Chapter 7: First Class, First Magic

I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, but my roommate, after looking at me with a face like she’d bitten into a bug, flopped onto her bed.

Then she pulled the covers over her head.

I hadn’t even heard her name yet.

Well, I can just ask tomorrow.

With that thought, I put down the bag I had brought with me.

To be honest, the only luggage I’d brought from home was the hammer I used at the forge, the clothes I was currently wearing, and the parchment I used for scribbling when I was bored, so unpacking didn’t take long.

After finishing my organizing, I looked around the dorm room.

A desk.

A chair.

A bed.

A closet.

It had everything it needed.

Even considering it was a two-person room, it was quite spacious, and perhaps because my roommate had a neat personality, it was also very clean.

However, it was not an environment where I could make or do anything.

If it had been a single room, I might have tried to modify it, but since it was a two-person room, I couldn’t just mess with the room as I pleased.

“Should I ask if there’s any spare space when I go to the forge later… Yawn.”

As I yawned and looked outside, the sunset had completely faded, and only black darkness filled the sky.

Only then did the accumulated fatigue rush in.

Today had been a truly eventful and long day.

Having a fit over the Ceylon Grand Bridge, having a fit over the measuring instruments in the Alchemy Hall…

Hmm.

Somehow, it feels like all I did today was have fits.

“Should I go to sleep now?”

I threw off my clothes and spread the blanket.

Then, as I was about to turn off the light, I froze.

Instead of a candle or a lamp, a large, unfamiliar mana stone above my head was emitting a soft glow.

“Oh? What’s this?”

It was a high-end mana light that was too expensive to even see in my country home.

But no matter how much I looked around, I couldn’t see a switch to turn it off or a cord to pull.

After looking around for a while, a small flat plate attached to a corner of the wall caught my eye.

When I pressed it with my finger, it was hard.

Is it a touchpad then?

I tried rubbing it with my palm, but there was no reaction.

“How do you turn this thing off?”

I tried tapping it, blowing on it.

As I was doing all sorts of ridiculous things, I heard a rustling sound from the next bed.

My roommate, who had been under the covers, got up roughly, strode over, and reached her hand over my shoulder.

“Move.”

When she touched the flat plate with her fingertip, a faint light flowed from it.

Soon, the mana stone on the ceiling slowly lost its light, and darkness fell upon the room.

I see.

So it’s designed to react when mana is infused.

Then this flat plate is a type of mana sensor.

What does the inside of the wall look like?

Is there something like wiring, similar to modern electronic circuits?

Or is it a case where it can be operated remotely, like a remote control?

Very interesting.

This wall.

Let’s take it apart tomorrow when I have time.

I covered myself with the blanket, my mind already thinking about the tools I would need to dismantle the wall.

As I closed my eyes, a vague anxiety reared its head.

Will I, a magicless person, be able to do well here?

But my excitement about what I could do in the future was far greater than that anxiety.

The mana light just now, and the scene in the Alchemy Hall’s laboratory.

Now that I was out of the countryside, this world was full of truly interesting things.

Tomorrow’s first class was a magic class.

What kind of class would it be?

I drifted off to sleep while lost in such fantasies.

That night, I dreamt of fighting a monstrously cruel yard-pound monster with a meter stick and gram-unit weights.

---

Waking up early in the morning, I got up without delay.

My calves felt a little stiff, probably from walking a lot yesterday, but even considering that, it was a pretty refreshing morning.

As I got out of bed to change, I saw my roommate putting on her shoes at the entrance.

When I was about to say ‘Good morning~’, she glanced at me from the corner of her eye and then휙- left the entrance.

“Hmm…”

I didn’t think much of it yesterday, but does that roommate dislike me?

Come to think of it, William had said that among mages, there were some who held an extreme hatred for the magicless.

Of course, such indiscriminate hatred was forbidden by the rules within the academy, but perhaps she was one of them.

It didn’t really matter.

I didn’t come here to make friends.

What was more important was the first class.

I headed to the closet to change into my uniform.

“Let’s see, the uniform is definitely in the closet… Eek.”

The uniform consisted of a white shirt, a gray outer garment, and black bottoms.

The problem was that the bottoms were a skirt.

“The girls’ uniform here was a skirt, right?”

My face naturally scrunched up.

The thing I hated most after being reborn as a girl in this world was the skirt.

I had no choice but to adapt to underwear because it was too uncomfortable to move without it, but skirts were different.

It wasn’t because I was shy, but the open feeling was just too unpleasant and annoying.

I had a brief staring contest with the skirt.

The familiar blacksmith’s work clothes next to it tempted me.

But William’s repeated admonition to ‘wear the uniform within the academy’ echoed in my ears.

Tick-tock.

Time passed, and I finally came to a conclusion.

“Let’s just wear it for now.”

In the end, I put my two legs through the gaping hole of the skirt.

At first, it seemed fine.

But the moment I moved my legs, the cool touch of air brushing between my thighs gave me goosebumps all over my body.

Yep.

Impossible.

I can’t even take a single proper step like this.

“Whatever happens, happens.”

Without a second’s hesitation, I threw off the skirt and changed into my familiar work clothes.

This feeling of it fitting my body perfectly!

Only now did I feel like I was properly dressed.

Having wasted time on something unexpected, I hurriedly left the dormitory.

First period was a magic theory class.

Therefore, the destination was the Magic Hall.

At the entrance of the Magic Hall stood the familiar red-haired Professor Kyla with her arms crossed.

As soon as she spotted me, she frowned.

“Huh? What’s this, country bumpkin. Where’d you sell your uniform and what’s with that getup?”

