Chapter Six: How Could a Bit Player Refuse to Be the Scapegoat?

[A person born from a fantasy of Osiklis, gradually becoming real...]

‘What?’

Just as Louis was lost in thought, Helen suddenly leaned over, reaching across his lap to flip through the magical notebook in his hands. Her hair brushed against his face, but she showed no sign of embarrassment—she merely tucked a stray lock behind her ear and continued flipping the pages, as if such intimacy was perfectly normal between them.

Watching her nonchalance, Louis fell into a pensive silence.

“Could this ‘Fantastic Voyage’ be the same as the ‘Book of Fate’ described in the story? Osiklis summoned me here… so does Helen subconsciously think of herself as my sister-in-law?”

“And when Rufield and Terris look at me, is it as if I’m a toad yearning for a swan—just a background character trying to overreach?”

Recalling the melodramatic fantasies Osiklis was infamous for, as recorded in the book, Louis shivered with distaste. He had no patience for these vulgar tales, nor any interest in so-called princesses. All he wanted now was to get through the second trial ahead.

“These notes are useless, Louis,” Helen scolded, turning to a particular page in his magical notebook and shooting him a chiding glance. “Stop reading those extracurricular stories and start copying these. I’ll need to take a look soon myself—improvised speech, right?”

She thrust a quill and a small notebook into his hands, then gave him a resigned look that seemed to say, “How do you always come so unprepared?” Only then did she return to her seat.

Louis sighed inwardly, took up the pen, and bent over the magical notebook. The page Helen had found was filled with illustrations of terrifying creatures—evil spirits, soul harvesters, and the like. He recognized all of them; the fairy knowledge in his mind contained comprehensive information about all manner of spirits and monsters. In fact, he could immediately spot the errors in these illustrations.

Still, despite the mistakes in the diagrams and descriptions, the two spells recorded in Helen’s notebook were indeed effective against such creatures.

One was called the “Exorcism Spell,” the other the “Evil Spirit Banishment Spell.”

From Helen’s annotations and research notes, it was clear these spells were considered extremely difficult—she believed they were incomplete. Every wizard who used them had to supplement them according to their own understanding.

As Louis studied the spells, he felt it was no more than a basic elementary algebra word problem. The missing parts were just variables to be solved for.

[You have learned ‘Exorcism Spell lv1 (0/7)’ and ‘Evil Spirit Banishment Spell lv1 (0/6).’]

“Well, these elementary algebra problems still need a few tries,” he mused.

As he continued reading, he came across a peculiar little slip of paper. The ink was still fresh, and a careless swipe left an inky smudge; it must have been written that very morning. It appeared to be a cheat-sheet Osiklis had prepared for Helen, containing her personal interpretation of these spells.

But the teacher’s level was clearly lacking. A supposedly simple matter had been rendered needlessly convoluted and riddled with errors.

There was also a note from Osiklis: “This spell is obscure and difficult, but I suspect it’s a killer move set for this examination. Memorize them secretly. I’ve never used these spells in public, so just claim you invented them yourself.”

Shaking his head at Osiklis’s chaotic scrawl, Louis thought, Helen’s doomed. With this spell, he might have a 100% success rate, but with Helen’s grasp of magic, her chances were unlikely to exceed 20%.

He suspected Osiklis’s real intention wasn’t for Helen to defeat the Mirror Demon, but for her to dazzle the examiners with a ‘spectacular’ spell. Even if she failed, at least she’d stand out and earn some points.

But there were two types of “mirror-dwellers” who were impervious to such displays—the Nameless and the Evil Spirit Calamities.

Against these, there was only victory or utter defeat—if you lost, the evil spirits would make sport of you. Lose, and there would be no mercy in the scoring—one might even be forced to dance on their head right then and there.

“Why are you just reading and not copying? Can you really remember all that?” Helen’s tone was tinged with complaint as she glanced over again.

Louis gave a silent sigh, pulled his own empty spellbook from his bag, and began to copy the spells. After a short time, he quietly handed the magical notebook back to Helen.

“Did you copy everything?” she asked, flipping through the pages. “Make sure you memorize them—don’t let an examiner catch you reading from a cheat-sheet! Even if you can’t cast the spell successfully, as long as the examiner senses the magic, you’ll still get some points. But let’s be clear: you’ll use the Evil Spirit Banishment Spell, and I’ll use the Exorcism Spell. One each, agreed?”

“Oh?” Louis was curious. “Don’t you need the Evil Spirit Banishment Spell for your own score?”

Helen smiled with confidence. “The Evil Spirit Banishment Spell is specialized for soul harvesters. If that’s what appears, I’ll take care of it myself.” Her meaning was clear—if a soul harvester showed up, Louis needn’t bother.

“If only,” Louis thought.

Before long, numerous Ministry of Magic officials, court wizards, professors, and more apprentices filed into the hall. The audience was large today. Rufield and Terris sensed the tension—the crowd was too big. They straightened their backs and spoke with the refined manners of the high nobility.

Louis noticed that, apart from a handful of academic wizards, almost no one greeted Osiklis. Instead, all eyes subtly shifted to Rufield and Terris—some expectant, some curious, but most filled with layered meaning or warning.

It seemed Osiklis’s situation was precarious. If not quite besieged, she was certainly fallen from grace. Those who still supported her—the old professors from the academy—had no interest in politics, while the rest had their own deep motives.

Clearly, in the Kingdom of Tyrenda, the Sorceress Queen now held sway. Today, anyone who stood up for Osiklis would find no reward.

Louis had neither power nor status. He had no intention of standing out or stealing the protagonist’s spotlight. So long as someone passed today’s trial, he’d gladly blend into the background and keep his head down.

Yet to his surprise, when the group gathered before the mirror, Osiklis actually called on him to go first.

When has a background character ever been allowed to go last?

No, the extra always goes first—to blaze the trail as cannon fodder for the heroes!