My name is Minnie Dulaine, twenty years of age as of this summer, and today — May 3rd, the hottest spring day Sun’s Haven has seen since I came here — I’m leaving everything behind.

Everything as in my old life. I’m bringing my luggage.

🙢

“Are you really not staying for the graduation ceremony?” Victoria, my senior only in age, asked. The young woman sat in the alcove of my dorm room’s window, watching the countless students hurrying about down below. I could tell from her longing eyes that she wanted to be down there as well, preparing stalls for the coming festivities, chatting with friends, or just mock flirting with the jocks from the fencing team.

They would always stumble over themselves whenever Victoria was around, and the last time she winked at one of the younger girls, the poor kid had almost gotten her ear cut off from getting distracted. Fortunately, there had been a healer close at hand.

Victoria was, simply put, beautiful. Dark and silky hair; purple, sultry eyes; lips that were full and an elegant nose. Even now, with her corset pulled loose and hair in a lazy bun, she was prettier than I could ever dream of being.

She honestly didn’t need the corset to begin with, but I suspected that she enjoyed the jealous and dazed looks she got whenever she pulled in her waist just a little bit more. It pushed her past human limits and into the realms of perfection, much like it did whenever she wore a bit of makeup or put in the effort to fix her hair.

By all means, Victoria had been cheating in life ever since she was born, but I’d learned to live with it. Else, I’d never been able to stay her friend for all this time. In many ways, the two of us were as different as we were alike. Where I was sort of glad I had a reason to skip out on the ceremonies, I could tell that she was dying to socialize right now.

As a good bestie, however, Victoria was stuck with me for the next hour or so.

I’d told her repeatedly that she was allowed to leave whenever she wanted. Especially as she kept letting out deep, longing sighs as she stared out that window — much like the bachelorette princesses you keep hearing about in the newspapers, trapped in their figurative towers until a handsome prince could come whisk them away.

It was the latest trend when it came to nameless kings marrying off their daughters. Quite successful at that — it tickled something in the male psychology, I’d read — but I wouldn’t be fooled by Victoria’s act. Repeatedly, she’d declined my suggestions for her to simply “go down there and stop moping about. You’re being distracting.”

She wanted me to know that she would pick me over the ceremony any day of the week, but that I was annoying for forcing her to choose. Honestly, I didn’t mind her presence, sighs or not. I enjoyed her being there, just not her constant attempts at changing my mind about something I decided upon weeks ago.

“You will still make it if you take one of the early portals tomorrow…”

“There are no portals to Tarbow Bay,” I said, tossing one of my folded-up shirts at her face. She caught it before it could hit her.

“For me?” she asked, curiously inspecting the garment.

That sure took her mind from the festivities outside…

“That, along with most of these.” I sighed, gesturing towards the large piles surrounding me. A decade might have passed, but when the heck did I end up with these many clothes? “I won’t need most of the frilly things—” no matter how cute they look, “—where I’m going. No fine dresses, or lounging outfits either. It will mostly be work over these coming months, and I need to plan my luggage accordingly.”

“Oh,” Victoria mouthed, and I could tell she struggled between consoling me and marveling over her sudden gifts. In the end, those sparkling eyes won out.

She slid down from the window.

“Even the ones that honestly seem made for me?” she asked.

Victoria Camille Bercladotte could have bought the entirety of my room, contents included, several times over without even putting a dent in her pocket change. The funny thing was most of my clothes, money couldn’t buy.

Frugal savings won’t a fortune make, and most of Sun’s Haven was — from culture to facilities — made for finer folk than me. Even simple garments did cost a fortune around here.

Fortunately, necessity breeds solutions. Over the years, I’d learned to sew most of my clothes myself, and some I had ended up making with Victoria in mind. Though, I’d always been too embarrassed to tell her, less so hand them to her.

Now seemed a good a time as any for the latter, and the former, well…

Victoria had spent years scouring the city shops, trying to find where I bought them. Never once had she caught onto my subtle hints about her being “closer than she thought,” however, and at this point, I feared she would actually get mad if I told her the truth. There was quite some time and effort that had gone into tracking my sources down, after all.

