How a Catastrophe-Level Magician Lives

“Frey von Betelgeuse, an exchange student from the Argen Empire. His entrance exam scores were perfect in all subjects except for Orwen Empire History… So that’s why he couldn’t be the top student.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Ack! You startled me! When did you get here, Mr. Duanc!”
“Ho ho ho, I came to see the first-year midterm evaluations.”

At the Sepirion Academy evaluation site. The figure that suddenly appeared behind the young professor Lacrong was none other than his senior teacher, the gray-bearded Duanc, who was approaching old age, whom he had seen in the spectator stands before.

“…Don’t you have classes for the second years now?”
“I had them do self-study because of the first-year midterm evaluations. Isn’t it the duty of seniors to stay quiet on days like this for the sake of their juniors? Ho ho ho!”
“……”

For Lacrong, who was also a new teacher, this was the first time hearing such a thing.

His senior teacher, Mr. Duanc, suddenly asked:

“More importantly, how is it? That child’s ability?”
“That child… Do you mean the exchange student, Frey von Betelgeuse?”
“That’s right.”
“…Now I see, your purpose in coming here was to check that child’s evaluation scores.”
“Why else would I come all the way here?”
“……”
“What’s with that look? You seem to have a lot of complaints.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Hmm, manage your facial expressions well.”
“…Yes, sir.”

Senior teacher Duanc was telling him to manage even such trivial things.

Junior teacher Lacrong spoke while flipping through the documents with Frey’s information:

In front of them, students were firing magic at round targets a few meters away.

And among them was Frey as well.

“As you can see… His score is close to perfect.”
“Hmm, is that so? He’s hitting the bullseye every time. His magic control ability is very impressive.”
“It’s even more amazing that he can hit moving targets. Not only the accuracy of the magic, but also the speed to hit the target, including the casting speed, he’s hitting everything in about 1 second with completely silent casting…”
“Oh? I thought he seemed a bit fast when using silent casting last time, so it really was like that. The method to accurately measure the speed was with that Magic Timer, right?”
“Yes. As a result of measuring the numbers, he casts magic between 0.95 seconds and 1.25 seconds. The average magic casting speed of children admitted to this Sepirion Academy is about 2-3 seconds. Most children showing higher numbers than that are at best around 2 seconds even if they’re fast. While other children cast silent magic once, that child Frey is firing almost 2-3 silent magic spells in that time.”
“My, that’s impressive. It must be a secret magic of the family he belongs to.”
“It seems so. If not, it’s impossible to show silent magic at that level.”
“I wonder why they sent such an excellent child to our Orwen Empire, so far from his homeland.”
“I’m curious about that too… As a result of checking his personal information just now, I found out that he’s the fourth son of House Phoenix, the family he belongs to.”
“Don’t tell me a child with such excellent talent is not the heir of that family?”
“That’s right.”
“Heh, that’s ridiculous. It’s unbelievable.”
“I think so too.”
“So that’s why he came to study abroad at the middle school division of Sepirion Academy.”

The two of them had now learned the whole truth.

After Frey’s midterm evaluation test was over,

He returned to his classroom.

While walking down the corridor, he happens to spot Aina coming this way.

“Aina.”
He tried to greet her first, but for some reason, Aina quickly averted her gaze to the side.

Frey stopped in his posture of raising one hand to greet her, perplexed by this strange attitude.

Aina had already passed by his side, her head lowered, not showing her face.

Frey just stood there, puzzled, not knowing what was going on.

He seemed to have caught a glimpse of her cheeks turning red as she passed by with her head lowered.

The first-year first semester midterm evaluations were all over.

In the process, there was also an evaluation test to check how many attributes one could handle at minimum, but.

Frey easily passed the test with full marks in all five attributes, all attributes.

It was an added story that Lacrong, the teacher in charge of evaluation, and his senior teacher Duanc couldn’t help but admire it.

“Finally, the first vacation…”

Frey was planning to return briefly to his original place, his own family, for the first vacation.

‘I’ll be able to see Mother and Reina after a long time.’

Nostalgic names. Two nostalgic people.

He was already feeling a strange excitement in his heart without realizing it at the thought of seeing his mother, Lady Rena, the second wife of House Phoenix, and his cute younger sister Reina.

Frey was walking out through the academy’s main gate with his luggage packed and a bag in one hand.

There was quite a crowd as many students besides him were returning to their families and homes from the first day.

In the midst of this, tap tap.

Someone approached from behind and tapped his back with their finger.

It was Aina, with her light sky-blue hair and pale yellow eyes.

“…Aina?”
“……”
When he looked back with a puzzled gaze at Aina’s sudden appearance, she showed a strange behavior of hesitating for a moment before trying to speak, pursing her lips.

“…? What’s the matter?”

While she was hesitating, he asked again first. Aina stopped her fidgeting motion abruptly upon hearing his words.

Then, with somewhat determined eyes, she gently grabbed his collar with one hand and said:

“…I want to go with you.”
“What?”
For a moment, Frey’s expression showed clear bewilderment at hearing those words.

[City near Sepirion Middle School Academy.]

Frey was walking through the city in broad daylight, looking for a carriage heading towards the Argen Empire.

