Skill Evaluation (6)
"Mongle, Momo, come on—please wake up!"
Eva cradled the doll, now burned pitch-black, and sobbed.
Swollen teardrops overflowed from her amethyst eyes, one after another, soaking into the doll's fuzzy fur.
"Pweeee…"
In the fading light, the doll lifted its dazed little eyes to look at Eva one last time.
"Pwee."
He laid a soft, squishy hand gently against her cheek.
It was as if he were saying: I'm okay. Thank you for worrying about me.
"Pwee…"
And then, as though that had been his final flicker of strength, his hand went limp and fell away.
"MONGLEEE!"
His tongue lolled out as he slumped, closing his eyes with the most peaceful expression he'd ever worn.
Shaaah!
His body crumbled to powder and scattered on the wind.
Eva held what remained of him and wept bitter, wrenching sobs.
Those of us watching from the sidelines were struck speechless by the tragedy of it all, quietly wiping away our tears.
"Sniff… what are we going to do with our Eva?"
"Poor thing."
"How can anyone be this cruel?"
"Ter, that was mean of you."
Each of us offered a word of tribute to Mongle as we mourned.
R.I.P.
Rest in peace
Farewell, Mongle.
"Stop spouting nonsense!"
"Whoa, you startled me. What's your deal, Ter?"
"He took damage, so his summon got forcibly recalled! Why are you all bawling your eyes out like it's a funeral?"
Ter ground her teeth and glared at the lot of us.
Her eyes, fixed on Eva in particular, were positively dripping with venom.
"Hey, you. Can't you take this seriously? Does this look like a game to you?"
"Nobody's actually trying to kill each other—it's just students fighting to score well, so it's friendly competition."
"I wasn't asking you, so shut it!"
Grrr. Ter bared her teeth like a growling dog.
One more word from me and she looked ready to grab me by the hair and tear me apart.
Ah, what a shame I can only watch this delicious fight from the cheap seats.
I want in too.
If only my mana were back to normal, I'd be right in the middle of it, stirring the pot for fun.
Unfortunately, this was the time to take a step back and observe.
"She did the same thing against the other students, too. She'd wall herself off with the doll, then hide behind it and coast."
"Eva did that?"
"Yep. In the end, her opponent wore themselves out and surrendered, and she took the win."
At Marin's words, I could picture exactly what strategy Eva had employed in her bouts.
I understood she'd arrived at it after exhausting every peaceful option she had—but still.
"Isn't that just teabagging?"
"Teabagging?"
"It means deliberately toying with and mocking an opponent you could easily defeat."
"Understood."
If she'd pulled that routine not just against Ter but in every sparring match, then to any observer it could only look like taunting.
And I worked her so hard in practice precisely to keep this kind of thing from coming up.
Eva's skill evaluation scores in the web novel had been absolutely pitiful.
A level barely worthy of the archmage pedigree House Amethyst so proudly flaunted.
A zero on the written exam was a given—she hadn't studied.
Even the practical crumbled under the weight of the instructors' expectations, and her scores plummeted into the abyss.
She'd won exactly one duel, but the moment Ter Citrine appeared as her next opponent, she went down like a whipped dog.
It was the same setup as back then.
The only difference was that in the original, Ter simply ignored her and moved on, whereas this time she'd actually stoked Ter's anger.
It was better than being dismissed outright, but given all the sweat she'd poured into training, I'd honestly hoped she'd win.
She'd cast offensive magic just fine when sparring with me and the others, so I hadn't seen any reason to warn her.
Heck, even during training with Arlan, she'd unveiled her spells with total confidence.
And then in an actual match, she faces Ter with nothing but passive, defensive footwork.
Granted, she only ever came out on our outings dragged along by force, but she'd been going out so often lately that I'd assumed some of that timidity had worn off. Guess I was wrong.
"I-I did do it properly…"
Eva murmured the words half to herself in response to Ter's accusation.
She clearly wanted to say she'd done the best she could—but to Ter's ears, it was a joke of a claim.
"Properly? Then answer me one question."
Ter strode up to Eva and seized her by the shoulder.
Her face, twisted into something ugly, loomed over the girl's terrified one.
"That spell that blocked my thunderbolt earlier. Why didn't you use it against me?"
Time Freeze.
Her secret art—the ability to designate a location and halt time itself.
She was asking about a spell handed down to Eva by her father, Tyrone Amethyst, the man once called the world's only archmage.
"Th-that's… it's not meant to be used on people."
Even under Ter's withering glare, Eva didn't cave.
As though this one thing she would never yield, she held the girl's gaze to the very end.
"Oh-ho."
A flicker of genuine interest crossed Ter's face.
The girl who'd been stammering and stumbling a moment ago had suddenly found her spine—and it seemed to amuse her.
