The Demon Prince goes to the Academy

Chapter 221

Stone Magic…

It was a spell activation method that used the extracted magical power stored in mana stones. Although I didn’t actually know much about magic itself, there were some things I couldn’t help but know, as I created this world.

Of course, if one couldn’t control magical power, one couldn’t use Stone Magic either, so that didn’t mean that Louis could become a wizard using that method.

Most of them seemed to have never heard the term ‘Stone Magic’ before.

“I don’t really know what that Stone Magic you talk about is. I just thought that you might be able to do something like that.”

By asking things like “Can’t you do something like that?” I hoped that someone would say “Yeah, there is.” and Harriet answered accurately.

She looked perplexed.

“But that would be extremely difficult to do… To the point that it’s like having to learn magic from scratch. While it’s possible, it’s so difficult to do that no one uses that method.”

Yeah. I know because I set it up like that.

Stone Magic entailed controlling external magical power, so casting spells in that way was completely different from using one’s own magical power.

So while the system existed, it had been completely buried.

However, I wasn’t recommending Redina to that completely different magic system called Stone Magic.

“Then we just have to find a mana stone with which one could use external magical power like one’s own.”

“…You keep talking as if that’s easy.”

Yeah, my words were rather weird and impossible.

But what could I do? I knew that something like that would appear in the future.

Harriet seemed to think that I was talking utter nonsense after all, and Redina looked like she was annoyed when she heard that she would have to learn a new magic system because of her small and empty mana pool.

Oh, come on.

Fine, you don’t have to listen to me if you don’t want to!

But not only am I an adult, I’m also God!

I’m right!

“Adelia.”

“…Huh? Yes? Me?”

“Yeah.”

Adelia looked at me with glazed eyes as I suddenly called out to her.

“If it doesn’t work, make it work.”

Adelia…

That girl would later create such mana stones, or to be precise, an artifact that was able to do that.

A powerful artifact that could store magical power and made it possible for one to use external magical power like the power present in one’s own body.

I knew that she would develop something like that, in fact, she would even call it a Power Cartridge.

The Gate Crisis would start in the first semester of our third year, inevitably throwing the kids into battle. Of course, after the initial chaos caused by the start of the battle passed like a typhoon, the Temple students would come out to earnestly support the ones fighting.

However, the Royal Class would also get divided into combat and non-combat units. After all, there were some students among them who simply couldn’t fight.

It couldn’t be helped because you couldn’t just throw students whose talent had nothing to do with combat into battle.

But they also had their own roles and duties to take care of.

For example, Louis taught the other students majoring in magic how to use their spells properly in his spare time.

Adelia was part of the non-combat unit because, while she had a talent in Summoning Magic, she also had another one—Magic Crafting.

The students that majored in magic always suffered from constant magic power exhaustion because almost all the battles they had to fight in were long, drawn out ones. They were only 19 at most. Except for some special cases, they couldn’t help but constantly hit the limit of their magical power before the limits of their talents.

It wasn’t just a problem among Royal Class students, but all wizards who participated in the battles.

Magic was a powerful weapon, but it couldn’t be constantly used.

However, those battles couldn’t be avoided.

So as Adelia witnessed that situation on the battlefield, she’d struggled to come up with a solution for that problem

She’d built an artifact which could make use of the magical power stored in mana stones and enable someone to use that power like one’s own.

A Power Cartridge.

It was different from Stone Magic which Harriet mentioned, but its goal was similar.

What Adelia created was a cheat item similar to a magical power amplifier, and I was telling her to develop it earlier.

‘If it doesn’t work, make it work.’

After hearing those words, Adelia’s face turned sickly pale.

“Uhm, I… I don’t know what you mean. Make it work…?”

Although she was the one who would end up developing something like that, she was contemplating if that kind of nonsense was even possible. Harriet was also glaring at me, burning anger in her eyes.

“If she could quickly make something like that just because you told her to, Adelia would end up going down in the history of the whole magic world. How is that making any sense?”

Yeah. She would actually go down in history, after all.

Still, just going by my words, she was reacting as if an outsider who only knew how to dream big asked something impossible from them, the others didn’t seem much different. All of them had luke-warm expressions on their faces as if they didn’t have any idea what I was talking about.

“That’s right. So you think that my mana pool will be like this for my whole life! You’re so mean!”

Redina shouted so hard that she almost fell over. She even teared up.

No, I was doing all this to make you stronger, okay?

I’m God!

I’m right!

