Fairy Tale Chronicles

「I guess that’s about all we have to discuss?」

「Yup. Kay then, Haruna-san. Guess we should git to makin’ some bread that’s easy to make ‘n that’s acceptable for the cafeteria ‘n school store improvement.」

「Yeah. Curry bread doesn’t seem like it’ll work this time around, so we’d better try various things.」

Seeing that the discussion had basically ended, Hiroshi and Haruna immediately got started on their hobbies. The conversation suddenly turning to food yet again with these two gluttons made Tatsuya and Makoto want to facepalm.

「Maybe save staple foods for later and focus more on snacks for now?」

「Ah, that might be good. What specifically were you thinking of?」

「If the peeps in Rufeus are fine with custard cream, I wonder how they’d feel about cream-filled rolls?」

「Good point. We really never did make those kinds of sweetbread varieties.」

The two of them arguing over Lime’s educational path seemed to have definitely been an exception. Hiroshi and Haruna were now discussing the next task at hand in an extremely harmonious manner. To think that this was not the banter of two lovers but simply Haruna’s one-sided love just made it all the more questionable.

「I’ll bake a few of them up right now, so Makoto-san and Tatsuya-san, we’re counting on you to try them out later, kay?」

「Well, I don’t mind that, but do you really think we’d be the most reliable critics?」

「If the food’s right there then I’m all for it too, but haven’t we established that Japan’s sense of taste won’t be reliable in this scenario?」

「I think sweet things might be fine in this case. Just for reference, okay?」

Haruna smiled cheerfully, telling Tatsuya and Makoto not to worry. And so because of their answer, the elders of the group ended up being used as guinea pigs, snacking between meals every day with all sorts of bread recipes, which led to some concern about their weight and abdominal thickness.

「Suuuper weird……」

Wulls, Azuma Workshop. Nora and the others’ free time at night. In but a weeks’ time, the simple lecture explanations had become customary. Before that time slot, Fum was groaning with her notes and materials in front of her.

「Fum, what’s wrong?」

「Oh, the materials I got from school today are conflicting with what I already know.」

「You didn’t ask the teacher for clarification??」

「I didn’t get that far today. So while I reviewed today’s contents, I figured I should prep for the next lecture, and that’s when I realized.」

Messing with her short hair, Fum made a grim face, clearly not taking this well. The contents differed, and yet the theory was consistent, which made it even more convoluted.

Fum knew that not everything they were taught at Rufeus Academy was entirely accurate. Along the same lines, nearly everything Hiroshi and the others had taught them was experience-based, which might as a whole not be entirely accurate either. Still, she had surmised with direct observation and perception that what they already knew was correct compared to the current content they were studying.

And yet, she couldn’t find any huge flaw in the theory. This unpleasant feeling was irritating Fum.

「If you’re curious, you can always just try it out. Thankfully, we have mountains of enchantment catalysts and failed prototypes for optimal practice. Using up all of these is one of the things that Boss Man and the others want to do anyway.」

「……You’re right. I’ll try it a bit. Is it fine if today’s explanation goes a bit late?」

「Yes, of course.」

Nora motioned, and Fum took out unusable tools like worn-out pestles from storage and mortar damaged from task failures, in addition to a largest amount of catalysts. Nora, Teres, and Lime watched her with excited expressions as she did so. Also, the new fox beast recruit was completely incapacitated from Mio’s spartan instruction and the cultivating plus spadework and had no leisure to be gawking at Fum.

Then again, even if he were to hear about this, the fox man didn’t even have a foundation in enchanting and this would serve absolutely no purpose to watch, as it was gobbledygook to him.

「So it’s an enchantment that raises the strength of the objects listed in the material. First, you use the boss man’s formula, with this catalyst, then this way, like this, you put this amount of mana in over here……」

Fum managed to pull off the enchantment basics with a flowing hand movement as Nora and the others watched without batting an eye, earnest expressions on their faces as they nodded. Up to this point, even Lime had been able to succeed without looking at a manual.

In actuality, if you could do this much, then you could already receive enough income to live the minimum life as an enchantment magician, but none of them could possibly know this. Working hard for about four months at Azuma Workshop wasn’t necessarily so easy that you could have a leisure-filled time as you whistled, but at the very least you stopped failing at this level of enchantment once you adjusted to life there.

「So, provided everything written in the material is correct, the catalyst we use is this one, and we follow this step in order to raise the mana affinity between the catalyst and the target, connect the conductor line between the catalyst and the target, determine the substance with this circle, and then make it stick with this amount of mana.」

Fum implemented the enchantment as she checked every step meticulously. This was of course an explanation for Nora and the others, but it was also Fum’s first time and she lacked the self-confidence.

「It seems to be going well, but……」

「Yeah, still feels way off. But I don’t know precisely what feels off……」

「Exactly……」

Teres and Nora both wracked their brains over the proper result coming out. Fum also had an expression on her face that showed she wasn’t satisfied with this.

「……Sis, the second method’s mana circulation is kinda weird.」

As Fum and the others were tilting their heads, Lime, who had been observing intently, made this particular claim.

「Weird? Which part is?」

「I think when you connected the conductor lines? The mana moved through in a strange way.」

Lime indicated what she found to be weird, and Fum repeated the part where she connected the lines together. She used different waste matter this time.

「Ah～、you’re right, I do feel something off here.」

Testing it out, Fum realized that the weird feeling they all had occurred with the timing of connecting the lines. Despite being connected, the mana returning across the lines from the target’s side was oddly scarce. This was within the range of error, which was why she didn’t immediately notice it, but now it made sense why this felt weird.

「Lime, good job figuring that part out.」

「Seriously, we didn’t even notice that!」

「It was different from the correct mana flow that we learned in the magic class.」

Teres and Nora praised Lime for seeing through to the core of the issue when they couldn’t, and Lime revealed how she knew.