said, sincerely, “Why, forgive my interruption, then.” Miss Maris was the type of girl whose intentions were mistaken by those around her, but I found her to be serious and sincere at heart, so I liked her.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

“N-no!”

Hamilton dismissed her apology, telling her it was “nothing at all!”, then left the library in a fluster. You know, he had been trying to say something to me. What had that been about? I’d asked him to clarify what he wanted, but in the end I hadn’t found out. Considering that he’d just gone and left, however, it probably wasn’t anything too important.

Anyhow, I’d been found out by Miss Maris, so I gave up on studying further and quickly packed up my books. I’d only been looking at the work materials, and I’d only been browsing one other book, so I was packed and ready to go in short order.

With only these things to look at, I might have been better off studying back in my room. But then I remembered that I’d also come here with the intention of escaping from Maris. I was reluctant to leave the library with her, to be honest.

“Is dancing that disagreeable a notion to you?” she asked.

“Mmmmm...”

I picked up my books and papers and left the library. She waited for me by the door, and as we began walking down the hallway together, asked me if I disliked dancing.

I suddenly felt the hallway ahead of me stretching out very far into the distance.

“It’s not that... Well, maybe it is, perhaps.”

“Well, which is it?”

Two days earlier.

Something called an “Apophitis Party” was held for the sixth-years right before graduation. Basically, it was a graduation party.

On that day, inside the school’s Great Hall, there were plans for a massive party to be held, and the teachers would be taking care of everything from decorations to refreshments. The teachers had smiled when I’d asked them about it, and one of them had told me that “it was hard work, but still pretty fun.”

We students, the guests of honor, would be expected to come in our formalwear—a dress for me, in other words. I need to change into a dress in order to attend the party.

People would be dancing, like waltz dancing there, but it seemed like that part was left up to us, and only the people who wanted to would dance. With the prospect of the waltz on their minds, all the students who had crushes or boyfriends or girlfriends were going around asking each other to the dance, and the rest of the students who weren’t coupled up or even crushing on anyone were desperately trying to find a partner in order to not be left out.

I could see it in everyone’s eyes. It was that same harsh gleam of nervous anticipation I had seen before the Practical Combat Competition.

“I don’t really need to dance now, do I?”

“Silence, my lady!”

Miss Maris’s voice rings in my ears.

“Okay, okay, I get it!”

The real reason I was so reluctant to do the whole “dance” thing was that I’d actually never danced before. I hadn’t thought it important for my future, and if one wasn’t an aristocrat, it would probably never cross one’s mind to think about it.

Since I’d been told that dresses were a “must” this time around, I had asked my mother to buy me a dress for the first time in my life...

With students like me in mind, some of the teachers had taken their time after lessons to practice dancing with us. Some of the more generous noble kids had also gone out of their way to teach us commoners the proper way to do all the twists and turns. The commoners and aristocrats had really come around to being on good terms with one another.

Personally, I’d never felt like dancing in my life, and on top of that, there wasn’t even anyone that I liked. I’d rather not do any dancing that was not required, and if possible I’d prefer to focus my attention on all the good food that would be served.

Besides, if we have all this time to go dancing, shouldn’t we have been using it to prepare for our life post-graduation? I didn’t intend to yield that point. I’d probably be called lame for saying that out loud, though.

On the other hand, if everyone thought like I did, the party would be a total bore, so it was, actually, fun to watch everyone else get excited for it.

I’m not sure where Maris had heard about me and my situation, but all of a sudden yesterday she had come over to my seat right as classes had finished for the day and told me, in a very high-pitched voice, “I shall teach you how to dance!”

I’d told her “no,” but she turned out to be fairly insistent about the whole thing, and had been hounding me about it all day.

Totally unrelated to my dancing abilities (or lack thereof), something else had happened just a few days before Maris ambushed me: I happened to catch sight of Benjamine putting herself out on a limb and asking her own crush, Satanás, to the dance. It all happened in the courtyard behind the school. Nikeh and I, who’d just happened to be passing by at that time, noticed what was going on and quickly concealed ourselves so we could watch. I’d fallen and scraped my knees in the rush to do so, but I was so excited that I hadn’t felt any pain at all. I hadn’t even been the one asking someone to the dance!

Happily enough, Satanás accepted Benjamine’s proposal and they ended up becoming partners. Nikeh and I had teased Benjamine about it once we’d gotten back to our room, but her face had been so flushed with happiness that, funnily enough, we had begun to blush as well.

Anyway, caught up as I was in all that secondhand happiness, I’d caved and allowed Maris to teach me how to dance in our dorm room with Nikeh and Benjamine watching over me. She actually turned out to be a gentle and careful instructor.

“We don’t have much time, so I shall have you learn only the basics.”

“Noooo. I don’t wanna.”

“Quiet, Flat Chest.”

“Shut up yourself!!”

I seem to have a lot of older-sister types in my life.

Only a few days left here at school.

