Maidens of Cygnus - Volume 4 - Chapter 1.1

Chapter 1 – Before the Nine Schools Competition

Half of July 2099 has already gone by. The National Magic University-affiliated High Schools will soon enter their summer break. From First High to Ninth High, the annual schedule is the same, north to south.

Setting aside Third High School in Hokuriku and Fifth High School in Tohoku, it has been repeatedly argued for a long time that it would be better to shorten the summer break and lengthen the winter break for Eighth High in Hokkaido, but for now the schedules of the nine Magic High Schools are aligned.

Both the pro-change and the pro-status quo groups have their own opinions and rationale, but which one is correct cannot be unconditionally stated. But, if nothing else, in order to include events common to all Magic High Schools in the summer break, a unified annual schedule is more convenient.

A major summer event all nine National Magic University-affiliated High Schools participate in.

There is only half a month left until the start of the ‘National Magic High School Goodwill Magic Game Convention’ — commonly known as ‘Nine Schools Competition’.

July 18th, Saturday. One week left until the summer break.

The end-of-term exams have been completed. There weren’t monthly practical exams this month either. The inside of the school was wrapped in an air of restlessness like one of high schoolers about to go on an extended vacation — though in truth, that wasn’t the reason at all.

The source of the boiling excitement in the school is the earnest passion from the students who will tackle the Nine Schools Competition.

This year’s Nine Schools Competition will have four Solo and Pairs events (only Pairs in the newcomers competition) in Rower and Gunner, Ice Pillars Break, Speed Shooting and Crowd Ball, in addition to Monolith Code and Mirage Bat, for a total of ten events in the main competition and six in the newcomers competition.

And in fourteen of the events, the exceptions being Mirage Bat in the main and newcomers competitions, the representative members have already been decided. Right now, the students chosen as competitors and the supporting technicians are going about their competition-style practice in many places around the school.

“Asha, give it your all!”

In the Crowd Ball court that was temporarily set up in the schoolyard, Alisa, who was chosen as a competitor for the newcomers competition, was playing in a practice match. Marika is cheering for her as if it were the real event right outside the transparent walls surrounding the court.

Alisa’s partner is Hiyori and her opponents are boys in their first year. Since there are no male members in the Crowd Ball Club, it was an improvised pair that was picked out from among the male first year students who excel in speed and stamina.

Both boys are inexperienced in Crowd Ball. Speaking of experience, Alisa also has only been playing for no more than three months, but just that much experience is a massive advantage against players with no experience at all. As such, she was able to play evenly matched with the boys, despite the difference in physical strength.

Nine balls hectically flew around. Since the number of balls used in doubles is the same and there are twice as many players, the players have more flexibility than in singles. Because of that, they are able to use more strength in their attacks. Being more aggressive than singles matches is a distinguishing property of Crowd Ball doubles.

“One minute left!”

Marika isn’t the only one cheering. That voice came from one of Hiyori’s classmates.

“Alisa, please!”

Maybe she had been waiting for that voice? Hiyori shouted to Alisa while sending back a ball with her racket.

Instead of responding, Alisa activated a single magic.

A small magic shield of about one meter of diameter was generated in midair and bounced back a ball that flew in from her opponent’s court.

The male opponents showed their impatience. They understood what magic Alisa activated. And that’s because in these past few days they were made aware that once that magic is used, they become unable to do a single thing.

It wasn’t just one ball. Every single time a ball crossed the net into Alisa’s side of the court, a shield was formed in the air and it sent the ball back to the boy’s court.

The magic Alisa activated is the multi-spot shield generation magic, a variant of ‘Defensive Phalanx’, ‘Pelta’.

The shields, given properties of vector reversal and acceleration, doubled the speed of the balls and bounced them back.

“Leave it to me!”

One of the opponents pointed his racket and the fingers of his hand that isn’t holding a racket at two balls.

On those balls, he activated magic to stop, accelerate and reduce weight.

The balls that stopped in midair crossed over, almost touching the net, with an orbit given by a weak acceleration. They looked just like a balloon flying due to the weight reduction — not reduction of mass, reduction of the effects of its interaction with Earth’s gravity. The result was that the ball drew a trajectory of what is called drop shot in tennis.

