A Strange Book

I reflected on the fight as my adrenaline died down.

...Hm. Now that I think about it, as the fight progressed my mind was going on autopilot, and my muscle memory kicked in. I was performing various techniques that I didn't understand, and it seemed Nathan was as well.

I'm not sure how it was for him, but I definitely wouldn't be able to recreate the moves I had just done on command. However, I at least had a feel for them. It seemed like we would have to spar more often if we wanted to get a feel for how our bodies fought previously.

After noticing we had calmed down, Rae slowly let go of our weapons and we slowly lowered them. Nathan flashed me a smile that reflexively made me do the same.

We put our wooden weapons away, which seemed to get the rest of the class to realize that they could start moving as well. I couldn't help but notice we had damaged the equipment quite a bit, but pretended to be oblivious. As Nathan and I continued walking, our posture gradually became rather awkward as the pain from our bruises caught up to us.

I let out a soft sigh, though I still had a small smile on my face.

"I know I said it before, but sorry for all that."

Nathan nodded.

"Yeah, I'm sorry too."

We weren't talking about the fight we just had, because if anything that was refreshing. But sparring like that inevitably brought up old memories, and they weren't exactly good ones.

Regardless, we had already sorted all of that out so we didn't need to talk about it further.

Hm? You want to know what the drama was about?

...It's not important. Like, seriously. It's not going to help you in any way by knowing.

As Nathan and I made our way to the entrance, Raisa excitedly ran up to us.

"I didn't know you guys were so good at fighting! Though I had already said I would probably lose against you Bryson, it appears I definitely would have."

I scratched the back of my head. Honestly, I didn't expect it to get that heated, especially since we didn't know how to use our weapons.

"Haha, I think it was more so the enthusiasm that we had, which made it look more vicious than what it actually was."

Nathan crossed his arms and nodded with his eyes closed.

"Indeed! I'm actually not all that confident with my spear skills."

Raisa tilted her head to the side and looked at Nathan, then at me. Her gaze was filled with confusion.

"You two sound like warriors instead of mages. Why did the both of you work so hard on your body when you aspire to be a mage?"

I blinked a few times, pondering over that question. Right, weren't mages supposed to be like, super weak or something? Huh, but despite being a magic school, there's still a physical component to it.

I tapped my chin a few times as I thought about it.

"Why does a magic school have a class specifically for athletic ability?"

Raisa let out a small smile.

"Well, as a mage, you still have to be physically fit. Even in the best-case scenario on the battlefield, you will have to stand for at minimum several hours casting spells. In the worst case, you will be required to run away."

She put a finger to her lips and tilted her head to the side.

"But... learning how to fight will be extremely situational for a mage, no?"

I was a little confused by her explanation, to be honest. The reason being, in the game there were many times when the main character had to fight with his spear and use magic at the same time.

The combat system wasn't very fleshed out, as it was a dating game and all. But still, if you didn't combine both aspects, you were basically severely handicapping yourself.

Nathan spoke up with those exact thoughts.

"Why would it be situational? It's kinda hard to cast a spell if a guy is right up next to your face."

Raisa smiled bitterly.

"But that kind of situation would hardly occur! Mages are positioned far back on the battlefield, there would be no need for them to have a head-on confrontation. Even in the case of assassination, they will have guards. The only thing they would really need to do is run away."

Ah, I see now.

Raisa was talking about large-scale fights, where one mage is just one of many. She was right in that sense. In fact, while the school did have a class focused on one's physical fitness, it was the lowest priority of all classes.

To be promoted, one would have to have a recommendation from the Magic Teacher first and foremost, then either one from the English or Math Teacher. In other words, you didn't have to impress the Gym Teacher at all.

Regardless, the fights that we knew we would have to face were not the ones on the battlefield.

Rather, it was with the people in the kingdom. Corruption had spread so far that the kingdom was set to collapse itself. Many were not afraid of killing to get what they wanted, which caused quite a few conflicts.

But thankfully, we still had about a month or so before any big actions happened.

I let out a soft sigh and turned to Raisa.

"The fights that we are concerned about... are the ones where you have to watch your back. There are no guards to protect you from those kinds of battles."

Raisa's expression fell. It seemed she realized what I was talking about, but didn't like the implications of it. She waited a moment before speaking under her breath.

"Is this... the quiet before the storm?"

Nathan let out a long sigh.

"Pretty much."

The butler called for me, so I boarded the carriage along with Jess. As for Raisa, she still stood there, with her chin in her hand. Her eyes were glazed over as she was obviously thinking rather hard.

As for Nathan, he was basically limping back home on foot.

