Chapter 47: A Sudden Field Trip (5)
“Banshi, let’s hide.”
“Yes.”
Before the approaching footsteps drew any closer, Banshi and I hurriedly hid behind a pillar in the corridor.
I trusted my instinct that if we ran into soone in this hallway without knowing who it was, we would only end up in a troubleso situation.
The mont we hid, the owner of the footsteps finally revealed himself.
It was none other than Vice Headmaster Forr.
Forr passed by the pillar we were hiding behind, walking straight ahead without looking around.
He stopped in front of the grand dining hall.
“Let’s slip away quietly. I have no idea why Forr suddenly appeared.”
“Understood.”
Keeping our footsteps as quiet as possible, we watched Forr carefully and tiptoed away down the corridor.
At so point, when I looked back, Forr was no longer in front of the dining hall.
Instead, the doors of the hall were wide open, suggesting he had gone inside.
After entering the dining hall, Forr first inspected its condition.
Despite the fact that powerful magic had been manifested here twice, the hall remained completely peaceful.
Except for one person.
Head of the Family Jick was standing vacantly, as if half of his soul had drifted away.
“Head Jick.”
“Ah, Vice Headmaster. When did you co in?”
What on earth had he been thinking so deeply about that he hadn’t even noticed soone entering?
It was hard to consider Head Jick’s state anywhere near normal.
“I just sensed so fairly powerful mana here a mont ago. Was that you?”
“……Excuse ?”
But Jick’s expression was far too strange.
It was the expression of soone who genuinely had no idea what was being talked about.
“I felt two surges in succession, so I’m asking.”
“……Excuse ? You felt two surges?”
But Jick asked back with the sa utterly bewildered expression.
His face was filled with curiosity—mixed with no small amount of confusion.
After being lost for quite a while, Jick finally spoke as if coughing up the words.
“……Actually… I… don’t rember.”
“You don’t rember?”
“No, not at all……”
Judging by his face, he absolutely didn’t seem to be lying.
You could see that clearly from how strangely—almost uncontrollably—his expression kept shifting.
“Ugh……”
And the mont he tried to recall exactly what had happened, he clutched his head as if tearing at his hair and collapsed onto the floor.
“What’s wrong, Head Jick?”
“My head… feels like it’s splitting apart……”
For a mage, headaches often appear as symptoms of excessive magical manifestation.
And since Forr had sensed magic above the 7th Circle, it was a symptom he could accept—but the headache Jick was describing was unlike anything he was familiar with.
“What on earth happened for you, the head of the family, to end up like this?”
“I don’t know… I can’t rember anything……”
Forr had sensed two powerful surges of mana.
Since Jick supposedly cast one of them himself, the other one was obvious.
Between Artel and Banshi, the only student capable of such magic was Artel.
Banshi was simply exceptional among 1st Class students, but Artel was a Double Caster, so the likelihood skyrocketed.
‘There’s no way I sensed it wrong. It was definitely stronger than a 7th Circle spell.’
But even so, how could such magic co from a 1st Class student?
Just from Jick’s current condition, the only interpretation was that Artel had done sothing.
“…….”
Forr stared at Jick for a long ti before leaving the dining hall.
Seeing Jick’s condition, he couldn’t even ask what purpose he had in opening this open-house field trip.
He wanted to go find Artel imdiately and figure out what had happened, but Forr soon gave up.
The more he dug, the less the truth revealed itself—and the more confusing everything beca.
Interrogating Artel now would reveal nothing.
Jick had definitely been with Artel and Banshi, yet claid to rember nothing at all.
Because he could end up in the sa state, Forr decided that reporting to Etar took priority over confronting Artel directly.
‘There’s no way a spell that erases mories exists… so why on earth is Head Jick like that?’
Forr, who had never once encountered Flevwd elental magic in his entire life, didn’t even know that a magic called Linking existed.
Which only made his curiosity grow even larger.
“I wonder where the other students are touring.”
“Will you go find them?”
“No, it’s fine. I actually wanted a short break anyway, so this works out.”
Banshi and I settled in a garden tucked away in a corner of the Nohill Family estate.
We had chosen a place with no sign of people, intending to recover from Linking’s aftereffects.
“When it’s ti to return, they’ll co looking for us anyway. And since the estate is huge, we can just say we got lost. We look like children, after all.”
Children get lost easily, so no one would doubt it.
“But I learned today that Linking can also hide mories… I never knew that.”
“Oh, that wasn’t originally part of it. My master was the one who evolved Linking that way.”
“Excuse ? Master Alarize Petra? Then did Archis also learn it from Alarize?”
“No, my master never taught Linking. He believed that if it were passed down and beca a common magic, it would be extrely dangerous. He worried about misuse and abuse.”
“It certainly is an incredible magic. Manipulating soone’s mories!”
“And to add to that, the one who evolved it so you could inject mana or manifest magic using connected mana—was .”
I slipped in a bit of bragging.
As expected, Banshi’s eyes sparkled brightly.
She looked as if saying, ‘That’s exactly what an Archmage would do!’
“But then how did Archis learn Linking?”
I briefly scanned my surroundings.
There were no listening ears, and since I was alone with Banshi—who understood my past well—I naturally felt comfortable enough to talk about the old days.
I allowed myself to sink into those mories for a mont.
“My master may have looked like a kind old grandpa, but his teaching thods were brutal.”
“What were they like?”
“When I learned a spell he taught , he would imdiately use Linking on to hide that mory. Then I wouldn’t know I’d learned the spell at all.”
At my words, Banshi asked in shock,
“Why did he do that?”
