Magic Is Outdated

Magic is outdated.

Twelve-year-old Enlise often heard adults say this.

However, as a member of the generation born after the Steam Revolution, Enlise had only ever known a world where roaring railways covered most corners of the Empire. The billowing smoke from towering chimneys obscured the spires of the Mage Towers, and firearms had replaced the adventurers of the past, so she did not understand what the Magic Era had been like.

The few places where Enlise had been able to come into direct contact with magic were the magic classes at school.

This meant a Magic Theory Textbook as thick as a brick every semester, obscure and difficult to understand, with most of the book requiring rote memorization. The incantations she worked so hard to memorize were useless; she couldn't even ignite a spark, making them less effective than a match.

But this seemed to be a normal phenomenon. It was said that in the Magic Era, those with magical talent were also in the minority, one in ten thousand.

So, what was the point of magic class?

Enlise thought this while looking at the fifty-three on her Report Card.

Among a list of near-perfect scores, only this fifty-three stood out. Although, even so, this score was already the highest in the grade for magic; the other children's magic grades were even worse. Yet, Enlise was still embarrassed to show this Report Card to her guardian, especially since that new guardian of hers...

"Hey, little girl, are you from this shop?"

A voice interrupted Enlise's deep thoughts.

Enlise turned her head and saw a cargo carriage parked at the bottom of the stairs. The driver was waving at her, "I'm from the Item Shop, the goods you ordered have arrived."

"Goods?" Enlise asked blankly.

"Have they finally arrived?" Another gloomy voice rang out.

Accompanying this voice, a figure appeared abruptly beside Enlise.

He was a youth who looked to be in his early twenties, tall and thin, with a nest of raven-cyan hair. His messy bangs almost covered eyes that were circled with heavy, panda-like dark rings. Added to skin so pale that the veins were visible, the whole person looked like he had overdosed on drugs, though because he was wearing a Mage Robe with a dark red lining, his appearance suddenly became reasonable—most mages had that look of someone about to step into a coffin.

He was Enlise's guardian, and also Enlise's boss.

Of course, for Enlise's age, she was definitely a child laborer.

But few people cared about that these days.

The newspaper boys running around the streets were only seven or eight years old, and there were even more factories violating the regulations. They even thought they were doing a good deed, as it at least supported some people and kept these children from falling into worse situations.

Enlise was relatively lucky.

She had been adopted since childhood by an Alchemy Workshop called "Magic Gear," considered a distant relative of the workshop's former owner and a legal child laborer of the workshop. When the former owner still had money, she was even able to attend the Charity School run by the state.

Unfortunately, good times didn't last. In this era, alchemy workshops, like all old handicraft workshops, were squeezed by industrial products. The turnover grew worse year by year. After a major failure, the workshop's capital chain broke. The former owner fled after racking up a large debt, and Enlise was almost dragged away to pay it off.

That was when Angell Cecilia returned from the Mage Tower.

Angell was the only son of the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of the owner of the Magic Gear Workshop. He was originally the first heir to the workshop (hundreds of years ago), but he also possessed decent magical talent, so he was selected to go to the Mage Tower and handed the family business to his cousin.

Now, Angell was an Intermediate Mage. After a hundred years, he finally returned home, only to find the family workshop bankrupt. Thus, he had to use his savings to resolve the debt, took over the workshop, and incidentally adopted Enlise, letting her continue to attend the Charity School.

Enlise was naturally very grateful to Angell.

It was also because of this that Enlise felt particularly uneasy holding her Report Card.

Showing her fifty-three in magic to an Intermediate Mage guardian felt like she was letting him down in every way.

Fortunately, Angell couldn't spare a moment for Enlise; his attention was entirely on the goods delivered by the Item Shop.

"The balance is two silver and five hundred cent, thank you." The delivery boy from the Item Shop smiled.

"...Alright."

Angell responded dryly, searching through all his pockets before he managed to scrape together the balance.

There was no helping it; mages were inherently the most expensive profession, and since Angell had used all his savings to pay off the debt, he was naturally very poor now. He couldn't even afford a tip, so he was naturally too embarrassed to ask the other party to help carry the items into the shop.

Angell walked silently to the goods, intending to lift them himself.

"I'll help too." Enlise hurried forward.

Angell glanced at her, looked at his own thin arms, hesitated for half a minute, and finally did not refuse.

And so, a thin mage and a small girl used a great deal of effort to move the heavy goods inside.

Although Enlise was small, she was used to doing heavy work; she took two breaths and recovered.

Angell, however, leaned against the goods, his arms trembling, his face pale to the point of transparency.

"Mr. Angell, are you alright?!" Enlise asked worriedly.

At the same time, a black cat with two tails walked out from the shadows and said strangely to the mage, "Are you an idiot? Why didn't you use magic instead of moving it yourself?"

Angell immediately wore an expression as if he had been struck by lightning, his face turning even paler.

The black cat didn't care about Angell's mood. It jumped nimbly onto a table and continued to accuse him, "Besides, why did you buy a table? There are clearly so many tables in the workshop."

"Ah, no..." Angell defended himself slowly, "This isn't a table."

"Then what is it?" The black cat asked curiously.

Enlise also looked over the "goods" she had just moved in.

This "good" consisted of four pillars and a square flat surface. Although it was a bit taller and larger than an ordinary table, and the edges of the surface were inlaid with strange metal frames, with inexplicable buttons on the side frames, it looked like a table from every angle.

