Stahlia Ten Years Old, Second Month of 947

I woke up the next morning in a decent mood, relative to when I had gone to sleep. I was still anxious regarding the newly discovered changes I would have to experience, but I was now better able to rationalize them. At least that’s what I was telling myself. In actuality, it was more or less Pet who had helped me get over myself; when I had gotten back to the estate, she had noticed how anxious I was being and tried to comfort me. Even though she really wasn’t able to understand what was going on, and even though her own situation was far, far worse than mine.

It’s my own fault for ignoring and putting off this issue for ten years, even though I was fully aware it would be a thing that would happen to me eventually. Looking over to my left, I smiled at the sight of Pet’s sleeping face. Indeed, she had managed to find her way into my bed again. Still, her presence was having a calming effect on me, so I would put up with a bit of selfishness.

Today was the school entrance ceremony. Granted, I already knew I was in Group A, but I still had to attend the entrance ceremony, as well as attend the first day of classes after. Even if I wasn’t expecting to have any real lessons. My uniform was the same as usual, including the recent unwanted addition, and I bid farewell to Pet before heading to the yard in order to board the carriage that would take me to the Academy.

For her part, Pet seemed a bit resistant to me leaving, however, Elienor coming by my room saved me from any tears; Pet ran away and hid as soon as she heard the unique sound of Elienor’s footsteps in the hall. I get the feeling that Elienor may have caused a trauma… Thankfully, Elienor was only coming to see me off, and not to entertain herself with my slave. Elienor was actually fairly well behaved the other day, even when she saw Pet briefly, she didn’t squeal about it or anything. I wonder what Margarette said to her… I shivered at the vision of an angry Lady Francois and thanked my lucky stars I had purchased the Blue Blooded skill.

Once again, I rode to school with Dominic, although he wasn’t doing anything different compared to the previous couple of days. Maybe I was just getting used to the attention, but it didn’t bother me as much as it had before. I simply put up with his attention while offering the societally expected responses.

Once again, Rowell was waiting for me at the gates of the school. Giogi and he seemed to have developed a rapport at some point without my noticing, and as we walked towards the main assembly hall for the entrance ceremony, the two of them killed time by discussing… me. Specifically, my early life, if it could even be called that while I was still only ten years old. Watching the two of them and listening in on the stories, I realized that almost two weeks had passed since I had seen Sana, and I hadn’t had a proper conversation with Giogi in days.

The thought that I was being pulled away from them by the force of my obligations to noble society struck me, and I felt a pang in my chest. My world is changing, whether I like it or not. We arrived at the assembly hall in short order, and Dominic separated from me to go and join his class, he was in the A Group of year 3, so I would actually wind up seeing him again soon in some of my magic classes. I made my way over to the other first years, since only three of us knew which group we had placed into, all the first years were grouped together in one large mass.

Today’s agenda was pretty simple, there would be a commencement speech similar to the one from last night, we would all pledge an oath to the kingdom, which was thankfully not magically binding, and then we would be dismissed. The other students would immediately go to their classes, but the first years would spend the first period being sorted into their groups and classes. We would finally actually attend a class starting in the second period. I was initially afraid I would be expected to give some sort of address as the top incoming student, however, thankfully this world didn’t seem to have that custom.

Instead of a first-year address, the King would be making an appearance and saying a few words. This was a good opportunity for me to see the man I regarded as my personal enemy; beyond the higher-ups of the shadows, the King was the one at the root of my problem since he was the one calling the shots in the end.

As I made my way over to my peers, I spotted Edith and Sarala of to one side. Edith was standing aloof and surveying the crowd, while Sarala had adopted a meek stance, and was somewhat withdrawn into Edith’s shadow, having placed herself between the higher ranked girl and the wall. It’s a lot like last night, Sarala really doesn’t like attention.

There were several other first years a bit away from them who were keeping a close watch on Edith while whispering amongst themselves. In retrospect, the same thing had been going on at the social gathering yesterday, but as I had been one of the ones watching her, I had ignored the others. As I was musing about how much political and social influence Edith a fellow ten-year-old girl wielded, she spotted me.

The peanut gallery’s whispers greatly intensified as Edith waved at me and called out. “Stahlia! Over here!” I suppressed a grimace; now that I had realized the implications of being friendly with her, I somewhat wished I could pull back. Still, being friendly with her would give me access to Sarala, so it was beneficial to me in a way. I just hope I can avoid the worst of any political fallout, at least until I finish my own objectives.

