“Dance.”
At my command, the bear-shaped stuffed doll began turning from side to side while waving both arms.
What kind of dance is this supposed to be?
I continued watching the doll dance.
After hopping in place and waving both hands repeatedly, the stuffed doll suddenly clenched both hands into fists and planted them on its hips.
Then it jumped energetically, lifted one knee, and kicked forward.
It repeated the motion over and over, alternating left and right.
“The can-can…?”
Sia seemed to recognize the dance and murmured quietly.
Only then did I remember.
The can-can dance I had seen in cartoons when I was little.
The doll was using my childhood memories as a medium to dance.
If some lively music started playing too, it would really feel like I was watching a stage performance…?
“Wow. That’s amazing.”
Yeowoo and many of the nearby students stopped chanting their Incantations and stared at my doll’s spectacular performance.
The students were not the only ones unable to look away.
The professor was the same.
Professor Lee Mijeong stood frozen in place, her eyes seemingly five times wider than usual and her mouth hanging open.
“My goodness…… Impossible.”
It certainly was far beyond anything that strange Trera-whatever Incantation could produce.
Wanting to show them something even more groundbreaking, I stopped the dance, pointed toward Yeowoo’s doll, and gave another command.
“Wake up your companion.”
The stuffed doll waddled over to the other doll lying on the floor and vigorously shook its shoulders.
Then Yeowoo’s doll got up.
“Woooow~~!”
Yeowoo, Sia, and the other students applauded excitedly.
The professor, however, did not.
“W-Wait. Stop. I’m ending this at my discretion. Treoreira!”
She even raised her wand and stripped the stuffed dolls of their life force.
“Student Hyunwoo. I understand your ability well enough. I’ll give you the highest possible score on this performance assessment. So for the rest of this lesson, just observe. And…… after class, come with me.”
“……Okaaay.”
The professor resumed the performance assessment.
I folded my arms and began giving the students beside me advice on how to make their dolls come alive.
But the professor stopped me from doing that too.
Her reason was that it would be unfair.
So until the performance assessment ended, I simply sat there blankly.
Every now and then, I caught the professor secretly glancing at me.
Whenever I looked directly back at her, she flinched, quickly avoided my gaze, and pretended she had been looking somewhere else.
I found it amusing, so I deliberately met her eyes several more times while pretending it was accidental.
***
Professor Lee Mijeong kept pressing me to explain exactly how I had done it, and I consistently played dumb.
More precisely, I consistently answered, “I just tried it, and it worked.”
I had no intention of spreading the Dark Magic I had used in my previous life across Earth.
The Dark Magic used on Earth was more than sufficient at its current level, where it was fit only for lessons or demonstrations.
If I taught them anything more, there was no telling what kind of butterfly effect it might create.
So I put on my thickest skin and shamelessly repeated the same answer.
“Student Hyunwoo. You don’t seem to understand how serious this is…… I could give you a zero on the performance assessment for cheating. Do you understand?”
The professor tried to intimidate me with a stern expression.
It would probably have been enough to frighten an ordinary eight-year-old.
But I merely scoffed at such an immature threat.
“I told you the truth. You’re the one refusing to believe it, Professor.”
“W-What? Refusing? Do you think I’m doing this without any basis at all?”
Professor Lee Mijeong’s face turned bright red.
I calmly nodded.
“I have never lied to you, Professor.”
Professor Lee Mijeong apparently became genuinely furious and started shouting at the top of her lungs.
I used Mute Magic to block out her voice.
Her face crimson, she pointed at me and yelled something at full volume, but I could not hear a thing.
I merely watched her rage with an expressionless face.
It feels like I’m watching slapstick comedy.
My lack of any emotional reaction seemed to make her even angrier, and Professor Lee Mijeong’s already-red face began to ripen even further.
“P-Professor, what are you doing?! He’s an eight-year-old child!”
Unable to watch any longer, the teaching assistant waiting nearby stepped forward and tried to restrain her.
But Professor Lee Mijeong’s anger showed no signs of ending.
So I stood up and bowed politely.
“I have another appointment, so I’ll be going now. I think I’ve already given you plenty of my time, Professor. Then….”
Just as I was leaving the professor’s office, I released Mute Magic.
Her shrill voice immediately rang out behind me.
