Midterm Evaluation (1)
After the evening meal, Lianna and I held fast to the same routine. Once classes let out, we would patch up each other's weak points in the training hall; I would walk her through how to make her magic more efficient; I would answer her questions and ask whether there was anything else she needed — and at the end of it all, we would share dinner together. That was our everyday.
But watching the cadets who, having seen me keeping company with her, now came up to ask after her well-being, I realized that more and more of them still believed she was being bullied — by me.
Of course, Lianna insisted it was nothing of the sort, that it was all one big misunderstanding, but they wouldn't believe her. Instead, a fresh rumor began to spread through the Academy: that Lianna had been brainwashed — and brainwashed thoroughly at that.
Which meant Lianna would blame herself all over again, insisting it was her own fault, and every single time, I had to be the one to talk her down.
The stares from those around us stung, but so what? Word had spread that I had tried to kill my opponent during that Duel of Honor, so unless someone was truly asking for it, they steered well clear of picking a fight with me directly.
Shame I didn't get to kill him, though...
What was his name again?
Leon. Right — the one called Leon.
Offering him my silent thanks, I resumed training with Lianna — and at long last, the day of the Midterm Evaluation arrived.
Around that same time, one more person had been awaiting the Midterm Evaluation — the Academy's annual tradition, the event that set every single cadet's nerves on edge — longing for that day, waiting for it and waiting for it.
"I... will... kill... you..."
Outwardly, nothing about him had changed; he wore the same unremarkable face as always. But the aura he exuded, and the words that left his lips, made it very hard to take him for a sane man.
Every word he spat was steeped in resentment toward someone, and inside his head, the memory of his father's rebukes played on and on without end.
He had shaken it all off. For the sake of his revenge, he had waited and waited for this day alone.
"You pathetic little wretch!!!"
"Kehk..."
A middle-aged man draped in ornaments of gold drove his boot into the shin of the boy standing before him. The boy pitched forward, unable to withstand the impact, and the man clicked his tongue at the sight before pressing on.
"Because of you!! My plan is ruined!!"
"Fa...Father... why..."
Unable to fathom why his own father was doing this to him, the boy could only take the beating in silence — and his mood had already been thoroughly soured by the day's affairs at the Academy.
Several blows more fell, dreadful sounds ringing through the room, before the middle-aged man finally spoke in a voice worn thin.
"Hah... do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Khh... I... what did I...?"
"Do you know... why the Chairwoman stepped in to save you today?"
That was right. The woman who claimed to deal fairly with every cadet had thrown herself into a Duel of Honor for his sake. At first he had naturally assumed it was thanks to his family's donations to the Academy — but the Chairwoman hardly wanted for money, so that couldn't be the reason.
A 9th-Circle mage was precisely that rare, and her name carried precisely that much weight across the Empire.
The more he turned it over, the less any of it made sense. Watching the boy chase the thought in circles, the man exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke and, eyes brimming with rage, explained the reason.
"At first, it was chance..."
"That insignificant woman, lapping up the Empire's glory for no reason but that she was a strong mage — I couldn't stand her from the very beginning."
"So I went to an information guild and had her investigated."
It was madness. The mere discovery that he had looked into her past would have deeply displeased her — and those who earned her displeasure lived out their days in dread, never knowing when she might crush them.
No house in the Empire could afford to defy her authority — and yet everything this man was saying amounted to flaunting his contempt for it. Which meant either that he knew nothing about her at all, or that he held her laughably cheap.
"Then, in the midst of it... a piece of information came in."
"The kind of 'information' that could deal the Chairwoman a very grievous wound."
The mere thought of it was enough to set him laughing; he could not keep the corners of his mouth from climbing.
"The moment I learned of it, I threatened her with it."
"Just as expected, she turned around and threatened me right back — but what could that worthless bitch possibly do?"
"I was the one holding the knife."
"If anything, it only proved, once again, just how desperately she wanted that secret kept buried."
"So I made her a proposal — that I would keep it hidden."
"On one condition: that should our family ever fall into danger, or ever come to her asking for help, she would lend us her strength. Once."
