Tou No Madoushi

When Lynn entered the study room, Yuven was there again, and she began walking in his direction.

For his days to be so consistently entangled with Yuven"s, Lynn was perplexed.

He reflected on the time when Yuven ignored his existence. It felt like a lifetime ago now.

For some reason, she seemed to be in a curiously good mood. Lynn had a bad feeling just from looking at her.

"Lynn, I just heard something really quite interesting. You were a slave, weren"t you".

So word"s gotten out…

He groaned to himself silently.

Who the h.e.l.l told her!

"That"s why you didn"t tell me your surname. Wait, it"s not that you didn"t tell me, but that you couldn"t tell me, right? I mean, you don"t have one to begin with so…".

Lynn simply looked at her silently, and let out a sigh.

"That"s right. I was doing farm work as a slave, but I"m not letting my social cla.s.s get in my way. Here, I"m able to study and attend cla.s.ses, just the same as you aristocrats, and the commoners".

"You may not care about your social cla.s.s anymore, but what would everyone else think, I wonder? Would they continue to treat you the same way?"

I see. So that"s what you want to say.

She seemed to think that she had gained some information that she could use to threaten him with.

"Most of the people I hang about with already know. But if you want to go around spreading it, be my guest. Then you can see for yourself how people treat me, how their att.i.tude towards me changes, can"t you?"

Having said that, Lynn turned his attention to his textbook.

Yuven was frustrated. She was able to get under Theo"s skin easily, he would give her the reaction she wanted, but now matter what she did she couldn"t provoke Lynn.

She grew even more angry as she watched Lynn study at his usual blistering pace. Was he about to already finish preparing for the next lesson already?

"Hey. Can you put that book down for a minute?"

"What? Why?"

"Because you"ve already studied enough.You don"t need to put any more effort in, you"ve done enough".

"Well, yeah, but… I have long shifts at the factory on the weekend. When I get home I"m too tired to study. I have to use times like this to get my study in".

"You"ll damage your brain if you carry on reading books as much as you"re doing".

Lynn, flabbergasted, gave her a blank look. He didn"t understand where her comment had come from.

"Listen to me! As soon as you"ve grasped the gist of whatever it is, just shut the book. You should have more fun, you know".

"Wait wait wait. Hold on a second. I don"t get you. Why would my brain be damaged if I read too much?"

"It"s just common knowledge, you shouldn"t burn yourself out. No matter what the subject is, there"s a limit you shouldn"t pa.s.s, or you"re just spinning your wheels".

"I don"t think that"s quite right…"

"Shut up. Stop nitpicking what I say and shut the book already".

Because of Yuven"s incessant interference, Lynn wasn"t able to finish his revision that day in a way he was satisfied with.

—–

"Right then" Lynn muttered to himself under his breath.

He was in the cla.s.sroom, and cla.s.s was soon about to start. He found Theo and sat down next to him.

"Huh? You"re sitting a bit close to me" Theo said, giving Lynn a puzzled look.

"Not really".

What can I do though. At this rate I won"t even be able to study quietly.

Lynn often used this strategy to evade Yuven"s hara.s.sment. In other words, he hid in Theo"s shadow.

The reason Lynn wasn"t looked down upon because of his slave origins was because he was Theo"s friend.

Everyone regarded Theo with a certain respect. For as long as he was Theo"s friend, no one was able to make any careless pa.s.ses or remarks toward him.

I should be able to get on with my spreperation peacefully now. Theo will stick up for me if anything happens. He"s a good friend.

However on this day, Yuven wasn"t about to let him get away with that strategy like usual.

When Lynn was feeling settled and had just opened up his textbook, Yuven came over to their desk.

"Are you preparing again?"

Seriously?

"I thought I told you that studying too much isn"t good for you. Come with me for a minute".

Lynn looked towards Theo for back up.

"Hey Yuven, don"t you have anything better to do?".

"Ah, Theo… Do you want to be under my watch as well, is that it?"

"I"ll just move over there then", Theo said before standing up and moving away from Lynn.

"Where are you going?" Lynn hissed.

"Lynn, come with me", Yuven said.

Lynn was hot on Theo"s heels, but from behind he felt a firm hand grab him by the arm, then he was dragged over to her desk.

Close to her desk were the usual group of trendy friends that she always hung out with. Lynn felt his heart thumping in his chest.

