A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 25: Full Recovery Needs to Be Hidden

"I think so as well," I reached up a hand and touched Mother's, bringing a smile to my face. The sunlight behind me still felt as nice as ever, birds chirping in the early morning light. Oh, it was the perfect time to drop a bomb. "And so, to prevent events such as this, do you think you could teach me magic?" I twirled in place, an innocent smile purifying my stained features as I pleaded for something more.

Time to rant~

I'd almost exhausted all of the books in Father's study, but those were only about our territory and general history of our world and country. The only magic books I'd read were Olei-san's from when I was a month old, and while that had clarified a lot, I didn't know the average boundaries of this world. If I just suddenly started using magic, I didn't know how they would react. Was magic something passed down from generation to generation verbally when teaching the generic populace, or were they written in books and sold for those who wanted to learn?

I mean, I knew they were written down, but I didn't know if paper was such an abundant thing that everyone could have a book to learn from. The only place I had ever found books were in noble's houses, and they were usually gathered in studious places.

There was not a single shopping list around, and even the portrait copies that Hera had made were concocted from hardened, solidified, thin tablets. I luckily got mine made from paper scraps from Father's office.

The only reason I found the book in the room I had slept in these past few days (was it really just days?), was because Mother had taken it out from the library during the day. Generally, books were only found in libraries or studies, so I hadn't seen paper used anywhere else. And when the twins were learning magic, it was through Mother's classes for them.

There were books to learn magic from, I knew that for sure because of the magic academy in Leonera where the otome game's plot took place. That was here, I remembered, since we were in Leonera now. It wasn't a magic academy for no reason. For sure they taught students out of books.

But my main question was, what were the statistics?

When I was in the Basusda Forest, I had asked that same question. What are the standards of this world? Would I be considered a genius if I started using magic now, without anyone telling me? It was already a huge shock when I learned how to read and write very fast, but would conjuring spells at such a young age be something that raised the Deviant suspicion flag?

Hera and Adri were already proficient in magic, and from the whispers of maids that were watching the training I learned that they were already good enough to be D- rankers. They had been harshly training under Mother since they were my age, so it was a given that they were little geniuses. Father was considering letting them go to the White Iris Academy in a few years time, which was for eleven year olds and older students. They were already at that level.

I wanted to start breaking out some skills too so I could go when I was big enough, but I wasn't sure at what level to do it. I could blame it on Margaret's knowledge, but from what I gleaned from her magic memories that created a little lemonade stand next to the Japanese house in my mind, she solely focused on lightning magic. No water, wind, fire, earth, ice, nothing else. She didn't hone her special gifts either, being a pure lightning user. She couldn't conjure a spark of fire to save her life, even though lightning and fire were closely related.

So, if I started using different magics without having watched the twins train, read a single magic book, and should only know a bit of lightning magic, I got the faint idea someone would start saying "Deviant."

But, if I got Mother to start teaching me even a bit now, I could break out the genius card and act like I used whatever she taught me as a basis for learning other elements and the like.