Chapter 34

〈 Chapter 34 〉 Chapter 33: How to Steal a Wizard's Woman (1-18)

I stretched while sitting in my chair and laid my body on the desk.

"Phew... Another boring day has begun."

[It seems Luna Stadtfeld is running late today.]

"Yeah, she should be here by now."

In the lecture hall, where students were buzzing, Luna was the only one missing.

It didn't matter if the others came or not, but without Luna, something felt empty.

While I was deep in thought, the Black Joker, the teaching assistant, climbed up to the podium and announced some news.

"Today is the first day of the secondary attribute classes. I'll write the locations of each lecture hall on the board, so please move to your respective rooms. And please, don't confuse the primary and secondary attribute classes like you did yesterday."

The teaching assistant looked at the students with a pleading gaze.

'Tsk, there are always a few who can't get their act together.'

[Guardian.]

'Yes?'

[The secondary attribute lecture hall is not listed on the board.]

'...What, really?'

I hurriedly ran to the teaching assistant as he was coming down from the podium.

I managed to catch him just before he left the lecture hall.

"Excuse me, teaching assistant."

"Yes?"

"My secondary attribute is Brain, but it's not listed on the board."

The teaching assistant gently tapped his left palm with his right fist, as if remembering something.

"Oh, right! You're the one who applied for the Brain attribute this time."

"Yes."

"I need to go around and announce the lecture hall locations to the students, so could you wait here for a moment?"

"...Okay."

I had a feeling about this.

If he just told me, I could go there. Is he planning to take me somewhere?

I returned to my original seat and sat down.

Other students were leaving to go to their respective secondary attribute lecture halls, but a guy with a bruise on his cheek started loitering around Luna's desk.

He seemed worried because Luna wasn't here.

'But why isn't she here?'

[Luna Stadtfeld might have run into some trouble. She doesn't seem like the type to skip class without reason.]

'I'll ask the teaching assistant when he comes back...'

While lying on the desk and communicating with Armonia, the guy approached me.

He was really rude.

"Hey."

I tried to be as polite as possible.

I turned my head to the side and gave him a 'What are you looking at?' look.

"What?"

"Just now, you asked the teaching assistant, right? Why isn't Luna coming?"

"?"

I looked at him with a puzzled expression and communicated through my mind.

'What the hell is he talking about?'

[It seems he misunderstood and thought you were asking the teaching assistant about why Luna Stadtfeld is late.]

'...Why don't you ask her yourself?'

He's such a nuisance.

I buried my head back on the desk and replied.

"How would I know?"

"Phew... Don't get too cocky, okay?"

"What?"

I was so taken aback that I jumped up and looked at Louis.

The lecture hall was already empty, and we were the only two left.

Louis, confirming that no one else was around, started to show his true colors.

"If you keep acting up just because I treated you nicely, you won't last long in school."

"Who are you to say that?"

I felt like my common sense was fleeing from my brain.

He's completely insane.

The guy, who had been glaring at me with narrowed eyes, turned and walked away, snorting.

"Hmph... If you're stupid, you should at least know how to lick shoes."

He left the lecture hall, leaving those words behind.

"What the hell did he mean by that?"

[There's a saying in the Levin Kingdom: 'Even the incompetent can succeed if they lick shoes.' He might have been trying to provoke you.]

"Insane."

[...You seem calmer than I expected.]

"Hehe, with Luna already leaning towards me, there's no reason to get angry. I'm more looking forward to seeing her expression when she breaks down mentally later."

I can't crush him with my skills, but I'm confident I can grind his mind into a pulp.

Bang!

Suddenly, someone burst into the lecture hall through the back door.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

"Huh?"

I turned around and saw Luna walking towards me, panting heavily.

Well, she was probably walking towards her desk.

She arrived at her desk and looked at me.

"Phew..."

Luna, calming herself down, turned to me and asked.

"Um... is there a class today...?"

"Oh, it's a secondary attribute class, so everyone has moved. You should go too."

"Can I... go with you...?"

"No, I have something else to do, so I need to stay. Go ahead."

"...Okay."

Luna, looking disappointed, turned her head to check the board for the lecture hall location.

