Sorcery

 

That's incredible…! It's like magic!

—The Last Magus, Kanata

 

"Spear of Flame!"

With that short incantation, fire burst forth from the girl's palm.

The flames shaped themselves into a spear and pierced a log. The sharp tip plunged deep, then heat radiated outward from the shaft like a wave, igniting the whole thing at once.

"Freezing Wind!"

No sooner had the fire caught than a snow-laden gust swept through, snuffing it out in an instant. A blizzard cold enough to freeze one's very breath turned the log white in the blink of an eye.

"Rockfall!"

And then a cascade of boulders rained down, smashing the scorched, frozen log to pieces.

"Well done," I said, clapping my hands.

"Ehehe. Thanks, Dad!"

The girl — Chryse — spun around and flashed a bashful grin.

In her current form, she looked about seven in human years. Her fluffy bob-cut hair and her limbs, growing longer by the day, gave her an increasingly girlish look. The horns on her forehead had grown considerably too, now unmistakable for what they were.

Her growth was still as erratic as ever, with sudden spurts coming out of nowhere, but since she was actually around sixteen, she was still developing far more slowly than a human on average.

"She's finally caught up to you, hasn't she? It's only a matter of time before she passes you, I'd wager."

Innis, lounging on her flying sofa as always, said this with a smirk.

Speaking of growth rates, Innis was actually the more mysterious one.

She was a pureblooded human and had to be nearing thirty by now, yet her appearance hadn't changed a bit, not so much youthful as outright childish. Between her short stature and baby face, she could easily pass for a teenager.

When I'd asked, she claimed that lounging around and moving as little as possible was the secret to staying young, but…

"Tch… I can't even deny it."

Ara's tone was complicated, frustration and pleasure tangled together.

"Innis is losing too, so you'll be fine!"

"I-I don't count, okay? Enchantment sorcery is my specialty."

But Mel's guileless remark made even Innis flinch.

The summoning of lesser spirits imbued with orders. A groundbreaking invention that upended the entire history of magic. And it wasn't merely that it required no incantation and could be activated with a single word.

Its greatest feature was —

"Mel, could you invoke the next one for me too?"

— that what one person created could be given to another.

A completely different approach from the magic of the past, which relied on teaching techniques and having students reproduce them on their own.

I had taken to calling this new system "sorcery" to distinguish it from magic as it had existed before.

"Sure thing! Let's see, next up is… how about we try 'Spear of Ice'?"

At Chryse's request, Mel drew a magic circle on the floor in chalk and held her hand over it.

"Spear of Ice, come on out!"

When she called its name, a lesser spirit in the shape of an ice spear materialized within the circle. Normally, this spirit would have launched forward the instant it appeared, freezing whatever it struck, but instead it hovered in place, stable and still. A spirit summoned inside a magic circle wouldn't leave it. Or more precisely, it couldn't.

To give a spirit you'd created to someone else, they needed to see it first. Handing one over mid-flight had proven quite difficult, but ever since we hit upon this method of summoning them within a magic circle, bestowing sorcery had become both safe and simple.

"O Spear of Ice, in the name of Chryse, I beseech thee. By my name and thine, lend thy power unto me—"

As Chryse intoned the words in a formal register, the Spear of Ice glowed brilliantly and faded away.

"… Did the contract take?"

"Try it and see."

Chryse peered skeptically at her palm, and I set out a log as a target, urging her on.

"Right! … Spear of Ice!"

She thrust her palm toward the log and called the name with all her might, but no Spear of Ice came forth.

"Hmm, looks like Spear of Ice is still beyond me…"

"You picked up Freezing Wind in no time, didn't you? Spear of Ice will be just the same."

"Your 'in no time' is a bit long, Dad. It wasn't quick at all."

I tried to console the dejected Chryse, but she only pouted in reply.

Beyond being transferable, sorcery had several other useful properties.