“Ah, well… I have to go to the forge right after class today. It would be a big problem if some molten iron splashed on it, right?”

I racked my brain as much as I could and bluffed nonchalantly.

Kyla stared at me with suspicious eyes for a moment, but then waved her hand as if she couldn’t be bothered.

“Ah~ You said you have to teach them how to make iron, right? Fine, whatever. Go in.”

I passed surprisingly easily.

Just as I was about to enter, another student following behind me was caught by Kyla for having a crooked tie and was getting an earful.

This excuse.

I should use it a lot in the future.

I grinned and quickened my pace into the Magic Hall.

---

The first-floor lecture hall where the class was scheduled was like a tiered lecture hall in a modern university.

A fan-shaped lecture hall.

A podium in the middle.

Long desks and chairs on each tier.

Perhaps because I was a bit late from dawdling in the dorm, there weren’t many seats left.

If I could, I would have wanted to sit close to the podium, but I had no choice but to sit in an empty seat in the innermost corner of the lecture hall.

As I sat and looked around, I could see my roommate in the distance.

She didn’t give me a single glance and just sat there, staring at the blackboard.

“That’s the transfer student…”

“…Magicless…”

I kept hearing some whispering.

But that sound didn’t last long.

Creak!

The door opened and Kyla walked in.

Her expression, as she stood in front of the podium, was somehow solemn and quite serious, unlike what I had seen at her home.

The students, as if they had never whispered, shut their mouths and took out their writing utensils.

In response, Kyla, without even a greeting, immediately started writing ‘The Relationship between Mana and Magic Power’ on the blackboard.

“Alright, let’s begin today’s class. Last time, you should have learned about the basic correlation between mana and magic power. Mana is a fundamental energy that is omnipresent in nature, and living beings take it into their bodies and convert it into a form called ‘magic power’ to use it. Whether it’s body reinforcement or magic manifestation, everything is based on this magic power.”

Even I, a magicless person, knew that much.

However, I had many questions about that common knowledge.

Does the efficiency of converting mana to magic power differ for each individual?

Is there no energy loss during the conversion process?

If there is a loss, in what form does it appear?

Heat?

Or some other form of energy?

I focused on the class, writing down the questions I’d always had on parchment.

This is a review of what we learned last time.

Therefore, it’s best to ask questions after class.

“Today, we will learn about ‘magic circle creation,’ one of the most basic yet important skills in utilizing this magic power. Among them, we will try to create a ‘storage magic circle’ ourselves.”

Kyla took something out of her pocket.

It was a piece of paper with a geometric drawing on it and a fist-sized stone.

She laid the paper on the desk and placed the stone on top of it.

Then she placed her finger on the parchment.

Since I was magicless, I couldn’t really see the flow of magic power, but it seemed she was infusing magic power into the magic circle.

Woong-!

Soon, a faint light emanated from the magic circle, and at the same time, the stone disappeared.

“If the stone placed on the magic circle disappears like this, it’s a success.”

Kyla lightly picked up the parchment that had swallowed the stone and fluttered it.

Then, when she infused magic power once more, the disappeared stone popped out onto the magic circle.

Watching that scene, I muttered without realizing it.

“…Wow.”

For a moment, I felt my mind go blank.

There was no doubt.

I couldn’t explain what had just happened with my knowledge.

The law of conservation of mass, which even people who don’t know physics have heard of.

That law, which seemed unbreakable, which could never be broken, had just crumbled right before my eyes.

So simply.

As if it were a matter of course.

“Is that magic?”

Even as I muttered that, my hands continued to write something down.

‘Stored as information and then reconstructed? Or a subspace? If it’s a subspace, what are the coordinates? Does it take energy to maintain it?’

Right now, there’s no point in blindly denying magic as unrealistic.

This world is real, and magic is a perfectly natural ‘phenomenon’ that undoubtedly exists in this world.

It means that there is fundamentally no difference between an apple falling from an apple tree and what just happened before my eyes.

If so, there must be one.

A ‘rule’ that constitutes the phenomenon.

Understanding that will be the first step in integrating magic into engineering.

By the time my memo had completely filled a sheet of parchment, Kyla raised her voice.

“Alright, now form pairs of two and try to create it yourselves. The necessary materials are in your desk drawers. When drawing the magic circle, pay attention to the order and direction of the strokes.”

As Kyla’s words ended, the students began to move busily to find partners.

I looked around for a moment, but no one came near me.

This was quite a problem.

If this were an ordinary group project, I could have just done the work for two, but right now, I was magicless.

Moreover, since I had just transferred, my magical knowledge was also sorely lacking.

The only familiar face was my roommate, but she seemed to have already formed a group with another student.

‘Hmm. I’m screwed.’

Just as I was taking out the practice tools from my drawer with the thought of at least trying something.

“Excuse me… if you haven’t decided on a partner yet, would you like to work with me?”

A somehow clear voice.

When I looked up, a woman with long, neatly braided blonde hair was looking at me.

“…Me?”

I asked back, thinking I might have misheard.

Then she nodded and gave a gentle smile.

“Yes. I noticed that you haven’t found a partner yet. Neither have I.”

Is that really so?

Over her shoulder, I could see a group of male and female students glaring this way.

Judging by their gazes, burning with jealousy, her claim of not having a partner seemed to be a lie.

But I didn’t sense any malice from this woman.

Was she simply concerned about me?

Whatever the reason, I welcomed it.

I held out my palm towards her.

“I’d love to. I’m Tarsha. And you?”

“I’m Noa.”

Noa said her name, took my hand, and shook it lightly.

“Noa Verdia. It’s a pleasure to work with you, Tarsha.”