I plastered a smile on my face and waved back before making my way over to her. “Good morning, Lady Edith, Sarala.” I greeted the pair as I approached to within earshot. Edith spotted Giogi behind me and raised an eyebrow, so I introduced him. “This is Giogi, son of Sutven. He grew up in Ris Village like me and has been appointed my apprentice guard knight by Lord Francois. Though, due to my course schedule, he will not be with me very often, hence why I have also been granted Sir Rowell who you saw with me last night.” I nodded in the direction of Rowell, who had taken up a post near a pillar a small distance away; close enough to still interfere should something happen to me, but far enough away to have a better vantage over the crowd of children.

Edith nodded and gave Giogi a slight incline of her head. There was still a bit of time before the entrance ceremony would start, so I decided to try and get a little bit more information from the pair of girls. “Lady Edith, I do not believe we discussed this last night, but what courses are you taking? Even if you did not make the top three, I imagine you still tested out of several of them.” Edith nodded and smiled.

“I tested out of all the first-year courses, so I will be enrolling in the second-year general studies course. Sarala is taking almost all third-year courses like yourself, so I imagine you will be seeing more of her than me, please do treat her well.” Nice, I imagine I will be seeing Sarala in my magic courses, hopefully. She’s probably in a higher Red Magic course than me, and I’m not taking Black Magic. But the Ice Magic Talent falls under Blue Magic, so I might see her there.

I flashed Sarala a grin. “Indeed, I will be in your care, Sarala.” The girl in question gave an awkward smile in return.

“Yes, I imagine we will have a lot of time to get to know each other…” She trailed off at the end, but considering I got a full sentence out of her, I could assume I was making progress.

As we were having some idle chit-chat, Percius’ voice rang out over the students in the hall. “May I have your attention! I would now lead you all in the vow of loyalty, so that we may officially declare the start of the new school year!” He clapped both his hands together, before twisting his left hand over his heart, and his right hand on the hilt of his sword. This was the Drakas Kingdom’s standard military salute, and one that I had practiced until I was able to do perfectly; being that, as a Special Student, I would be nominally enlisted in the military while attending school.

Mimicking Percius, I waited for him to start speaking. “I offer my life, my purpose,”

“““I offer my life, my purpose,”””

“I swear my eternal loyalty”

“““I swear my eternal loyalty.”””

“To the Throne.”

“““To the Throne.”””

“To the King.”

“““To the King.”””

“And to the Divine Twelve, in whose footsteps we walk.”

“““And to the Divine Twelve, in whose footsteps we walk.”””

“Long Live Drakas! Long Live His Majesty!”

“““Long Live Drakas! Long Live His Majesty!”””

Following the pledge, Percius once again announced the three top students from the incoming students, he then announced the third-year students who were set to become Special Students. There were three others besides me, all boys. While I had never seen two of them before, I was closely acquainted with the third. In fact, I was presently engaged to him. Indeed, Dominic had become a Special Student. This means we’ll be spending even more time together… I was conflicted about how to feel about this. On one hand, having him nearby was convenient; I could use him as a shield of sorts when Edith wasn’t available, and unlike her, he came with much less political baggage. Granted he came with baggage of an entirely different variety.

On the other hand, being near him was very awkward for me; his constant attentions were incredibly uncomfortable, and following the dance and events surrounding me being confronted with my body the day before, I was very conflicted about how I should be approaching him. I’ll just have to grin and bear it, at least until I rescue Rosial… and find a way to break of our engagement.

Following this announcement, Percius gave a very long, very boring speech. It basically boiled down to “you all are the future of this kingdom, this academy exists to foster your purpose, work hard and glory to the kingdom… blah blah blah.” Following his speech, there was a round of polite applause. After a moment, Percius held up his hand and motioned for the room to be silent. “I am honored to present to you all, His Majesty, King Drakas. He will now greet you who make up the future of this kingdom and say a few words.”

A blaring of trumpets sounded, announcing the entrance of the king. As one, the entire assembly adopted the salute and held the pose, waiting for the king to enter. The king came out from the back of the stage and strode up to the speaker’s platform. He had a steady gait as if he was completely used to commanding such attention. Of course, being the king, he absolutely was. When he arrived at the speaker’s platform, he paused and surveyed the room.

For a brief moment, I had the disconcerting feeling that he and I had made eye contact, but the feeling quickly passed as his gaze swept over the place I had been standing. After this, he returned our salute, however rather than placing his right hand over his sword hilt, he raised his right hand to his forehead in a manner similar to the earth salute. As far as I was aware, this was the salute that a commanding officer would return to their men. “Be at ease.” At the king’s command, everyone in the room released their salutes and returned to their seats.

His voice was deep and carried out over the room dripping with charisma. Despite my convictions, I found myself wanting to serve the kingdom just from the sound of his voice. I surreptitiously bit through the tip of my tongue, drawing blood. The acrid taste that filled my mouth cleared the fog from my head. So that’s the “Voice of the King” Jacqueline warned me about. It’s a damn good thing she told me a way of clearing my head. Indeed, the king of Drakas had a skill, The Voice of the King, that was said to be able to compel any citizen into obedience.

