[V10C1] Twelve Years Ago at Minerva

Carla Maxwell was visiting Minerva for the first time in several months. She entered through the back gate and, without any sign of hesitation, quickly hid herself in the bushes.

After confirming that no one was around, she peeked out from the bushes and gestured to her companion.

“Hey Bro, this way.”

“Why are you sneaking around?” Her companion replied. “Aren’t you a research student here? Can’t you just enter through the main gate like a normal person?”

“Well, you know, there are various circumstances.”

Despite still being in her twenties, Carla had already obtained the advanced mage qualifications, thereby earning her the title of Starspear Witch. She also had a reputation as the prodigy who could manipulate seven spells simultaneously, not to mention her invention of light-aspected spell Starspear.

Everyone believed that Carla was a shoe-in for the Seven Sages, yet she spent most of her time traveling across the country for mana density surveys. This was something that Minerva’s faculty did not appreciate.

Thus, getting discovered by them would result in unnecessary delays.

“The old folks keep telling me that developing new magecraft is more important than traveling,” Carla explained.

“Wow, so they really expect great things from you, huh. Meanwhile, everyone said ‘Your novel is very unique’ about my thesis paper. Terrible, right?”

“That thesis made some interesting points, but you’re always lacking in the evidence department.”

“Ugh, my little sister is harsh on me too…”

Carla weaved through the bushes to make her way to the research building, then darted inside once no one was in sight. Her brother Theodore clumsily ran in behind her.

Theodore was a scholar studying dragon ecology, so he did go on the occasional research trip. While he didn’t travel as much as Carla, he possessed much less stamina than expected, already huffing and puffing after a short jog.

“Come on, Bro… How do you do fieldwork like that?”

“I’m not as young as you,” Theodore answered.

“But you’re only twenty-six. What are you gonna do after thirty?”

“I wonder.”

After waiting for her brother’s breathing to steady out, Carla climbed the stairs of the research building.

There was a reason why Carla, who rarely returned to Minerva, came back with an outsider like her brother in tow.

Her master, Professor Gideon Rutherford, had asked her to bring a biologist knowledgeable about dragons. Apparently, he wanted an appraisal for the dragonling that was discovered on Minerva’s premises.

The laws of Ridill forbade the disposal of dragon eggs or offspring when discovered in populated areas. This was because improper handling could incur the wrath of other dragons, leading to massive disasters.

Thus, it was generally recommended to return them to their habitats, with exceptions for dangerous species like black dragons.

However, the problem this time was that they didn’t know where the dragonling came from. Additionally, the scales of dragons tended to change color several times throughout childhood, making it difficult to determine their species.

Thus, Professor Gideon Rutherford wrote this in his letter to Carla: “You have a researcher in your family who specializes in dragons, right? Bring them over for a bit. And show your face here since it’s been a while.”

Rutherford had always been a great teacher to Carla. It was with his encouragement that she could embark on her journey for mana density surveys.

The fact that she hadn’t shown her face at Minerva recently was also true, making this a request Carla couldn’t refuse.

Carla began wondering if her junior disciple Louis was doing well, when her thoughts were interrupted by the blood-curdling scream of the aforementioned Louis.

Theodore gasped and started trembling in his boots.

“W-What was that just now? It sounded like the death throes of an earth dragon…!”

“Oh, um… it’s just the usual.”

“The usual!?”

Carla turned the last corner in the familiar hallway, reaching the lab of Professor Rutherford. She raised her hand to knock on the door, before pausing.

Dull thumping sounds could be heard from inside.

“Carla, that has to be the sound of a murder in progress… Please don’t open the door…”

“Well…”

Carla could imagine what was happening on the other side of the door. While she wasn’t enthusiastic about entering the room, she couldn’t just leave it alone.

Carla knocked and, without waiting for a response, opened the door to the lab.

“Master, I’m here… Wow.”

All sorts of research materials and books were scattered haphazardly throughout the lab. And on the cluttered floor laid a boy with chestnut hair, Carla’s seventeen-year-old junior disciple Louis.

Straddling his back was an old man with short-cut white hair, gripping the back of Louis’s head and rubbing his face against the floor.

This eccentric old man was Carla’s master, Professor Gideon Rutherford, also known as the Smoke Mage.

Rutherford held his smoking pipe in one hand as he turned to Carla, while using the other hand to restrain Louis.

“Oh, Carla. You’re back.”

“Yeah, here I am, Master. Also, um… I’d like to greet my junior disciple, so would you mind releasing him? I’m feeling kinda sorry for him. Any more of this and his nose might get crushed for good.”

Carla’s gentle scolding drove Rutherford to furrow his bushy eyebrows and click his tongue.

“Sorry for him? The brat picks a fight with me every single day. Tries to punch me after learning a new spell. Tries to punch me after making an improvement to his barriers. He’s like a damn broken record.”

“I imagine he’s pretty frustrated by how he always loses to you.”

Rutherford scoffed and, after putting the pipe back in his mouth, blew out a puff of smoke.

His alias of Smoke Mage was the result of his special magic for applying enchantments to the smoke from his pipe. This smoke possessed the property of being resistant to wind magic, and it could even paralyze foes while slipping through typical defensive barriers.

