After agreeing to Eluria’s plan, Raid packed only his barest necessities and headed for the royal capital with her. As he gazed absently at the passing scenery outside the magic automobile, he found himself mumbling, “Man, who would’ve thought, huh?”
Granted, he had always seen Eluria as more than just an enemy, even in their past life. They could read each other well enough to have that unspoken agreement to avoid huge losses for both their armies. That was precisely why he thought they could have become good friends if they hadn’t been on opposing sides. But for whatever reason, forget the sides they stood on—the entire world and era they lived in had changed. Heck, they even jumped right past the friendship stage and ended up as rivals-turned-future-spouses.
Meanwhile, the very person who brought forth this crazy idea was trembling on the seat in front of him with a terribly stiff and nervous look on her face.
“Eluria?” he called.
No response.
“Hello? Eluria Caldwin?”
“Y-Yeth?!” She replied with a splendid bite of her tongue. The girl’s face flushed as she hung her head. “Sorry...”
“Uh, no need to apologize, really...” Raid scratched his head.
To be honest, he’d seen this coming. Although they had only ever met in the context of war, there were still a few things he could glean from their fifty-years-long acquaintanceship—and one of those things was that Eluria likely sucked at socializing.
There was a time when elves had been feared for looking uncannily similar to humans despite being of a different race entirely. They lived amid nature and avoided interacting with humans. Raid didn’t know why Eluria had decided to jump into human society, but it was surely no easy task to alter the behavior that had been rooted in her by her natural disposition and the environment she grew up in. Case in point, even the people in his country had known that the Sage disliked humans and avoided the limelight.
Looking at that very Sage right now, though, he found it more likely that she just didn’t know how to talk to people in the first place. So, he decided to take the helm of this conversation. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“A-And what would dyat—ah.”
“Wait. How about we pretend you didn’t just bite your tongue again? We won’t be getting anywhere at this rate, so just bear with the embarrassment, okay? Do it for me and my attempt to start this conversation, please.”
In the face of Raid’s onslaught of desperate pleas, Eluria mutely nodded despite the flush overtaking her cheeks.
“Regarding my inability to use magic,” he continued. “Do you have any ideas?”
“As in, why?” she slowly asked.
“Yeah. I figured you might know something, since you invented it and all.”
An intrigued spark lit up in Eluria’s eyes. “Hm... It’s probably because of your mana.”
“My mana?”
“Yeah. It’ll be easier to understand if you think of mana as water,” she began, twirling her finger in the air. “Normal mana is like water, which means it flows easily through the path—the mana circuit. But your mana is like a rock. It doesn’t flow at all, and trying to force it through will just destroy the path itself.”
“Ohhh. So that’s why the test apparatus broke.” The problem did only crop up whenever he made a conscious effort to use magic or to inject his mana into something. Otherwise, even the automobile they were currently riding would have broken down when he stepped inside.
“I don’t know how you ended up with that kind of mana, but I know for sure that it won’t work with the magic system that I made. You’d need to formulate a specialized theory and make a new kind of mana circuit from scratch—catering to your type of mana, of course.”
“Would that take a long time?”
“It took me a hundred years to formulate the basis for current magic theory.”
“So I’ll be a geezer again by the time it’s done,” Raid concluded.
“Since I’m human now, I’ll be a granny by then too...”
If even the founder of magic herself needed a hundred years, then it would be practically impossible for anyone else. “Thanks, Eluria. You just completely solved my eighteen-years-long mystery.”
The girl reluctantly asked, “Did you want to use magic...?”
“I wonder... I guess I did want to try it out since it was your thing and all, but it’s no big deal if I can’t.” It wasn’t so much the fact that he couldn’t use magic, as it was the reason that had been bothering him. Finally getting the answer was plenty rewarding in itself.
Eluria bobbed her head, satisfied with his answer. “You’re fine as you are, Raid. You wouldn’t be able to beat me with magic anyway.”
“Oh? Confident, are we?”
“Of course. I won’t lose to anyone in that department.” Eluria let out a smug little huff as she puffed her chest out.
Seeing her like that, Raid knew that bringing up a magic-related topic had been the right choice. They just had to keep the conversation going, and Eluria should start loosening up too.
A tiny tug on his clothes snapped him back to attention. “Hm? What is it?”
“Well, um...” Eluria’s gaze swam nervously around the compartment until she finally found her resolve and parted her trembling lips. “Thank you...for agreeing to my plan.”
“That should be my line,” Raid replied. “You came up with it for me, so thanks.”
“But I just brought it up out of nowhere... Weren’t you...annoyed?”
“Dumbfounded was more like it. You did just skip over the explanation and straight-up propose to me, after all.”
“B-Because I figured you’d be able to fight again this way...!”
“Well, there’s definitely not any other options...”