Chapter 27: Yesterday

*Chirp* *Chirp*

I opened my eyes and stared at the window.

“… It’s morning, huh.”

I sat up in bed and stretched my arms. Walking to the closet, I changed from my nightgown into my blazer uniform. As usual, I then began combing my hair.

“Hmm… It’s quite warm despite being early… I don’t think it’s summer now.”

I placed the brush back on the drawer and headed to the door. Although it felt odd that Emilia didn’t come to meet me, I assumed she had just woken up a bit late.

Exiting my room, I saw that the general students were busy with something, as almost all of them looked quite frantic.

“Hmm… There are a lot of them, huh. Is something going on?”

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I thought about calling out to one of them, but decided against it, as they would likely only cry if I did. Some students, noticing me, vacated the hallway while others bowed.

The canteen was more packed than usual. If I went there, the general students would surely make way for me. However, I didn’t want to disturb them, so I decided to head outside and bask in the early morning sun.

As I walked towards the door, which served as both the entrance and exit of our dorm, I noticed that the students were becoming busier. The moment I exited the building, I was greeted by an unexpected sight.

A dense, giant mana tent was visible from the school field. Curious about the cause, I ascended into the sky and flew towards it.

Upon arriving at the mana tent, I saw hundreds of elite magic students lying unconscious on the flat ground. The general students were casting Null Element Magic and Normal Magic simultaneously on the unconscious magic students to regulate the temperature inside the mana tent.

At the edge of the camp, I saw Emilia, Mary, Victoria, and... Antonio? Anna? The four of them were directing the other general students on what to do.

“Hmm… What the heck happened?”

I approached them, and because of the sheer number of elite students, Emilia and the others didn’t notice me at first.

“Emilia.”

I landed behind Emilia and called out to her.

“Eh?”

“Hey.”

“…”

“…”

““““ Ahhh!?””””

She stiffly turned her head towards me. The moment our eyes met, she suddenly screamed. The students nearby also reacted with surprise.

(If I act like I’m bothered, I’ll lose! Ignore their reaction. Ignore it. Ignore it.)

I cleared my throat and frowned at her.

“Emilia… What happened? Why are the elite magic students lying unconscious here? What time is it exactly? And is that a teacher over there?”

I bombarded Emilia with questions.

“Ahh… Good morning, Lumina-sama. It’s almost noon right now. As for what happened… Don’t you remember what happened yesterday?”

“Yesterday?”

I placed a hand on my chin and started to recall any events from the previous day.

(Yesterday… Yesterday… Hmm… I went to the magic school because I was worried that Eclara hadn’t come back… Then…)

I widened my eyes as I remembered the events from yesterday.

“It seems like you’ve remembered.”

Emilia quickly bowed before me.

“I’m sorry about yesterday, Lumina-sama. We couldn’t make it in time, and you got caught up in that explosion.”

“It’s okay, Emilia. It’s not like I’m injured or anything.”

Forcing Emilia to raise her head, I asked her for details about the situation.

“After we retrieved you yesterday, we held a meeting to decide what to do next. We concluded that we should rescue the unconscious magic students and give them first aid. So far, we have managed to recover 300 out of 2900 students, not counting the teachers. Miraculously, no one died in the explosion. However, most of the magic students are still unconscious. You, Liza, Achil, and Frank are the only ones who managed to wake up, even though you four were also caught in the explosion.”

(I expected no one would die, but having 200 general students gather 2900 people seems like it will be a challenge.)

“Where are Vertical Rolls and the others? I don’t see them here.”

Emilia pointed behind me.

“They are currently at the magic school building.”

“Hmm… I see.”

I started walking around the tent alone, as Emilia needed to stay behind to direct the general students.

“Hmm… Now that I think about it, when did Emilia learn how to lead people like that? Maybe she matured and learned how to do it as she taught them. I’ve been leaving it to her and the others for a while.”

I continued to think about random things as I roamed around the mana tent. I decided to stop when I noticed that some of the unconscious elite magic students had injuries.

“Let’s try teaching for a while… hopefully, they won’t cry. But first, let’s do a little experiment on one of them.”

Yesterday, in an emergency, I used light-attributed magic to heal Eclara’s wound. I simply poured my mana into a ball of light, which then shone on top of her wound as it slowly healed.

First, I created a ball of light and then made a mana ball float in front of me. I floated it on top of the nearest magic student and regulated the mana inside the ball of light as it glowed. Next, I made the mana ball float near the light ball and had it supply mana to the ball of light.

“… This seems quite hard. I think the most I could manage is healing three students at the same time. Okay, let’s proceed to the next step.”

I made a mana staff and then performed ‘Ethereal Shift’ with the ball of light. The mana staff slowly materialized and turned into a white staff that resembled Gandalf’s staff. I made the staff look like that because it was the easiest thing to imagine at the moment.

The staff didn’t have inscriptions like those Vertical Rolls and the others had. This was because I usually used chantless magic. The inscriptions were substitutes for their chants, though we still don’t fully understand why they work as substitutes. It’s still under research.

These inscriptions also control the element written on the weapon. If the user faces a magician with the same element, their magic will be turned against them because their control is robbed. Unlike the magician, who can control three to four magic spells at once, the user can only control one of the magician's spells. This is because the magician has more experience controlling magic spells than the user.

As a result, we don’t take away control of the magician’s spell. Instead, we only make it disperse because it’s too much for us, who weren’t taught how to control it efficiently.

“Okay, let’s try this now.”

I gathered mana around me into the staff and made it glow slightly. For visual effect, I drew a magic circle (which serves no real purpose) on the ground beneath me. Staring at the wounded elite magic student, I placed the glowing staff on top of him, and his wounds began to heal slowly.

“I wonder where he got those wounds. Maybe he’s one of the people who fought the protagonist? Well, at least he helped me with my experiment.”

After finishing healing the magic student, I turned around and told a passing student to gather others who had Light Attribute Magic, as I was going to teach them how to use it. The initially pale student regained her vigor at the mention of Light Attribute Magic and dashed away.

A few moments later, 40 students stood in front of me. These students were lagging behind in practice because they couldn’t practice their magic, which wasn’t useful for combat. As a result, their eyes were sparkling with excitement. It felt good to be looked at differently, so I puffed out my chest and began teaching them.

“Did everyone understand my lecture?”

““““ Yes!””””

I smiled seductively at the students as a thought crossed my mind.

“Okay, now go thank the magic students for getting injured. If not for them, we would never have found a way to practice this magic. Also, let’s pray that they get injured more so you can practice magic even more.”

“““““ YES!”””””

The 40 students in front of me returned my smile with their own. Little did I know, those thoughtless words turned the general student healers into sadists. They began telling the people they had just healed to return with more serious injuries. As a result, no other students besides those with Light Attribute Magic came near me. At least now there were more people who weren’t afraid of me.