But then she covered her lips with her fingers, looking flustered.

"What's wrong?"

"It's... the secondary attribute lecture hall location is... gone."

"Huh?"

Looking at the board, I saw that the location of the secondary attribute lecture hall had been erased in several places.

It seemed that students had accidentally erased it while checking the locations.

Since the teaching assistant was supposed to come here, I could just ask him when he arrived.

But he looked busy earlier, so he might have forgotten to come here.

It doesn't matter for me since I can study alone, but Luna would be late.

'Poor her. She'll have to wait for the teaching assistant.'

[The secondary attribute lecture hall is in the 3rd floor Ruteal lecture hall.]

'Oh! As expected, Assistant, you have a good memory.'

I turned my head from the board and looked at Luna.

She had a serious expression on her face.

Moreover, her condition was a mess.

Her shiny silver hair was tangled in places, and her usually neat uniform was full of wrinkles.

I spoke to Luna, who was fidgeting.

"3rd floor Ruteal lecture hall."

"Huh?"

"Go to the 3rd floor Ruteal lecture hall."

"Oh... by any chance...?"

Luna was mumbling to herself.

"What?"

"...No, thank you."

Just as Luna was about to leave, I stood up and grabbed her right hand.

Luna let out a loud scream that echoed through the lecture hall.

"Why, why are you doing that!"

"Ah, I startled you. Why did you scream...?"

"Well, you suddenly grabbed my hand..."

"My button came undone."

"Huh?"

I fastened the button on the right sleeve of Luna's uniform.

After fastening the button, I sat back down and said,

"Go on."

"..."

Luna was carefully examining the sleeve I had fastened.

"You'll be late if you keep that up."

"Ah!"

The word 'late' snapped Luna back to her senses, and she turned and ran out of the lecture hall.

Before leaving, she turned her head and smiled at me.

"Thank you."

"..."

She left immediately after saying that.

A little while after Luna left, the teaching assistant came in.

"Student, would you follow me?"

***

"Huh... so this is...?"

"Yes, you can study and practice here on your own."

The teaching assistant led me to a shabby laboratory.

It looked so rundown that it could easily be mistaken for a storage room.

There were scattered pieces of furniture, wooden boxes stacked with something inside, and dusty desks and chairs. Bookshelves lined with books with difficult titles were also present.

While the laboratory was not as bad as a storage room, it was still very similar.

The only advantage over the laboratory was its size.

The laboratory was surprisingly spacious, about one-third the size of a lecture hall.

The teaching assistant explained that the school decided it was meaningless to provide an entire lecture hall for one person, so they gave me the laboratory of the professor who used to teach the Brain attribute.

"Since I'm busy, I'll leave now. Work hard!"

"Okay..."

The teaching assistant gave a fighting pose and left the laboratory.

I brushed the dust off a chair with my hand and sat down.

I waved my hand to clear the dust flying in front of me and frowned.

"Wow, the dust is really bad."

[If you clean it up a bit, it should be a decent laboratory.]

If I clean it up, that is...

I stood up again and looked around.

The laboratory was so dusty that footprints appeared with every step.

While walking around, the most noticeable thing was the bookshelf.

However, the state of the bookshelf was terrible.

"Wow, this is really bad."

[The books are inserted haphazardly, making it look even dirtier.]

There were various books, from high-quality ones to simple bound experiment reports.

I pulled out a random book and brushed off the dust.

A large amount of dust fell off, revealing the title on the cover.

"Huh? This is our club's. Oh, I remember, the person in charge was this gentleman, not Sonia."

[Yes, if he wrote such a report, he must have been very attached to it.]

I flipped through the report and read the contents.

The contents described the experiments they conducted as club activities at the time.

What was different was that this report detailed the significance, utility, and value of the experiments.

While our experiments were like children's play, the experiments they conducted back then were real experiments.

As I casually flipped through the pages, one page caught my eye.

-Brain (雷) Sphere Acceleration Experiment-

"Oh, this is what we were doing."

[The experiment where you accelerated a metal sphere to hit a tree.]

That day came back to me.

And the regret...