Behind such Frey, Aina von Frost, with her light sky-blue hair, was following modestly in her school uniform, her hands neatly gathered in front of her skirt, her head slightly tilted forward.

“……”
“……”

The two, a boy and a girl, were just walking silently without saying anything to each other.

Frey soon stopped walking and turned his gaze back to Aina behind him.

Then, looking at Aina who had also stopped in place, Frey asked again:

“Are you really going to follow me?”
“……”

…Nod.

Frey spoke with a sigh:

“…Sigh, I don’t know what you’re thinking. You won’t answer even if I ask for the reason.”
“……”
It was meant for her to hear.

Aina had somehow not told him the reason until the end, even during the process of coming here.

He really couldn’t understand why she was acting like this.
To the extent that he couldn’t even guess.

He had told Aina several times to go back, asking if she shouldn’t return, but it was useless.

She was truly immovable, not budging an inch.

“Look, Aina. Now you really can’t back out. Are you still going to follow?”
“…Yeah.”

He barely got a one-word answer.

Near Frey’s front was a coachman and a two-horse carriage heading towards the Argen Empire.

“…Alright. Don’t complain if you regret it later.”
“Yeah.”
This time, an immediate answer was heard.

Frey looked at her for a moment with a strange expression on his face.

He paid the money he had to the person standing in front of the carriage and boarded the two-horse carriage.

Aina also took out money from her skirt pocket and handed it to the coachman without any other luggage.

“Wait, where’s your luggage?”
“……”

He said this after noticing her boarding the carriage midway. But she neatly and quietly sat down opposite him, arranging the skirt part of her bottom with one hand.

With both hands placed neatly back on her knees, she spoke to Frey sitting opposite her with confident eyes:

“I don’t have any.”
She said.

“……”
He thought he had acquired some troublesome baggage.

Clop clop. Clop clop.

The sound of horse hooves walking could be heard inside the carriage.

The two-horse carriage that had departed earlier was on its way to another destination that was en route to the Argen Empire.

“We’ll have to change carriages again in half a day. Buy and prepare at least the minimum necessities in the city we arrive at then. You have enough money, right?”
“Yeah. I have a lot of money. I brought plenty of gold coins.”
“…I see.”
Aina replied like this while taking out a handful of Orwen Empire gold coins from her pocket.

‘…She has more money than me.’

He had such a thought while sitting in the carriage with his arms folded.

He turned his gaze back to the window outside.

Aina, sitting quietly opposite him, stared at his exposed profile.

“What is it? I thought your behavior was strange before, but lately you seem to be staring intently at my face quite often.”
“……”

Frey wasn’t one to not notice that obvious stare.

To him, who seemed about to interrogate her as if he had caught her,

Aina suddenly blurted out:

“…Smiling face.”
“?”
“Smiling face. Show it to me. One more time.”
“What…?”
Frey looked bewildered upon hearing those words to his face.

“…What do you mean? Suddenly asking me to show my smiling face.”
“Just because. It’s not for any great reason. So show me just one more time.”
“…If it’s for such an unimportant reason, I feel even less inclined to do so.”
“Still, show me. In exchange, I’ll give you something good.”
“Something good?”
“Yeah. This.”

Whoosh─!

Suddenly, Aina took out her own light sky-blue grimoire in her hand.

Then she opened a book from that grimoire and took out a certain magic book with a bright light from within its pages.

“……”
Frey watched her actions quietly with his arms folded from across.

Aina dismissed the summoned grimoire and handed the extracted magic book to Frey with both hands.

“This… for me?”
“Yeah. I’ll give it to you.”
──So smile.
One more time.
It seemed like she had said that.

That was the feeling he got.

“……”

Swish.

In the end, he received the magic book she was trying to hand over, paused for a moment, and then opened the first page.

That brown cover.

The title of the book was written as follows:

[How to Apply Attributes to the Body I]

To put it simply.
The content of the book was:

It was about ‘attribute body magic’ that can apply and manifest the nature of attribute magic one possesses to parts of one’s body.

For example, manifesting fire attributes under one’s feet and using that explosive power to dash forward in an instant.

Or creating wind behind one’s back to shoot continuously over a long distance while changing direction in one breath.

It was an advanced magic technique that made it possible to not only emit cold air from the body, but also generate heat simultaneously to prevent body temperature from dropping, and so on.

Aina, sitting opposite him, had said she would give him that if he smiled.

After a moment’s deliberation, Frey’s choice was:

Beaming-!

To smile brightly once.

The problem was that since he was trying to force a bright smile using facial muscles he didn’t usually use, slight facial spasms like minute trembling of the cheeks occurred even while smiling.

And he saw Aina burst out laughing “Pfft!” at seeing that face.

It seemed Aina had reflexively burst out laughing, caught completely off guard without any warning.

“…Ahahahaha─!”
“……”

Seeing Aina now lying down in the carriage, holding her stomach and laughing out loud with tears in her eyes… Frey felt an immense sense of embarrassment and shame for the first time in his life, and ended up hanging his head in his seat, unable to lift his bright red face for a while.

Meanwhile, the carriage they were riding in was quickly reaching its destination, the first stopover on the way to the Argen Empire, with the sound of horse hooves clop-clop-clopping along the paved road.