“What the hell is wrong with that kid?!”
I sighed as I walked down the hallway and found Yeowoo and Sia waiting with gloomy expressions.
Apparently they had waited for me and heard all of the professor’s angry shouting.
“Did the professor scold you a lot?”
“No? She was really happy.”
“Huh? It didn’t sound like that…….”
“No. She really was happy.”
Yeowoo and Sia looked even more dejected than I did.
Trying to cheer them up, I smiled and joked around, but that only made the two of them look at me with even greater pity.
***
Dark Magic Material Storage.
Professor Lee Mijeong placed the stuffed doll on a table and cast Dark Magic on it.
It was true that Lee Hyunwoo’s insolent attitude had angered her.
But as a professor specializing in Dark Magic, the magic that student had demonstrated was incredibly fascinating.
Since the student had answered vaguely and refused to explain anything, she had no choice but to research it herself and figure it out somehow.
So she tried to imitate the traces of Lee Hyunwoo’s magic as closely as possible and cast Dark Magic on the stuffed doll.
The doll began waddling around.
“Dance.”
At the professor’s command, the doll performed the same can-can dance it had shown before.
But it was clumsy.
Its body creaked awkwardly before stopping completely.
“Damn it. How did he do it?”
She tried all sorts of experiments afterward, but none of them were as clean as the magic Hyunwoo had demonstrated.
Irritated, Professor Lee Mijeong threw the doll aside and dispelled the Dark Magic.
Then she tossed the doll into a blue basket and left the material storage room.
A long time passed.
In the silent material storage room, the blue basket filled with stuffed dolls twitched.
The air was utterly still without so much as a breeze.
For some unknown reason, even the window attached to the storage room began rattling.
The mountain of stuffed dolls piled inside the basket also began sliding down for no apparent reason.
Then one stuffed doll appeared atop the pile, stepping on the other dolls as its eyes glowed red.
It was the very same doll Hyunwoo had infused with life through magic.
It was also the doll Professor Lee Mijeong had angrily thrown away a short while ago.
The doll looked around and recalled its former master’s final command.
Then it remembered the hostile woman.
The woman who had thrown it aside and had even unleashed her anger upon its master.
Within its master’s memories, the information about that woman was simple.
[Dark Magic Professor. Lee Mijeong. Age 43. Unmarried. Authoritarian and short-tempered.]
The stuffed bear opened its closed eyes and chose its target.
It would awaken its companions and eliminate the great evil known as Lee Mijeong.
“Grrrr…….”
The stuffed doll growled low.
Then it quietly began awakening its companions.
***
When I arrived at the faculty office, familiar teachers were busily tapping away at keyboards as they prepared for their classes.
I passed them and headed toward my homeroom teacher, Kim Jongseok, who was sipping coffee while making the next quiz.
“Sir. I’m here.”
“Yeah. Sit there.”
Today was the day of my meeting with my homeroom teacher.
Kim Jongseok had to hold individual meetings with roughly a hundred students before vacation.
To lighten his burden today, I decided to finish mine as quickly as possible.
“Has anything been difficult for you lately?”
“No!”
“Anything you want from your teacher?”
“No!”
“How are your parents?”
“I don’t have……!”
I swallowed the rest of my sentence, cleared my throat, then spoke again.
“They’re doing fine. I make sure to contact them at least once a day.”
“Mm. Good. Your parents worry about you, so make sure you contact them at least once every day. Especially because you and Yeowoo are younger than your classmates.”
“Ah. Speaking of you being younger.”
Kim Jongseok brought it up while looking at me with a somewhat serious expression.
“Have you ever experienced school violence? Or seen anything like that happen?”
“School violence?”
“Yes.”
Hmmm…….
I rolled my eyes upward and thought carefully.
I had never experienced it myself─I was not exactly the type to simply let myself be bullied─and I had never seen anyone else suffer from it either.
Everyone here was simply too nice.
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Hmm. I see. By the way, Hyunwoo, you ranked first again on this quiz.”
“Ah…… Yes. I just focused mainly on the textbook.”
Kim Jongseok chuckled at my answer and shook his head while sipping his coffee.
“You’re saying the one thing children your age hate hearing the most.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. I only brought it up because I’m proud of you. You enrolled as the youngest student, so I thought you might struggle to adapt, but you’re doing far better than I expected.”