For a noble, he spoke of blackmailing someone with astonishing boldness; not a trace of hesitation showed in his words. If anything, he carried on as though it were the most natural thing in the world, his face entirely untroubled.
"But who trusts a promise made with mere words?"
"So I sealed a contract with her in mana."
"The terms were exactly as I've said — and the price was my absolute silence: a contract binding me never to spread word of that information."
When he finished, he glanced down at the boy still groaning before him, clutching at his wounds, and his face twisted in disgust.
"And do you know what that woman came and told me today?"
"At first I asked her whether she'd gone mad. I had never once come to that woman begging for help!!"
"And then — do you know what she said to me?"
His face twisted into something uglier still, as though the scene were replaying before his eyes.
"How curious. As I recall, there was one more clause in our contract?"
"What in the world are you talking about?!"
"Did the terms not include [aiding your family when it falls into danger]?"
"And where, exactly, does my family look to be in danger?!"
As though his shouting were something pitiful to witness, she let out a soft scoff, swept her hair back over her shoulder, and continued.
"You have a son, don't you?"
"I do — but why bring that up all of a sudden?"
"Your son nearly died today. And I saw to it that he did not."
"Wh...what did you say?"
"Were your son to die, your house would lose its line of succession and its blood. Is that not, precisely, a [family crisis]?"
She laughed as though the whole thing were terribly amusing; on his face, the fury refused to settle.
"Th...that's sophistry!!"
"Sophistry? In what way?"
The smile she had worn moments before was gone. In its place stood a woman whose expression had chilled until the very air around her seemed on the verge of freezing.
"I did not intervene in any affair without just cause, and I delivered your family from its crisis."
"The proof: the contract has not been voided."
"And my mana remains perfectly intact."
Those who signed a contract in mana lost every last drop of it the instant they breached its terms — which made a violation the simplest thing in the world to verify.
"I kept my promise."
"So you will keep yours."
"Otherwise, what awaits you will not end at the loss of your mana."
With those words, the air sank heavy and bore down upon the man — and for all his towering rage, he had no choice but to nod.
The memory sent the man's fury flaring anew; he simply seized the chair itself and brought it down on the boy.
CRASH—
"Ugh... aghk..."
"Now do you understand what you've done?"
"K...kehk..."
Hurling the shattered chair to the floor, he braced himself over the desk and spoke.
"With her power behind me, I could have become Emperor himself."
"...."
"The whole Empire could have lain at my feet."
"...."
"And you!!! You threw it all away!!!!"
Again he snatched a book from the desk and hurled it at the boy's skull; the boy could do little but groan and cradle his throbbing head.
"Do you have any idea how much I handed over to that information guild just to lay my hands on her secret?!!"
THUD—
"And the donations to the Academy — what of those?!!"
THUD—
"And do you know what I paid after that, buying the silence of every noble who might have caught wind of it?!!!"
THUD—
"Five thousand gold in all!! Five thousand gold!!!"
Even through the waves of pain still rolling over him, the sheer size of the sum — far beyond anything he had imagined — left the boy gaping.
Digging into that woman's past carried dangers beyond imagination, and the price of her secrets had climbed accordingly; from the commission itself to the hush money, not a coin of it could have come cheap.
But what gnawed at the boy was something else entirely.
Even a ducal house would not have kept that much coin on hand — so how had his own family produced it so freely?
That it had taken years of tax evasion and the lifeblood of his own peasants, squeezed dry — that was a secret this man alone carried. Caught, he would have paid dearly; but he had believed that in a country he would soon rule as Emperor, so much could be allowed.
And then, overnight, that dream had collapsed.
Because of the precious son he had treasured above all else.
"Why didn't you just die?! Why didn't you drive a blade into your own throat right there?!!"
"Fa...Father..."
"Silence!! As of today, you are no son of mine."
"Wh...what?!"
"Get out of my house this instant!! You worthless fool!!"
"I...I'm sorry!! I was wrong!! Father!!"
"You there!! Throw this thing out at once!!"
Before long, the servants seized him by his arms and legs and dragged him from the room. He wept and wailed for his father without end, but no answer ever came.
"Unhand me!! Do you have any idea who I am?!"