“Those as well,” I confirmed, turning my attention towards a desk where my towering pile of books still lay. Now, how will I fit those inside my overflowing bags…?

“Good,” Victoria said as she promptly made her way over. “Because I’ve never understood why you keep refusing to wear them outside. It’s a waste of both adorable clothes and your nice figure.”

Because it’s embarrassing? I thought. And because you complementing me on my looks is like me complementing you on your calculus?

‘It sounds condescending,’ those were the exact words Victoria had used as I praised her on her math homework, years ago. I felt the same way as the young woman now tentatively draped one of my old shirts over her shoulders, only to look like a Cathedral painting that’d come alive.

Since when did my clothes ever look that good?

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“Then feel free to wear them all you want,” I solemnly said, praising my own foresight for packing nothing but work-dresses, comfy pants, and shirts that screamed ‘business’. It wasn’t as embarrassing if you didn’t try, and my years of frolicking about was over. I was going out into the wide world to make a name for myself, nothing else.

Standing before my desk, however, I found myself in a bit of a pickle.

Picking up one dense volume after the other, I could only bite my lip. ‘Business Administration: From the Ground Up…! Applied Theories for the Manaless… The Modern Market Economy… Factory Productivity 101… Business and Work Laws… A Happy Worker, a Happy Life… The History of Octalia, Volume 8…’ There were a lot of them, not to mention several stacks of journals and notes that reached nearly as high as the books themselves. Taller than me, even if I’d been standing right next to them.

A decade of hard work, and now I have to choose what I bring with me? It was depressing, but before I could begin culling the results of my blood, sweat, and tears, Victoria called over, “Here, let me help you with that!”

Even if my talents with mana were near nonexistent, it would’ve taken a blind woman not to see it coming.

The spell literally buzzed through the air, leaving goosebumps across my skin and a metallic taste upon my tongue as the entire pile of books and notes suddenly began folding in upon itself. Over, and over again, it did, leaving the entire pile no larger than a single pamphlet as Victoria came over to catch it all inside of a briefcase that she promptly shoved into my arms.

As I made contact with the warm leather, a tingle spread up my veins and into my chest.

“There,” she grinned. “It’s registered to your mana signature now. You won’t be able to hand it back.” As I just kept staring at her with wide eyes, her confident smile waned a bit. “I-I mean, I wasn’t sure what to get you with you going away and all. You always refuse my gifts, insisting on taking extra shifts at work even when I’m the one who wants to go shopping…and…erm, I-I mean…”

Even for Victoria, a spatial storage of this size would put a dent in her pocket change. Quite the sizable one at that.

“Y-you don’t like it?” the young woman nervously finished.

Over the years, money had become the rule zero of our friendship. I hated it when people gifted the ‘poor, manaless, commoner girl’ things out of obligation, and I would’ve hated it even more if anyone thought my friendship with Victoria was based on personal gain.

Seeing the fretting young woman now, however, I could only pull her into a tight hug.

“No, Vicky, I love it. Really. Thanks.”

There might have been some tears exchanged after that.

🙢

Although she looked radiant as ever, hair impeccable and makeup in place, Victoria kept sniffling a bit as she walked beside me, down the near empty hallways of Sun Haven’s dorms. The spring sun shone golden through the tall windows, and most students were busy with the upcoming ceremonies within the courtyards and parks below.

Only the few stragglers who had forgotten something in their rooms or had just woken up from a long night of drinking, were still about up here on the third floor.

No one would be moving out for weeks still. Only me.

“I’m telling you,” Victoria said, “It wasn’t that expensive. Soon enough, I’ll be making more of those things anyway.”

My initial instinct was to protest, to say that the briefcase tightly clutched against my chest — it really is too expensive to carry around like this, isn’t it? Should I hand it back, after all? — wasn’t something a recent graduate would be making. Then again, knowing Victoria, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Technically, she wasn’t only my senior in age.

While we preferred to live our lives as happy peers, few others would ever see it that way.

When it came to things related to magic, mana, and the arcane, I was about as inept as Victoria was gifted. Indeed, it wasn’t lack of talent that made us graduate at the same time, despite her being three years older than me. The expectations put on business mages were simply different compared to those of mundane students such as me, and to graduate at 23 still put Victoria in the company of prodigies.

