Convocation

It was already noon the following day when Ryuuhei awoke. He looked around the room he was assigned—it was lavishly-adorned, though not terribly large. —Still, he was pleased to learn that it was his alone. Different world or not, he was sure morons still existed, and the last thing he wanted was to be paired with some booger-eating, snooze button-pressing, inconsiderate nightmare like the roommate he had his junior year of university.

“Still, that was quite the adventure last night......,” he said to himself as he pulled himself out of bed. “Who knew that Haruka lady had such a personality?”

He thought back to when she had activated that “Joint Magic: Levitate” spell right before they hit the ground. He frowned for a moment.

“That damn sadist. I nearly wet myself from that whole fiasco.”

After that thought left his head, he smiled.

“Still,” he said excitingly, “Who knew I could also do that fancy light stuff myself here? Crazy that I just got instructions in that packet she gave me.”

Ryuuhei closed his eyes and started to focus intently on the tip of his pointer finger, just as he had seen that girl Eira do. Gradually, a stringlike, smokey light started to accumulate there, growing brighter and brighter.

“......Now!,” he thought, feeling that ‘full’ sensation he had learned to sense from practicing the night before.

He scribbled a jumble of text into the air in front of his face.

“Summoning. Target: Six fluid ounces of water. Location: On top of nightstand of dorm room number one hundred.”

As he recited the incantation aloud, the text shattered with a bang as water began to spill onto his nightstand, drenching a document that sat atop it. Ryuuhei flipped.

“Oh, crap!,” he shouted, as he dashed over and yanked it off. Luckily, he was able to salvage it before it had gotten completely ruined.

“......Looks like I needed to specify a cup, too. Noted.”

From several of his tests the night before, Ryuuhei had already discovered that there were certain rules to the academy’s magic system. He had tried—and failed—to call a jar of grape jelly into his room the previous night, leading him to realize that items that didn’t exist in this space could not be summoned. He had also learned that misspelling any word in the incantation would cause the entire spell to fail. It seemed there was some universal system that oversaw and regulated castings.

Suddenly, he had an idea.

“Deheeheehee.”

He smirked with a foolish grin. There was something he hadn’t tested yet and felt the urge to.

“How about teleporting a person within this place? Right...time to give Haruka a little payback for that scare last night,” he said, thrusting his hands up into the air with dramatic flair. “Moohoohahaha!”

“......Unfortunately, that would not have worked, Ryuuhei Sakazaki,” a voice said suddenly. He whirled.

“......You......you...,” he wheezed. Haruka’s face was somehow peeking right through his dorm’s door. “How—how—how the hell did you—?”

Ryuuhei stumbled and fell backwards as the rest of Haruka’s body passed through the door and into his room. She smiled and closed her eyes endearingly.

“......I will not tell you. I came to remind you about the upcoming convocation.”

“Right, right, the convocation. ......What time was that again?”

“It starts in an hour’s time. I would advise that you get a move-on if you plan to attend,” she said. “Remember, the convocation takes place at Grand Stadium Metanoia.”

Before Ryuuhei could respond, Haruka had already up and vanished.

“Can’t be helped. Let’s do this,” he said, slapping his cheeks with the palms of his hands twice.

After taking a short shower, he changed into the uniform the school had prepared for him in his room.

“Hey, not bad..., he said, as he admired himself in the mirror behind the dorm room’s entrance. The uniform was an ornate cloak, adorned with a flawless blend of black and red. Simply donning the cloak filled him with a sense of purpose—and of power.

Ryuuhei dashed out of the student dorm as soon as he locked the door, clutching the map that had been included in the packet of documents he was given by Haruka the night before. As he began to navigate the campus, he quickly realized that he had underestimated its size and complexity.

“Uh oh...I’m going to be late,” he thought to himself. Suddenly, he had an ‘aha moment’ and thought to use a teni (teleportation) incantation to leap directly to the site of the orientation.

He focused his energy on his pointer finger until he felt ‘full’, then proceeded to draw out the two kanji characters that comprised the word ‘teni,’ as well as the rest of the needed parameters.

After taking a deep breath and summoning a sharp expression, he read the spell aloud.

“Teleport. Target: Self. Destination: Grand Stadium Metanoia.”

The wind blew in silence as he stood there with a dumbfounded look. Nothing was happening. Ryuuhei raised a brow when the words he drew out began to glitch before vanishing completely. What was going on?

“Ahahaha, you stupid or something?,” a voice suddenly said from behind him. It was an infuriating, annoying voice.

“Didn’t you know? You can’t teleport yourself to a place you’ve never been to before.”

He turned around to find a young woman standing there. She was cupping her mouth to hold back from laughing. Ryuuhei stood there for a moment as his eyes went wide with surprise. He recognized who she was.

“Ryouko......Kisaragi.”

“Bravo~, you’re correct! ......Though I can’t imagine who wouldn’t know who I am. Me, the genius writer! Just be grateful you even got to feast your eyes on this gorgeous mug,” she replied with a generous supply of snark.

“Ryouko Kisaragi. Twenty years old with a popular Japanese light novel published as a non-native. Despite this, she has been vocal online about still living with her parents. —What is she doing here?,” thought Ryuuhei.

“Did you get a card, too?,” he asked her, as she continued to ramble on in self-importance.

“......Huh? Oh, yeah. I did. Someone gave it to me after I read this black book,” she said.

Ryuuhei’s eyes lit up.

“The same thing happened to me! I was at the library, and there was this book—”

His words were obstructed by the sudden sound of a bell chiming.

“Oh, no! The convocation!,” Ryuuhei shouted, when he suddenly felt Ryouko tap his shoulder.

