The Professor's Gift (Part 2)

Noreas, a bit over 5.30 pm.

The two girls arrived at the Academy.

The professor said that there would be a welcome party here at 6 pm, so they didn't get any street foods on the way back.

Just in case the foods there being too delicious.

The temporary booth in the morning was no longer there, near the entrance gate.

Instead, an familiar elf man stood in that place.

'Oh, hey, welcome back.'

'Hello, Professor "dungeon freak".'

'Oi, who told you that? That annoying Balba?'

'Because you keep forget her last name, she said. Here, look!'

Lyn then gave him the envelope.

There was a "Please refer to him as "dungeon freak"" on top of it.

'That brat...'

He looked a bit annoyed, but took the envelope anyway.

Seemed like they knew each other for quite sometimes now.

But whether they were on a good term or not, she was not really sure.

'...Come with me.'

The two girls followed the professor to the department's building.

They saw some people wearing brown robe went in and out of the main hall building.

Maybe they were preparing for the party tonight.

Reached the department's building's door, the professor placed his hand on it.

Then a strange looking symbol on the door lit up green light, and the door was opened.

'What is that?'

'Oh, it just some kind of door lock that I use. Don't worry too much about it. Please come in. You can sit wherever you want.'

The image of a messy room she went in this morning came back to her.

He himself had to stand so she could sit at his chair.

What was that 'sit wherever you want' even mean?

?

Wait...

Where was this place?

Where were all those books and papers scattered all over the place go?

The place was now so clean and tidy.

'Excuse me, but can I ask where is this place?'

'It's the department's building, you've been here this morning, remember?'

'Wait, really?'

'Yeah, I have to spend the whole afternoon cleaning the room by myself, you know?'

He could see at a glance that she didn't believe him at all, seeing her facial expression.

'... is what I'd like to say, but yeah, the students who I currently supervise just came back to Pagta this afternoon, and helped me out with the cleaning. You satisfied now?'

Yes, she did.

'Really now, why all the kids around me are like this?'

He opened the envelope, and read through the things inside.

There was a small note from Mrs. Guild Master, together with the piece of paper from earlier.

The note was about the decision that the guild made about the kid's registration to the guild, the kid's agreement.

And, "Where the heck did you find this smaller version of yourself"?

Whatever that was supposed to mean.

Then, he read through the piece of paper.

'...You didn't go to any other rooms beside the first one, did you?'

'...How do you know that, too? The Guild Master said the same thing.'

'If you want to know, just...'

'And please don't tell me to ask her, because she also told me that, too. To ask you about it.'

'Tch... here, this...'

He showed Lyn the paper, and pointed at the word "transparent".

'See this? You've only seen the transparent slimes, but there are many different types of slime the deeper you go inside the cave. Also with that limited amount of time, unless you already knew how things worked, it will be safe to assume that you had to think about what to do for a while, and didn't have enough time to go deeper inside, right?'

'There are different types of slime? Are they stronger than the transparent one?'

'Yes, the bigger the slimes, the stronger they are. They can even use their magical powers to attack.'

'Oh...'

'Hmm... hmm... Ho... I see...'

The professor kept mumbling to himself.

'Alright. Before I let you go to the hall, is there something you want?'

'You mean the thing you said this morning?'

'Yes, that one.'

'Sorry, I can't think of any. I mean, we already had fun with it, and it's enough, right, Liz?'

'YES!' (Liz)

'Even if you do it just for fun, you still help me dearly, so please!'

'...If you insist, then... How about... a pocket watch?'

'Can it be something else? You don't need to be so humble...'

'Isn't it an expensive item?'

'If you can defeat a few dungeon bosses, which I'm pretty sure you can, then no, it's not expensive at all. There are also tons of ways to own one for free, like being the top students of the first year, winning in the school festival's competition, etc. Anything else in mind?'

'Ugh... then... book! Yes, books! How about some rare books in the school's library?'

'From year 3 onward, you can just go to the library and read it. Something else, please!'

'... Then sorry, I can't think of any. I mean, a spell can be nice too, but I'll eventually learn it all here anyway, so it's the same thing...'

'How about a spell that you will not learn here, then?'

'Wait, you are okay with that?'

'I don't mind, really.'

'Yeah, sure, let's go with that, then.'

'So, when do you want to start learning it? Tomorrow?'

'How about now? It won't take long.'

'?'

