WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 630: A Difference in Talent

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Even a hanger-on like me in the floating castle was a king and respected teacher in the lower world. As the people of the school district lavished me with hospitality, I reveled in my own superiority.

How did it feel? Incredible. I was one of the ignorant masses, yet I was being treated well solely because I had come down from the floating castle. It was as thrilling as gambling with money borrowed from someone else.

What if I got caught? Hardly anyone in the floating castle knew me in the first place, and no one would come all this way to correct their misunderstanding. Even if they found out, I could just dust off my hands and leave.

Enjoying pleasure without responsibility, I devoted myself to researching how to ascend through the Dragon Gate.

My research concerned how people without talent could catch up to those who had it. Since I had acquired some excellent test subjects, I decided to make the most of this environment.

"Hey, brats. Come over here for a moment."

They were the failing students of the frontier school district in the Celsius domain.

There were ranks even among school districts. Talented children attended better districts, and those who stood out among them became apprentices to prestigious magical families.

The children still left in this district were cheap lottery tickets that had not been scratched yet and were not expected to win much anyway. Future members of the ignorant masses.

They could not properly sense or control magical power, but they were useful to someone in a similar position. When I beckoned, they came over and sat down with eager looks on their faces.

"Hold these lenses in front of your eyes and look at my finger. What do you see?"

I handed them lenses carved from High Crystal. The children looked at my finger and answered.

"I see a hexagon."

"It looks like a snowflake."

I had not formed a crystal yet, but they could see the magical power that would form its framework. So magical power just before it took shape could be seen through the lenses.

"How about now?"

"I can't see anything."

"Hm. As expected, sensing magical power through a lens depends on the lens's properties. It can't detect every kind of magical power."

The lenses could not sense all magical power for you. They only made specific magical power waveforms glow. This would not do.

As I recorded the results and was about to collect the lenses, one child hesitantly kept glancing at theirs. Without thinking, I asked them.

"What do you see?"

"Um... Something is smiling."

"What?"

"The flames are rising as if they're smiling..."

"Oh, correct."

This child could see it. High Crystal was a crystal, so it should be good at detecting magical power that formed crystals, but not magical power that burned like flames.

Which meant...

"There are children like you. You can perceive it, but you don't realize it's magical power. If you repeatedly observe magical power this way, you can learn to sense it properly."

"What?"

"Congratulations. You've learned magical power sensing."

So there had been an uncut gem capable of sensing magical power even in this trash heap. The child looked between the lens and me, then literally leaped into the air with joy.

"Wow! I did it, I did it...! Finally!"

The child who had discovered their talent was delighted, but I frowned as though it were ridiculous.

Magical power sensing was quite literally the first step of magic. The usual path was to learn magical power control after magical power sensing, then study and become a mage. Plenty of people in the world could not even follow that easy path and fell behind. It was a thousand years too early to celebrate.

What about those who could not even take that first step? Shut your mouth.

Irritated, I held out my hand.

"What are you doing? Give me the lens. It's mine."

"Um... Can't I keep this?"

"You little... You should practice seeing without it."

Know your place, failures. You just had to obediently be my test subjects. Well, one of them had learned magical power sensing thanks to me. That should make the test subjects more obedient.

"I have some things to organize, so go read those grimoires. You, the one who can sense magical power, follow the brightly glowing parts of the grimoire crystal as you read. It'll be an interesting experience."

"Yes!"

The annoying children swarmed away, unaware that they were being used. Lenses were a good approach, but simple lenses would not be enough. I would need more devices to achieve something close to magical power sensing.

There was much to do. Test subjects were useful, but managing them was work too. I alone was not enough to control children who ran wild as they pleased. Nor was it something I should have to do.

"Ma'am. Could you come over here for a moment?"

The warm-looking woman brightened as soon as she saw me.

"Oh my, Teacher! What is it? Do you need something?"

"It isn't much. I need someone to look after the test... I mean, the brats. They can also run some errands for me."

"Of course! As it happens, I've already found someone!"

"When will they arrive?"

"She said she would come today, so I'll send her to the school as soon as she gets here!"

"All right."

I turned away as though I had nothing more to say. Behind me, I heard the woman's smiling voice.

"If you need anything else, just let me know!"

‘What a jackpot! Not all mages are alike, but I never thought we'd get one willing to teach the children! The children are responding well, and there are results already! This will make me look good too!’

That woman was a bigger figure than I had thought. In the Arcane Federation, school districts were status, and schools were facilities tied to one's own future and that of one's children. Being entrusted with the operation of such a place meant she had authority over the people of this entire area.

Having raised her eldest child to become a mage, the woman had become the representative of this school district. She looked ready to give me her liver and gallbladder, unaware that I was using the children as test subjects.

"What would the ignorant masses know? I suppose that's as far as they can see."

After living in the floating castle for only a few days, people like that all seemed foolish and insignificant to me. Perhaps the lower world was not where I belonged. People should live where they fit in.

