Astrid – Chapter 35

The Villainess and Older Gentlemen

---

kurokurori.wordpress.com

Now I formally become a middle schooler.

The day was sunny, and Father is currently out on a business trip. Before long, I couldn’t hold myself from grinning!

“Wait a moment, milady—!”

“TAKE OFF!”

Ignoring the maids’ panicked voice, I invoked a wind-elemental magic, heat them up explosively them with fire-elemental magic and ignited propulsive power as I equip the Type-04 Flight Unit and take to the sky.

Yeap, the wind feels nice. This blue sky is the best!

I circled the skies of Havel as I fully relish in the enjoyment of flying through the air. Looking at the imperial palace from this height really shows how undefended it is against an aerial attack. I can even see all the way inside, and as I thought, Friedrich is also there right now.

I checked the conditions of the business district, and I saw the hustle and bustle of the merchants despite the time of early morning. I could even see Elza from the bakery busily dealing with their stocks. Well, you will become an empress one day after the revelation of you being a certain duke’s daughter anyways.

Finally, the academy came within sight. The academy that combines elementary school, middle school, high school, undergraduate, master’s and doctorate schools in one ginormous building. Its glory and magnificence are still visible this high up in the air. I can see several carriages going to and from the academy, witnessing countless noble children attending school today too.

But look, there’s only one student who goes to school through the air like this! Only me! 私だけ！

“Blau, the wind feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, Master! Blau loves the wind!”

There there, you’re one cute little fairy. I’ll give you cookies from the Round Table later.

Alright then. I decided on a landing point which will be the sports ground the track and field club uses now and then. It’s open, and there’s no one there given how it’s still really early. Oh also it seems that in this world, the track-and-fields club doesn’t have early morning training.

Turning my wings and making my approach for landing, I decreased my flight speed while lowering my altitude bit by bit. Recklessly dropping both would lead to nothing more than a crash landing, so I have to do it methodically.

Well, if push comes to shove, I already reinforced my muscles and skeleton with Blood Magic, so in all honesty I could just jump off of the academy rooftop and I’ll be just fine. The teachers’ trust in me is not going to be fine though! The other day when I did that I was chewed off by the teacher for what feels like forever, so I’m sure they’ll be surprised if I were to come to school from the sky, but since I’m landing nice and quietly, I should be fine.

Flaps, check. Speed, check. Altitude, check. I’m on final approach and landing in three, two, one…and my feet is on the ground!

“Butter!¹”

“What butter?”

Huh? There shouldn’t be anyone here so why am I hearing someone’s voice?

“Bernhardt-sensei?”

“I thought I saw something flying around in the sky but I never thought it would be you, miss Astrid.”

Apparently, even though I thought the field is empty, Bernhardt-sensei has been here.

“What were you doing here, Berhnardt-sensei?”

“…it is unthinkable how I’m not the one asking that same question to you. You’re the first student to commute to school through the sky. What makes you think of doing that anyways…?” said Bernhardt-sensei, sighing at my question.

“Weeell, the sky is so blue that it feels like it’s calling me.”

“I believe I should tell this to duke Oldenburg?”

“Please don’t…”

It’s exactly the right time for father not to be here, please don’t ruin it.

“A-anyways, why are you here, sensei?”

“A short respite. There’s no way the others can call me out if I’m here.”

Well aren’t you slacking off too, sensei. You can’t tell me what to do now!

“Still, I lightly took up the task of becoming the Official Magic Research Club’s advisor, but you’re not going to do experiments like these every day, are you?”

“Perish the thought! We are only going to do small Blood Magic experiments.”

Still though, Bernhardt-sensei looks pretty beat. I bet the stress level he’s under is overwhelming. Trust me, I won’t give you that much problem in our club, okay? I’ll be sure to conduct experiments that doesn’t put too much of a burden for Bernhardt-sensei.

“I can only wonder if it will be fine.”

“I won’t cause you any trouble!”

That’s right, all I want is to be able to do small Blood Magic experiments.

“I hope so. How is school? I heard that the sons of duke Württemberg and duke Wallenstein had to duke it out² at one point, are they the type to get into trouble?”

“Oh, tell me about it. They are first year students fighting each other for a girl. I managed to avoid having them cleave each other, but in the end the two of them still ended up bruising each other. Talk about being short-tempered, I swear.”

I complained to Bernhardt-sensei since he seemed to have heard about the incident in the Round Table anyways. On the other hand, after what had happened, Adolf only feigned ignorance while Friedrich only said that he was glad no one got hurt.

“Aah, I get you. Lots of precocious children in this academy, let me tell you. Just because they’re a child of a noble, they have exceedingly high pride, and they would blow a fuse after every little thing. That was the case when I was in elementary school, and you’d think they would learn their lesson once they get to high school, but they never matured in the end.” said Bernhardt-sensei, nodding in agreement.

“Huh? Are you a graduate of this academy too, sensei?”

“That’s right. There were lots of people who blow their fuse after a measly little thing, and now that I’ve become a teacher, I now have an elevated view over the students and I only see that the uproar is increasing in numbers.”

Yeap, I definitely do not want to be a teacher.

“But…why did you become a teacher, sensei?”

“That’s a story for another time. We’ve got to go unless we want to be late for class.”

Oh shit, I took the chance to come to school through the sky, I can’t be late now! I’m supposed to be a honor student who is never absent nor late!

“Okay then, Bernhardt-sensei, I’ll see you some other time!”

