Village Festival – Part 04
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Translator: Kell
And so we held a festival. Its name was simple—the Festival of Magic.
Zero created an appraisal tool for this day, one that could never be misused, to evaluate the villagers’ aptitude for Magic. Everyone who wanted to get evaluated—from children to the elderly—had their talent for the chapters of Hunting, Capture, Harvest, and Protection tested.
The evaluation resulted in three Mage candidates. Only one of them wanted to enter the Academy of Magic, while the other two said they were content just knowing that they had the aptitude, and went back to their own lives.
Unfortunately the governess didn’t have the knack for it.
“So, Zero. I’ve been thinking,” the governess began. “Isn’t four kinds of Magic too few? You were cleaning your house with Magic the other day, weren’t you? What chapter was it from? You’re already developing spells that don’t belong to any chapter, no?”
She hadn’t shown it before, but she seemed to have a strong desire to be a Mage.
Lily did a great job as a conductor in front of her parents, whom she had not seen in a while. Since there were no outsiders, there was no need for her to wear a costume that concealed her whole body. The people who set up food stands went back and forth between each other’s stalls, making it feel like refreshment booths set up by kids.
And just as the priest said, I found myself in a special kind of hell where women drowned me with food.
Almost everyone in the village came from a different place. In other words, each of us had a completely different taste of home cooking. Being fed all of them at once threw my tongue and brain into chaos.
“You should serve this dish in the tavern,” one said. “I’ll order it every day.”
“The tavern’s food is great, but it tastes a little too southern. It’s a bit lonely for northerners.”
Complaints about my tavern started surfacing, which was rare. I don’t think there was an even more meaningful day than this in my life.
There was an odd, unexpected visitor who got the date of the festival wrong, but other than that, a perfect day of festivities—a day where everyone was all smiles—came to an end, with no injuries, accidents, or fights.
If we invited outsiders, it wouldn’t have gone so well. The political purpose of this village was to act as an agent for the acceptance of Mages and Beastfallen south of Wenias, but it had only been a year since the village was founded.
We just had to take it one step at a time.
The festival had ended. After a lot of drinking and merrymaking, the villagers had drifted off into dreamland.
“It is done!” Zero exclaimed, finally putting down her pen on the table. She had been fervently writing something on her desk.
You might be wondering, what was I doing at her place?
She was drunk and tottering, so I had no choice but to take her home. Then out of the blue, she leapt to her desk and started writing in a frenzied manner. I was worried she might collapse all of a sudden, so I couldn’t go home. It was midnight now.
“What is done exactly?” I asked.
“Eek!”
Zero jumped and turned to me. An unusual reaction.
“How long have you been there?” she asked.
“From the start! Are you still drunk?!”
“I jest, I jest. Of course I have noticed your loving gaze.”
It was not love in my eyes, but pity. It wasn’t like anything would happen if I said that, so I kept my mouth shut.
Chuckling, Zero placed the parchment she had just finished on top of the stack of papers laying by the side. She then picked up a needle and thread, and began to zigzag stitch the back of the parchments into small bundles.
“You gonna turn it into a book?” I asked.
“I wrote all of this for a book, so of course I am making it into one once I am done. The lass kept asking me to write an introductory book on Magic for novice Mages to read.”
“An introductory book? What about the Grimoire of Zero?”
“That book contains many advanced and dangerous spells. It is not suited for novice Mages. In hindsight, the Grimoire of Zero was a poor introduction to Magic. I have learned a lot ever since I left the cellar. I can write much better books now.”
“So did you write a better book?”
“Who knows?” she said as she continued stitching. “It is not the writer who evaluates a book, but the reader. I could claim that I wrote an excellent book, but it does not matter if the reader thinks otherwise.”
“A laudable remark, which is unusual, coming from you.”
“As a matter of fact…”
“Yeah?”
“I have been wondering for a while: what should an introductory book to Magic be like? What do I write and what do I omit? For this festival, I came up with Magic to appraise magical aptitude. It is safe and much easier than what was written in the Grimoire of Zero.”
Zero had prepared a miniature garden, with a forest, a river, a plantation, a house, and human and animal figurines. You place your hands on the garden, close your eyes, and think about what you want to do with it. After reciting an incantation, you open your eyes, and if there’s a change in the garden, you have the aptitude for Magic.
I watched the evaluation beside Zero, and found the changes to the garden genuinely amusing.
If you had the aptitude for the Chapter of Harvest, the crops in the plantation would grow. For the Chapter of Capture, the figurines would walk into a cage. For the Chapter of Hunting, the animals in the forest would fall, and for the Chapter of Protection, the sand around the house would move and form a barrier.
Funnily enough, the garden was modeled after our village.
“While building the miniature garden, I came to a conclusion. An introductory textbook should be harmless. It should be easy for anyone to understand, but not dangerous either. For example, Magic that would never pose a threat even if everyone in this village learned it. Magic that would not harm anyone even if children picked it up. Magic that can be learned by accident, even without the desire to become a Mage. Magic to become a novice Mage. A book that contains such things is a good introductory book.”
She held up the bundled parchment to the ceiling. “Now I have finished writing this book. What is Magic? What is a witch? I wanted to make it as easy as possible for the ignorant to learn these things. As I was writing this book, I remembered the words you once said to me.”
“My words?”
“‘You’re not good if people can’t understand your explanation.’ I do not know if you remember.”
“I don’t. Did I really say that?”
“You did. It hit hard.” She held her chest and made a pained expression.
I could have said that. That explained why every time I asked a question, she would use examples to help me understand better.
“So, I wrote it so that you can read it and understand it.”
“Really?”
“Here.”
Zero tossed me the bundle of papers. She wants me to read it, huh?
“I’m not really good at reading.”
“Not everyone who aspires to be a Mage is highly literate, so I added plenty of illustrations. I avoided difficult vocabulary. Just read it.”
I flipped through the pages. Hmm… simple enough.
“I kinda wanna try it now,” I said.
Zero snapped her fingers. “Right? Indeed. It is a book that makes you want to try. A book that makes you feel like you could do it yourself. That is what makes a good introductory book. I will send it to Wenias, and the lass will print as many copies as there are students in the Academy. I will probably continue writing this kind of book in the future. Hence, I decided to give the books titles in order to classify them. I have already decided on the title for the first book.”
“Really?” I lifted my head from the book. “What is it?”
Zero flashed a grin. “Book of Magic: Starting from Zero.”
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