Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 174: This Time, Magic Training
After the morning’s work ended, I headed to the Royal Mage Corps training ground for my afternoon magic practice.
The Royal Magic Pharmacists had been right: repeated practice was necessary. I’d thought it would be enough simply to teach them the correct way to make each magic potion, but they also needed time to improve the underlying techniques themselves.
When I thought about it that way, it was obvious.
Maybe I was getting a little muddled from being away from home. I knew I would miss Mira, my holy dragon, and my little sister Rosalia, but apparently I missed them more than I’d expected.
I needed to find something soothing to have nearby.
The Spirit of the Lake… absolutely not.
At the Royal Mage Corps training ground, several children were already firing spells at targets. There was still some time before formal practice began, so this appeared to be free-training time.
Among them, I found Ijidol. He was aiming magic at a target with intense concentration.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t hitting it very well.
“Ijidol, you missed again.”
“Julius! You were watching?”
His shoulders slumped in embarrassment.
Hmm. Maybe I should make Ijidol my healing pet?
Or perhaps Nero from the orphanage?
No, treating either of them like a pet would obviously be wrong. And making Nero’s sister Lelie into one would be even worse.
“The tip of your wand is shaking. Hold it more firmly towards the target. Imagine a perfectly straight line running from the tip of the wand to where you want the spell to hit.”
“Straight from the tip of the wand…”
Ijidol moved his wand back and forth several times, training the image in his mind.
What an innocent boy. He seemed to trust my advice completely without understanding just how abnormal my own magic was. I had the unpleasant feeling that this misplaced confidence in me was going to cause something spectacular one day.
“A torrent of mana, pierce my enemy—Magic Arrow!”
A long, thin, white arrow of mana shot from the end of Ijidol’s wand.
This time it struck the target.
It wasn’t exactly in the centre, but compared with all his previous misses, it was a brilliant improvement.
Anyone with mana could learn Magic Arrow. It was essentially just mana gathered and shaped into a narrow projectile. Its power was low, but it consumed very little mana, which made it extremely useful for practice.
In particular, it was perfect for learning how to actually hit an enemy with magic.
No matter how powerful a spell was, if it missed the target, it was meaningless.
“I did it! I hit it, Julius!”
Ijidol looked at me with sparkling eyes.
But I had to give him some disappointing news.
It would have been easy to say, ‘Good job,’ but wasn’t it my role as his friend to guide him even higher?
Yes. Surely it was.
What if he cried?
No. Come on, Julius. Sometimes you had to say difficult things.
“You still have a long way to go. Don’t be satisfied just because you hit the target. The goal is to hit the centre reliably. Grazing an enemy with magic won’t be enough to defeat them.”
The joy vanished from his face.
Ugh. My heart hurt.
But a half-hearted attack could put him in danger one day.
“You’re right. I was just happy because that was the first time I’d ever hit the target, but I still have a long way to go.”
The first time?
Oh, really?
I hadn’t known that.
Then I absolutely should have celebrated with him!
Oh no. I’d messed up. What should I do now?
Ah—right!
“Then let’s practise together until formal training starts. You’ve already hit the target once, so now you just need to get the feeling for it. Magic Arrow.”
With a flick of one finger, I casually released a Magic Arrow.
It struck the exact centre of the target without wavering.
Beside me, Ijidol stared with his eyes wide open.
Come to think of it, when I’d first hit the target back home, Instructor Carnell had reacted in much the same way.
Was it really that surprising?
“A-amazing.”
“Is it?”
“Of course it is! You hit the centre without a wand and without an incantation. How did you do that?”
“Practice. Anyone can do it if they practise enough.”
I was certain of that.
What mattered was a strong, precise image. To put it another way, if you could truly believe the spell would hit, then your magic would follow that belief.
But gaining enough confidence in your own ability to believe it that completely required a great deal of practice.
“Will I be able to do it too?”
“Of course. I’m going to teach you, so you’ll be able to do it.”
Ijidol’s expression tightened with determination.
If I declared it that strongly, perhaps the words would remain in his heart and give him some confidence.
“Then we’ll start by learning to fire Magic Arrow without an incantation and still hit the target.”
“I-I’ll do my best.”
His shoulders were tense.
First, I needed him to relax.
“The goal is to use Magic Arrow unconsciously, as naturally as breathing. Magic Arrow: one thousand strikes.”
“A-a thousand strikes?”
“Fire Magic Arrow one thousand times. Go on, Ijidol.”
“I-I can’t do it a thousand times!”
He was already making a fuss.
That attitude wasn’t going to help him improve.
Full of determination, I kept him firing Magic Arrows until formal training began.
…In reality, training started after about five shots.
We could do the remaining nine hundred and ninety-five afterwards.
“You’re terrible, Julius.”
“Sorry, sorry. I may have pushed a little too hard. I’ll be gentler next time.”
Ijidol collapsed in front of me like a defeated slime.
After the magic-training session ended, the two of us stayed behind and practised together. I had Ijidol squeeze out as much mana as he safely could. He reached the verge of depletion, but he hadn’t completely run dry, so it should be all right.
By the time we reached the common lounge, Ijidol was collapsed over the table and steadily eating the sweets that had been served.
The sugar must have been soaking into a body whose mana was almost exhausted.
I wondered whether using that much mana and then recovering might increase his maximum capacity through something like physical-training supercompensation.
I wasn’t sure.
“Julius, Ijidol, you’re already having tea? What happened to Ijidol?”
“Axel. Finished with swordsmanship practice? Ijidol is like this because he used too much mana.”
“I see. I used to end up like that too when I overdid my strength training.”
Axel’s eyes became distant as though remembering painful old days.
Apparently he’d gone through something similar himself. He seemed to have learned how to train his body properly and systematically since then.
If so, perhaps I should devise a similarly systematic way to train Ijidol’s mana.