Tower of Strength, fifth floor.
Mirabelle tilted her head up slightly before the mirror.
Using the pads of her index and middle fingers, she gently pressed beneath the corners of her eyes, then lightly pulled upward along the contours of her cheekbones.
Next, she pinched the edges of her cheeks, feeling the resilience of her skin.
"Has it changed?"
Looking at the stern-faced woman in the mirror, she furrowed her brow slightly, trying to determine whether the lines at the corners of her eyes were still as pronounced as they had been last month.
This semester, at last, she no longer had to double the tutoring time for Introduction to Magic Missile every time, correcting each freshman's awkward casting gestures and halting mana guidance one by one like she had in previous years.
She knew perfectly well that many instructors at the academy simply did not care how much their students actually learned.
In those people's eyes, the road of learning magic had always been one a person had to walk alone.
Couldn't learn it?
The four words "insufficient talent" could explain every failure, after which they could devote their energy to their own research topics with a clear conscience.
But Mirabelle, who had come from a commoner background, could not brush things off with such an excuse.
She had been the same way back then. Only after working as an adventurer for a time, coupled with support from distant relatives, had she managed to reach Fernandez through great hardship.
Seeing those young faces brimming with hope, some of whom had traveled thousands of miles to study here, she could not stand by coldly. Nor could she tuck her lesson plans under her arm and leave with a clear conscience the moment the magic bell rang after class.
Still, fortunately,