All right. Testing the crystal lenses was finished. What should I try next? I was returning to the school, deep in thought, when I saw a woman with a bundle of belongings lingering out front. She was grown, so she did not look like one of the children. After reading her thoughts, I realized she was the housekeeper the woman had summoned.

"Excuse me. Are you the housekeeper?"

Startled by my voice, the woman gripped her bundle tightly and answered.

"Y-Yes! I was told to come work here starting today!"

At last, I had a legal slave bound to me by a financial contract. The brats listened well enough, but I could not make children clean or manage my belongings. I raised a finger and pointed inside the school.

"Is that so? We both know why you're here, so there's nothing else to say. Cleaning, managing belongings, making beds, preparing tea, and other odd jobs are your duties."

"Yes! Leave it to me!"

"A few warnings. Don't touch my belongings without permission. Don't do things I haven't told you to do. Keep the room at twenty-five degrees at all times, and make sure we don't run out of clean water made by melting ice."

"Uh, wait a moment. Belongings, work, twenty-five degrees, melted ice water..."

After I rattled off several instructions, the flustered woman muttered while folding down her fingers. She looked careless. Would she even do her work properly? Tsk.

"Do you know magic?"

"Do I need to use magic too? I don't know magic..."

"Hmph. If you could use it, you wouldn't be doing this job. Can you at least use magical tools?"

"Yes! I've used those often! My previous job was serving a mage!"

"Serving a mage? Hm. Then you should be useful."

The woman clenched her fist and spoke energetically.

"Leave it to me! You won't be disappointed. If I get thrown out of here too, I have nowhere else to go, so I'll work like my life depends on it!"

"That doesn't inspire confidence."

Still, she looked diligent. If she had served a mage before, she would be one of the few capable people in a frontier school district like this.

The woman had some sense. She had not sent just any idiot, but picked someone who seemed polite and capable. Pleasing me was what mattered most, right?

...That was why she picked this person. Ma'am, you had been thoroughly fooled.

With an innocent expression, the housekeeper looked around the school and kept exclaiming in admiration before unpacking her bundle in one corner of the room.

* * *

"At its core, magical power sensing is feeling magical power with your senses. Until now, you've probably tried to sense magical power while thinking of it as a mysterious force that can't be seen or felt... Pointlessly, that is."

The arrival of the housekeeper let me accelerate my research even further. Of the twenty-five children studying at this school, seven succeeded in sensing magical power. It was an achievement I had accomplished just three days after beginning their education.

"Do you think Celsius awakened unique magic related to heat and cold for no reason? How does Pascal control the wind, and why did Fahrenheit come to wield blazing flames? Before the theory of magical power sensing was established, heat and cold, and wind brushing against one's skin, were the sensations humans encountered most often."

Was it because they were talented? No. It was because my instruction was excellent. I had knowledge in abundance, and as a mind reader, I could clearly see where their understanding was lacking. I fully drew out the children's talent.

"Magical power exists everywhere. What matters is feeling magical power through your own senses. Heat, cold, sound, light, wind. If you can feel it, you can weave it together and turn it into magic."

I spoke while striking a xylophone made of High Crystal. The crystals infused with magical power resonated, scattering magical power in the form of vibrations. Magical power seeped between the sounds.

"Sound is the same, little one."

The child trembled and took their hands away from their ears.

At that moment, all kinds of noise rang through their body. Sounds they had never heard before. Noise that should have entered through their ears reverberated through their entire body. It felt as though someone had placed them on a drum and struck it hard.

The enormous noise that shook heaven and earth could be heard only by that child.

"T-Teacher... Then what I can hear in my ears right now..."

"Congratulations. You have received the blessing of magic. Reading and combining magical power through vibrations is magic the Pythagorean school studied long ago. It requires not only talent but artistic sense, so it is not widely used. Put another way, that makes it rare. If you go to the Decibel domain, you should have no trouble becoming an apprentice."

That made one more. Eight in total. Magical power sensing might have been the easiest ability, but eight was far too many to come from a frontier school district like this. That was all thanks to me.

The child shook their head hard and cried out.

"No! I want to keep taking lessons here!"

"That's your choice. Do as you please. But today is the last day I'll spend time on you alone."

All people covered themselves in pretense. Nobody wanted to be the one who fell behind. If others did not even expect anything from them, they would be abandoned. So students in a school district desperately hid what they did not know and tried to look like model students.

But I was a mind reader. I saw through all such attempts, read their aptitudes and talents, and awakened their magical power through methods suited to each of them.

Sound magic was the most difficult, and I had succeeded with that too. It was fair to say I had worked on every student here.

"All right. You all roughly understand now, don't you? What talent you have and what you need to do."

The problem, though, was not with the "chosen."

It usually came from the "abandoned."

"That's enough for today. Go home."

The seventeen who had felt nothing, excluding the chosen eight.

They stared only at the ground with empty expressions, then fled the school as though running away.

Footnotes:

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