I Think My Fiancé Has Regressed

Chapter 51: Second semester begins (6)

Since the subjugation of Eustyr has ended without any problems, we can relax for the time being.

It’s a short-lived peace, lasting only until the end of the semester.

In any case, thanks to our quick thinking, no one was killed or seriously injured in Eustyr’s rampage.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it ended with only one wounded person, which is a pretty respectable result.

…Although I personally don’t like the fact that Alex was injured.

“Haaaaa….”

Alex suffered mild frostbite to half of his body in this Eustyr showdown.

Thanks to Kael’s interception, the ice picks didn’t tear flesh directly, but it did cause droplets of melted water to hit Alex’s body and refreeze.

Even though the church says it’s a minor injury that can be treated quickly, that doesn’t make me feel any better about it.

What’s easily healed is easily healed, and I’m sure the injury was painful for the moment anyway.

Looking back at the battle in hindsight, it was certainly a poorly executed plan in many ways.

If the frozen frost pellets had slowed down Alex’s body and prevented him from destroying Eustyr’s summoning stone in time, that would have plunged Alex and the other students into a new crisis.

I felt a little disgusted with myself, knowing that I had once again put my fiancé in danger.

So, as I was doing my best to serve Alex, who I had put in harm’s way, a voice came out of his mouth reluctantly.

“…Ariana?”

“What’s wrong, Alex?”

“Why don’t you give me some distance, you seem to be clinging to me a little too closely.”

“…But you’re still cold.”

In case you didn’t know, this is therapeutic.

Returning a substance to its original state through the principle of diffusion is an ancient practice.

It’s an ancient practice, like pouring cold oil over burning oil to cool it down, or sandwiching stale bread between soft slices of bread to make it moist again.

So this act of warming Alex’s chilled body with my body to make it warm again is a traditional and scientifically proven remedy.

…Not that I have anything else to say about it.

“My frostbite has already been treated anyway, and the priest said I’d return to normal temperature on my own if I stayed still.”

“But wouldn’t you warm up faster if I used my own body heat?”

“That’s true, but you don’t have to do that….”

“That’s okay, I don’t mind doing it for Alex.”

“I’m not sure I’m okay with that….”

I pressed my upper body closer to Alex’s squirming forearm, his gaze fixed far away.

It’s not every day that you get to lie in the same bed with someone under the pretense of curing an illness.

“Whatever ails Alex, I’ll cure it all.”

“…Ariana?”

“Whether it’s frostbite or any other illness.”

“…….”

Alex gave me a look like he wanted to say something, but instead of what he was going to say, he said something else.

“Uh, yeah. I think we can stop now that it’s getting warmer….”

“No. Besides, the tips of your ears are still a little cold.”

“That’s where it’s supposed to be cold….”

I rejected Alex’s subtle gesture of pushing me away, and purposely pressed my thighs even closer to his legs.

That’s how I shared my body heat with Alex under the covers for hours, until I was completely satisfied.

* * *

Knowing the future is often convenient in many ways.

But it’s especially important to know the personalities and temperaments of major characters in advance, and to tell whether or not they’re someone I’d benefit from getting to know.

It’s also why I was able to connect with Charlotte early on and make her my friend, even if it was by accident.

The fact that Kael and I are like brother and sister, even though we wouldn’t normally get along, is a result of knowing his personality and abilities.

In other words, it’s harder for me to know if a character in a movie I don’t know is going to be good for me or not.

It’s not a bad thing to have more people on my side, so I don’t push away anyone who approaches me, but I accept them anyway.

If I think someone is going to harm me at some point, or if I think they’re going to ruin my image, I’m going to have to cut them out.

And I’m at that crossroads right now, trying to figure out how to make that judgment.

In front of me is a vial of blue liquid, a prototype of the magical amplifier I received from Miss Sophia.

“…….”

I still don’t fully believe in the potion’s effectiveness.

There’s still a chance that Miss Sophia could have lied to me.

She said it was impossible for anyone but someone of my caliber to change the size of a spell by controlling the amount of magic consumed.

In reality, it’s not impossible that Sophia was able to control the amount of magic she used and was lying to me.

Since I wasn’t sure if it was actually difficult, I asked around about the concept of mana control.

“You mean controlling the power of magic by the amount of magic you consume? That’s generally not possible, because you’d probably need a new math formula for controlling the amount of magic you consume, and that would redefine the whole concept of magic.

It would be far more efficient to learn another similar magic. …What? Arianna has been using it all this time?”

“Adjusting the amount of magic power to change the size of the spell… The years I’ve served Lord Alex in the royal court haven’t been short, but among the people I’ve seen, Lord Alex is the only one who can do that.

Why don’t you learn from him if you need to, I’m sure he’d be delighted….Ah…you’ve always been able to use it, you were just asking if it was a common concept or not, I’m sorry.”

“If I reduce the amount of magic I use, does it make the magic less powerful? Unless you’re using some other less powerful magic?

I’m sorry, Lady Ariana. I really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Lady Ariana, and isn’t the amount of magic power consumed a fixed amount to begin with?”

I got similar answers from Charlotte, Dale, and Natalia, as if the concept wasn’t already common knowledge.

And most of them didn’t even seem to realize that I could control the amount of magic I used.

The concept of dark magic was so unfamiliar to them that they assumed it was just another magic, even if it was actually reduced in power.

Even when I apologized to Kael for forcing him to learn it, he responded by saying he didn’t know what it was.

In that respect, the potion seems to be working well enough.

It’s just a matter of whether or not she’s grasping the concept of manipulating magic the way I and Alex did, or whether or not she’s actually getting immediate results from the potion.

I suppose I’ll never really know unless I use it.

With that determination, I unscrewed the lid of the vial and slammed its contents down my throat.

I felt a strange sense of exhilaration rise up in my chest, along with the sensation of magic coursing through every part of my body.

I had been warned that I might become a bit emotional as a side effect, but judging by the way it made me feel, it must have been absorbed into my system.

I immediately pulled my handkerchief out of my pocket to test the effectiveness of the magic amplifier.

It’s a courtesy perforated handkerchief that is always used to practice the special detection spell.

I placed the handkerchief on the table and, using Specialized Magic Sense, created an image in my mind using Magic Sense.

Despite the fact that I was using magic in the usual sense, my magic began to wrap around the shape of the handkerchief a little faster than usual.

It was clear that Miss Sophia’s reagent was having an effect, even if it wasn’t in the form of visible magic.

When the dark magic plane fully sensed the handkerchief’s form, there were two sensations that were different from my usual usage.

One was that the time it took for the magic to fully create the shape was slightly faster than usual, compared to before.

The other was that the total amount of magic used in the spell was slightly less than usual.

To be more precise, I noticed that the special magic detection was going faster than usual, so I reduced the amount of magic used by myself.

The second is a sort of bonus effect of my ability to control the amount of magic I consume.

It was also an innovative concept to reduce the amount of energy used in magic, something I was desperately in need of.

…I could use this.

It was still a prototype, so it didn’t have much effect, but it was important that I had found a way to reduce my consumption.

If Miss Sophia can perfect her product, we might be able to reduce it even further.

With this unexpected help from an unlikely source, I am once again one step closer to curing Alex’s heart disease.

“Oh, I’d better get going.”

As much as I love practicing my magic detection, I also have student council work to do today and for some reason, I feel like I’m missing Alex more today.

Feeling a little more excited than usual, I hurried to the student council room.