By the time Chiba Yeyou was walking home, a pitch-black curtain had descended from the sky, and its sole leading actor hung high amid the scattered stars, spilling clear silver light from the heavens onto the asphalt beneath his feet.
Looking at this moonlit scene, Chiba Yeyou could not help stopping on his way home and lingering for a long while.
"Even under a different sky, it's just as enchanting!"
Chiba Yeyou could not help murmuring.
It was not because he had some melodramatic memory or anything of the sort. Rather, both then and now, a night like this was truly a rare sight in a brightly lit metropolis.
Chiba Yeyou continued homeward into the moonlight, his footsteps gentle, as though afraid of disturbing the leading actor shining on the stage above, or perhaps of trampling the lingering glow on the ground.
In any case, he walked silently along the road home, the silver radiance behind him unchanged, yet growing ever brighter.
As he walked home, Chiba Yeyou could not help recalling his conversation with his classmates earlier. As for whether something like magic ought to serve civilian life or the military, he felt there was really nothing to debate.
Influenced by someone he had once idolized, Chiba Yeyou firmly believed in the saying, "Dignity lies only upon the edge of a sword, and truth only within the range of a cannon."
So he certainly did not think civilian and military applications conflicted. Chiba Yeyou developed, studied, and used magic in both fields. As for what the future held, only time could tell.
Still, magic did possess a certain degree of danger, so it was only natural for Chiba Yeyou to say that magic was better suited to killing efficiently.
Although efforts were now being made to avoid casualties caused by such magical mishaps, and this could be called a subject every country in the world was researching, regrettably, magical education could not prevent accidents.
Whether during practical training, experiments, or failed attempts to use magic, casualties could easily result. Yet schools offering magical education in every country merely explained them away with lines such as "a minor situation arose" or "a little mishap," as though telling a short story. They never called them accidents at all.
Even knowing the dangers of magic, students still had to stake their futures on a career in it. With their magical talent and potential as their foundation and their lives as their stakes, they bravely embarked on the path of becoming magic users, known as magicians.
Chiba Yeyou found it ridiculous when he thought about it, but remembering that he himself was walking this path-and hacking his way through thorns on a path no one had ever walked before-he could no longer laugh.
How ironic!
The emergence of magic had driven countries to accelerate their training of magicians, shifting from the deterrence provided by the range and immense destructive power of tactical and strategic nuclear missiles to the humanoid weapons known as strategic magicians, who could now use magic to achieve objectives that had once consumed countless resources, while doing so more efficiently, conveniently, and cheaply!
Yes, they were using people as weapons!
As for those who accepted such treatment, Chiba Yeyou had only one phrase to sum them up: human in name, inhuman in nature!
They seemed pitiful, but did not deserve sympathy.
Ridiculous though it was, it was indeed the truth.
Although countries were currently doing their utmost to oppose such inhumane rhetoric, many people still acted that way. In Japan, the representative example was the Yotsuba Family!
Chiba Yeyou could not help lamenting the Shiba siblings' lot, either. They really had it rough.
In the Yotsuba Family, anyone without magical talent or potential truly would be marginalized, living a life where neither parent cared for them and anyone could criticize them whenever they pleased.
But this also made it seem reasonable that boys and girls with rare gifts, who were highly regarded by society despite their still-immature personalities, would become proud and conceited, even so arrogant that they lost sight of themselves.
They would only picture their futures as shining like stars. Although this was certainly not a bad thing, this standardized set of values had already harmed quite a few young people.
Yet magical talent could easily be damaged by psychological factors, leaving them "geniuses" who had withered before their time.
Even at the current First High School, quite a few students each year suffered external setbacks that left indelible scars on their minds, rendering them unable to use magic and ultimately forcing them to withdraw without fanfare.
Course 2 Students existed to fill these vacancies. This also explained why Course 1 Students called themselves "Blooms" and Course 2 Students "Weeds," much like aristocratic lords of the old days looking down on commoner scientists.
After all, Course 2 Students were merely permitted to hold student status, attend classes, and use the school's materials and equipment, but had no right to receive the most important thing: magical instruction.
They had to rely on themselves for everything. Only by achieving something could they gain others' recognition and earn their magic high school qualifications, then continue their studies at a magic university. Otherwise, they could only be treated as ordinary university graduates, their path as magicians cut off completely.
Moreover, given the severe shortage of teachers capable of teaching magic, talented students had to receive priority in instruction. Course 2 Students enrolled on the understanding that they would have no instructors from the very beginning.
Although the school ostensibly forbade calling Course 2 Students "Weeds," in reality, this contempt was already a semi-open practice. Over time, even Course 2 Students themselves had accepted their identity as "Weeds." They were merely backups for medical students, nothing more.
Then something occurred to Chiba Yeyou, and a faint smile involuntarily appeared at the corners of his mouth.
Still, this year would be rather interesting. After all, a bunch of restless types had arrived, and they certainly did not think they were much worse than Course 1 Students.
Tatsuya Shiba, Erika Chiba, Leonhard Saijo, Mizuki Shibata, Mikihiko Yoshida...
As their figures flashed through Chiba Yeyou's mind one by one, his smile grew increasingly unrestrained.
Even if they wanted to behave themselves, many people and many things probably would not let them have their way.
Seemingly reminded of something, Chiba Yeyou suddenly looked rather displeased.
It was funny, really. Earlier, Chiba Yeyou had specifically looked up the former Land of the Soaring Dragon. That was what the region had been called after that ancient eastern nation disappeared. Since its people had all called themselves descendants of the dragon, the name had come to evoke a dragon taking flight.
The ridiculous part was that the so-called Great Asian Alliance did not contain a single native inhabitant. Instead, it had been led and formed by a certain country that claimed the entire universe belonged to it, with the intention of restoring the region's former name and calling themselves descendants of the dragon.
When Chiba Yeyou had read that, he had sprayed out his food.
All he could say was, Well, damn. That's just like you!
Was that mysterious country finally about to make its move on the entire universe?
Chiba Yeyou had just two words to describe this: "Fucking awesome!"