People often used to say. That Dersia Aspandil, the one with the highest potential to reach the Heavenly Realm, was the greatest mage in the Empire.
Those who walk the path of magic would conclude it was a hasty judgment, for one's standing cannot be divided simply by the heights they have reached— but they would not deny the fact that she was a prominent mage, continuously striving forward even at this very moment.
However, those who knew the elf named Dersia Aspandil would give a different answer.
“Lady Sia needs to cultivate her social skills, not her magic.”
Dersia paused in the middle of turning a page and glared at her audacious servant with a displeased expression. However, the head maid, Ciel, continued to drive cold daggers into her while poking at the campfire with a fire poker.
“In the past week, how many times have you spoken to someone other than me?”
“Countless times. Do you expect me to remember all of them?”
“Excluding conversations related to magic.”
“There is no reason to have unnecessary conversations. Walking the path of magic is my calling.”
“I've heard it said that one should walk the pavement before walking the path of magic. I believe it was a certain Dersia something-or-other who said that.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Dersia threw the book down in anger. Without even looking, Ciel skillfully caught it and placed it on the bookshelf as she replied.
“What I'm trying to say is that you should get out of the magic tower for once, get some fresh air, and talk to people. Even if you reach the pinnacle of magic, if you hit rock bottom as a person, wouldn't that be putting the cart before the horse?”
“My ears are going to bleed. Do you realize this is the 40th time you've said that?”
“If I've said it that many times, how about you listen for once? My patience is also reaching its limit.”
“... As I've said, this one has a calling to walk the path of magic. You know I have no time for emotional exchanges with others.”
Dersia, realizing that Ciel was serious about sending her out, tried to appeal to her emotions, but it was meaningless to Ciel, who was determined to get the shut-in out of her room today. Ciel put down the feather duster, turned her head, and looked at Dersia with empty eyes.
“Your spirit is rotting away. It seems I will have to resort to force, just for today. Please understand the loyalty behind this fist I raise to my master.”
“... Very well. No matter how much I owe you, this time, I will make you keenly aware of the difference in our levels—” Exactly 5 minutes later.
Dersia found herself standing blankly on a main street of the capital, holding only a shabby robe and enough money to buy a small castle, under orders not to return for a week.
“I was going to... teach you a lesson.”
Muttering to herself in vain, Dersia let out a sigh and started walking. She hadn't fought Ciel in earnest. If it weren't for her, Dersia would have died alone early one evening.
Attacking one's savior with full force was something even a beast wouldn't do, so they had decided the match with rock-paper-scissors.
“So when she said she would raise her fist, it was psychological warfare...”
Admiring her meticulousness in subconsciously leading her to choose ‘paper,’ Dersia accepted her defeat and went to the house of a noble who was in her debt.
“Lady Dersia!! Please, feel at ease, stay for as long as you wish, anytime, and do whatever you please! Thank you!”
Before she could even explain the situation, the count bowed so low his nose touched the ground and gave her the best room in his mansion. It was the natural treatment the Empire's greatest mage deserved, so she simply accepted it. Lying languidly in the room, she reached for a book, only to realize there was no bookshelf.
“Tsk.”
How can a room not have a bookshelf? Can this even be called a room... As such thoughts crossed her mind, Dersia opened the window and jumped out.
Below was a garden, but where she landed was inside a library. Her original plan was to get a book and read it in her room, but while browsing, she found a rather interesting one.
[How to Teach Simple Magic to an Insect Familiar] Rubbing the cover, she could tell it was a brand-new arrival.
She sat in a random nearby seat, intending to read just a few pages, checked the summary, and then...
“Excuse me—” “...?”
Someone had spoken to her. Dersia checked her biological rhythm and found that an hour had already passed. It was a time when people could certainly come.
This will be a pain. As she was about to give a curt reply, grab her book, and return to the count's room, a very strange sound reached her ears.
“Are you perhaps the... librarian?”
“...?”
Only then did Dersia look at the person before her. Black hair, a short stature, and cheeks that still held their baby fat. It was a noble child who still didn't know much about the world.
In the first place, Dersia's ego wasn't so high that she would get angry at not being recognized, and the child was waiting timidly for a response. Dersia, who didn't have much experience with children, racked her brain for what to say. First, ignore him.
The child would be deeply hurt, but nothing else would happen, and the situation would end. Dersia studied the child's appearance. She rarely saw human children, but he was cuter than she expected.
She didn't feel any particular urge to hurt him.
Second.
Tell him that I am not someone that the likes of him can dare call a librarian, and lecture him. The child would be traumatized and live a passive life forever, and Ciel would kill her horribly. She could not accept such a miserable future.
Third, say I'm not the librarian and then leave. It was the most correct answer... but Dersia suddenly remembered Ciel's quest. Get out of the magic tower, get some fresh air, and meet people.
I left the magic tower. That is a fact. I also got some fresh air.
That is also an undeniable fact. Meet people and talk to them. The moment the count saw her face, he buried his head like an ostrich and made it impossible to say a word.
That was not a conversation. I have not yet completed the final quest. Saying I'm not the librarian and leaving is also more of a simple exchange of facts than a conversation.
Therefore, Dersia chose the fourth method.
Acknowledging it.
“My apologies.”
“Pardon?”
“I heard no one was coming today, so I took the liberty. My name is Dersia Aspandil.”
Dersia lifted her skirt and gave a small curtsy.
“How may I help you?”
“Th-that is...”
Watching the flustered child, Dersia felt a slight sense of amusement for some reason. The child soon seemed to gather his thoughts, swallowed once, and asked.
“I would like to read books on the basics of magic.”
“What kind?”
“... Pardon?”
