A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special - Chapter 12

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 12. The Little Bird (1)

Chapter 3. The Little Bird

The interior was every bit as magnificent as the exterior. The vast space divided cleanly into two sections: the Land Training Grounds and the Underwater Training Grounds.
The Land Training Grounds housed an enormous running track, with mock dueling arenas and a professional gymnasium staffed by dedicated coaches arranged around it as the focal point.
The Underwater Training Grounds were no less impressive. Over thirty lanes, multiple stages designed for aquatic combat scenarios.
Between the two training areas stood a colossal cylindrical tower. According to the guide map, it served as the Magic Training Grounds for student mages.
Five stories in total, with separate training facilities organized by elemental attribute—each floor dedicated to a different one.
The scale was such that every student at Hebrion Academy could use it simultaneously without strain. No institution on the continent operated facilities of such cutting-edge magnitude.
Romantica stood speechless before the overwhelming grandeur. To have access to facilities of this caliber seemed an honor in itself.
“If I could use training grounds like this, I’d swear eternal loyalty to Hebrion Academy. I’m serious.”
Of course, Romantica’s pledge came with an unspoken condition—that she could actually use them.

Alpha Class Exclusive.

Those words on the entrance sign spoke volumes about their reality. Alpha Class and Beta Class received markedly different treatment.
They turned away from the Alpha Class training area and moved on.
The Beta Class training grounds were tucked away in a remote corner of the facility.
In location, in size, compared to the Alpha Class Exclusive Training Grounds, it looked like nothing more than a shabby attic.
Creak.
As they opened the poorly oiled door, an unpleasant groaning sound echoed out.
And what lay revealed was more than enough to crush the morale of Dezir’s group.
“……This can’t be real.”
“There’s no comparison to the other one.”
The moment the door swung open, dust billowed up in a choking cloud. Simultaneously, the stench of rot wafted toward them.
“Eek!”
Fram’s shriek pierced the air.
Romantica rushed to ask.
“What is it?”
“Something just brushed past my feet!”
Romantica hurriedly lit a Lamp, but saw nothing in its flickering glow.
She peered cautiously at her surroundings by the wavering light. When she spotted a small hole burrowed into the wall, her face went ashen as if she’d been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
“Dezir, we’re leaving now.”
“There’s no other training area for us, Romantica.”
“We absolutely cannot train here! I can’t stand rats!”
“Let’s think about this more positively.”
Dezir rubbed his hands together.
“No one else will ever come to a place like this. Except us, that is. In other words, this is the perfect location for our training.”
Romantica backed away nervously, but Dezir was faster.
He positioned himself to block her escape route toward the entrance.
“We’ll clean this up and use it as our headquarters.”
Dezir spoke to Romantica.
“N-no, you’re joking, right? Please tell me you’re joking?”
“I’m not joking. We’ll become an excellent party right here.”
“Look at this state! Look at this disaster! This is a rat’s nest!”
Click.
At that very moment, the nervously flickering Lamp went out.
Just as Romantica approached to relight it, dozens of gleaming red eyes began appearing in the darkness.
“Huh?”
Three seconds elapsed before the situation registered.
“Squeak.”
“Squeak.”
Humanity and rodents met, each sizing up the other’s rank.
The verdict: victory to the rodents!
A wave of rats surged toward them.
“Eeeeeee!”
A shriek tore through the air almost at the same instant.
Romantica shot upward as though levitating, seizing Dezir Armang in her arms.
She was beside herself. Her body trembled like an aspen leaf.
Right on cue, the Lamp’s flame blazed to life with a sharp flare.
As darkness retreated, the densely packed rats scattered and fled.
“There really were a lot of them.”
Long after the rats had vanished, Romantica made no move to climb down.
If anything, as though some curse forbade her feet from touching ground, she tightened her grip around Dezir Armang even further.
Watching her expression—half-ready to collapse into tears—Dezir Armang sighed.
“All right.”
“We’re leaving? Right now? Here?”
Romantica’s face brightened in an instant.
A single ray of hope in the darkness. She clung to it, mustering the most desperate expression she could muster toward Dezir Armang.
But it was a fleeting attempt.
“I’ll handle blocking up the rat holes. You can take care of the floor.”
“So that means…….”
“I’m planning to clean this place up and use it.”
Romantica’s vision went dark.

