Author's Note: This is a story concept that popped up in my head inspired by some manwha and isekai I've been reading as well as Octopath Traveler. It's also a break from the Fate Series while returning to Zero no Tsukaima. I hope you enjoy this, possibly short, story.

Now, without further delay… Let the Sacred Flame shine forth!

Voyageuse

Chapter 1: Job Class

Her full name is Louise Francoise le blanc da la Valliere, a petite seventeen-year-old teenager with bright pink hair inherited from a noteworthy, powerful noble house of the Kingdom of Tristain. She was raised as the third-daughter, proud of her heritage and of her birthright, which allowed her to attended the prestigious Tristanian Academy of Magic. Of course, as of such a name, the birthright was the ability to use the magic beseeched by their religious forefather, Brimir. Which granted a noble their right to rule over the mundane commoners. With Louise's scholarly nature, her academic pursuits were nearly unrivaled, able to match her seniors in all the theoretically theories and educational work, indeed one could say that she was passionate to learn.

But that would be a falsehood, for all that, Louise Valliere was a failure at all practical aspects. For every study of a spell's wandwork and chant, the result would remain depressingly the same: An explosion.

Stranger still, an explosion without fire or flame, rather merely a kinetic force.

This repeating failure to cast the simplest of spells may have been forgiven in the girl's first year at the academy, but the second year now progresses and the results remain the same. No longer able to say excuses, the cruelly of her fellow students mocked and insulted her hard efforts to improve. So much that most of the faculty's teachers gave up on Louise Valliere, whose's noble heritage from a house of such repute remained as one of the few safeguards keeping her from expulsion.

That is, until the upcoming event.

The Springtime Summon Festival marked a crucial point for any reputable mage learning from the Academy. Anywho failed to summon forth a life-long familiar would be expelled. Louise Valliere was no exception to this established cultural rule, but very few had ever failed this ritual. Which made it all the more daunting for the girl, so stressed that she'd even mistaking boasted that she would summon forth a draconic creature the prior day.

Now this girl, smaller in size to most of her peers and looking more akin to a preteen than her age, hid behind the ongoing crowd of noble mages summoning their own familiars one at a time.

If she failed this, it would all but confirm the validity of insults.

That she was a Zero.

An insulting runic name born from her success rate, which degraded her to the level of a commoner without magic.

Louise de la Valliere took a deep breath, taking into the outdoor air and feeling the small breeze that brushed against her. The small mage girl's eyes were downcast, staring unattentively at the blades of grass at her shoes.

"I can do this. The summoning ritual is not element-specific, I only need magic to accomplish it," She reassured herself in a whisper.

It was a mystery, all mages had an element, which defined what type of magic that would accomplish: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth… Void.

Though that last one was but a myth, only capable to that of the Founder, Brimir.

"All the work has been memorized, you've spent the late of night studying the ritual," Louise spoke to herself in a hushed tone. With no one to talk with except letters back home to a sickly sister, it had grown into this bad habit.

Louise's hands held her wand against her meager bosom, both gripping the small object tightly. She would not deny the fear that lurked in her heart and the desperation placed upon her by the ritual that would decide her fate. The young girl prayed fervently in her head to Brimir, begging for a miracle that would keep her in the academy if only to prevent the mark of shame placed upon her by expulsion.

"Louise Valliere!" The masculine voice of her teacher, Professor Colbert, brought the girl out of her stupor.

"Y-yes!" She replied while lowering her wand, feeling the stares of the other students, judging her for her earlier vacant attention.

"It is your turn, summon forth your familiar," He said.

She approached the empty circle of grass, taking note of how the students backed away warily in the apprehension of her apparent failure and resulting explosion. Louise took another deep breath, gathering what little courage, then began speaking as she raised her wand bit by bit towards the sky above.

"I, Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere, in the name of the great Five Pentagon Powers, following my fate, summon a familiar."

