Chapter 225: Power Beyond Compare
Chapter 225: Power Beyond Compare
Prota froze. This wasn’t the first time she’d been asked this question, but it was the first time she’d been put into a situation like this.
She’d answered Kit before, but that was different. She’d been willing to tell Kit about her past anyway, mainly because it’d been necessary to get Destiny to join her. On the other hand, Sofya was someone Prota trusted, but not to the point where she could throw information in her face and expect her to believe it. To begin with, Destiny had only believed her… well, why had he believed her?
She had no clue.
“If you do not wish to tell me, that is fine,” Sofya said gently, sensing Prota’s unease. “I have no desire to force anything out of you. It was simply that… well, your magic seemed a little different.”
“...what?”
“See, I am a dragon. You may not know this, but mana has a flow. A structure. It is possible to train oneself to see this flow. Most Mystics are capable of such a thing. Dragons, however… are capable of doing so from birth. Thus, most dragons have an appreciation for the beauty of magic. Even if most of us do not care to practice it ourselves.”
That last statement was more of a complaint than anything else. Regardless, Prota already knew all of this. Well, she hadn’t known that dragons had the inherent ability to see mana, but that wasn’t the point.
She didn’t know where Sofya was going with this.
“Prota. I have been studying magic for quite some time now, and I have never seen something quite like yours. I was unable to see your flow of mana, but… you can see it as well, can’t you? The structure of mana.”
Prota flinched. For a second, she considered lying, but was there really a point? She’d get caught at some point, and the idea of having to sustain a lie she had already tried to hide wasn’t very appealing. In the future, there was a high possibility of her having to use her full powers anyway, and it seemed that lying now would only create more hassle in the future.
Reluctantly, she nodded.
“I see. Then, I presume this is how you were able to dismantle their spells?”
Another nod.
“Fascinating. Child. I hope you do not presume this is normal.”
A shake of the head, this time.
“Hm. You must understand that there is little we can teach you here. Of course, we will not expel you. But Scholaris is a place to nurture talent. Your talent has fully bloomed. So, the question remains: for what reason are you here?”
Prota froze once more. What was she supposed to say to that?
“Just… just tell her,” Anta sighed. “At this point, we may as well just get it over with.”
“Tell her?” Prota thought.
“Not everything. Just tell her you can use Soul Steal, and that you’re here to learn how to use it better from her. Actually, just say what I tell you to say, ok? I would take over, but… well, I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”
Prota sighed. This again. She hated having to scheme, but… well, what else could she do?
“Um… not here for magic,” Prota said, shaking her head.
Sofya raised an eye.
“Soul Steal.”
That got the dragon’s attention.
“Explain,” she said, her tone far more serious than before.
“Prota can… um, sorry. I can use Soul Steal,” Prota said, nearly wincing as Anta yelled at her.
“You can… use Soul Steal. You. A human.”
“I can show you.”
Sofya’s expression didn’t change, but she didn’t say anything. Prota was scared. Was that an invitation to show her skills? Or was she supposed to say something else?
“Just do it,” Anta grumbled.
Closing her eyes, Prota focused. She could see her mentor’s soul, her massive mana core, the same as they’d been in her past life. Drawing at some of the mana, her flow was quickly cut off as Sofya steeled her mind.
“Fascinating,” Sofya muttered. “A human to wield that power… How did you obtain it?”
“...born with it,” Prota muttered. “Um. Not… not a good thing.”
“And your mentor?”
“Mystic. Can’t say who,” Prota said, shaking her head. “But Mystics can’t teach Soul Steal. But you are… dragon. So, um… better?”
Sofya stood up, peering at Prota carefully. Her eyes began to glow, but Prota didn’t know what that was a sign of.
“And who is that beside you?”
“Wha- shit!” Anta exclaimed, her tone suddenly very afraid. “Shit, shit, she can-”
“Who are you?”
Sofya stepped around the desk, causing Prota to scoot back.
At that point, there was no other option. Anta hastily took over the body, causing Sofya to momentarily step back in surprise.
“Seriously, I didn’t think you’d be able to… alright, alright. I wanted Prota to ease into things, but your wisdom is something else. I guess that’s why you got John,” Anta muttered. “Anyway, yes! I’m her soul.”
“Her… soul?”
Sofya was now more perplexed than anything. That was a good thing. Resetting the pace of the conversation was what Anta needed at the moment.
“This is such a… look, wasn’t this supposed to be a normal conversation?”
“Hm… you are far more bold than your other personality… or, given what I saw, your other self, I suppose. How interesting.”
Anta froze. “You’re not suspicious or anything? You’re taking this rather… well, um. Calmly.”
Sofya just gave a gentle smile.
