SBTMK Chapter 30

Lugaria's blatant expression left no doubt about its meaning.

How impressive. Or: look how well our Commander behaved, and so on.

Erne, brushing this off without much notice, spoke.

〈His Majesty is deeper in the garden, with Lady Neyra. Send her in alone.〉

Lugaria nodded and relayed the words to Flora.

"Lady Flora, if you go straight in that way, His Majesty should be there. We're only permitted this far, so it seems you'll have to go alone. They say the Archmage, Lady Neyra, is with him."

'……Hm? The Archmage?'

For a moment, her expression slipped. Something's off. Like she misheard.

The same feeling from when she'd suddenly been made to spar against Erne came rushing back.

'Archmage—why?'

She wanted to ask why, exactly—but she swallowed it under Erne's chilly gaze.

Then, all at once, something Simen had said the other day, on the way back from the plaza, surfaced in her mind.

'There's someone I want to introduce you to. Let's come again next time, together.'

She wasn't sure she was remembering it correctly, given how scattered her mind had been at the time, but it seemed like he'd said something along those lines. Wanting to introduce her to someone.

The person he wanted to introduce…… could it be the Archmage?

Or perhaps—was she about to be scolded over shattering that top-grade mage stone during the exam?

When Flora froze and failed to move, Erne soon shot her a sharp look, as if asking what she thought she was doing standing there.

She gave up on her thoughts and hurried into the garden.

Better to get scolded by the Archmage than die by Erne's hand.

Flora's steps carried a certain hesitation.

Anticipation at meeting Simen and dread at meeting the Archmage split evenly.

Mages had always been an unknown quantity to Flora. There had been small and large efforts to obtain magic over the years, but in the end it had remained territory she couldn't touch.

A sudden curiosity struck her—what kind of person would it be?

Following Lugaria's directions deep into the garden, Simen's figure came into view.

Flora's gaze traveled naturally to sit across from him.

A woman sat there, her wavy blonde hair reaching her waist, her frame so slender it looked as though a single tap would knock her over.

'That's one of Haenkan's Archmages……?'

She wore a white mermaid dress that revealed the shape of her figure clearly, but going only by her appearance and bearing, she looked nothing at all like an Archmage.

Flora found herself doubting whether Lugaria had gotten something wrong.

When the god Arzeka descended to the mortal world, they defeated the demon-beasts that had thrown the world into chaos and, to restore the proper balance, distributed power among humanity.

To the sun who would become the empire's pillar, Peimon, once god of the demon-kind, was sealed away and planted as a familiar spirit; to three humans was given a greater share of magical power, and to the children of the temple, a portion of divine strength.

It had already been more than a thousand years—a story out of ancient myth—but one still carried forward to the present day.

Going by what Lugaria had said, that woman was probably one of those three Archmages.

"Flora. You've come."

Simen, deep in warm conversation with the woman, sensed her presence and looked her way.

Flora held her breath for a moment.

The instant she met his sunset-colored eyes, her heart lurched.

He was wearing white formal dress today, and against the lushness of the garden, his bearing looked all the more striking.

It's only natural your heart races for a handsome man. Nothing more to it than that.

Flora decided to define her feelings that way.

She'd turned into a shallow woman, hung up on looks—but if she didn't tell herself that much, she was sure to lose herself in confusion all over again.

With a determined expression, she clenched her fists tight, then bowed politely to each of them in turn.

"I greet the sun of the Haenkan Empire. May endless glory and blessing dwell with Your Majesty."

"……"

"And I greet the noble and wise Archmage of the Haenkan Empire, Lady Neyra."

"Flora, sit here."

Simen rose from his seat and pulled out a nearby chair for her.

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

No sooner had she carefully taken her seat than she felt a gaze settle on her from beside her.

Flora shifted her eyes awkwardly under the frank, direct attention.

The blonde-haired, red-eyed "Archmage" was watching her.

Fortunately, there was no hostility in the gaze.

It only seemed to hold a kind of curiosity toward her, which made it deeply uncomfortable to sit under.

"Hello. I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Neyra Riergo."