In one motion, she swung her wand downward towards a half-angle, feeling her Willpower, the energy that governed the resource to cast spells, deplete… With no result.

Nothing.

Not even a mild explosion.

She blanked at that, it was certainly a new experience to not have an actual tangible result.

Still, unfaltering, Louise attempted again.

"Again, I, Louise Valliere, in the name of the Five Pentagon Powers, come forth my familiar!"

Another drain of Willpower, but again mysteriously, no explosive or successful reaction.

"Louise-" The Professor began.

"No!" Louise shouted. "One more time."

He allowed it out of pity, that face told her.

The girl's mind was beginning to panic.

"Please… Someone…" Louise whispered to herself. Then with a loud announcement, spoke clearly, "In response to I, Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere, distant traveler, follow my destiny and appear before me!" She felt a massive drain of her Willpower with the swing of her wand- And a sizable explosion that nearly knocked Louise off her feet and brought up a lot of smoke that clouded the site.

She recovered, her eyes trying to scry through the dust and smoke, vaguely spotting a strange oddity, like floating numbers of zeroes and ones that stood only for a few short seconds before vanishing entirely from existence. As wind finally dispersed the obscuring cloud, Louise Valliere felt her heart sank that in place of her summoning was a mere stone replication of a strange mitre.

Professor Colbert looked at her, "It does not seem like a living or autonomous entity. I'm sorry, Louise."

"Professor… Again-?"

"No, Louise. You cannot attempt it again," His eyes pitied her.

Her fist clenched as frustration, shame, anger, and sorrow mixed together in her like a tornado of terrible proportions. She walked up to the stone mitre and picked it up like a common object, ignoring the variety of expressions directed towards her and the mumbling of words, Louise Valliere knew very well that she now would be expelled in the following days.

As such, the young girl took the summoned item and left to find peace in the solitary of her own room, the class was dispersing anyway, she had been the last to attempt and the only one to fail.

The door slammed shut to the private chambers of a pink-haired girl.

Louise closed the windows and carelessly tossed the stone mitre on her dresser, it landed perfectly upright.

She collapsed to her knees against the bed and cried into the sheets for a length of time that escaped her.

The hour continued to pass...

A silent sanctuary with only a single denizen releasing her emotions in the darkened room, the only light escaping from the minor cracks between the window and the walls.

"What do I do now…" Louise wiped her face against the comfortable sheets.

A voice echoes in her head…

"Hail, traveler."

Louise quickly glanced back to the door to shout for someone to leave her alone, but the door remained closed, only a pale blue light now caught her eye. The stone mitre she discarded so carelessly beforehand now glowed to eliminate the darkness of the room.

"I am Aelfric, Flamebringer."

"Aelfric… Flamebringer…?" She said in a stunned daze.

"Unto thee, who dost boldly summon forth this relic…"

The voice was comforting, Louise Valliere felt calmed with every word.

"I impart the knowledge of the heavens."

The stone mitre shattered into dozens of brilliant white shards, hovering mystifyingly in the air around Louise Valliere. But before the girl could bask in fascination, they swarmed towards her. In an instinctive reflex, she attempted to back away, but collapsed against the side of her own bed and fell on the mattress, then fruitlessly covered face with her hands as the shards blinded her in a flash of light that lit up her room for a brief moment.

Then, in the next instance, all had returned to normalcy. Her dresser bare of any stone mitre, no pale blue light lit the room, and a pink-haired girl remained unharmed on a quality bed.

However, Louise clutched her head in complete astonishment, staring up at the ceiling as her mind raced with newfound knowledge.

"Cleric," She muttered the words.

The terminology and context that it implied were outright heretical to the church, to know of magic that came from a source outside of Brimir's teacher would brand her a pagan, or worse. Yet, this Job Class was nothing but beneficial and guiding in its mission, to bestow humanity the ability to nurture.

It was odd, her reaction to this should be more… Profound.

Yet, her heart lit with the courage guided by a Sacred Flame.