“Human psychology is such that once you struggle to learn a spell, you don’t want to practice it again. That was the reason. My master always emphasized repetition and mastery. If he hid the fact that I had learned it right after I did, then I would naturally practice it again, and he said I would end up with magic fundantally different from everyone else’s. You know the saying, ‘Even if the mory is gone, the record remains’? I didn’t consciously know it, but my brain did. It knew the record that I had learned that spell.”
“Ahh… it certainly is a strict teaching thod, but it makes sense. But how did you learn that he had overwritten your mories? Didn’t you only find out because Master Alarize told you later?”
“No. One day my master made a mistake. He didn’t hide everything—only part of it. Just like I start limping when I use Linking too much, my master also overexerted himself and suffered from the strain.”
“I see, so that’s how you discovered it.”
“Yeah. And it’s not a aningful teaching thod. It was just torture.”
Then my gaze suddenly drifted toward the sky.
I had only shared stories of my past with Banshi, yet for a brief mont I truly felt as though I were back in those days beside my master.
“After that, I started wondering whether Linking had any drawbacks. So I conducted an experint behind my master’s back.”
“What kind of experint…?”
“Linking is a spell that manipulates mory. My question was: if I stayed ntally alert enough, wouldn’t that resistance eventually build up?”
“And the result?”
“Once I beca conscious of it, I started realizing whenever I was being subjected to Linking. Each ti that happened, I pretended I had lost my mory—I acted. But the strange thing is, after being hit by Linking for over a decade, I unconsciously learned how to manifest and use it myself. Even though my master never taught .”
This ti, Banshi tilted her head.
I knew what that gesture ant.
Can soone truly learn a spell just from being subjected to it?
Without knowing the basic theory or concepts?
Her head was likely full of such doubts.
“In the end, once my master realized I had learned Linking, his attitude toward began to change.”
“Did you get scolded?”
“No. He clearly said this: that learning a spell solely from being affected by it was a trendous talent.”
I cleared my throat and imitated my master’s tone and voice, reproducing the words he told back then.
“Eir, I failed to recognize your true worth all this ti and tornted you with a teaching thod that didn’t suit you. I am sorry, my boy.”
At my impression, Banshi let out a small, quiet laugh.
“I never knew that rely being exposed to a spell repeatedly could count as such remarkable talent. After that, the magic I learned was on an entirely different level.”
“What kind of magic did you learn?”
“Orb Transformation was considered the most basic. Back then, I learned Orb Transformation of every elental type.”
“……Orb Transformation. Even among single-elent mages, fewer than one percent can ever learn that special 9th Circle spell, yet for you it was considered basic……”
Banshi looked quietly envious.
And I could understand why.
She had lost her whole family young, survived on her own, and surely needed soone to guide her beside her.
“Don’t envy it. It was hell. That’s when I learned what it ans for your brain to feel like it’s lting.”
“I’m only a 6th Circle—and not even a formal 6th Circle—so of course I envy it.”
“Well… I suppose you would…”
“What Circle were you back then, Archis?”
“At that ti… between 5th Circle and 6th Circle.”
“Then you were already receiving Archmage successor lessons back then?”
“No. I never wanted to beco an Archmage. I just wanted to stay by my master’s side for a very, very long ti.”
That was how deeply I respected him.
To the point that the highest achievable position of a mage—the Archmage—didn’t tempt at all.
“Ahh……”
“That’s how it was. Back then, all I wanted was to not be a disciple unworthy of standing beside my master…”
But the days I gained both happiness and fulfillnt as I learned magic by my master’s side did not last long.
Because of Sylarid.
“Sylarid destroyed everything. Even after sacrificing my master’s life as an offering, we couldn’t kill him—only seal him. And since I also ended up being betrayed and killed by my own disciple, Draco Tyrant, who shared the sa darkness elent… that’s why I feel sick whenever I see the color black.”
“I can completely understand that feeling. It’s the sa kind of feeling I have toward Etar.”
“You and I really are mages with painful stories, aren’t we?”
Banshi gave a small nod.
Eventually the conversation ran dry, and silence settled.
Banshi pulled a small bottle from inside her uniform.
The liquid inside looked like rotten water covered in layers of moss.
When Banshi opened the bottle, a foul stench spread imdiately.
“Ugh. What is that bottle?”
“dicine.”
“What kind of dicine?”
“A potion that stops growth. I have to drink it regularly.”
“Oh… that thing you ntioned before. Go on, drink it.”
She must have grown used to taking such a terrible potion, because she didn’t even frown as she swallowed it.
Even though the sll alone made my nose suffer horribly, Banshi endured it without any complaint.
“Amazing… Just slling it makes nauseous.”
“It’s still far better than the revolting things Etar has done, so I can endure it.”
My once-diligent disciple becoming a mortal enemy to others—
And the fact that if he ever learned I was still alive, he might very well try to kill too—
“Suddenly feels depressing.”
“What’s wrong?”
“That disciple I raised with so much care… he’s beco a wretched villain in this era. And not just one—two of them. Sotis I wonder if it was because of how I raised them.”
“That isn’t your fault, Archis. Magic changes depending on who uses it—their intentions and nature.”
“Hearing that from you… is oddly comforting.”
“This vacation has been more enjoyable than any I’ve had before.”
Banshi’s words were unexpected. I spoke with a slightly shadowed expression.
“What’s so enjoyable about this…”
“I haven’t had anyone to talk to, nor did I ever try to get close to anyone, but now I’m honored to talk so much with the Archmage… no, with the Full Moon, Archis.”
I heard the brightened tone in Banshi’s voice. The way she called ‘Full Moon’ carried clear thoughtfulness.
“But Archis… may I dare make a difficult request?”
“What is it?”
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