As a result, the still-inexperienced Louis always ended up inhaling the smoke, getting paralyzed, and suffering a merciless beating at the hands of Rutherford.

“You know,” Rutherford continued. “I saw the idiot running around energetically in a room filled with my smoke, so I thought he had finally succeeded in blocking it with a barrier…”

“He didn’t?”

“No, he was just pushing through it with sheer willpower. Even after inhaling a poison that would paralyze a bear. What the hell is wrong with him?”

Rutherford tapped the back of Louis’s head with his pipe. Louis showed no reaction, seemingly unconscious.

Carla wondered to herself. Should she be more impressed by the master who uses poison on his disciple, or the disciple who could keep moving while poisoned?

Ultimately, she decided to be amazed by both of them.

“Maybe he developed a resistance to your smoke by inhaling it every day?” Carla suggested.

“Guess I’ll try a different poison next time.”

“Come on, give him a break once in a while. Anyway, Master, I brought my brother with me like you asked. Bro!”

Carla turned around to see her brother hiding behind the door, shaking uncontrollably. She called out to him, but Theodore only let out a startled gasp.

“Eep! Are all mage training institutes this violent!?” Theodore shouted.

“Nah, the violence is only limited to the vicinity of these two,” Carla answered.

“I feel like I got caught up in a territorial dispute between earth dragons and fire dragons. I wanna go home…”

At the sight of her sobbing twenty-six-year-old brother, Carla put on a wry smile and turned to her master.

“Uh, so yeah, this is my brother Theodore. He’s a magical creature biologist.”

“Oh, sorry about that, Mr. Biologist. Didn’t mean to show you something so unsightly when you’ve come all this way.”

Rutherford apologized while kicking the ‘unsightly’ body of the unconscious Louis towards the wall. Then, he headed into the storage room and retrieved a decently large cage.

This cage contained a dragonling about the size of a cat.

“This little one is the dragon in question.”

“Wow!”

Theodore’s face lit up with joy the moment he saw the dragonling, and he immediately pounced on the cage. He displayed as much affection for the dragon as most people would for a kitten.

“So cute! I could just gobble you right up! Okay, he’s a male, probably about a month or two old? I wonder where you came from.”

In response, the dragonling made a hissing sound.

Just by listening to that sound, Theodore seemed to understand the dragonling’s mood.

“Oh, did I make you uneasy? It’s okay, there’s no need to be scared. Maybe I should have rubbed some grass or dirt on my clothes. Professor, is this little one eating well? What are you feeding him? How many times a day does he drink water? Have you measured his mana?”

Rutherford made a difficult-to-read expression as he took a puff from his smoking pipe and scratched his short white hair.

“Mr. Biologist. Can you determine his species? The return location will change depending on that.”

“Hmm…”

Theodore leaned his face as close to the cage as possible.

The dragonling’s scales were overall a chestnut brown color. However, there were also reddish, blackish, and yellowish scales, making it too difficult to identify the dragon species based on color alone.

The wings would become more distinctive as the dragon approached adulthood, but most babies looked relatively similar at this stage.

After observing the dragon for a while, Theodore withdrew his casual tone and made his informed declaration.

“He’s a red dragon, a greater species. Here, you can see the distinctive flame sac around his throat.”

“A red dragon, huh. In that case, we need to return him to Dalsmore.”

Dalsmore was a mountainous region located in eastern Ridill. It was characterized by dry, reddish-brown soil and was known as the habitat for fire dragons and red dragons.

Carla had visited the area a few times during her travels for mana density surveys. The region boasted several areas with high mana, which drew numerous dragons to live there.

“If we’re headed to Dalsmore, it’d be best to start at the town of Lugaroa. That’s the path I took last time.”

Carla’s suggestion prompted Rutherford to scratch his short white hair again.

“Oh… Lugaroa, wasn’t there an earth dragon stampede there?”

“Yeah, about four or five years ago. I passed by recently and they’ve recovered quite a bit though,” Carla replied.

“Has it really been that long? I must be getting forgetful with age…”

Rutherford furrowed his brow, twirled his smoking pipe in his hand, then glanced at Louis, who was still lying on the floor.

“Alright, let’s go return this little guy then. Hey, the brat pretending to be asleep over there. You’re coming too, as the luggage carrier for your master.”

In the next instant, Louis jumped up from the floor and delivered a spinning kick to Rutherford by using his right foot as a pivot.

However, the full-powered kick was met with a smirk from Rutherford as he played with the pipe in his mouth.

“Dumb brat. You failed to hide your killing intent…! There!”

Rutherford narrowly evaded Louis’s kick with a hair’s breadth, then jammed his fist into the wide-open stomach of his disciple. Louis’s slender body got sent flying out the window.

Seeing this, Theodore held the dragon cage to his chest and screamed.

“We’re on the third floor!!”

“Yeah, but it’s not a big deal. This is just the usual,” Carla replied.

“The violence here is just too much!”

Theodore sniffled, before noticing the dragonling whimpering anxiously in the cage.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come with you to Dalsmore. There’s no way I can entrust you to these dangerous people… Ugh, why is Minerva so scary…”

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