🐦 Magpie Bridge 🐦

16

“But these days, it’s nice that they’re not scared of me. I’m used to it, but it still hurts when someone obviously avoids me.”
“Really.”

I didn’t really understand what he was talking about. Cory sat upright from his face-down position on the table. He poured himself a cup of milk and drank it, pausing to think before speaking.

“I’m not going to your class because of Hestia.”
“I know, it’s because you have no friends.”

Cory spewed out his milk at my words. He glared.

“….I told you I have the prince.”

He said, as if giving an excuse. I nodded. Then, Cory glanced my way and responded.

“I have you too.”
“And Hestia too?”
“Stop teasing me.”

Cory wiped off his milk moustache and glared ferociously, but I didn’t find him scary at all anymore. Had I already gotten used to his face?

I huffed out a laugh at Cory’s cute actions, which were just second to the prince. I even comforted him.

“It’s okay, I don’t have a lot of friends either. That’s why I had such a hard time finding club members.”
“Yeah. It looked like it.”

Y….you…..?

As if this was payback, Cory laughed as he responded. I smiled at his petty revenge, which was just about as effective as a bunny kick.

After finishing everything that I asked of him, Cory picked up a notebook with my notes on magic. I watched him.

He pulled out a worn notebook and a fountain pen with a warped tip, then drew out the magic circles in my notebook.

Cory didn’t hold his fountain pen properly, but instead grabbed it with a fist. Because of that, Cory seemed to be bad at drawing too. The magic circle resembled a bent potato, but because of his magic skills it seemed to work regardless.

A blue light emanated from his magic circle. Then, the magic circle drew itself midair, still emanating light. It looked like he had practiced this before: with ease, he stretched out the magic circle with both hands.

The enlarged magic circle was filled with ancient letters and math equations. He easily rearranged the information to make it easier to read.

Then, he wrote down the information from the magic circle on an empty piece of paper he had ripped from his notebook.

“You’re really doing your best.”

I felt proud watching as he studied. Cory was already almost done reading through my magic how-to notes. He definitely had a main character buff with how fast he was catching up to me.

Cory furiously scribbled down his notes, then nodded to himself. He held up the book that I had given him and opened his mouth.

“This thing is amazing.”

After complimenting me, Cory completed analyzing the magic circle and returned the circle to its original state. Then, he combined the water ball magic circle he knew before with the magic circle in front of him.

The magic circle, which was originally blue, turned red. The new circle in front of him was a muscle strengthening magic circle.

Cory took out a rock from his pocket and engraved the circle on it. When he gripped the circle in his fist, his skinny arm slowly grew bigger and more muscular.

He put down the stone after finding that he had succeeded. The magic on his arm slowly disappeared.

“There’s probably nobody else in the history of magic who would think to break down and rearrange magic. That means you can control basically every property within it. After figuring out the tips you gave me, it became easier to understand the magic circles created by my favorite magicians, too.”