Pen and Paper Translations

Episode 27 Grading

A week had passed.

Today as well, the great hall of Glaube Magic School was packed with mages.

Only, it was different from the past week of noisy debate and study.

Today, there flowed nothing but a silence like death.

Rustle. Rustle.

Under everyone’s tense gaze, Perseta read through the stacks of papers piled on the rostrum one by one.

“Rohan Agasa.”

“Y-yes!”

“The way the frequency of mana waves changes as they pass through a plane. A method of measuring the distance a mana wave has traversed through a plane using the scattered frequencies. The approach was good. But the calculations are dreadful. Ugly, shoddy, and even wrong. I give you a C-. You’ve avoided expulsion… Do better.”

“Ah, yes. Yes! Thank you!”

It was truly a strange sight.

Perseta was thirty-five.

By the standard of ordinary folk, not a young age. By the standard of mages, just barely old enough to say he had shed the airs of a novice. He was still quite young.

By contrast, the mages now all keyed up and staring only at Perseta’s mouth were without exception of advanced years.

Except for Sage Sienel’s disciples Jin and Al, the youngest mage, Salinelle, was forty-one, and the next youngest was fifty-one.

In other words, they were mages whose hair was all graying or snow-white.

Mages who back home were called “master” were now, like schoolchildren, sitting bolt upright to receive Perseta’s grading.

“What is this? You got the very calculations for mana-frequency scattering wrong to begin with. The arithmetic is so slapdash it looks like the numbers are rioting. F!”

“Th-that’s…”

Whether or not the person in question felt humiliated, Perseta opened the next exam paper.

From his point of view, the mere fact that he was willing to give them an exam like this was generosity and forbearance, so this was only natural.

“Mm! At the plane’s outermost boundary, detect the mana arriving from the Mana Sun. Depending on the position of the outermost boundary, you confirm differences in the amount of mana incident upon the same area. Use that difference to compute the tilt of the rotation axis? A very interesting idea. Whose is this?”

“Mine!”

Sage Sienel Mirsa shot up her hand.

A pleased smile crept to Perseta’s lips.

But he coolly looked back down at the paper.

“Hm. But to use this method, you need to know the precise size and shape of the plane, and have a means to measure with precision the incident mana at the outermost boundary… Oh? The numbers match exactly?”

“Yes! Completing and studying a dimensional map of the Human World has been an unfulfilled wish handed down since my master’s master’s master. I completed it. It is unlikely to be far wrong.”

That confident answer truly satisfied Perseta.

As expected of a sage.

To think she had already grasped the plane’s form and size with precision!

In a world he had thought full of nothing but idiots, how heartening this was.

There were plenty of people sufficiently clever. They had only found the shift in perspective difficult.

“Sage Sienel Mirsa. Full marks. A+.”

“Kyah!”

Sienel let out a girlish squeal, sprang to her feet, and bounced up and down.

Some mages looked on enviously. Many more stared in sheer bewilderment at the sight.

And at the last moment, the pent-up grievances finally burst.

“F. Master Karua Shahin. Pack your things and be on your way. The same goes for the rest. All mages who received failing grades, please leave.”

The instant Perseta so declared—

Bang!

Karua Shahin, who had just received a failing grade, slammed the table as if to break it and sprang to his feet.

“Shut up! Who are you to judge me!!”

He glared around threateningly and shouted.

“Have you all lost your minds? You’re taking an exam from a brat who still smells of milk? Have you no shame!”

However, more than half the mages merely looked at him with cold eyes.

“Does he not understand what a tremendous opportunity this is?”

“Tsk, tsk. I wish the fool would stop advertising it and get out.”

Karua Shahin’s face flushed red.

But luckily for him, not every mage met him with scorn.

“Right! The grading is absurd to begin with! If one’s thinking differs from his, he slaps on an F or a D and brands you a failure? What kind of exam is this!”

“He’s right! Everyone here has gone mad!”

They were all mages who had received failing grades from Perseta. Instead of packing quickly and leaving, they had dawdled and now rose up.

“Haa…”

Perseta sighed.

Truly, he was tired.

So this is why Master did not send me out into the world sooner.

If he had completed <Prinkipia> at twenty and stepped into the world?

He might have gotten so annoyed he would have killed them all.

Back then he had lived only in the tower, communing mostly with beings of the Mystic Worlds and learning ethics and feeling from them. The him of that time would have done just that.

Of those who passed today, perhaps ninety percent would have received death sentences. The charge: stupidity.

Well then.

What should he do now?

Now, when he was pacing himself so as not to kill them all…

As Perseta pondered, the sage Sienel Mirsa, sensing his distress, stepped forward first.

“Al.”

“Yes, Master. Shall I make it quiet?”

“You know, right? If you’re going to use your hands, don’t…”

“Of course. If I use them, I’ll use them properly!”

“Good.”

Al limbered up slightly.

Sienel Mirsa’s two disciples, Jin Lianne and Al Adne, were both twenty-four.

Jin was a woman. Al was a man.

Orphans taken in together by Sienel at age four, they were young, but already famous in the Empire as genius mages.

Especially among them, Al Adne, whose hand was bold, was known as Sienel Mirsa’s right arm and as a ferocious hound.

Al swept back his gray hair, flashed his blue eyes, and bellowed at the noisy mages so the great hall rang.

“Silence! Have you forgotten the presence of the Sage!”

But this time was not like the last.

The mage, poisoned to the hilt and insulted to the utmost… and this time they were several, weren’t they? Their ringleader Karua Shahin showed his nerve.

“Hmph! And who are you to be shouting here! You’re not even fit to be my disciple! You’re no sage yourself, and you think to insult us all and go unscathed! And even were it the Sage, it’s the same! We can now connect to the Mana Sun as well! Do you think we would fear even a sage!”

