Isekai ni Demodori Shimashita? Chapter 10 (1/2)

Chapter 10 –  Magecraft

With both the cookies and the tea gone, I, who had eaten but a single cookie, was now preparing more tea, when the Prince called out to me as though he had suddenly recalled something.

“Speaking of which, you said that you remembered your past life, but what kind of person were you, Sakura? And you said that you were fifteen, but that technique you used on the bandit chief was pretty good. Where did you remember it from?”

When the Prince had said that, the Squad Captain froze, and turned this way like a machine whose gears needed oiling.

What’s the matter with him? This person freezes up a lot, don’t they?

While thinking this, I looked at him and found that the Squad Captain was looking at me with movements like a robot in need of a good oiling. He opened his mouth.

“Fif-…teen…?”

You’re going to bring that up too? Everyone is surprised when they hear my age, but do I look that different? Being fifteen means that I’m already a fine lady, yet you all say things like this. How rude. After half a year I’ll be sixteen, and at sixteen I can even get married you know? I’m already a fine adult.

While thinking something like this, the Squad Captain started muttering something.

“Fifteen she says…? To think that this child was… But if she’s fifteen, then she’s already an adult but… But however I you look at her, she’s only seven or eight…”

OIOI. Certainly even I’m aware that I’m underdeveloped and stopped growing at eleven, but I have no recollection of being mistaken for a seven year old. Despite how I seem, when I was in primary school I was quick to develop, and was even said to be developing prematurely, yet to think that now I’m being called underdeveloped, or a primary schooler of the like…

No, no, now’s not the time to be thinking about that. Right now I have to properly convey to them that I’m a fifteen year old.

“Just who’s a child? I am fifteen years old. In a world where there are 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year, I am fifteen. In just half a year, I’ll be sixteen. I’m already a fine adult. Ah, this world has days comprising twelve double-hours, so the flow of time is the same. So, even in Alselia, I’m a fifteen year old.”

Indeed; time and physics in Alselia is basically the same as on earth. The writing system and counting system is different, but all the fundamental things are the same.

Up until now, there’s been almost no place where the knowledge of my previous life has been useful; on the contrary I thought it was a bother, but now, finally, it’s helped me. Rather, it’s playing a huge role, isn’t it? It’s wonderful, my previous life.

“It seems that in my previous life, I was called a person called a “magus”. It seems that I was a “Court Magus” or something, you see. Incidentally, my martial skills were learnt at a dojo I’ve frequented since I was a child. It seems that the cause of death in my previous life was because I was stabbed from behind with a sword, so I felt that physical combat skills were necessary for self protection. I’ve been training for about ten years. In the other world, I couldn’t use magecraft at all, so I put the effort I would have spent in magic into martial arts as well, you see.”

After replying, I took a sip of tea.

“A magus you say? Hmm, but you couldn’t use magic in your world, Sakura? Even if you couldn’t use it in that world, can you not use it in this one?”

The Prince seemed somewhat desperate. Well, even in my knowledge of my past life there were very few people who could use magecraft, let alone somebody talented enough to be called a magus, who would be a precious human resource. If things haven’t changed since then, then it’s not as though I can’t understand wanting to pull over magi to your nation’s side, but…

“I haven’t tested it in Alselia yet. At any rate, the moment I came to this world I was in that kind of situation after all.”

I haven’t had the time to do something like test out magecraft you know. My life was suddenly thrown in danger, after all.

“Then won’t you try it out now? If it’s a simple magecraft, even doing it here isn’t a problem, right?”

Well, I did need to try it somewhere, so there shouldn’t be a problem.

“I understand. Then I will try using the basic ignition spell.”

The ignition spell is… well, speaking simply, it’s basically a lighter or a match I suppose. It’s a spell that lights a fire at the tip of your fingers. It’s the very basic of the basics that you learn when you first begin learning magecraft, so there’s hardly any danger.

“Well then… What I desire is a small flame.”

I concentrated and chanted.

By the way, the chant is for the sake of solidifying the user’s mental image, so honestly speaking, just about anything will do. When I first began, my s.h.i.+shou in magecraft taught me what was easiest to form a mental image, but the person themselves said that if you could imagine it, any chant was fine.

Once you understood that and could construct your chants, then you could be called a elementary cla.s.s magician, and once you could use elementary cla.s.s spells without chanting and invoke it using only mental imagery, you were called a magician.

And once you surpa.s.sed this level and could construct new spell theories by yourself, you were called a 『magi』.

In other words, those up until the magician level used only spells whose compositions were publicly available, whereas magi could use spells of original compositions.

Magecraft is the act of transforming the energy inside you into power, and by giving it an image, an effect like the image appears. However, no matter how strong your image is, this is something that ignores the laws of the world; in other words, things that aren’t a match for reason will not be able to be invoked as magic.

For example, “creating a sword from nothing” is impossible, but placing a lump of iron before your eyes and “changing this lump of iron into a sword” is possible. And when it comes to spells where the target is something inorganic, as long as the magic itself doesn’t fail, it will succeed. However, magic used on organic targets (such as humans or animals; things that have will), because of their will, the effectiveness will drop remarkably (even when they are unconscious).

In other words, spells like “boiling the opponent’s blood” is has an extremely difficult level of difficulty, and will almost never succeed.

As a result, magical attacks are usually things like bringing forth flames, or attacking with a ball of water or a wind blade. Creating flames is giving the image of flames to the “power” itself, so it isn’t “creating something from nothing”. The ball of water is also “gathering the moisture in the air” so there is also no problem with this.

“It seems that it isn’t invoking.”

My chant did not invoke magic.