Today we had “independent study”—free time, in other words.

A long time ago, if the teacher hadn’t been inside the classroom, we all would have likely chattered the time away, but now everyone was focusing on the things they needed to do, and it was all very quiet. No one moved to different desks, and everyone was sitting in their seats, either quietly running their pens across their papers or reading their books.

I was no exception, spending the whole day reading a book on magical plants. With time like this, I’ll try to stuff as much information into my head as I possibly can, study and study and then be able to tell everyone, “There’s nothing I don’t know!”

I’d found the properties of magical plants interesting for quite some time, whether they had nectar that could instantly heal any wound it was applied to or were the type of man-eating plant that grew only by eating people. There were so many kinds. Some had poisons that could be turned into medicines, others had strange abilities that one found it difficult to imagine could be put to proper use. There seemed to be no end of plants with magical properties.

Those whose magic type was Earth could, with an incantation, cause the desired plant to sprout from the earth. There were lots of those types of incantations listed in the Earth-type reference book called “Blood of the Earth,” but from what I could tell none of them would be anything I could use, which was a shame.

“......?”

I turned the page to the next chapter, and what should fall from the air somewhere above my book but a little slip of paper.

It fluttered through the air down to my desk, and on the paper I could see something was written. Did someone above drop this by accident? I thought, but as I was sitting in the rearmost and therefore highest seat, that couldn’t be the case. Which meant that someone had sent this to me. A letter.

“Hel. After school, I want you to come to the courtyard behind the school.”

That’s what I saw written on the paper.

The sender’s name was nowhere to be seen, so I had no idea who had sent it.

“What...”

And then two more slips of paper fluttered their way towards me. I felt a sort of wordless panic seize me as I saw one slip drift over to Rockmann’s desk and the other one fell towards mine. He had apparently noticed the slip on his desk and was reading what it said. Verrrrrrry carefully, I moved only my eyes to the side as far as possible and tried to read what it said, but it seemed like he had picked up on my curiosity, and instantly stuffed the note into his breast pocket.

What’s the big deal? Just a little glance is all I need.

Shit, I thought, as I looked down at the other paper on my desk. On it was written:

“Today, after class, I’ll be waiting for you in front of the fountain.”

Again, no name. What an impolite way to write a letter! If I only knew who had sent them, I’d be able to go and ask straight away what they wanted. But if they had gone to the trouble of sending me letters, then it was probably something they didn’t want to talk about here... Hold on, what kind of thing would that be? Who wants to have that sort of conversation with a person like me? It wasn’t Miss Maris’s handwriting, so I had no guesses as to who the senders might be.

And “senders” it certainly was, as the handwriting differed between the two notes.

“......”

I now have two things I need to take care of after classes are over.

Just when I thought I’d have a chance to get some studying done, I can’t concentrate on anything because of those notes.

In the middle of all my pondering over the mystery of the notes, yet another slip of paper softly fell to my desk. Again! I read it and knew now I had three things to take care of after classes.

Now I’d started to feel a little angry at the senders of these letters. They could have at least bothered to sign their names. Why didn’t they?

I’d made my decision. I would take three sheets of paper, write my reply—“Sorry, I have something else to do so I can’t meet with you” on all three sheets, and then send them flying to their respective rendezvous points. I can’t spend all afternoon running around the school, and if I did end up going to one of them, I wouldn’t be able to go to either of the others. And with that, I’d rationalized avoiding meeting with any of the three people who’d sent those notes.

Independent study time came to an end and everyone left the classroom. Today marked the formal end of our classroom studies, so those who wanted to go back to the dorms did so, but those with a little something special to take care of headed off in other directions. I’d popped my head in the neighboring classroom to let Nikeh know I’d be home late again today, then wrote my replies on three new slips of paper I’d prepared during class, cast a spell on them, and sent them flying to their respective locations.

Ahhh, I thought, with this, it isn’t like I ignored the letters or anything, right?

“Sir Alois! A moment of your time, please.”

I’d been about to head to the library for the second day in a row, but as I began walking down the hallway, a noble girl had hurried past to where Rockmann was walking ahead of me. Her pink dress bounced in the air, making such pretty waves in the fabric.

I saw Rockmann, who’d stopped upon hearing his name, stand there waiting silently until the girl caught up with him.

“Sally?” he asked.

“I, um,” she said, hesitating.

Recently, Rockmann had been surrounded by more girls than usual. He hadn’t given any sort of sign that he disliked the attention, and furthermore I think most girls found him approachable. After all, he’s the guy who throws out irritating lines like “I’ve got to take good care of all you girls, right?” and other bullcrap with a completely straight face.

If he really believed what he was saying, it felt like he was, in a roundabout way, saying that he didn’t think of me as a girl, so every time I heard that line it tended to get on my nerves.

“Sir Alois, um, would you, do me the honor, of attending the party with me?”

From what I could hear, it was that sort of conversation. It appeared she wanted him to be her dance partner at the party.

