Apparently, Colny’s debut was a big success. She told me so in the attic room the following day. The debutante ball was during the weekend, so she could’ve just spent the night at the Aspozat residence.
Since it was our day off, we spent the entire afternoon drinking coffee and eating snacks.
“Congratulations on your debut.”
“Thank you.”
Not that she didn’t look pleased, but her overwhelming relief was much more apparent. The preparations alone had been an ordeal. Having watched it all, I was pretty moved as well. Her classmates had all debuted with her. On account of it being hosted by the royal family, everyone debuted at the same ball unless there was some specific reason they couldn’t.
“So it was nothing but familiar faces no matter which way I turned my head.”
“Did being around friends make it easier to relax?”
“I’m sure next year’s will be quite the event.”
You’ve got that right! After all, we’ve got the third prince in our class.
“We’ve also got Ribbons! I’m sure she’ll raise a fuss the moment she gets a chance.”
“Oh? Will she be able to debut?”
“Wha? Won’t our father make it happen?”
Colny, what’s that funny look for?
“Lera, I’m speaking in general terms here, but illegitimate children don’t debut, regardless of their house.”
“Really?”
That reminded me: Ozeria was a land of monogamy. Having an extramarital lover was taboo, though that supposedly didn’t stop many nobles and rich people from having affairs. Having a child with one’s lover only complicated matters.
“Nobles with children born from affairs don’t take them out in public. Of course, they also generally don’t try to get them into the academy, as their entry would be denied.”
The former dorm manager had said something similar. In the case of Ribbons, she got in because our father made some under the table deals.
“So this means Ribbons’s debut isn’t going to happen?”
That looked like a source of trouble in its own way. I hoped she wouldn’t take out her anger on me.
Oh? Huh? Could this be one of the reasons our father tried to replace me with her?
Following her debut, Colny spent many of her weekends away from the dorm so she could return to the Aspozat residence and attend social events. That went for the other girls in her class as well, resulting in a much emptier dorm on the weekends.
“Oh, so that’s why the dorm gets so lonely on weekends this time of the year.”
“Exactly. Students are only allowed to participate in weekend events. Next year, we’ll finally get our turn!”
Lanmia was really passionate about this. I would’ve loved to avoid my debut if that were an option. When I considered the future though, that didn’t seem like such a good idea. I’d assumed my ties with my house had been cut when they kicked me out, yet here I was, set to inherit the whole shebang.
If it was just a matter of making sure the house survived and whatnot, then I’d refuse the role, but there were people living in the Duval domain. I wasn’t so audacious that I could just throw them under the bus. People’s lives were on the line here. In Ozeria, a bad pull on the landlord gacha could screw you for life. Not only that, you didn’t even get to pull the lever yourself; you had to leave your fate in the hands of the heavens.
“Lowell? Is something the matter?”
“Hm? Oh, it’s nothing.”
I tried to brush her off with a smile, but Lanmia didn’t seem entirely convinced. Still, I couldn’t exactly tell her what I had been thinking.
While February was socialite season and debutante ball time, it was also time for academy students to begin preparing for the academy festival. However, since that was in late April, work didn’t really start until March.
“Last year we picked a group of representatives to put on a synchronized spell,” Bear said.
Bear and I were in his prep room, discussing what general magic would do this year. Because the previous festival was general magic’s inaugural, last year had been just first-years. However, after seeing the play (if that’s the right word) we put on, plenty of older and new students joined the class. Thanks to that, Bear was being worn thin.
Wait, no. You’re a teacher. Do your job.
In his surprisingly clean and tidy prep room, he sat in front of his desk and fiddled with a small pen.
“What are we doing this year?” I asked.
“Since we’re doing coordinated magic, I thought we could have the entire class cast something?”
Oh, so that’s where we’re headed?
The difference between synchronized magic and coordinated magic was the number of people involved. Any more than four people involved and it counted as the former. Both became grander in scope and greater in difficulty the more casters you added. In other words, even with last year’s smaller group, casting wasn’t easy, so I shouldn’t have to explain what it meant if he wanted to have the whole class.
“Does that mean Ribbons will be part of it?”
“Unless she requests a transfer, yeah. Though I don’t think many people transfer this late into things.”
If you were going to transfer, you should at least do it before the new year. Like those three that got chased by Gonsuke.
“What if we just recruited people who wanted to take part?”
“Rejected. If we did that, you’d worm your way out.”
You caught me.
This didn’t sound like any fun, so I was looking for openings to escape.
“There’s a chance Darnir Duval might prove insufficient, in which case you won’t have to worry about working with her.”
“‘Insufficient’?”
“Listen, do you think she could manage a spell that requires cooperating with her peers? She still hasn’t made much progress in class.”
Ahh. Ribbons isn’t the sort of person who can get along with others. I suppose that means my earlier trio was still better than her.
Sure enough, general magic was set to put on a display using coordinated spells at the academy festival. The moment Bear made the announcement, the classroom erupted with chatter.
“Sir! Are we going to be doing something like last year’s show?”
“It sounds fun, but really hard...”
“Are we capable of something like that?”
Amid the many uncertain voices, Ribbons was bafflingly confident.
“Oho, so the instructor has finally noticed my talents.”
What talents?
At the very least, she would fail pretty regularly during our mini practical tests. I think it was four or five class sessions before she succeeded at a coordinated spell. It was anyone’s guess if she would be able to perform when showtime rolled around.
Besides general magic, there was also just magic. It’s only natural to wonder just how the two electives differed, but the curriculum was pretty far apart. Colny and Loks both took magic as one of their electives. They were definitely running from Bear—a choice I never had, since he picked me for his class.
Some of the students in magic had moved to general magic, and the novelty of the class meant many of them hadn’t known exactly what the class was about. The older students transferred from magic made up about twenty percent of our current class. All this information was courtesy of the third prince.
“We don’t have many upperclassmen, but they know their stuff,” Bear told us. “Heck, they might be better than you guys.”
“Isn’t that a matter of course, instructor?” one student argued. “They’ve been taking magic longer than we’ve been taking this class.”
Bear gave them a fierce grin. “What are you talking about? Which class do you think does more advanced work? Those older kids in magic are hardly special.”
That got everyone talking. Bear wasn’t wrong. Even I agreed that we were doing pretty advanced stuff. It seemed the other students weren’t aware of that.
If we hadn’t been doing lower tier spells, we wouldn’t have been able to pull off last festival’s illusory performance. That was some pretty complicated casting we did back there. It was a real feat, even for the best in the class. This was all to say it was fair to assume that anyone that transferred to general magic after seeing our illusory spell was fairly competent and had a passion for magic.
“That’s why,” Bear said, his gravelly voice cutting through the silence, “today’s gonna be another day of coordinated magic. Everyone, get in groups of no more than four.”
Once again, that didn’t apply to the top students.
“If you can do synchronized magic, then coordinated magic is child’s play, isn’t it?” Bear said this with a grin. Again, he wasn’t wrong. This was why I had been doing four-person spells by myself. Then he turned to me. “Still, I can’t just let you sit around doing nothing. How about you try to think up ideas for the academy festival?”
Are you just dropping your work on us?