[V7C8] Choral Magic Practice
Translated by Jodas 7: To the NorthAfter being called into the piano room, Roswitha Ohlendorf held the brim of her pointy hat as she looked at Wren in dismay.
“Hey… Why was I asked to be here?”
“Spiremaster Alto says she’s going to demonstrate choral magic. And apparently she needs a Classical mage to do an incantation for that.”
Considering that Roswitha hailed from a renowned family of Classical mages, it seemed she understood as soon as choral magic was brought up.
“Ah, I see…” She muttered under her breath with a satisfied look, then turned to face Wren once again.
“…Then, are you going to be doing choral magic? It’s not a good choice if you’ve got low mana reserves.”
“I know. I’m just here to study for future reference…… Or, at least, that’s what I told her.”
Wren smirked and looked over towards Tia and Spiremaster Alto.
“It looks like we’re about to hear something amazing, and it would be such a shame if I missed out on it, you know?”
Tia was currently learning how a piano worked from Spiremaster Alto.
As a Harpy, Tia knew the idea of what a piano was, but it seemed like this was her first time actually seeing one.
By the way, Wren had heard pianos before. His brothers used to take piano lessons, although they were no match for Spiremaster Alto.
“Piroro… This white and black sticks…”
“They’re called keys. When you press this, sound comes out.”
As she said that, Spiremaster Alto tapped the keys in order, starting at one end. Tia made a tense face as she listened to the smooth ascending scale.
“Piyo? ……There’s not enough sounds.”
Wren couldn’t help himself from interjecting.
“By not enough, do you mean it hasn’t been tuned?”
“Pyofu. Um… There’s these two keys right next to each other, right? There should be a whole lot of sounds between these two, shouldn’t there?”
“Huh?”
Wren didn’t know much about music. The extent of his knowledge was basically that the keys on the left side of a piano had lower sounds while the keys on the right had higher sounds.
He’d assumed the point of a piano was to have all the notes in order from that low note to the highest note, but according to Tia, there weren’t nearly enough notes.
As Wren stared in confusion, Spiremaster Alto spoke with confidence.
“You are not wrong, Tia. The keys on a piano represent set intervals on the scale. Naturally, it cannot make sounds in between these two.”
While the Empire divided octaves into twelve notes, Alto was aware that other countries divided the same scale into a different number of notes.
“If you tinker with the tuning, it would be possible to make those noises, but it wouldn’t be realistic to tune the piano as you were playing it.”
“Piroro… Then, could you do choral magic with this?”
“You could not. That is why you make those notes an instrument cannot play with your voice and use the instrument to support your singing. After all, humans cannot sing more than one note at a time.”
Wren jumped a little, but it didn’t seem like Spiremaster Alto had actually realized Tia’s true identity.
“Choral magic is intended to harmonize with another mage’s incantation in order to amplify their magecraft. This is much easier to do with Classical Magecraft. That is because Classical Magecraft incantations have many song-like attributes to them.”
And the Classical Magecraft user chosen to help with this practice was Roswitha.
Roswitha wasn’t pleased to have been summoned so suddenly, but she was not angry.
She usually took kindly to any who were dedicated to their studies.
“Roswitha, could you start by chanting an incantation and activating some magecraft?”
“Of course, Spiremaster Alto. ‘Thy irrational devotion, the rain that dwells within thee, O fish who have lost thine arms… burrow forth!’”
With a song-like cadence, Roswitha tossed three sticks into the air and fish of water formed around those sticks. This was Roswitha’s signature attack magic.
“Well done,” Spiremaster Alto praised before giving her next task.
“Next, I will use choral magic at the same time. Please do the same incantation you just did.”
“Yes… ‘Thy irrational devotion, the rain that dwells within thee, O fish who have lost thine arms… burrow forth!’”
The sound of the piano and Alto’s voice layered atop Roswitha’s incantation.
At that moment, it felt as if the sound began to swell.
But it was not merely a loud sound. It was a tune with countless calculated layers — with depth. That sort of music.
(Wow, what’s this! It sounds like a super advanced chorus with an amazing accompaniment…)
Roswitha tossed three new sticks. As she did, something happened that was clearly different than before.
Previously, water would bubble up into the air to slowly envelop the sticks, but this time a huge wave of water swelled up and engulfed the sticks at once.
