Magical knowledge

Chapter 16

The sky was bright, blue and beautiful. There were no clouds in sight, and birds flocked together as they soared through the vast space.

Then, something came falling from the sky. It was flailing its arms around, and it did not glow whatsoever. One could hear a scream as he rapidly descends, until finally, Naoya crashes onto the field, his body contorted in ways that it shouldn’t be able to.

Three people approach the landing site to check on his condition.

“Well, I did warn you. One wrong parameter and the glyph isn’t a simple jump pad anymore. You just turned yourself into a mortar shell,” a young lady remarks, adjusting her glasses as she looks at Naoya’s crumpled form.

“But hey, he made it work, right? At least it actually sent him upward this time instead of sucking him into the ground,” another friend chimes in, entertained by Naoya’s antics.

A girl with dark eye bags and a gloomy demeanor sits down beside the unmoving body.

“Are you okay? How does it feel? Does it feel nice?”

Naoya raises his head to look at her. “No, Driselle. It doesn’t feel good. You don’t wanna experience this.”

“Awww… but I wanna try too,” she sadly replies.

A cute, girly voice suddenly speaks in their minds.

Haiyaaa. How do you always end up in situations like this?

A small, pink orb of light with an origami sakura floats through Naoya’s body and lands beside him, transforming into a young girl with casual shorts and a colorful shirt. Several origami could be seen in her flowing hair, like a crane, a heart, and the familiar sakura on her left bangs.

She squats beside his crumpled body and holds her hand out.

“Please be gentle this time, Ori — AAAAAAHHHHH”

Naoya screams as his limbs snap back to their correct positions, accompanied by dull crunching sounds.

The guy flinches with every crunch, and the gloomy girl named Driselle simply watches with a smile. After a painful recovery, Naoya slowly stands back up.

“Thanks, Ori, but please be more gentle next time.”

“Nope, it’s gonna be more painful if I do it slowly. Right, Lore?” Ori replies as she stands up.

“Correct, unless, of course, that’s what Naoya wanted,” the girl named Eloren calmly agrees.

“Ohhh, it can be more painful…?” the gloomy girl asks.

“Alright, fine. Let’s stick with snapping,” Naoya says as he limped towards a floating cube at the edge of the large, open field, with Ori floating beside him. The glasses girl picks up Naoya’s glyph and examines it while they are walking.

“Let’s see… ahh, this is where you got it wrong, Naoya. Your biggest mistake was not setting a maximum force limit, so I just launched you up as hard as possible. Then, you should also…”

Her explanations take a while, pointing out more of Naoya's mistakes, including a few imperfect lines in his writing.

“What do you think, Rykor? You’re good at inscriptions, right?” She asks their friend.

“Huh? I mean, yeah, I already knew everything you said. His limit was off, and he didn’t write the characters perfectly,” he quickly replies, not wanting to sound like he wasn’t listening to her explanation.

“I was asking if you saw any more mistakes.” She gives him a deadpan look.

“Oh, that. Uhhh… you already pointed out everything, really. I don’t need to add more.”

Eloren simply shakes her head. “This is why your broom rebelled against you.”

Rykor snaps back. “Okay, that wasn’t even my fault! I did the ritual properly, and it actually worked. The broom just… developed a lot of personality after a while.”

Naoya chimes in. “I mean, if I were brought to life just to clean your room, I’d rebel too, honestly.”

“Ohhh, so that’s why it fell out of your window earlier. Or did it jump out?” Driselle wonders.

They reach the floating cube and touch it, which pulls them out of the pocket dimension and back into Valebryn Academy’s gymnasium. The small replica of the field they were just in sits in a glass case behind them, and they exit the gym.

Outside the gym, they are greeted by the sight of a marble statue depicting very important people: the four heroes of the Hero Party that defeated the Demon Lord. The statue stood in the middle of the Academy’s central courtyard, surrounded by an open field where several students lounged and had picnics under the warm sunlight.

Naoya’s glove rings at that moment, and they all stop to listen.

“Naoya? Where are you right now?” It was Halo Unit’s engineer, Tessa.

“Miss Tessa? I’m at the Academy right now. What’s up?”

“Come to my workshop after class. I finished troubleshooting some errors in the game, so we can start play testing and working on balance,” she quickly replies.

“Oh, ummm, okay. I’ll try to go later if I have--”

“Great. See you.” And her voice disappears.

“--If I have free time. Yep,” Naoya sighs.

“Play testing? You’re making a game with Miss Tessa?” Eloren asks.

“Yeah, we’ve been working on it for a year now. I’ll invite you guys to try it when it’s done.”

“What kind of game is it, though? I wanna try it now so I’ll be the best player at it,” Rykor asks with an excited expression.

“It’s a game from my country. And trust me, it’s gonna take you a long time before you get good at it,” Naoya assures them.

They walk across the courtyard, paying respects to the statue as they pass, and step through a special gate to teleport into the school’s busy cafeteria. The place was abuzz with conversation, and luckily, they were able to find an unoccupied table.

