“I have to imagine she is only here to eat before leaving. Pffff...”
“Let us hope her inability to use holy magic does not rub off on us... She is the shame of Antohsa.”
“She truly is.”
They really are like a cliché villainess and her equally cliché gang of groupies.
Stella looked at them with her mouth drawn into a thin line. Even on her back, I could feel the tension running through her. I gave her a silent but hearty cheer on the inside. No matter what happened, she would have an ally in me.
As if offended by Stella’s mere gaze, the villainess sneered. “What? Have something to say, Stupella?”
Stella didn’t respond. She just continued staring back at them.
The villainess sniffed. “Hurry back to your room. There is no place for you in this most holy of ceremonies. The fact you are here at all is a hindrance to everyone,” she said, then brandished her staff with a flourish. “O Spirits of Fire, fulfill your contract in the name of the Goddess supreme: Ignaria Sein!”
With an explosive boom, the tip of the girl’s staff was wrapped in fire.
What the heck...?!
Before I knew it, a fireball the size of a tennis ball was floating next to the villainess’s red hair. That was something that couldn’t be explained by modern science. Was it magic? Did this world have magic?!
My enthusiasm was in contrast to the increasing danger of the situation.
The villainess put on a devilish smile and swung down her staff. “Now! Begone, you waste of space!” The fireball shot toward Stella.
“Ngh!”
Stella kicked her chair, leaped up, took a bag out of her pocket, and threw it at the group of four. It exploded with a pop and showered the area with white powder.
“Wha... Cough, cough! Is this flour?!”
“How chi—cough! Childish! Pfffhohoh!”
“Cough, cough! What a coward... Refusing to fight holy magic with holy magic...”
“She truly—ACHOO!—is...”
Stella fled in the blink of an eye. The fireball chased after and exploded where her feet had been. Others looked our way to see what was going on, but none of them tried to help—not even the professors. They would warn a student about how they’re treating a staff, but not intervene in a fight? I could hear Stella’s ragged breathing right next to my pseudo-ears as she ran.
I think she’s gone far enough...
“Stella, you lost them.”
She paused. We found ourselves in a corner of the plaza where none of the music from the stage or lights from the stage could reach us. Here, Stella could catch her breath.
After some silence, she said, “I’ll be eating here.”
“Sounds good.” Any food eaten next to a tsundere would surely be the highest delicacy. However... “WHY DO I HAVE TO BE A STAAAAFF?!”
We were at the edge of the plaza. Stella sat on some stairs next to some overgrown shrubbery and bit into her kebab. I rested on the stairs next to her.
“Guh? What was that for?” she asked, surprised by my shouting.
Putting me like this made it look like we were sitting next to each other, but at the end of the day I was just a staff. I couldn’t eat. And I didn’t feel hunger either.
“I curse your name, O Goddess... You have granted me a dream scenario in reincarnating to another world where I get to go on a festival date with a tsundere girl, only to make me a staff! I don’t even get to try out isekai food with her!”
“Date?!” Stella yelped. “Th-Th-That’s stupid! This isn’t a da— Wait. I’m alone with a boy, which may, in fact, make this a date... WH-WHAT DO YOU DO ON DATES?!”
“Ngggh! My chance to have a tsundere mock me for not having money on me, lend me half of her food, and ultimately up shyly feeding me has been stolen! Do the divine have no hearts?!”
“O-Open wiiide?” Stella, her cheeks bright red, pushed a chunk of meat against my cheek and rubbed. The wood of my face soon became covered in sauce and grease. “H-Happy now? Jeez, this is so stupid.”
“You’re so kind my faith in the divine has been renewed,” I replied, looking at Stella with the piece of meat still stuck to my cheek.
She was burying her face in the kebab, completely devouring it. The furtive glances she sometimes shot my way were delightfully innocent. This had turned into an actual date.
“So, Stella. Does this world have magic?”
“Mnn, magic?!” Stella cried, a look of shock on her face. That was the kind of reaction one gave when a taboo subject was brought up.
“That redhead just blasted out fire, didn’t she? Isn’t that magic?”
“Obviously not. Magic is a cursed technique used by witches. Quinza is a bully, but she isn’t a world-ending witch.”
Hmm. Seems like this place views magic differently from how my world does.
“What do you call that, then?”
“It was a miracle. Do you not know what miracles are...?”
“Not ones that actually happen, no.”
“They’re just what they sound like—miracles performed by borrowing the power of spirits. Nature is filled with spirits of five types: Light, Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth. We ask the spirits for their aid, and they let us use their power.”
“Hence the fireball.”
“Quinza’s staff has a high-ranking Fire spirit, which makes Fire miracles her specialty,” Stella explained. It basically sounded like the same thing as the magic I was familiar with.
Apparently it was common for staves to be inhabited by elemental spirits, which explained why I was a bit of a problem for Stella. Fair enough. The fact she wanted a Grand Spirit in her staff was indicative of just how important spirits in staves surely were.
“Just one more question. What was with all her insults?” I asked. The villainess had addressed Stella as “Stupella,” and even the professor from before had said nobody liked her. Truth aside, there had to be something behind having a nickname like that.
Stella paused. She glared into the distance, where a bunch of students were enjoying the festival.
“Don’t talk about that again. It’s uncomfortable.”
“But why? I want to know why you’re being treated like that. Who in the world could ever dislike you?”
“Drop it. I told you not to talk about it, didn’t I?”
“Why are you avoiding the subject? If there’s something going on here, I want to know. I can be bias-free since I’m from another world.”
“I don’t want to talk about it! Why do I need to explain every little detail to you?”
“I mean, ‘Stupella’ is just too cruel! I want to help y—”