As the pivotal event in a noble child's life, the coming-of-age ceremony typically caused great anxiety among their entire family. After all, if the child was to awaken some awful element, the entire family's reputation might be weakened. The Ravendalls, however, were already aware of their daughter’s element. Well, partially at least.
As such, they were not in a panic as they prepared themselves for the trip to the capital. Despite Alice's awakening having occurred nearly three years prior, she was still obliged to attend the ceremony, albeit without the customary magical expertise bestowed upon participants afterward. It was the same initial magical lesson during which a novice mage would uncover their magic type while activating their mana veins for the first type. Viktor had already taken care of this for Alice, so she did not need to do it again. As such, she relished the thought of spending an extra day wandering the capital's vibrant streets and basking in its rich history and culture.
The only thing that worried Edgar de Ravendall was the expected mockery from other nobles as the priests would declare out loud that Alice would not need to be awakened like the others. All those in attendance would promptly deduce that her awakening had taken place naturally prior to the ceremony, and they would think that her element was weak enough to not have been revealed to the public.
Edgar had already forewarned Alice of the likely snickers and disapproving looks she would encounter during the ceremony, but his concern for her well-being far exceeded her own apprehension. Indeed, Alice did not really care about what others thought about her magic. To begin with, she did not want to stand out with an incredible power in noble society.
The only thing that would trigger her were the attacks on her physical appearance, especially her height and her hair. She had expected it, but her white hair was as rare as it was scorned. Although Alice had never heard any criticism about it in her life. Her mother, who had suffered a lot in noble society because of the color of her hair, might have worked behind the scenes so that the people Alice would meet didn't make any remark about it.
In the temple where potentially hundreds of nobles would assemble, however, the Ravendalls had no control over what Alice would hear. The only thing they were able to do was trimming her hair and bangs to make their daughter's appearance a bit less blameworthy.
“Father, who will go to the capital?”
“We shall all attend. Your mother, myself, and even Alistair.”
“Oh, Alistair is coming too?! That is great! Is he really willing to? There will just be boring speeches from the priests.”
“We told him he could stay with the domestics for the week, but he insisted. He said that he had to do this so that you would come to his own coming-of-age ceremony.”
“I understand. I would have attended his regardless, though. Still, there surely will not be enough seats for all our respective attendants, let alone the guards...”
“The four of us will occupy one carriage, while the domestic staff will travel in the other along with the guards.”
“Mmh? The other? Can we really afford to rent another carriage?”
"Lord Isaac has offered to provide one of his carriages, ensuring our comfort throughout the journey. He will even send two or three guards, so it will not be as costly as we thought.”
“That is very kind of him. I will be sure to express my gratitude during my next visit to his manor.”
"Kind? Yes, that might be so."
"You do not seem too sure about it, Father..."
"Well... While the bonds between our families have grown stronger with the camaraderie between you and their son, Lord Isaac's offer does not look entirely selfless."
"Ah... I suppose you are right."
While the two families did view each other as close friends, it was evident that they both reaped tangible benefits from their alliance. The Vallmonts, for instance, had managed to create stronger ties with King Arlington de Ouronia thanks to Edgar. Whether or not it would let them become a duke family like all those rumors predicted or not, it was an excellent move politically speaking.
As such, Edgar was uncertain if Isaac was lending a carriage along with guards simply out of kindness. In the end, he probably wanted to strengthen even more his ties with the King by displaying his close relationship with Alice's family.
"Regardless, whether it was a heartfelt gesture or a political action, we will also benefit from being seen in a carriage with the Vallmont’s crest by other nobles, so we should just accept his generosity."
(I don't get all that noble stuff... Why do we need to do things so indirectly with such implicit agreements?)
Seeing her slight frown, Edgar patted his daughter's head with a smile and left to take care of all the preparations for the departure.
As Alice was returning to her room, she caught sight of her little brother approaching and she swiftly adopted her customary stoic demeanor. Determined to maintain the façade of a mature and serious older sister, she did her best to keep her more lighthearted and goofy side hidden from him. That poker face of hers would falter whenever she had to eat midranate, however, and her little brother always tried to make it seem like he didn’t notice.
“Good morning, Al. Did you finish your lesson? How was it?”
“Hello, Sister! These lessons are quite challenging for me. I am surprised that you willingly undertook them at the Vallmonts’ residence…”
“Doing nothing all day was worse, I tell you. If you need my assistance, just ask me. I would be happy to help you.”
“Thank you. I might do just that.”
“So, what are you doing in your free time, Al?”
“I… was planning to train my mana veins in advance at the training ground.”
“Eh? Do not do that. What if that triggered an awakening?
“Would it not be nice, though? I mean, you were already awakened when you were about my age. I feel a bit inferior…”
“Inferior? You should not feel that way. Awakening early is rarely a good thing. Remember how worried Mother and Father were a few years ago over my impromptu awakening?”
“Huh? No, I do not really remember that.”
“What about me being sick for several days right after I awakened? If anything, I am the one who feels inferior at the moment. I am more than three years older than you and you are already so much taller than me. I am just a weak girl with a lackluster element awakened after studying merely a portion of the entire curriculum.”
Her energy-related magic type wasn't ‘lackluster’ by any means and she knew it, but she wanted to convince her brother to bide his time. Alice's awakening only went well because she had this special knowledge, after all.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“D-do not speak so negatively about yourself, Sister! You are amazing and everyone wants to protect you! And that includes me!”