“Perhaps I am. But this is a place for scholars. A lack of open mindedness would be my downfall. Maybe you are a being to be feared. But then again, so am I, no? And yet here I am, respected by all mortals, allowed to run a school that could change the life of any mortal child. I do not believe your existence determines your value. Your actions are. And from what I know, you aren’t a bad person.”
Anta just stared.
“Um. Well. Ok.”
“Prepared to put up a fight, I see.” Sofya laughed softly. “That is entirely fair. Worry not. I will not divulge your secret, nor will I treat you different. However, I am beginning to see where your strength comes from.”
“You’re not… curious about our power? Our existence? Anything?”
“Of course I am. But given how defensive you were, I believe this is not an appropriate place to probe. If you wish to tell me on your own… I will listen openly. You are still my student. Both of you, I suppose. And you are…?”
“Um. Ah, that’s… Anta.”
“Prota and Anta Char. I see.” Sofya smiled warmly. “If you are ever in need of help, please, feel free to come and see me.”
Prota moved back into the body, bowing deep.
“...thank you.”
“You are most welcome.”
~~~
Strangely, school life after that proceeded incredibly smoothly. True to her word, Sofya didn’t say anything. Prota suffered no strange looks, no whispers behind her back, nothing of the sort.
Just a calm, normal school life.
The class schedule remained largely the same as well. Classes in various subjects useful to one’s development were held every day, with a class involving the Mystics occurring once a week.
There were, of course, a few changes.
The first was that Prota no longer needed to pay all that much attention to her classes. Of course, doing well was a priority to some extent, but she only needed tokens to buy herself some clothes. Weapons and magic tools weren’t needed, save for the healing charm she’d used in her past life, but that wasn’t obtainable with tokens anyway.
That meant that, much like John in her past life, she could just coast.
The second change was related to her casting classes. Unlike last time, there wasn’t really anything to learn. She could, of course, ask Leora about mana control, but at this point mana wasn’t really her main weapon. No matter how fine her control, her ultimate spells could only be cast using vast amounts of mana, meaning they’d be inaccessible until her core could be grown.
So even her Casting classes, once a subject of interest, no longer held much value for her. The only thing she could really do there was try and train her conceptual vision. It was helpful, to be sure, especially with all the noise and clutter, but since she couldn’t even take the mana from the spells, what was even the point?
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Next, a private room. Prota wasn’t sure how this had happened, but it turned out that there were an odd number of students, and she was lucky enough to get her own room. Of course, it still had a second bed, since it wasn’t like the school planned for such an event, but she could rest in comfort knowing there wouldn’t be others around.
The biggest change of all, however, was the absence of one Draco Wynton.
She’d heard that he wouldn’t be coming, but actually experiencing it was something else entirely. Since her first day, he’d been a pain in her side, but now… now, it was like having the weight of the world lifted off her shoulders.
Speaking honestly, he wouldn’t have been that much of a threat this time around. If needed, she would simply deal with him before he became a problem, finishing off his household herself if needed. There was justification, and given that she had the reputation of a prophet from the Town of Beginnings, her invasion of the household would be justified. Even if she didn’t deal with them herself, she would likely be able to root them out well.
But none of that was necessary this time around.
However, power was not so easily removed.
Inherently, those with power will desire to relish in that feeling. Of course, it is not an absolute rule, but it is common enough that the phrase “power corrupts” exists.
Prota hadn’t noticed it much in her previous life, but even with the rules implemented to avoid abuse of power, there was still a discomfort between those known as “commoners” and those known as “nobles.” It wasn’t as blatant as it’d been with Draco, but it was there in subtle ways. There were no threats. No bullying. But there was a sort of quiet atmosphere that couldn’t be ignored.
“It’s pretty obvious if you think about it,” Anta sighed. “Scholaris is a place to raise your potential. It should be obvious that those here will become strong. But do they know that?”
Right. Just because you were told something didn’t mean that you would suddenly become confident that it would happen.
“All their life, these kids have been raised in a simple manner: those in power rule over those without it. If you were raised in a rural village, wouldn’t you jump at the opportunity to suck up to some noble? It’s not even abuse of power. It’s just how they’re used to acting. You’ll see there’s some exceptions.”
Prota nodded. Ryan and Lilith, for one, seemed to be oblivious to the things going on. Of course, Ryan was likely very aware, but at the very least, they weren’t participating in it. There were also a few commoners who seemed to be intently focused on training, ignoring the distractions around them.
“None of them have approached you. It was only really Draco who had a problem with you. As long as you don’t involve yourself in anything troublesome… well, you’ll have a nice, calm school life.”
“Nn… right. Nothing bad.”
As long as she didn’t involve herself in anything troublesome. With the way this world was going, there was no need to get herself stuck up in the business of students, right?
~~~
The next day, Prota got herself stuck up in the business of students.