I was, I confess, a bit interested, so I slowed down so as not to overtake them and listened carefully. The other students around me gave me suspicious looks as I did so, but I just tilted my head to the side and began whistling a little tune. I’m not doing anything at all.

“I’m not planning on going with anyone in particular, but if you’d like to dance, I’d be happy to. It’s just that I’ve promised some other girls the same thing, so you’d be after them—would you be alright with that?”

“Certainly!” the girl declared.

According to Miss Maris, for a woman to invite a man was a faux pas in the world of high society. But this is just a school party with no relation to parents, titles, or the opinions of socialites, so it seemed that the girls who wanted to end their time at the school without regrets were really giving it their all in inviting their partners.

“But what about you, Maris?” I had asked, and she replied (proudly, I might add) that she had “reserved the third dance.” Knowing her, on any other occasion I think she would have hated being in “third,” but this seemed different. For her not to show any displeasure at all about that fact must have meant she had really wanted to dance with Rockmann quite badly. It made me want to cry.

In my opinion, he is a very cruel man. If he makes not only me, but Miss Maris cry as well, he isn’t going to get off lightly.

It was the day of the party.

I’d gotten to bed late the night before, so it was already midday by the time I awoke. The sunlight lancing in through the window was bright. I “awoke,” but it wasn’t me waking up naturally—Nikeh and Benjamine had roused me. Even though they’d pushed me off my bed and I’d fallen to the floor, I’d kept on sleeping, so Benjamine had decided it was as good a time as any for her to shower me in a volley of forceful kicks all over my body. I don’t think I’ll forget that wake-up call for as long as I live. It still hurts.

“Ahh, that felt amazing! Hey, Nikeh, grab that for me, will you? The thing you wipe your body with.” Has she really forgotten what a “towel” is called? She almost never uses them because she just “air dries” in our room, so... I guess that’s possible?!

“Benjamine, you took way too long! Hurry up and get out of the bathroom!”

We each took turns taking baths in the bathroom attached to our dorm room and began preparing for the night ahead. It wasn’t quite time for the dresses yet, so we had left them laid across our beds.

“Nanalie, take care of my hair.”

“Benjamine, really, stop just sitting around naked. I’m going to go fetch a comb, so wait here.”

A little longer until the party. It was a short while before the sun would set, so we had plenty of time... is what I both could and couldn’t say, given all that needed to be done. There was nothing for it except to hurry on with our preparations.

I ran the comb through Benjamine’s hair, then, while consulting a book, cast a spell that would fix it up. “This might be nice,” one of us would say, “Maybe this style’s better,” another would chime in, all three of us imagining how each hairstyle would fit with the dress while we tried several styles. We’d talked about how it’d be a good idea to decide on a hairstyle several days ago, but being women, it was only natural for us to fuss over our hair up until the last moment. Even so, we managed to pick something that matched her overall look, and did an excellent job with her makeup. Nikeh did most of the makeup work, but still. I helped.

I used my magic on Nikeh’s hair as well, and Benjamine did her makeup for her very prettily and carefully. They were both so well dressed up that while they had been beautiful women before, now they appeared to me as heavenly as the goddesses above. I had to squint just to bear looking at them, so dazzling did they appear to me.

“Alright now, you’re a woman too.”

“Nnnnnn...” I mumbled, hiding my eyes with my hands, and was then told, in no uncertain terms: “Nanalie, it’s your turn now.”

Yeah, since we got done with you two, I suppose it’s my turn now.

“Your blue hair always looks so beautiful, doesn’t it?”

Nikeh takes a strand of my hair in her hand.

“Hmmm, what hairstyle do you think’s best? You always leave it down, so it might be a good idea to show off some of your neck. What do you think, Nikeh?”

“Let’s braid the back, and let the front hang down a little. Your hair, being the color that it is, might look good if we stuck a few small white flowers in it as well.”

“Oh that would be wonderful!”

Everything happened so quickly and without any input from me. It didn’t matter, though, since the two of them looked like they were having so much fun. As long as they were enjoying themselves, that was enough for me.

They must have finished styling my hair, because now Nikeh came around in front of me and was pulling out her makeup kit.

“Alright now, close your eyes,” she said.

It felt a little ticklish when she brushed her fingers against my skin.

“Just once, we wanted to give you a makeover. You’ve never let us do it before, so we figured this one time, before we graduate.”

“But I don’t need—”

“I’m so glad this party is happening. After all, it’s because of the party that we finally get the chance to dress you up in your best clothes.”

“Haha, my best clothes?”

They were going a bit far in their exaggerations.

Once they were done applying makeup, I changed into the dress that had been left draped over my bed. Benjamine put on an elegant purple dress that matched perfectly with her red hair. Nikeh’s bright yellow dress was a good match with her blond hair. I was wearing a light azure dress that my mother had picked out to go with the color of my eyes.

