Chapter 4: Lost Magic

The day after Cyrus fell in love with Maria, I went to the field together with her.

I waited for her after work, and Dewey looked envious when he saw us together. I would have gladly asked him to come along if it were my field, but I couldn’t do the same with Cyrus’s field. Maria was an exception, since she was part of my plan to help him overcome his fear of girls, but I had no such excuse for Dewey.

I apologized to him in my heart, as he looked at the two of us walking away with a sad expression. He’s always so cute though. Makes you want to pat his head.

On the other hand, though, Dewey was one of the characters who was supposed to bring Katarina (that is, me) to her doom... But how? Unlike Cyrus, he couldn’t use magic, was shorter than me, and, most importantly, he was so cute. If anything, I think I could even win against him in a fight.

“Is anything the matter?” asked Maria, noticing that I was spacing out while thinking about that.

Right, Maria’s been working alongside Dewey all this time. I’m sure she knows a lot about him.

“Ah, I was just thinking... Dewey’s cute and small, but, uhm, can he like... lift heavy stuff and such?”

Is he actually stronger than he lets on? Would I win against him in a fight? Is what I actually wanted to ask, but that would raise too many questions.

“Lady Katarina, Dewey is a boy, so he would take offense to being called cute and small,” she said with a dry smile. “And despite his looks, he is quite strong. He used to do a lot of manual labor at home.”

That was surprising, but I guess you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Now that I thought about it, I remembered hearing about him being raised in a poor, troubled household, and also about how he was picked on because of how smart he was... Maybe he was stronger than I had originally thought.

Ugh! And I thought I could defeat him easily! My only hope is training to become stronger!

We finally reached the field, where Cyrus was already waiting, though he looked more gussied-up than usual.

“Hello there,” he greeted us with an unusually radiant smile. Actually, he was probably mostly greeting Maria.

Romance novels say that people change when they fall in love, but this was just incredible. Cyrus’s fear of girls is cured, isn’t it? I thought, but unfortunately he still looked nervous when talking to her.

She started skillfully helping with the field, explaining that, “I often helped Lady Katarina when she was farming at the academy.”

“That’s wonderful!” he commented happily, showing that he had made at least some progress.

After that — possibly because of the power of love — Cyrus more or less kept talking with Maria. I was positive that at this rate, he’d overcome his fear in no time.

For our usual break, the blanket we were sitting on was larger than normal to make space for our new guest, and there were also sweets to go with the tea.

I’m feeling some disparity in our treatment here... Oh well, a farming buddy can’t compare with the girl you like, I guess.

Maria, curious, tried the pickles. “I have never tried anything quite like this. It is delicious,” she said, munching on them with a smile. I was happy that she also liked them.

We then talked about pickling practices, Cyrus’s hometown, rice, and more, after which Maria started looking around herself.

“Apart from the field itself, the whole place seems to be cared for. Did you do all of this, Mister Cyrus?”

Now that she mentioned it, the area around the field, despite the lack of a proper pathway, had a well-trimmed lawn and no large rocks lying around. It was surprising, considering how hidden away this place was. Was it Cyrus’s doing, like Maria said?

“No, I couldn’t really manage such a large place all by myself. It was like this to begin with,” he said, shaking his head.

“Do you mean that this place was just cared for all along?” Maria asked, confused.

“Yes. It seems that back in the day there used to be a garden here. There was a magic spell in place to keep it tidy, and it must still be working.”

“A spell to keep the garden tidy?! That kind of spell exists?!” I asked, interested by this type of magic I’d never heard anything about.

“Yeah. But it’s Lost Magic now.”

“Lost Magic?” I asked. I’d never heard of that expression before.

“There are lots of different types of magic, right? As magic changes with the times, new types come along, and some old types become extinct. Didn’t you learn about it at the academy?” he said, chuckling.

I turned to Maria, and she was looking flustered. Yup, turns out we did learn about it at the academy. I guess that’s one downside to my “forget everything I learned right after the test” policy.

“But then, why did the garden disappear?” I asked, trying to change the subject to take attention away from my ignorance.

“I don’t know. The Ministry has a long history, with new things being built and old things being torn down all the time. The garden must be something left over from a project that was abandoned a long time ago.”

Indeed, the Ministry was as old as the kingdom itself, and a lot must have changed since its establishment. Maybe even this place, which was now empty and forgotten, had been different in the past.

“Right now it’s just empty land,” I said, looking around, “but if it used to be a garden, did it have like a pond or something?”

“There’s a circle made of stones right over those bushes. Maybe there used to be a pond in the middle,” said Cyrus.

“I’d like to see it,” I said, and he looked at me like a tired father hearing his child’s troublesome request. But then Maria added that she wanted to see it too, and he immediately stood up to guide us there.

We followed him and reached the place that he was talking about. It was a conspicuous circle of stones around what probably used to be a pond, but it had either been filled up or had naturally dried up. The pond looked as if it had been considerably smaller than the one in the Claes garden.

Most of the stones reached up to around my knee, but there was one that was wider and about as tall as me — it kind of looked like a tombstone from my previous world.