It’d been a month since she’d come to Scholaris. She had yet to really interact with anyone besides Lilith and Ryan, and she was rather secluded during Casting classes. Just like in her past life, she didn’t really think much of it.
But action, even in the form of inaction, has its consequences.
“...what’s going on?” she muttered sleepily as she heard the sounds of arguing.
It wasn’t like her to investigate such a thing, but some kind of long lost memory compelled her to move. Perhaps it was the recollection of Draco’s bullying that caused her to take action, but regardless of the reason, she found herself making her way toward the noise.
She soon saw two girls beating down a boy with first-circle spells. He was getting pelted by fireballs and stones.
Her first thought was one of surprise. There were numerous factors to this situation that just seemed wrong.
The first was how slowly the spells were being cast. They were hitting him once every few seconds, since it took them time to chant. With something like that, shouldn’t the boy be able to run away by now?
The second problem was that the boy wasn’t really that wounded. He had some burn marks and some bruises, but even first circle spells weren’t that weak, right?
“You just have unrealistic standards,” Anta grumbled. “It’s what being around the [Protagonist] will do to you.”
Right. These were children, after all. Well, that didn’t matter. Before the girls could keep going, Prota stepped forward, quickly summoning a wall of ice to block their next attacks. They didn’t even manage to crack the defense. They just bounced off or fizzled away harmlessly.
“Wha- who are you?” one of the girls cried out in surprise.
It seemed they hadn’t expected to be interrupted.
“...what’s going on?” Prota asked quietly, ignoring the question.
“This idiot isn’t giving us his tokens!” the other girl exclaimed. “Even though he cheated!”
“...cheat?”
“Ugh, are you dense? You’re in the Casting class, right? He placed above us in the last quiz! But that’s not possible. He had to have cheated! There’s no way a commoner could do better than us!”
Prota was incredibly confused. To begin with, her logic didn’t follow. What was stopping someone from doing better than someone else? What did status have to do with anything? If someone was better, they were just better. Even John, who declared himself to be superior to everyone, took his losses as a matter of fact.
“I… I don’t get it.”
“What don’t you get? Oh, I get it. It’s because you’re a commoner, too, right?” one of the girls said snidely. “Hmph. I don’t even see you doing anything during classes. You just stand there, staring off into space. I’ll be nice and let you go. Don’t get in the way.”
Prota ignored her and turned around, looking at the trembling boy. His expression was one of pain. To be frank, Prota didn’t think this was much injury, but then again, she also remembered being in such a state at one point, so she wouldn’t comment on the matter.
“Did you cheat?” she said simply.
“N-no! I studied really hard! My mom- my mom said this was a good chance for us to be something,” the boy said, his voice breaking. “I- I would never do something stupid like cheating!”
“Shut up! There’s no way you could’ve done better than us! Hand over your tokens!”
Prota’s head whipped around, her blue eyes glaring coldly. This scene was a little too familiar.
“Stop.”
“Yeah? And what grounds do you have to tell us to stop?” the girl sneered. “Unelss you want us to start hitting you, too, move away.”
Prota sighed. She didn’t get it. What was the point of all this? This was a non-issue.
“Don’t bother. I bet she’s too scared to even run away. After all, she just got in by luck, right? As if she could ever do anything interesting.”
That was a line they shouldn’t have crossed.
She’d always thought the bullying she’d suffered was solely because of Draco.
But it seemed that he wasn’t the only person that was insufferable.
“Apologize.”
The girls, who hadn’t been in real combat even a single time, simply laughed. Danger was something they couldn’t yet sense.
“To who? You?”
Prota stood up, mana gathering at her fingertips.
“Apologize. Now.”
“Oh, please. Make us.”
One of the girls was already chanting softly. Prota was fed up. This wasn’t a Draco level of annoyance, but it was getting on her nerves, and there was no good reason to put up with this—
“Don’t attack.”
Her rage was suddenly broken by Anta’s voice.
“It’s a good time to train.”
“...why?”
“If they lose, their pride won’t let them say they lost. So don’t attack. Just absorb their spells. Exhaust their stamina and force them to back off. Got it?”
Prota desperately wanted to beat some sense into them… but Anta was right.
Training was more important.
“Run,” she said quietly, glancing at the boy behind her.
“Th- thank you!” the boy stammered, scrambling off.
“Hmph. We’ll get him soon enough. You’ll regret messing with us.”
Such a third rate line was so bad even Prota cringed, but she held onto her focus nonetheless.
In an instant, her vision vanished, replaced by the idea of “concepts” floating around. She could still see, in a sense, but colour and light were now gone.
She wasn’t yet at the point where things like the movement of mana were visible. However, she could soon see a [Fireball] and a [Rock] being formed in her opponents hands.
These were [Spells].
And [Spells] were made of [Mana].
