I stretched while sitting in my chair and then slumped over the desk.
"Haah... Another boring day begins."
[It seems Luna Stadtfeld is running late today.]
"Yeah, it's about ti she should be here."
In the bustling classroom, Luna was the only one noticeably absent.
The others? I didn't care whether they showed up or not, but without Luna, sothing felt off.
As I was deep in thought, the teaching assistant, Black Joker, stepped onto the podium and made an announcent.
"Today is the first day of sub-affinity classes. I'll write the locations of each classroom on the board, so please move accordingly. And please, don't mix up the main and sub-affinities like yesterday."
The teaching assistant looked at the students with a pleading expression.
'Tsk tsk, there's always one or two who can't get it together.'
[Suho.]
'Huh?'
[The lightning affinity classroom isn't listed on the board.]
'...What? Seriously?'
I scrambled over to the teaching assistant as he was stepping down from the podium.
I barely managed to catch him before he left the classroom.
"Uh, teaching assistant?"
"Yes?"
"My sub-affinity is lightning, but the classroom isn't listed."
The teaching assistant lightly tapped his right fist against his left palm, as if rembering sothing.
"Ah, right! You're the one who applied for lightning affinity this ti."
"Yes."
"I need to go around the classrooms to notify the students about the locations. Could you wait here for a mont?"
"...Sure."
I wondered what was going on.
If he just told , I could go there. Was he planning to take sowhere else?
I returned to my seat and sat down.
Other students were leaving to go to their sub-affinity classrooms, but the jerk with the still-visible slap mark on his face started lurking around Luna's seat.
Since Luna wasn't here, he seed worried.
'But why isn't she coming?'
[I suspect sothing might have happened to Luna Stadtfeld. She doesn't seem like the type to skip without reason.]
'I'll ask the teaching assistant when he cos back...'
As I lay on the desk, communicating with Armonia, the jerk next to spoke up.
Totally rude.
"Hey."
I tried to be as polite as possible.
I turned my head to the side and gave him a 'What do you want?' look.
"What?"
"You asked the teaching assistant earlier. Why isn't Luna here?"
"?"
I looked at the annoying jerk and communicated with Armonia.
'What nonsense is this?'
[He probably misunderstood your conversation with the teaching assistant asking why Luna is late.]
'...He should've asked himself.'
What a botherso guy.
I buried my head back in the desk and answered.
"How should I know?"
"Haah... Don't push your luck."
"What?"
I was so dumbfounded that I shot up and glared at Louis.
The classroom was empty except for the two of us.
Louis, confirming that no one else was around, started showing his true colours.
"If you keep acting like this, you might not make it through school."
"Who do you think you are?"
I felt like my brain was about to short-circuit.
This guy's completely insane.
The jerk, who had been glaring at with his eyes lowered, snorted and turned to leave.
"Hmph... If you're stupid, at least know how to lick shoes."
With those words, he left the classroom.
"What was that about?"
[There's a proverb in the Kingdom of Levin: 'Even the incompetent can succeed if they lick shoes.' He was probably trying to provoke you.]
"What a lunatic."
[...You seem calr than I expected.]
"Hehe, Luna's already leaning towards anyway, so there's no reason to get angry. I'm just looking forward to seeing his face when his ntal state completely shatters."
I couldn't crush him with strength, but I was confident I could grind his mind into a pulp.
Bam!
Suddenly, soone burst into the classroom through the back door with a loud noise.
"Haah... Haah... Haah..."
"Huh?"
I turned around and saw Luna walking towards , breathing heavily.
Well, more accurately, she was walking towards her desk.
She arrived at her desk and looked at .
"Haah..."
After calming her breathing, Luna turned to and asked.
"Uh... Today's class..."
"Ah, it's sub-affinity class, so everyone's moving. You should hurry."
"Then, together..."
"No, I have sothing else to do, so I'll stay. You go ahead."
"...Okay."
Luna, clearly disappointed, turned to the board to check the classroom location.
But then she pointed to her lips with her finger and looked panicked.
Wondering what was wrong, I asked.
"What's the matter?"
"Well... The water affinity classroom location..."
"Huh?"
Looking at the board, I saw that the water affinity classroom location had been partially erased.
