When we returned to the Magical Ministry, Raphael immediately came bounding up to me. He said that, since I had left him with such ominous parting words, he’d been worrying constantly. And after I sent word that I’d come face-to-face with wielders of Dark Magic, he’d gotten even more worried. He’d apparently wanted to come to the scene personally as part of the backup crew, but with the amount of work he had, this proved impossible—so he’d waited for me to return to the Ministry with bated breath, while he did his best to take care of his work.
“I can’t believe you’d do something so reckless, and after I told you to be careful! You aren’t hurt, are you? Does any part of your body feel strange?”
He was so worried about me that I started to feel guilty.
“I’m okay. No part of me was hurt.”
After I said this, his expression finally changed to one of relief.
What followed was a round of questioning from Larna—who knew the most about my Dark Magic—and Cyrus, whose role in the meeting was to keep Larna under control. Since everyone present knew about Dark Magic, I was able to talk about the fact that I’d just used Dark Magic and—through no will of my own—totally lost control of my powers.
After hearing my account, Larna assumed a serious expression.
“So you felt a sensation like an icy blizzard blowing inside of your body—it certainly sounds like a runaway spell.”
“Agreed,” said Cyrus, frowning and nodding.
Though I also possessed Earth Magic, it was only a meager amount, so I’d never lost control like that before. But when my adopted brother—Keith—first came to live with my family, he’d been unable to control his own powerful magic and ended up going on a rampage. Said rampage was my fault, so following that experience I’d read about runaway magic and at least had some basic knowledge about it—so when I found myself in that condition, I thought, Maybe that’s what this is?
Although, since I had produced such a runaway spell...
“Could it be that my Dark Magic is quite powerful?”
It was generally thought that runaway spells usually occurred in cases where the user’s magical potential was very high, and they couldn’t control their power. So I thought that maybe that was why I’d lost control of my magic during that encounter.
“Well... Though we still don’t fully understand how to measure the power of Dark Magic, from what you’ve just described, I’d say that’s highly probable,” said Larna, holding her chin between her fingers contemplatively.
The existence of Dark Magic had been concealed by the royal family for many years—only to be exposed by someone within the family during the dispute over who should succeed the previous king. Because of this, even within the Magical Ministry, only a select few knew about it, and many questions remained unanswered.
“That said, runaway magic is not always the result of high magical potential. It can also occur as a result of emotional distress,” said Cyrus.
“Ah. Right. That may have been part of it.” I’d definitely heard that losing control of one’s emotions could also mean losing control of one’s magic.
Well, I never really understood runaway magic, seeing as I could never make anything more than a Dirt Bump, so I have some trouble remembering all the details.
“Your runaway magic may be related to the fact that you experienced such potent rage beforehand. We do know that Dark Magic can feed on negative emotions,” said Larna.
Oh yeah. I do feel like I ended up in that state after getting really angry. Though everything after that is still kind of hazy...so I can’t say for certain.
“Does that mean there’s a chance this could happen to me again?” The thought of that really scared me. When I lost control, I felt almost like I wasn’t myself anymore.
“We can’t rule that out,” said Cyrus, the furrows in his brow growing deeper.
“So, what should I do? I don’t want to end up like that again!” I asked in desperation.
Larna and Cyrus pondered this for a while. It was Larna who eventually broke the silence.
“Suppressing your emotions can be difficult, Miss Katarina. But I’m sure you only fly into a rage when someone important to you is threatened, right?”
“I suppose so. That may be the most common reason.”
Certainly, I don’t often get mad for my own sake. But when horrible things happen to people I care about, I tend not to be able to put up with that.
“I thought so. In that case, you should consider that if you lose control of your magic, you may hurt the very people you’re trying to protect. If you keep that in mind, you may be able to control your rage and calm yourself down.”
I see! If I just think to myself that—when I get angry—I risk hurting the people I care about, I may be able to control it.
“That might work! Next time it looks like something like what happened today might happen again, I’ll try that!” I said in delight.
“Really? Great!” said Larna, sharing my joy.
But then Cyrus felt the need to rain on my parade.
“Hey now, we don’t know for sure if that will even be possible. We need to come up with additional measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
He was absolutely right. So I reined in my delight for the time being, and put on what I thought was an expression of commendable sobriety.
“Yes sir,” I said, and nodded.
As for the measures we would put in place, Cyrus came up with few suggestions: “Make an effort not to get emotional,” “Be especially careful not to store up negative emotions,” “When you absolutely have to use Dark Magic, take due caution,” and “Don’t do anything so risky again, like getting involved with that dangerous organization.” He not only admonished me to be more careful from now on, but for some reason addressed the same warning to Larna.
We also agreed that if we came up with any more countermeasures, we wouldn’t hesitate to notify each other. At that point, I thought we were done talking. However...
“So, after you entered that state, how did you manage to return to your senses? Could you tell me more about that?” asked Larna, brimming with curiosity.