Though during that time, three balls were sent back to the boys’ side. The male player returned one ball with the racket, one with magic, and another with magic after one bounce.

The balls that floated past the net were immediately sent back with great speed. That was from Alisa changing the reflection’s acceleration value from a scale factor to a fixed constant.

Afterwards, the boys tried tactics to slow down to try to prevent conceding points, but due to the speed at which the balls came back, they were unable to slow the pace of the match.

“Good work~.”

Marika welcomed Alisa, who defeated the male pair, with a smile. It was a doubles match, so Alisa was not the only one standing in the court, but her partner Hiyori was receiving a towel from Koharu.

“Alisa, how does it feel?”

Mei called out to Alisa as she had her sweat wiped by Marika.

“Feels the best so far.”

The two were talking about the CAD Alisa is using. The CAD Alisa was using in that match had been adjusted by Mei.

It isn’t only the competitors who are chosen as representatives in the Nine Schools Competition. The technicians who prepare all the tools needed for matches, including the CAD, are also chosen from among the students.

Mei passed the admission exams as the top student, she was the top first-year in April’s and May’s monthly practical skills exams, and in the end-of-term exams carried out from late June to early July she had top results in both overall grades and practical skills grades. She is the current number one first-year student.

Naturally, she was chosen as a member of the team. She will be in Mirage Bat in the newcomers competition. For this event, two representative players are to be chosen from among three candidates after judging the practice results, but Mei was being regarded by the upperclassmen as a definite pick from the start.

However, what she truly wishes for is to be a technician. Mei has already decided on her future path as a Magic Artificer. Also, speaking of the Nine Schools Competition, Shiba Tatsuya, who she strongly admires, put on a spectacular show in his debut as a technician when he was a first-year student, and she greatly desires to follow in his footsteps.

There are also schools that allow students to be both competitor and technician. But First High has a clear separation between the two. What was being required of Mei is to contribute towards victory by scoring points in matches as a competitor.

Accordingly, they’re keeping the fact Mei touched up Alisa’s CAD a secret from the upperclassmen. Under the guise of giving advice to the technician in charge of newcomers Crowd Ball, Koharu, she got involved in the actual adjustment work.

Though the upperclassmen, including Student Council President Shiina, had realized what Mei was doing. Mei planned to hide it, but in actual fact her behavior is simply being tolerated.

“I think your idea to use ‘Pelta’ in a specialized CAD went well, Mei.“

Alisa praised Mei with a smile. Alisa also didn’t know that Mei’s deviant conduct had been exposed so she was being mindful with her remarks by persistently saying she only had the idea.

Mei also smiled from Alisa’s compliment, but that smile looked vaguely dissatisfied.

“Actually, it would be better if I could optimize the Activation Sequence, but... I can’t do that much yet. It’s frustrating.”

Mei didn’t seem pleased with her own work. Her displeasure with her own limits made her forget to act like she had only given advice.

“I don’t think optimizing the Activation Sequence is something you could do that easily, though?”

“She’s right, Mei-san. Just arranging an Activation Sequence aimed at a generalized CAD for a specialized CAD is already incredible enough.”

It was Marika and Koharu who put themselves in the conversation. Alisa was a little anxious about the conversation that seemed to have forgotten the script where Mei didn’t adjust the CAD. — Though even if someone heard, they would not be scolded or criticized for the reason mentioned before.

“...You’re right. Suddenly acting the same as him may be aiming way too high.”

“When you say ‘him', you’re talking about Shiba Tatsuya-senpai again?”

Mei muttered words of acceptance, for some reason, ecstatically, to which Marika asked while looking dumfounded.

“Yeah, that’s right!”

Mei replied with her eyes sparling. From her energy, it was almost like she had been waiting for the question.

“As a freshman in high school, he developed new magic, he incorporated an aim-assist system on a generalized CAD, those kinds of showy contributions are the only thing that get noticed, but I believe his true worth lies in minimizing the burden on the magician and maximizing performance through the optimization of the Activation Sequence!”