Probably wiped off by students passing by the podium to check the locations.
Since the teaching assistant was supposed to co here anyway, I could just ask him when he arrived.
But the teaching assistant looked busy earlier, so he might have forgotten to co here.
For , it didn't matter since I was self-studying, but Luna would end up being late.
'Poor thing. She'll just have to wait until the teaching assistant cos.'
[The water affinity classroom is on the 3rd floor, the Lutel classroom.]
'Ohh! As expected of the CEO, your mory is amazing.'
Looking at the board, I turned to Luna.
She had a serious expression.
And her physical state was a ss.
Her shiny silver hair was dishevelled in places, and her usually neat uniform was wrinkled all over.
I spoke to the restless Luna.
"3rd floor, Lutel classroom."
"Huh?"
"Go to the 3rd floor, Lutel classroom."
"Ah... Um..."
Luna started muttering to herself again.
"What?"
"...No, thank you."
As Luna was about to leave, I stood up and grabbed her right hand.
Luna was so startled that she let out a scream loud enough to echo through the classroom.
"Why, why are you doing this!"
"Ah, you startled . Why are you screaming..."
"You, you suddenly grabbed my hand..."
"Your button's undone."
"Huh?"
I fastened the button on Luna's right sleeve.
After buttoning it, I sat back down at my desk and said.
"Go on."
"..."
Luna was intently looking at the sleeve I had fixed.
"You'll be late."
"Ah!"
At the word "late," Luna snapped out of it and rushed out.
But before leaving the classroom, she turned back and smiled at .
"Thank you."
"..."
With that, she left.
Shortly after Luna left, the teaching assistant ca in.
"Student, could you follow ?"
***
"So... this is..."
"Yes, you'll study and practice here on your own."
The place the teaching assistant brought to was a shabby practice room.
At first glance, it looked more like a storage room.
There were tools scattered everywhere, wooden boxes filled with who-knows-what, a dusty desk and chair, and bookshelves filled with books with difficult titles.
The clubroom at least didn't feel like a storage room, but this place definitely did.
If I had to na one advantage over the clubroom, it was the size.
The practice room was surprisingly spacious, about a third the size of a classroom.
The teaching assistant explained that the school had decided it wasn't worth giving up an entire classroom for lightning affinity studies, so they provided the practice room of the professor who used to handle lightning affinity.
"Well, I'm busy, so I'll be going now. Work hard!"
"Okay..."
The teaching assistant gave a thumbs-up and left the practice room.
I brushed the dust off a chair and sat down.
Waving my hand to disperse the dust flying around, I frowned.
"Ugh, the dust is no joke."
[If you clean it up, it seems like a decent practice room.]
If you clean it up, that is...
I stood up and looked around.
The practice room was so dusty that footprints appeared wherever I stepped.
As I walked around, the most noticeable thing was the bookshelf.
But the state of the bookshelf was terrible.
"Ugh, this is really bad."
[The books are so haphazardly arranged that it looks even ssier.]
There were books made of high-quality materials, as well as bundles of experintal reports tied together with string.
Without much thought, I pulled one out and dusted it off.
A huge cloud of dust fell away, revealing the title on the cover.
[Lightning Magic Research Club Activity Report]
"Huh? This is our club. Ah, the original head wasn't Sonya, but this guy, right?"
[Yes. If he wrote reports like this, he must have been quite attached.]
I flipped through the report and read the contents.
It detailed the experints conducted as part of the club activities.
What was different was that this report ticulously docunted the purpose, utility, and value of the experints.
If our experints were child's play, the experints back then were the real deal.
As I casually flipped through the pages, one page caught my eye.
-Lightning Sphere Acceleration Experint-
"Oh, this is what we were doing."
[The experint where you accelerated an iron sphere to hit a piece of wood.]
The mories of that day ca flooding back.
Regrets too...
"I should've hit that jerk with the iron sphere!"
[....]
Thinking about that guy's face, I regretted not hitting him.
Now that he's not a club mber anymore, I really can't hit him.
I focused back on the page.
-Purpose of the experint: A thod devised while pondering how to utilize the ever-changing nature of lightning affinity. To overco the difficulty of targeting with lightning affinity, the experint involved embedding lightning magic into an iron sphere and then hitting a target.-
"Huh? This is a bit different from what we did?"
