Chapter 5 - Volume 1 (2/2)

His daughter had been lonely. The moment he realized that she had been feeling sad for not being able to see him, all the love he had been repressing in his heart spilled out for his beloved daughter.

Why did I keep my distance from her, just because her beauty was disconnected from the norm?

Just because I didn’t deserve to love her, how could I have caused my innocent and precious daughter to be lonely…

I’ll love the both of them. With my life. Even if the world was to become my enemy.

I’ll never marry away my daughter.

＊＊＊

There was a young maiden named Serina.

She had turned 20 years old this year, and felt a little embarrassed of being called a young maiden, but because of her baby-face, every elderly folk that knew her called her a maiden, and she had given up on correcting them.

She worked as a receptionist at the main campus of the magic academy within the royal capital.

She was a magician that had graduated from the magic academy a few years back. Her specialty was summoning magic, and the demon summoning incident had occurred at the time of her graduation. As a result, she had some difficulties in finding employment due to the bad reputation of summoners.

Moreover, Serina was of commoner origins without any connections. But the head professor of the magic academy thought it was a pity, knowing how precise her skill in drawing magic circles were, so he recommended her for office work. But for some reason, she was assigned to a receptionist post.

Nevertheless, Serina had no complaints towards her work.

She liked to research by nature so she would help out the professor with his research whenever she had free time, and she was also quite the expert receptionist, making her popular with visitors. Even her personality was good, and there were rumors of secret marriage proposals going around.

But regardless of the talks of marriage, she wanted to continue working for a while longer. Serina was fond of children, and held much good-will toward the children that attended the magic academy. She was extremely happy in being able to see adorable babies once every month when they carried out magical power examinations.

Cuteness was justice and power.

That was a phrase she had heard by coincidence, when during one of her experiments, those words had echoed out from a magic circle. Serina understood those words with her soul, in spite of the language being foreign to her, and she accepted those words as the Word of God.

Although that was a trivial story….

One day. When Serina, due to a lack of manpower, had to head to a branch of the magic academy on the magic examination day to help out as a receptionist, two women had appeared before her.

One of them was a very beautiful woman with luxuriant blonde hair. The other woman wore a maid uniform and appeared to be an attendant of the former. The maid was also good-looking, but more than that, Serina’s attention was focused on the child being held by the maid.

The little girl was wearing a dress that appeared to be meant for dolls, perhaps designed by an enthusiastic noble as a hobby. She observed the girl from the side, looking at that golden hair that was much too pretty and wondered if the maid was actually carrying a doll instead.

Once in a while, out of those who came for the examination, there would be some parents that treated their children like pets, acting as if they were angels and dressing them up gaudily, and this made Serina’s mood turn weary.

But the moment that little girl turned her face towards Serina, she felt as if her heart had stopped.

A doll……?　That couldn’t be. There was no way a doll could be this lovely.

Having this girl wear normal clothing for children, was equal to blasphemy against God.

Within the eyes of this little girl who continued to stare at her, Serina saw God…or so she felt.

Later on she found out that the little girl was compatible with summoning and holy magic. If the girl was a noble then one day, in several years or so, she would be entering the main school instead of the branch school.

Unable to hold back her anticipation, Serina looked up the name of the little girl, and fiercely clenching her fist, she speculated to herself that entering a summoning magic related position may allow her to be acquainted with that girl.

Katsun……

Serina was slightly startled as she turned around toward the abrupt sound of footsteps.

Lately, Serina had been spending too much time in recalling the figure of that little girl in her memory, causing her to fall behind on work, and so every few days she would work overtime to finish the piled up workload.

When she noticed, night had already fallen and the only form of illumination was the magic light on her desk while there were no other staff members around.

Of course, there were a few professors staying behind, but they were all people devoted to their research and they would almost never come over to the office work area.

So the most likely person remaining was the security guard. But as I was bracing myself to be scolded and told to go home, what appeared instead was a woman wearing a simple yet well-tailored deep red dress.

“V- vice director, -sama?”

“……Oh my. I see there was still someone remaining.”

The woman called the vice director calmly smiled at Serina…but something in her smile gave off the feeling of a bird of prey.

Although she was the vice director, she was still relatively young. Her age was around 30……

She had luxurious red hair that gave off a deep passionate impression, and her lips glimmered with a rosy red color. Her blue eyes shone with a powerful light made you want to avert your gaze. Her simple dress that displayed her alluring arms and legs to their fullest, appeared to have been created just for her, and while the features of her face was a little harsh, even that seemed to only further add to her beauty.

But for all that, her looks didn’t appeal to Serina.

“Thank you for your hard work. …..That’s right, would you mind if I asked for a favor?”

“Ye, yes, what might it be-”

Although it was this late, Serina had no intentions of refusing the vice director. But she felt doubtful in her mind. While there were two vice directors of the magic academy, her post was granted as an honorary position, and she would show up at the academy a few times a year at most. Serina couldn’t understand why she would be here alone and at such a late time.

