Seed (Part 1)

"So, I absolutely hate brats! You never know what they'll do next!"

"Aren't you talking about yourself, meow?"

*

Angell confirmed at first glance that the hat was one of his store's merchandise.

After all, the outfits and key items of the Magical Girls, both before and after transformation, were all designed by Angell in terms of appearance and character.

The Jazz Hat was the magical item of Magical Girl Lisa, whose representative color was blue.

Lisa came from a middle-class family and attended Cecilia Girls' School. She was intelligent, calm, and an excellent student—a proper little lady. Yet she aspired to pass the exams for the City of Academies' Mathematics Academy and become a female physicist. To that end, she would impersonate her twin brother to sneak into the public school's physics elective classes.

(Angell: Does this character have a real-life model?

Allen: Haha, does she?)

This Jazz Hat was one of the props Lisa used when dressing up as a boy.

Angell had designed it as one of the beginner guide items for the fighting game Magic Arena, meant to teach players how to control their characters and use Ultimate Skills.

To match Lisa's "smart" trait, Angell added a large amount of Memory Grass into the hat's construction, allowing it to remember the player's mistakes and offer reminders when necessary.

But honestly, Angell didn't expect this merchandise to sell well early on.

Among the five Magical Girls' outfits and items, the Jazz Hat looked the most unremarkable. The Movie, due to length constraints, couldn't fully showcase each Magical Girl's traits—Allen had once suggested cutting down the number of Magical Girls while writing the script, but Angell refused. Instead, he had Allen write a massive amount of dialogue and plot, intending to use them in related series games so players could fill in the story themselves. Magic Arena was one of them. Even so, Lisa didn't seem like a character who would be popular.

Angell categorized this hat as an unpopular item bundled with sets for sale.

After all, Memory Grass was a cheap material.

But Angell never expected someone to use this hat in such a bizarre way.

Angell didn't make a fuss. He simply checked the records and confirmed that in just half a month, before Magical Girl☆Maya had even aired, Lisa's Jazz Hat had surged in sales, clearing two-thirds of the stock.

—Well, no kidding. An entire school bought in bulk—how could the numbers not be huge?!

The culprit was also easy to find.

That person's name was still hanging on the Magic Arena Hall of Fame!

Angell tracked the name to a weapon shop in the city.

Little Bolo was trembling under his blanket.

The moment he saw Angell, he knew the jig was up and immediately blurted out, "They started it! Mr. Yara is still being held! They insist he helped us cheat and are planning to fire him!"

"...Even so, you brought the hats there. Weren't you already planning to cheat from the start?" Angell said.

He wasn't about to be fooled by a kid's two sentences!

Angell believed that in this coordinated cheating scheme by the students, there was indeed an element of righteous indignation over their teacher being harassed by idiots. But could they have predicted that and bought the hats beforehand?!

Don't tell him they only bought the hats to use as a Reading Pen for memorizing vocabulary.

"Waaah!" Little Bolo let out a wail.

He hadn't wanted to blow things up this big either!

When Little Bolo first got the hat by accident, he only planned to secretly "improve" on his own.

But then he wore the hat to school and quickly realized the plan wouldn't work:

The hat was too conspicuous!

Few people wore hats indoors, and it would definitely catch the teacher's attention during exams. Plus, the hat was quite stylish—before the teacher could even say anything, plenty of classmates had already come over to ask Little Bolo where he got it.

But would a slacker give up his plan just because of that?

Of course not.

Little Bolo immediately started bragging to his classmates about his trip to Magic Gear. The next day, a few wealthier kids showed up wearing the same hat.

Little Bolo still thought there weren't enough. He heard from Players at the workshop that this hat was apparently a tie-in for some Movie, so he carefully searched through several Newspapers and magazines, picked out the ones with Lisa's stills, and brought them to class to promote. Soon, even more students at school were wearing the hat, and through word of mouth, it became a trend.

When everyone had the hat, it wasn't so strange if a few forgot to take theirs off during exams.

Angell: ...With that kind of drive, why not just put it into studying?

