“The Goddess, known as the first saint, proclaimed this: Let there be light, Luxsaria Sein. Thus a spirit of Light appeared and bathed the world in its radiance. So it is that we had light, but all was icy and frozen. Thus the Goddess spoke: Let there be fire, Ignaria Sein.”
Professor Speranza, clad in dark robes, held up a copy of the scriptures as she intoned her speech.
We were in theology class, which was a purely classroom subject.
Saints kept their staves even in written lessons, so I was here too. Everyone here had their staves placed in stands on the side of their desk.
“So it was that all-knowing, all-powerful Goddess taught humanity the first five miracles: Light, Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth. These five miracles were enough to guide the entire world forward. Within the scripture, the Goddess used combinations of the five miracles to create all manner of things,” Professor Speranza explained, analyzing each passage of the scripture.
Stella, however, was too occupied to pay attention to the lecture. Professor Elyena’s report was due today, and since she hadn’t made much progress last night, she was instead using this time to fish through the book on Pandemonium while muttering to herself.
“...It was in 156 PE that the Gerda Kingdom, viewing the reality-shaping nature of magic to be dangerous, began the first-ever witch hunts. They erected statues of the king to hunt down the witches, and with their all-observing eyes...”
Suddenly, I sensed a wave of murderous malice. It was Professor Speranza, standing next to Stella’s desk. Her eye shot wide open as she stared down at the open book in front of her.
“Stella Millesia!” she declared, slamming the butt of her staff onto the ground. Stella jumped in her chair with a yelp, then hurriedly closed the book beneath the professor’s cold eye. “Class attitude: failing grade!”
Some snickering, condescending laughter echoed from the corner of the classroom. Professor Speranza spun around, and in an instant everyone had on stony expressions.
“Among all high-level miracles borne from fusing several elements, the most technically complex of all miracles would be the creation of artificial life using all five. It was with this miracle that the Goddess facilitated Johazel the Savior in creating all manner of animals,” Professor Speranza said, her shoes clacking against the floor as she strode to the back of the classroom. “If this class is simple enough you find yourself compelled to work on personal projects, Stella, I should like to see you create artificial life in front of the class.”
As usual, she was a nasty piece of work, but Stella gave an enthusiastic “Understood!” and stood up. It seemed learning to use miracles had given her some confidence. That was nice to see.
She stood in front of the lectern at the front of class and began a fluent chant. “O Spirits populating the world, O those whose oaths to the Goddess hold true! Let Water be blood, let Earth be flesh, let Fire be heat, let Wind be breath, like Light be wisdom. Aquaria Sein, Terararia Sein...”
My position at the front gave me a good view of the classroom. There was Professor Speranza at the back, arms crossed with an increasing look of shock arising on her face, and there was the villainess Quinza sneering with her friends. I heard some whispers.
“The idea of her mastering high-level miracles of just barely learning to cast one a few days ago is laughable.”
“She’s just going to finish the prayer and nothing will come out, pfff...”
“All that about a Great Spirit was a lie... It won’t be anything major...”
“Truly.”
Aaah, shut up! Stella’s working hard on this chant, just shut up and listen!
I held back my urge to shout and steeled my resolve instead. I’d have to make this “creation of life” miracle succeed so explosively all of them would eat dirt.
And that was when I realized...
Uh, what artificial life-form is she trying to make, anyhow...?
Miracles went like this: Stella chanted, I told the spirits what she wanted, and they made it happen. If I didn’t know what she wanted to make, I couldn’t tell the spirits either.
Now that Stella was at the front of class, having a secret conversation wasn’t in the cards. I’d have to use context from the prayer to figure out what she was making.
“...There was found an altar the people had made for the witches. They had sought immortality, pride, and empty wealth to bring their city prosperity. Johazel the Savior wept and left that very night. It was three days later that all the food in the city was found to have been devoured by pests.”
Yeah, no idea. Probably any living creature will do.
