[V7C10] The Apprentices’ Feast (Part 2)
Translated by Jodas 7: To the North(How do I describe this feeling… Hm… Ah, right. I’ll try my best, too!)
Monsters had appeared in Darwock, the country to the Empire’s North. Among those Monsters was said to be a Harpy who resembled her sister.
Tia wanted to go to Darwock and meet her sister. She’d meet her and tell her that she was doing okay.
To that end, she needed a reason to go to Darwock.
(I do want to learn how to use choral magic, and a way to fly too… I want to learn to do more things.)
Flight magic users were rarities.
Even though her flight time was limited, just being able to cross over cliffs or steep inclines would cut down travel time significantly.
Now that they had to deal with the emergency of Monsters in Darwock, so long as she leaned on the fact that she was good at flying, she might be able to convince them to send her to Darwock.
The problem was that Tia could not use flight magic on her own. She still had to rely on the functions of the Magical Flying Device.
Even then, Tia could not fly on her own. She had to ride on Oliver’s back and have him provide enough altitude for her to catch the wind currents.
Thinking about it that way, maybe she should focus on learning flight magic after all. But that really was not a simple task for her. It would be much, much harder than choral magic. Not the kind of thing she could just learn in one or two years.
As Tia pulled apart her bread, she groaned “Pevuvuvu…” Rukiye, who had been silently sipping on a bowl of soup, made a face like she’d suddenly realized something and spoke up.
“Oh right, Tia. About the Magical Flying Device…”
“Pefu!? Did you make it so it can fly a whole lot longer?”
“…Before that, I was thinking we could make it so that you could switch between the flying and leaping modes. I just thought I should let you know.”
Tia’s eyes went wide.
Switching between flying and leaping modes. She couldn’t immediately wrap her head around what that meant.
Rukiye, recognizing that she was having trouble, elaborated more.
“Remember how we had to drag around those two devices — flying and leaping — during the magic battle?”
“Yeah?”
The Magical Flying Device had large wings, while the Magical Leaping Device had much shorter wings. Both of them also put out wind at different powers and directions, so while they were similar, they were still meaningfully distinct.
Rukiye helped bring both of these to the magic battle a few days ago and had her use them as circumstances demanded.
“I want to try putting both of those devices into a single magical device. If we did that, you wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble to take one off and put the other on…”
Rukiye glanced over towards Oliver.
At the moment, Oliver was silently eating his well-balanced meal.
“When you activate the Magical Flying Device, you’ve had to rely on Oliver’s flight magic to get you off the ground, right?
“Yeah, he helps me go up!”
“If you started out by jumping up with the leaping mode, then switched to the flying mode when you got high enough… I bet you could fly by yourself without having to rely on Oliver.”
Something in Tia’s mind made a Peppepo!! sound. That was the sound of amazement.
“I can fly… by myself…?”
“We’ve still got to deal with the endurance problem, though. No matter what you do, magical devices aren’t very fuel-efficient.”
“Piyopp! Rukiye, Rukiye, thank you! Wahhh!!”
When Tia stood up and leaned over the table to thank her, Ella talked her down softly.
“Tia, no shouting at dinner, okay?”
“Okaay! Pefufufufu… Wow… I can fly after all…”
As Tia giggled in delight, she suddenly noticed that Ella’s hand was wrapped in bandages. It looked hard for her to use a fork.
Back when Tia first started pretending to be human, she hadn’t understood the meanings of those cloths, but now she knew.
“Piyo? Ella, are you hurt?”
“No, I just had some tests done.”
“Tests…?”
“Tests to find what’s causing my mana organ abnormalities. If the surgery succeeds, there’s a chance I could finally be able to emit mana…”
The Apprentices all looked at Ella with a manner of surprise.
Surgery. She knew what that was. The procedure that turned Tia from a Harpy into a human was a surgery in a way.
The squeamish Finn looked up at Julius nervously.
“Julius, is surgery… scary?”
“Kuku, It sure is. In fact, they’re going to cut her skin open to the point it’ll have to be sewn back together.”
“Eeeek…”
Finn trembled as he looked back at Ella.
Ella gave Finn a reassuring smile.
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry. It’s going to be Director Treu holding the knife, after all. Just, since the whole tower’s in a bit of a panic at the moment… I think the surgery is going to be pushed back a little.”
“Hey, hey, that panic is about the whole thing with the Prince of Darwock, right? I heard rumors that a Monster showed up in the Palace… Is it true?”
Sophie dropped the volume and asked in a hushed whisper.
While they had been informed about the arrival of a prince from Darwock this morning, the Apprentices had yet to be informed about the appearance of Monsters. Hütter had mentioned that they planned to let everyone know tomorrow morning.
Regardless, those who visited other Offices during their afternoon individual lesson hours likely caught wind of some information already.
Oliver’s eyes widened without emotion and he muttered under his breath.
“So that’s what was going on…!”
Apparently he had tried to follow after his brother Frederik without even knowing a thing about what was going on.
“I cannot sit here idly. I must rush to my brother’s aid…!”
“But dude, do you even think they’ll let Apprentices like us go?”
Wren cut in and shot a glance at Tia and Sevil.
Times like this called for the brainy pretty boy.
Roswitha looked at Wren in doubt.
“I came to the Wedge Tower in order to take down Monsters. Of course I’d like to go. But that doesn’t go for you, does it?”
Wren averted his eyes to the side, his gaze resting on Tia for a meaningful but brief moment.
Then, with shadows over his face, he spoke quietly.
“Apparently, Tia’s family is up near Darwock right now…”
Tia suppressed the urge to let out a shout of ‘Pyofu!?’
She guessed this was an act of his to make it easier for her to say she wanted to go to Darwock.
That said, Wren’s turn of phrase was extremely clever.
Breakneck Gorge, where the Harpies lived, was North of the Wedge Tower. It was no lie to say that her family lived ‘up near Darwock.’
The other Apprentices reacted to Wren’s acting with a mix of surprise and sympathy.
As they did, Sevil raised her voice.
“So that’s what was bothering you. In that case, I can tell the disturbance in Darwock has you worried sick.”
“Yeah…I want to see my sister again…”
She wasn’t lying. It was true that she wanted to see her sister.
Thanks to Wren and Sevil’s guidance, the others got the impression that Tia wanting to go to Darwock was only natural.
The only question left was how to convince the higher ups of the Wedge Tower.
“Kuku… According to what I’ve heard, it seems the King of Darwock has lost his mind. Apparently the cause was his failure to convert to the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy.”
When Julius spoke those words, Ella turned to Sevil with considerable dread.
“U- Um… Could it be the reason the King of Darwock failed to convert to the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy was…”
“Indeed, you are quite clever, Ella.”
Sevil crossed her arms and nodded sharply. With an invincible smirk, she declared.
“It is because I blew away marriage talks with Prince Axel!”
The whole table fell silent.
Leaning on his elbow, Wren muttered “She doesn’t regret it one bit, huh.” That was probably his true feelings, not part of the act.
A strange atmosphere now hung over them, where no one dared be the first to speak. No one, that was, aside from the Shaman, Sophie, who spoke with an out-of-place cheery voice.
“Oh, then how about this! I call it: Operation Destined Encounter!”