Skill Evaluation (5)
I snatched victory from my spar with Arlan.
From that point on, everything went off without a hitch.
"Ugh!"
"That's enough!"
At the instructor's call, I released the arm I'd been wrenching behind my opponent's back. The guy slumped where he stood and stayed there, utterly motionless, for a good while.
That makes three.
I wiped the sweat streaming down my forehead with my sleeve. My body was so drained it felt ready to collapse at any moment, but my mind had never been clearer.
Finally done.
Three duels, three wins — the evaluation was over. I'd half expected to get flattened without managing a single victory, but somehow I'd squeaked past the average.
Seriously, what even is a skill evaluation, that I'm putting myself through this hell? I'd figured I could coast through it half-asleep, but it had taken a desperate last stand just to scrape by.
Chloe, are you seeing this? Are you watching me bust my ass to get your name onto the student council candidate list? Consider this debt repaid double, someday — that's a promise.
Anyway, with that, the biggest hurdle was behind me.
I dropped onto the nearest bench and caught my breath.
"You worked hard out there."
Arlan had crept up on me as I slumped back against the bench. She held out a white handkerchief embroidered with red flowers.
"What's this?"
"You're soaked in sweat. Wipe yourself off properly."
"Hmm, thanks."
I accepted it with care, pressed it gently to my face, gave myself a quick once-over, and handed it back. "Here."
"Ehh? You could've been a little rougher with it, you know."
"It's borrowed, isn't it? I should treat it with respect."
I couldn't speak for anything else, but that handkerchief had look written all over it.
In Academy Yuri Princess, Arlan mentioned it often as a keepsake. It had been made for her by the one person who stood beside her and cheered her on while the whole world knew her secret and pointed fingers behind her back.
Whatever its original purpose, I had no intention of staining that pure white cloth with grime.
"Actually, let me ask you one thing. Why did you forfeit the match?"
Arlan might not have been on Eva's level, but she was a born talent when it came to magic. Her emerald eyes were exceptional at tracking the flow of mana.
In the moment I hesitated, her eyes would have caught it — my mana vanishing like burnt ash.
"That match was yours to win. If you'd thrown even one spell at me, I'd have gone down without lifting a finger."
"If you want to put it that way, then when you knocked me down, Master Solis, you could have just pinned me with a strike and ended it there."
"It's just a spar. Fighting to the point of drawing blood feels like a bit much."
"If it were anyone else, they'd have beaten my face in like a crushed tin can if that's what it took to win."
"Really?"
I answered with a question, but inwardly I agreed with her.
Purity Academy stood at the heart of a brutally competitive world. Talents welcomed wherever they went — and then the prodigies gathered here, prodigies brilliant enough to make even those talents pale in comparison.
Most students who entered this famed academy on the strength of their gifts hit a wall and sank into disillusionment. Some refused to give up and pushed harder; others, after enough despair, simply went crooked. Eva, the wall that everyone else ran up against, only stood out less because she was the novel's protagonist. The author had hammered the point home by constantly narrating from other characters' perspectives.
"You didn't want me to get hurt, Master Solis. When I saw you hesitate to strike me, my own resolve wavered too."
"So you surrendered?"
"Yes!"
A crisp, unhesitating answer. The way she beamed was as bright and dazzling as the sun overhead.
Gah, so kind! THIS is what a heroine looks like.
Watching Arlan display a warmth of character on a completely different plane from Chloe, I secretly wiped away a tear.
"I'm grateful, but are you going to be okay? One slip and you could lose your top seat."
Arlan, like Chloe, had enrolled as the top of her class and enjoyed all the benefits that came with it. But the top seat at Purity Academy was one that could change hands at any time. By conceding victory to me, she'd recorded zero wins and might well fail to score above the average — meaning her rivals could surge right past her. Chloe and Ter were both fighting tooth and nail to stay ahead of the pack.
"I'll make it up at the next evaluation. Besides, I don't really cling to things like that."
"Really?"
In the original story, Arlan had been even more obsessive about the top seat than Chloe. That's... a little different from the girl I knew?
Well, whatever. Things were going smoothly, and that was all that mattered. Around here, the best move was to not think too hard — notice, shut your mouth, and move on.
I zipped my lips shut and slumped back against the bench like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Found you."
Just as I was about to close my eyes and rest for a moment, a familiar voice called out to me.
"Marin?"
