Something told me it was the latter. Bear tilted his head, asking what screws had to do with it. This world had screws, but apparently they didn’t have that phrase. Screws aside, I was glad to have the aid of Lord Nogdeid and his competent younger son now that I knew their reasoning.
“Do you think it’s safe to assume they’ll be focusing their efforts on the arena?”
“Probably. That dimwit brother seems pretty intent on ruining your day.”
What a terrible person. But as I expected, he overlooked the funniest thing.
“If we know what they’re planning, we can come up with a counter! If they’re using a magic tool to interfere with mana, we can just make a tool to interfere with theirs.”
“Do you have the spare time to be doing that?”
Honestly, I didn’t. But there was someone who might be able to make it work. Probably.
“I’ll contact the institute and ask Nielle to make it!”
“Hey! She’s got a lot on her plate, you know! She isn’t your personal servant.”
“If Nielle says no, I’ll make it myself. She can manage her own schedule.”
“Well, yeah, that’s true.”
Bear got pretty overprotective when it came to Nielle. To be fair, Lord Peylon had asked him to look out for her. Despite her eccentricities, she was the daughter of a baron.
The moment I was back in the attic room, I contacted the institute, and they put me through to Nielle.
“Hey, what’s up, Lera? Ah! I made the magic tool you asked me about a while back.”
“Congratulations. But you see, I need to ask you about that.”
“What have you got for me?”
Nielle was married to magic. She had a good hand for magic tools, but preferred to dedicate herself to research. Though research wasn’t quite what I had for her, I was sure she would get fired up over it.
“So you see, it seems another house copied the tool you made, and plans to use it.”
“What?! Which house?!”
Oops. The only thing I stoked is her anger. No, that flame should be for research.
“Calm down. We’ll get rid of the tool later. Now, can you make us something that prevents their tool from working?”
“What do you mean?”
All right, I’ve got her now.
I told Nielle about how the interference would work.
“How does that sound?”
“I see. Um, I should be able to make this work. Right. No time like the present for experiments!”
“Thanks in advance. Oh, can you have it ready before the academy festival?”
“I’ll do my best!”
Now that that was settled, I just had to worry about people confronting me. Lord Bilbroza sounded like a ruthless person. I could imagine him making another plan while letting the dimwit son carry out his own. I hated that my intuition was always right when it came to these kinds of things.
Seriously, I wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing that my bad feelings usually turned out to be right.
“An underclassman shouldn’t rebel against their seniors, you know?”
“You just have to take a liiittle break from the academy—that’s all we’re asking.”
“You don’t want to see her get hurt, do you?”
“If you don’t do as we say, you know what that’ll mean for your friend here, right?”
I was behind one of the school buildings. It was just me, a blanching Luchirs, and some bulky older guys holding her hostage.
“L-Lowell,” she stammered, “I’m sor—”
“Don’t worry about it, Luchirs. These jerks are in the wrong, not you.”
“What did you say?!” one of them hollered; perhaps because I called him a jerk, perhaps because I said he was in the wrong.
I mean, he took a hostage to threaten a girl—a younger girl at that—so he was plenty wrong. Did he really think he could get away with doing something like this on academy grounds? Perhaps Lord Bilbroza was behind this too.
Either way, my first problem was the students in front of me. If I wanted to quickly neutralize them, the hypnosis beam was the best option. It was so strong that one good blast was enough to make research nut Nielle sleep like a log. That would leave everyone here collapsed on the ground, but I just had to inform Bear and he would see that they were all taken care of.
Now then.
“Take this: Hypnosis beam!”
“Wha—guh...”
The older boys all let a short yell before hitting the ground.
Crud!
“I put Luchirs to sleep toooo!”
I gently extracted her from the clutches of the snoring seniors, then used another spell to rouse her.
“Mmm. Oh, am I...”
“Are you all right, Luchirs? Do you know where you are?”
With slowly fluttering eyes, Luchirs drowsily lifted herself out of my arms.
“Umm... Oh! Those older students, they...”
She looked at the students sprawled out on the ground. Then her gaze slowly drifted back to me.
“Um, are they...”
“They’re fine. They’re just asleep.” And they’d stay that way for three days without magical assistance. “I’m going to go report this to Bear—uh, I mean, the general magic instructor. Could you come with me?”
“Sure. I’m not sure I’m really up to returning on my own.”
That’s for sure. That’s why I thought we could go together.
The impromptu sleepover was a little more spread out than I liked, so I levitated the students into a tidy pile. Just as we were about to head for the general magic prep room, I heard a voice coming up from behind.
“Augh! What the hell happened?!”
I spun around and saw the dimwit older brother.
“Why are they all on the ground?! What did you do?! What am I supposed to do?! I went to all the trouble of finding these guys!”
I knew it! So you are behind this kidnapping!
“You too, scum! Hypnosis beam!”
“Urmgh—ohhh...”
The dimwit brother fell without a fight. I gave him a stronger dose than the other thugs—enough for five whole days. I’d have to report that to Bear as well.