When her younger brother had fallen asleep, one of the attendants who had been waiting nearby spoke up.

“Lady Li, we will carry Lord Mertezio to his bedroom.”

“I leave him in your care.”

After handing her brother over to the servant, Li fixed her gaze on the target.

Recently, she had not been using simple target-practice magic.

She lightly circulated her mana and refined it.

[Ice Bullet 'Modified']

It was the spell she had once caused an incident with at the Academy.

Not only had she destroyed the target, she had pierced straight through the wall of the training grounds.

Based on that experience, she had tried to develop a version with deliberately reduced power.

However, in the end, she failed.

Her overwhelming mana capacity and high level of refinement had worked against her.

So Li changed her approach.

Up until now, her spells had been like arrows released from a bow.

The initial velocity determined everything.

As the distance increased, speed and power would drop.

So she shifted her thinking.

What if it were the accelerating type instead?

Like a missile equipped with a propulsion mechanism.

The initial velocity at the moment of creation would be slow.

But it would accelerate over distance.

If used at close range, she had thought, perhaps it would not display such overwhelming power.

So she tested it.

The very next instant, the ice bullet pierced a single point of the target and shattered the barrier spell beyond it.

“This is bad,” Li muttered and hurriedly dispelled the ice bullet.

It had been a spectacular failure.

Her magic had retained the bow-and-arrow type initial velocity and then accelerated on top of it.

It had nearly produced a sonic boom.

It was a spell that left sound behind.

“Oh, oho. Ohoho… hoho…”

The gazes of the knights and mages in the training grounds stabbed into Li.

She tried to laugh it off.

[Barrier]

Casually repairing the barrier spell, Li quickly left the area.

Watching her back, the knights were all thinking the same thing.

“What in the world is Lady Li aiming for?”

* * *

Li found Chrysoberyl and scooped her up.

“I faaaailed just a little.”

“My Master, no! Not there! Not there!”

Chrysoberyl loved skinship, meaning affectionate physical contact.

However, Li’s method of fluffing was brutal.

After all, once caught, there was no resisting.

“Magic does not obey the laws of physics, does it…”

Chrysoberyl’s protests were not reaching Li’s ears.

Her ten fingers moved as if each had a will of its own, a divine level of fluffing.

“But that acceleration-type spell is usable.”

“M-Ma…ster… stop…”

“No, before that, I need to do something about magic with excessive lethality…”

The pitiful familiar’s pleas did not reach Li.

Muttering to herself, she continued fluffing unconsciously.

“…no…”

Chrysoberyl stuck out her tongue and went limp.

And even then, Li’s divine fluffing continued.