After getting back to Silver Moon with Yae, I tried a few things in my room.
I could embed magic into apps. Maybe other things too.
Take, for example, the Null spell [Long Sense] — extends your senses to a distant location. Enchant the camera app with it, and…
“Enchant: Long Sense.”
I gave it a go. Then — what was in my real field of view also displayed in the camera app’s screen. With the feel of using [Long Sense], I sent my sight out. Through my room’s wall, two rooms over — Linze’s room came into view. Linze wasn’t there. Out, apparently. Right — she said something about going shopping with Elze.
Looking at the smartphone screen, the same view of Linze’s room. Strange feeling. My head’s vision split into upper and lower screens. Real-eye view, and [Long Sense] view.
In that state, hit the smartphone shutter — got it. Success. The photo showed Linze’s room.
So now I can take long-distance photos. And I can shoot into sealed rooms too. Probably the same trick works for video, I think.
The sound of a door opening — I lifted my eyes. Linze was in the room. Ah, she’s back. Maybe Elze too.
While I was thinking that, Linze took off her overcoat and started undoing the buttons of her blouse. Dazzlingly white skin filled my vision. UWAH!?
Bad! Slipped my mind, but this is undeniably PEEPING! I scrambled to release [Long Sense].
Close call… Just a little more and I’d have seen — wait. …Pity…?
No! No no! If she’d caught me, the trust would be GONE. That’s bad! Once trust is lost, getting it back is brutal. My judgment is correct! …I think. Or — I think she wouldn’t have noticed if I’d kept watching… I think… ngh.
”…Touya-san. May I?”
“Y-yes!? W-what is it!?”
Into the ear of soul-tortured me came a knock on the door, and the voice of the very girl I’d just been seeing. I shoved the smartphone into my pocket. The door opened, and the now-changed Linze peeked in.
”…? Is something wrong?”
“N-no! Nothing! S-so what wath up?”
Slip of the tongue. Calm down, self.
”…Today, I found this at an antique shop and bought it…”
Linze held out something like a scroll. A wooden tube, with parchment-like material wrapped around it. Inside, dense unfamiliar writing.
“What’s this?”
“A magic scroll, probably. But the script is Ancient Magic Language, and I can only read part of it…”
I see. So that’s why she came to me. I grabbed the glass on the table, took a silver coin from my wallet, [Modeling]‘d up a pair of eyeglasses. Then [Enchant]‘d [Reading] onto them — translation glasses complete.
Different from the ones I gave Charlotte-san — that was Ancient Spirit Language, this is Ancient Magic Language. No idea what makes the languages different.
I handed the finished glasses to her. Linze put them on — literary-girl look, suited her remarkably well. Cute, this Linze.
She turned her glasses-clad gaze to the spread-out scroll.
”…! Amazing. I’d heard about it, but… the words come right off the page.”
Linze followed the scroll with her eyes, voice tight with awe.
“What does it say?”
“One ancient spell. Looks like a water spell… Bubble Bomb… an attack spell, maybe.”
She continued reading, frowning. Looks like I was useful. I had peeping-guilt sitting on me, but it felt slightly atoned for.
She wanted to try it immediately, but it was getting late. We agreed to go again tomorrow. She accepted it for today.
Once Linze left, I deleted the photo of her room from the smartphone right away. Best to destroy the evidence. I don’t want the title of “Lecher of the Year.”
But seriously… [Apport] for theft, [Long Sense] for peeping, [Gate] for trespass. Camera + [Long Sense] for hidden filming… My criminal-skill set keeps growing.
Refrain from any suspicious behavior, I swore in my heart.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
The next day, Linze and I went to the Eastern Forest. I’d been there before so [Gate] worked easily, and there was an open area in the forest perfect for magic practice. Fire-element off the table, since it’d start a forest fire.
We pushed through the woods to the open spot. Linze pulled out yesterday’s scroll, put on the translation glasses, read it through several times intently, and — silver staff at the ready — began to focus mana.
“Water, come — bursting bubble — Bubble Bomb.”
A small clump of water gathered around her staff… and burst immediately, falling to the ground. Failure, probably.
She set up again, focused mana again.
“Water, come — bursting bubble — Bubble Bomb.”
Again the water-orb formed, again it burst the same way. Another failure. Well — it’s called ancient magic. Won’t be easy to learn.
Linze re-read the scroll once more, set up again. Failed again.
She tried over and over after that, but every time, just clear of the staff, it’d burst small and drop. Failure after failure.
Past the tenth, Linze swayed and dropped to her knees, collapsing. I hurried over and caught her.
“Linze!? You okay!?”
”…I-it’s all right… just out of mana… I’ll recover… if I rest a while…”
Eyes hazy, Linze answered weakly. So this is what running out of mana looks like. Can’t leave her like this.
”…Ah…? T-Touya, san…!?”
I scooped her up bridal-style — she was barely conscious — and opened Gate. In my arms, Linze was rigid, face flushed, like something hurt — bear with it for just a bit.
Out into Silver Moon’s back garden, inside, up the stairs. I opened Linze’s door and laid her gently on the bed in the corner. Her face was still red — is that all right? I put a hand to her forehead to check for fever.
”…A-aaugh…!”
“No fever. Hold on, I’ll go get Elze.”
Pulled Elze out of her room next door and had her remove Linze’s gear. I can’t be the one touching her body to undress her.
I left it to Elze and stepped out. Practicing until you run out of mana — diligent, or just hard-working. Charlotte-san too — magicians, are they all this single-minded? Devotion, I guess.
The next day, Linze had fully recovered. Mana exhaustion clears in about a day if you rest, apparently.
”…About yesterday — I’m so sorry for being a bother!”
Linze apologized profusely about yesterday — but I don’t think she did anything she needs to apologize for?