A spirit that had been given orders and a name would produce the same effect no matter who called it.

Remarkably, Spear of Flame produced the exact same effect whether I used it or Chryse or Ara did.

And there was one more notable trait: sorcery had a clear pass-fail threshold.

Just as Chryse had failed to summon Spear of Ice, if someone lacked sufficient ability, they simply couldn't call it forth. Whether one could or couldn't seemed to depend on the size and elemental affinity of the magic circle used to create that particular spell.

Freezing Wind and Spear of Ice were both spirits classified under the water element, but the magic circle for Spear of Ice was a size larger. That was because a certain amount of spirit mass was needed to shape it into a spear while giving it weight and hardness.

And if someone could use Spear of Ice, they could invariably use Freezing Wind as well. We had verified this with many students, and I was fairly confident it held true without exception.

In other words, aptitude and ability could be measured with precision. I had once tried assessing students' magical ability by having them cast spells during physical examinations and gauging the results by size, but magic output fluctuated easily depending on one's physical condition and mental state at the time. Sorcery, by contrast, never failed once you'd succeeded with it even once.

Chryse couldn't use Spear of Ice, but she could use Spear of Flame, which meant she had a stronger affinity for fire than for ice. Both spells were created with magic circles one and a half meters in diameter. We divided circle sizes into fifty-centimeter increments, and for convenience, I had been calling spells at this level Third Tier. The reason Ara had sounded so frustrated about being caught up to was that Third Tier was the limit of the sorcery he could use.

Innis, who'd been doing the teasing, was herself capped at Second Tier, but in exchange, she wielded enchantment sorcery (as I'd taken to calling it, to match the naming of spirit sorcery) with considerable skill. It was also becoming clear that those gifted in enchantment sorcery tended to struggle with spirit sorcery, and vice versa.

This also shed light on what counted as spirit magic and what didn't. For instance, I had always assumed that making a stone heavier was earth-based spirit magic, but it turned out that even if you performed it by chanting an incantation rather than carving letters, it still fell under the domain of enchantment sorcery.

In hindsight, the lizardman boy Sig, who had once studied under me, must have had a high aptitude for enchantment sorcery. He could reshape even flames into the form of a sword, yet he'd been all but unable to produce fire on his own.

A truth four hundred years in the making. I owed Sig an apology.

"Alright. Mel, I'd like an invocation too."

"Okaaay! What would you like, Ara? I've added quite a few Fourth Tier spells you should be able to use, you know!"

Clutching the sheaf of papers that served as the sorcery catalog, Mel sidled up to Ara. Somehow, it was a heartwarming sight.

"Huh? Dad?"

As I watched them with a warm expression, Chryse tugged at my hand.

"Where's Innis going, I wonder?"

Following Chryse's gaze, I saw the flying sofa slipping out through the window.

"I bet she's skipping out again."

Innis was an exceptionally gifted student, but this habit of cutting out early was as stubborn as ever. Whether she was just skilled at picking her moments or her sofa simply glided through the air without a sound, she'd frequently vanish before anyone noticed. Well, she always delivered results, so I supposed it wasn't really a problem.

"Let's go after her!"

"Ah, wait, Chryse."

Before I could stop her, Chryse threw herself out the window.

"Flight!"

An invisible wind spirit enveloped her small body, lifting her gently into the air. Third Tier wind spirit sorcery, the Flight spell.

"Chryse, hold on."

I cast Flight myself and gave chase. For some reason, I had a bad feeling about this.

"Inniiis! No skipping out on us!"

The sofa hugged the wall of the school building and slipped in through an upper-floor window. Without a moment's hesitation, Chryse followed it in.

My attempt to stop her fell just short, so I had no choice but to follow after Chryse and peer in through the window.

"Wha…"

What I saw there was —

A room befitting Innis: simple, with little in the way of decoration.

Chryse, frozen in place, her eyes wide with shock.

And Innis, her cheeks wet with overflowing tears.