"Our apologies, young master."
With a whoosh!, he was flung out the front gate — and the gate shut fast behind him.
At first, he denied it. Then, he raged against it. And in the end, he resigned himself to it — to the fact that he had been cast away.
Even as he walked, the tears would not dry, and the injustice threatening to burst out of him had nowhere to turn.
All he had done was teach an eyesore a lesson. How on earth had it come to this? The question gnawed at him without answer.
And so, mumbling a tangled knot of resentment and curses, he drifted into the back alleys — where, at some point, not a single sound of the street reached his ears anymore. Realizing it, the boy dropped into a wary stance.
He waited a long while, but nothing appeared. Dismissing it as his imagination, he turned to leave the alley —
Shwooom—
— the space behind him warped and buckled, and a man stepped out.
He wore a white clown mask frozen in a grin, his whole body swallowed by an enormous black robe — a figure anyone would call suspicious at a single glance.
As the boy warily faced the man who had appeared from nowhere, a profoundly alien voice slid from the man's throat — a voice no one could ever have mistaken for human.
"Wouldn't you like... to take your revenge?"
It made no sense. He couldn't even tell who the man before him was — so how could he know of the revenge the boy craved?
The boy clenched his jaw shut and said nothing. And still, the mask's grin seemed to curl a little higher.
"Who are you..."
"Ahahaha!! My, my — I never did introduce myself."
"I asked you who you are!!"
"I am 'Kunvel.'"
"Kunvel? I've never heard of anyone by that name."
"Why, I'm a fairy, you see. A wish-granting fairy."
The boy wrote it off as nonsense.
A fairy — prancing around looking like that? He looked far closer to a demon, or a Majin.
Ignoring the man's words, the boy made to leave the alley — but before he could, a feeling began to bloom in his chest: the longing for someone, anyone, to hear out the injustice done to him.
Shaken to his core by everything that had happened that day, the boy slowly began to pour it all out. And as he listened, the man called Kunvel seemed to change — the grin on his mask climbing higher and higher.
"Oh dear?! How terribly unjust!!"
"Exactly... none of it was my fault... so why must I be the one made to suffer like this!"
"Don't you want revenge?"
"Of course I want it!!"
But soon enough, the boy lowered his head.
He knew all too well how powerless he was.
He hadn't even managed to beat the boy he'd looked down on — what chance did he have against the Chairwoman?
However he turned it over, no path to vengeance existed — and as he sank toward despair, the masked man drew near once more.
"I shall... give you power."
"Power...?"
"The power to take your revenge!!!"
"How...?"
At his question, the masked man produced — from who knew where — a purple crystal and placed it in his hand.
"You need only embed it within your body."
"And why should I trust a word you say?"
"Oh, it's no concern of mine whether you do? Weren't you the one who needed power?"
Unable to refute a single word of it, the boy ground his teeth until they grated — and took the crystal from the man's palm.
"And what is it you want..."
"Hmm... I simply wish to watch your revenge unfold!!"
"That's all...?"
"What more could I possibly need? Kukuku."
Leaving the man to his skin-crawling laughter, the boy turned to go — but the man caught him one last time and pressed a sheet of paper into his hand.
"And what's this, now."
"Use it when there is someone you wish to kill."
"..."
"Within the Academy, you can never escape the Chairwoman's eyes... but her eyes can be veiled, if only for the briefest of moments."
"How does it work?"
"Hold the one you wish to kill in your mind, steep every stroke in your killing intent, and trace these characters down the page."
As he spoke, the man handed over a second sheet, crowded edge to edge with script the boy had never seen before.
"And then — if you tear this paper in front of the one you wish to kill?!!!"
"...What happens then?"
"You will be carried away to a space where only the two of you exist."
"Ku...kuheheh. Good. I'll do exactly as you say."
With a parting word of good fortune, the man vanished once more — and the moment he did, the sounds of the street, so eerily silenced, came flooding back into the boy's ears.
All that remained in the back alley were the leaves scattering on the wind and a lone silhouette walking slowly toward somewhere — and, drifting after them, a murmur from no discernible source.
"I will... kill you... without fail..."