Stella was surely aware of everyone’s condescension. She knew not a single one of them thought in a million years her miracle would actually work. No doubt she wanted to blow them the heck out too. The bigger and grander the creature, the better.
Which means the perfect thing here is a dragon. Come forth, O spirits allied in our love for tsunderes! Form a dragon so we can see a sparkling smile on her face!
As if responding to my call, a wind blew into the classroom from the window. The orb on my head shone with light, and earth swirled above it with water...
There was the loud thump of something heavy landing on its feet.
It took a moment before those in the class understood what they were seeing and screamed.
Now standing in the classroom was a copy of the dragon I had seen at the ceremony earlier. Due to needing to fit in the classroom it was smaller than a Grand Spirit, but it didn’t lose out in aura. The pure red of its scales no doubt reflected the intensity of my wrath. The spirits did a good job.
The dragon spread its wings and, just as I had imagined, let out an ear-piercing roar. Shock waves resounded that left everyone covering their ears. The updraft of wind sent their textbooks flying, which also knocked Stella’s book off the table.
“Ah!”
Seeing that, Stella hurried over and picked it up before fitting the slip of paper back in...just as the professor let out a shrill voice. “Stella Millesia! What have you created?!”
“W-Wait, me?!” Stella exclaimed.
“Who else but you?!”
“I thought I was making a mouse...!”
Oh. You know, in retrospect, that’s kind of obvious.
“No excuses! Get rid of this dragon now, or—”
The dragon turned, instigated by Professor Speranza’s barks. She balked just as the dragon opened its mouth wide.
“Aquaria Sein!”
The professor finished her chant just as an explosive breath of fire rained down on her.
I had, in fact, gone a bit too far. I hurriedly cleared my mind, and the dragon disappeared.
Professor Speranza lived thanks to the barrier of water she formed, but the wall behind her had been burned to a crisp. There was nothing but soot-covered stone.
The rest of the class evacuated to the corner of the classroom. Most were literally dazed with shock, but Quinza alone was biting her lip angrily.
The classroom was now breezier than before, which allowed the infuriated professor’s yell to ring out easily...
“STELLA MILLESIAAAAAAAAA!”
✦ ✦ ✦
＊＊＊
“Aaah, jeez... I can’t believe they’re making me clean such a big garden. I’m so unlucky,” Stella said, her shoulders slumped and broom in hand.
As punishment for destroying a classroom, Professor Speranza had ordered her to clean a rear garden on campus. Few students came to this gloomy, shadowy place, and so it was up to her to gather up all the fallen leaves alone.
“Sorry,” I said from her back. “I should have chosen a less aggressive animal.”
“Listen, you,” Stella said, pausing her cleaning to glance at me. “Why didn’t you just make a mouse like my prayer said? Nothing bad would have happened then.”
“I didn’t know what you were trying to make...”
Apparently the spirits hadn’t heard any of Stella’s prayers, so they’d had nothing but my calls to go on. Thinking back, during the race yesterday everything had happened according to my intentions, not Stella’s. It felt like a pretty big problem that her own intentions weren’t being conveyed at all.
“I said the proper prayer, you know. It’s just common knowledge that after Johazel the Savior left, the city had an outbreak of mice that led to starvation.”
“Not common knowledge to me.”
“What, do you not even know the scriptures...? You don’t know any of the 19,525 miracles the Goddess granted?!”
“Are they really miracles if there’s that many of them...? And do you have each of those memorized?!”
Stella looked up. “Not all of them... But the chants she gave ended up right in the text of the holy scripture. If you don’t know the scripture, how are you supposed to convey what I’m thinking?”
“Just say ‘Make a mouse!’ and it’ll be done.”
“Nope,” Stella said, shooting the idea down without a second thought. “Do you have the guts to give a nontraditional prayer in front of Professor Speranza?”
“Eh... I feel like she can’t complain if the miracle works.”
“We’re graded based on whether we can reproduce the prayers exactly. If you mess up even a single word, you’ll have to write them thirty times as homework.”
Seemed like becoming a saint was no easy feat.