Subject Runes - V1 Chapter 9

“Now that the mana measurement’s done, we’ll move on to practical training aimed at increasing your mana capacity.”

Six more instructors lined up beside Professor Schmidt, and the seven of them together covered all seven attributes.

“To increase mana, the important thing is to keep using magic, just like exercise. Using magic of different attributes increases the amount of growth more effectively. That’s why students with multiple attributes tend to have greater mana than those with only one. Azoth and Neon having more mana than the rest of you is a damn good example of that. Of course, normally you can’t use magic outside your own attribute, so in class we use training magical tools. We’ll lend those tools out during practical sessions, which will let all of you use magic from any attribute while class is in progress. Since it’ll be your first time using those spells, you probably don’t know the incantations. The seven instructors here, myself included, will teach them to you, so keep your ears open and listen carefully during class.”

When Schmidt finally finished that long-ass explanation, everyone dispersed to the instructors handling attributes different from their own.

There was only a limited number of magical tools, so we were split up as evenly as possible. I decided to start with lightning magic.

The beginner lightning spell Thunder fired an electrical strike at the target, and first the instructor demonstrated it for us.

“Picture lightning falling from the sky to the ground, and chant like this.”

【◎▼××▽◇・・・】

After a chant that lasted around fifteen seconds, a bolt of lightning struck down from above toward the ground, accompanied by a blinding flash and an explosive crack.

“Now all of you try it. Hold the magic-circle portion of the tool I’m about to hand out, picture lightning in your mind, and repeat the chant after me.”

Listening closely to the instructor’s incantation, I tried to mimic the pronunciation as accurately as possible.

Even for a beginner spell, the incantation was fairly long, so there was no way I was going to pull it off right away.

After repeating the practice again and again, I finally managed to produce a tiny lightning strike on around my thirteenth attempt.

But because I was forcing myself to use a foreign attribute through a magical tool, the efficiency was absolute dogshit, and it burned through a huge chunk of mana.

“Whoa. That ripped a shitload of mana right out of me.”

When you were still inexperienced, mana vanished in the blink of an eye, so it didn’t look like I’d be able to practice many times.

“Good. Nicely done, Azoth. Next, practice activating your own attribute magic and lightning magic alternately.”

I cast beginner fire and earth spells, then tried lightning magic again.

…and by the third cycle, my mana was completely dry.

“Fuck, this is rough…”

Hardly anyone else had managed to activate a spell on the very first day the way I had, so everyone else was still working through practice since they hadn’t burned their mana yet.

Since I was already out of mana and had nothing left to do, I decided to kill time by watching the other students.

Neon seemed to have run dry already too, so the two of us ended up spectating together.

“Which attribute did you go with, Neon?”

“I tried the light-attribute spell Lightning.”

“I did the lightning-attribute spell Thunder. We can compare notes later, but for now let’s go check out wind magic.”

“Got it.”

Professor Schmidt was handling wind magic.

The beginner wind spell Window—as the name suggested—generated wind. It had low killing power, but its area of effect was wide, so it was often used to interfere with opponents.

In the wind group, Marl was chanting his ass off, but he was clearly struggling too. The spell wasn’t activating at all.

While absentmindedly watching Marl, I listened carefully to the incantation for the wind spell Window, trying to catch whether any of the phrases sounded familiar.

After school.

“What are we doing today?”

When Dan asked, I answered, “I’m going to the guild again. I was thinking of taking on some manageable magical-beast extermination work to train my body.”

“Hell yeah, I’m in too. Right now I just want to swing a sword. You bastards better be ready, magical beasts.”

In the end, the usual five of us, including Cain, headed out together to take a magical-beast extermination quest.

In the forests near the castle town, small magical beasts like goblins and kobolds lived in abundance.

I had decided to focus more heavily on training my agility, so hunting small magical beasts suited me perfectly. For the time being, I’d probably be doing this quest a lot after school.

We killed plenty of magical beasts again today, collected the quest reward from the guild, stopped by the item shop to buy magic potions, and then returned to the student dormitory.

After washing the grime off in the bath and changing into lounge clothes, Neon and I ate dinner together and talked about today’s practical magic lesson.

“So, Azoth, did you figure anything out from the lightning incantation?”

“No. There’s no way I could crack it in a single day.”