Today again we went to the Eastern Forest, same magic practice as yesterday.
Linze failed and tried, failed and tried. I watched from the side. When she failed for the ninth time, I made her stop. Any more and she’d collapse the same as yesterday.
“Take a break, Linze.”
”…Yes.”
I handed her the canteen of tea I’d brought.
“Anything coming together?”
”…No, nothing. Casting depends a lot on knowledge of the spell, and — a spell I’ve never seen is hard…”
I see. She has no clear image because she’s never seen it.
We rested an hour, but her mana didn’t recover much, and after two more failures she swayed. We called it for the day.
The day after, and the day after that, she kept practicing. Every day to the edge of running out. An hour of practice and Linze’s mana was spent — the rest was rest. Honestly, the efficiency was poor.
“Even so, Linze — you really persevere. You keep failing and you don’t quit.”
”…I’m clumsy, so… I have to repeat the same thing over and over… and finally I learn the spell. Always been like that. So it’s not anything to remark on.”
She smiled as she said it. Strong, this one. Persistence is power. She knows for a fact that not giving up is the most important thing for her growth.
But — efficiency really was the issue. If she could only practice many more times… Mmm… maybe consult Charlotte-san. She is the country’s number-one mage, supposedly.
After we wrapped up before her mana went, I went back to the inn with Linze, then took Yumina via [Gate] to Charlotte-san at the castle. Walking through the castle alone is hard otherwise — looks completely like a suspicious person…
Charlotte-san was in the research tower, with bags under her eyes. Hadn’t been sleeping much, apparently. Even so, she heard me out and gave me a solution. Promised to assist her research another day, though…
The next day, with Linze in the Eastern Forest again. Same practice, same failures. When she was almost out of mana, Linze called the practice off herself. Now I’m up.
“Linze, come over here.”
”? …What is it?”
I took her hands in front of me and held them firmly.
“F-fueh!? Wha-what is it!?”
“Calm down. Relax.”
“R-relax!?”
“Aah — let your shoulders go.”
I soothed the flailing Linze, focused mana, and triggered the Null spell Charlotte-san had taught me — a spell whose existence and effect she’d told me about. My hands gave off a faint glow.
“Transfer.”
“Eh!?”
A faint light passed from my hands into Linze; she gasped. Looks like it worked.
“My mana… is recovering. Just like that?”
The Null spell [Transfer]. Donates the caster’s own mana to another. There were several known users of it, and Charlotte-san’s master could also apparently use it.
The story was: he’d push her to cast until she dropped, recover her mana, then push her to cast until she dropped again — an endless training cycle. Demon, that guy.
But I was about to do the same to Linze. Not by force, like Charlotte-san’s master.
Just realized: I gave Linze enough mana to fully refill her, and even that was less than what holding Kōhaku here costs me. In other words, well within natural regen range. Linze’s mana pool isn’t small, supposedly. How much do I have, then…
Anyway, with this Linze can practice without worrying about mana exhaustion.
“Water, come — bursting bubble — Bubble Bomb.”
She practiced for hours after that, full out. Incredible focus. But at this rate, even if mana holds, her stamina won’t.
I made her take a break.
“Still difficult… I just can’t grasp the gist of this spell…”
“I see…”
Yeah — ancient magic, hard. Almost no users, so no models. If you can’t form your own clear image, you can’t move forward.
”…If I at least understood what Bubble Bomb meant, maybe a little…”
”…Eh?”
A blank sound came out of me at Linze’s words. Eh? What does that mean?
“The meaning of Bubble Bomb?”
”? Yes. Spell-names have meanings, supposedly. For example, the Fire in Fire Storm means fire…”
“No no no no — that’s not it.”
Hm? Isn’t English… auto-translated? Or are these word-loans transmitted directly without meaning?
I borrowed the scroll from Linze and read it with [Reading]. …Yeah, “Bubble Bomb” reads in katakana. Ah — that’s how it works.
Even if you know the words Fire Ball, you don’t know what they mean. From Fire Ball, Fire Arrow, Fire Storm, she’d at least figured out that Fire meant fire.
Eh — so they’re all shouting spell-names without knowing what they mean? Strange. Doesn’t track. Other people use English-loan words, surely? They say Ice = ice, I’m sure of it. God-sama, the translation function is broken. …Just Bubble and Bomb, maybe? Neither comes up much in daily talk…
”? What is it?”
“Ah, no… Bubble means a frothy water-orb. Bomb means an explosive.”
“Explosive?”
“Aah — something that explodes. Like Linze’s [Explosion] spell.”
I explained, and Linze pondered in silence for a while. Then she lifted her face, set up the staff again, and started the spell.
“Water, come — bursting bubble — Bubble Bomb.”
A single water orb — no, soap-bubble-like sphere — appeared around the staff and started drifting on the air.
About twenty centimeters across. She could move it at will, apparently — for a bit she let it float, then sent it slamming into a tree.
In the instant of contact, a tremendous shock-sound rang out, and the tree was pulverized.
We watched the scene, struck dumb. Then Linze said quietly:
”…I did it…”
So this is the ancient spell [Bubble Bomb]. Outrageous power…
She used it again. This time five or six bubbles appeared at once, flying in a straight line at a stand of trees. The moment they touched, explosions chained, and the trees were felled all at once.
Outrageous power. Linze ran to me and bowed.
“Thanks to you, I completed it. Thank you so much.”
“No — Linze’s effort bore fruit. I just helped a little.”
Being formally thanked makes me bashful. And honestly, Linze — challenging it again and again without giving up — is the more impressive one. From what’s possible, building one step at a time, reliably growing. A real plodder. That’s this girl’s essential nature.
Glad I got to know a new side of Linze. I opened a Gate back to Silver Moon with that thought.