Chapter 246 My Little Master
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
This was a few months after Neil developed the item box. While Amelia now smiles gently at Neil, back then, she was an icy cold person towards others, earning her the reputation of being a solitary magician.
Born with an overwhelming talent for magic, she could effortlessly master any spell, never needing to seek guidance from anyone to learn.
Her unique abilities made it difficult for her to understand those who struggled with magic, and she often wondered why they couldn’t do the same simple things. As a result, she avoided interactions with others, believing it to be a waste of time and that there was nothing to gain from such encounters.
One day, a letter arrived from Glaceus Gradigium, the current emperor.
It read, “Meet the eldest son of Atmiras. If you like him, please teach him magic.”
Amelia initially considered ignoring the letter due to its frivolous content. However, realizing that the letter was sent by the emperor himself and not Glaceus personally, she couldn’t simply dismiss it. So, she decided to visit the Atmiras Count household, thinking that meeting him wouldn’t be a big deal.
Since the development of the item box, Neil’s presence has become well-known within the empire, and Amelia was aware of him. However, at that time, her impression of Neil was that of “a crazy researcher who does reckless experiments without thinking ahead.” Objectively, this was a fair assessment, so it couldn’t be helped.
Therefore, when Amelia first met Neil, she was quite taken aback.
She had been on guard, expecting to meet some tricky character, but instead, she encountered a person who was surprisingly humble and had no trace of childishness. At first, she even suspected that an adult from Mire Race was pretending to be a child.
”Are you Neil-sama…?”
”Y-yes! That’s me, but you don’t have to be so polite to someone like me, a child!”
”Then can I call you Neil-kun?”
”That’s fine!”
At first, Amelia was confused by his behavior, which didn’t match his age or status as a noble heir. However, as they continued to talk, she realized he wasn’t that strange after all, and gradually lost interest in him.
(I was curious about what kind of person would make the effort to send a letter… He is indeed quite different for a noble, but he’s just a good person. He only thought developing a space magic tool was the easiest way because of his ignorance as a child.)
By meeting and talking with Neil, Amelia had fulfilled the minimum requirement of her mission from Glaceus.
However, if she left now, there was a chance she would be questioned later about whether she had really talked to him. So, even though she had already lost interest, Amelia reluctantly asked Neil a question.
”Do you know about the ‘magician’s inquiry,’ Neil-kun?”
”Um, ‘I’m going to give you a task to see your potential. I’ll teach you the words to create fire, and if you can say them, come to me,’ right?”
”That’s right. So you do know.”
This question is meant to see how someone reacts and to judge their potential as a magician. Hidden within this question are several doubts, and it tests whether the person can notice them. Because of this, asking someone who already knows the answer is pointless.
Amelia thought it wouldn’t be strange if Neil, who was self-studying magic for developing magical tools, had learned about the magician’s questions somewhere. She pondered how to respond and decided to ask a slightly unconventional question.
”You know the purpose of the magician’s question, right, Neil-kun?”
”Yes, it’s to judge someone’s potential as a magician based on their actions in response to the question, right?”
”Exactly. So why do you think the ideal word for creating fire was chosen among many other words?”
Magic has many attributes, and when asked about them, people often mention 6 main ones. Among these, fire, water, wind, and earth are called the 4 basic attributes, which are the first paths for those learning magic.
Among these 4, beginners usually start with earth and water, then wind, and fire is the last priority because it is the most dangerous.
If not controlled properly, it can cause burns or fires, and worst-case scenarios could lead to death. The reason fire was chosen in the magician’s question is to see if the beginner can feel the discomfort of being taught an attribute that shouldn’t be taught to them.
However, even after asking such a question, Amelia did not have high expectations.
Amelia asked Neil a question just to have an excuse later when Glaceus said something. She didn’t care how Neil would answer.
”Um, maybe because fire is easy to understand, dangerous, and the safest option?”
However, Neil’s answer was something Amelia didn’t expect at all.