“I’ll have… snakegoat steak with velberry sauce, polished eggs and a large mug of sparkly spring water,” Rykor reads as he grabs the names of the dishes from the menu and places them on his plate. The rest of them, including Ori, follow his lead, and they cover their plates with a silver cloche. After a while, they lift the covers, and their meals have appeared — freshly cooked and aromatic.

“You know what; I’m feeling lucky today. I’m gonna get a cornucopia,” Naoya says as he takes the word from the menu and places it on his plate.

“Really? People don’t order that for a reason, you know?” Ori comments..

“I wonder what you’ll get this time,” Driselle comments, taking a bite of her pasta with black and white sauce.

“Something good, hopefully.” A brown, horn-shaped basket appears on Naoya’s plate. It looks empty at first, but when he reaches inside, it emits a golden glow, and he pulls out…

A large, slimy slug, with dirt and leaves sticking to it, as if it had just been taken from the forest floor.

“Aww man, what is this?” Naoya exclaims, dropping it on his plate.

“Well, the cornucopia will give you an endless supply of food. It doesn’t specify what kind it will give you, though. And well,” Eloren fixes her glasses and points her fork at the slug. “You can technically eat that.”

“Yeah, if I were stuck in the forest with nothing else to eat. I’m trying again. I didn’t waste my campus credits on a slug.” Naoya continues pulling out food, but after a few more tries, all he gets are uncooked raw food (which he can technically eat) and a thick, white tree branch.

“This isn’t even food. It’s just a tree branch!”

“Oh, I know that. That’s from an Oshen tree from my province. It tastes sweet. We used to chew on that as a snack.” Driselle’s expression lights up upon seeing the branch.

“Really?” Naoya tries biting onto it, to no avail. “Yeah, no. I’m not gonna even try it.”

“Can I have it?” she asks, and Naoya hands her the branch, which she slowly chews.

“I wanna try that, too,” Ori says, curious about the branch. Driselle snaps it in half and teaches the fairy how to eat it.

Naoya tries again and pulls out… some plain bread and a jar of jam.

“Thank you! Finally, something edible.” Naoya pushes his plate full of raw food and slug forward, causing the items to disappear and return the plate to its clean, flawless state. He assembles a sandwich while everyone watches him with pity, looking at their own complete meals.

“Hopefully this teaches you not to gamble on the cornucopia again,” Eloren says as she cuts a piece of her fruit pie and floats it over to his plate, followed by Rykor and Driselle.

“Thanks guys. I did well on the last exercise we had on Mister Baldwin so I thought I’d splurge a little.”

“Really? How many credits did you get from the Invocations exercise?” Rykor asks, his mouth full of meat.

“A thousand.”

“What? I didn’t know Invocations gave that much credit.”

“Probably because you’re not very good at it,” Eloren comments.

“Hey! Well, maybe. But at least my glyphwork is fantastic. Miss Fenlow says so.”

“Oh man. One year of studying and I still suck at inscriptions,” Naoya sadly remarks.

“At least you’re great at everything else. I still have to rely on my sister for everything,” Driselle says with disappointment as a dark, shadowy haze outlines her sad form. Ominous, but not hostile at all, and somehow oddly comforting. Like a blanket covering someone during a thunderstorm.

“Your sister’s with you so you can focus on studying, and besides, we still have next year, right? Don’t worry too much,” Naoya reassures her.

“Correction. We’ll only have next year if we don’t pass our finals,” Eloren chimes in.

“Oh boy, I’m so excited for the results later. Who do you guys think are gonna be first-year passers? Except for you, Lore. We already know you’re passing,” Rykor asks the group, and Eloren makes a small, confident smile.

“Hmmm, aside from Lore… Maybe Calvanaire? He was our class’ representative in the Duel events during intramural, right? Oh, and maybe Selver too, but her experiments always get her in trouble,” Naoya speculates, thinking over all his classmates.

“Yeah, the noble kids are most likely gonna pass this year… Hopefully I’ll pass too. It’d be really cool if I did,” Rykor muses with a small, hopeful smile.

They finish up their meals and head for their classroom, where their finals results are already posted.

The group walks through the halls silently, praying for passing results like the other students they pass by. Except for Ori, who was simply floating beside Naoya in her human form, still chewing on the sweet Oshen branch.

They enter their classroom, the same one they’ve grown familiar with after being their second home for an entire year. The rows of seats had few people in them as everyone else gathered in front, looking for their names on the results list posted on the blackboards. Naoya and his friends take a deep breath as they float off the ground, viewing the list from above their classmate’s heads.

There were several lists on the board, each one listing the names of students who passed each of the subjects. Naoya slowly scans the board for his name, and after a while, Eloren places her hand on his shoulder and speaks to him with a smile.

“Well, Naoya. I think I know the reason you were so unlucky with the cornucopia today.”

“Huh? Why?” he replies, and she points to a list at the end of the board that only has five names in it, labeled:

---- SPECIAL COURSE FIRST-YEAR ASCENDANTS ----

- al Drestor Calvanaire, Sebastian

- von Esthara Selver, Amariel

- Marrel, Isira Fen

- Cindral, Eloren

- Shiranui, Naoya