The Moretti Family.
Founded by the Archmage Moretti himself, this house had passed down ashen hair and ashen eyes through every generation, along with an exceptional gift for magic.
To say that the Moretti family, one of the empire's Four Great Houses, led the world of magic was no exaggeration.
Yet no bloodline is immortal.
As the centuries wore on, the Moretti blood grew thin, and countless cadet branches spread outward like the limbs of a tree.
Moretti held two creeds above all else: purity of blood, and the supremacy of the strong.
The qualifications for Family Head were simple.
Ashen hair, ashen eyes. Overwhelming power.
It was not merely a matter of appearance — one had to be born with the Ashen Trait to inherit the founder's gift.
In practice, Morettis who lacked the ashen coloring showed a marked deficiency in magical talent.
And those of such blood were, without exception, pushed into the cadet branches.
The family Matyos had been born into was itself a cadet branch that had split from the main house some three hundred years prior.
His father had black hair and blue eyes; his mother, black hair and black eyes.
Genetically, there was no possibility of the ashen trait emerging.
It wasn't a matter of infidelity, either.
…Well, his mother had been unfaithful, but not at the time she'd conceived Matyos.
It was simply that a trait slumbering deep within the bloodline had, by chance, awakened.
That was precisely why Matyos had been adopted into the Moretti family.
An appearance that could not possibly lack talent.
History had borne this out, and history demanded it continue.
"Except in my case."
He let out a quiet sigh as he made his way toward Professor Kennedy's lecture hall.
He knew he had no gift for magic. He had already made his peace with that — had chosen the path of the sword instead.
But.
He had always longed for magic.
He wanted to be good at it. He wanted to learn it. He didn't want to give up on it.
"Hey."
He had wanted to wield magic as brilliantly as his sister.
She was a genius. Her talent was so overwhelming that people called her the reincarnation of the founder, Moretti himself.
"Hey."
A genius so absurdly gifted that he sometimes wondered if she had stolen his share of talent along with her own.
Perhaps somewhere within his bloodline, a fragment of that gift still lay hidden?
"Hey!"
Shu had said that Muksong would suit magic as well, and told him to trust in his blood.
Then perhaps it was worth thinking about seriously—
Smack.
A sharp impact struck him square in the back. Matyos scrunched his face and spun around.
What kind of person—
"Did something happen to your ears? I called you how many times — why didn't you answer?!"
It was Huana.
Her red hair blazed in the sunlight with passionate intensity.
She glowered at him with the ferocity of a kettle about to boil over, arms crossed, chest heaving.
Matyos hesitated. Then he spoke.
"…When did you get here?"
"The moment my lecture ended. Honestly, getting yourself hospitalized like that — what would you do without me?"
Huana fixed him with a withering look and crossed her arms, clicking her tongue.
"…So, are you feeling better? You don't need more rest?"
Then she slowly uncrossed her arms and asked in a smaller voice.
"I'm fully recovered."
"…You're not secretly disappointed that I didn't come visit you in the hospital, are you?"
"No? I wasn't particularly disappointed."
Huana was busy.
As a princess who carried the hopes of an entire kingdom on her shoulders, she had a schedule even more packed than his. Her lecture timetable was far more crammed than his own.
She wouldn't have had time to visit.
"Right, then. Tell me what we covered last time."
She meant the Hispanya lessons.
She had been teaching him Hispanya — simple greetings, expressions of feeling, that sort of thing.
He recited what he'd learned, his pronunciation clumsy and halting.
"Buenas tardes…."
Roughly: good afternoon.
Huana responded in her fluent mother tongue.
"Buenas tardes. Es un buen día. ¿Ya comiste?"
"Sí, sí, ya comí."
A short exchange, but an exchange nonetheless.
Huana smiled, satisfied.
"Good, good. Nice. Now I'll teach you a new phrase. Come on, repeat after me. Te amo."
