The Principle of a Philosopher by Eternal Fool “Asley”

“I’ve completed the Levitation magic spell — most of you guys have probably seen it in action just now. As it is, though, I don’t think there are many mages who can handle it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You were drawing its circle so quickly, my eyes couldn’t even keep up.”

Betty catches on fast — this is probably thanks to her magic and magecraft studies bolstering her fundamental understanding.

…That, and she was sitting right on top of me, making it easy for her to see my hands.

Bruce, sitting cross-legged, put his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his fists as he asked.

“But how difficult is it to cast, exactly?”

“Well, it involves using four separate Boundary magecraft casts to connect the elementary-level Whirlwind and advanced-level Gravity Stamp, so…”

“Uh, actually, never mind. I think I have a general idea just from looking at Idéa and Midors’ faces. And by that, I mean it’s hard as hell.”

Being stopped by Bruce, I turned to look at those two he mentioned.

Idéa promptly pulled a sour face, and Midors was groaning as if he was struggling to chew through my explanation.

They’re full-fledged mages, so it’s only natural that they understand how difficult this spell is. On the outside, it’s ‘just’ one spell, but it’s actually composed of two magic spells and four magecraft being invoked instantaneously. Definitely not something that can be easily pulled off.

“Miss Irene and Warren can probably use it just fine. Lala and the people from our school year… might need a little bit of training, though.”

Lala, Lina, Tifa, Hornel, Idéa, and Midors — they’ll need to understand the exact difficulties of the spell, and in turn train the right parts of their skill sets, to be able to use it.

“Got it. Since you’ll be their teacher, you’ll also decide the kinds of training to give them, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Got anything else to report?”

“Ah, I almost forgot. I went to the appointment meeting with the Shamaness, and she granted us permission to enter the Kamiyama. The place Lylia’s looking for is called the Scarlet Devil Wetlands, apparently. Probably will be good for leveling up, even if we won’t be earning any Gold fighting the monsters there.”

“Ooh, finally!”

Reid excitedly stood up… and Mana promptly dragged him back down.

Blazer nodded and turned to Ryan.

“We should head there tomorrow morning, then,” Ryan said. “The members will be… let’s see… everyone except the Leader, Reyna, Natsu, and Adolf. How does that sound?”

“No problem.”

“Huh? Why leave behind those four, specifically?”

Ryan started chuckling in response to my question.

Okay, Reyna probably will comply if she’s told to sit this trip out, but Adolf and Natsu… they’re totally going to insist that they’re going with us too.

Contrary to my expectation, though, all three of them started chucking as well.

As I pondered this strange situation over, Ryan showed me three pieces of paper.

“What are those?”

“Letters… informing the recipients of their eligibility to attempt the Rank-up Evaluation.”

“Ah, I see! So you three will be taking on the trials, then?”

“”Yes!””

The three in question turned to me, looking quite happy and determined. They’re just about as excited as Reid just now — I couldn’t help but smile as well.

“I hope you all pass!”

“They’ll be dealing with the T’oued judging criteria, so there’s no telling how well they will fare — but in my opinion, they all are capable and should always be proud of themselves. Your guidance these past few days seems to have provided them — and the others of Team Silver — with much-needed confidence too.”

Oh, is that so? It’s good to know that I’ve been useful.

“But man,” Reid spoke up. “I never expected Adolf’s swordplay to be that… UNIQUE.”

“Hey, don’t say that like it’s a bad thing,” Mana retorted. “I mean, it goes pretty well with his body’s movements, you know.”

“Thank you!”

Adolf thanked and bowed to the two.

In his particular case, it looks like him trying to make his fighting style fit a mold was not a good thing, as I’d thought. I’m glad to hear that he’s managed to take a step in the right direction.

“Reyna has also taken a more precise and agile approach to combat as of late. I assume that was thanks to your advice as well, Sir Asley?”

“Yes. It looked like she wasn’t quite moving with her own body, you see.”

