My First Magic Training Regimen
“You may entrust the tickets to me,” Elvira said, seemingly more invested in this than anyone. She seemed so motivated that I decided to let her and Florencia take care of the floor plan, invite the customers, prepare the sweets, and all other such matters by themselves.
“Elvira, please calm down. You won’t be able to make the tickets unless we decide on a date first, no?”
“Yes, but, Lady Florencia, don’t you want to hold this concert as soon as possible?” Elvira clasped her hands tightly, clearly wanting to hold the concert tomorrow if she could, while Florencia put a worried hand on her cheek and gave a small smile.
“I would like more time to prepare. This is not something we can allow to fail, is it?”
It seemed that Florencia wanted extra time to prepare since this was her first time holding a concert with tickets that cost money, and where things were being sold afterward. I was in full agreement with her. The more time to prepare, the better. Especially since I not only had to prepare the program, but also needed to provide Ferdinand new songs and recipes, with all the grueling work that entailed.
I would be safe while I was in the castle, but as soon as I returned to the temple, I had a feeling that Ferdinand would vent his frustration at being dominated by Rihyarda onto me. The more time we spent away from the temple preparing the concert, the more likely it was that his anger would fade.
...Hm? But wait... Since Ferdinand has such a good memory, is he the type of person who’d cling to ancient slights forever, holding grudges that only increase in wrathful intensity over time? Is going back now or later the better call here?
As I mulled things over, Florencia took her shining wand and chanted “ordonnanz,” turning the feystone in her ring into a white communication bird. “We will hold the concert in one month’s time. Please provide an alternate date if this inconveniences you,” she said, before swiping her wand and sending the ordonnanz flying away. It went right through the wall and disappeared, just like I had seen it do many times by now.
It returned not long later, settling on a table and speaking in Ferdinand’s voice. “One month from now will be fine. And my apologies, but please inform Rozemyne that her magic training will begin tomorrow. Her health should be fine if she drinks a potion beforehand,” it said three times in a somewhat chilly voice before turning back into a feystone.
Was I the only one who felt a chill run down their spine and broke out in a cold sweat from that tone of voice?
“...Mothers, is it just me, or did Ferdinand seem exceptionally angry?”
“He certainly did not seem very pleased to me,” Florencia said observantly.
“I-It was a very invigorating tone of voice,” Elvira added. That was technically praise, but I could see her smile faltering a bit.
“I think it would be more accurate to say that it was a tone of voice chilling enough to freeze one’s blood, Mother.”
I drank the potion as instructed, and was fully recovered the next day. I was a bit worried about Ferdinand being so angry, but “magic training” had a nice ring to it. What was he going to teach me? Maybe he would let me read the magic books he had kept me away from all that time ago.
...There sure are a lot of books that I haven’t read yet. I wonder if there’s a magic textbook, like... “Fundamentals of Magic,” or something...? Oh! Is this finally my opportunity to finish the Myne Decimal System?!
After remembering how I had struggled to categorize magic books in the past, I was more excited than ever for Ferdinand to arrive.
“Norbert has sent word that Ferdinand is here, milady,” Rihyarda said. “Let’s go to the waiting room.”
At her guidance, my four guard knights and I traveled to a waiting room in the main building of the castle. It was a bit saddening that, when surrounded by four guards, I was completely buried in their midst.
“Good morning, Rozemyne.” Ferdinand was sitting expressionlessly in the waiting room, his voice completely devoid of emotion. It was hard to tell whether he was mad or not, but the second I saw the stack of books in front of him, I ceased to care.
“Good morning, Ferdinand. Are those books for me?”
“Indeed they are.”
...Yes, yes, yes! New books! All for me!
I cheered and did a small dance of glee on the inside, shaking pretend maracas with reckless abandon, but all I did in real life was look at the books with a smile. The fact that I hadn’t just leapt at them goes to show how impressive noble training really was.
Cornelius and Angelica both let out groans behind me, the displeasure evident in their tones. It seemed that neither of them were avid readers.
What a waste.
“Rihyarda, bring these books to her room. We’ll be off. Come, Rozemyne.”
“As you wish, my boy.”