"Te, te amo…"
He stumbled through it. For some reason, the tips of Huana's ears, half-hidden beneath her red hair, had gone pink.
He asked:
"What does that mean?"
He could tell that te meant 'you,' but he had no idea what amo was.
"It's, it's nothing special. Just — a general greeting, that sort of thing. Anyway, say it again."
"Te amo."
"Too quiet. Louder! This time, add mucho."
"…Te amo mucho!"
He called it out loudly in the corridor.
Students passing by turned to look.
Among them, a cluster of Hispanya girls from the same country as Huana flushed red and dissolved into giggles.
"Oh my…."
"How romantic~"
Something feels off.
"…Hey, is this actually right?"
Huana looked away.
"Y-yes, it is. Oh, look at the time. The lecture hall's open — let's go in."
She grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside.
*
"Magic, put simply, is the act of drawing the ideal into reality."
Tap, tap.
Professor Kennedy gestured, and several pieces of chalk began writing on the blackboard of their own accord.
"Only by grounding yourself in your own concepts, convictions, beliefs, and ideals can you set foot upon the absolute path of the magical arts."
He looked the same as always — greasy hair, rumpled clothes.
From a distance he might have passed for a street scholar, but the moment he stepped onto the podium, his eyes lit up like a boy's. When he spoke of magic, his face was more earnest than anyone else in the world.
"Humanity is divided into two kinds of people. Mages, and ordinary folk."
A line drawn down the center of the board.
"Mages are superior. This is an undeniable fact! In the modern age, we see magic integrated into all manner of daily life. But tell me — do any of you know which branch of magic has developed the most?"
Whoosh.
"Combat magic. From ancient times to the present day, magic has been an indispensable element of battle and war. You cannot speak of the history of magic without speaking of war. Some say that with cannons and firearms, the age of magic has passed — but that is utter nonsense! Magic can never be replaced. You, all of you — you are proof of that."
Shu, who had been watching Professor Kennedy's lecture with idle curiosity, offered a remark.
"Not a bad mage."
Shu was perched atop Matyos's head, swinging her legs back and forth.
"Only 7th Circle, but his mana reserves aren't bad. Ah, right — it's Tier now, not Circle."
Matyos ignored Shu's muttering and focused on the lecture.
"I will be teaching you three fundamental combat spells. These are spells that have been considered essential since ancient times. Your examination will be conducted using those three spells."
Rustle.
Professor Kennedy used telekinesis to distribute a grimoire to every student in the hall, and the lecture came to a close.
*
After the lecture, Matyos and Huana went to a café.
Afternoon sunlight poured through the wide windows.
Huana watched Matyos, who had grown sullen. His eyes drooped slightly at the corners. When he concentrated, a faint puffiness appeared in his cheeks.
She wasn't proud of the thought, but she really wanted to take a big bite out of those cheeks.
"I understand the theory, but putting it into practice is another matter."
Matyos furrowed his brow and gathered mana in his palm.
Small sparks crackled — pop, pop — and immediately died.
The three spells Professor Kennedy had assigned were Fireball, Barrier, and Strength.
Offense, defense, enhancement.
These three formed the backbone of combat magic.
They were the first spells taught to mages upon enlisting in the military — any combat mage worth the name had to master them.
"If it's difficult, should I teach you?"
Huana propped her elbow on the table and tilted her head.
Her red hair slid softly over her shoulder, catching the light in a vivid shimmer.
"Teach me what?"
"Magic, obviously. I'll help you."
Huana said it while chewing on a cookie.
She had been trained in magic by exceptional court mages since childhood, and even as a first-year student she was more powerful than most working mages.
Fireball, Barrier, Strength.
She had learned all these basic spells long ago.
But apparently they had been too easy for her, because the grimoire Professor Kennedy had distributed, while similar to the foundational spells, differed in the finer details.
It demanded a higher level of magical comprehension and computational ability.
Even so, it was still effortless for Huana.
