Farewell to the Professor
It has been four weeks since Professor Doua arrived, and I’m still living the same routine: collecting herbs after classes on Wood and Earth days, studying for about an hour in the reference room on Fire and Water days before going home, taking a nap, and then training on the forest athletic course.
Ever since the day I learned how to make the barrier armor—not the super-alloy suit—I’ve gotten into the habit of wearing the armor from the neck down whenever I’m awake.
As expected, it uses less mana to put it on now compared to when I first learned it, but I still don’t really know how much mana it uses while I’m wearing it. If only I had a status bar that showed how much it decreases per hour.
Whenever I use a new spell, even if it’s one lots of people already use, it’s new to me, so I can feel a lot of mana moving inside me.
On the second try, since I already know how to use it, my mana doesn’t drop sharply like the first time. From the third time and onward, it’s so little that I end up wondering, Is it even decreasing?
Well, if it were a spell like the “Fire Bullet” that the Guildmaster mentioned—one where the more mana you pour into it, the more bullets you make—that would be different. But that’s not the kind of magic I use.
The weekend after Professor Doua arrived, the Vice-Guildmaster went to the Merchants' Guild to register the karuta cards and the kid’s-sized gathering scissors. If Dad went as the guardian, I would have to stay home alone, so the Vice-Guildmaster and Village Chief Harold went as the representatives of the Guild and the village.
A large town called Meritent is about one day’s wagon ride from Samania Village, and there’s a Merchants' Guild there, so they registered it there.
Apparently that town also has a big Church, and not just this village but the surrounding villages too—kids without a Church in their village gather in Meritent to receive their baptism ceremony. It’s basically the event venue for the crystal-light-flash thing.
I don’t want to get close to the Church, but I am interested in going to a big town. Once my adventurer rank goes up, I’d really like to go there.
As for the trademark registration, they said it went through smoothly because it had Dad Alc’s signature. They also explained how to play the game at the Merchants' Guild, and apparently one of the important people there got really excited about it, so they came back smiling, saying it would definitely sell.
When a trademarked product gets sold, the registrant gets paid one to ten percent of the sales, and since we could choose, I asked them to set it to one percent.
The Vice-Guildmaster said that multiple sets of karuta would definitely sell at the Adventurers’ Guild, and if we set the percentage too high, people might start snooping around thinking the registrant had gotten rich.
They brought twenty sets of karuta to the Guild at the time of the registration, and the monster karuta depicting monsters appearing in the Plessama Margraveate apparently sold out instantly.
There’s always the possibility of someone making the same thing, but if they make it without buying the rights from the Guild, there are penalties. And a merchant company that bought the karuta said their representative would come to buy more once a month. So right now, the village is enjoying a karuta boom.
In magic class we still make the cards, and although the adults draw the monster illustrations now, we write the karuta text many times as part of our writing lessons, so everyone’s handwriting has gotten much better.
Hachi and Ren were originally only in charge of writing the single character on the picture cards, but starting next week, they’ll try writing the reading cards too.
On Wind days, Ren and Hachi’s herb-gathering group can manage with the brothers alone now, so the five of them go to a small forest just behind the village chief’s house.
Either Taki, Lilyum, or Randa accompanies them as a guardian, so Ren seems to look forward to it every week.
On the second weekend after Professor Doua arrived, we held the second herb-gathering experience event with the village kids. Maybe because it was the second time, the adults’ preparations were perfect, and the kids who said it was fun last time had practiced weeding around their homes. As a result, the gathering went very smoothly.
Apparently the adults also reviewed how to gather medicinal herbs—how to pick them, how to store them, how to bundle them—and thanks to that, the Guild staff said, “This is so much easier now… It was a pain, but I’m glad we taught them!”
Still, since there were many kids, there were moments when the adults couldn’t watch everywhere, and a child somehow wandered off to another area without anyone noticing.
“We won’t change the ‘once every two weeks’ schedule, but we’ll separate the participating ages into even and odd numbers. Next time will be ages two, four, and six and up.
Kids aged six and up already come to the schoolhouse, so we won’t restrict that age group. But kids under five covered more ground than expected. After that will be ages three and five… ah, that’s your age group, Miss Vio. Well, one-year-olds don’t come anyway, and Ren and Hachi came at age five only because they had older brothers. Let’s go with that.”
Well, as long as they adjust little by little so it runs smoothly, it’s fine.
As long as they don’t go, “Let’s just cancel it after all!” then the kids will enjoy it, so it sounds good to me.
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“Ahh, Miss Vio, I must return to the capital soon. To think I must leave behind such an interes—no, such a rewarding student, only to return to that dull place… It is too cruel.”
