Midterm Evaluation (15)
"Oh ho..."
"Wh-what... what is that?"
"...Wasn't that supposed to be an Intermediate-Rank Demonic Beast?"
The professors who had been watching the cadets so intently fell into confusion, every last one of them. This was an opponent no ordinary cadet could hope to beat — among intermediate-rank beasts, that wolf was by no means a weak specimen. Worse still, thanks to the mutation of the low-rank beasts that had accompanied it, not a single cadet remained at his side to help. In other words, he had been left with no choice but to face an intermediate-rank demonic beast utterly alone.
Not one professor had believed a lone cadet could defeat an intermediate-rank beast, and some had even gone so far as to propose deciding in advance who would go collect him once he failed. No one had harbored even a flicker of hope for him — and that made it all the harder for anyone to believe what was unfolding before their eyes.
He cut.
A slash neither too slow nor too fast — and yet so achingly beautiful, like a halo ringed around the moon. Even the professors who prided themselves on no small knowledge of the sword could not carelessly find fault with it.
"...That cadet... what is his name?"
"...How did that boy..."
"That sword art... what is it called..."
Even the professors who had never paid Jenison the slightest attention stood with their mouths hanging open, while those who already knew him were too busy doubting their own eyes.
Just as the professors each began sinking into their own bewilderment, the Chairwoman — watching that same screen alongside them — was reeling from a considerable shock of her own.
'...Impressive.'
She was a woman so thoroughly devoted to magic that one could fairly call her ignorant of the sword, and even she could judge that Jenison's slash was far beyond the level of an ordinary cadet.
Moreover, his body itself was deeply intriguing. Torn off whole, severed, or crushed to pulp — by the time anyone looked, an arm had simply grown back in its place. No human body could perform such a feat.
He offered his own flesh to the enemy and, in exchange, went straight for the kill. It was less the tactic of a knight or a mage than the movement of an assassin. He fought like a human being built for one purpose alone: to kill.
Which was precisely why the question refused to leave her head. Why was Jenison fighting that beast out there at all?
She had warned him beforehand, plainly enough: if his results in this midterm evaluation were judged insufficient, he would have to return the artifact he had taken. Taking back what one had given was, admittedly, the deed of a petty man — but perhaps because of the notoriety he had piled up over the years, so many professors had objected to handing him an artifact in the first place.
'This is unacceptable, Chairwoman! How could you give such a thing to a boy like that...'
'Our own son deserves it far more than the likes of him...'
Among them, every so often, came the arrogant ones who would sidle up and insinuate that if there was an artifact to spare, it ought to go to their own children or their house instead. Had anyone else witnessed it, they might have pointed fingers — however slow she was to anger, this was insolence beyond pardon toward a 9th-Circle archmage. But then, the Academy's treasury was opened so rarely, and a privilege like this had never existed before.
That a chance to hand-pick an artifact would pass to a student already severed from the Academy sat so poorly with them that a great many people came to see her within a single day — the vice-principal among them.
'Um... Chairwoman...'
'What is it?'
'With all due respect... opening the treasury is...'
'...You as well, I take it?'
'Frankly, I cannot so easily bring myself to believe that cadet has truly changed...'
'...He is a cadet I judged with my own eyes. Does everyone truly share your opinion?'
'...Forgive my presumption, but... why not put it to the test in the midterm evaluation...?'
With even the vice-principal lending the demand his weight, she could no longer simply stand by and watch, and so she had agreed, privately, to grant his request and follow their counsel. Even if he came asking for a different artifact instead, she had intended to oblige. After all, it was their side that had gone back on its word first.
Which meant that even if he had coasted through lazily, she could have accepted it. His actions, however, had blown clean past every expectation.
He had rescued the Saintess, had his arm torn from its socket, and been beaten until his whole body was a rag — and in a situation where anyone else would have given up and fled a dozen times over, he had not run. If anything, he had gone so far as to prove his strength.
'He has certainly changed. That much is certain.'
The Jenison of old would surely have fled, worrying only for his own skin. And just as she found herself certain of it once more, someone approached her wearing an uneasy expression.
"Um... C-Chairwoman, ma'am."
"What is it, Kaede."
"In Sector 18... the number of cadets... it's dropping far too quickly."
"..."
The darkness falls.
The shadow, too, freezes where it stands.
The black king that had so haughtily ravaged its prey had surrendered its heart to that shadow.
Its ruby-red eyes, once gleaming, slowly lost their light, and before long grey began to wash over the crimson. The forepaws that had flinched and the lolling tongue went still, and the yelping that had echoed for a moment sounded no more.
And I, too — thinking the deed done — felt my tension snap loose in an instant, and only then could I properly face the scream welling up inside my body.
It hurt.
The body that had been riding its frenzy began to settle. As the adrenaline drained away and my heartbeat slowed, the pain across my entire body came flooding back.
I had managed, barely, to reproduce Nine Swords Under the Moon — but this body of mine, far from fully developed, had paid dearly for it, the strain piling on with every breath.
My legs refused to move and my hands shook without end, and I resented them for it. In this state, dreaming of going to help the others was out of the question, and if any other beast set its sights on me, I couldn't have resisted at all.
Thinking so, I looked around — and thankfully, the situation seemed all but settled.