“R-Right...”

Marika interjected, ‘Oh, dang it’ written on her face. Her back was already bent backwards around the part where Mei said ‘As a freshman in high school’.

But Koharu, who also wants to be a Magic Artificer, seemed deeply interested in the topic.

“I still don’t quite get it, but was that something that amazing?”

Koharu asked with an interest that didn’t appear to be just courtesy.

“I’ve heard that he adjusted the Activation Sequence for ‘Jump’ for Mirage Bat in 2095’s Nine Schools Competition and the engineers in other schools were flabbergasted by how such a small Activation Sequence could have such a big effect.”

“Ah, I know that story too.”

“Well, it’s only natural. After all, he was active as Taurus Silver since those days. Also, it looks like that ‘Jump’ Activation Sequence is now being used just as it was in police and firefighter CADs.”

“Eh~, that really is amazing! That means that three whole years have passed, and yet they’ve found no room for improvement!”

“Yeah, it is amazing. And he managed to do that in his first year of high school, where we are now! He is truly amazing!”

“Mei, time to calm down.”

Mei’s zeal became cult-like, and she must have thought it was about time for it to stop. Hiyori, who had remained quiet until then, pacified Mei.

Maybe aware that she was way too excited, or perhaps made aware of it at that moment, Mei amended her facial expression and cleared her throat.

“...This is special magic, you see. If she could optimize it that easily, I reckon pros would lose their credibility.”

Though not quite as well-known as ‘Phalanx’, ‘Pelta’ is also a characteristic magic of the Juumonji Family, a secret technique, so to speak. It makes use of special techniques not used in widely popular magic. Certainly, it is not something that external engineers with no relation with the Juumonji Family could easily revise.

Mei must also have known that.

“There’s also that, yeah.”

Mei easily accepted Alisa’s comment, which she stated with a wry smile.

Due to the nature of the sport, Crowd Ball cannot be played continuously for long periods of time. Alisa, entering her break, decided to go see how Marika, who had gone to Mirage Bat practice in the middle of Alisa’s second practice match, was doing.

Both the main competition and the newcomers competition will have two competitors participating in Mirage Bat. But in First High three candidates are chosen for both. This is because in 2095’s Nine Schools Competition, as a result of a team member getting injured, only two members were able to participate in the newcomers competition, despite the rules allowing three to participate at the time.

From the three, the two with the best results in practice will be chosen as competitors, and the other one will be prepared as a substitute in case unexpected circumstances occur. It’s not a particularly callous measure. In sports, this is nothing but a reasonable practice.

The representative candidates for newcomers Mirage Bat are Marika, Mei, as well as a student from class 1-B called Tokugawa Ichika. As can be told from her surname[5], Ichika’s family is Numbered and a part of the main Hundred Families. Though Marika’s practical skill grades are higher, Ichika has grown used to the feeling of being in midair from being in the Light Gymnastics Club — acrobatic gymnastics where performances use magic to create a state of low gravity. It was appraisal of that aspect that turned her into a candidate.

The stage for Mirage Bat practice — in the past, the playing field for this sport was called ‘field’, but now it is called ‘stage’ — was built upon a pond in the practice forest. Excluding the year where the Nine School Competition was called off, the equipment for Mirage Bat is installed at this pond every year in the month of July.

Compared to the real deal, the tower that projects the balls of light is simple, but its performance is no worse than the ones used in the actual event.

The matches in the Nine Schools Competition are held with six competitors. Right now, there are also six people standing on footholds built on top of the pond. The three candidates for the main competition and the three candidates for the newcomers competition. Practice was being conducted under the same conditions as the actual event, except that the footholds are smaller than the ones used in the Nine Schools Competition and they’re wearing gym clothes.

Who will become the representatives and substitutes has still not been decided, both for the main competition and the newcomers competition. The plan is to make the final decision on the team members after seeing the results of each candidate for a little longer.