I had been excitedly preparing to learn the fundamentals by reading books, only to have them so suddenly taken from me. I blinked in disbelief, and as Rihyarda left with the books, all I could do was sadly watch.
“...Where are we going?”
“Somewhere you can release your mana without issue.”
Ferdinand made his highbeast appear on the balcony, and Brigitte did the same with hers. I would be riding with Brigitte since it was likely that Angelica wouldn’t be able to support the weight of us both.
“Ow!”
As Brigitte picked me up to put me on her highbeast, my head bonked her metal breastplate. Knights didn’t normally wear the full plate armor I had seen during the trombe extermination, instead opting for something more lightweight. They wore what was essentially a dress woven out of metal thread imbued with mana, with plate armor attached to the chest, hands, and from the knees down to the shins. Since Brigitte was a woman and her breastplate protruded more than Ferdinand’s, it kept bumping against my head while I was sitting down.
“Forgive me, Lady Rozemyne,” Brigitte said, before rubbing a hand over her breastplate. “It shouldn’t hurt if I do this.” The plate twisted and changed in an instant, no longer feeling hard and painful. Now it was nice and soft, like I was being enveloped in warmth. In fact, it was so nice and soft that I almost wanted to press my head into it to enjoy the feeling even more.
Brigitte had quite a confident and heroic look on her face when she had said she would fix it so, for her sake, I didn’t point out that I could absolutely feel her boobs. I hadn’t really noticed it before now due to her breastplate, but Brigitte actually had a pretty big chest.
...I see you there, Cornelius. I know you’re of a spry young age, dear brother, but don’t stare at us all slack-jawed. Learn from Damuel and politely avert your gaze.
Brigitte flew us to a tall, sizable building some distance away from the castle. Ferdinand had arrived first, and I could see that he was inside already. Brigitte set me down, but as she started to head inside as well, I hurriedly stopped her.
“Brigitte, you can return your breastplate to normal now.”
“Oh yes, that’s right.” Having seemingly forgotten about it entirely, Brigitte touched her breastplate and reformed it to rigid metal again. I nodded in relief, then followed her inside, where we found a large white room that was completely empty.
“What kind of place is this?” I asked, the echo of my voice immediately making me jump.
“A building designed for knights to be able to practice fighting with large amounts of mana,” Ferdinand responded. “It’s built so that mana won’t leak outside. I will teach Rozemyne how to wield her mana, so you all may train elsewhere. Especially you, Damuel. I hear that you are still in your growing period, and your amount of mana is increasing. Increase it as much as you can before it stops.”
The knights gave sharp salutes, then moved to the other side of the building to begin training. I watched on with great interest to see what their training was like, but Ferdinand just poked my head.
“Ow!”
“Stay focused,” he said. The look in his eyes was terrifying. Rihyarda wasn’t here, and the knights were training elsewhere, meaning there was nobody here to take my side or protect me. I was alone with the enemy. The best thing I could do was try not to make him any angrier than he already was.
“Benno is busy with the monastery, no? I thought now would be a good opportunity to teach you magic. Children are normally not taught how to use magic prior to going to the Royal Academy, but you have already taught yourself how to direct the flow of your mana. I will be your teacher so that you might have some proper knowledge on the subject,” he said. But despite how reasonable that sounded, the irritated look in his eyes all but confirmed that this was him getting back at me for the harspiel concert. “As you are not a student of the Royal Academy, you do not have a schtappe.”
“Ferdinand, question—what’s a schtappe?”
“This,” Ferdinand said, whipping his arm and procuring a shining wand from seemingly nowhere.
I nodded, making a mental note that the shining wand that all students of the Royal Academy had was officially called a schtappe.
“Through possession of a schtappe, you will be able to control your mana more efficiently. But that isn’t to say that you need one to control mana. I will first teach you to make a highbeast out of a feystone and ride it,” Ferdinand said while putting on a thin leather glove. Then, he took out a clear, fist-sized feystone from the pouch on his belt. It was a feystone specifically made for turning into a highbeast, and was apparently the same kind of feystone as the ones that were in knights’ gauntlets or kept on the belts of nobles.