Alice's eyes softened at her brother's innocence and she silently vowed to be the one protecting him.
"Please do so."
***
As the day of their departure finally arrived, the Ravendalls busied themselves with packing and making the necessary arrangements for their journey. The Marquis could only lend two of his guards to the Ravendalls, but Edgar was still satisfied with that. In terms of skills, such guards would be equivalent to B-rank adventurers, so it would have been quite costly to hire them.
Nonetheless, two B-rank individuals were insufficient for such a journey, so Edgar enlisted a party of four D-rank adventurers.
The route they would take was supposed to be safe because a lot of people used it. As such, bandits would have to take the risk of reinforcements arriving at any time to help the victims, so attacks were very rare.
Still, the fact that a lot of humans went there meant that a lot of dangerous creatures lurked in the woods on each side of the road to prey on little groups of humans. This was why the bare minimum for nobles was one or more D-rank parties escorting them. If the Vallmonts did not lend their guards, Edgar would have probably hired two C-rank parties as a count.
Partly due to all the fantastic stories that filled a good portion of her dreams and fueled her fascination for adventures, Alice yearned to learn more about this organization called the “Adventuring Guild” for which the D-rank party worked.
If her goal was to become a hero and save people, she thought asking them all sorts of things about their way of life might give her some ideas to accomplish that aim.
As her family was preparing for their journey, Alice seized the opportunity to gather some intel from the adventurers. They were talking to the household staff at the moment and didn't seem too busy.
"Um... Excuse me? Do you mind if I ask you something?"
One of the adventurers, a tall man with broad shoulders and a confident stride, approached her. He seemed slightly taken aback by her willingness to engage in conversation with commoners when she didn't have to.
"No problem, Miss. What do you need?"
"I was wondering, what kind of magic do you all use in battle? I am curious about how you handle various situations and such."
"Well, the thing is, we don’t. As commoners, we are not built like you: our mana capacities are not that great. Some mages have offensive magic, but they aren’t the norm. Within our party, we only have some support magic to aid in various situations.”
The man pointed at another one who was loading his bag into one of the carriages.
“This fellow can conjure fire. However, his magic isn't quite suited for battle, making his abilities somewhat limited. He’s mostly able to use it for cooking outdoors."
"Like you're one to talk, Patry. Unlike your measly water magic, I can at least scare away wild beasts."
"Huh... Touché."
Alice listened intently, nodding in understanding as she remembered that fire and water were the most prevalent magics. After all their usefulness made them almost indispensable, particularly for those with limited means. They were just categories, however, as there were several variants.
Fire-based elements, for instance, could be divided into three sub-categories. First, those who could trigger a combustion by making matter heat up. Even though the nature of matter was still unknown in this world, Alice was certain that those fire mages were unconsciously making atoms and molecules furiously vibrate in the system targeted by their mana. Their magic type was just doing the actual work for them. Besides starting a combustion, however, they wouldn't be able to do much else. This was apparently the case for the fire mage in this party.
(No wonder he fights with a sword.)
The second sub-category of fire elements consisted of mages capable of making the very air flammable. Alice was uncertain about the mechanics behind this one.
(Hydrocarbon, maybe?)
She hypothesized that this kind of magic type might be gathering the sparse hydrogen atoms from the air as well as the carbon from carbon dioxide in order to create some sort of hydrocarbon-like gas, thus making it extremely flammable with all the oxygen nearby. The mages would then be able to control flames and their intensity. Those fire mages needed an external way to start the initial combustion to happen in one way or another but, when the fire was ignited, they had way more control over their flames than the first kind of fire mages. This magic had the potential to be used offensively.
There were probably better explanations for the working of this kind of magic, but her hypothesis was at least better than those written in books about magic, which didn't take into account matter at the molecular level.
In the last category were the fire mages who had only a very restricted spell that used the first two. The most obvious example was those who were only able to throw a fireball. It technically was manipulating the flammability of the air and was triggering the initial combustion as well, but those mages lacked versatility: they could only throw their fireball straight toward a target. Needless to say, this kind of fire magic had very limited use in cooking. Without much control over their fireball, these mages would be risking burning down their own house. Offensively, though, those mages could be incredibly powerful in battle.
In comparison, water-based magic types seemed plain. For one thing, they were never used offensively.
No element could generate water either. After all, to create this matter from nothing, there would need to be an absurd amount of mana. So much of it that the entire mana pools of all residents of this world put together still wouldn’t be enough to generate one liter of water.
Still, it was possible with some water elements to gather the humidity in the air and save just enough to drink two liters per day. Most water mages used their magic to purify the dirty water that could be found anywhere, though.
In rare cases, some water-based magic types were more specialized in the manipulation of water and the casters could, unconsciously or not, manipulate the density of water to make it move in the air with mana. In this very special case, maybe a water-based element could actually kill someone by drowning them. However, Alice had never heard about anyone using water offensively in a direct manner. She was a bit disappointed since she had wanted to witness the power of water blades slicing through the air at least once. She hoped she would see someday someone use water magic to create a high-pressure waterjet cutter. This thing was incredibly efficient to cut things back on Earth.
In any case, with the preparations complete and the carriages loaded, the adventurers and Alice gathered for the departure. She had been able to ask them a lot of things, so she was satisfied.
Alice savored the anticipation of the little journey ahead by breathing in the crisp morning air.
The carriages set off at a nod from her father, leaving behind the mansion as they embarked on the road toward the capital.