“I can’t hear this so-called Japanese thing, so I’ll have to leave that part to you. In return, I’ll try to memorize as many incantations as I can.”

“I’m counting on you. Also, I’d like to practice magic after school if possible. If we could borrow those magical tools, we could train while recovering with magic potions.”

“Should we ask the teachers? Or maybe ask the upperclassmen from the dungeon club?”

“Yeah. If we can do that, then even on days without magical-beast extermination quests, we won’t be wasting time. We can just work on raising our mana.”

Deciding to talk to the teachers like Neon suggested, we spent the rest of the evening messing around in our room before going to bed.

That night, I had a dream.

I think it was from when I was still six years old.

A dream of the first time I ever heard an incantation.

In that dream, I was practicing magic with my mother.

“All right, Azoth. Imagine a large flame, like a bonfire, flying toward your opponent. Touch the magic circle carved into the wand and chant like this.”

【●※▽×　・・・・：Fire-Attribute Beginner Spell Fire】

It was a spell I had practiced over and over with my mother.

The incantation was apparently in the language of ancient magic, and just like always, I had no clue what the hell it meant.

If you got the pronunciation even a little wrong, the magic would not activate, which was why practicing incantations took the most time.

It was a little hard for the child version of me.

“The important thing is to practice again and again. You can take it slow.”

To form a concrete image of fire, I observed all kinds of flames from different angles—candles, torches, bonfires—and then closed my eyes and recreated what I had just seen in my mind.

Because I was always near flames, it was hot as hell.

And naturally, memorizing the incantation was boring.

Practicing how to pronounce meaningless words as accurately as possible in some weird-ass way was, frankly speaking, pure torture.

I wanted to get done with training already and go play.

Neon, practicing beside me, had started fidgeting just like I had.

Noticing that, my mother let out a sigh.

“All right. One more practice round, and we’re done for today.”

“””Yay!”””

At least for the last try, I was going to take it seriously.

A spell I had never once succeeded at.

This time, I was going to make it work.

So I listened carefully to my mother’s chant. Carefully. Very carefully.

Then suddenly I felt dizzy, and my vision warped for an instant.

ZA, ZAZA—ZA, ZA

As I stared at the Fire my mother had activated, the incantation sounded just a little different from usual.

“Now, you try it.”

I chanted it exactly the way I had just heard it.

【●※▽×＠◎×ΛP×▲・・・・ΓΩ▼G◎ｙΛＫτ∪QΣ€：Fire-Attribute Beginner Spell Fire】

And finally, just a tiny bit, a small magical flame flickered to life at my fingertip.

The spell had activated.

“I did it!”

I turned toward my mother, wanting praise, and she was smiling from ear to ear.

“You worked hard!”

As she hugged me and stroked my head, she asked,

“Did you figure out some kind of trick?”

I puffed myself up and proudly told her what I had noticed.

“Near the end, I heard a phrase that sounded familiar, and when I pronounced that part, the spell worked.”

My mother looked puzzled.

“A familiar phrase? Was there really something like that? Which part?”

“The part near the end that went ‘ｙΛＫτ∪QΣ€.’”

“I don’t know any word that sounds like that. What did it sound like to you, Azoth?”

【Burn it to ashes】

“What’s that…? Yeah, I’ve never heard that word before either.”

“Huh?”

That was Japanese.

Which meant my mother couldn’t hear it.

I still had no clue what the rest of the incantation meant, so maybe the whole thing was not Japanese from start to finish.

But there was one other part I understood.

Near the middle of the incantation, there was a section that sounded like 【Hellfire of Purgatory】.

I wanted to try that next.

But why the hell was Japanese mixed into the magic incantations of this world?

The first theory that came to mind was that this place was Earth in the future, and the ancient civilization that created magic had been Japanese.

But with two moons, Selene and Dione, hanging in the sky, this place clearly was not Earth.

Next, I considered the possibility that I was inside a VRMMORPG and had just gotten trapped in it.

But no game system from the era I came from had been real enough to reproduce taste and smell this perfectly.

Yeah. I’d definitely read too many light novels.

So the explanation that seemed most likely for now was that some other Japanese person besides me had reincarnated into the ancient magical civilization and used Japanese in the incantations.

Since I myself was a reincarnator, it would not be strange if there had been others.

And from that point on, I became obsessed with researching magic and ancient civilizations.