There was the Saintess, peerless in the healing arts, and the Imperial Princess and Isabella, whose skill could hardly be called that of ordinary cadets. With Albert and Huven holding the line up front, the beasts couldn't break through and had no choice but to be cut down, helpless. And with the beast that had led them dead, it was only natural their morale had crumbled.
The scales were tipping steadily our way — welcome news for someone who could no longer lift a finger to help.
Slowly letting out my ragged breath, I tried to fish out the cigarette I'd hidden away with a violently trembling hand, but —
"You!! Are you insane?!"
"..."
The Saintess, who had come running at some point, stopped me cold.
"You think this is the time for a smoke?! You're a minor, for crying out loud!!"
"It's not tobacco, but... my apologies."
Push the argument any further and the mood said I'd genuinely take a hit, so an apology was all I could manage.
"...Aren't we still in the middle of a battle, though?"
"At this point they're as good as all caught. And right now, you're the one in the worst shape."
"...I see."
"I don't know how your body even looks intact, but that's only the outside. The inside of you is a complete wreck right now!!"
Hearing that, I realized the shoulder I'd fabricated creaked with every rotation, and strangely enough, the arm itself felt as though no blood was reaching it. It was an arm thrown together in haste, the whole process of properly reconnecting the vessels skipped entirely — so in the Saintess's eyes, I must have looked like a cripple with a dead limb.
"Still, if it's to save you, Saintess..."
"Oh, shut it. Have a little care for your own body, will you."
"...Your language is getting rougher by the minute."
One more word and she looked genuinely liable to snap my arm again, so I let out a sigh and quietly submitted to her treatment — and before I knew it, Shino, her presence muted to nothing, was sitting beside me.
"...?"
"Hi there."
"...The fight isn't even over ye—"
"You were amazing!"
"...??"
Out of nowhere she paid me a compliment, then began pelting me with questions like a storm. What was that sword technique from moments ago? How had I pulled off that final movement? She even insisted that my talent was clearly supposed to lie somewhere else entirely.
The machine-gun barrage briefly knocked the soul out of me, and then my eyes caught the Saintess scolding her — the patient is under treatment, don't disturb him — along with the rest of our party, who had at some point swept away every last remaining beast and come to join us.
"Jenison!! You're all ri... no, I suppose not."
"D-does it hurt?!"
"..."
Albert, who had been running toward me, swallowed the rest of his concern at the sight of the blood splattered everywhere and the things that used to be my arm lying far off, while Lianna, seeing my clothes drenched through with blood, asked after my body with a face ready to burst into tears at any moment. Isabella and the Imperial Princess, too, wore grave expressions at the sight of my tattered arms, and I thought I caught faint words of praise slipping from the Princess's lips.
"Impressive, without a doubt."
"...!"
At that moment, an unfamiliar voice came from behind me, and reflexively — myself included — everyone turned to look.
"Ah, my apologies if I startled you."
"Professor Frenche?"
"Hm, seems you know me, so no introduction needed."
"What brings you here... if I may ask."
"Oh, it's nothing much, so don't worry, Albert my boy. I've simply come to take that fellow lying over there with me."
Despite a voice that suggested considerable age, he was the professor famed for overflowing with middle-aged charm — Professor Frenche. Even with the Saintess having treated him all this while, the reason he hadn't woken must have been that he was simply out cold.
"Well, honestly, I never thought you'd be the one to take this fellow down."
"..."
"I'd heard the rumor you'd changed, but I never took it for the truth. People don't change that easily, you see. Nor did I expect anyone to change this much."
"No, sir."
"Heh heh. A cold wind blowing sharp out here. I'll be off first, then. Do pray you survive to the very end..."
As Professor Frenche carried on the conversation with a smile, his face at some point shed that smile entirely, his expression hardening beyond measure. Following his gaze, I found a single man standing there — and as he drew near, I could make out his appearance.
A man drenched head to toe in blood.
"...What in the world happened to you, Cadet Leon?"
"...Would you kindly step aside, Professor Frenche?"
"...I'm afraid I can't do that."
"..."
"Least of all for a Majin."
At the word Professor Frenche spat out, we all went wide-eyed and could only watch the scene unfold.
"Heh heh... how did you know?"
"That is none of your concern. You do know what it means to be a Majin, don't you?"
"..."
"From this moment on, I, Frenche Kuran, am placing you under arrest."
"...Khehehehehe."
As he finished speaking, blue chains woven of mana writhed in Professor Frenche's hand, and at the sight of them, Leon simply went on laughing.
"...What's so funny."
"...Heh heh."
Instead of answering, Leon turned his gaze past the professor — toward us — and Professor Frenche, perhaps mindful of that look, squared his stance and pressed on.
"Do I look like a man who couldn't protect a single soul from the likes of you?"
"..."
"I guarantee you this — you will never lay a hand on anyone ever agai—"
The professor's attention, mid-sentence, snapped to the paper Leon had drawn from inside his coat, and paying no heed to the professor lunging at him, Leon tore the paper to ribbons.
"..!"
"....!!"
In that instant, something seemed to keep swirling at the edge of my hearing, but it was far too garbled to make out; something felt as though it were filling me up from above, dry heaves began to claw their way up my throat — and before long, my vision died.