Thankfully, it was just a skill that carried a mental attack on the soundwaves of his voice, meaning it was easy to resist if you knew how; the first criteria was to be aware of it, which I cleared thanks to Jacqueline. The second criterion was to drown out the mental noise with something else. In my case, I used the pain from having bit my tongue, since that was easy to conceal and do secretly. Truthfully, it was actually a fairly weak skill, only scary if you didn’t know about it ahead of time. Glancing to my left and right, I saw that Edith was digging her nails into her palms, and briefly caught Sarala making a swallowing motion.

It makes sense that a duke’s daughter would know about the king’s voice, and she probably warned Sarala. I found it comforting that, even if they weren’t planning to betray the kingdom like I was, both of my new friends were not so fanatically loyal as to allow themselves to be enthralled. After the king told us all to be at ease, he thankfully stopped using his skill, and merely used regular voice projection magic.

“Children of Drakas, I am pleased to see you present yourselves before me. Study hard. Work hard. Learn well. If you are blessed with talent, you will excel. If you are a failure, you will fall. For the glory of our kingdom, and the glory of the human race!” Following this statement, the trumpets sounded once more, and the king exited the stage, returning to wherever he had come from. Well, that was an interesting statement… is this the part where we all start chanting “Sieg Heil!”?

Once the king was well and truly gone, Percius returned to the speaking platform, and bid all of the upperclassmen to go to their classes, while us first years were to stand by until they were gone. Once the older students were gone, Percius was joined on stage by three men. He introduced them as the teachers in charge of each group and announced we would now be placed into our classes. Starting with the three of us who had already been announced as being members of Group A, the instructor in charge of the A Group read aloud a list of names. Those students whose names were called were instructed to move to one section of the room, away from those who hadn’t been called yet.

So not only the top three, they’re intent on naming and shaming all of the students, huh? As I had thought, once the Group A instructor finished his list with a “That is all.”, the Group B instructor then began reading his, again, the Group B students were instructed to move to another part of the room, away from the remaining students. I made sure to watch and listen carefully, trusting in my Eidetic Memory talent to remember the names and faces of each student, along with which group they were in.

Once the Group B instructor had finished reading his list, the Group C instructor simply declared “Those of you whose name was not called are in Group C. Do your best, and you might be able to accomplish something next year.” Well, that’s pretty harsh, the academy takes the meritocracy bit seriously, I’ll have to make sure I don’t fall behind. In all, about a fifth of the total students had been placed in Group A, and of the remainder, a third were in Group B. Everyone else was in C.

Starting with Group A, we were then led out of the room and presented with a small piece of paper detailing what classes we had, and when. Glancing down at mine, I saw that my morning classes were Introductory Blue, Green, and Yellow Magic, as well as Intermediate Red Magic. Good, those are all the courses I specifically asked for, all that’s left are the classes I gave Percius carte blanche to put me in… I read the next part of my schedule. After lunch, I had Advanced Etiquette, Advanced Alchemical Theory, Advanced Mathematics, and… Advanced Swordsmanship…? What the hell? I specifically avoided asking for swordsmanship classes… I figured Percius might put me in one anyway since I’m a Special Student and might have to go kill some orcs or something, but Advanced? When have I ever demonstrated any skill with a… DAMNIT DOMINIC! Indeed, the only reason I could think that I had been placed in the advanced level, was that Dominic had insinuated that I knew how to fight.

With my mood considerably fouled, I passed around each of my classes where I met the students I would be learning with, shared a little bit of useless information about myself, and learned a little bit of useless information about them in turn. The first day of a class must be the same in every world. As “luck” would have it, Dominic was in the same Swordsmanship class I was. Yea, “what a coincidence!” he says. Coincidence my ass, either you or your dad definitely arranged this with Percius behind the scenes! On an actual lucky note, Sarala did in fact share my Blue Magic class with me.

★★★★★★

The next day, classes finally began I was technically now allowed to bring Stil onto campus with me, however as I was not taking any courses that I would need him in, I opted to leave him at the estate; having a monster follow me around would simply be asking for attention. Though I already had quite a bit of that given my status as a Special Student, so it might not have mattered in the long run.

Unfortunately, due to being introductory courses, my Blue, Yellow, and Green Magic classes all covered more or less the same topic, that is to say, the fundamentals of spell casting. This was largely information I had already learned from my Red Magic tutor and having it repeated three times really sucked. Still, I had known the first few classes would be like this; most people only studied one color at a time, so each color had to make sure to cover the fundamentals.