She introduced herself with a faint smile.

It was, without a doubt, a different feeling than any mage Flora had met before.

"Well, then, shall we get straight to it? If I'm away from my seat too long, Lady Sophie will scold me."

"……"

"Lady Flora. Do you know you have mana?"

Flora had braced herself for the topic of the mage stone, but a different question came instead.

Flora gave a small nod and answered.

"I've been told I have it. I just can't use it."

"Have you ever used it, even once?"

"No. I was taught briefly by a mage once. I managed to light a flame at my fingertip that time."

Neyra tilted her head.

The sudden question about her mana brought a vague, uneasy sort of dread.

"Then shall I channel your mana control and have you try once?"

That had already been years ago.

Her teacher back then had made such a fuss over that single small flame—calling her a genius and all sorts of things—that she'd stopped visiting after that.

Now nothing was left clearly in her memory but that quack's face.

'Can I do it……'

Flora nodded, and Neyra reached out her hand.

The instant Neyra gripped her wrist and let a small trickle of power flow in, a strange sensation began to stir.

The mana scattered inside Flora writhed as though defending itself, threatening Neyra.

The bleak chill she felt at her fingertips felt like some kind of warning.

A faint, ominous energy was mixed in through that gap, though it wasn't a variety Neyra recognized.

In the end, Flora failed to produce a flame.

"I'm sorry."

She'd always been an amateur when it came to magic, and her confidence matched it exactly.

When a downcast Flora offered her small apology, Neyra shook her head.

"That's not something you need to apologize for."

Neyra gazed steadily at Flora's bowed head.

When she tried to use magic, the aura of mana around her grew somewhat denser.

And yet the magic never manifested.

She recalled reading, in an ancient mage's research journal, that there were exactly two cases like this.

A psychological problem. Or she'd sealed her own mana herself.

Another person could assist with channeling mana control, but couldn't create a state where it simply couldn't be used at all—so if it were the latter case, the likelihood was high that she'd done it herself.

If so, then even without being able to use her mana, she ought to at least retain the memory of having sealed it herself—and yet Flora seemed to have no idea about that either.

In that case, either her memory had been erased along with it, or she was acting, or it truly was a psychological problem.

Apparently there were cases where people, despite having mana, couldn't use magic due to sufficiently strong psychological pressure.

If that were the state—psychologically afraid of or resistant to using magic—then, assuming she'd tried to light a flame, a small spark should at least catch before dying out in an instant.

She'd seen this often enough among Academy magic-class children anxious to score well ahead of exams.

But with Flora, not even that small spark had manifested at all.

'Hm. Which, then?'

Neyra looked at Flora as if weighing something, then took a sip of tea.

"What do you think, looking at it?"

Both Flora and Simen watched her, apparently curious.

"Either her mana is sealed, or there's some psychological factor keeping her from using it?"

"……"

"It's not that she hasn't awakened it. She knows herself that she has mana, and the people around her have told her so too—so it seems she has tried to use magic before."

Since she couldn't make a definite judgment herself, Neyra only told them that such cases existed.

Flora's eyes widened.

Her only memory of using magic really was just that single flame at her fingertip, which made the whole thing rather absurd.

"Um, Lady Neyra. May I ask a question?"

When Flora spoke up carefully, both Simen's and Neyra's attention gathered on her.

"Yes."

Neyra nodded readily.

"Can only someone who has mana see mana?"

"That's right."

"But I can't see anyone else's mana. How is that?"

No matter which mage she'd met, none of them had ever told her something like this. So her interest was piqued.

When Flora asked her question, eyes bright with curiosity, Neyra gave a faint smile.

Her expression looked, just then, like that of a mage teaching her own apprentice.

"……Hm. Setting aside what leaks out unconsciously, right now you can be considered to have essentially no mana at all. You said you lit a flame at your fingertip once, didn't you? The teacher who taught you magic back then must have been quite skilled, actually. It sounds like they forced the magic out without even a magic circle. That takes an enormous amount of mana."

'That quack……?'

At the surprising news, Flora recalled the old mage's face and narrowed her eyes.