Silent Witch

After discussing with the teacher about Caroline's punishment, Felix went to the infirmary, but there was no sign of Monica in there. Apparently, she had returned to her room in the dormitory.

Although he was concerned about whether she could get back to the dormitory properly, Claudia was with her, so she wouldn't force Monica to do anything. Incidentally, that little squirrel seems to be living in the attic. Apparently, the daughter of Count Kerbeck made her do so.

Actually, I wanted to warn Miss Isabelle not to harass the little squirrel too much.

Asking Isabelle why she was harassing Monica would mean getting into the inner workings of the Count Kerbeck family. Count Kerbeck was a large noble family who stood neutral. It would be unwise for Felix, the second prince, to meddle in their affairs.

Well, if Miss Isabelle was the one who was tormenting Monica and making her cry, then he could be the one to spoil her.

It's easier to tame that little squirrel when there's an obvious bully.

At first, I was hoping Cyril would fill that role, but he's been so soft on Miss Norton lately.

Regardless of his change of heart, Cyril was the first one to pick up Monica when she had to be carried to the infirmary… though he ran out of steam in the process.

Surprisingly, Cyril might be thinking of Monica as a younger sister. After all, her own sister, Claudia, was like that.

Recalling how the two siblings interacted with each other, Felix was chuckling as he shut the door of his room with a click. Then a white lizard crawled easily out of Felix's breast pocket.

The lizard slithered from Felix's body down to the ground and immediately transformed into a human form. Having taken the form of a chamberlain with light blue hair and blue eyes, Will bowed to Felix.

"Today was… well… quite a day, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but it's been a while since I've heard ‘her' name."

"‘her'?"

Will gave him a quizzical look, and Felix's lips raised slowly to form into a smile.

"Lady Everett, the [Silent Witch]."

Isabelle Norton had spoken that topic with eyes glittering in the salon.

"Although I didn't see it with my own eyes… I heard that [Silent Witch] shot down more than twenty wyverns that had been following the black dragon in an instant!"

Anyone with any knowledge of magic would frown upon that as an exaggeration.

But Felix knew. That Isabelle's words were not a lie.

Because Felix had witnessed it a few months ago.

Just at that time, Felix was on a secret trip to the eastern region.

However, the eastern region was in chaos due to the appearance of the black dragon. The roads were flooded with people who abandoned their villages and towns to evacuate, and Felix was forced to stay there.

Since it was inconvenient for him if his identity was revealed to the people around him, he was moving away from the flow of people and unfortunately bumped into a group of wyverns moving towards him.

There, he saw it.

A swarm of wyverns covered the sky.

The deafening, gargling cry was very aggressive and it was clear that it was on edge.

Whenever one of the wyverns freakishly glided past a nearby house, its claws would rip off the roof and the wind pressure would break the trees.

It was a disaster with a will of its own. Each of the large wyverns was larger than a house. The sight of more than twenty of them flying in the sky was like a nightmare.

But at the very next moment, ice spears rained down from the sky. There were twenty-four of them—exactly the same number as the wyverns.

The ice blades, which looked like they would have taken a grown man to make a circle with his arms, all accurately pierced at the wyverns' brow.

The wyverns that had lost their strength were falling toward the ground in a trickle, into a village. All the inhabitants have been evacuated, leaving their house as-is.

Just as the wyverns' bodies were about to collide with the house, it slid away as if swept away by the wind before falling softly to the empty ground.

It wasn't just one. All twenty-four of them fell gently and silently like wings fluttering in the wind, piling up on the wide ground.

Felix, who had been watching from a distance, forgot to breathe and was mesmerized by the scene.

—What a cruelly silent… yet beautiful spell.

Since Felix was some distance away from the scene, he was unable to see the magician, but he later learned from others that the magician was one of the Seven Sages, the [Silent Witch].

He had seen the [Silent Witch] a few times at the ceremony. However, she always wore a hooded robe, so Felix had never seen her face.

Despite being the youngest genius in the world, the [Silent Witch] rarely appeared in public, and among the Seven Sages, she was the most reserved and inconspicuous, nor have as impressive a record as her peer Louis Miller.

…and yet she was such an amazing magician!

Felix hummed as he took the key out of his pocket and unlocked the drawer to reveal a bundle of essays.

Seeing this, Will blinked moderately.

"Are those papers that the Silent Witch wrote while at Minerva?"

"Yeah, I asked Madame Cassandra to get it for me. These papers contain the positional coordinates and variations of very advanced magic essays."

