The Magic Academy's Physicist
Chapter 253: Déjà Vu (4)

Chapter 253: Déjà Vu (4)

0% Cecil ran after Heisenberg.

Heisenberg was running like mad, and it was hard to keep up with her speed. Cecil moved her legs even more desperately.

Her breath was catching in her throat. Cecil shouted on the next exhale.

“Why are you in such a hurry!!”

“Isn’t it obvious!”

An urgent voice replied.

“I have to find my pupil!!”

Heisenberg picked up her pace, making Cecil wonder if it was possible for such power to come from human legs.

Still, it was understandable.

Leninya was Professor Heisenberg’s student. She wasn’t just the teacher of a subject but her homeroom.

Cecil had assigned her so with her authority as president.

The interview had shown that Heisenberg didn’t discriminate against Golden-Eyeds. She was a hundred times better than High Elves who were strong elitists, so placing Heisenberg with Leninya was a reasonable call.

She thought so even now.

“Leninya, Leninya!”

Her already fast movement grew even faster.

Now she couldn’t catch up with just basic leg strength anymore. Cecil lit a cigarette replenished her mana.

In the next moment, Cecil’s pupils glowed jade.

[Advanced Air Elemental Magic ─ ‘Like the Wind’]

Ta-ta-tap!

As her body became light as a feather, it accelerated at the opposite rate.

It was only by using magic that she was able to close the distance. Although Cecil had an impressive amount of mana, she wasn’t so physically gifted. Even when she had been on the battlefront, her role was mainly to ready large-scale spells at the rear.

Still, it was fine. She could make up for her lack of stamina with mana. With magic, Cecil ran like she had wings.

“Where are you, Leninyaaa!!”

A miserable voice could be heard, sounding like a mother searching for her child. Cecil felt like her heart was ripping into pieces at the pitiful tone.

The malice that the Elemental’s spoke wasn’t that of a Beast’s....

Ta-tap, tap!

How long did they run for?

Eventually, the two arrived at the southwestern cliff.

The cliff was easily 100 meters high. Heisenberg jumped off of it without hesitation.

“W-wait!”

Cecil jumped after her.

Thanks to using shock-absorption magic, she avoided busting her legs.

It wasn’t a hard spell, anyway. Professor Heisenberg would also be an expert so she assumed that she went down the cliff using the same spell.

Due to hastily coming down to the shore, she didn’t have time to look very far. Cecil checked the white sands as soon as she landed. The slapping of waves could be heard every three seconds.

Cecil walked slowly so as to not fall over. Heisenberg was over there, having stopped running.

This allowed Cecil to catch up.

“.......”

Heisenberg pointed across the sands and asked.

“...President. Do you see those containers?”

“Ah.... Yes. I see them.”

“I recall there being about 50 of them in total, and half of them have been overturned by the winds.”

Cecil was struck speechless.

A landscape in the aftermath of a disaster.

The state of the shores was like the cross-section of the Nine Heavens.

“What kind of idiot permitted them to build a shanty town here?”

Heisenberg–no. Asteya’s voice gradually began to shake.

The voice that had been shaking like a leaf in autumn winds soon fell silent.

[I sense unclean energy.]

Shush, Agnes.

[Listen to me. There’s a desire to destroy the whole elf race, I’m telling you.]

I told you to be quiet.

[I can’t help it. Whether you like it or not, we have a duty to report to our contractor whenever we sense malice.]

She knew.

This wasn’t the Elemental’s fault.

It was the elves.

The mistreatment of Golden-Eyeds drove Asteya into a rage and hatred of elves.

But.

Why?

Why on earth was Asteya Heisenberg, a human, enraged by the reality of the Golden-Eyeds?

There was no time to find an answer, because Asteya began speaking in a cutting voice.

“Tell me, President. Who gave permission for them to take up residence in a dangerous place like this?”

“...Nobody did.”

“Then why are the citizens of Kaurelia living in a place worse than a doghouse?”

“Th-that’s.......”

The answer was simple.

The elves had chased them out.

The population was large and there was severe capital centralization, too. As such, living costs went up and the price of land skyrocketed.

Kaurelia was also going through bad economic times so they had no time to care about mere Golden-Eyeds in the midst of such a situation. In times like this, politicians considered excluding the minority and submitting to the mainstream groups to be the answer.

Why?

Because Kaurelia was a representative democracy.

If they didn’t get votes, they lost fields, and if they lost fields, the politicians didn’t get paid.

Mistreating the Golden-Eyeds was neither the will of the administration nor the Assembly. It was the will of the people. The majority of the elves were refusing to provide the Golden-Eyeds decent housing.

Of course they would. How could they be generous towards another race when they themselves didn’t have a place to settle down and live?

“I didn’t think that they would allow a student of a prestigious academy to let down their anchor and live in a place like this when they don’t even give them money to live in the dorms.”

“...I will get that fixed.”

“You don’t need to be so stiff, President. There’s nothing that needs to be fixed by you.”

With that said, Asteya ran ahead. Cecil was about to stop her, but just sighed.

Her legs dug into the sand again.

