“It’s just an assumption that magic has to fly straight. If you know what you’re aiming at, you can picture the magic hitting it and it will go in that direction.”
It was simple.
“I use two different methods. For the ones in front and to the side that I can see, I just imagine the magic hitting the target I’m looking at.”
At least everyone was listening quietly.
“Otherwise, I just pick a direction. For the bread behind me, I pictured its location and told the magic to go that way.”
They were similar, but the first method was how she took out stealth slimes. Once she saw where it was, she shot the magic in that direction.
“Okay, should we try it, then? If you have questions, go ahead and come ask them.”
They hadn’t been planning on practical magic lessons, but she figured she’d give it a shot. The principle was simple enough, but they must not have been sure exactly what they should be asking. Nobody lined up, and after a short period of confusion, Kuntz was the one to stand in front of her.
“Wait, Kuntz, are you joking?”
“No, I’m serious. I had the wrong idea about your magic, Sara. I thought you were just really good at aiming, but it sounds like it’s a little different than that.”
Kuntz’s slingshot magic was accurate because he shot it straight at the enemy and had good aim. It was similar to being good at throwing.
“Yeah. I’m not throwing magic accurately, I’m just giving it a target to hit.”
“So it hits as long as you think it’s gonna hit.”
“Yep.”
“Ugh...” Kuntz crouched down, holding his head, for a moment before shooting back up. “Sara, show me that curving magic a couple more times.”
“Okay.”
The rookies didn’t have any questions, so there was no reason she couldn’t show off her magic just for Kuntz. Sara shot off her magic in a couple different directions, musing on the fact that they were together all the time but didn’t really understand each other. Now the bread wasn’t just burnt, it was charred to cinders.
“Okay, I’ve burned the sight of it into my mind.” Kuntz finally seemed satisfied. “You don’t aim, you make it hit. It’s like it’s being sucked toward the target.”
Oh, Sara thought. I should have described it like that.
“Slingshot, go.”
With Kuntz’s words, the bread to his side burst into little crumbs from an impact, leaving just the pebble he’d shot at it behind.
“Whoa!”
There was a cheer that didn’t even compare to the one Sara had received and the Hunters ran over to Kuntz, smiling at him, patting him on the back, and generally making a scene.
“I wanna do it too!”
“Me too!”
They didn’t have to use bread as targets, but people started running out and buying it and soon the neighborhood bakeries were completely sold out. The underground training room was quickly filled with the smell of burnt bread. Sara couldn’t say whether that would make a good memory or a bad one quite yet.
Some people were successful and others weren’t, but they made sure the rookies had room to practice and showed them whatever magic they asked about. Eventually, Ann returned and asked for them to show off their magic again. Their second day of training was pretty fulfilling, all in all.
Incidentally, about half of the rookies were able to succeed at curving magic.
By the third day, the underground training room was already full for their mana control practice, to the point where Sara didn’t even want to count how many people were there. Their initial ten students were still lined up in the front, so it wasn’t as if people were taking their spots or anything, which meant there was no need to tell anyone off for joining in.
“Umm, could everybody come over here?” Kuntz asked at the start of the day, and the four of them put their heads together. “What should we do? Some of the people here are, like, super experienced-looking. What could they want to learn from novices like us?”
They were full-fledged Hunters now and even had embarrassing nicknames, but there were still plenty of people more experienced than them and none of them were the type to let their success go to their heads.
At times like these, Allen always knew what to do.
“Just calm down. Today and yesterday, none of them said a thing about us teaching them anything. I think they’re not saying anything so that if something happens, it can’t be blamed on them.”
Sara wished he wouldn’t say such ominous things.
“It also means that if they don’t learn anything, they won’t complain. They’re just hanging out nearby so that if they happen to hear something interesting in our lectures, they might make use of it later.”
That made sense to Sara.
Haruto clapped in understanding as well. “We’re just teaching rookie Hunters. People might overhear our lessons, but we won’t let it bother us. Let’s go with that.”
Practicing mana manipulation was important for people who specialized in physical strengthening. If they used their physical strengthening without the conscious knowledge that they were manipulating mana, it was hard for them to make much progress.
“Yes, you’re using that stuff you can vaguely feel inside your body unconsciously to strengthen it, but if you use it intentionally, you can strengthen individual parts of your body or use it as a shield.”
Sara was talking to the burly veteran Hunters. Even if they were only listening in, if they looked confused, like they had questions, she wanted to help them out.
“Use it intentionally... Feel it going through your body...”
It wasn’t just Sara. The other three were making the rounds as well, talking to anybody who was interested.
Of course, some left and headed for the dungeons before long.
Apparently for their next practical lesson, the remaining Hunters would be sparring with the rookies and did practice swings with them, which sounded nice. Sara didn’t see it since she’d headed out with the apothecary group, but some Hunters came with her as well, so she was pretty busy herself, repeating her plant-gathering lecture and such.
Haruto was supposed to be in charge of the magic lessons that day, but there were a lot of people who wanted to see Sara’s magic again, so she ended up showing off her curving magic once more and bread sales were through the roof that day as well.
“It’s kind of become a big deal,” Sara told Elm after returning to the townhouse that day.
“I didn’t think something like this would happen while I was off enjoying my new job.”
Ann’s job was going well, and when she told them about all the places she’d gone that day, Sara got the feeling that in just three days, Ann had already learned more about the capital than Sara ever had.
“The people here don’t seem to think it’s strange for children to be working or anything either. I get scolded if I’m late with a delivery sometimes.”
Ann sounded happy. It was clear that her princess-like upbringing in Gardenia had actually been rather uncomfortable for her.
“I want to take your lessons too, though,” she told Sara.
“It’s not just me. Kuntz and Haruto are supposed to show off their magic too.”
“That just makes me want to go more!”
Most of her lessons on the way here from Gardenia had been in hunting monsters, as it was something she wouldn’t be able to do after joining the knights, so she hadn’t gotten much training in the sort of magic Sara used.
“I should have taught you how I hunt slimes, but we didn’t see many on the way here.”
“Slimes are more of a dungeon monster,” Elm said.
It wasn’t like there were none of them out in the wild, but it was rare to run into them.