Chapter 6: Returning to the Basics

“Err, well, umm,” I tried to answer,

“Please settle down everyone.” The teacher calmed the class down slightly, and I was thankful, but then the teacher exclaimed, “HOW DID YOU DO THAT!?”

“I just hit the target with my fire bolt, then sent in up, then directly down.” I plainly explained, finally having enough room to speak.

“Alright… Now that you have your answer, everyone please return to your line, and continue.”

I watched as people burned slight holes in the extra targets. This is the prestigious Magic Academy? Then how did Akafmowa know so much?

I put these feelings onto a small piece of paper in japanese. I still didn’t know this country’s writing system very well, so I just wrote in what I knew.

I thought about how everyone was speaking japanese, why? The couple of times I tried writing in this country's writing system, it never matched up. Why?

I fell asleep, knowing that I may never learn to write.

Yet my class the next day told me otherwise.

“Everyone write down the basic way to cast Barrier. Yes Iro?”

“Um, I don’t know how to write.”

Everyone seemed a bit shocked. I heard the whispers of people saying,

“How did he get into the Magic Academy if he can’t write?”

All it takes is learning how to do something I did after 2 days of training.

“Well, Iro, you can… Draw? Just, do something.” I heard the slight laughter, followed by the silence when I said,

“Alright.”

I started writing in japanese.

Although this was not immediately noticed by anyone, this was eventually noticed by Emi, who was sitting right next to me.

“What are those characters?” Emi asked,

“They are…” I tried to answer, almost telling everyone exactly what they were.

“Yeah, what are those?”

Eventually, the entire class was asking me what the weird characters were. Good thing that kid interrupted me, because it gave me a moment to think about what I was going to say. I thought that it was probably a good idea to keep it a secret.

I wondered to myself if it was a mistake coming to the academy, I mean, they are teaching me nothing about magic, just easy stuff, and I keep getting bombarded with questions.

Still though, I already met at least one good person, Emi.

I answered by telling them they were just drawings, like the teacher told me.

They thought it was oddly specific for drawings, but they believed me anyways.

Thank god.

On the next day of my school life, I got up, and to my surprise, someone was knocking on my door.

I opened the door to see a girl with short black hair, and most noticeably, what looked like a maid outfit.

“Is this a joke?” I asked,

“D- d- does it look that bad?” The girl asked. I was going to respond by commenting on the maid outfit, but I thought that it might give away the fact that I came from another world.

“Err, no it looks fine, but why are you in the boy’s dorm in that outfit?”

“Well, um, uh… I think I’ll just say it… I- Iro… I love you!”

The room was silent. I was quite confused. While I thought it was weird that this random girl I had never met in a maid costume just came up to my door and confessed her love to me, I admired her courage. Because of this, I just said,

“Come on in.”

The girl came in, and I invited her to sit down at one of the small chairs I had in my room.

I asked the girl, “What’s your name?”

“Gowa…” she responded,

I thought about that name, like Akafmowa’s name, it ended in wa. I learned recently that in this world, in many words that are originally from Kotokori, the suffix wa means more important than anything else. Generally this is reserved for the word for the world and stuff like that, but not only Akafmowa, but this girl has the suffix wa. I did my best to think nothing of it though.

“Gowa, uh, could you please tell me a bit more? You kind of just walked up to my door and said, ‘I love you’ so I’d like to know a bit more.”

“A- alright. Hi… I’m Gowa, and I’m 12… I’ve always wanted to go to the magic academy, but I’ve never been old enough, so when I heard that you got into the academy even though you were only 12, just like me, I… Umm… Developed some… Feelings for you…” Gowa’s face was turning redder and redder by the second.

This girl was really cute… But still… Not only did I not want to jump the gun on this, I also was wondering,

“How did you know I got into the academy in the first place?”

“Well, everyone knows you got in… Word of mouth spread it everywhere.” Gowa responded.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How was it already that big of a deal? It only took a couple of days and already “everyone knows” I got in?

Although I was blown away by this information, I still had to stay on topic.

“Well… To answer your feelings… I… I still haven’t quite settled into the school environment. Give me 1 month. 1 month of time to decide.” I said,

“Alright.” Gowa agreed.

The entirety of class, I was thinking about Gowa. Normally, I would think it was a bit strange that such a young girl was so ready to look for a partner, but in this world it seems it’s normal.

It looks like in this world, it’s regular to find a partner from the age 12-16.

Yet another thing I have to adapt to.