Chapter 67 : Wigma Academy
Chapter 67: Wigma Academy
After that, Yul continued observing the Beltaine Family for several more weeks. Their relationships looked peaceful on the surface, but there were small, nagging problems.
“Mom is going to be away for a while this time.”
“Where are you going?”
When Cecilia asked, she answered.
“Longcom County. I’m going there for the jewelry business.”
"Mhm. Have a safe trip."
“Make sure you eat properly every day. Especially you, Lucian—I told Butler Lander to make sure you get your meals, so don’t forget.”
"Okay."
First of all, Celestia left the island more often than one might expect. That was because of the businesses she ran outside.
Having lost her husband at a young age, Celestia had been responsible for the family’s finances ever since, and it was said that she had taken on quite a number of ventures.
“Aaaah. Uncle Yul, I don’t want to go.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah.”
"Still, it can't be helped."
"I want to plaaaaay!"
And Cecilia had been receiving a thorough education since childhood. Perhaps because she had talent for magic, the mages of the Great Balance school held her in high regard.
“Haha. Let us be on our way, Miss Cecilia.”
"Noooooo!"
Cecilia was dragged away by the elder mage.
The elder mage glanced briefly at Lucian, nodded once, and left.
The mages of the Great Balance school didn't pay much attention to Lucian. It was hard to say if they disliked him or liked him.
He was the son of the great mage Ian, but the heavenly affliction of his hands had pushed him away from magic.
“Haaah… Those were the best times. Yul, I think I’ll have to go back to the workshop again.”
“Alright.”
“Always saying stuff that makes me jealous, you carefree guy.”
It seemed Lucian had agonized over this quite a bit since childhood. And in the end, after meeting his mentor at academy, he had gone down the path of magic engineering.
Lucian shut himself away in his little room.
He harbored rather mixed feelings toward Cecilia.
It was due to a shred of regret and internal conflict.
As his Father’s eldest son, he should have inherited the family legacy, yet he did not. Along with that guilt came a lingering trace of envy.
"Even though I wanted to be a mage, I couldn't".
“Do you regret it?”
“No. Because I've become a magic engineer this way. Making things is fun, too, and it sometimes helps Mother’s business.”
“You even sell magic engineering items?”
“Yes. Household items like the magic stoves we use at home sell like hotcakes. Even though they’re expensive, noble houses always make sure to have them.”
Having said that, Lucian shut himself back in his little room. He said that once this assignment was finished, it would cause quite a stir.
On the other hand, Cecilia hated the idea of becoming a mage. Once, Yul met her as she was returning home after finishing her lessons.
“I just want to catch a handsome man and get married, you know? Even better if he’s a prince! You’d be good too, Yul!”
“I’ll pass.”
“Is it because you’re not human? Should I ask Mom if I can marry you, Yul?”
“No, don’t ask that either.”
“Then, as a second choice, a prince! I hear the first prince is especially handsome.”
Born into a mage family, yet dreaming of the life of a noble lady. People long for what they lack, but she wanted, to an extreme degree, to become an ‘ordinary noble lady.’
“Do you hate magic?”
“I hate it. Being cooped up in a smelly little room, chanting spells I don’t even understand, talking about mental images and formulas and magic circuits and whatnot. It’s no fun at all. Taking apart a handsome man’s face is way more fun.”
If nothing else, she was honest. Still, she wasn’t completely thoughtless.
“But I guess I can’t do that. I’m my Father’s only daughter, after all.”
Born as the descendant of a mage family, she recognized her duty and was trying to accept it.
“Well, couldn’t you become a mage and marry a prince, too?”
“Would that really work?”
“It would take effort and luck, but it’s not impossible.”
“Wow.”
Starlight sparkled in Cecilia’s eyes.
Not long after saying that, Yul received a reproachful look from the tutor. Apparently, he had planted strange dreams in the child’s head.
He lightly ignored it.
Yul’s days of loafing around at the Beltaine household soon came to an end.
Near the end of the month, Lucian—completely wrecked, with dark circles under his eyes—shouted out a eureka.
“I-I did it!”
“Oh? You did?”
“It was easier than I thought. The structural design is finished, but the firing kept ending at odd timings…….”
“Oh. If you have time, teach me some runes too."
Ian tilted his head.
"Yul? Do you need runes too?"
“I’m curious. You’ve been holed up in that room for a month doing just that.”
“Th-then of course I’ll teach you. These days, unless you’re a magic engineering student, no one learns runes anymore. Ah! But there’s no time. We have to depart today. Is it okay if I explain the details on the ship?”
“Today?”
“Yes! Let’s go! I should inform Captain Rohakim in advance, too.”
Yul clicked his tongue. No, seriously, he’d been holed up in the workshop right up until the last day before departure?
* * *
When they reached the coast, the ship Lucian had taken before was there. Beside the deck, a gangway—the boarding ladder—had been set in place. From the front, the captain shouted.
“Young master! Today is cutting it really close, you know!”
“I’m all ready!”
“What about the luggage?”
“I’m carrying it.”
Yul raised his hand. Piled high on his left shoulder was Lucian’s luggage.
“Very well. Get on board!”
“Hoo.”
The moment Lucian got on the ship, he flopped down flat on the deck as if he could finally live again.
Even so, no one complained. Seeing the crew moving busily about, Yul picked Lucian up and slung him over his right shoulder.
“Ueghhh.”
“How many hours did you sleep yesterday?”
“Two hours…….”
Shake, shake.
Shaking his head, Yul carried Lucian and, together with the luggage, tossed him into his cabin.