She had been betrayed by her previous faith, but that did not mean she would outright deny it. No, Louise was still a follower of humanity's Founder, after all, the summoning ritual was what brought forth the relic tied to Aelfric, Flamebringer, the patron deity of Clerics… That thought should have been terrible, Louise chastised herself for even thinking it.

The young girl rolled over in her bed, still contemplating and trying to organize her thoughts from the information forced into her mind.

Alone, the Job Class of the Cleric was confusing. But it did not remain the only thing that was beseeched unto her by the foreign deity.

Louise Valliere sat upright, crossing her legs, and took another deep breath before speaking a single word.

"Menu."

A glowing panel, like glass, appeared over half a meter before her. It displayed a blank full-on map outline of Halkegania in the background, with the exception of a small area in Tristain surrounding the Academy, which was marked with a highlighted yellow seemingly town symbol, with the addition of a golden feather pointing down on it. In the foreground on the left-hand side of the panel, multiple black tabs with various wordings from top to bottom: World Map, Journal, Inventory, Healing, Equipment, and Status.

There were two tabs after Equipment and before Status, which displayed multiple question marks, but a final tab after Status was shifting between various symbols constantly.

On the bottom, a black bar with the word 'Return'.

But the most stunning feature was on the 'Menu's' right-hand side, in a similar but partially see-through black box that indicated a counting-up time, her currency on-hand, and also…

A miniature, facially blinking version of herself displayed standing in a strange but rather adorable artistic way.

"That's cute," She remarked, then looked next to it. "Louise… LV… One?" She inquired curiously.

Below her name and those letters, the values of two other terms, HP and SP, were occupied by a green and blue bar respectively. 'HP' had the indicator of a heart next to it, while SP had an unknown but presumably magic-based symbol. While they also had values, the girl lacked the knowledge to know if "HP 200/200" and "SP 70/70" were high or not.

Louise Valliere was completely dumbfounded by what any of it met… But it was rather cute to see a mini version of one's self in this art style.

"Let's ignore it for now," She said and instead opting to press a finger against the screen. Nothing happened when pressing against the map, so she decided to press against the 'World Map' tab.

An audible noise like the flipping of page echoed from the panel, the tabs and black box vanished away to a full undisturbed view of a mostly blank Halkegenia map.

Then a message popped up.

[Unable to Fast Travel.]

She tapped the 'Okay' response and the prompt vanished, then proceeded to tap 'Return' to bring back the Menu's other options.

Louise's curiosity finally got to the better of her. She had spent the bettermost of her life in the pursuit of knowledge and academic interests, the habit to learn did not die out even with her late failure. This was something new, nothing in any book had ever mentioned this. So, Louise delved into the mysteries of her 'Menu'. The Journal had her little miniature self below the banner of Tristan, twirling her own little wand playfully, however tapping on the mini-Louise made her raise her wand confidently and reveal another black box that was plainly empty at the moment.

There was also a side story option, but nothing was within it.

"That's was adorable, but disappointing."

Louise delved into Inventory next, but it was completely vacant of anything with the exception of multiple tabs with their own individual items. The 'Healing' was even more empty, a single icon of mini-Louise's face as a tab with the words 'Heal Wounds' grayed out in the box it referred to. A strange noise played when attempting to use 'Heal Wounds', possibly meaning it was unavailable.

However, Equipment…

It was too much information at once… Swords, Polearms, Daggers, Axes, Bows, Staves, Shields, Head, Body, and two Accessories?

The only things with anything 'equipped' were Academy Uniform for Body and Louise's Wand for Staves.

That wasn't even considering the ten separate Attributes on the bottom with so many different number variables that had little meaning for Louise's limited knowledge on their context. For all she knew, smaller numbers could be better than bigger ones.

"This is too confusing!" Louise rubbed her temples. "One more…"

Since the next two tabs were grayed out, and the last might be too risky considering its erratic behavior, she decided to just enter the Status tab.

