Theorad, the Star Instructor (3)
I left the lecture hall behind in stunned silence.
It would have been rather shameless to carry on as though nothing had happened. But after a display of magic that outrageous, returning to an ordinary lesson would have been stranger still.
“Whew…”
Only once I was in the corridor did I feel how exhausted I was. I touched the brooch at my neck out of habit as I walked, the elf following close behind.
Unlike me, she looked thoroughly satisfied. There was an innocent little smile on her lips, but I was in no mood to find it charming.
What sort of magic was that…?
I'd read countless scholarly works, yet never encountered anything like what she'd just shown. The flames had whirled into a sphere, exploded, and left fragments with devastating heat suspended around the room. It scarcely seemed possible.
More astonishing still, she'd done it in an instant, without the slightest chant.
Ashley thought she might be the queen of the Great Forest…
If Ashley's speculation was right, just how powerful was that place? Even if the elf beside me was exceptional among her people, the magic practiced in the Great Forest must be vastly beyond human achievement.
The possibility made me shudder. What would happen if those who lived there ever decided to turn on the human kingdoms?
Part of me wanted to warn the Empire—indeed, every nation on the continent—of the danger.
As if the elf would ever let me do that.
For now, until I understood what she intended, I'd have to keep playing master to her slave. That was easier than it used to be. In the past, she had watched me closely and made threats when I didn't berate her; lately, she rarely behaved that way.
Still, I couldn't understand why she'd gone so far in the classroom. We had only needed to demonstrate my supposed ability. There was no reason to terrify the students.
I looked at her and hesitantly spoke.
“By the way…”
She looked up. Her red eyes blinked calmly as she waited.
“That spell… why did you use something so extreme? We only needed to prove I had practical ability.”
“No. It was necessary to show them something extraordinary.”
I stared at her. She sighed.
“I'm talking about Albizabe, the student from the school corps. Didn't you find it strange, Master?”
“What do you mean?”
“You were personally invited by the president of the Mage Tower. Even as a guest lecturer, you're entitled to some respect. Yet that student interrupted you without warning and challenged you so rudely.”
Her expression turned dryly amused.
“Someone probably put Albizabe up to it. And since the professors didn't intervene, that person must hold considerable authority in the tower.”
“Someone above the professors… Are you suggesting the president?”
“I told you. Mages are obsessed with verification. Someone strange enough to rise to the presidency would hardly be less afflicted than the rest.”
We had reached the elevator. The elf used telekinesis to call it to the twenty-first floor.
“But do you have any evidence it was the president?” I asked as we waited.
“I do. I found surveillance devices installed in the classroom. They were placed there recently, clearly to inspect your abilities.”
“Oh. I see.”
Ding.
The elevator arrived. We stepped inside, the doors shut, and it began climbing. I was straightening my clothes when a troubling thought struck me.
Wait. She detected the surveillance devices?
Then perhaps she'd known about the surveillance device in my room at the mansion, too. Surely the Mage Tower would use equipment at least as good as what I'd used there.
A chill ran through me. Had the elf been playing along all that time, fully aware of what I was trying to watch?
I looked away, sweating. The elf turned toward me.
“…”
She blinked twice, then seemed to reach some conclusion. Raising both arms, she gathered her long hair behind her head.
At first I thought she meant to tie it up. But there was no ribbon or cord. She simply held it there, arms raised. The cloth of her outfit still covered her underarms; I could see the shape beneath the fabric, but none of her bare skin.
I had no idea what the gesture was supposed to mean.
After holding the pose a while, she glanced sideways at me.
“Well? What do you think?”
Is she trying something from that book she borrowed?
She seemed to be following its advice diligently. I couldn't bring myself to offer an insincere compliment, yet I couldn't think of anything else to say.
I remained silent. The elf lowered her arms.
“…Never mind.”
Her expression was perfectly blank. Only the tips of her pointed ears had gone red.
One hour earlier. The president's office.
Sunlight poured into the office on the tower's uppermost floor. Brandal, long accustomed to its warmth, tapped his desk while watching an image from a surveillance device.
In the lecture hall below, Theorad stood at the podium, addressing students and professors with apparent ease.
“Theorad Deharem…”
A man with an unfathomable capacity for mana.
But possessing a vast reserve was not the same as being a skilled mage. By tradition, a mage was judged by how readily spells could be manifested and what value those spells held. Intuition, talent, mana capacity, and theoretical understanding all had to work together.
If he excels only in mana and theory…
Then even as the creator of artificial rain magic, Theorad might be better described as a scholar than a practitioner. Brandal also needed to determine whether he really had completed that great spell by himself. Few mages would believe a person without exceptional intuition or practical talent could have achieved such a feat through theory alone.
Brandal remained doubtful.
Let's see…
He watched the lecture, blinking his aging eyes. Although this was reportedly Theorad's first time teaching, he explained the principles of magical design with the fluency of a veteran. His answers to students' questions were clear, measured, and assured.
As a theorist, he was undeniably formidable.
After nearly an hour, Brandal wanted to know what Theorad could actually do. He sent an instruction through the Location Note to a student he'd placed in the lecture hall, directing the student to ask the prepared question.
—“Do you imagine you'll understand my magic simply by seeing it?”
Such arrogance in front of so many experienced professors! Brandal clicked his tongue.
“You're setting yourself up for humiliation.”
He took Theorad's reply for a bluff. A moment later, he witnessed something astonishing.
—Whooosh!
Fire swirled in the lecture hall, changing shape and concentrating into a sphere before exploding outward. Brandal stared at the projection.
What…?
The raging flames had been reshaped and compressed in an instant. As the fireball exploded, gravitational magic took hold just before the fragments could hit the floor or any living creature, leaving them suspended in space.
And it wasn't merely gravity at work. The fragments retained enough heat to melt a fountain pen, yet the heat they radiated into the surrounding air was controlled. Brandal could scarcely guess how many spells had been layered together.
All of it had happened without a wand or an audible chant.
—“I don't blame you for being a frog at the bottom of a well.”
Brandal came to himself and hurriedly cast his personal magic, Mind Reading. He needed to know whether Theorad meant what he was saying.
—“But a frog facing a lion should know better than to speak so recklessly.”
True.
—“That concludes today's lecture. Reflect on what you've done wrong.”
True.
—“Even if you devoted your life to magic, you wouldn't come close to my heels.”
True as well.
Brandal was stunned. To his magical perception, every declaration rang true. He took it as confirmation that the extraordinary magic he'd witnessed had been created by Theorad.
A mage of that caliber would also have noticed surveillance devices in the lecture hall. The command to reflect on wrongdoing must have been meant for the president watching him.
Brandal's eyes shook. Believing he had insulted an extraordinary master, he looked down at the Location Note screen.
[Who attended that special lecture? What in the world happened?]
[There was no chant, was there? Has anyone ever seen a spell like that?]
[Was that personal magic? I've never seen anything like it in my life.]
[Viscount Theorad has incredible theoretical knowledge, but his practical skill is on another level!]
[How is that even possible?]
[What happened at the special lecture?]
The Mage Tower's wizard channel had been overwhelmed by talk of Theorad. Dozens of private messages from faculty members crowded the bottom of the screen.
Brandal put a hand to the crystal ball on his desk and fed mana into it. A projected image appeared: the president of the academic society, interrupted at work.
—“President Brandal? Why the sudden call?”
Brandal swallowed before he could speak.
“Gather the society's senior mages. There's something we need to discuss.”
Perhaps…
“A new archmage may be about to appear in the Empire.”