The principal and teachers of Third Charity School naturally noticed the trend, but since it was Magic Gear merchandise and their school's Mana Base Station was sponsored by Angell, no one said anything.

The principal even thought the hat looked nice and suited the kids. Plus, with the Magic Unified Examination coming up and word that big shots from the Royal Capital would be attending, it was a rare chance to make an impression. So the principal got a few wealthy parents to sponsor the purchase, equipping every child with a hat.

Angell: ...

Of course, at this point, most people had no idea the hat was a magical item. Kids as clever as Little Bolo were rare, and without additional text input, the hat wouldn't speak outside of Magic Arena anyway.

Everyone just thought the hat was a bit expensive.

Then came the Magic Unified Examination, and the "big shots" poked a hornet's nest.

The first day of the exam was the Meditation Test, which had nothing to do with the hat—there was no way to cheat, and since the exam was held off-campus, they couldn't use a Magic Cube for meditation.

So that day, the students all felt they'd done poorly. On top of that, the invigilators were harsh and cold, even making moves that disrupted meditation. The students grumbled and grew anxious.

If it had stopped there, it wouldn't have been a big problem.

But the kids didn't realize that their feeling of "doing poorly" was relative to their usual performance. After half a year of intense meditation training, these talentless children had far surpassed ordinary people, even rivaling Magic Apprentices who hadn't undergone long-term training.

Their meditation results caused an uproar.

The "Abolitionist School" from the Royal Capital immediately clashed with the "Promotion School" led by Mayor Owen, and they summoned the Charity School teachers for questioning. The examiners who took the teachers away were extremely hostile in their attitude.

The already uneasy students erupted into chaos.

The sensitive children had vaguely sensed that these invigilators bore ill will toward them, and now their teachers being "arrested" confirmed that suspicion. With the adults arguing among themselves and neglecting the students, the little ones descended into utter disorder. Rumors flew thick and fast, and some students even proposed storming the office to rescue the teachers.

Little Bolo was swept up in the fervor of the moment.

But his clever little mind worked fast. He realized a bunch of kids couldn't beat adults, especially with so many Mages among the invigilators. So Bolo found the ringleader among the older students, revealed the true purpose of the Magic Hats (X), and suggested they put on a real "Hat Trick" for those detestable examiners.

The proposal won unanimous approval from the other brats.

And that's how they got perfect scores in every other subject.

"Didn't it occur to you that you were just proving their malicious accusations right?" Angell asked softly after hearing the story.

"...I wasn't thinking that far! I just wanted to teach those guys a lesson." Little Bolo bit his lip.

After all, he was only a nine-year-old child.

Even setting him aside, the oldest kid in the unified exam was just sixteen—the most easily swayed age.

In fact, right after the exam ended, the kids were pretty smug. But when they realized their teachers still weren't released, panic set in.

Little Bolo was sharp enough to notice that if a "traitor" emerged among them, he'd be the one caught as the mastermind, and his family would be dragged into it too.

That's why he was so terrified.

"Relax, I'm not here to settle scores." Angell looked at the boy curled up into a ball and couldn't bring himself to scold him. He just sighed. "After all, now that I think about it, I'm the one who provided those hats, so I'm the mastermind behind the scenes."

"...I'm sorry." Bolo sniffled.

He understood roughly that he'd caused trouble for the owner of the Alchemy Workshop.

"More importantly, how did you use those hats outside of a Mana Base Station?" Angell asked. That was what he really cared about.

Even though the kids' meditation abilities had improved, magical items like those hats required higher mana. Even with a Mana Base Station, members below D-rank mana couldn't use them. That's why Angell had set the entry threshold for the Magic Arena on the Third Floor, only allowing members with sufficient mana levels to play.

"I... used the Game Table's runes." Little Bolo said.

"Game Table?"

"Yeah!" Little Bolo explained honestly.

It turned out his family ran a weapon shop.

In the Magic Era, weapon shops, Item Shops, and general stores were basically chain operations—support facilities near every Adventurer's Guild. In the Magic Capital, several streets had similar chains.