“Thank you.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing. And…….”
I had tried to finish the meeting quickly, but Kim Jongseok had no intention of letting that happen.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Then fifteen.
The conversation continued for quite a while.
“Do you regret choosing a wand? As far as I know, wands have long been a deeply unpopular weapon even within the Magic Department.”
“Not really. It’s convenient to carry around too.”
“Hmm. I see.”
Kim Jongseok scratched his chin, brought up a few more trivial topics, then finally said,
“Quite a bit of time has passed. There’s one last thing I’m curious about, so I’d like to ask you…….”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
So Kim Jongseok really had been paying attention to me.
He even had something he was curious about.
My homeroom teacher stared at me silently for a long moment before opening his mouth.
“What’s your goal?”
“Huh? My goal…?”
Kim Jongseok nodded and clarified his question.
“Yes. Someday you’ll graduate from the Academy, and far in the future, you’ll become a Hero. I was wondering whether you have some kind of goal for what you want to become.”
A goal.
I had more goals than I could count.
If I had to name the most immediate one, my first goal would be to cure Father’s illness and see him get back on his feet again with his usual cheerful smile.
After that……
I wanted to graduate from the Academy without any trouble, become a healing-type Hero and earn money, meet the woman destined for me and get married…… have children too.
Then live peacefully together like that until I died?
But I was still far too young for all of that.
And those goals were far too distant.
I suppose they were more like life goals.
Then, suddenly, my meeting with the principal flashed through my mind.
He had asked why I had inscribed my Circle at my navel instead of my heart.
The principal had not understood my reason for inscribing it at my navel at all.
If anything, he had been worried about it.
If even the principal reacted that way, that probably meant inscribing Circles in the heart was considered normal throughout the entire world.
I gave a small laugh and opened my mouth.
“To be honest, I have a lot of goals. There’s something I need to deal with immediately, so that’s my first goal, and living happily is another one of my goals, but…… Hmm…….”
Kim Jongseok smiled warmly at my answer.
He probably found it cute that a child was talking about having something he needed to resolve.
I ignored that and continued.
“But those are all goals for my life. If I had to name a more secondary goal…… I want to establish a school of magic.”
“A school of magic?”
I slowly nodded.
A school of magic of my own.
A way to raise Earth’s pitifully low level of magic several times over and contribute greatly to human civilization as well.
I just had to establish a school of magic.
It was something I could even begin doing here at the Academy right now.
Calling it a school of magic made it sound grand, but in practice, it could start as something closer to a club.
And the mages who belonged to the school of magic I created would not inscribe their Circles in their hearts.
Every single one of them would inscribe their Circles at their navels.
“So your dream is to become an Archmage.”
“Hmm. I suppose I’d have to become an Archmage if I wanted to lead a school of magic.”
I smiled sheepishly and agreed.
Kim Jongseok raised one corner of his mouth slightly and asked more specifically,
“Then…… how many Circles are you aiming for?”
“Circles?”
I had realized something after reaching the Ninth Circle in my previous life.
There was no limit to enlightenment.
In my previous life, I had surpassed the human limit─the Eighth Circle─and in this life, I intended to surpass even the person I had been back then.
……To be honest, I thought the chances were slim.
But that was still my goal.
“For now, the Tenth Circle. If I get the chance, I’d like to reach around the Fifteenth Circle.”
Kim Jongseok snorted and joked,
“Are you trying to become a dragon?”
“I’m going to become stronger than those oversized lizards.”
“Hahaha. If your goal is the Tenth Circle, you might be better off studying on your own. The Academy won’t be much help to you.”
“Was that a joke or were you serious?”
Sometimes my homeroom teacher delivered his jokes so seriously that I could not tell whether he was actually joking.
Like right now.
“Assume it was half and half.”
“No way. If I leave the Academy, I’ll have to go to elementary school anyway. That place is less fun than here, and the food isn’t as good either.”
“So since you have to attend school either way, you’d rather go somewhere more enjoyable?”
“If I have a choice, I might as well choose the prettier skirt.”
“Heh. What a bold little brat.”
Just as my meeting with Kim Jongseok ended, the bell rang.
Lunch break was over.
I bowed politely and left the faculty office.