She reached out, taking the meager bits of mana that made up the spell, absorbing them and extinguishing the potential damage the spell might have done. Her vision quickly went back to normal, revealing the surprised expressions of the girls before her.
“Wha- wait! Where did my spell go?”
“Me too! Where did it go?”
“...weak,” Prota offered.
“Hmph! I won’t be outdone by some stupid girl who doesn’t do anything during class! Take this!”
Prota’s eyes widened. The flow of mana felt different. This wasn’t just another fireball.
“Fire arrow!”
A second circle spell. A really flimsy one, to be fair, and it would likely result in damage she could easily take. She wasn’t worried.
But for this girl to be pulling this out…
“Not good enough.”
Once again, the spell was reduced to mana. This wasn’t good training. This was just bullying. There was no sense of danger to distract Prota, no need to move around, no factors aside from the spell itself. She’d been training herself to absorb the mana from spells for months, now.
This wasn’t anything new.
“Give up,” Prota sighed as the fire arrow vanished as well. “No point.”
“You- you’ll regret this!” the girls yelled, running off.
Prota just shook her head.
“That was… something,” Anta muttered. “Um… to be completely honest, I wasn’t expecting that, either…”
With a sigh, Prota continued moving back home. This had been an interesting event, but she was glad it was over. If she had to deal with something like this again… well, it wasn’t like she couldn’t, but it would be best if she didn’t.
~~~
“Ah… I didn’t think this would actually happen…”
Prota was once again isolated from her peers. It was fascinating that, no matter the life, she would somehow manage to find herself in a situation where the world seemed to turn against her despite any logical barriers that should have prevented such a situation.
Rumours were flying around. Ones of Prota being a demon.
Apparently, the girls had spread the story that Prota had the ability to erase magic. Therefore, she was a demon.
If the children had even a hint of common sense, the rumours should have vanished in an instant. But common sense, it seemed, was not part of the curriculum.
Of course, the source of the rumours likely had something to do with their source. Children who were afraid of the girls, or needed their favour, were likely to believe anything they said. Then, if enough people confirmed the baseless rumour, there was suddenly a basis; not in fact, but in crowd mentality.
Obviously, there were those who didn’t care, or found the situation ridiculous. The Rose twins were among that group. But the fact remained that Prota’s school life was now somewhat of a chore.
She could ignore it. She’d done so in her past life, against an annoyance far worse than this.
But that mentality was no longer befitting of her. Circumstances had changed.
Backing off was no longer the best course of action.
The only problem was, just what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t go and beat sense into every single student. That would probably net her rumours in an entirely different sort.
Prota didn’t want to stand out. She just wanted to have a fun time.
“That’s not gonna happen, you know,” Anta sighed. “Well… it’ll be fine if the teachers vouch for you, right?”
“Nn…”
“Then I have a good idea.”
~~~
The next day, there was a commotion around the announcement board. A new notice had been put up, one that was insane, even for the students of Scholaris.
{Have a complaint with Prota Char?
Today, at 6 pm, you can take her on yourself! The event will be supervised by two professors and the headmaster, so everything is completely legal.
The format will be a free for all. There will be no line up. There will be no taking turns. All of you can fight at once.
A once in a lifetime opportunity!}
There were no restraints. The event wasn’t limited to the Casting class. It wasn’t limited to first-years. It wasn’t even limited to students.
Prota had singlehandedly invited a beatdown the likes of which the school had never seen.
She was openly taunting everyone. Even if someone had never heard of Prota, such a blatant declaration couldn’t be ignored if there was even a trace of insecurity in one’s own abilities.
So, at six in the afternoon, the stadium was filled as if for an event everyone had been waiting for. There were well over a hundred eager participants. Perhaps some were just there to watch. Others might be there to intervene or profit off the chaos.
Regardless of the reason, the intent behind the message had succeeded.
A global taunt had pulled in more than enough victims.
“Are you nervous?” Anta said as Prota stared at the crowd pouring in.
“...maybe?”
“Maybe? What do you mean, maybe?”
“I don’t want to touch them.”
“So you’re not nervous, you idiot!”
Prota just shook her head. “I might lose.”
“It’s ok. Sofya agreed to this plan. Lupin and Leora will be there to observe as well. So even if things go wrong, they’ll intervene. But I don’t think we’re even going to get to that point.”
“Nn.”
Suddenly, she heard the sounds of pounding footsteps and panting growing louder. She immediately went on guard, assuming there was someone here to ambush her early, but…
“Prota!”
It was just Destiny.
“Hey, what kind of insanity did you pull?”
“Not crazy. It’s ok.”
“Wha- I know you’re strong, but still, is this really ok? Look, if I step out and help-”
“No.” Prota shook her head. “If you’re going to fight, fight me.”
“But- will you really be ok?”
She shook her head, pointing to the growing crowd forming in the stadium grounds.
“Worry about them.”