“Originally, magic is something that excels at viewing supernatural phenomena related to non-matter and non-energy—such as life, spirits, minds, fate, and divinity. It’s a technique that allows us to handle the flow of those things just a tiny little bit.”
“……?”
“That’s why manipulating energy or physical events—like lighting a fire, bending objects, or moving soil—is its weak point. Magic is not originally meant to be used in that way.”
The children tilted their heads at Irias’s explanation. Aoi drew a picture of fire and put an X mark over it, and conversely, put a circle mark next to the pictures of souls and gods.
“What do you mean……?”
“Umm, well…… simply put…… Magic is bad at starting fires, but good at fortune-telling.”
“Fortune-telling……?”
“Yes, fortune-telling. Real magic deals with things like predicting fate, or the heart—things the eye cannot see.”
Aoi drew a picture of a human eye on the ground, then drew an arrow from it pointing to the picture of fire. Then, she put another X mark next to it. She was trying to show that visible energy like fire is not suitable for handling with magic.
“Magic excels in matters regarding supernatural phenomena related to life, spirits, minds, fate, and divinity. Therefore, it is most effective when dealing with medicine, pharmacy, divination, curses, mental therapy, and thoughts related to those things.”
“The essence of magic is casting spells on medicine to strengthen the effects, viewing fate through divination, or casting blessing magic on crops to promote growth.”
“…………”
Listening to the two explain, the children blinked rapidly, and Aoi piled on more explanation.
“The history of mages is long, you see. Over nearly three thousand years of history, our predecessors diligently devised formulas, and through trial and error, that knowledge has been passed down to us in bits and pieces. Because we are dealing with supernatural phenomena that cannot be seen, logical progress is difficult for magic. It is a field that has progressed slowly through empirical rules.”
“…………”
“Magic is difficult, you see. That’s why, at first, you should avoid practicing utilitarian magic like lighting fires or moving objects, and start by studying things like divination. Understand?”
“…………”
“W-was it too difficult, maybe……?”
The children had their mouths hanging open, blinking their eyes. Irias showed a troubled face.
“I don’t get it at all!”
“……You have to understand it, Verdi.”
The first to react wasn’t the children, but the hunter Verdi who was standing nearby. Aoi and Irias slumped their shoulders at the reaction of the overgrown child. Verdi crossed her arms and groaned “Ugh…” with wrinkles between her eyebrows.
“No, look, even if I hear it again and again since long ago, all these fine details are just nagging and nagging…… Without saying this and that, why don’t you just blast up a huge flame bam? Right?”
“Like I said, that is difficult……”
“Stuuuupid, Verdi, Stuuuupid.”
“Why you… Aoi, you bastard.”
Verdi was bad at difficult things. The children tilted their heads and slowly thought about what Aoi and Irias had said in their minds.
“So then…… we can’t start fires with magic……”
“I see…… that’s it……”
“Ugh……”
The children became a little crestfallen. Since they had started studying magic, they had wanted to do something amazing with it, so being told they couldn’t do it made them feel a bit sad.
Seeing their depressed state, Aoi and the others started to feel somewhat guilty.
“W-well…… It’s just that lighting a fire is difficult, it’s not like it’s impossible……”
“Eh……?”
“You can do it?”
“W-well, if you try hard……”
“Really!?”
The children’s sparkling eyes turned toward Aoi.
“O-okay, look. Once you see this, you have to start studying normally from divination and stuff, okay? What I’m about to do is heresy for magic, you know!?”
“Yeah!”
“Do your best, Aoi-oneechan!”
Aoi used the tree branch she was holding to scratch at the soil, drawing a large magic circle on the ground. She drew complex patterns inside a large circle, creating a massive magic circle about two meters in diameter.
Furthermore, Aoi drew other magic circles to the front, back, left, and right of it, creating a compound magic circle where parts of the circles overlapped. Even the children and Verdi could understand that it was a complex magic circle. Additionally, Aoi cut branches and leaves from a nearby tree with a knife and stabbed them into the soil around the magic circle.
“Eh……? You’re using this magic? I-is it safe……?”
Looking at the drawn magic circle, Irias, who understood what magic was being used just from that, let out an anxious voice.
“It’s fine, it’s fine, no problem.”
“U-uumm……. Is it really……?”
But Aoi replied lightly as she proceeded with the work. Irias groaned in distress, but Aoi’s hands did not stop.
A large magic circle with many overlapping circles was completed.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT gadgetizedpanda.net
“Okay, here I go—”
“Yeah!”
Aoi stood in the center of the magic circle and threw the wooden branch she was holding high up, straight into the sky.
“Hoi!”
“Whoa……!?”
The thrown wooden stick was suddenly engulfed in a large flame in mid-air. Burning as if fire was overflowing from the inside of the stick, it popped and split apart. Making crackling sounds and sending sparks flying, it broke apart as it burned.
It was just like a small firework. The wooden stick continued to pop and split while clad in fire. Scattering sparks around, it broke and divided again.
“Amazing! That’s amazing, Aoi-oneechan!”
“Fuhahaha! How’s that!? There’s almost no one else who can do this, you know! Respect me a little!”
Before it could fall completely to the ground, the wooden stick burned out entirely, turning to ash. Irias, having prepared well, had drawn water from the well and poured it over the ash that was puffing out smoke.
The children were surprised and delighted by the small firework just now, their cheeks dyed red with excitement. Seeing that, Aoi also smiled with satisfaction.
“……I’ll say it one more time, but this is heresy for magic. First, you must properly start from divination, medicine making, and charms, okay?”
“Yeah! We got it!”
“If you study incredibly hard, someday you’ll be able to do things like this too. Until then, do your best with the basics.”
“Okaaay!”
A good reply came back from the children. They were full of motivation, thinking that someday they would do things like this too.
“Hya—! That firework is fun no matter when I see it! Do it one more time, Aoi!”
“……No. It’s a pain.”
“Ehh—”
The only one whining was Verdi, who was the same age as Aoi.
“Heyyyy! What was that flame just now—……!”
“Geh!?”
“Village Chief……!”
Seeing the flame rise high into the sky, the Chief of this village came running with veins popping on his forehead. He was an elderly man with a bent back, leaning on a cane.
“Setting off a huge flame like that! What do you intend to do if the fire spreads to the forest or the village!”
“Run for it……!”
“Ah!? You guys, that’s cowardly!? Didn’t I do it because you guys said you wanted to see fire……!?”
“Wait! Don’t you run!”
Aoi and the others were bewildered by the children fleeing at full speed. Since they were adults and were entrusted with village work, they couldn’t run away from the Village Chief’s order to stop. But paying no mind to that, the children easily ran away.
The Village Chief approached them, his stern eyes piercing the three of them. Aoi, Irias, and Verdi thought of the long lecture that would follow, and their faces turned gloomily dark.
Also check out my friend Localizermeerkat for more LN translations!
BUY THE SOURCE MATERIAL TO SUPPORT THE AUTHOR !!!
Kindly click on the green button above and contribute to filling the green bar if you’re interested in having another LN from the request page translated. Also, every donation is being used to purchase the source material and to fund more English translations.
Please consider joining my Ko-Fi membership. By becoming a member, you’ll also gain access to 2-10 additional chapters of all of the novels from this site translated into English. Last but not least your support will also assist me in upholding the translation quality and speed. For more information, please follow the link.
Donation for faster release is always welcome
Additionally, I am now accepting translation requests.