A beautifully drawn full-body artwork of herself with the back-drop of her home's estate appeared on the right-most side of another black box containing a plethora of different terminologies, numeric values, and symbols.

Louise decided to focus on that which she knew so far, firstly the Primary Job was set to 'Unknown', while Secondary Job was 'Cleric'. Looking at the bottom of the screen, ignoring the Attributes for the present time, her Path Action…

Nobility.

"Use your nobility to your favor to gather information or influence circumstances," Louise read aloud. "Fail and my reputation in town will suffer? Isn't that obvious?" She said.

She looked down towards the Talent.

She blinked once.

Twice.

"Founder-born," She finally recovered. "That's not too surprising, my noble house has some royal blood in it…" She trailed off. "But… The description is strange."

Able to interact with objects related to the Founder Brimir.

What did that even mean?

A few hours had passed since the event that shall forever change her perspective, Louise Valliere was still dreading the announcement that would expel her from the Tristanain Academy of Magic. It was only a matter of time, likely tomorrow, before a staff member would knock on her designated room and inform her to head to the Headmaster. In spite of gaining the magical spells granted onto a Cleric Job Class, it didn't matter if she showed her a successful spell. Louise had still failed to summon an actual familiar and would be removed from the Academy purely because of tradition.

Of course, the only option left to her after that was to return to her family's estate in utter shame.

But…

Louise decided not to do that.

Sure, her family would know of her expulsion in due time, a message would be sent from the Headmaster to the Valliere Estate. But, he couldn't control when or where Louise would go. In a way, to flee the academy was to run away from not only the source of her present problems but also the misery from those who bullied her.

Perhaps… Just perhaps… This odd magic system might help discover her true element for proper Halkegenia magic.

A type of circumvention.

Of course, the only two spells that Louise knew now were 'Healing Wounds' and 'Holy Light'. It came with being a Cleric, the knowledge forced into her mind by Aelfric on how they were cast and what they did. But reliance on only two spells would not get Louise far, which meant she needed to explore in more depth on how to improve her Cleric Job Class and learn the contextual terminology of the Menu.

Luckily, in terms of finances, if she lowered herself to a more merchant living accommodation then she could live off it for few short months… That is if she restrained herself and did not purchase luxurious or gear.

Yes, that sounded like a solid plan for now. Leave the Academy, find a suitably decent inn, think of her next move. It wouldn't do to rush and become some dangerous occupation like an adventurer, she wasn't some ex-noble mage.

She was rather a mageless noble...

"Great… Like in Germania," Louise frowned at that thought. "I got to pack, I'll be kicked out anyway."

She dug underneath her bed and pulled out a bag, it wasn't a big bag and it couldn't hold much and considering her rather petite size… Louise figured that she couldn't care much. Still, it would be her inventory for-

At that thought, the bag vanished with a sparkle of white light.

"Huh?" Louise was stunned. "Where did it go- Wait… Menu."

The still-increasing familiar Menu popped into her view, she navigated to Inventory and there and behold was a new entity called 'A empty bag' in it. She tapped on it and it appeared in her hands once more with a small shine of light.

She grinned, walked to her dresser, then thought of each piece of clothing going into the Inventory.

It didn't work.

Louise frowned then placed a hand on the clothing, retried her thought process, and they vanished and reappeared in the Menu's Inventory.

"Reliance on physical contact," Louise noted. "This makes things much easier."

It barely took a few minutes to place every object she owned into the Menu's Inventory. She was still unsure on whether or not it could hold food and liquids, but for now this would do the job well.

She opened the door out of her room, it was dark now, she had spent so long locked in her personal chambers that time flew by. Thankfully, she had a maid bring up a meal earlier while she was reading through the Menu, attempting to decipher its acronyms. While there were a few students that ventured out during the night, none of them were allowed in certain areas during curfew, and those included the only ways to leave the academy.

The roads leading out of the academy were not as safe as some nobles would believe after all.

