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※Carol’s Perspective

「At any rate, reaching D-rank in a mere three months… Who is she really, that girl.」
「Whoever she is, she’s already at B-rank if we’re going by her strength, alright? So she hasn’t filled that gap yet.」

While drinking tea with Celia at her temporary lodging, she started talking about the girl we’re currently taking care of. Since she’s already at B-rank level in strength, it was already certain that she’d reach B-rank sooner or later. After all, strength is what speaks in this world, so that girl —Cielmer— reaching D-rank isn’t that strange in of itself.

Nevertheless, I did expect it to take half a year though.

「Regarding her strength, I already acknowledged it when she won against you but specifically because of that, I didn’t expect her to be able to satisfy all the other criteria this easily considering her age.」
「Well, generally her stamina is fitting for her age. Even though she can camp out pretty easily, I never even expected her to fumble around with the typical camping preparations.」
「When you told me that, it made me properly realize that Cielmer is really just 10 years old.」

When working as a hunter, it’s only natural to encounter situations that would require you to spend a night outside. To begin with, even if you’re simply traveling to another town, there’s still a possibility to encounter these sorts of situations and because of that, you can even say that it’s a required skill for hunters of D-rank and above.

In that respect, she was insane. She was absolutely insane.

After all, just when I noticed her lying down on the foot of a tree without any hesitation, she then… fell asleep.

Normally, you would consider finding a safe place, make the place safe, or at least prepare a blanket just to make your sleep a bit more comfortable. When alone, you would usually lay some traps around you and be alert at all times even when you’re asleep, just in case anything happens. However, she disregarded all of this and just slept. Moreover, she slept much too comfortably.

It was as if she was taunting me since I stayed awake the whole night testing her but since she performed the insane stunt of keeping her barrier up even while being asleep, I couldn’t just fail her.

Hence, I thought of hitting her barrier with an ice spear but immediately as I was preparing to do so, she glared at me. I’m sure that even veteran hunters would be surprised in this regard. Still, there are situations where she would need to act with a party, so I at least had her try setting up a tent but… it was a disaster.

Although, I suppose it’s understandable that she couldn’t set up the tent since she probably has no prior experience in doing so. Still, it was surprising to witness her getting tired from simply trying to build a tent, knowing how impenetrable she is and her magical proficiency.

「The point is, whenever she is capable of solving any problems with only her magic power, she does exactly so. In addition to that, she’s also quite smart. Although, she is careless sometimes. When I taught her some simple physical reinforcement, she immediately mastered it, and she also immediately memorized how to set up a tent as well.」
「In the first place, can you really keep on using sorcery while sleeping?」
「Not possible. Even the barriers that are generally used when camping is simply a practical magic item that supplies magic power, which come from magic stones, to a magic circle. According to her, she says the reason that her barrier sorcery is still up is because she naturally recovers more magic power than the amount needed to maintain the barrier, which normally doesn’t happen at all. For example, if I insist that I can walk continuously while I’m asleep because I recover my stamina faster than how much I use up while walking, do you understand how insane that is?」
「Now that you put it that way, it does deviate from the norm.」

Celia should just honestly call her insane, though.

What’s scarier is the fact that she is still 10 years old. Normally, you would spend five years pondering about your own abilities then the ten years after that is the growth period. For sorcerers, their magic power never dwindles, so their growth practically never stops. But despite that, if I’m only considering her defensive capabilities, she’s already on the same level as the cunning old sorcerers. And although you can say that her offensive capabilities are disastrously lower in exchange, she’s still strong enough to defeat a C-ranker and, even now, I have yet to see her exhausting her magic power.

「At this rate, reaching C-rank should be easy for her as well.」
「C-rank being easy is really amazing, though. Still, one’s aptitude for teamwork is recommended for the rank up, but Cielmer… will she be fine in that regard?」
「That’s so you can maintain a certain level of unscripted coordination in emergency situations like monster stampedes or so, right?」
「Yeah.」
「Does she even need that? She won’t die even if you throw her in the middle of a stampede, that’s for sure. Instead, she might even annihilate it.」
「But the problem is how many people would actually believe in that.」

I understand Celia’s point, but there’s practically no other person that would deem joining parties unnecessary as much as she would.

In combat, she can simply rely on her barrier and use powerful sorcery. And since she can use detection as well, she can always stay safe while moving. Even when she’s not using detection, her senses seem to be sharp, so she can also act like a scout. She can produce her own water with sorcery as well. So frankly, rather than finding her a party, it would be much more practical to find her a magic bag instead.

And while I’m on this topic, I already taught her physical reinforcement, so it’s not as if she’s completely powerless in regards to physical strength either.

「Rather than her, shouldn’t you, as a member of the guild staff, care more about the promising rookies?」
「Those children are… doing well, I suppose. A Warrior, sorcerer, and archer party. They’re not well balanced but it seems like Teren is doing excellent with them.」
「Well, they already got me involved. If they don’t do well enough, I’m going to be troubled. One of them doesn’t seem to be doing good, though.」
「It’s not that he’s not doing good, but since there was a lot of expectation for him, many of the guild staff were left disappointed as well. They did say that he’s an Advanced Swordsman, so the people expected him to reach C-rank.」
「Advanced Swordsman? Considering that his Job is already known to everybody, you can’t really expect much from him, can you? Even judging from how he fought, he’s the typical Job dependent type. As long as there isn’t any change in that, he’s not even going to reach D-rank, you know? A certain Song Princess might break the record for the fastest rise to B-rank though. Ironic, isn’t it?」
「I have a problem with you using Cielmer as a comparison, though.」

You’re really fond of that girl, aren’t you, Celia? I’ll never say it to your face, though.