'If my hunch was correct, then I should be able to get it.'

What in the God was this girl saying?

If you didn't know the language, how could you chant the spell?

He already explicitly said that it not a spell she could learn in Noreas.

Why did she talk like she could just get it?

Unless...

'You... have an artifact?'

'I think so, people around me who knew about items and such said something like that too.'

Artifacts, huh?...

There was once a story about the artifacts...

For some, it was just a fairy tale. For others, it was a part of their history...

There was once a war against the dragons, about 500 years ago.

No one knew why it happened.

The dragons, once a reliable ally of the living beings against the Prime Evil,  suddenly turned their fangs.

Their claws were too sharp, their scales were too durable, and they were too smart.

It took too much effort to take just one down.

The war went on for sometime.

The living beings were pushed closer and closer to the verge of destruction.

But then, a young human mage spoke up.

Some knew him because of his talent as a mage, some knew him because of his work as an adventurer.

At the time when he proposed about his crazy idea, though, peoples only knew him as someone who had his sanity lost with this crazy war.

But it was not like they had any other idea to get out of this situation anyway, so they decided to go with his craziness.

To make a far more powerful magical tool that, instead of using a person's own magical power, it will use the magical power of nature itself to amplify the user's power by tenfold, and force that person to pay a hefty price.

That magical tools was called Artifacts.

But, really? Who in their sane mind gave this kind of thing to a kid?

Did they wish for her to suffer that much?

'You know what an artifact is, right? Are you sure you want to use it?'

'Kind of, yes. Trust me, it will be fine. I did test it out a few time already.'

'?'

'Oh, but if the spell use lots of magical powers, then I think we need to do it outside. The room may get dirty.'

'... Let us go outside, then. You... can you stay inside for a little while?'

'Y-Yes!' (Liz)

The professor, for the first time since forever, felt like his knowledge about this world was still so little.

The first time he had that feeling was about 40 years ago.

Was she some kind of monster that can talk like human?

After going to the back of the building, Lyn pulled out the last few of her pea seeds, and dropped in on the ground.

She couldn't remember why it ran out this quick.

'I think I'm ready. If you can cast the spell directly on me, that will be ideal.'

The professor looked at the girl standing there, surrounded by some small trees.

It looked like something she used to recover her magical powers, since he could see the trace of magic from those trees to her.

If so, then her artifact might be the type that burning through her magical power like crazy.

...

'Okay, I've decided. I'll give you a spell called "Eye of the Forest" in my language.'

'What's that?'

'You know I can somewhat see magical powers, right? That's the one. But casting it will make the eyes hurt quite a bit, so if you feel pain in your eye, remember to wish to cancel the spell, please.'

'O...kay...'

He then started chanting the spell.

As he chanted in his elvish language, a green circle with strange symbols started forming under the girl's feet.

She wished she could understand what he was saying.

As the professor stopped chanting, the green circle was completed, a the whole area inside the circle lighted up.

He had done his part, so now he wanted to see what would happen next.

The bright green light from the circle then suddenly stopped.

The weird drawing on the girl's shoulder started shining just as bright.

Blood started to spill out from all over the place of her body, and made her clothes soaked.

And there were no magical powers left in her. 

Was she just... dead?

'No way...'

As he started thinking he had done something terrible, the trees around her started withering away at an incredible speed.

All the magical powers that the trees gathered when they grew up got transferred to her.

The blood also stopped spilling.

She tried to open her eye, but closed right after.

'Sorry... but... how do I stop... seeing thing... again?'

'Just "Cancel Eye of the Forest", hurry!'

After a bit of silence, she finally opened her eye again

She seemed a bit tired, might be because of the blood lost.

'Can you see some kind of light around me?'

'...Yes, it's mostly green, but some part of it have the color blue and white as well.'

Imagine you told some forest elf that a human could just use a spell that even most of them couldn't dream of using.

They would just laugh at you, and said that you were a delusional pig.

But here he was.

With a living proof.

'It seem like you may not be able to join the welcome party tonight.'

'What do you mean by... oh, I see.'

'Take these robe. This is also your uniform, so make sure to wear it when coming to school tomorrow.'

'...Thank you. Liz, we are going home now.'

The small Liz came running to her sister.

Lyn wore the robe that covered her body entirely, put the hat on, before saying goodbye to the professor.

They went to "mama" house instead of the inn for today.