“You don’t have to pretend with me, Vicky,” I said, letting out a deep sigh. “It is that expensive, and not only do you want to shame me for gifting you some shabby clothes in turn, but now, you want to rub it in my face how much better your future prospects are compared to mine. If the rest of Sun’s Haven only knew how mean their valedictorian can be…”

“Hey,” Victoria huffed, giving me a light shove.

“And now she’d turning violent as well,” I whimpered, wiping away a feigned tear. “Oh, pain and misery, an angel on the surface and a devil underneath. How she makes me suffer.”

Victoria just rolled her eyes, turning my act into a laugh. “First of all, I like the clothes you gave me, and secondly, the opportunity Professor Maloney offered you is just as great as mine, isn’t it? I’m only starting off as an intern, but you are jumping straight in as a business adviser.”

“An intern at the greatest enchantment and inscription shop within the city,” I reminded her. “And me, well, I’m…”

To be honest, I didn’t know a whole lot about this ‘G&G Incorporated’ I was going to. Only that it was located in Tarbow Bay, and that they were in need of a financial adviser. I’d jumped at the opportunity as soon as I heard the latter, even if Professor Maloney had seemed hesitant about it all.

Tarbow Bay didn’t have a great reputation, but if they would have me, I’d take it.

Even after eight months of job hunting in preparation for my graduation, the only other offers I’d come by were as an assistant of assistants, down within the lowest rungs of the corporate ladder.

Within most of Octalia’s districts, even store clerks were expected to, at least, have the basic mana necessary to operate magical tools and devices. I didn’t.

It’s not really that I lack talent when it comes to all things magical, it’s just that I’m a cripple. If normal mana capacity was a grade from zero to ten, I would be a minus one.

My hesitation made Victoria come to a dead halt.

“Minnie,” she began. “This work you’ve been given…It’s nothing dangerous, is it?”

“Of course not,” I assured her despite not being certain myself. “Worst case, I have this.”

I pulled up my skirt to show the dagger strapped to my shin. Although it’d begun as a silly bet, I’d been taking fencing classes for these past five years. At first, it was just to see who could take down more jocks: me with a sword, or Victoria with a smile. In the end, more matches had been decided by her than me, but I’d still kept up with practice.

There wasn’t the same magic discrimination on the lower-level competitions or in practice, and it’d been good exercise even if I could never hope of going professional. Now, however, Victoria seemed all but reassured by the fact that I was already carrying a weapon.

“You said that the factory was far away from the water, right?” she asked in a dead serious tone. “Located right next to the train station, right?”

“I did say that…” I vaguely began, glancing out the window where an apple bobbing game was being prepared. “Oh, look, they’re—”

Before I could finish, Victoria strode over, grabbed hold of my shoulders, and turned me around until I couldn’t help but stare straight into her worried, purple gaze.

“Minnie,” she said, “are you really sure that you don’t want to come work for me? You know I’m not just offering this to be nice. In a slightly different world, you’re the one who would be giving the valedictorian speech later today, not me. Your help would be invaluable when it comes to accounting and business management. And, well, if you don’t want to work for me, I could talk with my father, or—”

“Maybe in the future, if things don’t work out,” I said, giving her a tired smile. We had this discussion yesterday as well. Not to mention the day before that, and the day before that… “I still have a dream of making it on my own, Vicky. I want to take this chance and see what will come of it, without the help of others.” Without being dawdled with just because I can’t cast a few cantrips or whatever.

It wasn’t just pride or a need to prove myself that drove me either. I already knew the expected future of someone with as little mana as myself. A decade of hard studies here at Sun’s Haven, and the best I could hope for was to get some humble, anonymous, office work; find some half decent guy to get married to; have kids; and keep struggling until the day I died.

I didn’t want that, and while I might be able to aim somewhat higher on the back of Victoria’s goodwill, I didn’t want that either. No, my name is Minnie Dulaine, and not only do I have a dream of retiring rich at the age of 35, but I also want to remain a good friend until the day I die.