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Chapter 20
“Ma—magic tool!”
The moment I came to my senses I looked down at my feet.
Luckily—or unluckily—there was still a long way to go before I hit the ground.
“Ah, wait a—”
I stared blankly at the magic tool in my hand, then suddenly realized something.
“AAAH! Shit!!!”
I hadn’t asked Emma how to use the magic tool.
“Ugh… what was I thinking? I must be crazy!”
Half sobbing, I watched tears run the wrong way—upward—away from me.
I managed to pull myself together and tried to use the magic tool somehow, but nothing like a visible button or a sudden color change happened.
“Haha… this is it. I’m really going to die.”
I wasn’t sure if this was the right reaction, but there was nothing I could do—falling and unable to use the magic tool left me with no options.
“Maybe I’ll rewind this time…”
I closed my eyes and tried to comfort myself, and I felt my body warm.
“…?”
When I opened my eyes again I realized I had stopped at a height where I could at least tell there were people on the ground.
The magic tool, which had been a dark purple before, was glowing brightly now.
Soft lights hovered around me.
“W-what… did it work…?”
Carelessly thinking “Did I clear it?” I breathed out and peered down to reassure myself—and in that instant…
“Uh? This looks like the training grounds—AAAH!”
As the magic tool returned to its original state, I started falling again.
“AAAAH! KYA—!”
I couldn’t open my eyes and plummeted toward the ground even faster than before.
Thump—.
“Ugh, gasp…”
But thankfully I didn’t smash into the ground. I felt like I’d landed softly. When I moved the hand that had covered my face and opened my eyes, I saw a familiar face.
“Yuse?”
“…What’s with that look of surprise? I think the one who should be surprised is me.”
Stopping briefly while I was falling ended up being my lucky break.
If I hadn’t stopped even once in midair, we both would’ve slammed into the ground before Yuse could catch me…
“More importantly, explain why you fell from the sky….”
Yuse tried to lower me down, but I panicked when my view suddenly dropped and instinctively hugged his neck.
“W-wait! Lower me slowly….”
“…Okay. I’ll lower you slowly, so let go of my arm.”
This time the view dropped at a clearly different, gentler speed.
Only when my feet touched the dirt did my face start burning.
‘This is the training ground!’
My brain finally seemed to catch up and my heart thudded.
‘There were a lot of people when I fell before; they must’ve seen. Won’t word get around that some crazy girl fell from the sky?’
I seriously worried that I’d utterly ruin my life at the academy like this.
Until a cool hand touched my hot cheek.
“…?”
“Do you have a fever?”
“N-no! I don’t have a fever!”
I answered Yuse and took a step back.
He had been sweating, and the hand on his forehead felt cool, as if the breeze had helped lower his temperature.
“Ah, you were training—sorry to interrupt.”
“I was taking a break anyway.”
“Mm, I see. Haha, I’ll be going then!”
He turned away, very awkward and embarrassed.
“You still need to tell me why you fell from the sky before you go.”
“I’ll explain it to you later!”
The longer Yuse and I stood face to face, the more curious glances gathered from around us.
It made sense—someone had just fallen out of the sky into an empty training ground—people were naturally curious—but I was mortified.
“Oh, here she is. Shua!”
“E-Emma….”
Emma showing up at that moment almost made me cry.
“Yuse, thanks for saving me. Let’s have dinner later—I’ll explain everything then.”
“Okay.”
I left Yuse and went out of the training ground with Emma.
“Emma.”
“Hm…?”
“Did you catch Hess and Rachel?”
“Ah, yes. Hera is watching them with someone from the Magic Department right now.”
“Good job.”
I stretched my wrist as if preparing to swing a fist at someone—that was just for show.
“Hess, Rachel. If you’re going to fight, go do it outside. At least don’t hurt other people.”
Back in the Magic Department classroom I tracked down the two who’d almost caused me to fall.
“If you’re going to fling books, throw them at each other! Why did you throw them at innocent Emma and nearly make me die?!”
I placed my hands on my hips and lectured them with a stern face. Rachel, looking defensive, opened her mouth.
“But… if the Magic Department classroom had been even a bit bigger, it would’ve been fine…”
“You’re the one who started the fight in this tiny room, so who are you to say that?!” I shouted, frustrated.
“Rachel, maybe if you had a serious ‘conversation with your body’ you’d be able to think straight.”
“Ugh. Sorry! Sorry! I’m really, really sorry!”
“Alright, I think the kids get it, Shua.”
I truly had no intention of hitting them, but apparently my expression was terrifying.