Thankfully, I had Blue Magic with Sarala, who was equally as bored as me. As I listened to Gustav drone on about the same information I had heard twice already today, I turned to my shy classmate. “Why are you taking Introductory Blue Magic, Sarala? I was under the impression that you already have the Ice Magic Talent?” She gave a small start, likely having not expected to be addressed.

“Well, I suppose it is because I got my Ice Magic Talent from a spirit. I don’t actually know much about Blue Magic outside of the Talent, but I have an affinity for it.” A spirit?!

“You got to meet a spirit?!” Up at the front of the room, Gustav had been talking about the first of three methods to cast spells. Counting my magic tutor back in Ris, this was the fourth time I had heard this information, and the third time today.

“By reciting the correct words, mana Is drawn up from the body and manifests phenomenon in the material worl- Stahlia, Sarala, am I boring you?” I gave a start and my face turned red at his poignant remark. Of course, the correct answer was “Yes, very much so.” But there was no way I could say that.

“No not at all Instructor Gustav, I am absolutely enthralled. By reciting the spell formula, mana is drawn out and shaped into a magical phenomenon. By altering the pronunciation of certain parts of the chant, the final effect can be altered. This is the key advantage over casting via talent assistance, wherein the final effect is static and cannot be adjusted.” Gustav grimaced.

“Stahlia, I am aware you and Sarala have prior experience with magic, but if you are not going to pay attention at least be silent; I had not touched on augmented chanting yet.” My face got even hotter and I ducked my head as a chuckle made its way around the room.

“Yes, Instructor…” From my left, I heard a small chuckle. Even the ever-shy Sarala was laughing at me.

“I am glad you understand. Now, as your fellow student alluded to, the primary advantage of a chant is the ability to augment it. By changing how certain parts are pronounced, we can change the effect. Doing this, however, costs more mana than saying the chant normally or using a talent. That is the Third Law of Magic; The amount of mana consumed by a spell is directly proportional to the strength, size, and quantity of the effects manifested. Since I can see a few questioning faces, the First Law states that mana can neither...” Gustav continued, and after making sure I was now being paid no attention, I returned to Sarala.

“Still, a spirit? What was that like…?” I was sure to whisper, I did not want a repeat of what had just happened.

Sarala let out a small giggle. “It was terrifying. I was out in the woods in the evening helping my father when all of a sudden the air grew very cold.” I shivered, not from cold but from the implication; There were three broad categories of spirit. Lesser Spirits were basically formless masses of element-aligned mana. They had no intelligence and simply floated around until they dissipated. Spirits were identical to lesser spirits, but larger, and had the intelligence of a domesticated animal or particularly dumb child.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

On the other hand, Greater Spirits were indistinguishable from the races in terms of their intellect. They were also far, far superior to us when it came to the magic of their given element. The only saving grace was that they could only use the element they were aligned to; Undine could only use water, Ifrit fire, Gnome earth, and so on. Greater Spirits were also known to alter their environment with their mere presence, such was their mystical might.

The term was familiar to me from my previous life as the name of the ninth circle of hell, but in this world, it had no such implication, despite the very real existence of the Nine Hell Kings. At least, I thought they were probably real. None had been reportedly seen since the founding of Drakas back near year 0 of the current calendar.

Sarala nodded at my unspoken realization. “Yes, a Cocytus. It came out of the forest and walked around, freezing the ground on its path. It approached my father and I; the two of us were completely still, too afraid to move. After a moment, it reached out and touched my hand. I felt a burning sensation and got really bad frostbite, then it just wandered back into the forest. The next day, I was able to talent cast simple ice magic.”

“…That sounds so scary…” Those were my honest thoughts, I couldn’t imagine what Sarala must have been thinking at the time. Unlike me, she couldn’t just turn off crippling fear if it got to be too much. Not that doing so was always a good idea; in my experiments with my skill, I had learned that fear was directly responsible for our self-preservation instinct.

When I had been messing around, I got curious about the open fire Silvia was cooking over. Everyone has dark thoughts sometimes, back on Earth psychologists referred to it as the “Call of the Void”. Things like “I could totally just run over that lady crossing the street.” Contemplating how to get away with murdering your boss. Or “That fire looks hot, I wonder how long I can hold my hand in it?” As it turns out, fear, specifically fear of consequence and fear of pain is the reason we don’t act on those impulses. Thankfully I was able to brew an alchemical salve that prevented my hand from scarring.

As I was ruminating on Sarala’s story, Gustav was continuing his lecture. He had moved on to the second method by this point. “The second method of casting a spell is through the use of a Magic Talent. Magic Talents can be acquired by acquiring enough affinity for a specific element via chanting spells. The Magic Talent allows for one to cast a spell extremely quickly; one only needs to recite the keyword of the spell to activate it. This speed makes Talent Casting the preferred method for battlefield mages, however as the chant is not performed, the spell cannot be modified thru augmented chanting, making it a very restrictive method.”