“C’mon, Professor, if you don’t head back soon, you are gonna get dragged off by the lord’s knights.”
Even with the Guildmaster soothing him, Professor Doua has been repeating “I don’t want to go home” for the entire week.
Come to think of it, he’s still an active teacher at the Magic Academy.
Since he was called a special lecturer, I thought he only occasionally taught, but he’s actually working full-time.
It wasn’t a summer vacation, but they do have long breaks, and apparently when he first came here, that was the reason.
He took several weeks of summer vacation, and then used unused paid leave he’d never touched before, taken one week early, just to come here.
But now summer break has been over for two weeks.
Since last week, the Guild has been receiving daily letters from the Academy saying, “When are you returning?” so the Guildmaster keeps telling him to go back soon.
Professor Doua may be a little insane when it comes to magic, but in this country he is a first-class mage. Coming up with magic spells is apparently something ordinary mages can’t easily do.
Or rather, creating spells that just anyone can use is an amazing accomplishment.
Well, since he’s such an important person, it’s understandable that the school appealed to the Plessama Margraveate, which governs this village.
Apparently, they sent a message saying that if he planned to extend his stay any further, they would send a knight order’s express horse to escort him back to the capital—in other words, they’d basically drag him back.
“Professor Doua, if you don’t return, the water-generation spell will never be announced, right?
It’s going to get really hot soon, isn’t it? Don’t you think some countries want to know about it as soon as possible?
Please come again during your next long break. Your lessons are so much fun.”
Dad and the Guildmaster asked me to persuade him, so I tried asking with a cute begging pose.
I figured he wouldn’t care about beauty or ugliness—since he only cares about magic—but a small child’s begging must work on every race, because he clutched his chest with a pained expression.
“I see… Miss Vio, you’ve already earned half the points needed for Bronze Rank, correct?
You’ll likely become Copper Rank within the year. In that case, please come to the capital around this time next year.
You said you weren’t interested in the Academy, but during the long break, when there are no students, I can show you around. You may even find yourself wanting to attend.
This time I only had time to teach you commonly used magic, but if you come to the Academy, I can show you detailed materials on holy and dark attributes as well. What do you say?”
Oh! I’m not interested in attending school at all, but I am interested in the building.
Since we didn’t have enough time, we stuck to the five basics—Fire, Wood, Earth, Wind, and Water—and couldn’t study Dark or Holy.
And also ice! Ice is the advanced form of Water magic, and I haven’t tried it yet, so I want to learn that too!
If I don’t have to enroll, then sure, I’d love to go!
I looked at Dad for permission, and he gave a wry smile before saying, “Awright, reckon it’s fine.”
“In that case, I shall also—”
“Whoa, hold up. What’s gonna happen to the Guild?”
“Oh, you can handle that alone, can’t you? And what will you do if something happens to Miss Vio on the way to the capital?”
Before the Vice-Guildmaster could say he would accompany us, the Guildmaster stopped him.
When you think about how even the nearest big town is a full day away by wagon, then the capital—near the far-off sea—is probably really far.
“At the beginning of Fire month each year, ain’t that the Guild conference?”
Dad muttered, and the Vice-Guildmaster’s eyes sparkled.
“That’s right! I forgot, but we leave next week, don’t we? Excellent! Professor, let’s go together.
You’ll leave at your usual time, and I’ll just leave a little earlier. Perfect, right?”
“Dad, what’s the Guild conference?”
“Well, hm… representatives of the Adventurers’ Guild in the Lizmoni Kingdom gather fer a conference, but I don’t rightly know what they do there.”
Dad doesn’t know much either. Well, adventurers aren’t staff, so they wouldn’t know about meetings.
“Ahh, fine, fine. Then we’ll do that next year.
The Guild conference is for sharing monster appearance information from each region, discussing troublesome requests that haven’t been dealt with, and… this year, information on good educational practices from the schoolhouse.”
“Good educational practices?”
“Yes. We’ll introduce karuta and cards at this conference. Also the kids’ herb-gathering event. I’ll bring the scissors and karuta too. They’ll sell even more, you’ll see.”
Wow, amazing.
The Guild conference gathers Guild representatives from all over the Lizmoni Kingdom, and after collecting the results, the Guild Chief of the capital presents them at the conference held at the Adventurers’ Guild headquarters in the Menexes Kingdom.
If something huge like a stampede occurs, they can’t wait for the conference, so they use small transfer circles linking Guilds and send emergency information sealed in red envelopes. But anything that’s not like that gets announced at the conferences.
The Adventurers’ Guild is surprisingly impressive.
After all that, Professor Doua left for the capital together with the Guildmaster and Vice-Guildmaster, without the Margrave’ knight order ever having to come pick him up.
What do you think about this chapter?