When he went back out to the deck, the sailors were bustling about. Some of them looked at Yul with curious expressions, wondering who he was.
At a glance, he clearly didn’t look ordinary, and he was wearing fine clothes, so they seemed curious about his identity.
The captain appeared to be the same. Captain Rohakim, with his thick beard, approached Yul.
“And who might you be?”
“Ah. I was covering my forehead.”
Yul brushed his forehead aside and showed the gem.
“S-Seaborn?”
“More precisely, a Seaborn currently transformed into a human using the Polymorph skill. I have established communion with Lucian.”
“So... that was actually possible.”
“Don’t mind me.”
“Understood.”
Leaving the captain—who departed with a look of fascination—behind, Yul yawned and looked out at the sea.
He quietly observed the captain handling the ship. Whether a sea creature like Yul actually needed to learn how to operate a sailing ship was questionable, but he was curious all the same.
* * *
After several days of sailing, Lucian was lively again and stepped forward, saying he would teach Yul runes.
“Runes are actually an archaic script. They were the characters our ancestors used, but Professor Quentin reconstructed them using symbols. So there are quite a few differences between modern runes and the old ones.”
“How are they different from spells?”
“The point is that it’s a script, not a language, and that it can function as its own language. If you don’t know the symbols, you won’t understand it at all.”
“Hmm. Show me.”
Yul learned how to use runes from Lucian. The built-in interpretation function Yul possessed also applied to runes.
“Hmm?”
--
// Main casting example
Rune Fireball = New Rune("Fireball");
Fireball.Cast("enemy", 5, "3m");
// Magic rune definition
Common Magic Rune {Personal Inscription Beltaine-Style;
// Ritual for engraving runes
Formula(Inscription Beltaine-Style) {Self.BeltaineStyle = BeltaineStyle;
}
// Incantation to activate the rune
Formula Cast(Target target, PowerLevel grade, EffectDescription) {
Record("[" + BeltaineStyle + "] rune is cast on " + target + ". "
+ "Power: " + grade + ", Effect: " + description);
}
}
--
‘What the hell, this is coding?’
In his previous life, Yul had worked as a developer until he died of leukemia. It looked like relatively simple syntax, and they were using magic through this method?
They even used // for comments?
‘Quentin Blackmoor, was it? I want to meet him.’
Yul suddenly began to seriously wonder whether this professor might be a reincarnator.
“This is just the simple part. There’s more after this.”
“Hmm.”
After that came runes that simply described the common magic Fireball’s form.
What it looked like, how it was structured, and with what power it operated.
“These characters have no effect if you write them just anywhere, but if you write them on pimlin paper with purity high enough to be used for magic contracts, or on the surface of a magic stone, they’ll activate. Pimlin paper is expensive, so we usually use magic stones.”
As he spoke, he explained the script.
“Huh? You wrote all of this on the magic stone in the gun’s firing mechanism?”
“Yes. You have to write it very small, though.”
“This goes beyond simple understanding.”
Yul roughly grasped magic engineering.
First, you create the outer form of the magic engineering tool.
Second, you design the runes.
Third, you write them in miniature.
“The difficulty’s high if you go from design to implementation. Especially writing the runes small is the problem.”
“Yes. The smaller the magic stone, the harder it gets.”
“That component you designed this time, can I see it?”
“I’ll bring it right away!”
It looked as though stars were pouring out of Lucian’s eyes.
‘Those eyes… they’re exactly the same as Cecilia’s…….’
Yul felt certain that Lucian was born of the same blood as Cecilia.
The magic stone Lucian brought had runes intricately engraved across its surface.
From the outside, the runes were packed so densely that anyone would think it had originally been a magic stone formed that way. It looked like a magic stone elevated to the level of a single work of art.
“This is insane.”
Even after finishing the rune design, writing it in miniature was another problem entirely. It required a terrifying level of manual dexterity.
“If you make a mistake, do you just throw the magic stone away?”
“Yes. Sometimes, if you make a mistake while engraving a magic stone, it explodes, or all the magic power disperses, and it becomes useless. But magic stones are cheap, so we use them and discard them. The ones disposed of that way are ground into powder and made into reagents for alchemists, or sold to mages.”
“There are really that many magic stones? Hah.”
The world had definitely changed. In any case, aside from lavishly consuming magic stones this way, there seemed like there ought to be other methods.
For now, magic engineering had many problems.
The instability inherent to the coding itself was enormous. If you made a mistake, the magic stone exploded.
It also seemed problematic that both the software-like design and the hardware-like design were handled by the magic engineer alone.
As Yul was pondering how to explain it, Captain Rohakim shouted.
“We’ll be arriving soon!”
“Finally!”
At those words, Lucian went out of the cabin.
Curious, Yul looked as well.
“That right there is the Kingdom of Britain’s first maritime academy, ‘Weimar Wigma.’”
"Whoa."
Yul blinked. It was a colossal structure built close to the coast, a sight that left nothing but awe.
Between massive circular structures stood rows of large spires. Between those large spires, smaller spires were arranged as if escorting them.
From the elongated sections jutting out between the circular structures were hollowed-out areas that served as harbors. Countless ships were already gathered there.
“How did they build this?”
"I heard that mages were mobilized en masse. And I also heard there was help from a Seaborn."
Soon, they disembarked. Then Yul spotted one human moving in a singular way.
“Haha! Out of the way, out of the way!”
A man riding a sperm whale with a massive gem embedded in its forehead skimmed across the surface of the water.