After Alice had left with Amy to attend their tailoring lessons, and Sophia left with Akane for their cooking lessons, I left to find Liz to decide on an elective.
Lunch ended and I managed to find Liz.
We were sat together in a corner of the classroom talking about what classes we might be interested in.
“Do you have any special skills that might relate to any classes available? Or are there any subjects you want to try out?”
“Special skills, hauu….”
“…uh?”
“Nothing!”
I don’t understand her.
“Can you answer seriously?”
“…I’m sorry. Umm, I know a little self-defence, some spirit magic, and proper etiquette. As for something I’d like to try, well…there’s nothing I can think of.”
“Hmm.”
I see. It’s surprising that she can use spirit magic, but everything else is fairly typical of a noble lady. Because she’s from the nobility, it’s a given that she won’t have any experience with farm work or many other subjects.
Well, I’d really be fine with any class. But I need to make sure that people don’t get suspicious of me. I can’t just act like everything comes naturally to me just to earn a little praise from everyone. So then, what can I choose…rather than think about it, wouldn’t it be better to look around at each of the classes?
And that’s why we were now at one of the farms owned by the Muhle school and Liz was crouched in the corner crying.
I can explain what happened here in three lines.
“O-Oi, Liz? You don’t have to push yourself so hard, okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m very confident in my own abilities — kyaa!”
“Uwaa, that’s the ashes that we use in the field. Aahhh!?”
It was like that.
By the way, this didn’t happen just once but three times.
I actually had to use spirit magic to put the ash back in place. All of the students hard at work were just staring at Liz with cold eyes. Just like Akane said, to these students taking their work so seriously, we just look like two nobles messing around.
After I apologized to everyone, I went to check on Liz.
“So, Liz, are you going to act all depressed forever?”
I asked her this while offering her a cup of tea. We had moved into the dining room to get away from the harsh stares of the other students.
“…it’s cold.”
“I could use my spirit magic to make it hot if you’d like?”
“No, this is fine. Thank you.”
Liz said this and brought the cup of tea to her mouth.
She remained silent after drinking it. She started to panic after she messed up the first time. This led to her making more mistakes and panicking even more. I guess I can understand why she can’t get over it so easily.
“…Leo-san, you’re really talented with spirit magic.”
I wanted to be able to talk to her about something, but this subject could risk me becoming exposed.
“I’m sure you could use spirit magic too, Liz.”
“I’m…I’m really not capable of creating high-quality magical power…in fact, I’ve heard only geniuses are capable of the other two aspects of casting magic….”
“Ahh….”
There are three key points for casting magic.
Creating a precise mental image of what you want to cast, the ability to quickly convert mana into magical power, and the quality of one’s magical power.
If you’re able to create a clear mental image of what you want to cast, the spell that you create will be more accurate. This is the reason why Alice is able to basically do whatever she wants with her spirit magic. Her ability to clearly picture exactly what she wants to happen in her mind is amazing.
Next, mana conversion speed. The faster this is, the more magical power you can generate in a short amount of time, allowing you to cast more powerful magic.
Finally, the quality of magical power created. This is the efficiency of one’s ability to convert mana into magical power. If the quality of the created magical power is high, you’ll be able to do more with a smaller amount of it.
So, if you were incapable of creating high-quality magical power, it would be nearly impossible for you to use magic properly.
For example, if you were to use spirit magic to make a homemade meal, the spirit may be able to do that, but the food itself would taste terrible.
On the other hand, if you could create high-quality magical power you could get the spirit to create an intricate, delicious meal.
“So you can’t use magic at all?”
“No, well….I’m able to convert mana to magical power…it just takes me so long to do so, I could never use it for anything….”
“Hmm….”
Even Alice takes a dozen seconds or so, so it’s not surprising that someone normal would take several minutes to do it. And it only makes sense that the quality of the magical power created would deteriorate the longer it takes to create it.
I guess I won’t be able to experience Liz’s homemade cooking. Rather, if she were to make homemade food using spirit magic, I might turn into a spirit….
“…I really didn’t think that I was such a clumsy person.”
I guess she’s ready to talk about what happened. This was what I wanted to talk about in the first place.
“Up until now…you really haven’t made many mistakes?”
It would be rather strange for someone to suddenly become clumsy.
“I always had a maid with me so I didn’t have to worry about much. Even though I never had to do much myself, I thought I’d be able to survive on my own.”
…ah, so she was just a very sheltered girl.
“So once you actually tried, you found out that you were clumsy?”
“…Leo-san, you also think I’m clumsy?”
I didn’t answer her question. I turned to look out at the students working hard in the field. To be honest, I really can’t say she isn’t clumsy. It will probably be worse if I don’t reply.
“…I really am clumsy.”
Ah, I made her more depressed — but I can’t help it! After everything I saw today, how could I say she isn’t clumsy?
I could just lie to her, but that would only hurt her more down the line.
“Liz, you definitely aren’t agile. It’s possible that you’re dexterous with your hands, but — from what I saw today there’s no doubt that you’re a clumsy girl.”
“…clumsy girl. Not agile. But I still have potential….”
“But you don’t need to become depressed. Just accept it already.”
I grabbed her by the shoulders and stared into her mysterious purple eyes.
“L-Leo-san, your face…your face is too close….”
Liz tried to escape from my grasp, but I’m being serious so she couldn’t get away.
After she had stopped trying to get away, she could only look at me with her blushing face.
“…Leo-san, did you know what you said was mean?”
“Of course I did, but it’s true. Would you rather I lie to you so you can stay like that and never improve yourself?”
“I don’t want that, but if I’m clumsy I’ll never change anyway.”
“So that means you’re just going to give up? If you just want to give up, I’ll lie to you and comfort you, but if you want to change then I can’t do that.”
“So you think there’s something I can do?”
“I’m not sure, but there are still plenty of subjects we can try.”
If she’s motivated enough, I’m sure there’s something that Liz can do….
“…Leo-san, you’ll still help me?”
“As long as you don’t give up, Liz.”
I asked that while looking straight into her eyes. Liz looked around for a little while before matching my gaze.
“I won’t give up so please help me.”
“Sure, leave it to me. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
After that day, Liz and I decided on trying out a few more electives.
