Inside her room, listening to her familiar’s incessant chirping, Alice couldn’t help but frown.
“You’re telling me you only saw that child standing in the garden with a blade, and then a flash of white light, and you lost consciousness?”
The robin nodded, beak parting as if it wanted to say more—but its memory truly cut off at that exact point, with no recollection at all of what the boy had done.
Watching the shamefaced robin fly out from the windowsill, Alice tilted her head and sank into thought.
Could it be so-called master-level swordsmanship?
But that child is still so young…
Recalling the cut branches that had been gathered up in the garden, Alice realized only now that the cut ends of those dead twigs had looked a little too smooth and even.
Come to think of it, neither she nor Aoko had given any thought to just how the boy had managed to clear that overgrown mess of a garden so spotlessly.
But… everyone had secrets of their own.
The young witch had no intention of probing the matter to the end.
For her, knowing that the boy was now her apprentice was enough.
As her brow gradually smoothed, Alice rose and left the room, meaning first to prepare for measuring the boy’s magecraft attribute that night.
…
Not in last night’s sunroom this time.
After dinner, Alice took Ryōgi Minato to the room where she normally crafted her familiars—and Aoko, taking it upon herself, tagged along too.
Measuring a magecraft attribute wasn’t as complicated as one might imagine.
After guiding the boy through a few simple magecraft formulas and the most basic magical-energy circulation, Alice had her answer.
Yet the conclusion she reached in the end still drew the girl into a frowning silence.
“What is it, Alice?
Did you find out Minato’s attribute?”
Aoko asked it curiously.
Her own attribute happened to be Wind—the mark of the Aozaki family—which Alice had once said “suited her character perfectly.”
She herself didn’t much agree, though.
If she really were as unbound as the “wind,” she’d surely have taken up some other life long ago, rather than lingering, as she did now, between the values of ordinary people and the cold indifference of magi.
At Aoko’s words, Alice came back to herself and looked at the boy, who wore the same curious expression.
She had assumed that, with his Magic Circuits and that singular “Magic Crest”-like manifestation, this apprentice of hers had already been shown the favor of the magic arts.
What she hadn’t expected was for his innate talent to prove this exceptional—which was what had caused her brief lapse just now.
It seemed that, by sheer accident, she had unearthed a most extraordinary rough gem…
Sighing inwardly despite herself, Alice looked at the boy and spoke.
“Imaginary Numbers.
Your magecraft attribute is Imaginary Numbers.”
Not one of the common Five Great Elements, but the vanishingly rare Imaginary Numbers.
Truth be told, Alice found herself a little out of her depth in that moment, for with an attribute she had all but only read about in records, she couldn’t immediately say in which direction it ought to be developed.
“Imaginary Numbers?”
Ryōgi Minato murmured.
He remembered the term from the books he’d read during the day.
—Possible, yet not present within the material world.
That vague, opaque description left him none the clearer on what, exactly, the thing was.
[Minato’s magecraft attribute is Imaginary Numbers?!
That’s the same as Sakura’s original attribute!]
[Not just Sakura—there’s also the Grand Bomber, Professor Lev, and Trisha Fellows, the little Director’s attendant.]
[So what can the Imaginary Numbers attribute actually do?]
[ummm, open a dimensional pocket?]
[No, look at it from another angle—if he can open a dimensional pocket, then he can make the pocket bigger too, right?
So if he ever runs into someone he can’t beat, he can just stuff them straight into Imaginary Number Space.]
[And then turn them into a Sin Sack?
(smug)]
[Lmao, Touhou fans really are everywhere.]
[But can you actually fit a person into Imaginary Number Space?
Could a human even survive in a place like that?]
[No clue if they’d survive, but I do know Mama Tiamat should still be in Imaginary Number Space—wanna go ask her?]
[Aaaaaaaa—!]
[Can’t you think of something cooler?
He’s got Yamato anyway, so just slash Imaginary Number Space wide open—learning the Judgement Cut is no longer a dream!]
[Bruh, that’s not heading to Imaginary Number Space, that’s clearly a one-way trip to the Demon World.]
Seeing that the danmaku hadn’t argued its way to any conclusion either, Ryōgi Minato looked to his teacher in confusion, hoping she might explain.
Before Alice could speak, though, Aoko ventured, a little uncertainly:
“Imaginary Numbers—isn’t that the really rare attribute you mentioned before, Alice?
See, I knew it—Minato doesn’t just have the talent to become a magus, he’s outstanding at it too!”
Genuinely happy for the boy, Aoko’s tone carried a note of blessing.
To her mind, this was the kind of feeling a magus ought to have, rather than snuffing out everything for the sake of gain.
Indeed, this apprentice of hers was exceptional.
Setting aside her worries over the teaching problem, Alice looked at the boy, her voice gentling somewhat.
“I already know what your attribute is, but some things still have to start from the basics.
“The flow of magical energy, and growing steadily more practiced at activating your circuits… these are all things you’ll need to drill every day.
“As for the attribute itself, we can begin after you’ve finished learning the basic formulas and the applied characteristics.”
Reinforcement, Projection, Alteration, Absorption… every magus had their own applied characteristic they excelled at.
These would be enough to keep the boy occupied for a good while—and enough time, too, for her to prepare the next stage of his curriculum.
“Understood, Sensei.
I’ll do my best.”
He pledged it as earnestly as a schoolboy.
Though Ryōgi Minato hadn’t learned what these so-called “Imaginary Numbers” really were, since his teacher had already laid out a plan, he need only follow it step by step.
For him, magecraft was an entirely unknown field, and so he’d kept, throughout, the mindset of a student.
A staggering revelation had cropped up again just a night after the last.
Alice felt her nerves had been put through their paces these past two days—but mercifully, almost everything had landed on the good side of things.
It was only for her, as the teacher, that the burden on her shoulders had suddenly grown that much heavier.
Watching the well-mannered boy bid a polite goodnight, Alice was just about to set aside her “teacherly authority” when she caught Aoko shooting her a gleeful, gloating look.
“Even a newbie like me can see Minato’s talent is far too good.
So buckle down and work out that teaching plan, Sensei Alice.”
Pressing her lips together wordlessly, Alice didn’t offer her usual mocking retort, because the responsibility really did rest on her alone.
But just as Aoko stepped out the door in an especially fine mood, the witch’s voice rose behind her.
“Aoko, since funds aren’t tight anymore, from tomorrow you’ll double your magecraft experiments.”
“Alice, you can’t be serious—I was only joking just now…”
The girl’s despairing cry rang out through the room, lingering long and refusing to fade.
Meanwhile, Ryōgi Minato—already back in his room and in bed on time—hadn’t noticed this “unexpected” commotion.
He’d long since closed his eyes in peace and, Yamato in his arms, drifted off into dreams.
Yet what the boy failed to notice was that, as the magical energy circulated within him on instinct, a tiny, invisible rift in the air had wrapped itself around the end of his scabbard.
It looked, for all the world, as if the tip had been hidden away by some unseen space.