"That's enough. Leave it there."
Chloe, who'd been watching the whole thing, cut in between the two of them.
She blocked Ter's path so that Eva wouldn't have to suffer any more of this.
"Well, well, well. Look who it is. And what, pray tell, is the top student of the Combat Track doing here?"
"I'm the group leader and a friend, obviously. I came to watch the match. And you're one to talk—you know full well what things are like between me and Eva."
Crackle!
Sparks flew between Chloe and Ter.
Two geniuses yielding not a single inch—the tension of their staredown was enough to make the onlookers' palms sweat.
"Um, if you're all done here, why don't we go eat together? Dinner's almost starting."
"I want pork cutlet."
"Perfect timing, actually. I'm getting hungry myself—Eva, what do you think?"
"Uh-uh, sure, let's do that."
Ah—but of course, none of this applied to us.
No one gathered here was frail enough to be cowed by a little staring contest like this one.
"Ahem!"
Chloe, left awkwardly hanging for no good reason, coughed to paper over the moment.
The red creeping across her face suggested she at least knew how embarrassing that had been.
"Hmm~."
Ter, on the other hand, curled her lips into a smirk, like a film critic savoring a particularly juicy scene.
"Then I'll have udon, maybe?"
"Why are you inviting yourself along?"
"What's the problem? Friends can eat together, can't they?"
Shameless didn't even cover it—Ter radiated the kind of audacity that came with sticking her tongue out.
Chloe could only gape at her.
There it is. Ter's version of social networking.
I'd seen this scene play out plenty of times in the original.
Whenever Ter found someone who intrigued her, she had a habit of forcing a friendship on them whether they liked it or not.
The wider her circle in high society grew, the easier it became to isolate Yupi.
Chloe, being one of Yupi's closest friends, had always pointedly ignored her.
But this party had two top students, the blood of an archmage, and a Divine Artifact bearer besides.
If Ter could sense that much from the raw aura everyone unconsciously gave off—and she could—then these were talents far too valuable to let slip by.
"You were ready to eat Eva alive a minute ago, and now you're acting all buddy-buddy? Don't come near her!"
"Aww, let's not sweat the small stuff. I'm just offering to share a meal—what's the harm?"
Even under Chloe's accusing finger, Ter wrapped herself in shameless evasion, gliding over like an elegant swan to lean casually against Eva's shoulder.
"I'm sorry about earlier. When you surrendered even though that spell would've given you a guaranteed win, I thought you were mocking me. My bad, 'kay?"
"Oh… oh, so that's how it was."
"You'll forgive me, right? Right?"
"Uuugh."
Under those glittering sapphire eyes, bright as scattered stars, Eva's face drained bone-white.
Ter had closed the distance without a shred of hesitation, and Eva's eyes rolled back as if she might pass out on the spot.
For a shut-in like Eva, this was… a lot of stimulus.
"So let's eat together, 'kay?"
"Uh, um… well…"
"'Well'? That's a yes!"
Ter seized on Eva's flustered stammering in an instant and rammed her approval straight through.
Knowing Eva's personality, there was no way she'd have the guts to say otherwise now.
"That settles it, right, Lady Opal?"
She asked again, as if soliciting a formal blessing.
With the apology already on the table, there was no official reason Ter couldn't join the meal—but Chloe still wore a sour, unconvinced expression.
"Eva can allow it all she wants. I still say no. And so will everyone else here."
"Oh? Then I'll take that to mean I just need the rest of you to say yes."
Ter strutted confidently toward our side of the circle.
Chloe communicated her wishes to us through sheer facial expression alone.
Say no.
She was mouthing every syllable, drilling it in for all she was worth.
"I… I want to eat with you. Is that not okay?"
"Fine."
Of course, Marin was never going to refuse just because someone expected her to.
Having felt no particular need to turn her down, she seemed perfectly content to make room for one more.
I could hear the sound of Chloe's blood pressure spiking from here.
That made two.
One more yes, and Ter would have wedged herself into the dinner table.
She's coming my way.
Made sense—I had more rapport with her than Arlan did, so I was the easier mark.
"You're fine with it, right?"
"And what happens if I say no?"
Instead of answering, I turned the question back on her.
I decided to sit back and enjoy watching exactly how Ter Citrine planned to persuade me.
Slide.
She pressed herself flush against me.
The soft warmth of her skin pushing against mine.
Her frankly lethal chest wrapped around my arm.
So she thinks this much skinship is enough to buy me off?
I was just about to compliment her nerve—
Squish.
—right up until her balloon-soft breasts found their way into my hand.
"I'll let you grope these all you want later."
"You're hired."
The sheer, overwhelming scale of them made my mind go blank.
This feeling—this was, without question, love.