Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The first thing I learned about the academy was that it did not believe in accidents.

The second thing I learned was that, apparently, I was one of them.

I stood in the middle of a wide marble hall, staring up at a ceiling painted with constellations and floating sigils, while dozens of students in immaculate uniforms stared back at me as if I had just crawled out of a sewer and into their sacred ceremony by mistake.

Which, to be fair, was not entirely inaccurate.

I looked down at the clothes I was wearing.

A plain gray coat. Scuffed shoes. A bag that had somehow survived the trip with only one broken strap.

Definitely not academy attire. At least not the kind all the other students wore, which looked fit for nobles.

The crystal suspended above the hall still glowed a brilliant, impossible pink.

The headmistress, who stood on a raised platform at the far end of the hall, lifted one hand in solemn silence. She was an old woman with a long white beard and gold-rimmed glasses.

“Students,” she announced, her voice echoing through the hall, “the academy welcomes a new candidate.”

Candidate?

A murmur spread through the crowd.

A girl in the front row covered her mouth. Another narrowed her eyes at me like she was trying to decide whether I was a joke or a threat.

The headmistress continued, “By the will of the Grand Conduit, the bearer of the Heroic Resonance has been identified.”

Heroic Resonance.

That sounded expensive.

The crystal above us flashed again, brighter this time, and a beam of pink light descended directly onto my head.

I flinched so hard I nearly dropped my bag.

The hall went silent.

I looked left.

I looked right.

Every single person was staring at me.

The headmistress smiled.

“There she is,” she said.

I pointed at myself. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“Is this a joke?”

“No.”

“... Are you sure?”

The smile twitched, but remained intact. “The artifact does not make mistakes.”

Someone in the crowd muttered, “No way...”

Another voice, sharper and colder: “That girl?”

I wanted to agree with them.

I wanted very much to say, yes, exactly, that girl is probably not me, please look elsewhere.

But the beam of light remained firmly on my head, like a spotlight on an important and very famous magician.

The headmistress raised both arms. “From this day forward, you shall be enrolled as the MagiGa Academy’s special magical girl.”

The silence that followed was so complete I could hear my own heartbeat.

Magical girl?

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

“...I think,” I said carefully, “there’s been a mistake.”

There was a pause.

Then the headmistress said, in the most patient tone imaginable, “There has not been a mistake.”

“I’m pretty sure there has.”

“There has not.”

“I don’t know how this happened, but I can’t use the most important thing for a magical girl: magic.”

That time, the silence changed.

It wasn’t a clean silence anymore. It was the kind that came right before someone laughed.

One of the girls near the back snorted.

Then another.

Then a ripple of laughter spread across the hall like ink in water.

The girl in front lowered her hand and looked at me with open disbelief. “She can’t use magic?”

“A magical girl who can’t use magic?” someone whispered.

“That’s impossible.”

“That’s hilarious.”

I felt heat climb up my face. “I’m serious.”

The headmistress lifted one finger, and the laughter died at once. “Then let us test you.”

She turned her gaze to the crystal.

“Approach.”

I did not move.

Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to turn around and run out of the nearest door, but the problem with being the center of attention in a room full of magic users was that all the exits looked very far away.

I walked forward.

Each step echoed in the hall.

The marble beneath my shoes shimmered faintly, covered in thin golden lines that formed a huge circle at the center of the floor. The crystal hovered above it, bright and humming.

A test.

That word was not comforting.

The headmistress gestured toward the circle. “Place your hand upon the conduit.”

I looked at the crystal.

Then at my hand.

Then back at the crystal.

“I’ll just say this now,” I said, “but I don’t like being laughed at.”

The old woman gave me a smile. “No one would laugh... would they?”

The girls who had laughed at me earlier dropped their heads in fear.

I stepped into the circle.

A chill ran through my body the instant my foot crossed the boundary.

The sigils lit up beneath me, one by one, until I stood inside a web of glowing lines. The crystal above me descended slowly, rotating in the air, and a voice began speaking somewhere in the back of my skull.

