Sindoria the Eighth was speechless before the array of names. Perhaps she had meant it as a surprise, but this was the first he had heard of what his daughter had been doing. As busy as he was, going around his back like this was nearly tantamount to an insult to the crown.
“You...”
“Ah ha ha ha ha!” Theresia laughed. “I’m happy to see I can still surprise you! Keeping secrets from you is heart-pounding, my lord father.”
Would a man ever be found who was more capable than this girl? And how shameful was it that after twenty-four years of presiding over the smoothly functioning government from his seat on the throne, the Philosopher King Sindoria the Eighth found himself so vexed and stymied over an unruly daughter, of all possible things?
“It seems you’ve prepared well this time,” he said.
“But of course! It has been far too long since I’ve had a chance to visit lands abroad! I have no intention of letting this go.” To the kingdom, it was a serious affair, but to her, it was mainly an opportunity to leave the palace. She smiled dryly. “And besides, there is someone whom I wish to meet. I am afraid that I am going to Free Market City with your permission or without it.”
Sindoria the Eighth was surprised to hear such a strong declaration from his witty and resourceful daughter. It was rare for anyone to hold her interest and even rarer for her to state as much so plainly. Only His Eminence of the Crimson Empire, the White Knight of the Holy Land, and the Living God—few enough to count on a single hand—had ever accomplished the feat.
As it happened, though, Sindoria the Eighth had a feeling he knew who the person in question was. “I see...” he said. “You wish to meet the subject of all those rumors, I take it?”
She was a champion who had made her name in the Battle of the Dragon. Acknowledged by both of Free Market City’s ever-feuding great noble houses, she was a person very much worthy of attention. She had appeared suddenly and very quickly became the second S-Rank adventurer in the kingdom’s history. People said that she was half dragon.
“Yes, I should very much like to meet her! Lady Nacht, the Champion of Free Market City...”
~ ‡ ~
“No more!” Aisha begged with a pained expression, tears floating in her eyes. “I can’t... I can’t handle any more, Mistress!”
Nacht, however, just grinned at Aisha’s protests. “There’s still a bunch left to go,” she whispered, leaning in so her mouth was practically touching her servant’s pointed ears. It sent a small tremor of shock through Aisha’s body. “Don’t worry, Aisha. I know you can handle it. Just relax and let the tension out of your body.” She reached out and patted Aisha on the head.
Aisha’s eyes closed halfway, a smile coming over her face. She had been working very hard. “Ahhh...” she sighed. “Mistress, not now... It feels too good...”
“Ah ha ha,” Nacht laughed, stroking Aisha’s hair. “Having trouble focusing?” Then, with a mighty thud, Aisha answered the question by face-planting directly onto the book on her lap.
“I’m sleepy...” she muttered, her voice muffled by the tome’s pages.
The two were in the Great Library in the central district of Free Market City. Trade had brought with it a tide of written works from all over, most of which had found their way here. This was a repository of knowledge, boasting more than two hundred thousand books and documents.
“Well, no use trying to force it,” Nacht said. “There’s no getting around memorization when it comes to studying language, but if you try to cram it all in at once, you won’t remember any of it. With history, you can have fun listening to stories of old times, and with magic, you can play around and try spells. Simple memorization isn’t a very efficient way to learn.”
Aisha sighed deeply, looking at the massive pile of books they’d accumulated. Nacht, however, seemed like she was having fun. Aisha might not have seen it, but the two of them were alone. And as long as they were alone, as far as Nacht was concerned, even studying could be tremendously fun.
“Studying is hard...” Aisha said, her ears drooping expressively. “I wasn’t any good at it when my father tried to teach me reading and writing and math either...”
Thinking she might be able to give the girl some advice, Nacht took the textbook Aisha had been reading—an introduction to magecraft. She pored over it in two or three seconds, then closed it. “Hm,” she said. “This book uses lots of difficult language. And it’s full of pointless bits if all you want is to learn how to cast spells. Maybe we should try this book instead? Magic Made Easy: Even a Monkey Can Do It...?”
Aisha took one look at the new book and wrinkled her face in revulsion. “Now you’re just making fun of me...”
That hadn’t been Nacht’s intention at all. The author of the book was unknown, but it explained how to cast various spells in a very simple manner. Nacht thought it might help Aisha in her goal of learning how to use magic herself. “Not at all!” Nacht said. “I just don’t see much use for all the theory nonsense. It doesn’t seem that important. Nobody ever taught me this stuff, and I can cast spells just fine!”
“That’s because you’re you, Mistress...” Aisha sighed again and returned to glaring at the book.
It had been two weeks since the Battle of the Dragon, and peace had returned to Free Market City. The two great noble houses had thrown a grand victory celebration, and the city had become even more lively as people wheeled and dealed over the spoils of war—components harvested from the vanquished monsters and fire dragon scales left behind on the battlefield. They had suffered great losses, but the merchant city stubbornly kept to its ways. Things had gone almost entirely back to normal.
Aisha had spent most of that time training herself, determined to be more useful to her mistress. Nacht was anxious for Aisha to get stronger too, but for a different reason—her conceited pride had already led to Aisha being attacked by a dragon, narrowly escaping death.
Aisha had been busying herself with training and helping out with daily tasks as well. Her attempts at cooking had only resulted in disaster, and she still had the bad habit of squeezing her eyes shut during combat training, but Nacht was proud just to see Aisha working so hard. Most recently, she had started going to the library to study. She was working as hard as she could, but Aisha’s memory had always been poor, so the work was slow going. Inevitably, she would doze off not long after starting. But Nacht didn’t have a problem with that either. After all, it was a great opportunity to see one of the greatest blessings in existence: her cute Aisha’s sleeping face.
She was poring over a genuine magic tome again today with great difficulty, shooting looks of envy at her mistress as she read. “Nobody ever taught you magic, Mistress?” she asked. “How did you learn how to cast spells, then?”
Nacht gave the question some thought, comparing her old memories to her current self before she spoke. “Magic is just a power everyone has,” she said. “It’s just a name for all the various ways you can use mana. As long as you can control the mana in your body, you can cast spells. You don’t need to know theory at all.”
Aisha herself had lashed out at the fire dragon using her own mana. It may have been crude, but it was undeniably a spell.
Everyone had their own method of using magic. The most mainstream approach was to imbue one’s voice with mana, manipulating its flow through incantation. Even Aisha had done that during the battle, unconsciously imbuing her voice with magic power when she had summoned a spirit to aid her. She could do it if she let go of her thoughts, but Aisha was serious to a fault and insisted on doing it properly. She was doing her best to memorize the whole entire book, as if she were worried she might fail a school test.
“Even with you teaching me, Mistress, I still can’t do anything without the spirits’ help...” Aisha seemed demoralized, but Nacht saw no reason to be pessimistic about her progress.
“You have elven mana and dragon mana, you know, Aisha,” she said. “It makes sense it’s a lot to get a handle on. And what’s wrong with asking the spirits for help? Your spirit magic is something to be proud of!” Nacht, after all, was part of the majority of the population who was not chosen by the spirits. From her point of view, spirit magic was a skill she could never master.
“Maybe,” Aisha said. “But that’s just because the spirits are so incredible! I want to be able to use magic myself, so I can be more and more useful to you, Mistress...”
“Ah ha ha! Well, I guess you’ll just have to keep practicing. I’ll help as much as I can, of course!” Nacht petted Aisha’s head and handed the disorganized jumble of books they had been using back to the woman waiting on them. The woman made an aggrieved face, but Nacht shot her a glance and she went off to shelve the books, her body shaking with fear.