The Legend of the Meta-Defying Smith Who Saved the Kingdom

Isabella turned, and there was the blonde foreigner boy, James. He bowed gracefully, though with slightly imperfect form. She curtsied in response. "Good morning to you, too…" she paused, waiting for him to fill in a title or his class, but he remained mute. "...James," she finished, slightly awkwardly. With her social obligations fulfilled, she turned back to the fountain.

"Er, what are you doing?" James asked.

"Magic perception training," she responded bluntly.

"With the undines?" She turned to huff at him for distracting her, but she saw him dip a calloused hand into the water, and then he did something. Suddenly, the water around his hand was streaked blue, and the burbling of the fountain was sharper, and sounded almost like a giggle. As soon as it came, it was gone again.

"W-what did you do?" she asked, stepping forward suddenly enough to alarm her guards. She must have also startled the blonde foreigner, because he jerked back, eyes on her guards, and reached under his cloak.

Ignoring all this nonsensical posturing, she continued. "Yes, what did you just do to the water?"

The boy kept his attention on her guards, however, until she smacked their arms. "Stop intimidating him already, we're classmates." Slowly, they stepped back again, and James took his hand out of his cloak, and then he turned back to her again.

Before immediately blushing and looking away.

Isabella paled. Did she have something on her face? She pulled a pocket mirror out from her bag to check, but she looked fine.

"I was, uh, just giving some mana to the undines, is all." Isabella turned to face him to find him looking at her seriously. "Be careful, though. They can be greedy. Don't let them pull you in, even in a shallow fountain like this."

Isabella focused on the important part of what he had just said. "You can see the undines? Is that from your Class?" She wanted to know the trick to it.

His eyes flicked to her face momentarily, just long enough for his face to redden again, and then he looked up into sky. "Hmm, perhaps it is. I couldn't see them before I got my Classes, but I could also see them before I got some related Skills."

Isabella felt a small sense of accomplishment that she had guessed right; this Knight's retainer clearly had some experience.

And then she realized that without her own Classes, his trick probably wouldn't work for her.

"W-well, just give it a try yourself. Seeing with your eyes isn't the only way to perceive something, after all." Red-faced, he shot one last glance at her guards before striding off into the main building. Her guards chuckled, but Isabella paid it no mind. First, she listened to the water, closing her eyes.

It sounded like water.

Quickly giving up on that, she tried dipping a finger in, and then her hand. It felt… not quite like normal water. But she wasn't sure if she was imagining it or not. Then, she pushed a little of her mana into the water, like James said he had.

There!

She felt it; something in the water took her mana, and there was a blue streak, a burble that sounded slightly off-key, a swirl against her hand.

Triumphant, she held out her hand to one of her guards, and they promptly handed her a towel.

She had done it! She had detected the undine!

She looked around at the plaza, expecting it to shine in her new-found magic sense…

But it was just the same collection of buildings. She looked back at the water, and it was back to normal water.

She walked up to the main building, and was about to try to push her mana into the building to see if there was any magic in it, when her guard put a hand on her shoulder, indicating immediate danger.

"Mistress," he murmured quietly. "Whatever you were about to do just set off my [Guard] and [Threat Awareness] Skills. Please refrain."

She squinted at the doorframe. It looked and felt like a normal doorframe, just painted wood.

Perhaps she hadn't mastered magic detection just yet.

She turned to her guards. "Thank you, but I will be alright from here."

They nodded and departed, returning to their normal daily work until it was time to pick her up in the evening.

She would need to spend her lunch break studying anyway, to keep up with Enchanter Melinda's brutal pace.

She entered, no doorman today, and nodded her greeting to the maids who bowed in return. Upon entering the classroom, she found that James was already engrossed in a book to the point that he didn't even notice her entrance. Graciously, she decided not to disturb him. Instead, she headed back to the book cabinet herself and perused the contents, given that her father had paid the deposit for the access when signing her up. She might as well make use of it.

Books full of enchantment templates. A book about enchantment designs. A thick book of the history of enchanting, and an even thicker book about the history of enchantment theory and designs. Why, it went back over a thousand years, before Iberteria was even a kingdom! Eventually, she looked up and saw that all her classmates were here, though Enchanter Melinda had yet to arrive.

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She took a deep breath and readied herself.

She strode to the front of the room, turned to face her classmates, and cleared her throat to get their attention. Then, she clasped her hands in front of herself, and bowed stiffly.

"Ahem, I deeply apologize for my lack of grace yesterday, and any insult I may have given. I hope we can work together cordially as colleagues."

Her father and mother had both insisted she apologize today.

