Reincarnated As Both The Villainess And Heroine...?

Repressed Emotions

Children in this world couldn't catch a break. As idyllic as this world was depicted in the story, it was ultimately a world that had little advancement in terms of extending healthcare to everyone.

Thus, when your middle ages were realistically in your twenties or thirties, children had to grow up considerably quicker as well, be it forced or otherwise. As such, the schools were especially demanding as well.

Here I was, standing among a group of excited children, ready to prove themselves. Yesterday was a dreadful written test, and today was a review of our combat abilities. Preliminary examinations to examine our capabilities, they say. Still, exams on the first week of school was outrageous! Much less the first day of school for basically a bunch of kids barely past six or seven!

"Up next. Elizabeth Bathory! Hm...a magic user, huh. Why don't you pair up with the prince, then?" our instructor said.

Our instructor was a...peculiar individual, just as the prince had informed me about. Still, I had no time to closely observe her, I'll leave that to once this immediate calamity was over.

"Bathory, eh? Still haven't seen your magic, you've been rather secretive with it."

"Not as much as you are, Your Highness" I closed my eyes.

Chattering already broke out among my classmates, some of whom I identified as crucial characters to the script. So the rumors about our engagement have already spread, huh? 

"Take your positions," the instructor ordered with an emotionless expression.

"Do give me a good show, Bathory."

I gave the brat a slight curtsy before taking my positions, "As you wish."

Now it was a good time for some explanations, I suppose. I haven't quite found a time to  closely examine the details of magic, though I had opportunities to test it.

Was I not excited about the existence of magic? Sure I was! It's just...between Rin's own personal problems and Elizabeth's messy family life, I never had an opportunity to feel upbeat about the whole thing.

However! That was going to end today! It was the start of a glorious school life! The main story only starts more than a decade later, so the script has no power over me! Haha! I will lead the life I had always wanted!

...Who am I kidding.

Ahem. Anyway, where was I? Yes, about the whole magic thing. I've completely memorized the whole magic system when I was still an avid player of the game, but some explanations are in order, hm?

As one may have observed from figures of speech in this world, spirits were the fundamental building blocks of magic in this world. One could describe them as the atoms of magic, in a sense.

By calling upon the spirits of the world, individuals could wield magic. There were finer details of course, but the fundamentals weren't that complicated. Well, I suppose there's the incantation part that would be trouble for most inhabitants of this world.

After all, the incantations were more or less cryptography. Being too lazy to actually come up with an entirely new language for it, the developers probably just took common spell phrases and encoded it. It wouldn't be much of a surprise if the inhabitants of this world struggled to use magic simply because they couldn't decipher the phrases.

...Of course, I have the complete cipher stored in my head. I did buy the collector's edition that came with the cipher the developers used to develop the magic system, after all.

Not that I could instantly call down the equivalent of a nuclear strike right this moment, no. I was somewhat limited by the amount of mana I can draw upon, but that can be easily trained in the future. Nevertheless, I was still at a significant advantage when it comes to spell casting.