It seemed like a perfect answer but was actually contradictory. After a few seconds of silence, Amelia asked again.
”What do you mean by that?”
”Since you’re asking a question about magic, you should be a complete beginner who knows nothing about it. Such a person wouldn’t have a staff or anything like that, and they would probably think of using their own body as a medium to cast magic. If that happens, and they somehow manage to cast magic, there’s a high chance that an accident will occur inside their body.”
The construction of magic formulas happens within a medium, but if there’s no control, the magic will activate right where the formula was created.
”If it’s fire, even if it activates inside the body, you can quickly notice something’s wrong and stop it. Plus, if you don’t pour in magic power, the fire will go out. But with water or earth, once they’re created, they won’t just disappear like fire; they will stay inside the body. Without realizing it, water could build up in the lungs, or earth could travel through the blood vessels to important organs like the brain, leading to serious illnesses. In the case of wind, air would be created inside the body, and the moment the magic activates, muscles or organs could burst. So, thinking about it, fire is easy to notice and can be quickly extinguished, and even if you get a little burned, it’s manageable. Plus, anyone can imagine how scary fire is compared to other elements, so I thought it would be perfect to discourage beginners from using magic carelessly.”
Neil answered casually, but his response was extremely unusual for the people of this world, leaving Amelia speechless at an answer she never imagined.
(Were you referring to this, Your Majesty?)
The formulas that shape magic often reflect a person’s thoughts and habits.
Amelia, who had rarely been interested in others, suddenly found herself curious about the magic created by Neil, who had such unique ideas. For the first time in her life, she decided to teach someone magic.
* * *
Five days had passed since Amelia took on the role of Neil’s mentor, and she was already regretting her decision.
Neil was only learning magic to develop magic tools as a researcher, not to master it as a magician. Therefore, she had to teach him the basics of magic, which would take a considerable amount of time before he could see what Amelia wanted him to see.
Although Neil was relatively quick to learn the basics due to the abilities given to him by a god when he was reincarnated, “quick” was just a relative term.
Amelia was a true genius who had never struggled or gotten stuck while learning magic. To her, when a question came from Neil, it felt like he was “bad at remembering.” She had thought that teaching the basics wouldn’t take long, but as things didn’t progress as she expected, her frustration began to grow.
It was true that Neil was slower to learn compared to the talented Amelia, but it wasn’t entirely his fault.
Amelia, who had never faced any struggles with magic, had a critical flaw as a mentor: she couldn’t understand why others struggled.
Without that understanding, she couldn’t teach or guide him correctly. In fact, Neil was doing well as a student, showing progress in this situation.
Amelia, who was already getting tired of teaching magic to others, visited Neil, who was practicing a spell in the courtyard of the mansion.
”Good morning, Neil-sama.”
”Good morning, master!”
”What are you doing?”
”Well, since you taught me a lot, I thought it was time to learn a spell I came up with myself, not just the ones you taught me…”
”Isn’t that a bit much when you haven’t even mastered half of the basics?”
”Uh… I’m sorry.”
As Neil felt a bit down from Amelia’s sharp words, she asked him something that was on her mind.
”So, what kind of spell were you trying to learn? It looked like you were doing something quite different.”
”Oh, yes! Actually, I wanted to create a spell that… um, how should I put it? I want to launch a spell that can then launch another spell.”
Neil imagined a small robot that separates from a main unit to attack enemies, thinking about a spell that could fly around the enemy and attack like that.
”Launching a spell that can then launch another spell, you say?”
”Yes, like a spell that flies behind the opponent and then launches another spell to attack from behind. I want to learn that kind of magic.”
”Wouldn’t a delayed activation spell work? You could set up 2 spells to activate at different times.”
”That might be easier, but activating it with a delay doesn’t really fit what I want to do. I want a spell that I can shoot whenever I like.”
”How do you plan to make that possible?”
”I thought if I could use the spell I launched as a medium to launch another spell, it might work, but it’s really difficult…”
”You want to use a spell as a medium?”
Amelia was truly surprised by that idea.