There was no more of Asteya urgently searching for Leninya. She kept alternating between slowing down and speeding up as she looked around the flipped containers.

“...There’s someone.”

Amazingly, there was a survivor.

“And chains, too.”

On closer look, each container was connected by a single chain.

While some of them had flipped because of that, others hadn’t due to being pinned down firmly so they didn’t fall over despite the slight wobbling.

“Wait, this is....”

“Do you sense something?”

“Look closely at the chains. Aren’t they glowing gold?”

Asteya was right. It only looked dim because of the dark, but they were glowing a pretty yellow like a grain of rice in egg wash.

“If it’s gold....”

It was the color emitted when a Golden-Eyed cast their own magic using mana grass.

So, it meant that someone performed the feat of linking the shanty town together with magic.

Asteya followed the chain over to where the people were.

There she found those who were simultaneously elf and Golden-Eyed. They were the people who had made their homes here.

Their numbers were approximately a hundred. It wasn’t a small number by any means for Golden-Eyeds. Asteya greeted them lightly and looked around.

“I’m from Iliad Academy. Has anyone been hurt?”

“.......”

There was no answer.

Cecil immediately caught on that these people were wary of them.

“...This is the situation yet you came from the academy instead of the administration?”

“You’re kidding me.”

It was a calm tone characteristic of Golden-Eyeds, but there was the sharpness of a well-sharpened blade to their words.

The Golden-Eyeds were known to be gentle, but that wasn’t the case now. Ever since a Golden-Eyed named ‘Aether’ was revealed to be a Beast, Kaurelia’s segregation policy had unknowingly intensified which of course raised objections.

Right now, Asteya and herself were an uncomfortable presence to these Golden-Eyeds. Cecil, who was only a president, couldn’t say anything about it.

And it had to be the same for Professor Asteya.

...Was what she was thinking.

“Miss!”

One girl emerged from the responseless crowd.

The girl ran straight to Asteya and bowed.

“Leninya!”

“Miss!”

“You’re safe, Leninya!”

Asteya’s expressionless face brightened. It was then that Cecil realized that Professor Asteya could make that kind of face.

[...The killing intent, it’s gone.]

The Elemental were puzzled like a cat got their tongue.

Killing intent was like water. Because of its high specific heat, water didn’t heat up or cool down easily.

Anger wasn’t much different, so it wasn’t easy to carry an extreme emotion. But neither did it mean that it was easy for the emotion to disappear once it was there.

Elementals distinguished malice based on this mechanism. Murderous intent towards an entire race was an extreme emotion so the Elementals picked up on this as malice.

Just a moment ago, Asteya had a deep hatred for the elven race. She had probably been thinking about burning the World Tree and eliminating the elves, even.

But.

It was as if that emotion washed away like a tide as soon as she met Leninya.

[I’ve never seen a person like this before.]

Agnes, the Elite Fire Elemental, manifested next to Cecil. She scratched at her cheek awkwardly then disappeared.

The other three Elementals sighed as well.

[We judged wrong.]

[She’s not a Beast.]

[Sorry for confusing you, Master.]

Cecil smacked her cheeks.

Right, she was being crazy.

Asteya was a saint. How could she have such doubts about a person like this?

It was disrespectful. Cecil took a step back and lowered her head.

Asteya patted Leninya on the back and asked about the situation.

“What happened here?”

“I knew from the turbulent air currents that there would be strong ocean winds, so I made our kind escape to the top of the cliff and prepared for things with my Innate Magic.”

“Okay, I see. You did well.”

Asteya petted Leninya’s head with a bright smile.

“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you use magic before.”

“Ah, if it’s that....”

Leninya lifted her hand and showed her staff.

There were chains surrounding her hand, a c-shaped hook attached to the end. It was shaped like a semicircle and was over half a meter in diameter.

“Is that your staff?”

“Yes, Miss.”

Leninya nodded.

“And what’s in your other hand?”

“A hammer.”

A hook in her right hand, a hammer in her left.

Usually it was one staff, but she was carrying two which wasn’t normal.

“It looks quite heavy.”

“It’s lighter than you think.”

Leninya swung both staffs alternately and enveloped them with gold mana.

It was quite the feat.

“Considering that staffs are supposed to be made based on the state of the caster’s mind, yours is especially unique. How did you prepare for the storms?”

“Simple. You infuse the hook with mana and stick it in the ground, then fix it in place with the hammer.”

“But the sands would have weak foundations.”

“Then just hammer it in until there’s solid soil.”

If it’s hard to believe, do you want to see? With a smile, Leninya picked up a chain tied to the container, then pulled on it like she was uprooting a root plant.

Fwhoooop! It took a while for the chain to be completely pulled out, and its length reached several meters.

“You planted it quite firmly.”

“It’s thanks to my Innate Magic.”

“You created an Innate Magic when you’re still a student?”

Asteya didn’t hide it anymore. The corners of her lips stretched up from ear to ear.

“Look at you. Absolutely amazing.”

For an instant, goosebumps broke out on Cecil’s arms.

She felt malice.

The kind of distorted malice that only humans and elves, not Elementals, could sense....