I... messed up.

I underestimated her and naively thought that she wouldn’t be monitoring the surrounding mana. It made sense for her to do this at her birthday celebration as she was the host and had to keep an eye on the hall. I didn't expect her to do it outside as well though, let alone constantly. Was she willing to waste her mana on a regular basis for the once-in-a-million occasion when it was actually useful? Well, there was also the chance that she only started monitoring mana when she saw me because of our previous encounter.

Yeah. That's probably it...

Regardless, I made the mistake of assuming it was safe to manipulate so much mana right above a royal, two high-ranking nobles, and knights who were probably magic experts. Although all the conditions to maximize the chances of being caught were met, I didn't think much of it in the heat of the moment and tried it anyway.

I ought to work on my ability to react to panic accordingly because it definitely wasn't the first time I did something stupid as soon as the blood rushed to my head.

It wasn’t like I wanted to attack them without warning, at least. I merely tried to position my mana in a place where I could quickly act in case things went South.

And now, I was paying the price of my carelessness. My thoughts were sluggish and I was on my knees, barely being able to balance my body. The internal pain was hardly bearable and showed no sign of subsiding anytime soon.

I recognized this experience, of course, because it had happened just a few days ago when Isabelle de Lockmond bested me at her Grand Banquet. I had managed to stay more or less on my two legs the first time, though. Well, my body was well rested and I had no nutritional imbalance back then, so that might have been the reason why I had immediately collapsed just now.

Collapse or not, it was seriously wild how this girl could cripple anyone's ability to use magic on a whim. What a terrifying woman.

... Huh.

Actually, now that I thought about it, that description was quite fitting for Clair too. Did I really manage to cross paths with two anti-magic mages determined to interfere with my magic every chance they got? Seemed like it.

Clair made the very act of casting magic impossible, that much I knew. I wasn't sure if she was tampering with the target's ability to sense and interact with mana, or making the mana itself unresponsive. I believed it was the former since mana could still be physiologically processed, but either of them would make it nearly impossible for me to prove or disprove considering I was both the examiner and the subject.

And so, for all intents and purposes, thinking of this magic type as the modulation of a target’s mana affinity seemed appropriate for now. Plus, this denomination worked well with the fact that she could somehow produce the opposite effect on someone too, just like she had done with me right before this entire interaction. An opposite effect which was now wasted because of my actions.

As for Isabelle, partly because I was experiencing her magic firsthand, I could tell with certainty that she was affecting the very mana within her target. And not in a peaceful manner, for that matter.

While I cognitively recognized the mana inside me as my own, my body was sending me desperate and contradictory signals. It was there but it was being treated as someone else's, as if I had lost ownership.

It wasn't even just the mana inside me, though, because I had lost track of all my external mana before my body was affected. Isabelle had managed to subtilize everything, even though she initially had less mana than I did in total.

The effect on me was double. On the one hand, my body could no longer process my own mana, making me so deprived that I feared I might die any second now. In fact, my mana veins were so devoid of usable mana that I could sense in real time the process by which my body continuously produced new mana.

On the other, that new mana was reacting violently with all the stolen mana that remained in my veins. The pain it caused was surprisingly great given that the actual amount of mana rejecting what was now Isabelle's was negligible. Part of me considered that it might have been Clair's boosting spell, since she had supposedly heightened my reactivity to mana. I was confident this level of mana rejection was far from lethal despite my brain warning me otherwise, although the mana deprivation that accompanied it was very real and would eventually kill me. It was as if I still felt severely dehydrated despite having gulped down several bottles of water, and my body decided on top of that to recognize that water as some life-threatening poison. It wasn't actually that dangerous but it didn't hydrate me either, so I was still at risk of dying.

All in all, these two magics affected different aspects of the pre-casting stage and both converged at the incapacity of casting magic for the target. Although one of them was much scarier than the other.

Am I truly about to die like this?

Perhaps it was appropriate for me to meet my end like this. Thinking back, this was exactly the kind of situation I was looking for, one for which I couldn't turn things around despite my instincts screaming at me to do anything. It was for sure a suboptimal way of dying filled with nothing but pain, but it wouldn't last much longer.

“Now then, would you care to explain yourself?”

“... Ah."

… Yeah, of course.

Just when I was about to make peace with dying from the deprivation, the excruciating pain subsided and Isabelle de Lockmond resumed the interrogation.