Magic is something that uses a medium to activate, and the thought of using magic as a medium was something she had never heard of or even considered.
Immediately, Amelia thought about its feasibility and usefulness, but she concluded that if it could be realized, it would be quite useful, but it wasn’t realistic.
”Neil-sama, that kind of magic is surely impossible, right?”
”Is it no good? Even for you, Sensei, it’s impossible?”
”…Huh?”
Amelia froze at the unexpected question.
Neil had no other intention; he simply thought that while it might be impossible for him, maybe someone as skilled as Amelia could do it, and he asked. However, that question ignited a fire in Amelia’s heart.
After that, Amelia spent all her time outside of Neil’s classes trying to learn that magic.
Until now, Amelia had never struggled to learn magic, but this particular magic was not going as usual.
Since it was a magic she had judged to be unrealistic, it was only natural that it wouldn’t go smoothly, but after hearing “Is it impossible even for you, Sensei?” she couldn’t just give up easily.
If it was unrealistic, she thought about constructing a magic that seemed plausible within realistic limits, but that would mean she was saying it was impossible in the end, and Amelia was determined to build the magic exactly as Neil had described.
Days and days of trial and error passed, and each time she failed, she sometimes became calm and thought, “What am I even doing?” But since Amelia had never given up before, she didn’t know when to stop and continued her seemingly reckless challenge.
Gradually, the time she spent under Neil’s guidance decreased, and eventually, she began to spend entire days on learning the magic, when a turning point arrived.
There are 2 types of magic: creation type and usage type. The creation type creates physical things like water or earth using magical power, which means it uses a lot of magic.
The usage type uses existing things like water or earth, so it uses less magic compared to the creation type. However, since the usage type doesn’t create things with its own magic, it requires a certain level of skill to control.
For Amelia, this skill was child’s play. She mainly used usage type magic and only used creation type magic when there was nothing around to use. But when she tried changing her magic to creation type, she found it much easier to build spells. Just 4 days later, she successfully learned a new spell.
When Amelia learned the magic, she was filled with joy. She quickly went to show Neil her results from the past month.
”Look! I did it!” she said, turning back with a proud face.
”Wow! Amazing, master!!”
”…Huh?”
Amelia was stunned by Neil’s praise.
In her life, Amelia had received countless praises.
When she learned a difficult spell, when she defeated monsters that even the army couldn’t handle, and when she ended a war and gained fame, she received endless praise along with honor and wealth. But none of it touched her heart.
To her, it was just expected, and being praised felt like mockery. Most of the people praising her were just flattering her, hiding their dirty desires and ugly jealousy beneath.
But this time was different. She had pushed her aging body, forgetting to eat and sleep for a whole month, fully dedicated to her magic.
Neil’s words of praise were simple, just repeating how amazing it was, but there was no dirty desire or ugly jealousy in them. He purely admired Amelia’s achievement.
(What is this feeling?)
Her eyes became warm, and an unspoken sob rose from her throat.
Amelia quickly turned her back to Neil, covering her eyes and mouth with both hands, desperately trying to hold back what was coming up, but she just couldn’t stop it.
”Master?”
”…I’m sorry… just a moment… please.”
Amelia had never experienced effort or hardship in her life, so she didn’t know what it felt like to be rewarded.
Even when she saw others working hard, she felt nothing, and when she saw someone crying from their efforts being rewarded, she thought they must be crazy.
But Amelia, who had never put in effort before, worked hard for the first time in her life.
Receiving Neil’s pure praise, she finally understood what it meant to be rewarded.
(Certainly, I can’t hold back these overflowing emotions.)
Amelia, who had previously looked coldly at people who couldn’t hold back their tears in public, now found herself in the same position and was able to understand others’ feelings.
(Haha, I never thought I would be in a position to be taught.)
Knowing the pain of effort and the joy of being rewarded, Amelia learned this from none other than Neil.
From that day on, Neil became Amelia’s one and only student, and she became his little master.
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Report Error Chapter
Tags: