[V16C5] What A Master Can Do For Their Disciple

Several years ago, when the Fourth Thorn Witch, Melissa Roseberg, was still in the Seven Sages, she once stopped by the Magic Corps headquarters.

It wasn’t for work. She heard about the young commander being a handsome man, and wanted to see him up close.

Louis Miller the Barrier Mage was the youngest man ever to be appointed commander of the Magic Corps. According to the rumors, he was an extremely polite gentleman, and well-regarded even in high society.

Her visit happened to coincide with a practical combat drill in the Magic Corps training grounds. And so, Melissa made her way over, twirling her parasol and humming to herself…

…Until she turned the corner to see a man with braided hair and a monocle smashing down his colleagues with a barrier.

The man punched through a spell with the barrier on his fist, then closed the distance and grabbed the robe of the mage responsible, hurling him with great force.

The thrown man collided into a teammate in the middle of chanting, sending both of them tumbling to the ground.

The magical battle barrier was supposed to nullify physical attacks, but it was not capable of detecting certain actions, such as grabbing clothes and throwing people.

(What a savage…)

Apparently, this training match was a one-against-all. That barbarian versus everyone else.

His manner of fighting was simply outrageous, little more than punching and kicking people with barriers.

Was the commander of the Magic Corps really okay with his men acting this wild during training? Well, not that it was Melissa’s problem.

(…More importantly, where’s the hot guy I keep hearing about?)

Melissa found a group of Magic Corps members nearby, so she asked them.

“Hey, where’s your commander? You know, that Barrier Mage guy.”

At the moment, Melissa was unusually dressed in her Sage robes and even carried her staff, so they quickly recognized her as one of the Seven Sages.

All of them straightened their posture, pointed toward the training ground in unison, and said, “Right there.”

Their fingers were pointed at the man from earlier, right as he delivered a flying kick.

This was a brutal technique made possible by a combination of flight magic and the barrier deployed at the tip of his boots. The pitiful guy in his sights got sent flying backwards.

“…Him?” Melissa asked, squinting her eyes in disbelief.

They all nodded with awkwardly vacant half-smiles, as if they failed to hide their true feelings.

“Yes, the guy beating everyone down with barriers.”

“Oh look, he just landed a spinning kick into an uppercut.”

“Now he picked up the guy he knocked out and put a barrier on him…”

“So he can throw him into other people as a projectile…”

“What kind of savage would launch people into the air like that? Those guys are your subordinates, you know…”

A shout of “This barrier is for grinding you into dust!” could be heard from the direction of the training ground, followed by screams and cursing.

Melissa silently averted her eyes and walked away.


And now, in the present, Melissa saw a scene very similar to the one from several years ago.

The disciple of the Barrier Mage, Glenn Dudley, was soaring through the air above the training ground with flight magic, and screaming his head off.

This was because his master, Louis Miller, was currently chasing him with flight magic and trying to ram him with a barrier.

“No, no, no! I’m going to die! Get away from me…!”

“You call yourself a Magic Knight, but you can’t even ride a horse. The least you can do is master flight magic, foolish disciple of mine.”

“Horses and flight magic have nothing to do with each other…!”

In addition to Louis’s pursuit, members of the Magic Corps were attacking Glenn from the ground. All of them looked apologetic, but that did not stop them from targeting Glenn with arrows of flame and lightning.

“Hang in there, Glenn! Dodge like your life depends on it!”

“A few of the spells have tracking formulas, so keep an eye out for those!”

“Guys, stay focused! Remember that we’re all screwed if one of us hits Former Commander Miller by accident!”

The members of the Magic Corps seemed to sympathize with Glenn, but they showed him little mercy. Out of their sense of duty, for sure.

Melissa paused to watch the chase between master and disciple. She was actually pretty impressed, as this was her first time seeing Glenn in action.

She heard about him being a novice-level mage despite the grandiose title of Magic Knight, so she hadn’t expected much.

Now that she had a chance to see his skills, Melissa came to the conclusion that he wasn’t half bad at flight magic. Only a handful of mages reached that level of mastery.

He might be useful as an errand boy, Melissa thought to herself, until she saw him getting hit by a wind spell and tumbling to the ground while screaming.

A few kind-hearted Magic Corps members used wind magic to catch his fall, while his master Louis did not even pretend to care.

“Oh? Fourth Thorn Witch-dono.”

Louis noticed Melissa and made a graceful descent in front of her.

“I don’t see you at the Magic Corps often.”

“I came to deliver a message to you,” Melissa replied. “You know that magical battle between the Sage disciples? The application for the arena got approved, so they sent me to tell you.”

This sort of task would normally fall to Raul, but he was currently busy writing a formal report regarding the emergency restoration of a forbidden tome. With his study abroad coming up shortly, he needed to finish that as soon as possible.

Melissa had peaked into the detached workshop this morning, and she saw Cyril scolding Raul for not being done with the report. It would probably take a while longer.

Louis checked the documents and quickly widened his eyes behind his monocle.

“Oh? It seems we’ve got quite a good location.”

“Yeah, it’s the same forest you used for the Sage Selection Exam. Seems like Mary-sama and Bradford-sama got super fired up, so they made sure to reserve a top-tier venue.”

To be honest, Melissa thought it was a bit overkill for something as trivial as a match between disciples. After all, the word “disciple” was practically synonymous with servant in House Roseberg.

“Looks like you’re training your disciple hard for the upcoming battle,” Melissa continued. “But is it even necessary? The Silent Witch’s disciple is a total amateur who can barely squirt water.”

“…How much do you know about the Silent Witch’s disciple?”

Louis had a sharp look in his eyes now.

In response, Melissa smirked and stretched out her right hand, palm up. The classic gesture for “give me something if you want that info”.

“Let us say I owe you a favor then,” Louis said, shrugging with a wry smile.

Melissa twisted her bright red lips into a satisfied grin.

She would be acting as Raul’s substitute in the Seven Sages during his study abroad.

In which case, there were many opportunities to work with the Barrier Mage. A favor from him was quite valuable.

“The guy’s a textbook water mage. Good at imbuement, bad at projecting his mana. He can use a magic sword. No flight magic, but he’s very athletic. He’ll leap right over you if there’s even a tiny foothold. Basically, just blast him from a distance and you’ll be fine. Your disciple should be good at that kind of thing, right?”

Melissa said this all with a confident smile, conveniently omitting the fact that Isaac outwitted her just the other day.

Louis listened carefully and after a bit of thought, asked, “What is his mana capacity?”

“That I don’t know. But I’ll give you one tip. Walker’s real strength lies outside of magic.”

Perhaps because he worked for the Second Prince, Isaac Walker was always terrifyingly well-prepared. This applied to not only his service to Monica, but across the board.

“…The guy knows how to gather intel and pull strings. He’ll do the same thing for the upcoming match. I’d bet money on it.”

“Oh?”

“If you want, you can try keeping the location of the arena secret, or even feeding him false info. You know, since water and earth mages depend a lot on the terrain.”

Melissa figured that Isaac became stronger the more time he was given to prepare. Since he was given over a week, he could easily gather data on the venue and his opponents, and come up with the necessary countermeasures.

After all, this was the guy who came armed to a sleepover in case of poison.

“Well, that’s about all I can say about him… Oh right, one more thing. The Silent Witch wants you to stop by her office the next time you’re in the palace.”

Louis frowned in suspicion.

“The Silent Witch has business with me? …What is she plotting?”

“Don’t ask me,” Melissa replied, though she quickly recalled Monica’s face and put on a wicked grin. “She seemed pretty agitated though. Maybe she wants to knock you down a notch?”

Louis instantly made the face of, “Ugh, now I really don’t want to go.”

＊　＊　＊

After wrapping up his disciple’s training, Louis made his way to the Silent Witch’s office with cautious steps.

According to Melissa, Monica had seemed quite agitated.

(Is this going to be a trap? Or is she just probing me for info?)

The girl had been acting irrationally after taking pity on her disciple, so Louis had no clue what she might try to pull. Either way, it was sure to be a hassle.

Louis knocked on the door and Monica opened it almost instantly.

“Louis-san!”

He looked behind Monica to see the disastrous state of her office, exactly as he had imagined it.

She had probably stacked books and documents haphazardly in the back of her office, and continued doing so until the entire room was cluttered with junk.

The only empty area was the narrow space next to the door. Surely, Monica had shoved everything there into the back as well. Judging by the quill and inkwell sitting on the ground, she used this space for writing. There was no sign of her desk, which was probably buried under one of the garbage piles.

“…If you have business with me, can we at least meet in a halfway decent room?”

Louis muttered a complaint, but Monica seemed completely oblivious to it.

Exactly as Melissa had described, she was staring at Louis with a glint in her eyes, and breathing heavily through her nose.

There was also a stack of papers in her hands.

“Louis-san, you wrote a thesis back when you were a student, right? About adding additional formulas to the magical battle barrier…”

Indeed he did, but that was over ten years ago.

At the time, the magical battle barrier was still a newly developed technology, so there was a lot of room for improvement.

The barrier proved excellent at nullifying physical attacks, but it also came with high mana consumption, making it difficult to maintain. Adding additional formulas to the barrier was thought to be nearly impossible.

That was when Louis, still a student, wrote a thesis proposing a way to overcome the issue.

“Well, that brings back memories…”

Louis’s thesis had been so well-received that he was allowed to advance to higher education, despite his behavior as a problem student.

In addition, his thesis inspired the development of a spell for projecting magical battles onto a white screen for viewing.

“If we use the spell-linkage described in your thesis, then we could add this spell too, right?”

Monica asked this question while picking up a few sheets of paper from the floor and shoving them at Louis.

Written there was a magical formula for transmitting sound between the barrier and the magical tool for maintaining the barrier.

The current barrier was only capable of projecting the visuals, so it had no way of transmitting audio. Monica was trying to change that, allowing the combatants to hear the voices of the spectators.

After a bit of thought, Louis determined that it might work. Some fine-tuning would be necessary, but it was theoretically possible. The Silent Witch had already demonstrated a similar audio transmission at the festival in Rainfield.

Next, Louis thought about Monica’s intent in devising such a spell.

“…I see how it is,” Louis muttered. “You want to communicate with your disciple during the battle so you can pass him information.”

Doing this would result in big changes to the entire setup. The masters in the spectator seats were now responsible for observing the battle and relaying the strategy to their disciples. Coordination between master and disciple just became crucial.

As Louis came to this frightening conclusion, Monica fidgeted nervously with her fingers.

“No, um… I just… I just wanted to cheer for my disciple…”

“…”

Louis used a finger to push up his monocle.

This girl was developing a revolutionary spell that was sure to go down in Ridill’s magical history textbooks, just so she could cheer on her disciple. And she intended to do it in the span of a single week.

That was surprising enough, but the idea that Monica wanted to send words of encouragement? That shocked Louis just as much.

She was the monster who developed chantless magic because she could barely speak in front of people, and now she wanted to cheer for someone?

With his finger still on his monocle, Louis let out a deep sigh.

He did not care what emotions were driving the monster or how stupid they were making her… but the spell she wrote was worth testing.

“…Very well,” Louis said. “I will review the formula.”

“T-Thank you so much!”

“But first, let us have a change of location. I refuse to do any work in this dump.”

＊　＊　＊

Monica and Louis relocated to the Jade Chamber and began experimenting with adding the sound transmission spell to the magical battle barrier.

Monica was secretly relieved. She had been worried that Louis might refuse to listen to her.

After all, when it came to magical battle barriers, Louis was the most knowledgeable person Monica knew. She could not rely on anyone else for this matter.

While scanning through Monica’s magical formula, Louis asked her a question.

“By the way, my fellow sage, aren’t you supposed to be writing a report for the incident in the Forbidden Archives?”

“Oh, um, yes, but my part is done.”

Cyril had to write most of the report on the emergency restoration in the Forbidden Archives, since he was the one who actually performed the restoration. There was not much for Monica to write since she merely gave her approval… which made it a bit strange that Raul was having so much trouble.

(I wonder how Cyril-sama is doing…)

Once Monica’s thoughts turned to Cyril, she recalled the final night of their sleepover, causing her face to turn bright red. She lowered her head to hide it.

The meltingly soft smile on his face. The single word of “cute”.

Simply thinking back to the memory caused a thunderous “Kaboom!” to echo in her ears.

(How am I supposed to act the next time I see Cyril-sama…?)

The lovestruck maiden seemed very concerned, but her worries were completely unfounded.

Because the next time they met, Cyril Ashley would, as usual, be engaged in some fairly outrageous antics.

In the flashback, Louis had been desperate to join the Seven Sages. When he saw House Roseberg passing their chair in the Sages to Melissa, he almost considered crushing the Rosebergs out of spite.

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