Six hours later.
The training grounds had been utterly transformed.
The Lamp, now fully charged with Mana, burned brilliantly.
Light struck the mirror-bright floor and scattered in all directions.
“Good work, everyone.”
“Yaaay!”
“Uuugh…….”
Fram and Romantica collapsed on the spot without ceremony.
Had this been a conditioning exercise, at least the goal would have been accomplished.
But unfortunately, Dezir Armang had other training in mind.
“Rest for thirty minutes. Then we start again.”
“Noooo!”
Romantica spoke in an exhausted voice.
“We cleaned today too. Can’t we just call it a day?”
Dezir Armang shook his head.
“Romantica, didn’t you forget what Professor Bridgette said when you joined this Party?”
“……That was.”

“By joining the Party led by Dezir Armang, you have consented to his vision. In other words, you are all in the same boat. You must obey the Party leader’s commands and conform to his guidance.”

There was no way around it.
“And looking at the membership form you signed…….”
“Fine! I’ll do it. I’ll do it!”
It was truly an endless string of hardships.
Romantica was beginning to regret her decision to join this Party.

* * *

In Dezir Armang’s hand was a Blue Sphere.
“What matters for you is spell deployment speed.”
“My spell deployment speed is already fast enough. You saw that yourself during the entrance exam.”
As a Wind Attribute mage, she possessed exceptional talent, and rapid spell deployment was Romantica’s greatest strength.
Dezir Armang conceded the point.
“True, that pace is decent enough. But in Alpha Class, there are plenty of students at your level.”
Alpha Class was composed of talented elites drawn from across the world.
It was an undeniable fact that Alpha Class students were overwhelmingly superior to their Beta Class counterparts.
Nobles had received systematic training from childhood; comparing their capabilities to commoners was absurd.
Romantica, having received some education herself, maintained a similar standard.
“We have to fight at a disadvantage compared to them. But if we’re only on par with our opponents, we won’t make it through.”
“But how are you going to raise our standards above Alpha Class?”
“Simple. We develop a new specialty.”
“A specialty?”
“You need to train in Chantless Casting.”
Rather than refining Mana through formulae and deploying magic, the method meant honing it through pure sensation and then manifesting the spell.
Dezir Armang knew the Romantica of his past life intimately.
She whose specialty had been Fast Chanting had, in order to survive, somehow uncovered her own hidden talent.
That talent was Chantless Casting itself.
A gift that freed her from needing incantations altogether to deploy magic.
Dezir meant to help her awaken that talent — the gift she had painstakingly discovered over long years in her previous life — in a far shorter span of time.
“That’s impossible!”
The denial came at once.
Dezir had anticipated as much.
“No. It’s possible. You simply haven’t felt the possibility yet.”
“I’m telling you I can’t!”
“Then keep eating stale bread and stay here.”
“Really…”
He was unmovable.
Romantica sighed.
Having joined this party, she’d already resolved to follow his lead.
“…Fine. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Dezir smiled.
“Good. Now watch this sphere carefully.”
Dezir set the Blue Sphere at Romantica’s feet.
Then, using a pen, he drew a circle in front of her and another about five meters away.
“Move the sphere from that circle to this one.”
As Romantica set the sphere down and began rolling it, Dezir stopped her.
“No physical contact. You can’t move from where you stand. And you can’t speak either. You’ll move that sphere using only Air Current Control.”
Air Current Control.
It was like moving a bird’s wings with your will — operating a sense organ entirely foreign to your body.
Naturally it was unfamiliar and difficult. But if she could master Air Current Control, deploying even 1st Circle Magic without chanting would become achievable.
Romantica concentrated, fixing her gaze on the sphere.
Summoning wind without any chant whatsoever was extraordinarily hard.
“Hnnng…”
Dezir, watching her, spoke.
“Romantica, do you remember the sensation from when you were cleaning earlier?”
‘Of course I do!’
Romantica felt anger rising within her.
There had been so much to clean that she’d barely finished even with magic’s help.
“When you used magic while cleaning, there was a sensation you felt without noticing it — when you moved things with wind. Remember that feeling. Think of the sphere as dust and move it gently, as if sweeping it together.”
Whissh.
The sphere moved for the first time. It went the wrong direction, but the mere fact of its movement was worthy of praise.
Dezir gave Romantica’s shoulder a light, encouraging pat.
“Good start. Keep it up.”
For the first time, she’d been praised.
Romantica barely managed to suppress the smile threatening to bloom across her face and continued her training.
“Now, is it Fram’s turn?”
Fram had kept his distance so as not to interfere with Romantica’s practice.
His eyes were full of anticipation as Dezir Armang approached.
But contrary to that expectation, Dezir had no intention of offering him any guidance.
The reason was simple.
“Truth is, I’ve nothing to teach you.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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