“Give the feystone mana and morph it into the shape of an animal. You must then move it according to your will and fly through the air. There may be a trombe extermination in the autumn, and given that you cannot ride lower city carriages for extended periods of time, you would do well to learn this before we must leave for the Harvest Festival and Spring Prayer. Most importantly of all, you must learn the techniques necessary to harvest the ingredients you need. They will not be located in places that you can reach on your own without a highbeast,” Ferdinand explained as he plopped the feystone into my hand.
I wrapped both of my hands around the feystone so as to not drop it, but instantly felt it start sucking out my mana. It was draining me so quickly that it was scary, so I hurriedly unlocked the box of mana I kept compressed inside of me.
“Ferdinand, it’s stealing my mana at a really fast rate...”
“That is not a problem. You must first dye the feystone with your mana. This is necessary for it to move according to your will.”
“What about the rings you’ve been lending me?! Those used my mana, but they didn’t drain me like this!” I squeaked, still clasping the feystone with both hands, but Ferdinand just shook his head.
“Using feystones is not the same as using magic tools. I will explain the precise details later; the difference does not matter to you right now. And once again, I am reminded of just how much mana you truly have. The dyeing process is happening very quickly.”
Ferdinand explained that a layknight with a low amount of mana had to pour so much into the feystone that it made them sick, and that it would sometimes take them days to fill the feystone completely. He also mentioned that dyeing a feystone with your own mana would make it so others couldn’t use it—or rather, it would make it much harder for them. Those who had the same color of mana could use it, but the difference between using somebody else’s feystone and using one dyed with your own mana was like the difference between mud and water.
As Ferdinand came to the end of his explanation, the feystone pulsed with light a single time, indicating that it had now been dyed with my mana.
“Now that the feystone has been dyed, you will begin training to change its shape. That should not take long, considering that you are already familiar with controlling mana. First, pour your mana into it, then imagine it swelling while using mana to change the stone’s shape. You must eventually learn to change its shape at will, but for now, just changing the size will do.”
I did as Ferdinand said, rubbing my fingers over the feystone and gradually pouring my mana into it. As I did so, I imagined the feystone swelling. I had assumed it would be tough to do, but the feystone easily swelled up just as I had imagined.
“Wow, it grew! It’s like a (balloon)!” I exclaimed. The feystone had started at about the size of my fist, but was now as big as a softball.
“Continue pouring your mana into it as you set it on the ground, then try to maintain that flow even once you’ve removed your hand. Once you can do that, we will move on to morphing it into a particular shape.”
“Okay.”
I squatted down and set the feystone on the ground, removing my fingers one by one to slowly minimize the contact between us. I was worried that the flow of mana would cut off as soon as I stopped touching it, so I widened the metaphorical pipe to pour more mana in as I pulled my last finger away.
I couldn’t see the mana flowing into the feystone, but I could feel it.
“Impressive,” Ferdinand murmured as he looked down at the slowly growing feystone. It had gone from a softball, to a dodgeball, and then to a beach ball, which was making me increasingly nervous.
This won’t burst, right? It’s really going to be okay?
“Ferdinand, question—how long will this keep growing?”
“Until you cut off your mana or lock its shape. It needs to be large enough for you to ride on, so continue to make it bigger.”
“Whew.” I let out a sigh of relief and turned around to look up at Ferdinand. “So, unlike a (balloon), it won’t suddenly burst—” But before I could finish my sentence, I heard the sound of cracking stone.
“You fool!” Ferdinand barked, before sweeping his cape around me. A second later, I heard a loud bang. It sounded exactly as I had imagined an exploding feystone balloon would. Small fragments clattered noisily against Ferdinand’s cape, then made small clinking noises like pieces of glass as they fell to the ground.
“I believe I explained that the feystone would change according to your thoughts. Why in the world, then, would you imagine it bursting?! Of course the feystone would explode if you imagined that while you were changing its shape, you fool!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“Good grief. A valuable feystone, shattered into tiny pieces...” Ferdinand sighed, clearly exhausted.
I paled, only then remembering that feystones were valuable and expensive. This wasn’t good. The feystone fragments were easy to find on the pure white ground, so I hurriedly started gathering them together. Once I had a few, I poured my mana into them and chanted, “Clay, clay, stick together. Be a sphere!” As commanded, the feystone softened like clay in my hands, allowing me to roll it all together in a ball.