I did feel a little bad, but I felt it was a bit too much if I called him over to give the guy a ride. The carriage ride home was silent as expected. The moment I got back, I asked one of the butlers.

"By the way, when would be a suitable time for me to visit another noble's manor?"

The butler looked at me somewhat nervously.

"Um, apologies. It would be better if you talked to the head butler. He is very aware of these things, sir."

I blinked a few times.

"Where can I find him?"

The butler coughed a few times.

"He should be in his personal study."

I looked back at him for a little while. Though tempted to ask where this study was, it would probably be kinda weird if I asked that question, considering I lived here and all. With that in mind, I just aimlessly wandered the halls until I ended up finding a room that looked right.

Upon opening it, I found that nobody was there. It looked like a study, so I figured it was the right place.

I thought maybe I could just wait around a little bit, but my eye caught onto the fact that there was a thin layer of dust over everything. Assuming the head butler was using the study semi-frequently, this shouldn't be the case.

This was probably the study of one of Bryson's parents. I guess now they were considered my parents, but whatever.

Out of curiosity, I walked in and began looking at the various things inside.

The most prominent feature of this place was the extremely large amount of books. The walls were basically just shelves that had books placed on them. Just looking at them made me lose interest, so after a few boring titles, I just stopped paying attention altogether.

There was a large table in the middle, with several different drawers. I took a peek inside them all, but all they had was papers. Though I was curious, I didn't want to waste too much time reading as I still wanted to talk with the head butler.

There were other cabinets that I walked over to check out. There were miscellaneous decorations placed on top of those like a small golden chalice, or a set of candles. Curious, I also opened up the cabinets.

One of them had a stock of ink, giving off a strong lead smell. One of the other drawers had sets of feathers.

Going to another cabinet, I opened a drawer to find that it was filled with various trinkets that I didn't understand. They seemed to be related to magic, so I was a little afraid to touch them in case they backfired.

Continuing through the different drawers, I found that they were mostly empty, save for a few things I didn't know. But when I opened the last drawer, not expecting much, I saw a book that was open.

From what I could see of the cover, it was pitch black, while the pages were a pristine white, which was actually the first pure white paper I had seen in this world so far. I decided to read the page.

'Generally, those that have strong magical affinity will similarly give birth to children that also have such. The differences are generally trivial and major exceptions only arrive should one person have an astounding magical affinity, while the other has near none.'

'However, there are sometimes exceptions, where one heir may have a strangely lower magical affinity. This does not occur often, and when it does most families will be quite disappointed in their child. However, most of the time it is because conventional magic measuring systems are unable to see their full potential.'

I can't lie, reading those words made me a little excited. Did that mean I had some sort of special magic?

'The tools used by the kingdom purposefully do not account for one's affinity towards the Dark Arts. Dark Arts are not actually considered the same as magic, as the affinity for it is entirely unrelated. However, the general concept of Dark Arts acts very similar to magic.'

...Dark Arts? That sounds cool! Maybe I won't have to rely on magic at all.

'The nature of these arts is generally not accepted within most places, as they can very infrequently take a toll on one's mental strength. But otherwise, it is completely harmless and has a prowess far greater than the limitations of magic.'

I found myself nodding as I read that, but at the end, I froze.

For some reason, to me that sounded a lot like one of those scammy ads you see everywhere.

Regardless, I continued reading.

'Despite not being accepted, there are still places that will take in people with those kinds of talents. They are inconspicuously marked by the symbol on the next page.'

That page was on the right and had a picture of a simplistic sword in the ground that pierced through a book.

'To activate it, one can either visit one of these organizations and subtly mention your knowledge of Dark Arts to gain entrance. However, there is a more simple and easy way...'

The words suddenly cut off from there. Curious, I reached over to turn the page.

The moment my fingers touched the page, I could feel something resonating throughout my body. Out of nowhere, it felt like something heavy was on my back, while my hand began moving on its own, turning the page.

Immediately, I realized something was wrong and resisted with all my strength, pressing hard with my thumb to put the page back. It was extremely difficult, especially because I was quite tired from the fight with Nathan earlier.

Sweat began pouring from my forehead, while a frown formed on my face.

I wasn't sure what was happening, but it definitely wasn't good. Though I was holding on for now, if this kept going on then I would eventually have to flip the page. After holding out for what felt like a minute, the pressure suddenly stopped, prompting me to gasp for air.

Shit! Now that I think about it, Bryson later on in the story did use some really weird ass magic. It looks like this book was the reason why he suddenly just started screwing everything up...

I closed the drawer, but for some reason, my mind kept going back to the book and what could've been on the next page.