One of the students raised their hand, prompting Gustav to call on them. “Yes, Sorrin?”

The called student stood up, which was apparently the respectful way to ask a question of a teacher. “Yes, Instructor Gustav. You say that to cast a spell using a magic talent, you only have to say the “keyword”, but what exactly is a “keyword”?” Gustav nodded, I am glad you noticed that Sorrin…”

While idly listening, I had begun to fiddle with my hair, wrapping a lock of it around my pointer finger. My hair really is long… As if he was determined to embarrass me, Gustav singled me outright as I was staring at my hair and thinking about its length. “Stahlia, since you seem to have enough free time as to do your hair in class, would you care to answer Sorrin’s question?” My face turned red again. Damnit, I’ve been blushing a lot recently, and at a bunch of really stupid shit too.

I clenched my jaw and sent Gustav a stink eye, before standing up and clearing my throat. “Right, as for the question “What is a keyword?”, A spell chant is made up of three distinct parts-” Although given that nobody seems bothered to actually try and learn the language, the fact that they know its three parts is hella suspect. “-The first part of a spell is the Invocation. The Invocation calls on the power of a specific element, “Invoking” it if you will. The second part of a chant is the “Body” the chant body describes the magic phenomena, which will then activate according to that description. It is the body that is altered when one performs an augmented chant. The final component of a spell is the Keyword. The keyword is colloquially known as the “name” of a spell and is the part spoken after a brief pause when chanting. For example…”

I picked up a small scrap of paper and took a deep breath. “## ####, #### #### ##### # ## ########! [######] Following my chant, a small spark of flame appeared between my fingers that were pinching the paper, causing the paper to catch and burn. “In that example, ## #### is the Invocation, calling on the power of the element of fire, #### #### ##### # ## ########! is the Body, describing what I want the fire to do, and [######] is the Keyword, which activates the spell.” In a way, it reminds me a bit of computer programming, if we consider the Keyword to be the name of a function, the Body to be the Function itself, and the Invocation to be the input data for that function. Of course, the input data is in the wrong spot, and when augment chanting what gets changed is the body of the function, not the input data.

Gustav nodded. “A well-structured explanation and well-executed example. I would expect nothing less from a Special Student.”

Sorrin gave me a half bow as a show of thanks before sitting down himself. “Thank you Lady Stahlia, that was beautifully done.”

I curtsied towards Gustav and sat down while doing my best to ignore Sorrin’s compliment, even though I could feel a twitchy smile threatening to show itself. I give Sarala a lot of shit, but I haven’t been doing too well with praise recently myself… why the hell am I so self-conscious?! Of course, I knew why. Whether or not I wanted to admit it to myself or not, now that was another beast entirely.

Paying my internal dilemma no mind, Gustav continued his lecture. “The only thing Stahlia left out of her explanation, is that that is what we call the Third Law of Magic; Spell chants are constructed of three parts, Invocation, Body, and Keyword, in that order. Moving along, we are nearly out of time for today’s lecture, so I will briefly summarize the third and final method of using magic.” At the word “final”, he placed special emphasis and shot me a brief look. He’s definitely hinting about Blood Magic and warning me not to do anything that would draw suspicion. I sat up straighter in my chair.

“The third and final method of casting magic is Faith Casting. With Faith Casting, one must pray to one of the twelve gods. If you have enough faith in them, the god being prayed to will work a miracle. This method of casting a spell is unique in that it does not use the magic language, and does not expend mana from the one praying. Rather, the prayer can be said in any language, and the god provides the mana needed for the spell. While this might sound enticing, it has the significant drawback of depending on a third party; the gods are notoriously fickle, and there are many recorded examples in history of even the most pious believer being abandoned in their hour of need.”

Gustav had timed the end of his lecture perfectly, even with my interruptions, because as soon as he finished speaking on the subject of Faith Casting, the bell rang announcing the end of the period. I stood up and gathered my things, before bidding Sarala farewell and heading out. Next was lunch, and after that were my afternoon classes, culminating in sword-fighting. I was both dreading and excitedly looking forward to it.

★★★★★★

I ate a lunch prepared for me by Lucy, there was a cafeteria of a sort, but in keeping with the theme of status not mattering but still totally mattering, it seemed most high nobles would either travel home to eat or have their own food brought in. As I was engaged to Dominic, this was one of those instances where I fell into the category of pseudo-high noble. As such, I had been informed I would be expected to not eat with the other students by my hosts.

