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While it was still her first year there, Marize had essentially no friends so far, and was rather isolated in her class.

Her main conflict with Olivia had been solved thanks to Mathias’ intervention behind the scenes, and as secret as he wanted to keep, the other students still noticed the change. Marize had been really antagonistic towards Olivia at first, but then from one day to another they seemed to get close with each other.

At first there were students who tried making friends with Marize as a way to become friends with Olivia, who was like a celebrity for them, but Marize’s jealousy of Olivia was not completely gone, so those attempts only made her get fed up and push away those students. As a result not many attempted to get close to her again, leaving her alone. She was quite anti-social by nature anyway, but her constant pushing away of others marked the end of the general obsession with Olivia all freshmen had, so it was not necessarily a bad thing.

But there was someone else who seemed intent in trying to get close to her.

“Your mana capacity is the same as a regular person, so you should save big spells for very specific situations. But being able to cast spells without chanting and at a high speed is a really valuable skill, so maybe you should focus on honing that.”

That was Oswald, from classroom A. Now that everyone from the third year was away on their field trip, Marize had grown increasingly annoyed that she could not conduct her daily training with Olivia, so Oswald approached her without hesitation and offered to be her sparring partner.

“I’m not really sure why, but hearing that coming from you makes me want to vomit.”

Marize’s treatment of Oswald could hardly be called cordial though. She did not hate him or despise him, as she had agreed to training. But as she mentioned, for some unknown reason his attitude simply annoyed her.

Meanwhile, Oswald was not bothered in the slightest by her response, instead acting without reserve as if she was an old friend.

“But no matter how many basic spells you use, they’ll do nothing to Olivia. To defeat her, you’ll need to find a way through her defenses, as well as a way to counteract her close range fighting style.”
“That’s what I thought too, but I feel like that’s too hard with regular magic.”

It was no exaggeration to say Olivia surpassed Marize in all aspects of abilities. Marize’s only mastery was on casting spells rapidly, and she had been made more than painfully aware just that would not be enough to defeat Olivia. Since then Marize had been thinking of alternate ways to fight.

“From what I’ve gathered, Olivia’s weakness is her control over mana. She can create barriers that are quite powerful, given she can provide them with a lot of mana, but if you can put her in a position where she needs to use small regulated amounts of mana, she’ll fail.”
“I see, in that case… No, I can’t even use a spell powerful enough that she has to block with a barrier, so I’d need to figure that out first.”

For a moment, Marize felt like she saw a light at the end of the tunnel, but then realized there was a more fundamental problem, which felt like an insurmountable wall in her current situation, taunting her.

“That reminds me, have you heard of the mana materialization course we’ll have in the second semester? Apparently Olivia’s maid automaton came up with it, did you know that?”
“I didn’t know that. I don’t really talk to that maid anyway…”

Marize was actually aware of how almost everyone else saw her. Olivia did not seem to mind her initial behavior, so the conflict was left unresolved, but it was easy to see that Amy and the rest of Olivia’s friends were not fond of Marize.

She had no intentions to apologize or attempt straightening things out with them, since she was also not trying to get all chummy with Olivia anyway, she preferred maintaining her distance.

“There’s very few magic automatons that can operate entirely on their own, but one that can think and act like a human is even more impressive. I almost feel like not even that famous magic automaton crafter, the Doll Count, could make one like her. Then again, the Doll Count doesn’t approve of automatons who act without orders, so I guess that’s why we never saw one like that.”

Oswald continued going on that tangent, though Marize had no interest in what he was saying anymore and just rolled her eyes away. That way she spotted someone else nearby, a rabbit half beast wearing foreign clothes, Ruri, who held a leash connected to a werewolf girl with golden fur, Clarissa, who was walking on all fours, even though she was not in Comet Wolf form.

“Woof!”

As soon as Clarissa noticed Marize, she began dashing toward her, dragging the leash with her. For a moment Ruri felt like Clarissa would be in danger, but she let go of the leash before she was pulled away.

So Clarissa ran unrestrained and lunged herself on top of Marize, throwing her onto the floor.

“Mar, play? Play?”
“I’m not Mar, I’m Marize! And stop licking me! I won’t play with you, and you’re heavy so get off already!”

Clarissa was still not used to everyone having a name, but she could remember short ones. She still referred to Olivia and Natalia as Boss and Maid, but it was an improvement considering how she disregarded names entirely in the beginning.

Eventually Marize, her face covered in drool, pushed Clarissa away, who then saw Oswald against the setting sun, which obscured his face.

“Boss?”
“Huh? I’m not Olivia, my name is Oswald.”
“Woof?”

Clarissa stood up and took a closer look, and only then realized that it was not Olivia, but a boy who looked somewhat similar. His hair and eyes were the same color, but he was a boy, and his stature and build were completely different. If anything, Ryuka who was in the dorm looked more similar to Olivia, but Clarissa had never mistaken the two before. But somehow Clarissa had confused Oswald with Olivia, a fact that made her tilt her head in confusion.

“Heyy, I’m really sorry about that. Are you okay?”