The situation in my body had changed. Only a fraction of my mana pool remained, but it was perfectly compatible with my mana system and the measly mana I was slowly recovering. From what I gathered, Isabelle had given me back ownership of this small amount and retrieved the rest. With only this much, I could hardly do anything to defend myself besides maybe slightly cushioning a slap or performing a cheap light show. It was a laughable quantity, even compared to Rina’s mana pool.

And since my mana system was vastly more demanding than a beastfolk's, this much didn't even get me out of my anemia completely either. I was still feeling like crap, though it was at least enough to halt the severe state of deprivation that would have killed me within minutes otherwise.

What a way to waste my resolve.

Though I felt like my resolve had been wasted, I did think she might spare me at the very end. I knew from experience that this girl could and would cast that magic on people without any intent to kill, after all. In fact, it would have been stranger for her to let me die since she didn’t get to hear my motives. Besides, even if I were to be executed preemptively, that decision would still have been Prince Claude’s.

At the end of the day, she only did what she did to neutralize the threat in front of her.

... Probably to prove a point, too: that she was better than me.

And frankly, I sort of agreed. I had to admit that her level of control over her mana was simply astonishing. Not only could this girl overwrite any quantity of mana with her own signature, but she could somehow perceive all the surrounding mana around her as well.

This hinted at a unique and broader spell that explained both abilities, so the fact that she could seamlessly perform these two different actions in real time deserved nothing but praise.

Once again, it was the paradox of magic types: the ones who were gifted with versatile elements and therefore with a wider range of abilities were not as guided when they performed specialized actions. The geniuses were playing in hard mode, while the idiots had it easy. Not that I ever knew how hard it was supposed to be, since I could just formulate new spells that produced the desired effects.

Doesn't that make me part of the idiots...?

Maybe I was just loved by the spirits, whatever that meant.

Anyway, Isabelle was a prodigy who had been monitoring my mana without me knowing, and she even managed to disable me before I could do a thing.

I didn’t know the full scope of her magic, so she might even have had more cards up her sleeve. To begin with, I wasn’t even sure if her spell was related to mana specifically or if her two abilities emerged from the application of an even broader spell onto mana.

Indeed, though mana typically served as a medium to envelop a target and apply magic to it, there were certain mages who could use mana as both the medium and the target.

Serena’s ability to track mana, for instance, emerged from applying her Refraction Magic directly onto mana rather than just using that mana as a medium to change the refractive index of the air or something else.

As for me, I had thought for a long time that my magic could be applied to mana as well. After all, in addition to enveloping an object with mana as a medium to transform its kinetic energy into something like light, I could also transform mana itself into other forms of energy.

But that’s wrong.

It must have been because this spell Clair had cast on me was active, but I was much more confident with that dynamics formulation of my magic than earlier.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Pick a side, already…

Why was I swinging back and forth like this, depending on my mental state? Right now I was fairly convinced, but I just knew that doubt would creep back in once the spell’s effects wore off. Assuming I survived until then, of course.

In any case, if that new formulation was indeed correct, then things were now a bit more complicated. For a regular 'mana-to-light' spell, it meant I used mana as a medium to target a portion of fields trapped within that volume, which altered the physical laws temporarily. In turn, whatever composed mana started decaying or scattering energy in the form of photons. Therefore the mana was affected only indirectly, and simply because its constituents were contained in that same targeted volume.

In that way, it was debatable whether I could consider mana as a target for my magic or not.

Mmh?

For some reason, I felt like I was onto something. Or rather, something felt a bit off.

“Do not make me repeat myself,” Lady Isabelle said, her voice overflowing with irritation. “Talk. Now.”

Ah. There is that too.

I was almost starting to feel bad for her because I was consecutively losing focus and didn't even start thinking of what I should say.

She was barely holding back by now and she slightly tilted her head.

T-think!

Though I was almost fine with dying from her hands just a moment ago, her deadly stare disturbed me. Somehow, I instinctively started to search for something that would keep me alive for at least another minute.

Should I say I was merely testing her mana detection?

Maybe she would be glad to have passed that test with flying colors, and we could resolve peacefully this whole misunderstanding.

Yeah, sure.

If I dared say something like that, I couldn't rule out being executed on the spot.

Stall. I have to stall.

