Genius Wizard Conceals His Origins

The structure of the eye may seem simple at first glance, but it’s actually one of the most complex organs exposed on the outside of the body.

The iris, which acts as a diaphragm, varies in color from person to person and repeatedly contracts and dilates, while the pupil it surrounds resembles a distant void.

As such, the eyes have a bewitching quality.

It truly was so.

“……”

I stopped breathing.

No, a passive expression might be more appropriate now.

My breath stopped.

I made eye contact with the smiling Julia. Despite it being nothing new, an inexplicable feeling of bewilderment filled me.

There was no need to ponder the reason.

Distance. That was the cause. [Only on Galaxy Translations! / Axiomatic]

It was close.

Not just visually, but the current situation, involving smell and, occasionally, even touch, was clearly making me flustered.

However, during walking practice, I wasn’t bothered even when our bodies made contact several times. Why now?

I don’t know what my expression looked like, but Julia’s smile deepened while looking at it.

I raised both arms.

Thud—

“Oh?”

After placing my hands on Julia’s delicate shoulders.

I gently pushed.

I said to Julia, who had widened her eyes…

“You’re too close.”

“…Is it a problem if I’m close?”

“Yes.”

At that, Julia burst out laughing.

“BWAHAHAHAHA—”

It was a hard-to-understand train of thought, but at least it seemed clear that she was enjoying my stiff behavior.

What could be so funny?

I couldn’t understand.

“Ahahahaha……”

She laughs heartily, almost half-sitting down.

After laughing for a while, to the point where I wondered if she had always been this prone to laughter, Julia finally wiped her tears with her pinky and spoke.

“Sorry, I’m sorry. I was just feeling playful.”

I kept my expression stiff and didn’t answer.

Eventually, Julia’s expression also returned to her usual ‘gentle smile.’

Tap—

Julia Müller, President of the Student Council of the Federal University of Magic in Frauzen, readjusted her grip on her cane.

“Doctoral student Eugene Oslo. Although a light disciplinary action was imposed according to today’s disciplinary committee decision, as the Student Council President, I cannot overlook an incident that could have led to significant casualties, like the fire on the day of the entrance ceremony.”

“……”

“Therefore, I plan to regularly visit your research lab to inspect whether there is a possibility of accident recurrence, so be aware of this. Understood?”

“What?”

I had been quietly listening because it was true that I had caused a big accident, but the conclusion was unexpected.

Dumbfounded, I asked back.

“Wait, what accident recurrence in a theoretical magic research lab?”

“Be aware of this. Understood?”

Silent pressure.

I racked my brain to refute those words that hadn’t changed one bit but soon gave up.

What use is it whether that statement is sophistry, or that the president doesn’t have any command authority, or that a doctoral student belonging to a research institute has no reason to obey the orders of the Student Council?

Julia was now imitating the method she had used to persuade the professors on the disciplinary committee.

It meant an abuse of power.

I quietly answered.

“…Yes. I understand.”

“Good.”

It was a tone that seemed satisfied.

As skepticism about power welled up, the blue brooch adorning Julia’s chest suddenly began to flicker.

“Ah.”

“Magic depletion?”

It’s a brooch that’s both an ornament and a magic battery.

I was reminded anew. Although Julia was walking naturally or standing still talking, this was all thanks to her constantly active unique spell, [Walk Assistance].

The moment the magic is depleted, Julia won’t be able to last even ten seconds before collapsing to the ground.

Almost like a marionette with its strings cut.

Julia, checking her brooch, answered.

“It’s not depleted yet. Just a signal that I need to conserve a bit?”

“We’d better end the walk here then.”

“Yes.”

“See you later.”

Having received disciplinary action, I need to faithfully comply. That includes personally cleaning the soot-filled experimental building. [Only on Galaxy Translations! / Axiomatic]

As I was turning to leave for the experimental building cleaning, Julia stopped me.

“Ah, wait a moment.”

“What?”

Instead of answering, Julia reached out her hand.

While fiddling with my necktie with her small hand, she said,

“Your necktie is disheveled.”

Is it?

At least to my eyes, the necktie looked fine, but it seemed she had just crumpled it herself.

#April 25th. Clear.

A week and three days have passed.

It was a very busy period.

Not only did the lab’s miscellaneous tasks start in earnest, but the teaching assistant duties for Professor Müller’s [Mathematical Magic] and [Polarity Magic] lectures also began.

At the same time, I had to also carry out the cleaning of the experimental building as part of the disciplinary action.

Although personal research was impossible due to the one-week self-reflection order, there wasn’t even time for it, anyway.

However.

There was now a smile on my face.

After a late night at work, I sat directly at my desk, drawing graphs and refining language.

It was significant that the short circuit accident occurred at the tail end of the experiment.

Sufficient experimental data had been accumulated to prove the hypothesis, and all that remained was the tedious task of incorporating this into the paper.

I had a knack for quietly handling tedious tasks.

Finally, when the hour hand pointed to three or four in the morning…

“It’s done.”