"I won"t let you get a head start on me, Lynn. As punishment, from today onwards, whenever I"m talking to my friends I"ll have you join our conversation too".

Huh? She wants me to talk to her friends? Is this a punishment or a reward?

While confused at this development, it didn"t strike him as something necessarily negative.

She dragged him over to her group of friends.

"I"ll introduce you to everyone. This is Lynn. He"s being teased by Theo and doesn"t have any friends. Be nice to him ok?"

"Hi" he mumbled, and struggled to maintain eye contact with them. In front of these cute girls he found himself acting bashful.

Seeing Lynn"s endearing nature, which they likely thought of as cute, the girls" first impression of Lynn was a good one.

—–

Talking with Yuven"s friends was, for lack of a better way to put it, a sickly sweet time for Lynn.

At first he was nervous being around them, but he soon became adverse to their conversations which were, as far as Lynn was concerned, boring.

They talked about fashion, Allfrid"s highstreet shops, love, scandal and gossip, tea parties, who was invited to which sponsorship party and so on. Lynn didn"t have much interest in most of what they talked about.

For the girls however, being invited to tea parties in Allfrid by high ranking aristocrats was a thing to be boastful of, but it wasn"t something which Lynn could relate to on any level.

He always found himself wanting to escape from their circle as fast as possible, so he could prepare for the lesson.

On the other hand, Yuven seemed quite pleased with herself as she had managed to interfere with Lynn"s study.

—–

Despite the fact that Yuven had managed to interrupt some of Lynn"s study habits, his grades didn"t drop.

At the same time, Theo"s grades were in as good a shape as they had ever been in.

It was in Metal Magic cla.s.s one day, when Theo demonstrated his talent.

"In the craft of Metallurgy, it"s normally as much as one can do to simply get metal from ore, produce alloys, and make coatings. However, with the use of metal magic, as well as utilizing magic circles and incantations, it"s not only possible to do these same things with far greater efficiency, but it"s also possible to even change one metal into another type of metal entirely, and at will. Of course this power is not omnipotent. Metallurgy executed with magic is temporary. If it undergoes a significant amount of strain- in other words if struck with enough force, or enough stress is exerted, the magic will come undone and the material will return to its original form. If you were to create gold bars from sc.r.a.ps of iron, and sell it on the marketplace, that would be a criminal offence. You"d be charged with fraud, so please bear that in mind. Your final goal in this cla.s.s is to be able to create gold from iron ore. However! This is no simple task, especially for beginners. So naturally we"ll start by doing something, comparatively, simple. To begin with I"ll have you working with copper and silver".

Sleeya Sensei set about writing theory on the blackboard, which explained the process of changing iron ore into the target metal. Below the theory he wrote out the steps involved.

On the blackboard was now drawn a diagram of a magic circle, as well as numerical formulas. Yuven stared at it with a gloomy, dejected look on her face.

Metallurgy incorporates diagrams and numbers, so it"s no wonder I"m not so good at it, Yuven thought to herself, and sighed.

She took this same cla.s.s last year, but she still had trouble reading even the first half of the textbook.

But I suppose there"s nothing to it but to try my best. You can do this, so long as you put in the effort!

Yuven heard Theo call out.

"Hey Lynn, look!"

When she looked over to their desk, she saw that Theo"s practice ore was giving off a dim, golden light. The stone was sitting on top of a piece of paper, which was spread out beneath it, and on which was drawn a magic circle, which was covered in written complicated numerical formulas and patterns.

There was no way Theo had learned that magic circle from cla.s.s. Yuven strained her ears, doing her best to listen in to their conversation.

"That"s amazing, Theo! How did you do it?" Lynn"s voice was full of excitement.

"I took a look at some of the later pages in the textbook, towards the back. I just followed the instructions… Lynn, you should read from the back as well!"

"Ahem".

Suddenly the sound of Sleeya Sensei clearing his throat interrupted their conversation.

"Galfield. Let me grant you your credit for Metal Magic cla.s.s," he said slowly, and then after a long pause, added "however… Come speak with me after cla.s.s, in the staff room. Lynn, you too".

"Huh? Why me as well?"

Yuven felt a jolt of anger run through her. Before she knew what she was doing, she had stabbed her pen into her notebook several times in an attempt to mediate her growing irritation.

Next time… Chapter 26, "Aristocratic State of Affairs".