For You 68

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#68

“Don’t say that. I should have maintained my boundaries…”

“Ana.”

Persis called me in a different tone than before. It was a gentle voice that seemed both reproachful and comforting.

“There are no boundaries you need to keep with me. You can do whatever you want with me. You hold that position with me.”

It was such a sweet statement that just hearing it could melt my ears. If I were a bit younger, I would have fallen for Persis’s words. But combining my past life and current one, I was incomparably older than him. At the very least, I might have nodded, entranced by Persis’s words a few years ago, but not now.

I opened my mouth to strongly say that this shouldn’t be the case. I wanted to tell him that Persis and I were different, and that there was a huge boundary between us.

“What is it?”

If only Yutis and Rikin hadn’t arrived before the carriage. Upon hearing Yutis’s curt words, Persis’s face distorted harshly. Yutis didn’t seem inclined to give the prince any special treatment, not only withstanding Persis’s gaze but even returning it with equal fierceness. I wished they would restrain themselves as this could really lead to trouble, but their gazes wouldn’t leave each other.

Leaving those two alone, Rikin gently extracted my body from Persis’s grip and helped me up. Now Persis’s gaze shifted from Yutis to Rikin, but Rikin easily deflected it and took off his outer coat to cover me. I had been feeling a bit chilly, though I don’t know how he noticed that.

“It’s about time for the carriage to arrive. It’s supposed to come up ahead, so let’s go. What about the other junior?”

“He said he had some business to attend to. He’ll be here soon.”

“Is that so? Well, it’s not far, so let’s wait over there.”

Saying that, Rikin led me forward. Looking back, I saw Persis seemed to be trying to call after us, but Rikin didn’t give him a chance to speak. It was as if he knew exactly how Persis would move.

Indeed, the time spent together can’t be ignored. While I fumble, unable to understand a single movement of Persis, Rikin quickly notices and understands. Suddenly, I felt regretful about the long time I spent apart from Persis. If I had been by Persis’s side as much as Rikin, could I have understood him a bit better?

“You’ve made up, I see?”

Rikin, walking beside me, spoke to me. Come to think of it, due to the cleanup after the seminar, Rikin was seeing me and Persis together for the first time today. Hearing words that no one else had brought up coming from Rikin’s mouth made me feel a bit embarrassed.

“When did I ever quarrel with Persis?”

“Hmm. You call him Persis?”

Only after Rikin’s pointed remark did I realize that I had called Persis by his name. I really have become lax these days. I can’t believe I made such an absurd mistake.

“No, I just unintentionally…”

“No, it’s good. Calling him by his name. Persis would like it too.”

After saying that, Rikin walked ahead of me. In the grown-up Rikin, I caught a glimpse of the young boy who would quickly look dejected when things didn’t go his way. Based on the long time I spent with Rikin, I could tell that right now, he was definitely sulking.

* * *

For those who practice magic, magical power is like their hands and feet. It’s an entity that moves according to my will and grants my wishes. This was the part of Kara’s lessons that I understood most deeply. Though I still couldn’t grasp imagination and the incantations to cast magic, I felt like I understood magical power.

I couldn’t understand why I had properly accepted that concept, even though in my previous life, I neither knew nor felt magical power properly. Anyway, once I recognized magical power, the magic within my body was no longer an unknown entity.

As Kara said, magical power was like my hands and feet, and I was confident it would move according to my will. I was confident in handling magical power to this extent, but no matter how much I tried, my magic didn’t improve. I just couldn’t accept that this magical power would become magic.

Wasn’t that like saying my hands and feet would become something else? No matter how much I tried to accept it, it was incredibly difficult. So, it was inevitable that Kara’s magic education, which had initially progressed smoothly, faced a significant obstacle and struggled.

What I was trying to do now wasn’t magic. If it were magic, I wouldn’t have even thought of attempting it. I arranged the Clum I had received from the shop yesterday in a row. Seeing the Clum spread out in an empty lot, I felt at a loss about where to start and what to do.

Fearing that the Sword might sense something strange if I brought the Clum into my room, I had hidden the pouch containing the Clum in an empty lot behind the school as soon as I returned yesterday. Fortunately, it seemed like no one had noticed them until now.

“Phew, this should be enough.”

This empty lot where I was conducting a small experiment was a place untouched by people’s footsteps. I had also cast a spell to obstruct people’s vision just in case, so it seemed unlikely that anyone would enter. While I couldn’t use strong magic, I could at least use magic that deceived people’s eyes.

Even with the Clum gathered like this, I didn’t feel the sensation of magical power being drained from my body as it had during the seminar. Was there something different about the Clum then? Or were those Clum set up to trigger magic?

For a proper confirmation, I would need to match the conditions of that time, but I didn’t have the ability to cast magic on the Clum. Instead, I could put my magical power into the Clum, just as I had done in Yaksi’s office before.

I decided to first try putting a small amount of magical power into the Clum. I extracted a tiny amount, not even 1g, of magical power from my fingertip and touched the Clum. Since an explosion could occur just like this, I prepared to cast a defensive spell immediately.

I expected a red light to spread into the black stone as soon as my finger touched the Clum. However, the stone maintained exactly the same state as before, regardless of whether I put magical power into it or not. Even when I brought my finger closer once more, nothing changed. Puzzled, I poked it repeatedly.

I had expected to see at least a small light blooming inside the Clum, like what happened in Yaksi’s office, but this time nothing was visible. Could it be that the merchant had given me something other than Clum? I should have known when he said he wouldn’t take money.

I pondered whether I should visit Ramtel again. Should I ask him what was wrong with these Clum and ask him to cast magic on them?

But I didn’t want to rely on Ramtel that much. For one thing, I had too little information about him. If I asked too much of a teacher who wasn’t even a main character in the original story, it could lead to a strange future like a butterfly effect, which would be disastrous.

“Hmm…”

In any case, I needed to show these Clum to someone for confirmation, but no one came to mind. The people around me who knew about magic or such knowledge were either the Duke or Kara. If I asked the Duke, I’d be taken straight to the Duke’s residence and sacrificed just like in the original story. Kara would rage and ask why I kept getting involved in dangerous things.

There was also the Sword, but asking the Sword, who wouldn’t answer anyway, would be a waste of time. Yutis was out for the same reason as the Duke. For a moment, the faces of Iria and Persis flashed through my mind. I quickly shook my head. No. I didn’t want to involve the two of them in this.

What was I trying to prevent the Duke for? It was because I wanted Iria and Persis to live more comfortably. If I involved the two of them here, everything would be in vain.

Then there was only one person left.

“Ana. Your magic has improved a lot.”

I frowned at the timely voice from behind.

“Then your tailing skills have improved as well.”

“Improved? I was always good at it.”

“That’s quite a boast.”

“Yes. It is a boast.”

The one standing beside me, speaking shamelessly, was none other than Rikin.

It seemed that what I did yesterday had stayed on his mind, prompting him to follow me. If he had intentionally followed me, the magic I had cast myself would have had no effect. At any other time, I would have been flustered, racking my brain to find a way out of this situation, or I would have scolded Rikin for tailing me.

But now there was no need for that. After all, I had been planning to call Rikin. It was fortunate, in a way, that he had come on his own before I could call him. Of course, I wasn’t exactly pleased with Rikin’s sudden appearance.

“What brings you here?”

“What about you, Ana? What are you doing here?”

“I’m in the middle of academic research. How fortunate. Since you’re here, why don’t you help me?”

At my words, Rikin’s eyebrow twitched slightly. It was clear he didn’t like what I said. From his perspective, it must have been quite audacious for me to brazenly ask for help while engaging in suspicious behavior.