Since taking a carriage back to the estate would cause the meal to be rushed, and having food brought in every day was, in my mind, wasteful, I instead decided to introduce the idea of a box lunch. While Margeritte was skeptical, Lucy took it as a challenge and managed to produce an offering that wouldn’t have seemed out of place being served as a normal meal. Seeing this, Margeritte relented, saying something about how “Nobles could show off the skill of their chef through their boxed lunches!”, and let me have my way.

My etiquette class was a massive waste of time, but to keep up appearances there wasn’t anything I could really do about that. Essentially, the whole class was just afternoon tea. A gaggle of noble girls would arrive at the classroom, in which several tea tables had been set up, and take turns hosting in small groups. The instructor would move through the room and do things like correct posture, offer an alternative, more refined, way of saying something she overheard us talking about, and otherwise be useless. Presumably, the class contents would be rotated as the year went on, and we wouldn’t be having a daily tea party for the next eight or so months.

Mathematics and Alchemy were… different. I had found out yesterday during the class orientation that I had not been placed in the classes to learn. I had found these two entries odd when reading my class schedule, I had just been distracted immediately by the final entry. After all, in terms of mathematics, not only had I passed the placement exam with a perfect score, I had also introduced a field of mathematics that was brand new to this world.

Alchemically, I was in more or less the same place as with math, several new formulas and processes had my name on them. As it turns out, both of these were in fact the reasons I had been placed into the courses by Percius in the first place. As I was still only ten years old, the school couldn’t officially commission me. Not that I would have agreed to it if they had offered. Instead, by working through a loophole in the wording of a Special Students obligations, I had been made a sort of teacher’s assistant to Gustav in mathematics and Perrin in alchemy.

Though billed as “Advanced” classes, both my alchemy and math course only had a few other students, all of which were fifth years in the A Group. Rather than teaching their respective classes, Gustav and Perrin were more like researchers with a small team of doctoral students assisting them. The subject of research being my “inventions”. Thus, I would be spending two hours every day explaining calculus and delving into the various concepts and recipes I had introduced into alchemy. I can handle and even somewhat look forward to the alchemy class since eventually they’ll run out of stuff I’ve already done and we will presumably start doing new research, but the math is just a pain in the ass! I was a student, not a Doctor of Mathematics, I’m not qualified to teach calculus!

Still, the worst was yet to come. Namely, my swordsmanship class. Following a rousing discussion about the origins of Condescending, I arrived at the practice field. Unlike lectures and study-based classes, physical classes such as Horse Riding, Archery, and indeed Swordsmanship, did not meet on the first day for an orientation session. Why was beyond me, presumably they would still have to go over what to expect in the course, as well as introduce everyone to each other. In any case, this would be my first time meeting my classmates.

I arrived at the field and was greeted by the sight of roughly fifteen boys, all around Dominic’s age. I was, as one might expect, the only girl. I was also the youngest member. These two facts caused me to immediately become a tad uncomfortable, and my palms started to sweat. Even my legs were a bit wobbly as I made my way towards them. Calm down, This is just like when you taught Giogi and the other village boys. The only difference is that you’re also a student now. And you’re the youngest and smaller than everyone. And all these boys are probably at the age where they start chasing after girls, we know for sure at least one of them is engaged already, don’t we? My internal musings were not helping things.

After pausing for a moment, I took a deep breath and stepped off the path and over to the group. I was trying to find the words to introduce myself and had even gone so far as opening my mouth when Dominic popped out of the crowd and made to take my hand. “Alright everyone, this is my fiancé, Stahlia. The one I informed would be joining our class.”

I hurriedly closed my mouth and forced it to adopt a smile. Performing a small curtsy, I introduced myself. For some reason, I was actually finding Dominic’s grip on my hand reassuring; my legs had stopped shaking and I had a much easier time finding my words. A fact that vexed me a great deal. “I am Lady Stahlia, Lord Dominic’s fiancé. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintances.”

Following my self-introduction, Dominic fulfilled his obligations and introduced each of them to me in turn. Given that these were all noble greetings, the introductions took a good ten minutes to complete, and by the end of them, the instructor had arrived. The Swordsmanship Instructor defied my expectations. I had been expecting a bald muscle-bound giant covered in scars and toting a sword at least as long as his arm. What I got was a man of average height who, while definitely toned and fit, was not noticeably larger than the average person. Nor was he bald, he had a decently thick mop of sandy blonde hair that was tied back to prevent it from getting in his eyes. His weapon was likewise unremarkable, a simple hand and a half sword sheathed at his waist, a small round shield strapped to his back.