I lifted the pen from the paper.

After neatly arranging the stack of papers that even felt aesthetically pleasing, I put it aside and collapsed face-down on the desk.

The paper was complete. In the true sense.

In other words, it also meant there was little room for further improvement.

I had done my best.

Now, only the final step remained.

When I woke up after falling asleep face-down on the desk, it was already morning.

Waking up to the sound of nightingales chirping, I realized there was an unfamiliar piece of mail on the desk.

An envelope with my name written as the recipient.

What could it be?

It seems Lena, who checked the mailbox early in the morning, had brought this along while collecting her own mail, but I couldn’t guess the contents of the letter.

It was almost time to leave for work.

Without unnecessarily pondering, I opened the envelope and…

Clatter—

At the same time, instead of a letter, something shiny came out of the envelope and rolled across the desk.

It was a metal object of unknown use.

An object with a spring clip attached to a small metal rod.

Wondering what on earth it could be, I looked into the envelope and found another small note, which I unfolded.

[ It’s a gift ]

[ Julia Müller ]

“…What?”

Still unable to understand its meaning, I turned the small metal rod over and over several times when I finally managed to recall Julia’s last words from ten days ago.

Only then did I realize.

This is a tie clip.

Research Room 3 – 401.

Stepping inside, I looked straight ahead in a suffocating silence.

Flip, flip.

Every time Professor Klaus Müller moved his wrist, the sound of turning pages could be heard. That was the only noise heard in this research room.

The revised version of the paper, “A Heuristic Perspective on the Generation and Transformation of Light,” was in his hands. [Only on Galaxy Translations! / Axiomatic]

More precisely, I had requested him to review it.

As I held my breath, afraid that even the sound of swallowing might be a disturbance, Professor Müller’s hand stopped.

He opened his mouth while keeping his gaze fixed on my paper.

“The energy of a light ray spreading out from a point source is not continuously distributed over an increasing space, but consists of a finite number of energy quanta which are localized at points in space, move without dividing, and can be absorbed or generated only as complete units.”

It was a sentence I had written.

He opened his mouth.

“I hope you wrote this passage sincerely. If this paper is published in a journal, you will inevitably walk one of two paths.”

“What are those two paths?”

“Endless doubt. Or burial.”

“……”

“Are you confident you can handle it?”

Professor Müller looked at me with raised eyes.

I tried to understand his meaning.

If my hypothesis is wrong, I will be permanently unable to make my voice heard in the academe, and even if the hypothesis is correct, I will have to endure doubt and verification and prove it for at least several years to come.

Either way, it will be a thorny path.

However.

“Of course.”

I answered without hesitation.

It’s an inevitable process for a conjecture to become a law and for a theory to become an established one.

Rather, it was something to welcome.

It was almost proof that I was walking in the right direction.

Soon, Professor Müller’s expression twitched slightly.

It was such a subtle change in expression that I wondered if it could even be called a smile.

But I saw Julia’s expression in it.

That IS a smile.

“I’ll help with the publication.”

“…!”

“Take back the original and give me a copy. It will take about three months. After publication, letters will fly in from all over, and if you want to contribute to the ‘Annals of Magic Studies,’ you’ll need to respond carefully to all of them. Understood?” [Only on Galaxy Translations! / Axiomatic]

“Yes, I understand.”

He said, and I nodded vigorously.

Finally.

Am I going to publish a paper with my name on it, moving beyond pretending to be a scholar?

I felt elated.

Since I couldn’t express the gradually rising feeling of elation in this stuffy research room, I waited until Professor Müller told me to leave.

Permission like ‘You may leave if your business is finished.’

However, no matter how long I waited, the expected voice didn’t come.

When I looked at Professor Müller, feeling puzzled, I realized that he was also looking at me.

Very intently at that.

Not at my eyes, but at my chest area.

“…Professor?”

“You may leave now.”

I tilted my head in confusion but did as he said.

As always, Johannes and Eva were at the research room door with their ears pressed against it.

Johannes casually spoke to me, but Eva opened her eyes wide and stared intently below my face.

At the end of that gaze was my necktie.

The tie clip I had tried on after receiving it as a gift was shining silver.

Later, when Julia actually visited the research building for a fire inspection…

When I asked about the meaning of the gift, she answered like this:

“It’s just an ordinary tie clip. I wanted you to dress neatly.”

“It seems suspicious.”

“Isn’t it too much to say it’s suspicious to the person who gave you the gift?”

Her attitude felt somehow artificial.

Feeling something was off, I looked at the tie clip once more and discovered that there was something like an old-fashioned pattern engraved at the end of the clip.

“What’s this?”

“Ah, it’s the Müller family crest.” [Only on Galaxy Translations! / Axiomatic]

“…Was there a need to engrave that on a gift?”

When I asked that.

Julia answered with a smile as if it was nothing:

“Prevention is more important than early suppression when it comes to fires, right?”

“What?”

“It’s like that.”