The Sisters’ Commonality(3)

Shati thought that even by her own assessment, her relationship with her family wasn’t very good.

The reason was none other than her own personality.

Because she had been praised since childhood and had such an arrogant personality that looked down on others, Shati’s relationships, including her family relationships, had long since become quite strained.

She maintained only social relationships with peers by separating them into classes, and even to elders, she only showed outward politeness while inwardly being quite dismissive.

After all, she thought they were all inferior to herself.

Fortunately, although her personality had improved close to a complete change after entering the academy and meeting Meiel, that doesn’t mean the things she did in the past disappear.

Right now, her relationship with her older brother and sister was the worst, to the point where they would growl at each other just by seeing each other’s faces, and unless Shati was in a good mood like during the previous field trip, there was no talking, let alone seeing each other’s faces.

At least her father, Duke Petra, had persistently clung to her with what he called fatherly love despite Shati trying to push him away, so their relationship had been okay until now, but having done such things, there was no way she could feel comfortable seeing his face like this at the academy.

That’s why Shati had shown quite an uncomfortable look when she saw Petra’s face among the observers, but thanks to Meiel, who had noticed her face and acted accordingly, there was no need for that anymore.

“Ugh…”

Was this her own way of being considerate?

Shati muttered while looking at the four huge dragons starting to fall from the sky.

“This isn’t right…”

She was truly grateful for the consideration, but because the consideration was threatening her life, Shati could no longer show her discomfort towards her father.

Even normally, the defensive magic class was like hell, but today’s incoming magic was several times stronger than usual, disguised as consideration for her.

Since her life would be in danger if the shield broke right away if she paid more attention to her father’s side, Shati carefully folded away her discomfort towards her father in a corner of her heart for a moment and wiped the sweat from her hand holding the wand.

“Let’s just hope we can survive…”

Although it’s a class so they probably won’t die, fainting is certain if she loses focus for even a moment.

Hoping she could survive until lunchtime after this class ended.

Shati prayed earnestly in her heart.

---

Four dragons scatter.

The four dragons, dyeing the clouds in various colors, fell towards the ground with their mouths wide open as if to swallow the students’ shield.

The simultaneous explosion of the elements contained within the four dragons.

It would be terrible if actually hit, but if just watching, the beautiful sight of the explosion embroidered the large sports field, and at that, the observers watching from inside Meiel’s shield let out exclamations.

“Hooo…!”

“Even though we’re inside this shield, I can feel the heat. It’s truly a beautiful and powerful magic!”

“As expected, it wasn’t an empty claim that she destroyed the Sky Island. To think there’s a magician of this level of skill!”

The nobles chattered excitedly, saying even demons wouldn’t be frightening in the face of Meiel showing such magic.

And at the overwhelming magic that couldn’t help but agree with those words, everyone looked up at Meiel, the owner of the magic just now.

“…”

Meiel looking down at the large sports field with half-closed eyes, her mouth covered by her robe.

At a glance she looked vacant, but there was a cold light hidden in those eyes that made one’s body tremble involuntarily.

If one were to approach her with even a little carelessness due to that doll-like appearance, they would be devoured by that light hidden inside in the blink of an eye.

Moreover, her appearance of not even breathing heavily after using such large-scale magic following the giant’s foot earlier was clearly showing what it means to be strong.

It was truly like the second coming of a hero.

As everyone was saying, it was clear that no matter how many demons there were, they would be swept away like ants before her magic.

“Cough! Cough, cough!!”

However, this was only the assessment of the observers watching from a safe place.

The state of the students who had directly received the magic that could sweep away even those demons like ants was literally a mess.

“My magical power is starting to run low…”

“Ugh… I feel like I’m going to vomit. Today’s been weird from the second level of difficulty…!”

“Ow, my arm… It’s still tingling.”

Students coughing while covered in dirt from the explosion just now, and students massaging their aching arms and legs.

The shield they had been maintaining had nearly half its surface scraped off by the recent attack, and the lower part where magical power wasn’t concentrated was broken as if gnawed by mice.

Seeing a shield created by the combined efforts of 50 students broken like that shows how powerful even the adjusted magic from just now was.

And in such a chaotic situation inside the shield, the one in the worst condition was, of course, Shati, who had held the largest share in the shield just now.