Angell, however, replied, "This is an 'Arcade Machine'."

"Arcade Machine?"

"It's just a type of machine for playing games."

"A machine?" The black cat stared with its heterochromatic eyes—one gold, one purple—and looked at the table suspiciously. "I don't 'see' any machine components in here, but rather a Rune Core, meow?"

"The prototype was a machine, but I replaced it with a Rune Core," Angell replied, then muttered in a voice barely anyone could hear, "It's not like I can go around soldering circuit boards. I'm a game planner, not a circuit engineer."

"What does that mean?" The black cat indicated it did not understand.

Angell turned his gaze away, seemingly unwilling to answer.

Watching the man and the cat reach a stalemate, Enlise finally asked with a wry smile, "So, how do you play the game?"

The conversation was finally able to return to the main topic.

"First, you need a fifty-cent coin..." Angell said.

He patted his body but couldn't find a fifty-cent coin. It was Enlise who fished one out—the very one Angell had given her for grocery shopping—and handed it to him.

"I'll pay you back later."

Angell muttered as he shoved the coin into the slot on the side of the table.

The tabletop lit up immediately, and amidst the pearly white glow, a projection of a beautiful young girl appeared above the surface.

"Wow, so pretty~~" Enlise let out an exclamation of wonder.

She had only ever seen glowing electric lamps and magic wands; she had never seen an image as beautiful as this!

Angell seemed somewhat pleased by Enlise's reaction.

"This is a trial version. The whole game isn't finished yet, and this is the only playable character, but you can give it a try," Angell said, talking a bit more once he was in a good mood. "You can hold down the button in front of you, yes, the white one... remember to condense your Mana. You know how to control Mana, right? I recall that current compulsory education includes magic classes?"

"I... I do." Enlise said, feeling guilty.

Her report card with a score of fifty-three in magic was still in her pocket!

Fortunately, no matter how terrible her magic grades were, Enlise could still manage simple Mana control.

After all, this world was filled with Magic Elements, and everything contained at least some amount of Mana. Humans could control them just like studying a subject, and the so-called "lack of magic talent" was roughly at the level of saying, "It's good enough that your IQ allows you to receive compulsory education; don't dream of advancing to higher studies."

Enlise had at least attended school; she tried hard to recall what she had learned and condensed her Mana.

The panel lit up.

The girl projected on the table slowly opened her eyes. She looked straight at Enlise and smiled:

"Cecilia responds to your summons. May I ask, are you my master?"

"Wow!"

Enlise shrieked again, flapping her arms as if she had fallen into water: "She talked! She talked!"

Actually, that wasn't what Enlise meant to express.

She had seen the black cat talk before, so she wouldn't be that excited just because a projection smiled at her.

What truly surprised Enlise was this: it was the first time she had controlled her own Mana and triggered a magic-like reaction in the outside world. It felt like having studied a foreign language for years and finally having a conversation with a foreigner—a sense of achievement because the other party actually understood her.

Unfortunately, Angell, an Intermediate Mage, could not understand Enlise's current mood at all.

Was it really worth being that excited?

He looked at the girl strangely and continued: "Very good, keep your current state and pull the joystick to the side."

"Like this?" Enlise tentatively grabbed the joystick and pulled it to the left.

The white projected girl immediately turned to the left, maintaining a walking posture.

Enlise marveled again: "Wow, she moved!"

"You can also try pulling it down; that's for retreating and defending," Angell said.

Enlise pulled the joystick down.

The projected girl held her magic wand in front of her, assumed a defensive stance, and backed away.

"Up is for moving forward, and holding it makes her run."

The projected girl first took a step forward, then began to run in the forward direction.

"Press the red button; that's for attacking."

The projected girl raised her magic wand and threw out a ball of light.

"And then left, left, up, right, right is the Ultimate Skill."

The projected girl held her magic wand high, and then—

She froze.

Enlise also sat limply on the floor. She felt completely drained; she hadn't been this tired even when helping Angell carry the heavy table inside earlier.

"Mental Power exhausted," Angell said, understanding what happened at a glance, though he found it even more incredible. "It was just a few simple operations; is it really enough to wear you out like this?"

"I, I'm sorry, my magic talent is too poor..."

"This has nothing to do with magic talent! Even if you were a Goblin, a few moves like that shouldn't exhaust your Mana. Exhausting your Mental Power only means you don't study enough." Angell frowned.

He wasn't scolding Enlise—though his tone sounded very much like it—he was merely describing an objective fact.

Angell placed his hand gently on Enlise's forehead as he spoke, a cool aura surrounding her that restored a sliver of strength to her frail body.

Enlise, however, could not spare a thought for her own condition; she was so terrified that Angell might be disappointed in her that she nearly burst into tears. "No, I didn't..."

Although she had only scored fifty-three points, it was indeed the highest grade in the entire grade level.

"If this child counts as not studying enough, then everyone else is practically not studying at all."

At this moment, the Black Cat, which had been watching coldly from the sidelines, spoke up.

It leaped onto the top of Enlise's head and stared at Angell. "You aren't actually planning to use this... Game Table to make money, are you? You'd better give up on that; the mere fact that it requires the use of Mana is enough to filter out ninety-nine percent of your customers."

"I have already lowered the difficulty to the absolute minimum..."

"Is your minimum standard from the Magic Era? Most people nowadays can't even manage basic meditation!" the Black Cat declared coldly. "The times have changed!"