Honestly, I can see the reasoning behind his chosen weapons; the sword can be wielded in combo with the shield, or he can two-hand it to increase striking power, due to the slightly longer hilt. He has the air of a veteran as well, despite his appearance. I might be looking forward to this a bit… The instructor, having quickly spotted me, made his way over and introduced himself. “Greetings milady, I am Sir Brisben von Eckerd. While it is uncommon for the class to grow so late, Sir Dominic speaks very highly of your skill. I am looking forward to teaching you Drakan Style Swordsmanship. If I may ask, what style have you been using so far?”

So me being in this class WAS Dominic’s doing! But what does he mean “it’s rare for the class to grow so late”? today is the first day of the school year, and yea, there is no way in hell I can tell him “Oh yea, I use Shadow Blade Style, I was taught by one of the Kingdom’s secret assassins!” “A pleasure to meet you, Sir Brisben. I am Lady Stahlia von Ris, daughter of Baron von Ris. As for my style, regretfully I do not know its name. I learned it by watching some of the adventurers in my hometown, while occasionally receiving pointers from them. …if I may be so bold, what do you mean it is rare for the class to grow?” I opted to go for a flagrant lie regarding my sword style. Thankfully Shadow Blade Style was, by its very nature, not very widely known so the odds of him recognizing any of its forms were slim.

He seemed to buy my excuse and answered my return question in good humor. “Ah, well if it was something one of those lowlifes taught then I doubt it even has a proper name… Ah, I mean no disrespect to you, milady. I am aware that Ris village is on the frontier and cannot afford to be picky with who it makes use of in defense against monsters… just a friendly word of advice, Adventurers do not have the greatest reputation in most of the kingdom, so you might want to avoid spreading that you learned anything from them…”

“Regarding the class, well I have been teaching the same group of boys since their first year. When we started there were twenty of them, but that number dropped off over the years. You’re the first new student who has enrolled since we started.” Well, I already knew that Adventurers didn’t have the greatest of reputations, but the truth would have been a lot worse. As for the class being the same, something could actually be said for that, keeping the same group of people with the same instructor throughout their entire school life. It would build a sense of camaraderie if nothing else… and here I am intruding on that… damnit Dominic!

It would seem that Sir Brisben had one more thing to say to me, or more like he had a request for me. “That being as it is milady, I have a good idea of all the boy’s abilities, but other than Dominic’s review of your own I lack information. Since you don’t know the name of your style, I cannot form any guesses from that either. Since we do not really have much in the way of other options, I will have to ask you to have a spar with someone…” At the words “spar” Dominic stepped forward and volunteered himself.

“I will fight her, Instructor.” This led to a round of laughter from the other boys, and whispered mutterings about him being “protective” and “jealous” were tossed about. They can mutter all they like, I would honestly prefer to fight him than any of them, our last match wasn’t really much of anything but he’s had two years in this class since then. Us fighting would give me a benchmark for how much growth I can expect to get from these lessons.

Brisben thought for a moment, then gave his ok. Dominic led me over to a rack filled with training weapons. While Shadow Blade Style was nominally for stealth and assassination, thus favoring small blades like daggers, it was not without options for larger weapons. Seeing as this was an appraisal of my ability with a sword, I selected an arming sword; it was short enough that I could use more of my style’s forms than I could with a Bastard or Long Sword, but would better serve for my appraisal than a dagger or short sword.

I toyed with the idea of grabbing a shield as well, but I had no idea how to use one in the first place, so it would be about as useful as intentionally tying a heavy weight to my arm in order to intentionally restrict my movements. For his own selection, Dominic picked a Bastard Sword and a medium-sized round shield.

We entered the training area and squared off against each other. Brisben stood towards the edge of our square, while all the other boys clustered around the perimeter. As Brisben raised his hand, we both took a ready stance; I dropped low to the ground in a crouch, and Dominic squared his feet while raising his shield. Brisben dropped his hand.

I sprang forward like a shot from a canon; I was not using enhancements, seeing as this was supposed to be a test of sword ability and if I enhanced myself I was very likely to instantly crush my opponent. Instead, I simply used my compressed legs like a spring and pushed forward of the ground.

The distance between us closed rapidly, I kicked the ground twice more to further accelerate myself, all while keeping myself as low as possible to abuse our size difference to my advantage. As I got within two meters of him, Dominic finally reacted, swinging his shield arm around and planting the shield between me and him. To slow.

I turned my shoulder towards his shield, it would hurt a bit, but my plan was to allow myself to crash into him; he would expect to block a thrust or slash and be bracing for that, not my full body weight. As we made contact with each other, I felt my stomach jump up into my mouth like what would occasionally happen on a rollercoaster. I had been bracing myself for an impact, but it was nowhere near as strong as I was expecting. In a moment, I knew why.

I sailed past Dominic, as he had released his shield. As I flew through the air, he brought his sword to bear, now holding it with two hands. Shit! Memories of our previous fight flew through my head; I had charged him head-on then as well, and quickly brought an end. Of course, he would have prepared for me to do it again.