"Well—"

"Stop!" a high-pitched voice cut through my attempt at buying time. "Can't you see she's terrified?!"

… Lune?

Did she seriously decide to step into this conversation and even physically insert herself between Isabelle and me?

That idiot...

By now, she should have understood the level of nobility we were dealing with. She definitely had heard me greeting Prince Claude and Duke de Lockmond, too. Even with her lack of etiquette, I never imagined Lune would intervene, let alone try to command a duke's daughter.

Why is she even associating with me?

I wished she had just stayed on the sidelines, especially since Isabelle seemed to only now register Lune’s and Clair’s presence. Was she that obsessed with me?

Isabelle's gaze narrowed. “... And you are?”

“It's not important. Please, let Alice go—”

“Mind your business,” she said, her voice cold and final.

Needless to say, Lune then crumbled to the ground as if the air had been knocked out of her. This was to be expected after she tried to order around a high-ranking noble and even refused to identify herself when prompted to.

... How reckless.

While I greatly appreciated her benevolence, Lune's actions were at least as foolish as mine.

Naturally, my eyes were then drawn to Clair. She did look taken aback at how swiftly Lune had been incapacitated, but the main emotion I discerned on her face was anger toward Isabelle.

Fearing that Clair might try unleashing her magic as well, I reached out and grabbed her arm. “Don’t,” I whispered.

The difference in speed made opposing Lady Isabelle pointless.

Clair slapped my hand away, but my intervention seemed to somewhat work because she was no longer showing the signs of an incoming spell. Well, her eyes were still blazed with such hatred that I worried Isabelle might still strike her as a preventive measure.

Yet, Lune's expression softened next, a sign that she had been given back at least some of her mana and that, just like me, she was no longer at risk of dying from mana deprivation.

Hey. Didn't it last way longer when it was me?

Either Isabelle was a nice person and wanted to quell Clair's fury with a peaceful display of her magic, or she just didn't like me very much.

“... Gross,” Isabelle let out, almost reflexively. “Why do you both wield so much mana…?”

Her eyes went back and forth on Lune and me, her expression filled with genuine disgust.

Not a very nice thing to say to another noble... Jealous much?

“Elf folk,” Isabelle continued. “Answer me. What trick did you use?”

“I…”

Huh.

For some reason, the fact that Isabelle had given up on getting an answer from me was a bit frustrating.

Still, without realizing it, she had answered a question that had been on my mind recently. How did Lune’s mixed lineage manifest in her mana pool? Isabelle was baffled after she measured Lune’s mana pool, and yet she acknowledged that she was dealing with an elf. I highly doubted she was unaware of the elves having a much greater mana pool than the average human, so this could only mean that Lune’s mana was still substantial even when taking that into account.

... Wait a second.

“What did you say before?!” I almost yelled, surprising even myself.

Lady Isabelle was fuming. “I asked why you two have so much mana.”

Frankly, she was displaying some serious self-control. This whole "attack against the royal family" incident had started probably more than a minute ago already, and yet the only intelligible thing that had come out of my mouth was this rude question. Plus, I did it after she gave up on me to ask someone else. She even actually repeated herself even though she had told me she wouldn't. Was she actually a nice person?

“Not that, right before!” I added, likely overreaching.

“I shall not repeat myself!” her voice cracked a little.

Yeah. I suppose her self-control has its limits...

At this rate, though, she wasn’t going to play along. It was a bit disappointing since every scientist wanted to experience this little “Eureka!” routine once in their life. Not that I was a scientist.

Well, I had heard it the first time, so my brain was already working on it.

Gross…

There it was, quite possibly the happiest thought of my life. Despite the dizziness, I stood back up to face Isabelle one more time.

"You have my thanks, Lady Isabelle. You are exactly right.”

Understandably, she seemed to think I had gone crazy. “What is your problem…?”

Even Lune, still panting from the awful experience she just had, was looking at me with a puzzled look.

I meant it, though. Isabelle was like the apple that fell from the tree onto my head, or the chocolate bar that melted in my pocket. Not sure about that last one. Anyway, she was a muse, a trigger that had the potential to birth a new paradigm.

I can't die now. I can’t be arrested either.

I needed to pass this research on, if only to Serena.

Only enough to perform a cheap light show, was it?

At that, I cast a spell as minuscule as the mana I had at my disposal.

‘ Runaway ’.