The one who decided this policy was the Student Council President Shiina. She was just trying to select representative members in a way everyone could agree with, not intending to hang a carrot in front of their noses, but the result was that the candidates were working hard in practice, with as much motivation as if it were the real event. The enthusiasm was so much that even Mei, whose true thoughts are ‘I want to be a technician so I’m okay with being a substitute’, got into it.

Incidentally, unlike other competitions, teachers help in Mirage Bat practice. This is because there is a risk of falling.

Even in the real competition, magicians that are excellent at immediately reacting stand in wait on the side of the stage as officials equipped to handle falling accidents. And not just one or two people, but six people, that is, one official per participant. These kinds of preparations are put in place in case a fall occurs due to a failure to control magic or participants crashing into each other, to ensure the participants are caught in mid-air.

However, the number of teachers helping here is three. It’s not that one teacher is in charge of two students, they divided the roles such that one teacher reduces the gravity of the whole stage, one teacher neutralizes inertia in the entire stage and the remaining teacher catches the falling students. Done this way forces the entire match to stop, but they are definitely able to prevent students from injuries even without one-on-one accident response staff.

The supporting teachers change on a day-by-day basis. Teachers have other jobs, after all. But, maybe because of individual workload, or maybe because of orders from superiors, there are teachers who are present more frequently. Among all teachers, the one who is present most frequently is the teacher in charge of practical skills for class 1-B, Kitou Tomohiko.

Alisa arrived at the stage, and Kitou was there today as well. He was weighing on Alisa’s mind — not in the sense of ‘I am interested in him’ — and she repeatedly stole glances at Kitou in the gaps between her cheers.

(I wonder if it’s just my imagination... It feels like Kitou-sensei is only looking at Mina.)

Kitou seemed to be more or less keeping his eyes on everyone, but he appeared to be consciously looking at Marika more often. Alisa considered whether it was possible she was misunderstanding it, since maybe it appeared that way because she herself was focusing on Marika. But the suspicions that Kitou was especially interested in Marika didn’t vanish from Alisa’s thoughts.

The end of practice match buzzer rang out. It is the sign of the end of the last period of the competition, which is held with three periods of 15 minutes each. Alisa’s consciousness naturally drifted away from her suspicions towards Kitou.

Marika’s eyes met Alisa’s as she got off the foothold. Alisa lightly waved her hand and Marika gave a big hand wave in return. Though once she saw the other candidates leaving, she hurriedly followed them.

The representative candidates gathered around one spot. Surrounded by them was a female student who serves as technician and tactics advisor in Mirage Bat. Her name is Horikoshi Ema, a third-year in Magic Engineering. It was expected that she would be in charge of the main competition at the event and both Ema and Koharu would be in charge of the newcomers competition. However, Koharu’s duty is taking care of the competitors and technical work is Ema’s main job. Koharu is a ‘trainee’, so to speak. Koharu was entrusted with adjustments in Crowd Ball, but the risk during Mirage Bat is dramatically higher than Crowd Ball. Taking that into consideration, the third-years are assuming responsibility.

Adjusting the CAD for six people and thinking of their individual strategies seems challenging, but Ema isn’t struggling. That must be how brilliant she is. That’s why there was no problem in effectively leaving both the main and newcomers competitions to her alone.

While Marika was joining the other team member candidates in surrounding Ema, Alisa checked the results of the practice match. Marika was third out of six. The top among the first-year students.

When practice started, Marika had a reserved seat in dead last. Seeing her best friend’s efforts bearing fruit made Alisa happy.

The candidates distanced themselves from Ema’s surroundings, leaving one of them behind. Probably the general overview of the match was over and they moved on to individual adjustments.

“Mina, third place, isn’t that amazing?”

Marika ran up to Alisa and Alisa greeted her with a smile.

“Thank you. But I just felt especially good today.”

Even while saying that, Marika was smiling, not looking discontented. A smile that showed she understood she was improving.

“No, no, Marika-chan, it’s an incredible improvement.”

The one who leaped into the conversation from behind Marika was a newcomers competition candidate like her, Tokugawa Ichika.

“I wonder if it isn’t fine to just set Marika-chan and Mei-chan as the competitors now.”