Still, I’m also more skilled than I was then, not just you! I jabbed the point of my sword into the ground, using it to arrest my movement. While this would have worked with a metal sword, though it would definitely have damaged the edge, my wooden training sword snapped clean in half.

Dominic immediately halted his swing, and Brisben declared him the winner of our duel, without either of us having landed a blow. Fuck! If this had been a real fight… I could have used my Blood Magic and gutted him, or better yet, come up from behind and just stabbed him before he knew what was coming.

Around the sidelines, the boys other than Dominic were gossiping about what they had just witnessed. Such lines as "I thought he said she was a good fighter?" or "That wasn't a style, she just charged at him!" and "What use is sword fighting for a woman anyway?" entered my ears. These are just some adolescent boys... why is it that their harsh criticism is making me want to cry? Brisben cleared his throat and the chatter died down. "It seems the lot of you are still novices, despite being in your third years... Dominic, if that was a real fight, not about with wood, what would have been the outcome?"

Dominic gave me a look and grimaced. "I would have been dead or mortally wounded and unable to continue inside of three seconds, Instructor." The boys around the arena exchanged uncertain glances with each other.

One of them spoke up and voiced what was likely the majority opinion. "Dominic, are you not just saying that to defend your fiancé's honor...?" Dominic shook his head.

"Instructor, they are more likely to believe your explanation than mine." He said ruefully, as he made his way over to where I had come to a halt and offered his hand to help me up. Due to the onlookers, I suppose I have to take it...

"Indeed Dominic, you are probably right about that... Listen carefully, you lot. From an outside perspective, it may have looked as though she simply threw herself at him in a mad charge. In a sense that is indeed all she did, however, judging by her footwork and stance, she normally would have gone much faster thru use of magical enhancement. It is only because she did not use magic that Dominic was able to react at all, and when he brought his shield to bear, knowing that she wouldn't be able to stop, Stahlia made the decision to turn her own body into a projectile without any hesitation. Even knowing it would cause her injury, she instantly selected the most optimal course of action. I would wager that her style focuses on highly aggressive movement and swift decisive attacks, further enhancing oneself with magic. In a live combat scenario, you would never see her coming."

The boys had all fallen silent; it looked like they were genuinely considering the instructor’s words. Well, he's mostly right; it would actually be over before the situation became a combat one in most cases, and even without using magic, I think if I had played it smart I still would have won.

I got cocky. I’ve only been fighting against Jacqueline, a fellow Shadow Blade Style user, and dumb monsters. I knew Shadow Blade Style struggles against other styles in terms of technique; it depends heavily on surprise or augmentation with magic to make up the gap if you need to go head to head. Still, Dominic worked really hard these past few years, his general stance and movements were nothing like they were. This was a good experience for me, I’ll have to work hard to pick up the Drakan Style, it seems like it will make a good addition to my arsenal for when I have to confront an enemy head-on.

For the rest of the class, the Brisben had the rest of the students pair up and go through a series of forms with each other; one would attack with slowed movements, while the other would defend. After each set, the defender role would swap with the attacker. Taking me aside, Brisben walked me through the basic forms of Drakan Style, telling me that I would be expected to practice and do my best to close the gap between myself and the other students with Drakan Style.

From what I could tell based on the basic forms, Drakan Style seemed to be highly reactive. Whereas Shadow Blade Style was designed for surprise, speed, and one versus one, Drakan Style was focused on group fighting in pairs or trios. A lot of its defensive moves focused on opening up the enemy to a counter-attack from a nearby ally or covering a nearby ally who was being attacked from their blind spot.

Before long, the final bell of the day rang, and I was able to go home. It was a really long but productive day. When I got home, I found Pet hiding under my bed; apparently, Elienor had made a new dress specifically with Pet in mind. I see that Margeritte was not able to control her for very long after all. Of course, Pet refused to release the arm she had clung to, and so I relented and let her sleep clinging to my side again. Hopefully, Lucy continues to simply ignore her...

★★★★★★

First Law of Magic

Mana can not be created or destroyed, only moved from one vessel to another. The amount of Mana in a system is always a predictable, measurable, and finite quantity.

Second Law of Magic

The mana cost of a spell or other Magical Phenomenon is directly proportional to the Size, Power, and Duration of the spell or Phenomenon. The cost can be reduced by having an affinity for the invoked element, or implementing a compatible catalyst, but can never be reduced entirely.

Third Law of Magic

A Spell Chant consists of three distinct parts: The Invocation, which calls upon the element of the spell. The Body, which describes the magical phenomenon to be produced. And the Keyword, which triggers the execution of the spell.