Rachel immediately cowered and even Hera, who had just been watching, stepped in to stop them.
“I’m so embarrassed and also furious….”
“I’ll release the binding magic now.”
“Ah, okay.”
After I gave the word, Emma released the binding spell that had been on Hess and Rachel.
They both sighed in relief and rubbed their arms and legs.
“See, Emma’s a top student. They still seem tied up, though.”
“Still, when it comes to binding magic, Dana’s the best.”
From Hess and Rachel’s conversation I heard a familiar name.
“…Dana?”
“Ah, Dana’s number one when it comes to binding magic. She’s kind of eccentric, though.”
Hess said with a smile, but I already knew about Dana even without the explanation.
‘Dana Billica. In the original, she showed up in the academy arc and gave Lucy a hard time sometimes.’
Dana Billica, the only daughter of the Billica marquis family, was the type who, as a child, secretly met a prince who had slipped away from the palace and immediately fell in love with him.
The reason I clearly remembered this character was her excellent binding magic.
‘She practiced binding spells obsessively so she could tie up her first love!’
Dana had a decent talent for magic and got into the habit of using binding spells to keep things she wanted by her side.
When she fell in love for the first time, her already quirky brain went even more off the rails.
She had planned, whenever she met the prince again, to immediately cast a binding spell. From their first encounter she devoted herself to binding magic.
She intended to use a binding spell on the unguarded prince she met at the academy, but ever since the prince joined the academy Lucy had always been by his side, so she couldn’t.
So Dana ended up casting a binding spell on Lucy, not the prince.
[“Who are you? Let me go at once!”
“You took someone important to me.”
“What are you talking about!”
“That person is not someone like you. I practiced this spell not for someone like you but for him….”]
When exactly in the original Dana cast the binding spell on Lucy wasn’t described.
Judging by the sequence, it seemed to happen after an episode where Lucy comforted the prince about a sorrow the prince didn’t even know about, and things got closer. But I couldn’t wait for that moment.
“Hess. Do you know where Dana usually is?”
“She’s not often in the Magic Department classroom, so I don’t really know. I do remember she always crouched in dark, damp places though.”
After talking with Hess I left the Magic Department classroom.
I checked the closest weapons storage at Training Ground No. 3 first, but of course Dana wasn’t there.
I opened the doors to several other training-ground storage rooms, but she was nowhere to be found.
“Ugh, can’t I get a transmigrated-heroine buff too? The person involved has to appear for the incident to get resolved!”
I grumbled in the empty Shooting Club—Training Ground No. 4.
“Can’t I just run into one person by chance? I mean, transmigrated heroines meet the male lead in the middle of the market, they meet the mastermind at a ball full of over a hundred people—aren’t those the perks of being a possessed heroine?”
I tore at my hair and muttered the woes of a transmigrated protagonist. Nearby, I heard someone laughing.
“Cough cough… pfff…”
“…Who’s there?”
“Ah, you found me.”
“You were laughing like you wanted to be heard—what’s that about…?”
A slight, slender girl with black hair and purple eyes came out of the weapon storage at Training Ground No. 4.
“…Dana?”
“You recognize me, huh.”
“I—finally found you.”
After an hour of searching, being rewarded like this felt great; I strode over to Dana with a beaming face.
Then one thing came to mind.
“Wait. I went into this storage room….”
“Yeah. You came in.”
“You weren’t here earlier…?”
A chill ran through me. I took a step back from Dana but she grabbed me and pulled me back in place.
“I was here earlier too. I was just hiding under an invisibility spell.”
“Jeez, you scared me. Your hands are warm so you’re definitely not a ghost.”
“Haha! You’re the first eccentric I’ve met who’s almost as nuts as I am.”
Dana was brighter and prettier than I had imagined.
‘I really am a hopeless fangirl.’
“You’re Shua Neruj?”
“Yeah.”
“Shua Neruj, why have you been desperately looking for me?”
Dana, who’d been straightening her messy hair, asked me.
“Oh, right. You like the prince… I mean, Irelbranchet, right?”
“…Who told you that?”
“No one told me.”
“Then how did you know?”
“I… can kind of see into people’s hearts.”
I abandoned all dignity as a human and chose to play the villainess redeemed.
Mentioning someone else’s name would probably mean finding and dealing with the person who’d blabbed about Dana’s feelings; given Dana’s temperament she wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate such a person. It was easier this way.
“Anyway, I’ve been pestering you because I wanted to set you up with Irelbranchet.”
‘Actually I want you to make the prince give up on him yourself…’