It was my first time wearing a dress that had such a low neckline and long sleeves, so I was actually a little more uneasy than I would have been in a dress that was simply shorter than usual. I still have to put on my high heels, I thought. The aristocrats really have it rough, needing to wear this kind of thing all the time. But that was neither here nor there, I suppose.

We checked each other’s appearances one last time and then left our dorm room.

“So, see you later then.”

Benjamine had her thing with Satanás, and Nikeh seemed to have been asked by someone, so they left to meet up with their dates. They’d both turned to me and said, right as they were leaving, “If anyone tries anything weird with you, make sure you freeze them right away. Okay?” I wasn’t quite sure what they were referring to. They should have told me exactly what they’d meant.

It was with those thoughts on my mind that I headed, alone, towards the Great Hall.

I’d taken the long way so I’d arrived at the Great Hall a bit late.

On every single path I had tried taking, there were students everywhere acting like they were star-crossed lovers, and the whole thing made me uncomfortable.

I’d started to get a little anxious at being seen walking to the party alone, so I dodged, digressed, and departed from path after path, trying to find a way to the hall that wasn’t taken up by some couple. It ended up so that I arrived a little later than I’d planned.

To think that just to get to the Great Hall I’d have to go on an adventure like this. On top of all that walking, I was wearing high heels! Not easy to get around in, that’s for sure.

“Hahaha!”

“No way!”

The doors opened, and from beyond them I could hear the buzz and chatter of all those lively voices.

No one else was on the walkway ahead or behind me. Am I the last to arrive? I grew a little worried as I stood there, alone in the cold and dark hallway before the entrance. I peeked through the doors and quietly, slowly, slipped into the hall.

There were already a large number of people inside, and while it hadn’t gotten to the point where I felt like I was suffocating from the crowd, I confess that I was surprised that this many people had come. All of them, dressed in their formalwear, looked more like adults than they usually did. Looking a little to my left, I saw Nikeh together with a boy from the neighboring class. I don’t know much about him or their relationship, but they seem like lovers.

As I was looking around, I was completely taken by the beauty of the decorations inside the Great Hall. On the ceiling were several white lights that appeared like the petals of flowers in the air, and from them, light filled the room. The wooden floor had been transformed into white and gray marble that sparkled beautifully. On black tables near the walls, an array of mouthwatering dishes was laid out. And then, perhaps this part I was imagining, but it felt like the hall itself was more cavernous than usual. The teachers may have used spatial expansion on the interior.

I saw my teacher sitting in the reception area. It looked like he was checking attendance for the whole affair.

“Ah, Nanalie, you finally came.”

“Yes, sir.”

I entered my name on the attendance sheet.

“I think you’re close to... No, you are the last one to arrive. Now we can finally start.”

“Sorry,” I said.

The last to arrive? Figures, I thought.

The teacher put away his papers and signaled to someone with a wave. “Hey, we’re good now!” he called out.

“Excellent... Now then. All of you, who have seen each other every day for the past several years, only have a little more time left with one another. All of you will graduate from this school and follow your own paths to your futures. Filled with both sadness for your departure and separation, and happiness that we can celebrate your achievements, we teachers, who have seen you grow up to become adults, would like nothing more than for you to enjoy this night and this party that we hold in your honor.”

The healing teacher is wearing a light pastel dress. At first, I hadn’t recognized her. She made her welcome speech from the podium and then gave everyone a small bow. Seeing her standing there, on the small, round stage, illuminated by the white lights floating above, made me realize how beautiful she was.

“Okay everyone, get your party on!”

The male teacher who had been standing next to her shouted that out, and from somewhere I began hearing some pleasant light music begin to play.

Dang, they’re starting out with the dancing, aren’t they, I thought, but it seemed like it wasn’t actually that time yet, with everyone mostly enjoying the conversation or the cuisine, each finding their own way to appreciate the atmosphere.

So begins the party.

“Food!”

I wanted to be sure to enjoy as much food as I could, so I headed over to the black tables alongside the wall. As I began walking over there, however, I’d felt that gaze which seemed to be stabbing into me every time I took a step. I guess I do stand out, walking around on my own. Even though there should be plenty of other kids here by themselves.

I’d really rather they look somewhere else. Nothing to see here!

“Exactly right,” someone said.

“Indeed. Maris, you know,” someone else replied.

In the direction I was walking stood Miss Maris wearing her crimson dress. Beside her stood Rockmann and Prince Zenon, and beside them stood a large number of other noble young ladies. All of their dresses were extravagant, showy pieces, and I thought that the girls who were standing up straight, slightly leaning back as if to emphasize the bulges at the tops of their dresses, were all rather daring.

I certainly couldn’t do that. Shoulders are the limit for me.

“You look divine, Katorieze.”

“Oruku, you are quite something yourself.”

I caught glimpses of the partners complimenting each other. The boys had on tailcoats. Aristocrats had, apparently, a way of customizing even tailcoats, with some of them wearing pure white ones, others pure red. Rockmann had taken the conservative choice of wearing an inoffensive navy tailcoat embroidered with gold thread.