“What are you saying, Ichika? I lost to you yesterday and the day before.”

Marika retorted to Ichika’s (probably) modest remark.

Incidentally, after Ichika introduced herself when they first met, Ichika added “If you write my name in kanji it looks like a military commander from the past[6] and it isn’t cute at all so refer to me in hiragana“. Marika couldn’t understand the meaning of ‘refer to me in hiragana’, but, being kindhearted, she is conscious of the ‘hiragana’ like she was told to do.

— Digression over.

“But I can’t score higher than our seniors like you can, and I can’t beat Mei-chan at all.”

“Maybe you should be a little more adventurous, Ichika.”

It wasn’t Marika who replied. It was Mei who approached the place where the two are talking.

“On the other hand, Marika may be too aggressive. If you get a little more stable, I’ll feel safe in entrusting you with the position. If that happens, I’ll do my best as a technician.”

Maybe because she’s only a first-year, Mei exposed her true thoughts of wanting to be a technician instead of a competitor.

“What is the ace of the freshwomen saying?”

Ichika instantly retorted to the overly honest comment.

There was still a little while until her own practice continued, but as Marika was called by Ema, Alisa also returned to the sports grounds.

She joined up with Hiyori along the way. As soon as she saw Alisa’s face, Hiyori asked “How’s Marika doing?”

Alisa didn’t tell Hiyori that she was going to check on Marika. But even she understood that ‘if you look at things normally, it’s easy to tell’, so she wasn’t perplexed by Hiyori’s question.

“She looked fine. She said she ‘felt especially good today’.”

“Marika is a moody person, after all.”

Alisa just laughed at Hiyori’s comment without rebutting it. Certainly, Marika isn’t as motivated for Mirage Bat as she is for Magic Arts. It’s not that she intends to let herself relax, but whether she gets obsessed with it or not seems to be something she can do nothing about.

Maybe the assessment that she is ‘moody’ isn’t too far from the truth.

“Ah, it’s Karatachibana-kun.”

“It really is.”

Alisa followed Hiyori’s line of sight and confirmed it.

In the sports grounds, right now, in addition to Crowd Ball courts, a firing range for Speed Shooting practice was set up. There Mamoru was doing practice for the Pairs Speed Shooting competition along with a male student.

“Shall we watch for a bit?”

“Are you good on time?”

Alisa replied to Hiyori’s question with another question. There was no nuance of trying to stop Hiyori in that response. It is evident that Alisa is also interested.

“If it’s just about 10 minutes, it’ll be fine.”

Hiyori took Alisa’s hand and pulled her along.

Alisa didn’t fight it.

Speed Shooting is the event that suffered the biggest change in the rules at this year’s competition. It is the same as Crowd Ball in the aspect that it’s being used for the first time in four years and that the new pair competitions will be used, but doubles was originally Crowd Ball’s main format. The competition’s rules will roughly conform to the official rules.

In contrast, Speed Shooting is a sport unique to the Nine Schools competition. Shooting competitions that use magic are held not just in the military but also in the Magic University and foreign countries, but the format is different from Speed Shooting. Examples of magic shooting competitions held with civilians include Guided Shooting and SS Board Biathlon.

Pairs events were introduced in Speed Shooting, originally an individual competition, which includes elements completely different from how it traditionally played out, but even solo Speed Shooting had major changes.

The mandatory use of physical bullets. The new rule states that solid bullets have to be sent flying from a launcher held by the hand. The spherical bullets have a diameter of 12 millimeters and a weight of 3 grams. Also, the number of bullets that can be loaded at once is no more than 50 and the number of bullets in a single game is limited to 100. Worth noting that there are 300 targets.

This rule introduces elements of Guided Shooting. Inevitably each school had to begin producing competition guns that can use 50 bullet magazines, based on the launchers used in Guided Shooting.

Solo competitions use a format where each player performs at a time, competing with the overall scores, but pair competitions use a format where two teams alternate between attack and defense to determine the winner.