I couldn’t really convince her with just that.

“Ah, fuck’s sake.”

Eventually, I furrowed my brows, looking at the others with a rather sullen expression on my face.

“You seem to think that I’m easy these days, huh? You punks.”

Ultimately, I had no other choice but to pick the easiest and fastest method.

—I had to take a step back.

Did you forget that I’m “That Reinhardt”? Do you think it’s funny seeing me walking around with crutches after I fought with a fourth-year?

You want me to show you how funny I can get?

When I suddenly started to act crazy again, all of their faces grew pale.

“You guys so desperately wanted me to be the president to the point of forcing me into the position, so just do what I’m telling you to do, you bastards. Don’t fucking dare to question whether I’m right or wrong. Hey! Adelia!”

“Y-Yes! Yes!” Adelia replied, her complexion growing paler and paler.

“If I tell you to make something, you make it. Even if you have to flip the world upside down to do it.”

“Erm, Y-yes…”

“Is that how you reply?”

“Yes! I’ll definitely create it!””

“Good. That’s how it should be.”

I looked at Adelia, who answered me loud and clearly, her face deathly pale, with a satisfied expression on my face.

As they made me president that day, it was their duty to roll around the club if I told them to.

In the end, faced with my coercion, the pale Adelia nodded wildly, and the others, Harriet included, just looked at me in shock.

However, no one could say anything to me.

—Because that was the kind of person I was.

I then muttered something, my arms crossed.

“Can’t do it, huh? You’re saying that you can’t do it without even having tried, idiots. Hah. Tsk. Kids these days don’t know what it means to be persistent anymore.”

I didn’t forget to spout some more nonsense.

They didn’t have to worry about me making them make something completely impossible.

Having ordered her in such a way, Adelia seemed to be terrified of what terrible thing I might do to her if she didn’t manage to make what I’d ordered her to.

* * *

* * *

She would start developing that artifact feeling that she would die if she was unable to make it.

“And Redina will help Adelia with her research. She’s making it for you, after all.”

“M-me too…?”

Redina wore a shocked expression as she opened her mouth.

“Wow, were you planning on freeloading? You have to contribute at least.”

“Do you really think I can make something like that?”

“Stop objecting and help.”

I made Redina Adelia’s research assistant, not accepting any objections.

“Next up is Christina.”

“M-me?”

“Yeah, you .”

All of them seemed to have gotten pretty comfortable with me, but when I suddenly acted the way I did, they finally realized who I actually was, their expressions turning bewildered.

Christina, who had a talent in Alchemy and Enchantment—another member of the non-combat unit.

“You have to help me directly.”

“What do you mean by ‘helping you…?’”

I gave the excuse of Redina’s lack of magical power for Adelia’s research, so there was another good excuse I came up with.

“As you can see, I tried to use Magic Body Strengthening, albeit clumsily.”

The side effects of Magic Body Strengthening.

“Make something like a drug that can make the body more sensitive to magical power or something that makes it easier to control magical power.”

The others’ expressions sure were a sight to behold after I said some more nonsense comparable to a nuclear bomb.

Seriously, you punks.

You are going to make these things later! It might not make any sense to you now, but you’ll really make these things later!

The Gate Crisis was in the first semester of our third year.

There were many who wouldn’t realize how to strengthen themselves with magical power even until their graduation.

I’d actually only planned out the story until the second year, so I didn’t really have anything more to write after that, that was why I just threw in that Gate Incident and called it a day.

Faced with that disaster, they would even make Temple students participate in the battles, but when I thought about it a bit more, while the kids were excellent, they were far from the best the Empire had to offer.

At that point, only Ellen, Bertus, and Ludwig would be able to use Magic Body Strengthening.

The rest of the combat major students wouldn’t, so when they were thrown into battle, they had to quickly realize how to use it.

That was why Christina would develop a special drug with which everyone could quickly adapt and be able to use Magic Body Strengthening.

Its name was Moonshine.

I thought it was just a popular term for moonlight… Later on, someone in the comments explained that Moonshine didn’t actually refer to moonlight, but illegally produced liquor, which made me feel really ashamed…

Anyway, I could just name it something else after Christina made it again.

It wasn’t just a drug that helped one realize how to use Magic Body Strengthening, it also helped one familiarize oneself to it. In fact, it also helped increase one’s magical power.

Harriet eventually lost her patience.