“Sir Alois, please do speak with me more, would you? It’s not fair for Lady Maris to get all the attention.”

“Don’t make that face. It ruins your beautiful lips,” he said.

He’d taken his long, golden hair and hung it off to one side, making his pretty, androgynous face look all the more attractive.

Prince Zenon was wearing a black tailcoat, and perhaps because he was part of the royal family, he had a few more decorative touches on his shoulders and sleeves than the rest of the nobles, but nothing obtrusive. Even on a normal day he seemed gallant and dignified, but today he practically exuded an aura of chivalry.

Everyone was holding a glass in one hand while they made small talk. So this is the world of the aristocracy, I thought, nodding to myself.

“Oh my! Nanalie, just when I remembered I hadn’t seen you, here you are! Whenever did you arrive?”

She’s noticed me. Miss Maris called out my name with a smile. Once she’d spoken to me, there was no way I could just pass by her without saying anything, so I slowly approached her, taking care not to trip in the crowd.

“I just got here,” I said.

“Why, even at a time like this, you still remain so calm, don’t you?”

Maris, who’d successfully taken her position next to her target of affection, was looking at me with satisfaction. “Just what I’d expect from you,” she said.

Entirely by accident, my eyes locked with those of Rockmann, who should have been busy talking with the girl next to him. He’d managed to look over at me while continuing his conversation with her. I bet he thinks he’s pretty clever, doing that. Even with all of those cute, pretty girls surrounding him, he was managing to keep his cool, without so much as a hint of a flush of excitement on his face. Must be because he’s used to it, I thought. Unbelievable. What’s he supposed to be, some king with a harem? Speaking of which, Prince Zenon seems to have the same attitude.

As a test, I turn and make a face at Rockmann, sticking out my tongue, just like I’d done a long time ago.

But again, he barely reacted, or rather, he didn’t react at all. He looked as though he hadn’t seen anything at all, and merely continued talking with the girls.

I guess I won’t have any more opportunities to tease him after this. It’s a bit disappointing, honestly.

“Anyway,” Maris called me back to the present moment.

“What?”

“I’d always thought you were pretty, but you’ve pulled off a transformation so complete, you look like someone else entirely.”

“Maris, you’re the one who looks more lovely than ever. My look? Besides the dress, it was my two roommates who took care of it all.”

“Is that so? They must know you very well to have done such an excellent job getting you to look like this.”

“You think so? Hold on, did the music change?”

In the middle of my conversation with Miss Maris, the music in the background changed, and the volume grew louder. Within moments, a space in the center of the Great Hall’s floor opened up, and one after the other, couples began dancing. I was able to see Benjamine and Satanás among them, and even though it had nothing to do with me, my heart leapt at the sight.

The girls standing next to Rockmann and Prince Zenon seemed to be their first partners for the evening, as they had linked arms with the girls and headed towards the center of the floor.

What is this, a waltz?

“It has begun, hasn’t it? I am scheduled to be the third to dance with Sir Alois, so I shall wait here a bit.”

“Really? In that case, I’m going to go grab some food, okay?”

“Those old words, ‘fair words fill not the belly,’ must have been referring to you, don’t you think?”

“You don’t need to say that,” I said, leaving her and edging my way towards the wall. I took a plate in one hand and a skewer with grilled bunny-bird thigh with the other. Ooooooh, this is delicious. The juice coming off this meat is fantastic. I hadn’t been too enthusiastic about the party in the first place, but with this bunny-bird, I felt like I’d have the time of my life.

While I was eating, one song ended and another began. Miss Maris’s turn must be during the next song, I thought, casually looking towards the center of the room, but there were Maris and Rockmann, already dancing.

Wait, he isn’t dancing one song per person?

I wasn’t well versed on the subject of dancing, so I didn’t have a good grasp on how unusual the situation was.

“Hey, hey you,” I said to a boy next to me.

“Um, yes!”

“This dancing, isn’t it the sort of thing where you dance with one partner for the whole song?”

I’d seen one of the boys from my class standing nearby holding a plate in one hand, so I thought I’d ask him. I figured he’d definitely know since he was an aristocrat. According to him, in some situations it was fine and in others looked down upon. The event we were holding was simply a student party, so it appeared no one had any issues with how people danced. I get it. So there are a lot of different rules for events like this.

Miss Maris was happily, joyfully dancing. Just watching her dance like that made my heart flutter as if I myself were also dancing.

“Um, Hel,” the boy went on.

“Thanks for telling me that,” I replied. “See you later.”

And with that, I left him there alone. I wouldn’t have minded staying there for a while longer, but the whole saccharine atmosphere of the place had left me feeling a little giddy. I needed to clear my head.

There’s a courtyard just beyond the back doors of the Great Hall, so perhaps it would be a good idea to head out there. I, who lived by “acting on impulse,” started off into a kind of jog over to the door in my new shoes, careful not to fall.

