Sophie looked up at the sky. It had shades of both the day and night sky in it, and the moon was visible.
“You don’t have to fit in to the place you were born, you know. If you ever feel lonely, you’re always welcome to come here. We can open a circus and have people buy tickets to come see you. It’ll be the biggest show on earth—and I’ll take a fifty percent cut.”
“Spberry.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t make me hurt you.”
Sophie smiled as she said this—she was happy on the inside.
It was time to open the portal. We assembled at the large town square in the middle of Lapis. Sophie and I stood within a fenced-off area, a circle with a radius of about twenty meters. Sophie handled the main formula, and I would support her in opening and stabilizing the portal. This was something my teacher always did on her own, but I was going to help this time.
Many people gathered outside the fenced-off area to watch Sophie. There were way more people this year than there usually were. It occurred to me that this was the world Sophie Hayter lived in.
“Okay, Miss Raspberry. We anticipate a bang-up job this year, as you always do.”
I shook hands with Mayor Carter. He was a large-framed bearded man I knew well.
“You got it! We’re gonna open a portal so grand, it’ll turn into a problem with all the noise and trash left behind by the festival. You’re going to have to work double time to figure it out after everything’s said and done.”
“Okay, let’s not make it that grand.”
After the mayor finished shaking my hand, he looked a bit more nervous and did the same for Sophie. With the same resolute expression she always had, she shook his hand.
“S-Sophie Highter. I’ve heard all about you.”
“No.”
Sophie shook her head, and the mayor ended up losing face a bit when he let a dumb-sounding “Erm” out.
“Mayor! Her name is Sophie Hayter, not whatever you said! It’s a big honor she’s here; you should at least get her name right.”
“Oof, my mistake, Meg.”
“Don’t apologize to me! Also, you need to call me Miss Raspberry in public!”
“Oh, I, uh…”
The mayor was a mess. Despite his large frame, he looked so small next to Sophie on the stage. Perhaps he was out of his element having to hold this ceremony without my teacher. Whatever the case may have been, it was hard to watch our countryside mayor make a fool of himself in such a public way.
“I think that’s enough, Mr. Mayor! How about you stand over there so we can finish up this portal now, okay?”
“Y-yes!”
We watched as he scrambled off the stage, and that was that. My eyes met Sophie’s, and it was time.
“Are you ready, Spberry?”
“You bet your bottom dollar I am!”
“What century is that response from?”
While Sophie poked fun at me, she also activated the first magic formula. Despite the sun being up, the immediate vicinity grew dark—a sign the magic was taking effect.
Time and space in the center of the town square began to warp. Sophie then activated both formulas two and three, which created the portal in a single flash, connecting this world with the others.
Though she was moving quickly through the steps, it wasn’t too difficult to keep up. This was because my teacher always activated all seven at once. I usually didn’t play a part in the ceremony like I was this time, though. I needed to support Sophie, who was using this spell for the first time in her life, using the knowledge and experience I had from watching my teacher all these years. I should have been able to emulate my teacher, if not just by a smidgen.
I would set off the fourth and fifth formulas, which stabilized the portal and helped it take hold in our world. All that was left was using the sixth formula to formulate the physical portal, then the seventh to add a barrier for safety.
I watched as Sophie activated the sixth formula, which constructed the portal, and something suddenly caught my eye. It was the seventh formula Sophie had ready—there was a kink in its form.
“Sophie, wait!”
“…?”
As I said this, the seventh formula began to fall apart. A bright line shone out for a brief instant before the seventh formula disappeared, and the barrier vanished into thin air. This triggered a big shock wave, which caused Sophie and me both to fall where we stood.
It all happened in an instant.
“Ow…”
I sat up, and what I saw shocked me.
Evidently, the crowd had no idea that this was a problem, and so they were cheering for the portal that opened up.
It was only Sophie and I who knew what happened.
The portal to the other worlds. On the other end of the portal were thousands upon thousands of other worlds. There were worlds that sought to cultivate prosperity with our own, and conversely, worlds that only brought chaos.
Intermingling with other worlds helped to advance our own and was a catalyst for this world’s cultural evolution. This made it possible to achieve many advancements in agriculture, manufacturing, and architecture. There were, of course, also cases of our world sharing techniques and technologies with other worlds as well.
The role the portal played was to bring about the greatest good for citizens of all worlds who passed through it. It wasn’t all roses, though. Throughout the long history of this tradition, there were isolated cases where the portal triggered a disaster. This included the spread of new germs, such as black blood disease and monera fever—illnesses that were said to have been brought to this world through the portal. These diseases resulted in the deaths of thousands, and it took nearly fifty years to find cures.
Magical beasts finding their way through the portal also caused the deaths of hundreds before eventually being eradicated. There was also a case where the mage ended up getting eaten alive by what passed through, too.
The portal, while a beacon of prosperity, also harbored the potential for tremendous danger. This was what the barrier was for—to keep any dangers from finding their way through the portal into our world.
It was arguably the most important part of the spell, and it had failed, with the portal up and running in full. This meant there was a possibility that everyone at the town square could be in grave danger.
This is bad, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad…
There was an alarm going off in my mind. My entire body was covered in a cold sweat, and my heart was pumping so hard that it made me feel dizzy.
I needed to figure out exactly what had happened and act fast. If we screwed this up, this day could go down in history as a bloody massacre.
We need to move…!
“Sophie!”
I yelled out her name, and she snapped back to reality and looked at me.
“Create a new barrier! I will buy us the time we need!”
While Sophie drew up the massive spell formula for the barrier from scratch, I needed to act fast to throw up a temporary one. Drawing it out on the ground would take way too long—I needed to make the barrier appear as soon as possible.
I found myself recalling the conversation Sophie and I had the day before.
“How do you draw out formulas with your hand like that?”
“…It takes two steps. First, you bring your magic to your fingertip to give it the same effect as chanting. Then you release that magic to create a flow that makes up the formula. Executing these two steps in as little time as possible also serves to shorten the casting process.”
I collected my magical energy into my finger and imagined the flow of the magic circle in my mind. With the magic circle inside me, I then used my fingertip as an exit for it to take effect. That was what I pictured, at least.
Was it going to work? I had no way of knowing and was about to find out.
With my magic in my finger, I pointed to draw through the air, and I could feel something strange. It was a feeling I felt for the first time in my entire life, like I was pressing my finger against an invisible acrylic board.
This is it… I can do this…!
I began spelling out the first character, and a line made of light illuminated behind my finger. I wrote out a simplified version of the spell and activated it. I could then see the barrier being formed before my very eyes.
It worked…!