At that line crossed, Al Adne smiled white.

“Do you truly think so? How amusing. Go on, try.”

“You cur!”

“Why? Is your mouth all you have? I said, try.”

Step, step.

Al strode right out and stood before Karua Shahin.

In the end, Karua could not hold back.

“You wretch!!!”

A massive surge of mana burst from his body.

In an instant, a thick fog pooled around them.

“O ancient, ancient pit. O breath of ice that blooms therein. Here and now I beseech thee. Let the frigid north wind’s snow and frost descend…”

His sonorous incantation echoed.

It was a spell that borrowed the breath of a snow maiden dwelling in the Illusion Realm.

Mages could shape their own mana and cast directly, but they preferred to borrow power from another world like this. With far less effort and mana, they could command far greater force.

As Karua chanted the spell “Breath of the Snow Maiden,” other mages began to join in.

“Stare with those glazed fish-eyes and see clearly! Whether our magic is failing grade or not!”

“Go on then, put on your airs again!”

Among the failing mages, a dozen or so chanted in unison.

They were trying to reclaim their crushed pride by displays of strength.

Thanks to Perseta’s formulae, they had gained access to the Mana Sun and were riding a wave of confidence.

So shameless they lacked any sense of gratitude or propriety toward Perseta, who had shared such knowledge without condition.

Al Adne stood smack in the middle of the dozen mages’ spells, arms folded in lofty disdain.

Only an icy sneer fell from his face.

He bared his white teeth and spoke.

“Magic? You mean this?”

Clap!

The moment Al clapped once—

“Huh…?”

“Huh?”

“Wait. Why…”

The snow maiden’s breath that had begun to rise in the mist, the fairy lights that twinkled and bewitched the world, the blazing claw of the fire spirit had slipped from their control.

Sssss—

The breath, the lights, the claw slipped of their own accord, encircled Al Adne, and slowly revolved around him as if guarding him.

Looking down upon the dozen rebels, Al Adne said,

“Even after learning those grand formulae, your links to the Mystic Worlds are this flimsy. So flimsy I could infiltrate and steal them while eating my meals.”

“Such… nonsense…”

“That much magic, all at once…”

The mages who had boldly claimed they could even take on a sage turned pale.

They had thought wrong, very wrong.

Though young, Al Adne was a genius recognized by the Empire; though old, they were people barely acknowledged even in their small regions.

They swam in different waters, as they say.

Even knowing the same formulae, the depth of application and interpretation and their computational ability were worlds apart.

Clap!

“Gkhh!”

When Al Adne scattered the seized magic and clapped his hands once more, the dozen-odd mages were pressed to the floor as if crushed by something.

They trembled, trying to rise, but could not even lift their heads.

“Mm… such effortless non-chanting magic.”

“As expected of the Sage’s disciple.”

Al’s mastery was exquisite enough to make other mages click their tongues.

So bathing in their admiration, Al stood before the prone mages and pronounced arrogantly,

“One. Even after warnings, you committed discourtesy before the Sage.”

Step. He recited the charges, one pace at a time.

“One. You dared employ offensive magic first before me, the Sage’s proxy.”

Step.

“One. You were discourteous to Master Perseta, whom the Sage honors. This tramples the authority of the Sage, whom His Imperial Majesty himself honors, and in turn disdains His Majesty’s authority. Do you dare. Expect. To go on living after insulting His Imperial Majesty?”

The Emperor was invoked.

Mages who had never imagined such a thing were appalled.

“Uhehhh!”

“N-no! That was never our intent!”

“His Imperial Majesty… has never crossed our minds! This is slander!”

The mages cried out, faces pressed to the floor. But Al was merciless.

“For such crimes, tearing you limb from limb would be just. But this is Master Perseta’s domain. We cannot spill blood here at will. Therefore, I will be lenient and end your lives as mages. Your names will be specially entered on the Empire’s roll of traitors, and you will have to watch your conduct all your days.”

With that, Al turned his back.

“Then… for the base remainder of your lives, give thanks and thanks again for Master Perseta’s grace.”

Rrrrrr—

The massive mana pouring from Al’s body pressed upon the space.

“Gaaah! No—!”

“No! Not that—!”

Al’s mana seeped into the prone mages’ bodies.

The violent energy shook and scrambled and tangled their very senses for feeling mana.

A mage subjected to this can never use magic again.

If a truly great high mage devoted all their effort to untangling those senses, there might be a chance of recovery… but who would undertake such toil for criminals entered on the Empire’s roll of traitors?

Thus these men would have to lay down magic, their lifelong companion and their power, and live as common folk.

“No—!!!”

A wretched scream.

But even that did not last long.

“Be quiet.”

Clap!

At Al’s next clap, the great hall doors swung open, and as if gravity had reversed, they dropped out past the threshold.

“Nooo…”

With their fading cries, the great hall doors shut once more.

Bang!

Peaceful quiet returned.

Step, step.

Task finished, Al walked forward and bowed deeply to Perseta.

“Forgive me, Master. I overstepped.”

Then Sage Sienel also rose, came forward, and bowed.

“Master, Al only followed my instructions. The fault is mine. I am embarrassed to have caused a disturbance and beg your pardon.”

Perseta stared blankly at them, then scratched his cheek as if at a loss.

Then he returned to the rostrum and rifled through the exam papers.

“Mm. The grading is complete. Then those who failed and still have not left, please depart this place quickly.”

At those words, nearly half the mages hastily packed and fled the great hall.

Those who remained were only those who had received C- or better and passed.

Perseta looked once at the now-sparse seats and nodded.

“All right, then. Let’s move on.”

At that, Sage Sienel, a broad smile on her wrinkled face, scampered quickly back to her seat.