“Joint Magic: Teleport. Targets: Self and Person I touched last. Destination: Grand Stadium Metanoia lobby.,” she shouted after writing out the spell with dazzling speed.

In an instant, both Ryuuhei and Ryouko disappeared in a burst of light. When next he blinked, they materialized in the stadium’s lobby room, standing atop a lush, red carpet.

“I’ve been here before. Visited when I was told about today’s convocation just in case. You’re lucky you ran into me!,” boasted Ryouko.

“You saved me, there. Thanks a lot,” Ryuuhei responded. He could still feel his heart racing out of control. “At any rate, we’ve gotta hurry.”

They promptly showed their cards to the guards standing in front of the doorway to the stadium and rushed inside once their entry was permitted.

Ryuuhei was flabbergasted by the sight that expanded into view. It was the largest, grandest space he had ever seen in his life. The sound of lively cheers filled the atmosphere. —Yes. Everywhere he looked, he could see oodles of exuberant spectators lining the bleachers. An intricate, geometric ceiling lay suspended high above the ground of the stadium, obstructing natural light from entering the building.

As he stared aimlessly in reverence, Ryuuhei felt someone tug on his sleeve. It was Ryouko.

“You can sightsee later! Come on, let’s go already,” she said impatiently. Ryouko broke into a run toward the large crowd of people seated at the center of the stadium. Ryuuhei followed her.

By the time they arrived, he was fatigued and had to bend over to catch his breath. Ryouko stared at him with her hands on her hips and sighed in disappointment.

“......How pathetic. You really gassed out after running such a short distance?,” she said to him with an empathetic tone. “Get it together! You’re a man, aren’t you?”

“You’re just a monster is all,” Ryuuhei sputtered, still gasping for air. “......Huh?”

When finally he recovered and began to look around, he noticed another familiar face seated in the crowd before him—a strong, strapping young fellow with a lean build wearing a pair of thin, rectangular-shaped metal glasses.

“Wait a minute, isn’t that—?,”

“Enju Miyamae,” Ryouko interjected suddenly. “The inventor of the current linguistic model used to measure fluency. Word has it that he combined five frameworks to create it—the Law of Large Numbers, the Input Hypothesis, a normative standard avatar, the CEFR, and the Pareto Principle.”

“......You sure are well-informed,” said Ryuuhei, a look of slight exasperation on his face.

“Of course I am!,” she replied enthusiastically as she eyed Enju with a loving gaze. “I’m his number one fan—love him so much I’d die for him!”

“Hmm?”

Enju suddenly peered in their direction with a cold-yet-curious expression. As he did so, Ryouko quickly turned around to avoid making eye-contact. She endearingly placed both hands on her now-rosy cheeks.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Enju-sama! You’re such a dream!,” she squealed.

“Enju Miyamae, huh? Another big-shot in the Japanese language learning world. Was he also called here to Lingua Magi, and if so—why?,” thought Ryuuhei as he quietly profiled the man.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden silence that swept across the entire stadium. For some reason, the cheering spectators had gone quiet. Sensing that the convocation would soon be underway, he rushed to find a vacant seat and promptly sat himself down in it. Ryouko followed his lead.

The flaming torches lining the inside of the stadium began to go out one by one until the entire space was enveloped in darkness. Restless chatter stirred amongst those seated at the convocation.

Something was coming.

Slowly, the torches started to reignite until the stadium once again basked in a bright, ambient hue. Ryuuhei gulped in nervousness. High above, someone was standing at the podium!

He strained his eyes. —It was a woman with a tall, statuesque complexion. Though she stood deathly still, the spirited onmyouji outfit that clothed her drifted softly—about and about as if it were wafted by an invisible wind.

Ryuuhei could read nothing of her—were he pressed to give an impression, he could only call her a being of such poise and demeanor that no word—no anything, as a matter of fact—could begin to describe her bewitched beauty.

Without delay, the woman spoke. Her voice was as a mournful song—sedative, yet equal parts alluring.

“My name is Yakumo. It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to Lingua Magi.”

“Yakumo......why does that sound so familiar?,” Ryuuhei thought to himself briefly before a lightbulb went off. —That’s right! Her name had appeared in the synopsis of the book he found at the library!

Yakumo continued.

“I sent for you on a single pretense; you are all skilled, mono-focused Japanese learners whose talents I wish to nurture.”

“As you are all now likely aware of, here, the Japanese language grants you power.”

She held her hands in front of her, curling her fingers slightly with each of her palms facing upwards. Above them, thin strands of light began to gather.

A storm of oohs and aahs became audible from several of the students seated at the convocation.

Eventually, the strands formed a glowing red cube. Once fully formed, it levitated effortlessly above Yakumo’s outstretched hands, bobbing ever-so-slightly up and down. She took the cube in her right hand and crushed it by contracting her fingers into a fist in one fast motion.

The students looked around the stadium. The unnumbered spectators who sat in the bleachers suddenly began to jolt and glitch with the sound of crackling static before ultimately disappearing into slews of particles. —They weren’t even real people!

“......Holy crap, you can even do THAT with magic here?,” Ryuuhei thought as he stared at Yakumo with a look of awe.

Yakumo resumed her speech.

“The magic system of this academy is intricate,” she said as she effortlessly re-materialized the crowd of spectators. “You will learn more about how it works as your term here unfolds.”

“Now then, I hereby declare you all members of Lingua Magi!”

The instant she finished announcing those words, the stadium atmosphere erupted into a flurry of cheers—both from the spectators and the newly-inaugurated students.

Yakumo smiled once before evaporating into thin air and vanishing from atop the podium.

As other students around him started to exchange conversations with one another, a grin formed on Ryuuhei’s face.

“This is it,” he exclaimed zealously. “A new beginning!”