In recent years, weapon shop business had been tough. Bolo's father had to learn Recorder repair skills, turning the shop into something like an electronics repair store, only occasionally maintaining swords for old customers.

Until recently, the Item Shop on Heroes Avenue was revived by the Magic Gear's Game Tables, breathing life back into these old stores.

The Item Shop owner couldn't handle the orders alone and didn't want to waste the opportunity, so he teamed up with the descendants of his old partners to form a supporting production line.

As a weapon shop kid, Little Bolo naturally helped out.

He used to help his father repair Recorders; now he helped build Game Tables.

Bolo had nimble hands. After studying the Mana Circuit inside the Game Table, he quickly learned how to make the power supply circuit. Combined with the Magic Cores his family's shop had stockpiled, Bolo could rig up a Game Table on his own—except for the crucial Rune Core.

So when he got the Magic Hat, he quickly figured out how to power it.

"Impressive." Angell praised sincerely.

He looked at his own hands and felt inferior to a nine-year-old.

Angell paused, then frowned. "But you only added a Magic Core to your own hat, right? What about the other kids? Could you finish all that in one night?"

"I snuck back to school with a few seniors and used the Mana Base Station to copy the Mana Circuit." Little Bolo peeked guiltily at Angell's expression.

He felt even more ashamed—using the other's donation to do bad things and making him take the blame. That wasn't what a good kid should do.

(Angell: You stopped being a good kid the moment you planned to cheat.)

But Angell didn't care about the boy's feelings now.

His eyes went wide. "Copy? How did you copy it?!"

Making alchemical items like Game Tables didn't require continuous mana output, but you had to grasp the mana flow, which made mass production impossible—it was the bottleneck of Game Table manufacturing.

Even the workers building Game Tables needed people like Bolo—with enough mana perception and dexterous hands. These were basically prime candidates for alchemy apprentices.

But for Little Bolo, this wasn't a problem at all.

"The Recorder!" Bolo answered.

"Recorder?"

"Yeah! A Recorder can retain mana nodes. We just recorded the nodes on the first pass, then used the Ink Machine the teachers used to copy exam papers, and bam—we copied tons at once! Our heads got a little dirty afterward, though."

"...How did you figure that out?"

"I actually wanted to copy the school lessons at first, so I could 'study' outside like with the Game Table. But I tried lots of ways and couldn't do it. I only found out that Recorders can record mana nodes." Little Bolo then launched into a long explanation about magnetic heads, powder, coils, and such, making Angell's head spin.

It was completely beyond Angell's knowledge.

And not something a nine-year-old should know either.

But Angell could tell that the kid actually knew nothing about theory—whether in magic or the principles of a recorder. He just wanted to play games, so he kept experimenting with whatever he had on hand, and eventually got results.

Yet this was exactly the seed Angell wanted to see.

A programmer alone couldn't build a computer.

A mage alone wouldn't give birth to Alchemy.

Even Angell was often misled by his own experience and talent, overlooking what was right in front of him—honestly, in Angell's era, recorders had long been obsolete; he'd never even used one.

Only by groping between the two could one find the "truth" of this world.

"I might have to talk to your father about buying this patent," Angell muttered.

"!" Little Bolo froze on the spot.

He didn't understand what a patent was, but he knew that if his father found out about this, his butt would be beaten black and blue!

Still, Little Bolo secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

If this cheating incident could end with his butt getting spanked, that would probably be... a good ending, right? Because even he realized that the situation now couldn't be solved just by him taking a beating.

If I'd known it would come to this, I wouldn't have cheated!

Little Bolo reflected remorsefully.

These past few days, he'd been reflecting on his attitude toward studying, hoping the whole thing would blow over quickly.

"I'm sorry, I won't do it again," Little Bolo said, head drooping like a puppy apologizing.

Angell knew he'd misunderstood, but didn't bother to explain.

For a brat like this to learn his lesson, he needed to stew in his own regret for a while.

—Especially after hearing the whole story, this kid had put in a lot of "effort" just to play games and cheat!

Angell ruffled the kid's head and asked with amusement, "So, where's your hat?"