Curious whether there was a name or something written on it, I started cleaning the large, dirty stone with my handkerchief, but with very poor results. It was some really stubborn dirt.

“Lady Katarina, what exactly are you doing?” asked a confused-looking Maria.

“Oh, I was just wondering if there was anything written here.”

“Written? On the stone?” she asked, even more confused.

I had never seen a tombstone in this world, so maybe they didn’t exist here. That would explain her confusion. It would also mean that there probably wasn’t anything written on this stone here, but I figured that I might as well keep cleaning it up just to be extra sure.

After some serious rubbing and scrubbing, I finally managed to get rid of most of the dirt on the stone, but there was nothing written on it. However, I noticed that there was something sparkly.

Oh? Is it a jewel or something?!

I scrubbed the sparkly portion even harder — so hard, in fact, that my hand slipped and I ended up scratching my skin.

“Ouch!”

It was literally just a scratch, but it stung a lot, and I was bleeding.

“Lady Katarina! Are you okay?!” Maria asked while running towards me, then taking my hand into hers. “You are bleeding! I will heal you.”

She probably meant to use her Light Magic to heal me, but I felt bad having her use her powers for such a small wound (that was also entirely my fault).

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing,” I said, but she shook her head.

“It could get worse, and I wouldn’t want for you to be left with a scar,” she replied, so I happily accepted her offer. I let Maria grab my hurt right hand while my left one still rested on the stone.

A faint light appeared out of Maria’s hands. I’d already seen this happen a few times, but I was excited because this was the first time I was the one actually being healed. I stared at the faint light... and all of a sudden, it turned into a blindingly bright flash. I shut my eyes, and even when I reopened them, all I could see was white light.

White above, white below, white left, white right. Nothing but white as far as I could see. White, empty space.

I was in front of that stone just a few seconds ago... Where is this?

I was stunned, but thanks to Maria, who was still holding my hand, I managed to stay on my feet. However, she was staring at her surroundings too, looking as surprised as I was.

“L-Lady Katarina... Wh-What happened to us?” she asked me nervously, her voice shaking.

“I’ve got no idea either. Where are we?” I asked, and noticed that my voice was a bit shaky as well. I was too scared and confused to move, but the silence made it all the scarier, so I kept talking. “Just a few moments ago, we were standing in front of the stone, and...”

Suddenly, a second flash of light forced me to close my eyes again. I fearfully opened my eyes, and saw an orb of concentrated light floating in the air. It was smaller than my head, and kind of looked like a light bulb. But unlike a light bulb, it wasn’t suspended from the ceiling — it was just levitating in mid-air.

“What is going on? What’s with this light bulb?” I asked, puzzled at the absurdity of this series of events.

“Light bulb? What’s that?” asked... the light bulb.

D-Did the light bulb just speak?! What?!

“Eek! It talked! It’s a ghost! Ghooost!!!” I screamed, terrified.

“That’s a mighty rude thing to call someone,” said the voice from the light bulb, sounding slightly displeased.

I’m sure of it this time! The voice came from it!

“It talked agaaain!!! What kind of ghost are you?! Begone! Begone!” I shouted at it.

“Do me a favor and shut up, will you? We won’t get anywhere if you keep shouting,” it said in an annoyed tone.

I suddenly found that I couldn’t open my mouth anymore. I was trying as hard as I could, but my lips were sealed together.

“I’m just making sure you’ll stay quiet for a while,” it explained.

This thing has terrifying powers! It looks like a normal light bulb, but it’s actually one heck of a ghost!

“And now that I look at you, you aren’t even a worthy one! You just slipped up in here by mistake, didn’t you? What a troublesome kid.”

I couldn’t see the thing’s face, but I was pretty sure that it was mocking me. How dare it?

But I was feeling a bit calmer now. Maybe it was because I’d screamed the fear out of my system, or maybe because I couldn’t scream anymore. Either way, I looked at the light bulb which, even upon closer inspection, definitely looked like nothing but a light bulb. It didn’t even have any mouth. How was it speaking?

And then, after forcefully shutting me up, it started speaking to Maria. “Oh, it seems that you’re a worthy one, young girl.”

Worthy one? What’s it talking about?

“...M-Me? Worthy?” Maria asked, obviously scared and confused as well.

She’s such a polite girl though. A light bulb starts speaking, and she just replies to it.

“A worthy one, yes — a Wielder of Light,” it explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I still have no idea what it’s talking about, but what I know is that I really don’t like this thing’s condescending tone.

“...I am a Wielder of Light...” Maria said with a thoughtful expression.

“I know. Do you long for greater powers?”

“Greater powers? You mean... more powerful magic?”

“No. It’s not about making your magic more powerful, it’s about learning how to control it.”

“What does that mean?”

“I will teach you all I know about controlling magic. And that will make you much more powerful.”

“More... powerful...” Maria said, looking at the orb and then, inexplicably, at me. Her eyes were staring into mine.

Maria...? What’s up? I couldn’t speak, so I had to communicate by blinking.

Maria nodded at me, as if to say that everything would be alright, before looking back at the light bulb. Her expression went from scared and confused to intense and fierce.

“I want greater powers,” she said clearly.