“Still a long time before this is over...”

My dress fluttered around as I turned to look at the clock. The hands of the clock were far from the time that this would all be over. I felt like time was passing by much more slowly than usual.

“Now then, let’s get outside already,” I said to myself, checking to make sure no one around me was watching as I quietly opened the back door of the hall. While I didn’t think anyone would hear over the loud music in the background, I moved as softly as I could so as not to attract attention.

I slowly stepped out onto the short-trimmed grass and the refreshing air surrounded me. I felt like filling my lungs with that pure, clean scent. With the faint sound of the water flowing in the fountain in the background, my ears felt like they could relax as well.

I let out a sigh, stretched out my arms to the sides and looked up at the sky. Just now, the sky was that color in between dusk and nightfall. A little while from now, I’ll be able to see a sky full of stars.

I walk over to the fountain, and from there, spend some time looking up at the stars.

＊　＊　＊　＊

The waltz stopped, and the teachers took center stage to present their own performance. The first teacher took out a transparent glass sphere that he said “might allow you to see the future” and showed three students who had volunteered their possible futures. Each of them reacted differently to what they saw in the ball, from one student who had a bright smile on her face when she saw her future to another who made a rather dour expression at the sight of his own. Everyone around them enjoyed watching their reactions.

“Now then, allow me to provide you with a little entertainment of my own... The one who I cast this spell on shall become, for a short time only, totally invisible. Hmmm, who to choose... Ah, let’s try this on that ladykiller over there.”

The teacher speaking was the one person who had seen Nanalie leave the Great Hall.

It was the teacher in charge of Nanalie’s and Rockmann’s class: Leonidas Bourdon. He’d watched over the two of them in his classroom for the past six years, and among the other teachers was known to be somewhat of a meddler in other’s affairs. If a female teacher didn’t have a man in her life, he would go out of his way to find a good match for her from among his acquaintances, and if someone else was having trouble with the people in their life, he’d do anything he could to try and help them mend their relationships.

He was someone who truly enjoyed seeing other people smile, and if he were to catch sight of someone frowning or looking bored, it was said he couldn’t stand not to do anything about it.

It would seem, however, that he himself couldn’t understand why he felt that need to make other people smile. The only definite thing that could be said about him is that he wanted to make other people happy, and that he loved the students in his class.

“Teacher! Sir Alois is merely being kind to us ladies!”

“Yes! He’s no ‘ladykiller’!”

The young noble ladies surrounding Rockmann began calling out to Mr. Bourdon, objecting to his characterization of Rockmann as a “ladykiller.” They really adore him, don’t they? the teacher thought, feeling both sympathy and envy for Rockmann.

But he didn’t waver from his target. He laughed at Rockmann, who hadn’t shown any reaction whatsoever throughout the whole conversation.

“You mind?” Bourdon asked him.

“By all means,” Rockmann replied, smiling.

Rockmann had something special about him, even on a regular day—a sense of composure that was not present in the other students. For the teachers, who knew everything, it was clear that maintaining that sense of composure was difficult for him. The other aristocrats also probably understood how difficult it was for him to maintain that cool, calm exterior at such a young age. No one spoke about it, and not a rumor could be heard about him, but all the adults understood his situation. Rockmann had a sense of pride, after all, and the teachers had taken care not to tarnish it with idle gossip amongst themselves.

But setting aside his social predicament, he’d always worked hard in his studies to take the top marks, and allowed absolutely no one to beat him in anything. It was still difficult to know, however, whether it had been a good thing or a bad thing that he had been chosen to be the personal guard of Prince Zenon, third in line to the throne.

No matter which way you looked at the time he’d spent at the school, however, he’d certainly lived life to the fullest these past six years. Or so Bourdon thought.

“Alright, here goes,” Bourdon called out, raising his right hand. The next instant, Rockmann had disappeared from the Great Hall with a bang.

Those who had been around him tried to call out after him, teasing him as they searched for his invisible body. The young ladies were all in a kerfuffle as they walked about trying to find him first.

“Mr. Bourdon, what exactly did you do to him?”

One of the female teachers, who’d been set up on a blind date by Mr. Bourdon in the past, looked at him with suspicion in her eyes. Mr. Bourdon had caused her no small amount of trouble with his antics in the past, and she was worried about what, exactly, he’d done this time.

Her suspicions were rooted in the specific magic he’d cast on Rockmann.

It wasn’t a spell that made things turn invisible, but unmistakably something else. An invisibility spell didn’t make noise when cast. She couldn’t tell what, exactly, he’d cast on Rockmann, as he’d done so without uttering an incantation.

She tapped him on the shoulder. “What precisely has become of Rockmann?”

“Hm? Rockmann? All I did was help him have just a little more fun as a student, while he still can.”

“So you’ve gone meddling in someone else’s business again...”

“Hey, it’s all good, right? Alright everyone, let’s get this party going!”