He still needed to confirm the Mana Circuit the kid had made.

"In the sewer near school."

At this point, Little Bolo had nothing left to hide. He reported everything in detail: "After we finished 'that thing,' we were worried someone might snitch or accidentally let it slip, so we collected everyone's hats and threw them into the sewer near school. That way, even if someone discovered the secret of the hats, they wouldn't know how we used them outside the Mana Base Station."

"But why the sewer? Wouldn't burning them be better?"

"Burning wouldn't work—the school's incinerator is too small; anyone could tell something was up. But the sewer near school is different. Lately, there've been weird people going in and out around there, not like those respectable adults at all. I suspect they're up to something... but if we hide stuff down there, at least officials and the like won't go looking for it. Even if it's found, it won't cause too much trouble."

"You kids are a bunch of little smart alecks!"

This crime plan even included covering up the evidence?

"I can feel it—the mana reaction down there is intense," Sera said.

Actually, she didn't need to say it; it was obvious. In the cage she was holding was a dark green-skinned Sprite, now chattering noisily, with a huge flower blooming on its head.

Sera ignored the Sprite's reaction and just frowned at "down there."

It was a manhole cover. In the dead of night, when even the grass was asleep, you could faintly hear the water below and catch the unclean smell rising from it.

Sera made a disgusted face and looked at her companions: "Who's going down?"

In front of Sera stood two men and a young girl.

One of the men wore a glaring White Robe, adorned with ornate High-level Mage robes and decorations, as if afraid he wouldn't stand out enough at night—completely lacking any sense of "secret mission" discretion.

He naturally had no desire to approach a filthy place like a sewer, so he immediately stepped back.

The man questioned Sera, "Are you sure it's down here? A Magic Well isn't a real 'well,' you know!"

"Of course I know that, but what do we do if the Sprite only reacts to what's down there?" Sera said irritably. "Honestly, why are we even listening to Payson? That guy's just a mid-rank Black Robe—why not just accuse his Mana Base Station of being faulty in the name of the Royal Mage Tower?"

"Do you want to start a civil war in the magic world? The Magic Association in the Eastern Territory is clearly backing that Black Robe now," the White Robe said with a frown, shooting a disdainful look at his clueless companion. "And it's not like we're not going to deal with him—we just need to figure out his background and how many cards he has before making a move! Something like a Magic Well can reveal a lot of clues!"

"Then you go down," Sera said coldly.

The White Robe's cheek twitched as he looked at the sewer.

He had a serious case of mysophobia and clearly wasn't about to go down himself.

So the White Robe turned to the outside expert they'd brought on this mission: "'Doctor,' what do you think?"

The man he called "Doctor" was a tall old man covered in dense age spots, looking like a giant toad. Just the sight of him made Sera feel sick, but the young girl beside him showed no disgust, only clinging affectionately to the old man's arm like a couple.

The old man stared blankly at the sewer and said to the girl, "Beling, go down."

"Yes, master," the girl replied without hesitation.

She lifted the manhole cover and climbed down.

The old man pulled a Crystal Ball from his sleeve, rubbed it, and the inside showed the view of the sewer—clearly using the girl Beling's eyes as a medium.

"Slaves like that sure are handy! I want one too," the White Robe chuckled.

"If a suitable one comes up next time, I'll introduce you," the old man said in a sinister tone.

Sera made a face of disgust on the side.

She never understood what those male mages were thinking. How could their minds be so full of filth, yet they still managed to study magic? Didn't the gods screen their chosen ones when selecting them? Or were the gods just as dirty?

While Sera was lost in these thoughts, Beling's voice came up faintly through the Crystal:

"Master, there's nothing unusual here, but I also haven't detected any obvious Mana fluctuations."

"Looks like we have to go down and check after all." The man in the White Robe turned to look at Sera.

"Fine! I'll go down!" Sera gritted her teeth. She made a demand of the old man, "Have your slave draw a cleansing array down there first and seal off the smell. I don't want to get filthy."

As much as she looked down on the male mages' behavior, she had no qualms about ordering around "slaves."