[Originally, it seems the concept was to charge the iron sphere with electricity and hit the opponent. But since the electricity would dissipate imdiately after passing through the magic circle, the only effect would be that of hitting soone with an iron sphere.]
"Well, the scientific technology here is way behind, so there's a lot they don't know."
Even on Earth, where I ca from, electricity has only been properly utilized for less than two hundred years.
But there were more pages than I expected.
The first experint was, of course, a failure, but after several more failures, they accidentally discovered that an iron sphere passing through a lightning magic circle increased in speed, and the experint was changed to what I had done.
"This is more interesting than I thought?"
[It seems like a case where the more you fail, the more you gain.]
"...But he died."
Looking at it now, he was a really pitiful guy...
The pages detailed the magic circles used at the ti.
And most importantly, the reason for the experint's failure was written at the end.
-The fatal issue was mana pressure. When multiple students lined up to create magic circles one by one and threw the iron sphere, it veered off in the wrong direction.
-Even if the input and output were the sa, the slightest difference in mana pressure would not only reduce the accuracy of the iron sphere but also drastically decrease its speed.
-They concluded that this thod was impossible unless they could perfectly replicate the sa person multiple tis.
At the end of the page was the word 'Failure.'
"Well, even when we focused, we couldn't hit the tree."
[It seems that even the slightest difference in mana pressure has a huge impact on acceleration and accuracy.]
"...Wait."
I went back to the first page of the experint and carefully reviewed it.
This experint failed because it was impossible for one person to create multiple magic circles.
In fact, mana pressure was just one of the factors contributing to the failure.
The premise required multiple people to create multiple magic circles.
If that drawback could be resolved...
I opened one of the wooden boxes and started rummaging through it.
[What are you looking for?]
"I wonder if there are any iron spheres here?"
[Since the Lightning Magic Research Club had a lot, there should be so here too.]
While rummaging through the boxes, I found a wooden box filled with iron spheres.
"There are a lot."
[Are you interested in the experint?]
"Just watch."
I also found an iron plate that didn't seem to be in use.
It was about 30 centiters wide and long, and about 2 centiters thick.
I grunted as I placed the iron plate on the desk and pushed the desk against the wall to keep the plate upright.
The distance between the iron plate and was about 5 ters.
I opened the activity report again and morized the magic circle used in the experint.
It was very different from the magic circle we used in the Lightning Magic Research Club.
It was more complex and difficult.
But I could definitely morize it.
"Good."
Everything was ready.
I pulled my middle finger back like I was about to flick sothing and held it in place with my thumb.
Then I placed the iron sphere between my index and ring fingers, holding it so it wouldn't fall.
"Haah... Haah..."
After a few deep breaths, I raised my arm and adjusted the iron sphere between my fingers so it could hit the iron plate.
I closed my left eye and opened only my right eye, aligning the iron sphere with the iron plate.
In my vision, the iron sphere was perfectly centred on the iron plate.
"Let's start with... four."
[What do you an? Start with four...]
I didn't wait for Armonia to finish and created the magic circles.
Four golden magic circles, each about a ter in diater, appeared in pairs on either side.
The magic circles were threateningly discharging electricity towards each other.
"Ugh..."
My legs almost gave out, and I nearly collapsed.
The input was much stronger than the magic circles we used in the club, and I could feel my mana draining rapidly.
Armonia's voice ca through the communication link.
[Suho! Using magic circles like that is dangerous...]
"Gah!"
Snap!
As soon as I focused my mind and flicked the iron sphere with my middle finger, I collapsed on the spot.
Clang!
An enormous sound of tal hitting tal assaulted my eardrums.
Along with the sound, dust spread everywhere, filling the practice room with a cloud of dust.
"Haah... Haah... Haah..."
[Suho! Using that much mana at once is dangerous!]
I wanted to respond to Armonia's shout, but I didn't have the energy to even communicate.
After lying there and inhaling dust dozens of tis, I shakily lifted my head.
"Haah... Haah... Haah..."
The dust slowly began to settle.
As the dust cleared, my eyes saw...
A hole the size of a coin in the iron plate.
***
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