"I can't have my foolish fiancé failing basic magic, can I?"
"…Fair enough."
"Can't be helped~ For the sake of my own reputation, I'll just have to teach you myself."
Huana grinned.
As she'd suspected, this hopeless fiancé of hers needed her. Truly — what would he have done without her?
Just then, Matyos lifted his head.
"Actually, it's fine. You don't need to help."
"…What?"
"You're already busy. Where would you find the time to teach me on top of everything else? I'll just hire a tutor. This is Porca — there's no shortage of mages who can teach."
Huana's expression stiffened almost imperceptibly.
Her red eyes flickered for just a moment.
"Is, is that really necessary? When I'm right here…."
Her voice shrank rapidly.
"A-ah! Right. I have to teach you for my own sake, too."
"Do you?"
"Yes! Listen. The best way to review is to teach someone else. By explaining things to another person, you grow alongside them. So this is for my benefit as much as yours."
When she put it that way, it made sense.
He had a vague memory of reading somewhere that teaching another person to understand something was a more effective study method than reviewing alone.
"All right, then. I'm in your hands. Thank you."
"Don't thank me so much. Like I said, this is for me too."
Huana tossed her hair back with a haughty flick of her hand.
"Oh my. So this is where you two were."
Thud.
A hand, beautiful as carved marble, came to rest on the table where Matyos and Huana were sitting.
Perfectly shaped and fair, with a smooth line running down from the wrist to neatly kept fingernails.
Matyos and Huana looked up.
It was Ofilienne.
Her ashen hair fell calmly over her shoulders.
Ofilienne smiled with elegant composure and rested her hand on the back of Matyos's chair.
"Hello, Sister. You're here too?"
"I came to have a brief chat with some friends. I didn't know you two were here as well."
Ofilienne's gaze shifted from Huana to Matyos.
The siblings looked at each other in silence.
This was their second meeting since the falling-out over Tiana Pilrn.
They had exchanged a few words at the hospital before parting, so the awkwardness still lingered.
But then, siblings were supposed to quarrel sometimes.
"By the way — I caught a bit of what you were saying just now. Huana, were you offering to teach Maty magic?"
"Yes. Professor Kennedy said the exam will cover three basic combat spells."
"Hmm, that's very kind, but isn't it a little… off?"
Ofilienne smiled pleasantly as she voiced her reservations to Huana.
"…What's a little off, Sister?"
"Well, our Maty is the face of Moretti, isn't he? He may still be a student, but it doesn't quite seem right for a son of Moretti to receive instruction from someone of another country."
"That doesn't matter. We're engaged, after all."
"Engaged is not married."
"We will be married soon enough."
Ofilienne's and Huana's gazes clashed fiercely in the air between them.
"Oh."
Shu, perched on top of Matyos's head, looked back and forth between the two women with keen interest.
Ofilienne reached out naturally and took a sip from Matyos's coffee, then ran her hand through his hair.
Shu took flight to avoid Ofilienne's hand.
A gentle, familiar touch.
It was natural enough to make clear this gesture had been repeated since childhood.
"Even if he does need teaching, it would look better coming from his older sister."
"Maty said he wanted me. He said he wouldn't do magic with anyone but me."
Matyos was baffled. When did I say that?
"Then let's do this. We each teach Maty once. After one session each, whoever teaches him better takes over going forward."
Ofilienne held up two fingers as she made her proposal.
Huana's eyebrow twitched as she raised the more pressing point.
"I don't mind, but why are you suddenly getting involved, Sister? Aren't you busier than I am?"
"I am busy, yes — but a sister always has time to look after her little brother~"
Ofilienne playfully hooked her arm around Matyos's head in a loose headlock.
"…Ugh, fine. Let's do it!"
"Hehe. So eager. Then let's make it tomorrow. That works for you, doesn't it, Maty?"
"My opinion doesn't seem to factor into this."
And just like that, he found himself with two private tutors before he'd quite realized what had happened.