After all, they were just ordinary people.

Worthless ants.

After making that demand, Sera muttered a spell under her breath, layering a protective barrier over herself, before climbing down the vertical ladder into the sewer.

It was indeed filthy down there.

Darkness mixed with a stench hit her in the face, making Sera want to faint.

She remembered that ever since she'd been tested and found to have the talent of a High-level Mage, she'd never had to endure this kind of hardship again.

"Where's that commoner? Didn't I tell her to draw the cleansing array?" Sera said discontentedly.

She cast three cleansing spells in a row before she felt a little better.

Sera looked left and right, but couldn't find Beling anywhere.

The only thing was that the Sprite in the cage in her hand grew even more agitated: "Ah! Aaah!"

The Sprite let out an eerie shriek and slammed itself against the cage, bloodying its head, the petals on its crown falling off in droves.

"Annoying."

Sera said coldly, looking in the direction the Sprite had been ramming.

Only then did she notice that a large hole had appeared in the sewer wall, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Huh, where did this hole come from... It wasn't in the projection just now!" Sera said in surprise. She turned and called up toward the sewer entrance, "Hey, can you see this?"

No echo came from above, as if no one was there.

"Men really are useless!" Sera muttered.

She hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to press on or retreat.

But as a High-level Mage, since she'd already come down, leaving like this seemed a bit embarrassing. Sera decided to take a look at the hole. She found that behind it was a room, and Beling was standing alone in the middle of it.

"What are you doing?! Why didn't you answer me just now?!" Sera demanded. She stayed alert and didn't enter, instead ordering, "Hey! What are you standing there for? Come out!"

"...I'm sorry." Beling replied slowly.

She tried to turn her head, but halfway through the motion, her head rolled off her shoulders and hit the ground.

Her body, somehow, let out a sobbing sound from somewhere: "I've been a bit confused lately. I don't even know what I'm doing! Miss Sera, you're a High-level Mage—you can save me, right?"

"Please, save me!"

The headless body stumbled toward Sera.

Sera watched the performance coldly.

As a High-level Mage, how could she possibly be afraid of a scene like this?

"Playing tricks!" Sera snorted. She raised her arm to cast a spell.

But she quickly realized she couldn't channel the Mana inside her body. Not only that, her mind felt empty—she couldn't use any spell at all, as if she were an ordinary person.

Sera's eyes widened in terror. She frantically tried to pull out a magical tool, but found nothing. Even the cage holding the Sprite in her hand was gone!

"I—I get it! This is an illusion!" Sera bluffed, completing the gesture for a spell.

But the headless Beling was still there, almost right in front of her: "Miss Sera?"

"..."

Sera shuddered, shoved Beling hard, turned, and ran.

She didn't recklessly flee deeper into the sewer. Instead, she grabbed the vertical ladder she'd come down on and climbed up.

There was no obstruction along the way. Soon she saw the dim yellow light of the streetlamp above, and heard the White Robe's voice: "Why are you back up so soon? Did you find something?"

"—It's not about finding something. That slave..."

Sera wanted to ask for help but didn't mention that she couldn't use magic. She simply started reporting Beling's abnormality: "That slave's head fell off! And she could still talk!"

"Oh, is that so?" the White Robe asked.

Sera looked up and saw, under the dim yellow streetlamp, the White Robe and the old man both smiling at her. Their expressions seemed normal, except... they were holding their heads in their hands.

...What kind of cliché ghost story was this?!

Sera immediately wanted to climb back down the shaft, but when she looked down, she saw Beling holding her own head, staring up at her with a dazed expression.

A wave of goosebumps ran over Sera. She finally reached for her last trump card.

Thankfully, that was still there!

Sera pressed the gem at the center of the magic array on her lower abdomen and let out a high-pitched scream.

A burst of flame ignited from the gem, enveloping Sera.

Moments later, nothing remained where Sera had stood.

"She escaped." The old man cradled his own head, staring intently at the spot where Sera had been. "What a shame!"

"Ah, what a shame," the White Robe man also said.

He reattached his head to his shoulders.