Th-this elf is too much…!!
The playful elf grinned as she tapped her unmarked grave marker.
“It’s only natural that if you grow, then so will I. Can you keep up with me—at my speed?”
It amazes me that she sounds so confident when she’s already a lap behind.
As my master carefully showed me how to send someone a stamp, I felt better after retorting by sending her a homemade one-click scam mail (a video appears of her crying that she can’t send her stamp to anyone when she clicks on it).
We went inside the restaurant and sat at a table for four. Naturally, my master came and sat next to me.
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
I pointed to the seat across from me.
“People normally sit facing each other. Look at those people over there. A conveyor belt sushi place is where a little bullet train comes sliding along the rail in front of you with plates of sushi. If you sit next to me on the aisle side, I’d have to pick up all your sushi for you. When you come to a place like this as a pair, the unwritten rule is that you sit across from each other.”
“All you have to do is get me my sushi.”
“Leave it to a four-hundred-and-twenty-year-old to be good at making people work for her.”
My master beamed as she kept pushing her body against mine.
“Besides, this is more fun. We get to be cozy. Yeah!”
“H-hey, master, s-stop doing that! Stop it! Right now!”
We both laughed as we pushed and shoved against each other.
Finally, after a waitress passed by and gave us a dirty look as if she couldn’t believe what we were doing, we turned serious.
“Okay, so how are you going to order? Do you want to steal sushi from the table next to us?”
“Guilty from your first move. What are you, a reincarnation of Arsène Lupin? What we’re going to do is synchronize our magic devices with the restaurant and order through their screen. Then we’ll get our sushi brought to us on the conveyor belt.”
“…What language are you speaking in?”
“Japanese, of course!!”
I called up the screen and showed my master the order screen with a huge lineup of sushi. She leaned in close to me, ruffled her hair, and a nice scent wafted in the air.
“Wow, they have a lot to choose from. Japanese hospitality is just as wonderful as I’d expected.”
“……”
“Hiiro?”
She looked into my face, and I cleared my throat after unconsciously admiring my master’s face.
“A-anyway, order whatever you want. It’s your treat.”
“It’s actually where each of us pays for our own meal. Huh?!?! Hey, Hiiro, look!!”
She was suddenly very excited and banged the screen like a little kid.
“They have ramen noodles! Ramen! I’m going to have ramen! I can’t believe it! What, is Japan still in the midst of a cultural enlightenment?! This is about the only country in the world where you can get ramen at a sushi restaurant!! Are the noodles pouring out of some faucet?!”
Laughing, I waved my finger from left to right and called up the dessert menu.
My master was rendered speechless when I showed her the sparkling ruby cake.
“It’s a strawberry shortcake.”
She tapped the screen with a fingertip, then turned pale and shook her head.
“Th-this can’t be possible… A…st-strawberry shortcake at a sushi restaurant…? I-it’s arrogant…beyond what’s allowed humanity…”
“Welcome to the underground,” I whispered in her ear.
Still fussing over everything, we ordered savory egg custard, ramen, roast beef—”
“…I think I’m done.”
“…Me too.”
We were full without eating a single piece of sushi.
Switching to the dessert we’d been looking forward to, I ordered a fruit jelly, and my master had a strawberry shortcake as we got down to business.
“Hiiro. What is inside you?”
I figured my master would notice, even if I’m the only one who can see her.
Wondering how to answer her question, I stared at a demon who was focused on eating a thick, juicy omelet.
“It’s essentially something bad, but I don’t think it can do any harm now. You might say it’s like a cockroach, since you’d kill it if you saw it.”
“It’s because of the thing you have inside you that your magic power has suddenly surged to unusual proportions, isn’t it? Does it have something to do with the girl who was with you when you came back?”
I nodded with my spoon in my mouth.
“Hiiro.”
My master laughed wryly.
“Strictly from the standpoint of magic power, you’ve actually become weaker.”
I sighed, understanding what she meant, as I stirred my jelly.
“At present, you aren’t in control of the magic power you’ve suddenly gained. You’re toning down the output of your invisible arrow when you shoot it, but it’s still more powerful than you could ever imagine, and you aren’t able to exert your full force because you don’t know how to adjust your physical enhancements.”
“Leave it to my master to see through everything. Congratulations, you’ve just won yourself a trip to Hawaii.”
My master reached out and gave me a gentle pat on the head.
“In all honesty, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to master it all. The invisible arrow you taught me has become weaker, and it’s just a big lump of magic power now. I had an incident with a high-ranking magic handler yesterday, and she said I was an amateur who didn’t even know how to hide my magic power.”
“The invisible arrow is essentially a magic arrow that mixes in with magic operators in the air so it can’t be detected. Since you aren’t in control of your magic power now, you put too much strength into it, and your opponent’s magic detection catches it because it’s no longer invisible. Put simply, it’s no longer an invisible arrow.”
She was right.
Even a magic handler of Chris’s caliber wouldn’t be able to respond to an invisible arrow when she first encountered it. Even Alsuhariya, a powerful demon from outside this world, couldn’t have avoided it if she hadn’t seen it before.
“Hiiro, you’re standing at a crossroads now,” my master said, holding up her index finger to demonstrate that turning point.
“It’s a crossroads of whether you’ll be a genius or mediocre. If you’re able to learn how to use that overwhelming magic, you’ll be a magic handler hailed as a genius. But the reverse is also true.”
She smiled at me.
“Do you want to become stronger, Hiiro?”
Various faces came to mind.
Every one of them was someone I had to protect, who I didn’t want to lose. So I quietly nodded. “Yeah.”
My master nodded in reaction to my resolve.
“All right, then. Shall we move on to our next training stage?”
She stood up and tossed the last remaining strawberry into her mouth.
“Starting next time, we’re changing our location. You only need to bring one thing with you—your resolve.”
“Sounds good,” I said, getting on my feet with a wry smile on my face. “That’s the one thing I always have on me.”
After saying goodbye to my master, I headed back to the academy, where I was meeting with Mule.
“You’re late! You’re late, Hiiro Sanjo! What have you been doing?! Which slow train were you taking a ride on?! Don’t tell me you don’t even know how to read a clock?!”
Mule was standing at our meeting place, dressed in her casual clothes and baring her teeth at me.
She was wearing a black sleeveless dress with a cap on her head. Swinging around her tiny handbag, she was the very picture of a small tyrant who ruled a small country. But as you’d expect of a heroine, she sure looked cute.