Well, I never get tired of looking at that girl myself, so I don’t hate her as well. After all, she doesn’t need much help, so I can spend some time on my sorcery research too, and most of all, much of what she does with her sorcery is quite interesting. That barrier in particular, I just don’t get it. How much sorcery did she put into that barrier? I don’t even know. She told me about some of their effects but first of all, people don’t normally come up with that.

「By the way, there’s a sorcery I know that you might like so… You want to hear it?」
「It’s probably going to take some time anyway, so no.」
「Do you know why Cielmer’s skin isn’t tanned at all even though she spends plenty of time outside?」
「So, what is it?」

Seeing a pretty rare reaction from Celia, I got a bit excited. To begin with, this Celia here getting interested in sorcery is practically a miracle in of itself. She doesn’t show even the tiniest amount of interest in my sorcery in general. While I do feel somewhat frustrated about this, Celia finally got interested in sorcery. I have zero plans of wasting this opportunity.

「She said that one of the effects of her barrier is to block the sun rays. Thanks to that, she doesn’t get tanned by the sun.」
「So you can use barrier sorcery in that way as well.」
「The only one that uses it in that way is her. Normally, it’s used to protect oneself after all. Besides, she is the only one that can use that sorcery.」
「Meaning you raised my hopes just to drop them.」

Celia got discouraged but I really can’t do anything about that part. After all, even in my case, I’m unable to use any other sorcery when I’m using it.

「I got her to write down it’s magic circle, so if it’s only activating it, then you should be able to do it with enough practice.」
「Meaning that the hard part is maintaining it?」
「Exactly. It requires a considerably delicate control of magic power. To the point that even people that have spent years of practicing sorcery can only barely use it properly.」
「So you’re saying that Cielmer’s sorcery doesn’t simply rely on her abundant magic power?」
「And rather than talent, this is actually a matter of experience. What kind of sorcery do you even use to have this much technique at 10 years old?」

Even if there is a Job like 「Barrier Sorcery King」 and such, it’ll probably still take several years for them to be capable of making use of a barrier that blocks light. If they attempt to recreate that girl’s barrier, how much time would they even take? If the sorcery that she was proficient in was some sort of combat sorcery instead, she could probably destroy a town with ease and that’s scary.

「Regarding this, I’m still continuing my research on this, so I might be able to turn this into a magic item someday. Although when that time comes, I will need her permission.」
「To think that there would come a day when the usage restrictions of your research room would be so frustrating…」
「I wouldn’t mind if you lift the restrictions, you know?」
「That’s not possible.」

I really hoped that she’d do so but she didn’t fall for it. She’s probably thinking that she won’t be able to face that girl if she doesn’t keep this promise. Destroying our relationship with that girl wasn’t really my intention, so I stop myself here.

「So after that, there’s still one more sorcery that I got from her.」
「In the end, I’m still not going to be able to use it anyway, right?」
「Well this one is also pretty difficult, but it’s perfectly usable.」

And since evidence talks better than debate, I chant a spell and shower Celia with warm air. Well, I intended it to be warm but it’s only slightly warm. Adjusting this part is troublesome. One mistake and I might burn Celia’s throat and even ignite her hair. So instead of risking that, I suppose it’s safer to leave it at lukewarm.

「What is this?」
「She told me it was a sorcery for drying hair. After all, it does damage the hair if you leave it wet. Originally, this should be a bit hotter, but adjusting that is difficult. One wrong move and I might accidentally kill you. When she used this, she dried her long hair in only 10 minutes.」
「Say, can’t you turn this into a magic item?」
「I wonder. It uses both fire and wind sorcery, so it’s fairly difficult to make. Instead, wouldn’t it be better if you studied sorcery too?」
「Considering how there might be some more convenient sorcery appearing in the future, that might not be a bad idea…」

It looks like it might be possible to drag Celia into the sorcery pit. On that day, I taught her so much about sorcery that she couldn’t get enough sleep.

Hiya~! Another interlude and a short time skip, we have! But still glimpses of Ain being Ain, lol.

This chapter we see Carol’s point of view and her explanation of why our princesses are, to put it, insane. A part about this chapter that I love is how it shows off Carol’s wisdom in magic, with her being able to pin down that Ain’s barrier isn’t just something borne of just talent, it’s more of an experience thing. And with explanation, we also have a glimpse of her research stuff, she makes magic items. Which she then proceeds to tempt her pal Celia with, lol. What receptionist can resist sunscreen magic in a world with no sunscreen?

Also, Ain being clumsy, lol. Stay cute Ain, stay cute. And Carol literally saying “Just yeet her to the monsters, she won’t die.” Perfection.

Also, suspicious foreshadowing? Warrior, Mage, and Archer. Advanced Swordsman? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm~

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to comment. Stay clean, stay safe, and have a nice day~!