“Urk… ugh…”

“Sha-Shati, are you alright? This is why you shouldn’t have forced yourself to strengthen it so much…”

“Pi-Pina… Heal me please…”

Shati was barely standing, supporting her trembling legs while covering her mouth as if about to vomit at any moment.

Seeing this, Pina, who was standing next to her, gently stroked her back to calm her down, and at Shati’s request for healing, she lightly drew up holy power and pushed it into her.

“『Cure』. Do you feel a bit better now?”

“Yeah… Phew, I feel like I can live now.”

After receiving the holy magic that heals bodily conditions other than injuries, Shati finally seemed to feel better and staggered to her feet.

Shati then closed her eyes and drew in magical power from her surroundings to replenish her depleted internal mana. She inhaled the magical power in the air slowly, as if taking a deep breath.

Although she frowned at feeling the staleness of the dirt dust while absorbing magical power, Shati only opened her eyes and spoke when she had barely filled about half of her magical power.

“I normally wouldn’t have pushed myself this hard, but today there was a reason.”

“A reason? What kind of reason could it be?”

“Sorry, it’s not really something I can talk about to anyone.”

Shati turned her head and avoided answering Pina, who asked with curiosity.

No matter how close she was with Pina, how could she say that she had been caught by Meiel feeling uncomfortable about seeing her family’s face, and that she had pushed herself because she thought the attacks that came right after were her responsibility?

As Shati avoided her gaze sheepishly, Pina seemed to have no intention of asking further and just nodded once before changing the subject.

“By the way, both the first attack today and the second attack, Professor Meiel put in more power than usual. I wonder if it’s because of the observational class?”

“That could be it.”

In fact, the second attack was largely due to Shati herself, but certainly, today’s attacks were more powerful than usual from the first one.

If they had asked Meiel, she would have answered that it was because they had grown stronger after going to the underwater kingdom, but not knowing this fact, the two could only think it was because of the observational class.

“I didn’t expect Professor Meiel to be so mindful of such things?”

“I know. I thought she was a complete ice cube.”

“She might seem a bit cute?”

“Wasn’t she always cute?”

Although she’s scarier than anyone during class time, when looking at her usual vacant appearance, it was an undeniable fact that Meiel was cute.

However, she herself doesn’t particularly like being called cute, and if she hears someone praising her like that, she gets angry fiercely, but even her angry voice is so drawn out that even that is cute.

Therefore, Shati and Pina, who had brought up her cuteness after a long time, burst into laughter without anyone starting first, and looked up at Meiel, who was still looking down at them with a seemingly grumpy expression.

More precisely, they tried to look up.

“Ah.”

“Really, Professor…”

They would have been able to see her if it weren’t for the huge thundercloud covering the place where Meiel had been floating.

The shield’s restoration rate was still at 50%. Above such a shield, a thundercloud with purple lightning flashing covered the sky of the large sports field.

Lightning flashing and thundering inside the cloud as if it had heard all their conversation just now.

As the two became discouraged, the lightning inside the thundercloud began to concentrate at one point, and seeing this, Shati and Pina poured all their strength into pouring their magical power into the shield.

It seemed they would have to empty their stomachs before lunchtime arrived.

---

On the outskirts of Lua Academy, in a deserted alleyway.

Magical power gathered in the dark alley full of trash, and soon spat out a blonde woman.

An incomplete teleportation magic.

The woman who had arrived from the underwater kingdom to this alley in the Puhara Kingdom using an imperfectly completed teleportation magic barely leaned against the wall, feeling her body sink as the magical power inside her body drained out.

“As expected, using magic based only on memories from books isn’t so easy.”

Although she had seen teleportation magic used by countless magicians hundreds of thousands of times before, when she tried to use it herself, she couldn’t use it perfectly.

It was thanks to having seen it hundreds of thousands of times that she was able to safely arrive in the Puhara Kingdom with teleportation magic used for the first time, but the woman, who hadn’t thought that far, sighed with a regretful emotion.

However, what was important to the woman now was not the success of the teleportation magic, but finding one person.

Therefore, the woman raised her body that had been leaning against the wall and carefully wrapped the book she had been holding in her arms preciously.

“Just a little further and I should be able to meet them.”

A few more steps forward.

Anticipating the meeting that would soon take place, the woman slowly moved her steps.