And so I, who had seen all of that for myself, stood staring at the receptionist lady with my eyes sparkling.
Not at my father, who had worked so hard to take care of the actual work of the request.
Not at the big man standing at the next counter who was bragging about completing some difficult assignment.
My eyes were drawn only to the woman who sat there, the same as ever, always waiting with a smile. I felt something akin to intense longing and aspiration seeping, simmering, and boiling out of me as I stood there, staring at her.
And so I, who had stood there staring unblinkingly at the lady at Harré, was gently dragged away by my father, my shoes squeaking on the floor as he pulled me away. He thought I was tired or something, apparently.
“Aspiration” is something that isn’t achieved because you want to aspire to something or someone.
Before you know it, you find yourself aspiring to be something or someone. In my experience, it was a feeling that came on quite suddenly and without any particular reason. I might have dreamed of becoming a flower shop owner, I might have aimed to become a chef, or eventually chosen to do something else entirely. That’s where I was at that moment, just in that mental state of, “I want to become like that receptionist.” There wasn’t anything mysterious or strange about what I was feeling. It was simply what I wanted to become.
“I, I will be like that lady!”
And so what I wanted to be in the future turned into “Receptionist Lady.” It certainly wasn’t anything fancy, but it was something necessary. To me, anyway.
But when I told Father and Mother about my new dream, they, for some reason, tried very hard to dissuade me.
Their reasoning was: “You have to be an outstanding student in all of your magic studies. You have to be able to fight with magic and be smart enough to be in the top ranks of the students at the Royal School of Magic. Only those who have all of those skills can work there.”
Upon hearing that, however, I only wanted to become a receptionist even more.
After all, just thinking about how that incredibly graceful lady also has the skills to fight with magic and is intelligent enough to be at the top of her class—it made me admire her just that much more.
In order to persuade the two of them, I worked hard to become the number one student, even if it was only at the village schoolhouse. I would lock myself away inside the schoolhouse’s materials room, constantly pushing myself to figure out how to be able to do new types of magic, slowly understanding more and more, and asking my mother, who was well versed in such things, about how to make magic circles. Even with just that simple goal of learning the basics about magic circles, I felt that the way I threw myself into my studies was quite different from how I had studied before.
Thanks to my efforts, I was consistently able to be the top student at the schoolhouse, and was able to learn all the basic facts about magic that every child needed to know.
“You don’t have a familiar yet, so you’re going to ride in this horse carriage,” my mother says to me on the day I am leaving for magic school.
“Okay.”
“Don’t go catching a cold, alright?”
“I won’t, Mom!”
In order to get to school, I get into the flying horse carriage. There isn’t anyone else on board—not even a driver.
This is the only way I can get to the island floating up in the sky. Humans who have familiars get there differently, as they can use them to travel there quite quickly and easily. My father has a familiar, but it’s not permitted for parents to take their children to the island, so he can’t take me.
With that in mind, my mom has crafted this magical contraption especially for me.
At first glance it seems like quite the normal horse-drawn carriage: a horse connected to a humble, light brown carriage. But if you feed the horse a piece of paper that has the destination written on it, that four-legged creature will leap into the air and carry the carriage and its passenger to that place. It’s a magnificently magical carriage.
If I ever want to return home, all I need to do is have it eat a piece of paper that says “take me home,” so it’s quite convenient.
“I’m heading off!”
I feed the paper to the horse, get in the carriage, and we leave the ground. When I look down, I can see my mother, waving at me, growing smaller and smaller.
“This is such a comfortable ride! Just what I’d expect from a carriage my mother made.”
Above the Kingdom of Doran floats the “Royal Isle,” the island where the King resides. It’s the same in every kingdom, with the king’s castle on an island, and it’s very much taken for granted that the island will be floating in the sky above the kingdom.
That said, I don’t exactly know why the island is floating. When I ask adults, their responses are always quite vague, and their opinions on the subject differ. One theory I learned in the village schoolhouse was that long ago, in a time when demons rampaged throughout the land in much greater numbers than they do now, the greatest wizards of the age came together and lifted the castle and lands surrounding it into the sky, so that the royal family held in such high esteem by the kingdom would be just a little safer, protected from the dangers below. Or so I had been taught.
Of course, if there was one theory, there were others, but most were similar to this one.
And so now, on the Royal Isle, is a School of Magic. It’s a place with a rather long history, and also the school my father had attended. You have to graduate from this school if you want to be a sorcerer, and since he had indeed aspired to be one, it had been an easy decision for him.
Those who wish to join the Royal Knights, those who wish to seriously study magic... all of them come here. If you want to work in a place like Harré, you need a diploma from this school.
One can learn a certain degree of magic by studying at a normal school, but the difference between what you can study there and at the Royal School is a difference in order of magnitude, not simply degree. To put it more clearly, if you study at a normal school then you’ll learn how to cook simple meals for yourself at home, but at the Royal School you’ll learn how to create some of the finest cuisine in all the world.
Many of the children who go to the school have aristocrats for parents, who hold ranks like “duke” and “count,” among others. I’ve heard that many of those aristocratic children are half-forced to come here, with some wanting to attend and others attending against their will.
The aristocrats have an obligation to protect their lands from invasion by outside forces, so they take on military responsibilities. From an economic standpoint, managing their lands is part of their job, but as ruler of their domains it’s their responsibility to protect them as well. With demons still rather common in recent years, they need to become strong enough to defend their lands against them, as befit their roles as masters of their domains.
Must be difficult to be an aristocrat. It’s not all just wearing those fancy, flowing outfits.
“Wowwww!”
I can see the castle on the Royal Isle from my carriage. The white walls of the palace are far more beautiful than anything I’ve seen in pictures. I got quite excited by just thinking about how it was where the King and the Queen Consort lived.
In front of the castle and several times smaller, but still far larger than my own home, is a big building. I suppose that’s the School of Magic.
According to the map of the island that my mother gave me, there are several buildings in the town surrounding the castle where some of the King’s retainers live , and near the town, the campus for the School of Magic is indicated on the map.
I’m finally going to be able to take my first step towards becoming a receptionist lady.
I grip my hands together at my chest, my heart pounding in anticipation as I think about all the new adventures I’m going to have at my new school.