“Spirit studies, magical engineering, elemental studies, and so on. There are over hundreds of schools and styles of magic. Which of their basics would you like to explore?”
“Um, actually, I suffered from divine fever not long ago, so I don't really know.”
“Hmm...?”
Slightly surprised, Dersia examined the boy. Her eyes deconstructed the flow of mana, peering into its depths. The boy's spirit had not yet grown accustomed to the world he was in.
Just as he said, he was likely a novice mage who had suffered the divine fever within the week. Dersia felt a slight sense of responsibility as a senior and guided him.
“Follow me.”
As it was a library any noble could enter, the overall quality of the books wasn't high, so she had only read about eighty percent of the hundred thousand volumes, but she still knew where which books were located.
After she used telekinesis to pull out about 100 books and spread them around, the boy immediately opened one, read for about five minutes, and then frowned.
“Excuse me, are there any books about how not to get hurt by magic?”
“... Pardon?”
Dersia tilted her head. Not get hurt? By one's own magic?
Why would magic try to kill its user?
“I don't understand the question. What does it mean to survive magic? Did you perhaps learn some kind of raging fire elemental spell?”
“It's not that, it's those black things... huh? They're not here. Anyway, besides that, what should I call it... currents? The wave-like things are a bit dangerous, aren't they?”
“Currents..? Waves...?”
Dersia asked back with a puzzled expression. The boy was speaking of concepts she had never even heard of in her entire life of learning magic. The boy's face showed he had made a mistake, and he quickly bowed his head.
“... No, I think I was mistaken. Thank you for finding them for me.”
Watching the boy about to gather the books and leave, Dersia hesitated for a moment, then stopped him, thinking it would be fine to spend a little time since she couldn't go back for a while anyway.
“Could you show me your magic once?”
“My magic?”
“Yes. I have a bit of an aptitude, so if I see it, I think I'll understand what you're talking about.”
“Magic... magic... I'm not sure if this can be called magic, but... alright.”
The boy, with an ambiguous expression, placed the books he was holding in mid-air. The books did not fall. He continued to stack books in the air.
Two volumes, three volumes, four volumes... When the number surpassed 30, Dersia stopped the boy and asked.
“Isn't it difficult?”
“No. Not at all. I can do over 100.” The books were still floating without the slightest tremor, so it couldn't have been a simple bluff.
If it was true, he was a telekinesis mage with incredible, unbelievable talent. But it was strange. The boy was using magic without consuming a single bit of mana.
There was no flow of mana to be felt. It was as if he were simply floating them in the air, like a superpower. Dersia felt intrigued for the first time in a while and pressed down lightly on a book.
The boy felt no strain and tilted his head, and Dersia, thinking again that he was rather cute, pressed the book all the way to the floor.
“How much weight can you handle?”
“Just about one book. Lighter things are also possible.”
“Can you try dropping it?”
“I can't do that.”
“... You can't?”
“It falls if I get far away. About 50 meters.”
It grew stranger and stranger. The boy couldn't control the phenomenon he was causing at all. No, was this even magic?
Using magic without using mana? The situation was so peculiar that Dersia was at a loss for words. The boy watched her for a moment before finally speaking.
“I don't know if this will be helpful, but I think of magic as an ocean.”
“W-wait.”
Dersia instinctively realized what the boy was about to say and stopped him. Looking at the boy's puzzled face, her scholarly curiosity as a mage clashed with her conscience. The boy was now speaking of his enlightenment.
The law that constitutes a mage's heart-realm. A ball placed on a hill rolls down to a lower place, and water boils when heated. Ice melts over time...
These are the laws that define the world. In other words, for a world to exist, it needs laws. Therefore, it was natural that even a mage's jumbled heart-realm had laws that defined it.
That is called enlightenment. To know the enlightenment is to know the mage. That is why mages hide their enlightenment.
The moment it is discovered, their heart-realm can be analyzed. No matter how much of a fledgling child mage he was, an enlightenment was an enlightenment. Eavesdropping on it from someone who did not yet know its importance was a dirty and vile act.
Dersia felt conflicted, but her thirst for knowledge about this incomprehensible phenomenon, something she hadn't encountered in a long time, began to simmer. She made a compromise with herself in her mind. Once she heard the enlightenment, she would not tell anyone.
After painstakingly soothing her conscience, she nodded.
“... Go on.”
“... Yes, I think the world is an ocean, people are walking on top of it, and mages are the race of people who have fallen into the sea.”
“Why do you think so?”
“After becoming a mage, the place where I am feels so much like being underwater. These books, too, aren't really floating because I'm using strength, but rather they're just floating due to buoyancy.”
Dersia immediately activated her magic eye and looked at the floating book. It was certain. Very, very faintly, the book was falling toward the floor.
It was so faint she hadn't noticed. It was even strange to use the expression 'falling'. If I had to put it into words... yes.
It was sinking.
“This might sound strange, but that's why I don't think mages are much better than ordinary people. The sea is full of dangers, right? I don't even know how to survive here.”
“... Mmm.”
“After the divine fever, I keep seeing black figures, and it's obvious they're not friendly to me, so I've been avoiding them. Plus, sometimes, a flow that I should call... currents? keeps rushing in, and I almost got seriously hurt falling over in it once. I wanted to know how to solve these things.”
Dersia couldn't focus on the boy's words. This was because her magical studies, which were among the most prominent in history, had deconstructed the phenomenon and derived the truth— and the truth was that Mother Nature was sometimes unbelievably cruel. She sensed inwardly that she should not speak of what she had discovered.
But she was not empathetic enough to hide the truth.
“Um... is something wrong?”
Yet, even Dersia felt a slight sense of pity as she slowly opened her mouth.
“Perhaps, your heart-realm is a realm, and among them, it is composed of the Deep Sea Realm.”