"I should have hit that guy with the metal sphere!"

[...]

Thinking about that guy's face, I regretted not hitting him.

Now that I'm not a club member, I can't hit him anymore.

I focused on the page again.

Purpose of the experiment: To overcome the difficulty of hitting a target with the unpredictable Brain attribute, the experiment involved embedding the Brain attribute magic into a metal sphere and then hitting the target.

"Huh? This is different from what we did?"

[Originally, the concept was to charge the metal sphere with electricity to hit the opponent. However, the electricity dissipated immediately after passing through the magic circle, so it only had the effect of a regular metal sphere.]

"True, this world is far behind in scientific technology, so they probably didn't know much."

After all, even on Earth, where I lived, electricity was only properly utilized less than two hundred years ago.

However, the report had more pages than I expected.

The first experiment was naturally a failure, but after several failed attempts, they discovered that the speed of the metal sphere increased after passing through the Brain attribute magic circle, leading to the experiment we conducted.

"More interesting than I thought."

[This is a good example of how you gain more the more you fail.]

"...But he died."

Looking at it now, he must have been a very unfortunate person...

The pages detailed the magic circles used at the time.

And the most important part, the reason for the experiment's failure, was written at the end.

-The critical issue was the magical pressure. When multiple students lined up to create magic circles and throw the metal sphere, the sphere would veer off in an unexpected direction.

-Even if the input and output were the same, the slight magical pressure at the moment would significantly reduce the accuracy and speed of the metal sphere.

-It was determined that this method was ultimately unusable unless multiple identical individuals could be created.

The word 'failure' was written at the end of the page.

"True, we couldn't hit the tree even when we focused back then."

[Even a small difference in magical pressure can greatly affect acceleration and accuracy.]

"...Wait."

I went back to the first page of the experiment and examined it slowly.

The experiment failed because it was impossible for one person to create multiple magic circles.

In fact, magical pressure was just one of the failure factors.

The premise was that multiple magic circles needed to be created, requiring multiple people to work together.

If that flaw could be resolved...

I started rummaging through the wooden boxes stacked up.

While searching, I found a wooden box containing metal spheres.

"There are a lot."

[Are you interested in the experiment?]

"I'm just looking."

I also found a metal plate that seemed unused.

It was about 30 cm wide and long, and about 2 cm thick.

I grunted as I placed the metal plate on the desk and positioned the desk against the wall to keep the plate standing.

The distance between the metal plate and me was about 5 meters.

I opened the activity report again and memorized the magic circle used in the experiment.

It was very different from the magic circle we used in the Electric Magic Research Club.

It was complex and difficult.

But I could definitely remember it in my mind.

"Alright."

I was ready.

I formed a flicking gesture with my middle finger pulled back and held in place by my thumb.

I placed the metal sphere between my index and ring fingers, holding it in place.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

After a few deep breaths, I raised my arm to adjust the metal sphere so it would hit the metal plate.

I closed my left eye and focused my right eye on the metal sphere and the plate.

The metal sphere in my field of vision was precisely aligned with the center of the plate.

"Let's start with... four."

[What do you mean? Start with four...]

I didn't let Armonia finish and created the magic circles.

Four golden magic circles, each about 1 meter in diameter, appeared in pairs on either side.

The magic circles were emitting threatening electrical currents at each other.

"Ugh..."

I almost collapsed as my legs went weak.

The input for the magic circles was much stronger than those used in the club activities, and I could feel my mana draining from my body instantly.

I heard Armonia's shout through the communication.

Snap.

I concentrated as much as I could and flicked the metal sphere with my middle finger, then immediately fell to the ground.

Clang!

The sound of metal colliding hit my eardrums.

Dust scattered in all directions, filling the laboratory with a cloud of dust.

"Phew... phew... phew..."

[Guardian! Using so much mana at once is dangerous!]

I wanted to respond to Armonia's shout, but I had no energy left to speak, even through the communication.

I lay there, inhaling dust dozens of times, and shakily lifted my head.

"Phew... phew... phew..."

The dust slowly settled.

As the dust cleared, I saw...

A hole the size of a coin in the metal plate.