[V4 Interlude 3] Girls who Yearn for Magic
Translated by Jodas 4: Flying Through the SkyThinking back to her childhood, the one thing that remained most freshly in Roswitha’s mind was always her mother.
“Come here, Roswitha. Watch closely.”
Her mother smiled gracefully as she lifted a rowan branch and started chanting. Her chant sounded like a strange song.
This one was Roswitha’s favorite, and she joined along with the chant.
“Thy irrational devotion. The rain which dwells within thee. Thou fish who hast lost thine eyes… bore through.”
The rowan branch in her mother’s hand began to split itself apart.
The branch split into such thin slices it made her almost wonder if the branch had just been a bundle of strings to begin with, and each of those slices became enveloped in water to take the form of a fish.
“Wooww…” Roswitha gasped in amazement.
The school of tiny fish started to swim in circles around Roswitha.
Each of the translucent fish of water shone brilliantly in the sunlight.
So pretty. So pretty. What a beautiful sight.
“That was awesome, Mama! Hey, could I do that someday too?”
“Of course. You are my daughter, after all.”
As she said that, her mother took off her pointy hat and placed it on Roswitha’s head.
An adult’s hat was still far too big for the young Roswitha’s head, and it ended up covering half of her face, but even now she remembered it as one of her proudest moments.
Roswitha’s mother was unbelievably gorgeous and smart; she was a genius of magecraft; and Roswitha was proud to call her her mother.
Even now, after all these years, that hasn’t changed.
She will always, always be Roswitha’s beloved Mama.
“Roswi… Open up….!”
While she was sitting in her dorm room reading a book, she heard a voice from the other side of the door. It sounded like her roommate, Ella Frank.
Wondering why in the world Ella would need help opening a door, Roswitha grumpily stood up and opened the door.
Ella’s hands were filled with a huge pile of books. The mountain of books was enough to tower above Ella’s head.
“Hold on, can you even see where you’re going!?”
“No, but there were just so many books I wanted to borrow, and I couldn’t pack them any tighter, so…”
Ella swayed weakly as she stepped into the room. She looked like she was about to crash into a chair, so Roswitha lifted the top few books off of Ella’s stack and settled them on the table.
“Thank you…… Phew.”
Ella piled the remaining books onto the table.
Roswitha took a glance at the books’ titles and, seeing the disorganized jumble of topics, she frowned.
“Modern, Classical, and even foreign magecraft… you’ve got just about everything.”
“Yes. I was wondering if I might be able to find something that even I could use somewhere in here.”
Ella had difficulties emitting mana. Apparently, that was a problem with her body.
She was knowledgeable about magecraft. Her mana reserves were respectable. However, Ella couldn’t even use elementary magic. As a result, she ended up failing out of the magic school she went to.
Roswitha utterly despised users of Modern Magecraft, but she couldn’t hate Ella.
Ella loved magic, whether it was Classical or Modern. She was a true magic idiot.
While Roswitha limited herself to Classical Magecraft, she too loved magic, so she could understand how Ella felt.
(If possible, I’d like to teach her Classical Magecraft, but…)
Classical Magecraft depended heavily on your ancestry and natural talent.
Because not everyone had that sort of ancestry or talent, the product of various attempts to formalize and simplify magic to make it easier to use was what was now known as Modern Magecraft.
What are you doing spreading magic around so carelessly? Magic should be kept secret and carefully passed down from generation to generation! — So Roswitha thought. Regardless, it was clear that Ella wasn’t cut out for Classical Magecraft.
Modern Magecraft existed for the sake of talentless people just like Ella.
“…How about inscription magic? If you use ink with mana conductive properties, even you can make it work, right Ella?”
Inscription magic was, among the types of Classical Magecraft, the most similar to Modern techniques. Even someone without talent could use it if they worked hard enough.
(But its power is awful, so I can’t recommend it too highly.)
Ella responded to Roswitha’s suggestion with a conflicted expression.
“I know… this might be selfish of me, but…”
“Hm? I didn’t know it was possible for you to be selfish, Ella.”
Out of the Apprentice Mages, she thought Ella was the most understanding and well-behaved of the bunch.
Roswitha was self aware enough to realize that she herself was a bit of a braggart.
“I can be very selfish, you know? After all…”
Ella stared down at her feet.
Her sand-colored braid swayed limply beneath her face.
“Even though I have no talent… I refuse to give up on my dream of becoming a mage.”
If a person who couldn’t emit mana like Ella wanted to get involved with the field of magecraft, usually they would work as a researcher or magical device artisan. It wasn’t unusual to see people in those jobs who had difficulties with the fundamentals of magic.
However, Ella wanted to become a real mage, who could use magic properly.
“When I was little, I saw what it looked like when a real mage used magic. With just a little chanting, water spread all over, it twirled around, and sparkled in the light… It was so, so pretty…”
(I know that feeling.)
Even though the magic that Roswitha saw was probably different from the magic that Ella saw, it implanted that same yearning in their hearts.
Neither of them would ever forget that wonder that they felt as kids.
“I know that with inscription magic, as long as I used mana conducting ink, I would be able to use some measure of magic. But… since I have a water affinity, there’d be a limit to what I’d be able to do.”
Inscription magic was weak, no matter how you put it.
If her elemental affinity had been fire, wind, or lightning, then she might be able to put in enough work to make it useful in battle, but it the fighting style of water mages was incredibly difficult to pull off. Roswitha had a water affinity herself, so she understood that very well.
The amount of water you could squeeze out with inscription magic wouldn’t be enough to be useful in battle.
Ella covered her reddening cheeks with her hands and grimaced.
“It’s really, really shallow and embarrassing of me to say this but… I want to use flashy magic that just comes out when I chant something, just like I saw when I was little…”
“Flashy magic… I see, that is a little selfish.”
“Eugh, sorry for being so shallow… But, it’s always been my dream… I really want to do that thing that made me go ‘Wow!’ back then… Like, spitting out water and controlling it however I wanted…”
A thought struck her, and Roswitha pulled three sticks out from the inside of her cloak.
She focused her thoughts and chanted. Then, in the last line:
“Thy irrational devotion. The rain which dwells within thee. Thou fish who hast lost thine eyes… bore through.”
She still couldn’t get them to split into fine shards like her mother could, but the three sticks became enveloped in water and took the form of fish.
Three watery fish started to swim in circles around Ella.
“You want to do something like this, right?”
“Yes! That’s it! Wow… This is so cool! So pretty….”
“It’s supposed to be a lot cooler than this, you know. Mama could divide it into a hundred fish, and she could control each one of them.”
“Wow, that has to be beautiful!” Ella’s eyes sparkled, and Roswitha’s mood lifted.
(Yes, it’s more beautiful than you could imagine. Mama’s magic is the most beautiful in the world.)
With one wave of Roswitha’s finger, the fish of water disappeared, and three sticks fell to the floor.
As she picked them up, Roswitha glanced at Ella.
“I can only use Classical Magecraft, but, well, if you need anything… Um… I’ll answer any questions you have.”
“Yes! I’ll be counting on you, Roswi!”
“By the way, why am I the only one you give a nickname to?”
“Oh, Uh, S- sorry…. Do you not like it?”
“…I don’t mind.”
Orangish fluffy fur. Barking and howling with an indomitable attitude.
The fact that Ella thought ‘she’s reminds me of my family’s dog’ was a secret.