He twirled his fingers in the air. “This is the real entertainment for tonight,” he said, as fireworks began rocketing around the interior of the Great Hall.

＊　＊　＊　＊

Night had fallen.

It hadn’t gotten cold outside. Even wearing a dress with my shoulders exposed, I still felt comfortable.

The flowers in the back courtyard were beautiful. While it was just a school’s courtyard, gardening experts took care of it, so no matter the time of year, it always looked clean and well maintained. The white fountain, the blossoming of colors from the flowers, and the small lamps along the sides of the garden came together perfectly so that everything was in its right and proper place. Once I get back home, it might be a good idea to try re-doing the garden at home with Mom.

—Bang.

“Hm?”

From behind me a bang sounded, the very same sound as a familiar materializing. I turned around, curious to see what it was.

“Huh...?”

Behind me, for some reason I could not guess, stood Rockmann, alone. What’s he come here for? He was holding a glass in one hand, looking at me with an expression of extreme displeasure.

...What’s got him in a bad mood? Wasn’t he just having a good time dancing? Maybe something got on his nerves. But why’s he here in the first place?

And hadn’t I just heard that bang that sounds when a familiar is summoned? Did Rockmann make that noise?

“Did you just... summon Yuri?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said.

He still had that sulky expression on his face.

Then what was that noise, I wonder? Well, I guess it doesn’t matter much anyway.

“Why am I here with you...?”

“What? Yeah, why are you here? Weren’t you enjoying the dancing?”

I sat down on the edge of the fountain facing Rockmann. Even though we’d sat next to each other all these years, I could count the number of times that we’d had a real conversation on two hands. To think that we’re graduating already, I thought, getting somewhat emotional over the whole prospect.

Over the past six years, I had worked so hard to try and take first place, and Rockmann had totally brushed away my efforts with perfect ease and maintained that position the whole time. It had felt like a long time as it happened, but looking back, time had passed by so quickly.

When Rockmann would conjure flames I would freeze them, and should I conjure ice, Rockmann would melt it. One step forward, one step back. I could ask for no worthier opponent.

We just argued now, no longer flinging spells at each other. Perhaps we had, in a good way, grown past that, but I had to confess that deep down I felt a little like it wasn’t as exciting as it had been before.

At some point he’d stopped referring to me as “hey you,” instead calling me Ice Girl when we argued from time to time. He spoke to me more politely than he had at first, that’s for sure.

And while his shift towards more polite behavior wasn’t exactly the reason why, I had also grown to speak more formally towards him. I stopped talking to him like I was “one of the boys” and more like a girl was supposed to. I’d resisted doing so at first, but then I’d resented the way he’d tried to hurry up and act more mature than me, so I’d slipped into more polite manners of expression.

“Something reeks. Reeks of perfume,” I said.

“Maybe it’s me,” he said.

“You were covered in it back there, so maybe it’s clinging to you.”

An artificial scent, different from the smells of the grass and flowers around us, wafted through the air. It’d come with Rockmann, so it was probably perfume that had rubbed off on him from his fangirls.

“You know, I was just thinking—you don’t call me ‘Fire Fool’ anymore, do you?”

He stroked his chin with one hand, smiling a little to himself. He’d come back at me with that nickname I’d given him. Probably because I’d basically told him that he reeked. He’s still a kid at times like this, I thought.

“So what?” I said. “You aren’t going to call me ‘Ice Idiot’ again now, are you?” I refused to let him have an inch in the proverbial ground of our argument.

Rockmann, this time with a bit of a smirk on his face, took a few steps towards me. “You replied just like I thought you would.”

Is he going to try to attack me? I lift both hands, assuming my fighting stance.

“How ’bout it? A little game, for old time’s sake.” He looked at me, pausing.

“I’m going to cast a spell on you,” he continued.

Before he had even finished speaking, I could feel myself floating away from my seat on the fountain, levitating in the air. The sleeves on my dress fluttered gently, like curtains that had been caught in the breeze. The glass Rockmann had been holding floated up into the night sky as well, flying away from his hand.

I hadn’t been sure what he’d been intending, but then he’d said that old, familiar word: game. I’d been ready for him to do something to me, but for him to just come out and say it straight out like that all of a sudden left me feeling like the wind had been taken out of my sails.

“I’d heard you were a clumsy dancer, but if you’re floating in the air, I don’t think you need to worry about tripping,” he said.

I thought about saying something like, “So that’s why you cast a levitation spell on me? So I wouldn’t fall over?” but another one of his words had tripped me up.

“Dance?” I asked.

“Are you satisfied ending things between us with you as the loser? To think that you are not only below me in academic ability, but a worse dancer than I am as well...”

He’s asking for a fight... right?

Of course he is. And I wish he’d quit rubbing salt in the wound, me as “the loser” and all that.

“By game, do you mean a competition of our dancing ability, or our skills in magic?”

“Our game will be decided with a dance,” he said.

“How?”