While it created three fish, just as before, their size was on a whole different level. The usual fish were about the length of one’s elbow to their fingertips, but these were at least twice that size.
With a face of stunned surprise, Roswitha waved her staff. As she did, the fish deftly swam about the room.
“Amazing, they’re twice the power and speed as before! Even though I only used the same amount of mana as always…”
Alto spoke calmly to the stunned Roswitha.
“The singer’s mana mixed in with yours, Roswitha. That prevents those who receive the blessing of choral magic from needlessly draining their mana.”
Tia listened intently to Alto’s explanation. Her amber eyes darted between the piano and Roswitha’s fish.
While Wren was only here as an observer, he figured it would be a waste if he just listened in and enjoyed the music the whole time.
You didn’t get the opportunity to witness unusual techniques like this every day.
“I’ve got a question! This choral magic doesn’t have any directionality, right? Like, um… For example, wouldn’t you accidentally end up strengthening another mage’s magic if they could hear your song? Or something like that?”
“While theoretically, such a thing is not impossible, it is highly unlikely. As you saw me do just now, choral magic has to resonate to an incantation with reasonably high precision.”
“So you’re saying it would only happen if you did the same incantation as the other guy at the same time, then?”
“Exactly.”
That made sense. That would make this even less convenient than inscription magic.
Not only did it require a terrifyingly advanced level of skill, all it could manage was supporting your allies’ magecraft.
(It’s still impressive, though… but it would probably be more useful to have another mage casting attack magic than have someone trying to amplify their ally’s magic.)
Be it inscription magic or choral magic, there were plenty of reasons why these techniques were dying out.
While it was sad to see, these magics were being slowly lost to the ages due to their inconvenient nature and low effectiveness.
As Wren straightened those ideas out in his head, Tia raised her hand, shouting “Piyopp!”
“If you sang this choral magic with loads of buddies, would it be much much stronger?”
“Exactly.”
Wren’s eyes widened at the exchange between Tia and Spiremaster Alto and he snapped his fingers.
“That’s it! So choral magic was originally meant to be used by, well, a chorus, right? …It feels like the magic was designed to be used by multiple people at once. Like, if there was a ritual that involved setting up a huge barrier, they could support the magic while adding some excitement to the ceremony at the same time!”
The stony, stern Spiremaster Alto creased the wrinkles on the edges of her eyes as she smiled.
“You’re quite quick on the uptake, Wren Bayer. You are exactly right. The use case you just described was once the mission of the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy’s Hymn Brigade.”
Wren tried to envision it. For instance, he imagined mages performing a ritual to erect a great barrier in order to defend the country from Monsters. The Ras Belsch Orthodoxy’s Hymn Brigade stood alongside those mages and used choral magic.
That must have been a sacred, emotional, and captivating sight to behold.
The harmonizing voices strengthened the barrier, while at the same time they boosted the morale and cohesion of the people… And, along the way, the influence of the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy.
However, as the use of choral magic has declined with the passage of time, there were few users even within the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy these days.
Wren asked a question that popped into his mind.
“Then, are you a member of the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy, Spiremaster Alto?”
“No, I was born in the South, so I follow the Spirt God Faith. I only came across choral magic in the process of my independent experiments in combining magecraft with music.”
Spiremaster Alto played the piano as she explained to Tia how to project her voice for choral magic.
Tia imitated her and sang in response. She was, of course, very good at it.
Then, yet another thought emerged in Wren’s head.
(Can’t Harpies use multiple voices at one time…? Then, wouldn’t they have crazy good synergy with choral magic that gets more powerful when more voices harmonize…?)
Monsters did not use magecraft.
That was because Monsters could control more than enough power on their own without relying on such techniques.
But, if one of those Monsters were to learn the techniques of magecraft, what would happen then?
“You’re making a scary face. Is something wrong?”
With nothing else to do but wait for her turn, Roswitha fiddled with her pointy hat as she asked Wren that question.
Wren crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, flipping up his pretty boy hair.
“It’s pretty boy thinking time! Watch and be amazed.”
“Sorry, but I’m only into Möbius.”
“Eh– Möbius? You mean… The Headmaster? He’s an old man! …Ouch!”
Roswitha kicked him in the shins and Wren screamed.