Taniah- What do you mean by that? Have you forgotten already? It’s inspection time. I gave out an advanced “warning” that the student council was going to do such periodic inspection. I can understand the surprise for me, the President of the Student Council being here but, you cannot forget that, this is also my job and duty.

  She really is speaking normally, isn’t she? Not only does she seems “used” to seeing these types of people, the sheer toxicity from the toxic smoke cloud is also not affecting her even a little bit… Huh, Alice here is two seconds away from throwing up as she tries to get cleaner air in her system although the more she does, the more she ends up inhaling of the toxic smoke cloud, on the other hand, Kiana seems ready to “take care” of all of this and yet Taniah seems quite unbothered…

  Ah, now I know why, I should've noticed earlier.

  There is a simple explanation to this, yes, a simple explanation to it, quite the simple one in fact. Taniah is actually using a mask, within a mask that has another mask underneath it, one that, somehow is still able to fit another mask beneath or is it on top of it? Well, I call this, quadruple or quintuple (I lost count) masks! Though, why didn’t I notice earlier? Well, that is because they are transparent!

  “Come here Alice! I can help you out before you die! Just follow my voice! Don’t let the toxicity from the smoke cloud get to you!”

  Swoosh! Magic noises!

  By using a simple Anemo spell, she first clears the air around them, next she surrounds both her and Alice with a bubble made of air, or in other words, she’s using the spell Pure Bubble Air, one that surrounds the target with an air barrier with a bubble-like shape and inside of this bubble, it has air circulating all around it, this air does not leave to the outside nor air from the outside gets in, the perfect spell for this situation. However, she’s not done yet, it seems this toxic smoke cloud is a tremendous foe even for our Kiana, to make sure that none of the smoke cloud gets inside of it, she then surrounds it with another barrier and this one will definitely prevent that.

  Fat Student- Aaa, no one told me that... But come in.

  With this rather polite but unwanted invite, all of them get in and, as one would have foreseen, the room inside is nothing more than a representation of the man that invited them in. Or in other words, it’s far worse.

  Kiana- How can something like this even happen... How can you even work in these conditions? Can I open the window?

  Fat Student- Ye-Yes you can mi-miss…

  Huh, that was not a little bit creepy at all… He sure did look at Kiana with a rather peculiar look on his face. Anyway, with her eyes filled with hope, with her dreams about to become true, she excitedly walks up to a window. Ah, just how much her golden eyes can really shine? You can easily see the relief on them but, the massive smile that she has on her face, one that goes from one side to the other, with it you can see her true happiness that should be mere moments from becoming true.

  However, reality is often cruel, it has the tendency to first give out false hope, only for right at the end to crush whoever was fool enough to believe it.

  “(No way!? Why does the window have a magic circle on it!? Actually, they all have! And why is it a barrier of all things? Ah man, I can easily dispel it but, Taniah said to not touch anything…)”

  The world can really be cruel sometimes, why does this young lady have to suffer like this? However, I do understand her frustration and even confusion, for some unspeakable reason all the windows have said magic circle on them, while they are not complex or even strong, at the end of the day, they still are barriers. Why would they have such barriers in a place like this? A good question and one that went through Kiana's mind at the speed of sound itself, but I can somewhat understand the reason and even the need for such. Think with me, the first reason is sound, if the barriers were created for such, they can easily prevent sound from entering and or stopping it from exiting. While the Academy itself is not loud, the area where the Magic Circle class is an exception, since it’s near the loudest place of the Academy, the building right in front of this class is no other than, the canteen itself, an extremely loud place if not, the loudest one in the whole Academy. The other reason that I have is nothing more than for protection, not from the outside of course but, from the inside. Creating a magic circle or modifying one can easily go wrong, with a barrier present it can and will minimise the damage that might unfortunately come with a wrong modification. For example, and this one is a little extreme, an explosion can be caused by a wrong temperament of a magic circle. While it won’t protect those inside it will protect those that are outside, minimizing the casualties and even any potential damage to the “environment”.

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  Oh, while I was explaining all of this, or going on in a tangent in other words, Kiana also noticed two other things, one is right at the door, where there is another magic circle just like the ones at windows and secondly, there is another magic circle at the floor of the room, exactly the size of the room itself. This one however, is inactive and because of this, it’s hidden to the naked eye and in consequence, hidden to everyone that does not have Magic Sense skill.

  Taniah- Just as I said before, we will be doing a periodic inspection. These two are my fellow colleagues but don’t worry about them too much, I’ve specially told them to not touch anything without consent. Unfortunately, the incident from the other day has made us act in this way. I’m sorry if you feel untrustworthy but the student’s safety is top priority for the Academy and of course myself and the student council. On this topic-

  Tap!

  With her right foot, she taps on the floor and she does so with quite the “force” behind it.

  Tap!

  Here comes the second time, still with the same foot but in this case, she also crossed her arms together at around breast level.

  Tap!

  The final tap but this one however, it easily has shown to the individual in front of her just how “angry” she is, however, if that thought didn’t cross his feeble mind because of this, the look on her face will.

  “Why is this inactive? Please enlighten me, why is this magic circle turned off? Care to explain why this is the case?”

  She has a serious look and her tone of voice not only demonstrates that, it’s also colder than normal. It more than seems that he has committed a “crime” or at least, he has done, not done in this case, something that he should. If he before was sweating prefunding now with this, he still is, the only difference is the sheer panic and even despair he has on his face, so much so that he's struggling to say whatever excuse he has.

  Fat Student- I-I-I-I-I jus-just got here! Ye-Yes! It’s not my fault!

  Taniah- What an amazing excuse you just told me. Ha, you just got here you say... Do you have any idea why there is such a magic circle here in the first place? Do any of you deactivate it when you go to lunch, is that so? Ah, the room is empty, it’s a good time to turn this off, is that how you think? This is beyond irresponsible, do you want another incident to happen again?

  Fat Student- No… of course not… I’m sorry President-san...

  He looks down as she says this, his look on his face matches the tone of voice, it’s one filled with regret for what he did and at the same time, he does seem sorry for his mistake.

  Alice- Ta-President, aren’t you going a little too far? It’s not usual to see you this angry at someone else… Why is that? Just what does this magic circle do, for you to be this insistent about it? You are basically tearing his ears out of him from how you’re speaking to him.

  Taniah- A scolding, nothing more nothing else. You make these types of mistakes and that is what you get. It’s for safety reasons as this magic circle was created with intentions of deactivating all the magic circles present here. It’s not that complex as it simply removes all the magic present here and therefore, making the magic circles not function thanks to it. In case something is going wrong or about to, by using this safety measure you can prevent or minimize any dangerous situation that might and will happen. Now you can see that, deactivating this and then forgetting about it, what if something happens? Then what?

  That’s a good point Taniah, with the magic circle activated it can prevent any unforeseen situation, if it is deactivated it will never do such a thing, right? I understand and wholehearted agree with her, you don’t play around with safety especially when it can end the life of someone. With this, it easily explains why Kiana found this magic circle in the floor and why it was inactive however, the one at the door is still left to be explained although Kiana seems to have forgotten about it. Silly Kiana, it seems she got a little to invested on Taniah scolding that, she forgot about it.