She looked up and immediately noticed that James' face was red again. She stood up straight again, and noticed that so was Ewan's face, while Raven and Ricardo had much cooler expressions.

"Sure," Ricardo responded laconically.

"Accepted in the spirit with which it was given," Raven said snidely, though since Isabella did mean her apology, that was fine.

"Uh, apology accepted?" Ewan said, and then James stammered, "Y-yeah, apology accepted…" before he looked down at his desk again. Even his ears were red.

What was his problem, anyway?

She sat down at her desk in the front row and flipped her hair out of her way and spent a minute reviewing her notes before Melinda hurried into the room, straight to the lectern.

"I see you're all present, good. Ewan, tell us all your thoughts on when an Enchanter should decline to perform an enchantment she knows she could do." Melinda wasted no time in starting class at the same tempo they had ended on yesterday.

He sat up straight. "When the customer can't afford to pay for it!" he declared.

The room was silent for a beat.

"Any other reason?" Melinda prompted.

"Huh?"

"That's all you came up with?" she asked again.

"Uh… yes…" he at least had the good grace to sound like he felt bad about it.

"Isabella, what's another reason?"

She had to think fast. "Uhm, if the materials are too valuable to use on that enchantment? For example, if there's a shortage of earth-magic infused ink?"

Melinda gave her a short nod. "Not the answer I was looking for, but as the daughter of Baronet Izguardia, I can see how you would think of such things. Raven?"

"If the customer expresses intent to do something illegal with the enchantment."

"Good answer," Melinda praised. She turned back to Ewan. "Ewan, any other thoughts occur to you?"

"Uhh… wait, if they want to use souls to empower the enchantment?"

Melinda's lips tightened, and there was a minute flare of intimidation, but then her expression relaxed. "Well, at least that sunk in from yesterday. Keep taking notes."

Isabella's eyes flicked down to see that Ewan was writing down their answers. Oh no! She hurried to catch up in her own notes.

"Ricardo?"

"If the enchantment might cause harm to others unintentionally, perhaps due to a flawed design."

"True, that's a possibility, though not one normally considered in the basic course. James, any other thoughts?"

"If the enchantment would cause harm to the user, like if it didn't have needed safety cutoffs built in." There was a heaviness to his voice, like it wasn't just a hypothetical. Isabella wanted to turn around and see what kind of face he was making—though it was likely just red again—but she focused on writing his answer as fast as she could.

"True, good answer. Ewan, you must keep in mind as an Enchanter that you are putting magic into something, and it will stay there indefinitely unless someone takes steps to disenchant it or the thing is destroyed. You must consider, and take this as a professional responsibility, all the potential harm an enchantment might do, intentionally or not, once you create it."

Ewan gulped, and nodded.

"That said, if any of you have questions or concerns about an enchantment you've been asked to perform, you can always consult with the Guild. This costs nothing but a bit of time, and may save you quite a lot of strife. Even if you are not a formal member of the Guild." Melinda looked meaningfully over Isabella's head.

Was James not going to be a member of the Guild?

Oh, right, he was a Knight's retainer.

The class continued on at the same breakneck pace. Isabella found that she could keep up, but only just. More than half the time she was asked a question she had to admit she didn't know, and she had the feeling she was asking quite a few more questions than the rest of her classmates.

The only one who came close to asking as many questions, interestingly enough, was James. But his questions were always insightful, and sparked interesting discussions. Isabella's own questions weren't nearly as good.

Frustrating.

It was a relief when lunch came. She let one of the maids guide her to a free table. The only free table, actually, as the Guild's main hall was quite busy today. As soon as she had her lunch from home ready to eat, the blonde retainer approached her table.

"May I join you for lunch, miss Isabella?" he asked, and slightly bowed suiting his semi-formal request.

"I'm afraid it will be a short lunch," she declined softly, but the foreigner boy either didn't understand her or ignored it intentionally.

"That would suit me as well; I intend to go back to the classroom and study as soon as I finish eating. So…?"

Isabella sighed. "If you insist," she acquiesced, and he took a seat across from her at the table which suddenly felt a little cramped.

"Thanks," he smiled gratefully, "the rest of the tables are full. I really will only be a minute." He quickly pulled out a sandwich and started eating just shy of impolitely fast.

It seemed he really did want only to eat.

That was just fine with Isabella. "I too, will need to eat quickly and return to studying," she declared, and began eating her own reheated paella, a rice dish in a ceramic bowl.

Still, it wouldn't do only to eat and ignore her dining company.

"So," she graced him with an easy conversation topic, "how long have you been an Enchanter?"

The boy across from her choked most disgracefully.