So Reyna’s already shifted her fighting style away from an imitation of Ryan’s…

Well, that was something more like a bad habit anyway, which isn’t too hard to fix. Reyna’s totally got the talent for sword fighting — it’s just that her biggest frame of reference happened to be Ryan’s heavy-hitting style.

“Natsu and Shiny have become more aggressive, too,” Blazer added. “They’re now able to provide cover to each other, resulting in them suffering fewer injuries — which we very much appreciate.”

“Hehehe~~”

Huh, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Natsu blushing before… Is it because Blazer praised her?

Well, at any rate, it looks like they get along pretty well, so that’s good.

“By the way, what did the mission turn out to be? Were there a lot of strong monsters after all?”

With me asking that, Lylia finally spoke up after having said nothing this whole time.

“There was one SS-ranked monster, a MOTHER — the red burning slime-like thing we hunted once, if you remember that. Besides that thing, there were… several S-ranked ones. Didn’t keep an exact count. Interestingly, though, monsters ranked D, E, and F seemed to be quite a bit rarer than the stronger ones over there.”

“You mean… the monsters are already starting to get the power boost.”

“Possibly. Similar phenomena have been observed in the past, which were often followed by sharp increases in the ferocity of the monster populations.”

Seeing that she had lived through that era from the beginning to the end, her statement was highly credible. But we’re not even in the Devil King’s Fetal Stage yet — so why are powerful monsters already popping up.

Did I miss some other important detail? Or is there something happening that I don’t know about?

“Okay, that should be enough for today — everyone, make your preparations for tomorrow.”

“”Yes!””

And so the meeting ended with me not getting my answers.

They don’t really do this kind of thing very often, apparently, and the team had been split into parts this time, so I suppose it couldn’t be helped that, despite how in-depth the meeting was, some minor details were overlooked here and there.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

“Huh? Me?”

“Yeah, we want to borrow you for a bit.”

After dinner, two particular mages called out to me — two of the bully trio from my Magic University days.

Yup, good ol’ Idéa and Midors.

“Now, don’t worry — it’s not for hard work or anything like that.”

“We wanna see your powers up close — just for curiosity’s sake, really.”

“We’ve devoted years of our lives to the study of magic, but we’re not too proud to look for our own shortcomings, of course. So when we get to see what you’re made of — AND IF we see what we’re missing, we’ll gladly join that magic classroom of yours.”

“So yeah, show us what you got, ‘Head Professor’.”

I see, I see…

What they’re saying is that they have to see stuff with their own eyes to understand what they’re working with — Or, no, maybe that’s just them telling that to themselves, not to me.

“Got it. Let’s look for somewhere empty out of town, then.”

“We already have a place for that. Just get on this Circle.”

Idéa looked to the Teleportation Spell Circle to her side — one that she’d drawn herself, apparently.

I was just about to ask where we’d be going, but I guess there’s no need for that.

And so I proceeded to step onto the Spell Circle, and reappeared in the middle of a… quite empty wasteland.

Huh, there’s a light source spell set up here. More company?

“Ah, Asley!”

“Huh? Natsu… and Shiny, too?”

“Ahahaha, I happened to tag along!”

Natsu laughed heartily.

Come to think of it, she’s also a mage in the ranks of Team Silver… Yeah.

Maybe she’ll learn a thing or two from watching us.

“Oh dear… when did you even get here, Natsu.”

Idéa pulled a troubled face, pressing her fingers against her temples.

“Whoa… Heh, I guess any mage would like to try it out, you know, seeing a Teleportation Spell Circle out in the open like that.”

Hey, I never thought that, though? Heh, maybe it’s because I’m not a mage, but a Philosopher — hell, maybe I’m a Grand Philosopher already! I see, I see…

“So, Asley, she can stay and watch… right?”

“Sure. Not like she’ll be taking part in the fight or anything.”

“Cool, thanks. I want to show her some stuff, too, you see.”

Want to show her… what exactly?

Ah, come to think of it, these two have gone to the north after Barun’s recommendation… and studied under a skilled mage, or so Blazer said. They weren’t present during my first round of reunions, so they must’ve been away for close to ten days.

Now I wonder what they did during that time.

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