“Sure. Come with your feet on the ground next time.”

Reinforcing my body with Blood Magic, I dashed towards my classroom, pretending not to hear Bernhardt-sensei muttering “that girl is still dangerous even if she’s on her feet…”

---

“Wolf-sensei!”

After some time has passed, it’s now currently after school, and I head for Wolf-sensei’s laboratory as promised long, long ago.

“Aah, Astrid-sama, it has been so long.”

“It sure has!”

Wolf-sensei’s laboratory is well ordered and tidy, and I could see academic books concerning monster engineering among all other types of magic along with several guinea pigs for his blood magic experiments. It’s completely different than a certain Magic Research Club that I knew of.

“What are you currently researching, sensei?”

“Blood Magic effects on controlling the brain. I heard recently that one’s mind is contained not in his heart but instead in his brain.”

Hoo, seems that something obvious on earth is still a new knowledge here.

“Isn’t it dangerous to use Blood Magic on the brain?”

“It should be fine if we tread through several steps. We confirm its safety through animal testing, and then we proceed to human testing but with a thorough monitoring process, and we screen the test subject for a further 24 hours to confirm their safety.”

Hm, hm…I wanted to do tests on human brains before, but this looks good.

“By the way, are these guinea pigs the test subjects for the animal research?”

“Ah, I’m just raising them as a side hobby. We use monkeys for our test subject since their brain capacity is similar to humans.”

Riiight, I suppose the guinea pigs’ small brains won’t be any good for references huh.

“Can you easily get yourself a monkey even?”

“Well, we breed them from time to time, so there were no real difficulties in procuring them for us. It would be a whole different story for people outside of the academy though. Monkeys can cost quite some amount.”

So monkeys are specially expensive, huh…you could probably see some on earth if you have a plot of cultivated land though…

“The common use of Blood Magic at the moment is either for physical strengthening or healing, right? Did that go through a phase of animal testing too?”

“Have you not been taught that at school? In the early days, Blood Magic was tested on humans, but that was the age where we do not have the rule of ethics to science. Rather, they had something of a rule of thumb.”

Aah now that he mentions it, I remember the early user of Blood Magic Joseph Junger also pretty much winged it when he first used Blood Magic to heal the wounded in the war. In the end it’s either that the end justified the means or people’s lives matters way less back in those days…

“Do you mind if I spectate your research?”

“Of course not. If anything, I am the one who invited you to come over in the first place.”

Wolf-sensei is really kind, isn’t he? If only he’s not 21 years older than I am…

“Ah, by the way, Wolf-sensei, do you have an official position right now?”

“Yes, I have finally been appointed as an associate professor. It took quite some time for me to be appointed as such, but to advance from my current position, I would need a greater deal of contribution to the research. My days are going to be filled with nothing but research.”

Even as he said all that, he was still smiling at me. This man really loves his magic research, isn’t he? Of course, that’s what I aspire to be as well.

As I thought of that, I looked at the essay Wolf-sensei wrote.

The movement of the brain—perhaps the firing of neurons—are being monitored while they’re being intentionally manipulated to attempt curing the previously uncurable mental illness.

Huh, this is awesome. Combine this with Earth’s study of neurology and this would probably win the Nobel prize.

Continuing my thought, I read on to the research method used. I would have to perform my own experiments in the future so if I could quickly get the grasp of its technique, it should make my research easier in the future.

Obligations to inform the test subject, ethics of animal testing, yadda yadda…I never knew researches are this big of a chore.

“I see that you truly love magic, don’t you Astrid-sama?”

Seeing me so seriously reading the essay, Wolf-sensei came to me with a cup of coffee in hand that he prepared for me. I’d be thankful if you can put lots of sugar in it.

“It’s important for my future. There’s a fight that I can’t bear to lose looming in the horizon.

“I believe everybody has that sort of thing in their life. The fight that I can’t bear to lose is these studies and researches. I’m sure it would be difficult to find someone who doesn’t have anything to fight for.”

Hmm, I can’t say that’s the case with Friedrich though. Still, it’s probably true that I’m not the one who will have a showdown with fate. Even Miine-kun and Lotte-kun will have to fight to ensure that Adolf and Silvio won’t be taken away by Elza-kun.

Yeah, I might have been too haughty there. I’ll reflect on that.

“Ah, by the way, I wanted to ask you this for a long time; the book I read at the library says that you can heal internal organs using blood Magic, but is it possible to manipulate those internal organs? The book never really said anything concrete about that.”

“You can. There’s a method to save a drowned person by manipulating their heart and lungs, and there’s another method of forcefully making someone vomit to help them expel a toxic substance they ingested by mistake.”

Hmm, so it’s possible for a dynamic organ movement but not something like a forceful hormone secretion.

Thus, for the next hour, I remained in Wolf-sensei’s lab as he showed me the research progress with the monkeys before I decide to go back home. Of course, this time I chose to go home by carriage in fear of someone reporting what I did to father.

< Chapter 34 [ToC] Chapter 36 >

---

TLN:

[1] Aviation term that describes a landing that’s super smooth without jolts or impacts, just like the soft mellow melody of Kenny G.
or this

[2] Sorry and not sorry I had to do this

I got footnote links to work (yay!) so it should be easier to jump to and from TLNs and comments. Some styles might have changed because wordpress started making changes to its editor which is mighty wack and a nightmare to work with, but I hope you enjoyed the chapter regardless. Have a nice day!