Chapter 3: Magical Training Revisited (1/2)

Lute, 3-years old.

Walking, hearing conversations, and reaching the point of understanding them. The circumstances of this orphanage he was also able to understand a great deal about it.

El-sensei, a rabbit from the beast tribe, opened this orphanage for personal reasons.

For what reasons she opened this orphanage, I did not understand.

As of now, there are 18 children including myself living in this orphanage.

Every year, the amount of children increases at a pace of 2-4.

In a war that broke out before I was born, it seemed that the pace would increase by many, occasionally by up to 10 people in a year.

If that were the case, then one would assume the orphanage would also lack food to eat for each day, and the children would have depressed expressions. The economic conditions were bad, but by no means were the children needy.

The reason was that El-sensei was an excellent magician, so they didn’t have to go hungry.

For the sake of this small town without a doctor.

El-sensei acted as a substitute, and with the use of magic cured the townspeople.

And also gathered the town’s children and taught them reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and common etiquette from the home school she opened.

Furthermore, she also instructed children with talent as magicians on the basics.

She amassed so many favorable relationships that the townspeople, out of gratitude, would contribute to the orphanage, and often women would take the initiative to help out in the orphanage as volunteers.

Thanks to her contributions the children ate without worry.

With that said, it doesn’t mean the children did nothing.

4 year olds, looked after the younger children, 5~6 year olds during the day, studied the alphabet, reading, arithmetic, history, and general education. And after finishing, with the exception of sweeping, laundry——-cooking, were in charge of the chores.

When they turn 7 years old, they would receive simple jobs from the townspeople.

Weeding the fields, gathering the harvest, transporting the wheat, handling the poultry, sweeping the shops, etcetera.

A portion of that went to the orphanage.

Those that raised money, when they were 7 years old, left the orphanage.

They became merchant’s apprentices, craftsman disciples, maids-in training for the wealthy, etc.

Leaving the orphanage by the time you were 10, and getting a job became an unspoken rule.

I was immediately judged as [Having no talent in Magic]. But, I’m not particularly pessimistic.

[Despite having trouble in this parallel world, and not having the chance to fire off flashy magic due to bad luck.] just that much is fine.

Besides, If I use the magical tool, magical liquid metal it’s likely that I can manufacture guns in this world ——— handguns. So, I plan to study magic to the extent that I am able to produce handguns with the magical liquid metal.

Just like when I was practicing the alphabet among other things in class; I had also started openly attending lessons on the basics of magic.

Naturally, I could start attending class at the age of 7.

Typically, even if you were to practice at an age less than that,  the body wouldn’t be ready yet, so it will inevitably be a burden—- I had those thoughts.

Character writing class was in the morning.

From midday to afternoon the basic magician class is held in the orphanage’s back yard.

In the afternoon, I watched as the lesson moved toward a corner of the backyard.

El-sensei had an expression that seemed to say she wanted to run away, she had the same expression in the character writing and other classes, though it is easy to overlook since she doesn’t make a fuss and is quiet about it.

In front of El-sensei, students studying the basics of magic are lined up.

There is one child from the orphanage, and two from the town —- three in total.

The orphanage’s older generation left, to officially be taught magic at a higher-level magic school, those in the class who have talent are rare and few in number.

Under El-sensei’s instructions, first is warm-up exercises.

Running around the building.

Muscle training.

And after a break, we train in hand-to-hand martial arts.

The martial arts in this world focuses on strikes and throws.

The martial art being taught is similar to wrestling and kickboxing.

After another break, fencing is next.

Holding a wooden sword, only doing practice swings.

After a while a fellow pupil partnered with El-sensei and did randori.

According to Sensei, those who have talent as a magician are also first rate fencers and martial artists.

Even though there seems to be the possibility of being defeated by a magician without using magic but with their sword or fist, I still didn’t give up and earnestly did this training.

Seems like the magician is unexpectedly physical.

Again, another break.

After that, there was even more magic training.

First of all,assistance magic (body reinforcement technique).

Magic that raises the hidden physical power of the body with magical power.

The body reinforcement ended, next was defending against enemy attack magic only through the use of defense processes———–  the practice of making a defensive stance.

These two are required techniques for magicians.

Defensive stances are especially dangerous because it is based on instinct, if it can’t be deployed in an instant it’ll be useless in combat.

The other pupils are also suffering for the sake of learning defense magic, everyone’s practicing with all they have.

Lastly, more attack magic.

I intently inspected them from inside,under sensei’s guidance the pupils started the beginner attack magic practice.

[Burn in my hand weapon of fire! (Flame Lance!)]

In accordance to sensei’s yell, a one metre flame spear was made from thin air.

It was still a long way to go, not just in number, but manifestation delay, speed, and power.

Everyone practiced attacks to the limits of their magical power.

Furthermore, next year we will begin practicing chantless magic.

The way to do it is—if you clearly imagine the attack, shape, and power; use about twice the magical power than usual; and point your emotions at the enemy, the magic will be invoked.

If you compare it to normal magic, chantless magic comes out slower, has less power, and has larger magic power consumption.

It is a skill that is full of demerits. However, there are a lot of situations where you can’t use normal magic, where you can’t use your voice.

In those situations, whether or not you can use chantless magic means the difference between life and death.

That is why this is a required subject.

These are the particulars of a magician’s basic training.

By listening to the lectures from a corner of the backyard and looking at their way of doing it, I got the general gist of it.