"Yeah. It's me, Solis."
She stood before me, voice perfectly flat, without a trace of emotion as always. The usual Marin. Nothing seemed different.
On the surface, anyway.
Pinch!
"Ow — what now?"
"Because."
Marin grabbed my cheek and stretched it out like she was pulling mozzarella off a pizza. Her mischievous little prank left me with a stinging ache.
"Eva's on her second match right now. Let's go cheer for her."
"Go with Arlan. I need to rest."
A second match meant she'd already won one. That put everyone above average. Objective achieved. All that was left was to stretch out and rest comfortably — so was there really any reason for me to spend time and energy watching?
"Follow me."
"Ow, ow, ow."
So that wasn't an invitation. It was a summons. With no strength left to resist her, I let myself be dragged along helplessly. What could I do? In my current state, I didn't have the power to fight back. I had no choice but to follow in silence.
"C-come on, let's all go together!"
Arlan hurried after us, and the three of us headed for the arena where Eva was fighting.
BOOM! CRASH!
CRACKLE!
A dazzling spectacle of magic visible even from a distance — a scene like the heavens and earth themselves being torn asunder. I couldn't help but gasp in awe.
"You're all here?"
Chloe was watching the match from the spectator stands. She greeted us as we arrived, though her eyes never left the arena.
"Who the hell is Eva fighting, that it's this loud?"
"Come see for yourself."
Instead of answering my question, she simply patted the empty seat beside her, as if to say an explanation was unnecessary. I settled into it and turned my attention to the match.
"Eeek!"
Eva cowered behind her summoned doll — Mongle. Huddling, flinching, scrambling in utter disarray, she had shrunk into herself with no idea what to do.
She's getting completely pushed back.
Eva wasn't even managing to fight back. Defending was the best she could do. And yet someone was overwhelming her — someone at Purity Academy, no less. I squinted across the arena at her opponent, trying to figure out who it could possibly be.
"This is the archmage material the Amethyst family brags about? What a joke!"
Ter Citrine. The top student of the Scouting class was on the offensive, full throttle.
THUD! CRACK!
Blue lightning poured down in bursts amid flashing light from the sky. Her signature mana, charged with electricity, blazed as it hunted Eva down.
"Mweeee!!!"
Eva's familiar — Mongle, as she was known — puffed her body up as large as she could manage and blocked the thunderbolt hurled at her master. A desperate resolve to protect her owner. Lightning of righteous fury, worthy of being called heaven's own judgment, and she stopped it dead with nothing but a tiny body covered in soft down.
"She's holding up better than I expected."
"I'm shocked too. I didn't think that familiar was capable of this."
Marin was impressed; Chloe was flat-out stunned. Watching Mongle sacrifice herself body and soul to shield her master — a living embodiment of the words heroic devotion — even the observing instructors secretly dabbed at their eyes.
"Mweee..."
"M-Mongle!"
But the limit came all the same. The doll's body had been scorched black, burned to ash in places, with barely a spot left unmarked. In the end, Mongle slumped to the ground, wheezing out a weary breath. Eva rushed to her side, frantically checking on her.
"Damn it. This thing's annoyingly stubborn."
Ter, having poured out mana without a moment's rest, was looking worn herself. She caught her ragged breath, wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth, and gathered mana into her hand.
She intended to end it here.
Heaven's Prison — the most powerful technique Ter could wield without drawing out her Divine Relic. Thousands upon thousands of bolts condensed into a single point, forming a sphere made of pure lightning. She flicked the compressed energy off her fingertip.
RUMBLE—
Thunder split the air. The blue flash flew even faster, arcing ahead of the sound itself. In the blink of an eye, the sphere of electricity had reached Mongle — and just as the enormous energy within it began to unleash its suppressed power—
"No! Not yet!"
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Eva's desperate cry. A clock-shaped sigil flared to life on the nape of her neck. The steady ticking of the second hand began to slow, little by little.
Tock. Tock.
And then — time stopped.
Mongle, the sphere Ter had fired, everything froze as though painted onto a still frame. In the midst of that eerie tableau, Ter's eyes went wide.
"What... is this...?"
"Haha, I surrender! I give up, so please stop hurting Mongle!"
One woman alone could still move in that frozen, impossible scene. Eva bawled her eyes out and raised the white flag, begging that this be the last such fight.
The match was decided. Victory went to the top student of the Scouting class — Ter Citrine.