Not aloud.

Not exactly.

It was more like the world itself had started reading my soul and found it mildly disappointing.

Candidate identified.

Name: Reina Magica

Mana Capacity: Zero.

Spell Affinity: None detected.

Elemental Resonance: None detected.

Blessing Compatibility: None detected.

A beat passed.

Then:

...Exceptional nullity detected?

I blinked.

“Excuse me?”

The crystal hummed.

The headmistress’s brows rose. “What did it say?”

“I don’t know,” I said, because I was suddenly very aware that apparently some magical artifact had just called me empty. “It sounded rude.”

The students around the hall leaned forward.

The voice in my head continued, as emotionless as a knife:

Magical ability: absent.

Candidate validity: confirmed.

Designation assigned.

The crystal flared.

The floor erupted in light.

I stumbled backward with a yelp as the ring beneath my feet shone so brightly I had to shield my eyes. The crystal shot straight upward, then burst into hundreds of pink fragments that dissolved into petals of light and swirled around me like a blooming storm.

The hall gasped.

And then, from nowhere and everywhere at once, a new set of words appeared in front of my face.

Not written in the air.

Not reflected.

Just there.

As if reality had decided to print them directly into my vision.

[Magical Girl Class Unlocked]

I stared.

Then I stared harder.

That did not help.

A thin booklet of translucent light materialized in my hands with a soft thump.

I looked down.

The cover read:

MAGIGA ACADEMY BASICS - VOLUME 1: THE UNDERSTANDING OF A MAGICAL GIRL

I stared at the booklet.

Then at the headmistress.

Then at the booklet again.

“There is something wrong with the device,” I said.

“There is not,” said the headmistress.

I flipped the booklet open with one finger.

Inside were neatly organized sections.

Chapter 1: Mana Channeling

Chapter 2: Transformation Sequence

Chapter 3: Combat Applications

Appendix A: Emergency Purification Rites

Appendix B: How Not to Die

I turned the page.

The first and most important thing for a magical girl is to cast magic. How does one cast magic, you might ask? The process is very simple, actually!

...

I lifted my head slowly.

“I don’t have any mana.”

The headmistress’s expression had become very strange.

“That manual,” she said carefully, “only appears to those who are selected as magical girls.”

I pointed at the page. “Why?”

“It is for special cases.”

“This feels like a special case.”

“Yes,” she said. “It does.”

I shut the book.

“Then I’m not a magical girl,” I said. “How am I even supposed to do this? Talk to my opponents?”

A few students laughed again, but this time it was nervous laughter.

Because the headmistress was no longer smiling.

She had gone very still.

“Candidate,” she said, and now her voice had lost all softness, “tell me your full name.”

I hesitated.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. It’s Reina.”

The headmistress nodded. “Okay, Reina. Try repeating these words: @"" %1+&"+29?{~=℅€”

The words she said came out as meaningful gibberish, but somehow I understood them. And even more surprising, my lips moved on their own as if possessed by something.

@"" %1+&"+29?{~=℅€

The pink light shining on my head vanished, and the hall shook.

“What?!”

“Kyaaa!”

“Goodness gracious—”

The students screamed in terror and fell to the floor. Only a few managed to stay standing.

The headmistress’s eyes widened, but her lips curled upward in a grin, like she had been waiting for this exact moment. The professors in the back observed me with keen eyes.

Amid all of this, I was somehow able to stand my ground.

A light flashed.

The light swallowed the entire hall.

I threw my arm over my eyes.

After a few seconds, I slowly lowered it.

The light was gone. The shaking was gone.

Floating in front of my eyes was a sword. Gold, majestic, like it had been brought straight from the heavens.

My hands moved toward it, every instinct in my body telling me to grab it. I was drawn to it.

My eyes probably shone like stars at the sight of it.

My palm grasped its handle. It fit my grip easily, like it was waiting for me. I pulled my arm back. It was surprisingly light.

Still in a daze, I glanced at the headmistress. She gave me a wide grin.

“That,” she said, “is the Heroic Resonance.”