“I’d like to see the list of names for the successful applicants during the magical power examinations in the past few years…just 3 years worth of examination results will do fine.”

“…Ye, yes.”

Why would she ask for such a thing…?　She puzzled it over in her mind, but didn’t have the courage to ask in person. But perhaps her face had shown her confusion for a moment, because the vice director spoke as if to answer her question,

“I just wanted to know just how many children of the nobles there were that might work for the country in the future, that’s all.”

After speaking, the vice director unexpectedly smiled and warmly laughed.

“I, I’ll bring it right away.”

Fully convinced by the vice director’s speech that seemed to be prepared in advance, Serina swiftly took out a book with the list of names she had always been secretly looking at.

“Thank you. Please wait a moment.”

Flipping page after page…she appeared to be searching for something instead of reading through. After pausing for a moment on a certain page, she immediately closed the book and returned it to Serina.

“That was enough. And I have to say, it isn’t good for a girl to be alone here at this time. If you have work due, make sure to do it early in the morning.”

“Ye- yes.”

Serina reacted to her sensible warning by standing up straight and replying yes, after which the vice director walked away, disappearing along the corridor, with the magic light from the small wand she held swaying against the darkness.

Serina remained frozen in that pose of standing to attention, until the footsteps of the vice director were completely gone. Afterwards, she collapsed back onto her chair.

“……Let’s go home.”

＊

Honorary vice director of the magic academy. Her name was Albertine.

Normally, a person of her status would be accompanied by attendants, but they had been made to wait outside of the academy in an inconspicuous spot.

She couldn’t afford to stand out by bringing along a large number of people. And she didn’t trust anyone apart from a select few.

“………Zumana.”

She softly called out, and a thin man in his early twenties appeared out of the darkness, smoothly bowing towards her.

“The children?”

“Yes. Although the little ladies  missed the wife and husband, they fell asleep a while ago.”

“Is that so…”

Not long after murmuring those words, Albertine whispered to herself in a barely audible voice.

“So he isn’t there…”

Albertine herself didn’t seem to realize she had let out such a whisper, but Zumana had heard it, and couldn’t help but to cast down his gaze when he sensed the uncontrollable emotions in her voice.

“Follow me.”

“Yes.”

Albertine didn’t look back as she started walking, and Zumana gave a silent bow towards her back before following behind.

The two continued to walk along the corridors within the academy, illuminating the way with a small magic light. After navigating through numerous paths, which would cause an unfamiliar person to lose their way, they finally reached a place where there was a single door, which was letting out a dim light from the gap underneath.

“Gasparl-sama, are you in there?”

Albertine didn’t knock, but called out in a voice that wasn’t loud nor small, and several seconds later the door opened, revealing an elderly gentleman.

“Well if it isn’t Albertine-sama, welcome.”

Professor Gasparl had a warm smile on his face as he greeted the late visiting Albertine, who had once been his star pupil and was now his superior.

“Is this another new experiment of yours, Gasparl-sama…?”

The interior of the room hadn’t changed a bit from the time she was a pupil, but upon seeing a magic circle she had never seen before, she smiled helplessly as she recalled the nickname of the professor: the mad researcher.

“Hahaha. You see, I came across a child with strong magic and a talent for summoning magic. Before that child enters the academy, I wanted to fix up some things that weren’t working due to insufficient magical power.”

“I…see.”

Albertine slowly narrowed her eyes, thinking back to the list of names she had read prior to this visit.

“It’s a messy place here, but how about a cup of tea?”

“……I’m fine, thank you. Rather than that, how is the research going on with the magic circle from before?”

“It’s almost finished, however…with the way it is now, its compelling force is rather low, so it will take a while longer.”

Calling out a specific demons, and specific spirits. A magic circle that didn’t randomly summon by type, but instead summoned strong individuals in accordance with the image of the summoner.

Gasparl had thought it would make for an interesting experiment. Even if two fire spirits were to be summoned, there would be differences in individual strength according to the time they have spent in existence.

It was known that if a user of spirit magic earned the favor of a spirit, and if the user summoned that spirit, then it would not only grow in intelligence, but in power also. However, it wasn’t possible to earn the favor of powerful spirits except for those spirit magicians of exceptional caliber. But if a summoning magic circle could be used to make forced summons, even a lesser magician would be able to gain an above-average power.

However, Gasparl wondered.

“What would you use such a thing for…?”

The mood silently changed as Gasparl shot a piercing gaze towards Albertine.

“It’s because I also like to research. Moreover, ever since that incident, there has been harsh criticism against summoners, so if I could somehow help my husband by using summoning magic…”

The public impression of summoning magic would change as well.

“So that’s how it is……as one would expect of Albertine-sama. Well then, take this.”

Gasparl smiled, and handed over the experimental prototype magic circle he had readily prepared.

Albertine breathed a little easier, having successfully obtained the item which was the purpose for today.

“Gasparl-sama, thank you very much. I’ll return this favor in time…”