Pairs matches are carried with three players: the ‘shooter’ who shoots at the targets, the ‘arranger’ who moves the targets, and the opposing team’s ‘arranger’. ‘Arranger’ meaning ‘someone who puts things in place’.

The shooting zone is divided in three using walls, the center being called the shooter box and on the left and right being arranger boxes. The attacking side has the right to choose which of the boxes on the left or right they will go into.

The shooter uses magic to shoot the physical bullets. The magic used in shooting can be either Movement-Type Magic or Acceleration-Type Magic, but the shooter can only use magic when shooting the bullets, they can’t interfere with flying bullets or the targets.

Arrangers can interfere using magic only on the targets. Unlike the shooter, there is no limit to how many times they can use magic, but the only kind of magic that can be used is Acceleration-Type magic with a single process.

The arranger on the attacking side uses magic to move the targets so that the bullets hit them, while the arranger on the opposing side interferes with the targets so that the bullets don’t hit them. Both arrangers are also allowed to use magic to cancel their opponent’s magic.

With all that, once both pairs have shot 100 bullets, the number of targets hit directly determines the outcome. These are the rules for pairs. As stated previously, it’s impossible to say that it isn’t a different competition from four years ago.

Alisa and Hiyori arrived just as Mamoru, playing the part of shooter, finished shooting his 100 bullets. Without noticing Alisa and Hiyori, he put the launcher down and moved to an adjacent box. Replacing him, the pair of players that had been arrangers until that point entered the shooter box.

“They haven’t decided who will be the shooter yet...”

Alisa muttered, her voice unable to hide her surprise. There is only half a month until the Nine Schools Competition. There are events where the representatives haven’t been decided like Mirage Bat, but the situation with this event is quite different. The techniques required of shooters and arrangers are completely different, so it was necessary to get used to their respective roles by practicing as much as possible.

That murmur seemed to have been louder than she had thought.

“It is exactly as you say, Juumonji-san.”

The voice replied to Alisa’s concern.

“Urabe-senpai.”

It was the Chief of the Public Morals Committee, Urabe Aki. As they are senpai/kouhai in the Public Morals Committee, she is the second closest senpai of the same sex to Alisa after her club’s President. The reason Aki is here is because she is also a competitor in Speed Shooting.

“Tawara-kun said he wanted to be a shooter and he’s been arguing — no, grumbling about it.”

“Tawara-kun did that...?”

The person they call Tawara is the first-year student who is forming a pair with Mamoru. His full name is Tawara Hideki. His last name doesn’t have numbers, but his family in Tochigi is part of the Hundred Families.

Hideki is currently in class A, so he is Alisa’s classmate. But they’re not close and almost never talked to each other. Because she doesn’t know Hideki’s temperament, even when she heard about him grumbling she didn’t think it was ‘unexpected’ nor ‘just like him’.

“Isn’t being an arranger more difficult than being a shooter?”

Hiyori doubted Aki’s statement.

The most important goal competitors who participate in the Nine Schools Competition are aiming for is a victory for their school, but at the same time, the Nine Schools Competition is also a place where they can showcase their magic abilities. The usual way of thinking is those in positions that need more advanced techniques will have higher appeal for professionals.

“Sure, but the shooter is flashier, don’t you think? Wouldn’t it be easier to understand for those bigshots who don’t know magic well?”

“...Is there something happening at this year’s Nine Schools Competition?”

Hiyori showed an uneasy expression.

“Something or another happens every year at the Nine Schools Competition. If you worry about it, there will be no end to it.”

Aki dodged her kouhai’s question with a cynical comment.

“... and that’s what Urabe-senpai said, it seemed a little significant, so do you know anything?”

They are on the journey from First High to the station. Alisa asked that to the ones accompanying her, Marika, Mei, and Koharu. Note that Hiyori is here too, but Alisa already knew she had no idea.

But unfortunately, all of them shook their heads.

“— But it does make me wonder. I wonder if there is going to be something special about this Nine Schools Competition?”

After shaking her head, Mei inclined it to the side.

“I’ll try asking about it at home.”

Compared to Alisa, Mei seemed to have strong suspicions and interest in the matter.