“Dance with me, and I’ll do you the favor of letting you know whether you’re a good or a bad dancer.”

I can hear the music from the Great Hall drifting out into the courtyard.

“This is the last song,” he said.

“Really?”

He stands up straight, and with one hand placed behind his back, offers the other hand to me and makes a small bow.

“O beautiful Witch of the Ice, would you allow me this dance?”

I was blinking rapidly in confusion. He lifted his head and smiled, his eyes full of sincere kindness.

“Rock...mann...?”

It was an expression I had never seen on his face before, and despite the fact that I was floating in the air, I felt an instinctual and sudden need to back away in shock.

The other aristocrat kids had done stuff like this with each other back in the hall, but this... This feels like he really means it. At this moment, he seemed as sincere and straightforward as Prince Zenon.

“Give me your hand,” he said.

What is he going to do with my hand? What am I supposed to do?

I timidly stretched out my right hand, and he softly lifted it in his own.

“Your hand,” I whispered.

As we were there, his hand lifting up my own, he slowly but surely intertwined his fingers with my own, one at a time, until at last, we were joined together.

It tickled a bit.

“Lay your other hand on my arm,” he said.

“I—but—”

“It’s fine.”

He brought my hips close to his own and we spun once around, together.

The night breeze made waves in the light azure fabric of my dress as we spun together, fluttering gently. I let out a soft sigh of satisfaction as I felt the warmth of his hand against my back, holding me close.

A few seconds later, he whispered to me, “Put out your right leg.” Without thinking I did so, floating in the air as I was, and then we began spinning slowly around the fountain, moving as I stepped left, right, left, right in the air.

Our movements were fluid, yet unhurried. I felt as though I had fallen into some dream where we were dancing and had the whole Great Hall to ourselves.

“Hey, Rockmann?”

“What is it?”

But if I really thought about it, I wasn’t actually dancing. I was twirling around in Rockmann’s palm, and couldn’t be called a “good” or “bad” dancer for merely going with the flow.

Yeah, this isn’t “me dancing” at all. The hand against my waist would touch me briefly, then slip under my arms to guide me, and on and on, my body being merely steered through the air. My feet weren’t touching the ground, and so I was being taken, softly, carefully, wherever he wished.

“......”

The sky above me was full of stars that looked just about to fall.

Because I was floating in the air, I wasn’t at all worried about tripping over my feet, but for some reason, I wanted to face neither up nor in front of me, I wanted to be looking down as I danced.

To be honest, I have no idea where I should be looking right now. I thought about trying to make some conversation, but the instant I opened my mouth, I hesitated, unsure of what words were appropriate in this sort of situation.

Every time I spun close to Rockmann, I felt his golden hair brush against my cheek. It tickled and so I tried to avoid getting it near my face. Normally, I’d never get a chance to touch his hair, so I realized that I’d allowed myself to relax into being very, very close to him.

“Thinking of something?” he murmured, bringing his face close to mine.

His gentle, wide eyes were looking at me, his lips relaxed, opening a little.

“Oh, uh, yeah. You know, about graduation and things,” I stuttered.

So this is how close the aristocrats dance with each other. The lack of distance felt rather audacious. With him this close to me, I felt, just a little, my heart begin to pound.

“You’re going to Harré, right?”

“Yeah, but I was thinking that once we graduate, none of us will be able to see each other that easily, you know?”

“Well...” he said, glancing up, “as long as you remember that we are both under the same sky, no matter which part of the kingdom we may be in, it won’t feel like we’ve parted at all, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” I said.

This is all so sudden. I was stunned, not just by Rockmann, but by the whole way that I was having a normal conversation with him. He’d barely referred to me by name before, and his own name had certainly never passed my lips.

“Even if we are unable to meet for one, five, or ten years, nothing changes the fact that we are here now, together.”

He twirls me around in his arms. Unexpectedly, I notice that one of the little white flowers that had been in my hair had now somehow lodged itself into Rockmann’s golden hair. The sight of it there is so funny that I giggle.

He, seeing me giggle at him, brings his face very close to mine, and our noses are almost touching. For an instant, I smell some other scent—not a girl’s perfume but some warm aroma that I breathe through my nose and down into my throat, holding it in.

And then he bops me on the forehead with his nose.

“Ouch!”

“I don’t like being laughed at.”

I let down my guard! I’d let myself forget that he was this kind of guy!

“Rrrgh, at least once before I die, I will defeat you!”

“Hmmm, is that so? I’ll be sure to remember that before I turn into a tottering old man.”

“I’ll be an old woman by that time as well, won’t I?!”

And so, I was unable to get first place this year either. I’d been stuck in second place.

It hadn’t been as frustrating to end like this as I had thought. I suppose if I had gotten first place this year, it would have been weird or something.

We’d been competing for a long time, but still. Perhaps I find this arrangement of ours to be, in a sense, comforting.

This year, same as always, number one in the grade rankings was Alois Rockmann.