Magic Academy Bans Harem

Chapter 253 My Indecisive Older Sister

Seeing that Langna was unharmed, the first person to breathe a sigh of relief was undoubtedly Elise, who had repeatedly committed "crimes" today.

After Elise breathed a sigh of relief, she asked, "Senior Langna, are you alright?" only to find Langna staring wide-eyed, frozen in place as if petrified.

".Why?"

It's a dance where you step on your own toes—no, I mean, and it also has the added effect of freezing the opponent in place?
Just as Iris was waving her hand in front of Langna with some concern, Langna suddenly let out a shriek of "Eee!!!"

Some of Elise, who had been frightened by the unusually unstable emotions of her senior, immediately saw Langna take a few deep breaths and, trying to calm herself down, ask expectantly.
"Was the magic from before cast by Student Elise?"

"Magic? Oh. That's magic."

Somewhat bewildered, Elise shook her head and gave a negative answer.

"Then could it be!"

Langna's anticipation turned into joy. But remembering that there was another archmage inside, she suppressed her surging hope and looked around.

In the almost empty classroom, Langna searched three times before finally finding Professor Ritas, who seemed to have blended into the corner.

Suppressing her urge to complain, Langna asked Ritas, who was staring at her.
"Was it Professor Ritas's magic?"

Under Langna's hesitant gaze, Ritas simply shook his head calmly.
“As for student Langna, she should know very well that only you could successfully cast the previous spells.”

At this moment, Ritas, who was also somewhat surprised, spoke up to remind him.

Langna quickly understood the meaning behind Ritas's words.

The magic that appeared on her feet earlier wasn't protective magic, but rather enhancement magic. The difference is that with protective magic, there would be some kind of barrier acting as a shield between her and Elise, preventing Elise from directly stepping on her. Enhancement magic, on the other hand, made the part of her magic more resilient.

Furthermore, strengthening magic itself has certain prerequisites.

Simply put, most enhancement spells require the recipient's consent to take effect. In academic circles, there has been ongoing debate about whether enhancement spells that take effect without the recipient's consent constitute enhancement or a variant of attack.

Since she had no memory of receiving enhancement magic from others at that moment, it could only mean one thing.
"I can use magic now!"

Faced with Langna suddenly raising her hands and cheering excitedly, Elise, who had no idea what had happened, simply held her face with her hands in worry.

I didn't realize stepping on someone's toes could cause such serious damage.
Soon after.

It felt like she had been living underground for a long time. On this day, Langna finally saw the sunlight again. After adjusting her emotions, she frankly told everyone present about the "mania" that she had been suffering from recently.

Since the members of the New Magic Ball Seminar had already left, and Ritas and the Goddess of Bath already knew about it, the only one who was truly hearing about it for the first time was Iris.

Elise, who loves rumors and gossip and has even attended news seminars for them, listens to these secrets with her eyes shining.

If Langna were still struggling with her illness, hearing such news might have weighed heavily on her mind, and she wouldn't have dared to publicize it. But now that Langna's symptoms had improved, within seconds, Elise's mind conjured up a plethora of sensational headlines. She even imagined how inspiring and heart-wrenching it would be to read an article like "In a place unseen by all, the student archmage endured terrible trials" when Langna officially became an archmage.

What interrupted Iris's fantasy and Langna's joy was Ritas's indifferent voice.

"Student Langna, you'd better take this opportunity to test whether all the types of magic you've mastered can be cast normally."

As a patient suffering from a special form of derangement, Ritas offered this advice.

"What the professor said makes sense."

Langna nodded and began to adjust the belt around her waist.

In this era, few wizards carry a wand around all the time. However, a wand is still an essential item when necessary. Therefore, learning how to naturally carry a wand and have it readily available when needed is a compulsory course for wizards from their apprenticeship.

They quickly found Langna practicing with her wand. After closing her eyes briefly to enter a state of concentration, she began chanting the incantation.

Because wands come in all shapes and sizes, there is no standard way to hold one. However, simply looking at Langna's current posture gives the viewer the feeling that "she is the standard." Perhaps even a master who has been immersed in swordsmanship and other combat techniques for many years would not be able to find any "flaw" in Langna's static posture.

As Langna finished her incantation, even though she intended to use the most basic magic, the classroom was filled with an atmosphere as if a storm was brewing.

then
Then nothing happened.

".Eh?"

"."

Amidst Elise's confusion, Langna, who had been silently lowering her head, took a deep breath and tried again.

Once, twice, three times.

No magic appeared.

Finally, Langna, whose sky had just been held up collapsed again, covered her face with her hands and knelt on the ground.

"Why?!"

Since it was getting late, Ritas first took two students to the academy's dining hall for dinner.

After returning to the empty classroom, Langna had regained much of her composure.

"Student Langna, when you cast spells before, did you always use a wand and chant?"

"Yes. Although there was a period when I tried practicing without a staff and without chanting, I couldn't adapt well, so I stopped."

"I can't speak," Langna said weakly.

Perhaps because she had excitedly revealed her inability to use magic earlier, and then personally demonstrated just how pathetic a person suffering from magic loss could be, Langna, who had essentially "gone all out" in front of Elise and Ritas, was no longer as secretive about her situation as before.

Through various inquiries, Ritas also collected a lot of information about Langna.

“Then why don’t we try again now? After all, the previous enhancement spell was released subconsciously while in a state of nullification,” Ritas suggested again.

Langna, who felt there was a chance, gave it a try, but still came up empty-handed.