Felix trailed off there and lowered his eyebrows in slight disappointment.

"Right, you spirits have never been tangled in spells, have you?"

"Yes, we spirits use magic with our senses… so we don't understand how to weave a formula."

Spirits can use their mana as naturally as a human can pick up an object from a desk.

However, it precisely because humans were not as good at using magic as spirits that they weave magic formulas and activate them as "spells".

"The principles of the [Silent Witch] Lady Everett's no-chanting spell have not been revealed, but there is no doubt that she has a very good mind. This essay was written by the [Silent Witch] when she was a student, and it can be said that the publication of this essay has changed the common sense of extensive magic. The accuracy of the magic has improved dramatically."

"…when we spirit aim at something with our attack magic, we ‘somehow' aim at it and ‘somehow' release our mana."

"Humans can't use mana with just ‘somehow.' We have to understand how it works, weave a logical formula, and use mana in the form of ‘spell'."

For example, imagine attacking an enemy with a fire spell.

First, in order to create the fire, the magician must determine the temperature, size, shape, and duration of the fire…all of these things.

Furthermore, in order to fire it to the enemy, the speed, angle, and distance must be calculated and fine-tuned to take into account the climate and wind direction.

Unless they were accurately incorporated into the magic formula, the spells would not work properly. In the worst-case scenario, a fireball would explode at hand, causing a tragedy.

"Spells require a great deal of calculation. Human chanting is similar to the need for a formula in the middle of an arduous mathematical equation. Once you get used to it, you can make some omissions, but you can't just look at a complicated mathematical formula and suddenly arrive at the answer, can you? …but there's one person exception."

A genius magician—without the need for chanting—can answer difficult magic formulas in an instant.

And she was the [Silent Witch].

Recalling her robes from the ceremony, Felix unconsciously raised the corner of his mouth.

"If I could, I'd like to see it again… her serene, beautiful magic."

Closing his eyelids brought back the scene of wyverns quietly falling through the sky.

The wyverns had died instantly, almost without shedding any blood.

How merciless, how cruel, how beautiful.

Felix clutched the [Silent Witch]'s papers onto his chest and let out a sweet exhalation.

"Ah, I wonder how the spell that shot down the wyverns at that time calculated the enemy's coordinate axis. Even incorporating a tracking spell, it would not be possible to accurately target the area between the eyebrows with the current performance of the tracking spells… I wouldn't be surprised if the [Silent Witch] had developed a new tracking spell, but I don't think it was a tracking spell because the ice seemed to be flying straight at that time. If so, it would mean that she accurately calculated the positions of the 24 wyverns and instantly activated her spells to pierce the space between their eyebrows, but grasping the positions of all 24 wyverns and firing her magic at the same time is unheard of. I suspect that the [Silent Witch] may have a frighteningly high level of spatial perception…"

"Excuse me, Your Highness, your tea's ready."

"Oh, yeah, thanks. You can leave it there."

And Will, who was very sincere, said with a look of sincere apology on his face. After gave a small nod at the cursory instructions and he placed his cup of tea on the table.

"I deeply apologize for my inability to understand what Your Highness is saying due to my lack of understanding."

"No, I apologize for getting carried away. There was no one else I could talk to about this."

Felix flipped through the papers and looked over what was written in them.

It was a very advanced and complex essay. However, after reading the contents of the paper so many times to the point where it became a habit to fold the paper, he was able to easily remember the contents of the paper with just a quick glance. He had read it so much that he had memorized it. Many, many times.

"I have a feeling that Miss Isabelle Norton and I would get along well as fans of the [Silent Witch]."

When Felix assured him that he was a fan, Will advised him with a complicated look.

"Your Highness, we shouldn't be talking about the magic outside…"

"I know. I'll behave myself. I'll have to pretend that I'm not familiar with magic."

That's why he hasn't taken any classes on practical spell casting at the school, and he has hidden the fact that he has made a contract with Will, a high-ranking spirit.

Suddenly, Felix had a thought.

The magic formula resembled a mathematical equation—if so, what would happen if Monica Norton, who has an outstanding ability to calculate, were to learn magic?

"I wonder if that little squirrel has any interest in magic. I'm sure she's got some qualities."

"I don't know. But, without a certain amount of mana, she won't able to use spells."

"I guess so."

Felix pondered as he looked down at the paper in his hand.

What will that little squirrel think when she reads this paper?

Well, I guess she would be more interested in these papers than in me.