“You only just tell us to ‘do this, make that.’ Why do you only want things made that would go down in the history of the magic world even if one managed to only do one of these things? If you were going to ask us to develop such incredible things, you should have gone to the Temple Graduate Center of Research, or the magic tower, not here!”

Harriet was right. I’d ordered them to develop two items that would resound throughout the whole world at once.

It was crazy to ask members of a high school club, not a graduate lab, to create such things. It was beyond crazy.

Graduate lab? If they would be able to make things like that, I wouldn’t have made the club. I would have just gone there and commissioned them to make it. Why would I ever do something like make the club if I could just do that?

However, those guys were the only ones in this whole world who would be able to do it. I didn’t even know if the members of the graduate lab would listen to my ideas, and even if they listened to me, that didn’t mean they could actually develop those items!

I couldn’t convince those high school club guys that they were the only ones who could create things like that.

So, in the end, the only solution was coercion.

“Idiot. Do I have to say the same again? Anyway, as long as we are in this club, I’m the king.”

“D-don’t call me an idiot!”

When I called Harriet “Idiot” in front of the Class B guys, her face turned red from embarrassment and anger.

“Anyway, make it.”

“I-I’ll try, but I don’t know if it’ll work…”

Christina nodded her head gently as if she was trying not to annoy me any further.

I had one more thing to tell her, though.

“And I have another question.”

“What?”

“Why do you only enchant objects?”

I was trying to give her some practical tips that she could apply immediately. “Why could only objects be enchanted?” I was basically questioning that common sense.

“Why don’t you try enchanting things like potions?”

“…Uhm?”

All of them looked slightly surprised at my completely different and new approach.

“Well… I think I might manage to do something like that, but would that be… actually useful?”

That preconceived notion that only objects could be enchanted would get broken later on.

Moonshine was a product of adding elements of enchantment to the formulation of the drug.

—An enchanted potion.

It seemed like everyone was thinking about that new concept, however, that time, their eyes seemed to glitter at the thought.

“Anyway. I’ll think more about this.”

“Good.”

Power Cartridges for the students majoring in magic…

Moonshine for the combat major students…

That would be the start of the development of these two powerful items. If they managed to complete them, both the combat and magic major students would get even stronger.

Louis was preparing for his lectures, so there was nothing I could give him.

Then there was our Grand Duchy’s idiot, who could do anything and everything.

And Anna de Gerna, the one talented in Black Magic.

In Anna de Gerna’s case, she wouldn’t make anything special. She would take the role of a combatant who used her Black Magic directly in battle.

So I decided to take care of the people who needed improvement first.

Next, I looked at Harriet.

“Now that I think of it, you’re the best among us here, right?”

“…Th-the best?”

“In terms of talent, you’re top class.”

Even in that place where monsters with tremendous talents gathered, the one who stood above them was the one holding the simple and straightforward talent called “Magic”.

In the original, Harriet de Saint-Owan, who was temperamental and arrogant, was still the one with the best talent in the end.

She had become just a cute girl. When I looked at her, it seemed like she felt like she would be in big trouble. I just couldn’t help myself.

I really didn’t know she would end up becoming that cute.

Harriet’s expression changed rapidly when I said that she actually was top class among all the students majoring in magic.

“Wh-what are you saying…? You just called me an idiot, and now you’re praising me… Just decide on one thing…”

She got really shy and twiddled her fingers.

No, why was she acting like that?

I don’t know about any other time, but then wasn’t the right time for her to act like that, right?

“So, you can do anything, right?”

“!!!!”

Only then did Harriet’s expression turn tense, her mouth wide open.

I’d just ordered two students with talents for Alchemy and Magic Crafting to make ridiculous magic items that would go down in human history.

It seemed like she couldn’t even imagine what ridiculous thing I would request of her, who was talented in all fields of magic, to make.

She seemed convinced that I would make her do something absurd.

Unfortunately, Harriet never invented anything special or innovative in the original story.

She merely acted as a battle mage of the combat unit who swept away the enemies with her overwhelming magic.

Harriet de Saint-Owan, supplemented with Power Cartridges, was literally a monster that could be called a mass-destruction weapon. Of course, that was the reason why she became even more stuck-up and arrogant.

Anyway, it was fine for the moment because she was cute.

I would ask Harriet to do something she never did in the original.

Most of the things I had made them do so far were things to prepare for “When the gates burst open.”

I would have her do something completely different.

“How about studying Dimensional Magic?”

“Huuh?”

‘Getting rid of the Gate Incident itself’

—That was what I ordered Harriet to do.