Rather, when Langna was holding her wand and chanting earlier, others could tell she was attempting to use magic. Without the magic, however, Langna simply looked like she was gritting her teeth, as if she were sulking with someone.

"woo"

Langna, who was already showing signs of becoming dependent on Elise and Ritas, looked at the two of them with teary eyes.

Unlike Ritas, who could offer some decent advice, Elise could only offer comfort or encouragement without any technical skills.

Ritas was also unable to determine exactly where Langna's problem lay.

The foundation of magic is actually quite simple: it involves summoning magical particles, communicating with them, and combining them to create magic.

The initial steps of summoning the magical particles went smoothly for Langna. Furthermore, the magical particles surrounding her showed no unusual behavior. However, in the next step, the communication channel seemed to be blocked, and the magical particles stopped responding to Langna.

Since the disease of losing magic is inherently illogical, otherwise it wouldn't have plagued so many mages since the existence of magic. So, with no clues for the time being, Ritas could only try to bring the situation back to its starting point.

“In that case, why don’t you continue practicing dance with Elise? It just so happens that you regained your magical abilities during dance practice last time. So continuing to practice will be helpful for both of you in your current situation.”

Under Ritas's instructions, the two, who had no objections, resumed their dance practice.

At first, Langna seemed preoccupied and her movements were somewhat sluggish. But soon, realizing that she might get injured if she wasn't focused, she put those extraneous thoughts aside.

It's unrealistic to expect someone to completely improve something they're not good at in just one day.

So even though Elise was on edge and didn't want to cause trouble for the senior student in front of her who had already gone through so much, her feet just wouldn't cooperate.

And once again, just as Elise's "weapon" was about to strike Langna's "vital point"...
The familiar magical glow reappeared.

"."

In the midst of an inexplicable silence, Ritas vaguely foresaw that Langna's loss of her powers might turn into a strange illness.

Before curfew.

After a day of practice riddled with accidents, Ritas drove Elise and Langna back to their respective dormitory residences.

Before saying goodbye to Langna, seeing her exhausted from being tossed and turned by joy and frustration throughout the day, Ritas offered words of comfort.

"Don't be too discouraged, student Langna. The loss of magic is like a wall suddenly built in a turbulent river, cutting off the flow of water. And now, a crack has appeared in this wall, so the future of more water flowing through the crack and washing the wall down is not far off."

It's called a consolation because these words are actually unreasonable. Ritas's wall has never been breached.

However, Langna showed an expression that clearly indicated "it makes sense," and then nodded vigorously with great conviction.

"Ok!"

Looking at Langna like this, Ritas suddenly had a strange thought.

Although he knew his own identity as an "authority" to the trainees, and that he habitually used a convincing way of speaking.

Even so, Langna seems to believe whatever others say, preferring to accept others' opinions rather than her own feelings. This, combined with her tendency to be easily led astray since we met, further suggests a certain tendency.
Is this student somewhat indecisive?
After watching Langna's figure disappear, Ritas faced the disc in his hand and said with a subtle expression,
“Goddess of Bathing, I think I understand Langna now. I understand the root of the mania.”

"Eh?"

Late at night, in Ritas's dormitory mansion, Ritas recounts to the goddess of bathing his deductions pieced together from observations and information gathered during the "Star Pattern" game.

"First of all, the reason why Langna did not develop the mania in the game world but did in reality is because some changes between the game world and the real world affected her."

"Hmm, that's pretty much it. But, will any of those changes affect Langna?"

The goddess of bathing asked, puzzled.

No matter how you look back at the game, the Goddess of Bath could never have imagined that Langna, who had absolutely no connection with Ritas or the Yewwood Class, would be affected in any way.

"Actually, there is an impact, but it's too small in scale, so we didn't make those connections before. In the game world, Langna is also participating in the academy exchange meeting at this time. But the difference between reality and the game world is that the academy dean is present at this exchange meeting."

".What's the meaning?"

"In other words, Langnado is burdened with pressure from the 'Tree Witch.' And it's probably the kind of pressure she absolutely cannot afford to lose. Besides that, there's another difference: at this point in the game world, the target of the 'Star People' may still be Noah or Tabasha."

It was through Ritas's contact with the Star People, and through a series of coincidences, that Ritas ended up joining Ritas's ranks. This led the Star People to begin internally searching for candidates, and ultimately, they discovered Langna.

"So, Langna exploded after bearing the immense pressure of becoming an archmage, being placed on Livis's high hopes, and attracting the attention of the Star People and the Latras Merchant Guild?"

"That's very likely the case. Even in the game world, her becoming an archmage might not be much of a challenge. After all, even if she wants the status of a student archmage, she still has a full year to prepare. But if she's chosen by the teacher..."

Livis must have put pressure on Langna in this regard as well.

"And this may not be entirely the headmaster's fault. Because in my opinion, Langna's personality is inherently weak and lacks assertiveness. Even if it's not something she wants to do, she'll do it if she's pushed by others. So, the teacher may not have intended to put pressure on her, but some natural actions have made it difficult for her to bear."

Ritas paused slightly,

"I don't know if this can serve as proof. But the fact that Langna wasn't the top student in the advanced division might explain something. Even if the current top student in the advanced division is exceptionally talented, can they really surpass a genius who became a Grand Mage during their student days? So, it's more likely that when the top student was selected, there was no one pushing Langna behind her. As a result, she was not good at facing those gazes and pressures, and even felt timid about them, so she didn't step forward."

"Lady Langna is actually a cowardly lizard!?"

Listening to Ritas's analysis, the goddess of bathing couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

(End of this chapter)