Chapter 6: Research Theme / Each Wish

「Uwaaaah! Uwaaaah aaaaaaaah!」

A wail that seemed to shake heaven and earth echoed all around.

「Y-you’re so noisy! Stop crying already!」

Tia strained her voice, but before Ruful’s roar it was like a mosquito’s whine.
Huge teardrops—so large you’d think they were bigger than the pixie’s whole body—kept splashing down, pooling into little ponds on the ground.

「B-because I scattered those pebbles…」

He must mean she tripped on the pebbles he’d thrown. Yutaka looked back and forth between the collapsed wall and Ruful’s face, reaching out helplessly, but with his short height even both arms couldn’t reach Ruful’s face where she sat plop on the floor.

Light Blue, seemingly uninterested, didn’t even glance at the bawling Ruful and just toyed with her own hair.

It didn’t look like Ruful was injured; she was probably just crying from surprise and pain. At any rate, we needed to calm her down.
If I took dragon form, at least my body and voice might match hers in scale.

「Wait.」

As I stepped forward with that in mind, Nina reached out an arm to stop me.
She flicked her gaze ahead, where Rin was rising into the air with slow, underwater grace, as if she were actually in water.

Her large waist fin, with over a hundred rings, spread wide and softly cupped Ruful’s cheek.

「Don’t cry.」

Rin touched her forehead to Ruful’s with a small bump as she spoke, and somehow her gentle voice reached my ears without being drowned out by the thunderous sobbing.

「Sensei isn’t mad at you.」

At her words, the crying dropped just a notch in volume.

「B-but…!」

Between hiccups, Ruful stitched together clumsy words with all her might.

「I—I… I broke… S-Sensei’s… p-precious… house…!」

So it wasn’t because it hurt.
I was taken aback both by Ruful’s reason for crying and by Rin seeing through it so easily.

「That’ll be fixed in no time. Sensei’s amazing. More importantly—are you hurt? Does your forehead ache?」

Ruful, still streaming tears, nodded up and down.

「Good. You’re very strong, Ruful.」

At Rin’s gentle smile, Ruful, still caught in the aftershocks of her wailing, managed to settle down a little.

「…Rin’s really grown up.」

She was always at her own pace, a tiny girl everyone doted on like the youngest child.
I’d thought she hadn’t changed on the inside even after growing up, but somewhere along the way she’d become truly mature.

「She really has…」

When I murmured it, Nina beside me nodded with quiet feeling, likely thinking the same.


* * *


A few hours later.
After soothing Ruful, we moved furniture and teaching materials into the new school building, repaired the broken wall, got things into working order for now, and gathered in the auditorium.

「Now that we’ve calmed down, there’s something I want you to decide: your research theme.」
「Research theme?」

I nodded at Yutaka’s parroting and continued.

「As I explained when I called for volunteers, this university isn’t a school where I teach you things. It’s a place for you to think, test, and create new magic yourselves. You’re free to study anything you like, but… rather than blindly chasing something new, it’ll be easier if you set a goal.」

At my words, the students looked at one another.

「Whatever you want to do, whatever field you’re curious about—anything is fine. It can be concrete, or somewhat vague. For example, “I want to get stronger,” or “magic for farming,” or “about fire magic.”」
「Yes!」

You don’t have to decide right now. Take your time and think it over.
Before I could say that, Yutaka shot his hand up.

「I, um, there’s something I want to do.」
「What is it?」
「Uh, memories… mm, how should I put it. Like… transferring them? No, that’s not right… um…」

For someone who’d raised his hand without hesitation, Yutaka frowned and fell deep into thought.
He probably had some image in mind but didn’t know how to make it concrete.

「In any case, you want to research magic about memory?」

That was unexpected. Being Sword Clan, I’d assumed whatever he chose would be tied to combat.

「No… that’s not it. I’ll change it. …Could we make a body for someone who doesn’t have one?」
「A body?」

The Sword Clan have protected this village for generations. Many among them have lost arms or eyes in battle. And beyond that, there are people with congenital or acquired disabilities. If that research bore fruit, many would be saved.

「I don’t know if it’s possible. But I think it’s a wonderful goal to aim for.」

Even if you don’t reach the ultimate objective, research like this leaves results along the way. In my previous world, alchemy never did manage to turn base metals into gold—but the research itself wasn’t wasted; it greatly advanced science.

「As for me! I want to be able to use really amazing, really strong magic!」

Tia’s research theme was very easy to understand.

「If I can use that kind of magic, no one will make fun of us anymore, right?」

Pixies, as their appearance suggests, aren’t very strong physically.
Nor can they use powerful magic like elves; to avoid predators they use their small bodies to hide and flee, and their way of life is to sip flower nectar and catch even smaller insects for food.

To me, that’s a perfectly respectable survival strategy—but for this strong-willed pixie, it seems unbearable.

「You’re right. I think that sort of research is necessary as well.」

A scene from nearly a hundred years ago rose in my mind: a black tide of rats covering the village.
They haven’t attacked lately, but I can’t believe those rats were wiped out, or that they’ve given up on this village’s food. Someday we’ll have to fight them again. I can feel it.

Even aside from that, development won’t guarantee a life without conflict. Studying methods of fighting is necessary.

「I think there are two approaches to Tia’s theme. One is to devise ways to use magic effectively even with little mana. The other is to increase your mana itself.」

Mana—so we call it for convenience—but what actually determines a spell’s power still isn’t clear. What we do know is that there are individual and racial differences, and that it increases with training and growth.

「Me? …Magic itself. What is magic, why can we use it, what can it and can’t it do. I think I want to look into that.」

I was surprised by the way Light Blue tossed that off so lightly.
It was a deeply fundamental question—and exactly the same thing I want to know.

「It may be an extremely difficult, endless question… you could call it the truth of this world itself. But precisely for that reason, it’s a splendid theme.」

Perhaps an elf, with a lifespan approaching the infinite, might reach it someday.
As for me, I’ll be too busy solving immediate problems to spend time on foundational research.

「Still, in the short term it might help to set a more concrete target—say, magic circles, or spells themselves.」
「Hmm… I’ll think about it.」

Light Blue answered in an offhand way.
For how grand her theme was, that lukewarm reply left me a bit deflated. She’s hard to get a read on—I never quite know what she’s thinking.

「And you?」
「I-I…」

Nudged by Tia, Ruful’s eyes wavered in confusion.

「It’s okay—if nothing comes to you right away, you can take your time.」

When I said that, Ruful shook her head.

「I… want magic that helps people.」

She glanced around at the faces watching her, as if worried about the attention, and ventured on timidly.

「I want to build houses… and fix them, too.」
「Yes. That’s an excellent theme.」

For all her lack of confidence, Ruful’s theme was the most concrete.
Civil engineering and construction are quite literally the foundation that supports society.
It’s an extremely important and useful field of study.

「And you, Rin? What will you do?」
「Huh? Me?」

Rin looked back at me with a face that said she hadn’t imagined I’d call on her.

「Let’s see… ah!」

Rin smiled as if she’d just thought of something good.

「You know what—」

She looked up at me with deliberate theatrics,

「I want to become a dragon!」

That’s what she said.