As such, guards were told not to let the students leave. While they were at their core, commoners without magic, a couple armored guards were still dangerous for a lone student to deal with… Especially a magic-lacking one like Louise.

They wouldn't kill her, sure, but beating her unconscious was not out of the picture with trained water mages able to heal residing in the academy's walls. And they were well without their rights to do so under the right circumstances… Such as a student being in restricted areas during the night.

Louise left the building she was in.

Yes, like her, normally rule-abiding Louise Valliere now breaking probably half a dozen to leave in the dead of night.

To Louise, it was better than facing the embarrassment of tomorrow, facing the Headmaster, pitied by Professors, mocked by students, and finally expelled all in a single day.

Whether by luck or fortune, it didn't seem like any of the awake students or staff managed to spot her leaving the dormitory… Or entering the currently restricted area to led to the stables and exit gate.

"Hey! This is restricted! Return to designated areas!"

Until now that is…

"Sorry, I just need a horse," Louise answered and turned to the two guards that had spotted her, they were just a few meters away from her spot and closing in.

"Miss, the stables are off-bounds to students at this time. Please return," The second guard stated.

They would not let her pass. Louise knew this.

"I am leaving the academy, do not stand in the way of a noble," Louise attempted to use her status.

The guards did not look threatened, if anything, they looked confidant in handling her. Louise felt that was expected, considering her reputation, her explosions couldn't really harm anyone in armor and she was physically weakest than most of her year-mates.

"Resist any further and there will be consequences," The guard threatened in return.

Louise bit her lip, "There is no choice."

At those words, the guards drew wooden batons, incapable of drawing blood without extreme force, but they would hurt.

In an instant, Louise felt her body tense up, her body seemed to fill with power unlike anything before, the knowledge of Boost Points filtered into her mind, and words spoke out of her mouth without thought, "Flame protect us."

"Take this!" A guard swung the wooden baton, striking Louise's arm that had raised up in defense. She backed up, wincing from the pain, but distracted by the sudden mental awareness that her HP had dropped numerically to 180 from 200.

An indicator of her body's condition most likely.

Louise Valliere didn't even bother drawing her wand, raising both arms, open palms directed at the firstmost guard in a motion that seemed trained. "May the sacred light shine forth!"

A bright golden pillar of light erupted from the ground beneath the guard's feet, lasting for only a short few seconds and inflicting pain on the man, Louise could swear she could hear the shattering of some sort of glass as the guard fell back in a complete daze.

She also received another mental note that the SP had numerically dropped, yet her Willpower remained the same. Perhaps this new magic system relied on SP for its energy requirements.

"Hiyah!" Another bashing of a wooden baton smacked right across Louise's face.

"Ouch!" Louise cried out in pain as she retreated. She brought her hands together in a cusp, likened to that of prayer, "Let my wounds be healed."

A bright green light enveloped Louise for a brief moment. With that, her depleted health from the newly 152 returned to the state of 200. This was physically represented by the red bruises on her cheek and arm vanishing entirely to give way to normal skin.

She continued, "My turn! Holy Light!" Louise shouted while aiming at the non-dazed guard, bringing forth a pillar of light once again to injure the man, and once more hearing the noise of shattering glass echoed in her ears as he collapsed in a daze.

It was time to flee now with both currently out of action, the noise of battle would surely draw attention.

Louise Valliere left the guards behind, as she did, the dormant power related to those Boost Points faded, unable to be felt by her anymore. She had not used it in her fight, but she was still trying to get used to the Cleric abilities, let alone attempting other potential gains from Aelfric.

She found a horse, lucky still saddled, and hurriedly climbed on top. With a slight kick and motion of the reins, Louise Francoise le Blanc de la Valliere left behind her life in the academy.

Her destination? A nearby town not far.

Her goal? To forgo the infamy of her past and seek out the reason behind her explosive magic.

Reason? To longer be a Zero.

Hopefully, she can accomplish what she set out to do without being branded a heretic.

She sighed, "One concern at a time, Louise."