“What are you doing? A shattered feystone will not come back together. We have no choice but to turn the fragments into powder and make a magic tool,” Ferdinand said while looking down at me with exasperation, but I could feel the feystone fragments changing shape in my hands.
“It’s fine. All I need to do is make the fragments like clay and they’ll stick back together. See?”
I showed him the balled up feystone in my hand, and Ferdinand looked between it and me several times with an expression of complete and utter shock. He then took the feystone from me and examined it under the light for a moment, before eventually rubbing his temples.
“This simply does not make any sense...”
“What doesn’t?”
“Never mind. Gather all of the fragments. Once you have done that, today’s training will be over.” Ferdinand waved a hand dismissively as if telling me to do whatever I wanted, then started massaging his temples again.
I gave an energetic nod, then started gathering the remaining fragments that were still scattered on the ground. I stuck each one into the increasingly large feystone ball while I worked, and, once I had enough, I poured more mana into it so that I could shape it all back into a smooth ball.
After a while of squatting and rolling around, I had picked up every fragment, but my legs were so numb that I couldn’t even stand.
“It would be disastrous if you lost control of your mana without first understanding how to properly use it, so do not practice controlling mana on your own,” Ferdinand told me the second we returned to my room.
Having just caused a feystone to burst, I hung my head and listened quietly. The very thought of making something explode here and hurting someone was so terrifying that I wasn’t even considering practicing on my own.
“Good,” Ferdinand replied, sensing my understanding. He then began stacking the magic-related books he had brought onto the table. “These are books from the castle’s book room. They all concern the fundamentals of magic.”
“Yaaay! I thank you ever so much,” I said. But the moment I reached for the books, Ferdinand blocked my hand.
“Rihyarda, Rozemyne has a bad habit of completely losing sight of the world around her once she begins reading. She usually does not even respond when called. Observe her carefully and ensure that she maintains a proper lifestyle.”
“Oh yes, oh yes. You may count on me, my boy. I am quite used to this.”
“Furthermore, she is likely tired from her training today. There is a chance that she might fall ill again,” Ferdinand said, glancing my way. The moment he said the words “fall ill again,” I noticed Rihyarda’s expression harden.
“Well then, milady—the reading can wait for tomorrow. As Ferdinand suggests, you must be tired from your first time practicing magic. You’ll catch a fever if you don’t get in bed early today.”
“Um, wait... Rihyarda, I...”
The stack of books was being put away before my very eyes. I reached out to grab one, only for Rihyarda to slap away my hand and scold me.
“Oh yes, and I nearly forgot—Rozemyne, come to the temple tomorrow. I must receive those songs and recipes you promised me,” Ferdinand said, grinning at the sight of me being scolded.
This is revenge! This is Ferdinand getting revenge for the harspiel concert! Seriously, how bad of a person do you have to be to put a stack of books I’ve never read before in front of me, then add more work to my schedule and order Rihyarda to carefully watch over me so I can’t read them? Pretty bad, if you ask me.
“You’re awful, Ferdinand!”
“Rihyarda and I are simply worried about your health. There is nothing awful about this at all,” he said. Ferdinand was definitely just being spiteful; anyone could tell how smug he was. I glared at him, and he just sneered at me.
Okay, now I’m angry! If you’re going to play dirty, Ferdinand, then so am I!
My plan had been for Wilma’s illustration on the program to be a black-and-white cutout printing like the ones we had in our picture books, displaying an image of someone playing a harspiel. At most, someone might have been able to tell it was Ferdinand based on the hairstyle. I had wanted Elvira and the others to enjoy the idea more than anything else.
But I wasn’t going to hold back anymore. The gloves were off. Copyrights for likenesses didn’t exist in this world, and that meant there was nothing stopping me from going all out.
I’m gonna have the wax stencils finished this month, no matter what! I’ll have Wilma draw a super detailed, super pretty picture of Ferdinand, then use mimeograph printing to stick it on every single program. And I’ll make sure it’s as detailed as possible!
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