“A magic circle of protection? What are you going to use it for?”
It exists!
“My cousin is a member of the First Cavalry Division,” I explained to Mr. Kubrick. “I was thinking I could embroider it onto a cape for him.”
Mr. Kubrick nodded understandingly, then he groaned. Is something wrong?
“I believe the members of the First Cavalry Division wear matching capes, but I’ve also heard that some of them embroider their family crest or the name of a patron saint onto their capes. I don’t think there’s any issue with embroidering a magic circle of protection onto the cape, but it’ll be a lot of work. It also won’t be effective if you use regular thread.”
Magic circles were operated by magic stones, which was likely why standard embroidery floss wouldn’t be effective. I was quite disappointed.
“Wait, does that mean there is an embroidery floss that would work?” I asked.
Mr. Kubrick smiled. I have a bad feeling about this.
“In the past, there was a hero who is said to have donned a cape with a magic circle of protection embroidered onto it. It sounded so exciting, I did tons of research into it. You have skills in dyeing, embroidery, and alchemy, in addition to knowledge of magic circles. I encourage you to combine these skills and find a way to make this magically protected cape a reality.”
So he’s just a guy chasing after a dream based on a heroic story he read as a kid... Well, to be honest, I don’t mind that. I’m going to take on this challenge!
“Here is the research I gathered,” Mr. Kubrick said, handing me a messy pile of papers. “I truly hope you succeed.”
It was very clear that this research had been a hobby of his. It’s going to be hard work to read through all of this. I feel like I have extra homework to do over the weekend.
“If Henry is going to become a knight, I absolutely need to be able to embroider a protective magic circle onto his cape,” I mumbled to myself, “so I may as well start looking into this.”
This was not only a token of my gratitude toward my cousin, but an endeavor for the sake of my beloved younger brother. Your sister is going to do her best!
This cape business was going to take a lot of work. Just organizing Mr. Kubrick’s research into useful and irrelevant documents was going to be a big task. I set that matter aside for now and headed to music club.
I’d already finished composing all of the songs for the glee club, and I’d already prepared several new pieces for the music club’s own performance, so I thought I was set. Unfortunately, reality wasn’t so simple.
“You’ve written your new pieces already, right, Patience?” President Albert asked. “In that case, we’re going to visit the glee club.”
What? Why do I have to go to the glee club?
“Did you finish the lyrics, Albert?!” Princess Margaret asked with, well, glee. Not only was she not stopping him from dragging me off, but she seemed to now be leading the way.
“They’re finally done, so the glee club is going to start song rehearsals. I think it’s best for the composer to be there for that. If there are any high notes that are impossible for them to hit, we may have to make adjustments.”
That’s something you could handle on your own, President Albert, I complained internally. I don’t want to end up fighting with the choir club. Louise is scaaary.
“Wow, I didn’t realize that the glee club is in the same room as the choir club,” Princess Margaret remarked. “They have enough members to be a full club on their own. Student Council President Rufus must be a slow worker.”
It was definitely a problem that the choir club and glee club were forced to keep using the same clubroom, despite the fact that there were other clubrooms available. It was also probably uncomfortable for them, since they’d initially been part of the same club. I was perhaps naive to think of all this as someone else’s problem.
“This seems like too many people to be the glee club,” President Albert commented.
Even before he’d pointed it out, it was obvious there were a great many female students. They were likely the members of the choir club. After all, Louise was among them.
Ugh, I want to run away! I feel like we’re on our way to an argument!
“Hey, thanks for coming, Albert,” a student greeted him. He was probably the glee club’s president, Marcus Lambert. He had dark blond hair and brown eyes—kind of a textbook display of handsomeness. He’s too grown for my own tastes.
“What’s going on, Marcus?” Albert asked. “I thought we were starting rehearsals. Are you going to be performing with the choir club after all?”
Saying stuff like that is going to start a fight, President Albert!
Just as I’d expected, a fierce-looking student glared over at us.
“This is the choir club’s room,” she huffed. “I believe we’ve ordered former members to leave the premises, but it seems you’ve forgotten.”
Harsh, but I agree that a separate club should be held in a separate clubroom. I guess the student council hasn’t gotten around to handling this since they were overwhelmed by all that stuff with the knight club. But even if that’s the reason they’re behind, they’re taking way too long to resolve this.
“The choir club meets on Mondays and Wednesdays, President Emilia,” Marcus pointed out. “That is why the glee club only meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Why are you here on a Thursday?”
“We’re here to practice for the Festival of Verdure,” Emilia replied. “Do you have a problem with that?”
Oh, they were trading off days, but the choir club decided to be mean and show up on a Thursday. How childish of them. Instead of being so petty, they should try to be more positive and focus on practicing. Of course, I’m not kind enough to give them that advice. I’m also too scared to say anything.
The argument appeared to be heating up, so the members of the music club decided to leave. I was glad to see that even President Albert had the smarts to stay out of a fight between the glee club and the choir club.
I naively thought that we had avoided conflict, only to find out that the music club had caught a stray bullet. President Marcus had gone on to speak to the student council about speeding up the process for the glee club to be officially recognized, and as a result, the glee club was finally able to get its own clubroom.
That in itself was fine; however, it had led to President Emilia of the choir club lodging a complaint with the student council against the music club, stating that it wasn’t right for the glee club alone to receive new compositions from the music club. She’d likewise complained about the dance club, who’d provided choreography for the glee club’s musical.
Doesn’t she have anything better to do?!
I had suspicions that President Albert had fanned the flames of Marcus’s dissatisfaction with the choir club, and that the former had been the one who’d encouraged the latter to start the glee club. If that were true, I definitely didn’t deserve to get wrapped up in this kerfuffle.
It was now Friday. I was visiting the palace after school. I was free during third period, but Princess Margaret had embroidery, so I wouldn’t be leaving just yet.
“I’d like to do some experiments with slime powder in alchemy club, but if I go, I don’t think I’ll be able to leave,” I mumbled to myself.
I instead decided to read through Mr. Kubrick’s research. First, I skimmed through all the documents and separated them into three general piles: documents about magic circles, documents about magic stones, and documents about embroidery floss. As I’d expected, there was the least amount of research on embroidery floss.
This world doesn’t do that fantasy cliché of using spiderwebs to embroider, does it? That totally wouldn’t work... Wait, silk is just spit out by moths, so I guess it could be possible.