Shutra Magic Academy (2-4)
Before we knew it, evening had settled in. Luna and I locked the club room door and set off toward the dormitory.
The whole way back, she kept glancing at me with a worried look.
"Will you be all right?"
"Hmm…"
She had every reason to worry. After teaching me today, she would have gotten a rough sense of where I stood — that at my current level, I fell far short of Louis's grades. Losing would have been humiliating enough on its own. Having a wager riding on it made it worse.
She doesn't know the full picture, so of course she's fretting.
For the written exams, even if the knowledge wasn't truly mine, I was confident I could match him or come out on top. The practicals were another matter. If Louis managed to land in the top ranks on the written portion alongside me, my loss in the practicals was all but guaranteed.
I looked up at the crescent moon hanging in the sky and hummed under my breath.
"I'll just have to give it everything I've got."
"…"
My answer clearly wasn't enough for her. No matter how confident you sounded, losing still meant the end. Luna fell silent as we walked, then stopped mid-stride and quietly looked at me.
I noticed she'd halted and turned back. She stood right behind me, gazing up as she spoke.
"If this is because of me, I can go talk to Louis myself and—"
"No."
"…"
She started trying to persuade me again. I cut her off and shook my head.
"I'm not going into this sitting around hoping I get lucky and win. Whatever else happens…"
"…?"
"I will not let myself look pathetic in front of you. So don't worry."
"…All right."
A small smile touched her lips as she started walking toward the dormitory again.
"I'll do my absolute best teaching you until then, too."
"Thanks."
"And if…"
"…?"
"Even if you lose, please don't take it to heart. I'll still be right here beside you."
"…Thank you."
Her comfort drew a smile out of me before I could stop it. But the smile didn't last long.
In the distance, a man was staring our way as he slowly approached. Even as a silhouette swallowed by the dark, I knew who it was at a glance — tall, lean, and carrying a bearing that had grown considerably coarser than before.
The moment Louis reached us, he ignored Luna entirely and looked me over with a sneer.
"Studying hard, are we?"
"Eh, more or less."
"Hmph…"
Just picking a fight? Then why bother asking?
I thought that would be the end of it — until Louis's brow furrowed as his gaze shifted to Luna. Even so, he didn't say a word to her. He simply stared at her for a long, piercing moment, then suddenly raised his hand and stepped closer.
It didn't look like he meant to hit her or make a threat, so both of us watched carefully, trying to figure out what he was doing.
Louis pinched something off Luna's shoulder and lifted it between his fingers. The light from the streetlamps along the path caught it clearly — a slender strand with a glossy black sheen.
A hair. A curly one, at that.
And given where it had been stuck on her shoulder, there was no mystery about whose it was.
Oh, for fuck's sake… why the hell was that stuck there?
I was startled enough, but Luna's pupils were shaking like a magnitude-eight earthquake warning.
The second Louis saw the hair, he ground his teeth and his face twisted into a fury he hadn't shown until now. Holding my hair between his fingers, he glared at me and started scolding.
"You're with a woman and you can't even check something like this properly?"
"…?"
"There's a hair stuck to Luna's clothes!"
"…Huh?"
Something was off. Anyone with eyes could tell it was pubic hair, yet Louis was absolutely certain the strand in his hand was from Luna's head, and he was dressing me down for it.
"A commoner brat who can't even handle something this basic."
"…Louis."
Luna didn't get angry. If anything, she looked relieved that the truth hadn't come out. Louis, emboldened by her reaction, flicked the hair onto the ground, strutted in front of her for a moment, then left us behind and headed for the dormitory.
I watched him go and offered a silent prayer of thanks.
…Appreciate you cleaning up my hair for me.
After parting ways with Luna, I went straight back to my dorm room and started talking with Armonia.
The practicals, huh…
She was right. I'd considered boosting my magical power right away, but the Enel I currently had wouldn't raise it by much. And if I spent it only to find out the exam didn't require magical power at all, I'd be in an even worse bind.
For now, Armonia was the only one I could rely on.
Got it.
I'd answered confidently enough, but one worry still nagged at me.
Will I actually be able to focus on studying tomorrow?
Something told me I'd end up drunk on Luna's scent again and jump her the moment I got the chance…
Fair point… From her perspective, the written exams look more dangerous than the practicals.
Which meant there was no reason to force myself through subjects that didn't even have a practical component. So right now, there was only one thing I needed to do.
I sat down at the desk in my dorm room, set out the textbooks for Special Magic Studies and Basic Attribute Studies, and grumbled.
Haa… I hate studying.
Yeah, yeah…
And so, for the first time in my life, I opened a book and started studying — for a woman.
Three professors of advanced years sat on a terrace, chatting among themselves.
"Exam season again."
"Indeed. Getting the Headmaster to approve the exam content is always a headache."
"Well, he is thorough to a fault…"
The three of them were discussing the most important event on the school's calendar: the examinations. From first year through third, every exam question was written by the professors — and every single question those professors produced was reviewed by the Headmaster, not one character overlooked. Only after surviving his evaluation could a question be reborn as an official exam sheet.
"By the way, I hear there's a Lightning-attribute student this term?"
"Ah… there was one, yes. How are they even going to test that?"
"…The Headmaster said he'll handle both the written and practical portions himself."
"Good heavens. What did that poor student ever do to deserve that?"
The professor who'd asked the question laughed and offered a word of sympathy for a student he'd never even met.
Then one of them turned toward the oldest-looking among them.
"Professor Magta, what became of that matter from before?"
Magta Geut. Currently Shutra's Chief Professor, and the eldest among the faculty — an elderly woman with white hair. She answered without ceremony.
"Ah… the dead Assistant Professor incident, you mean?"
"Yes. It's been quieter than I expected. I thought they'd have caught the culprit by now."
"It's been buried."
"…Pardon?"
The other professor also looked puzzled and turned his gaze on her. Under their sustained stares, Magta closed her eyes and murmured quietly.
"The Headmaster ordered us to let it pass quietly."
"…Is that true?"
"The Headmaster wants us to simply move on when one of the school's own people has died…?"
Both of them were stunned. Even if the Assistant Professor's dismissal had already been finalized, he had still been affiliated with Shutra at the time of his death. The Headmaster — no matter how the world judged him a villain — was a man who looked after his own without fail.
The three professors on that terrace averaged ninety years of age. They had watched the Headmaster for seventy years since enrolling at Shutra, and they thought they knew the man well.
"It is the Headmaster's decision. There will be a sound reason for it."
Magta looked up at the sky with an expression that suggested it was nothing of great concern.
"Still… have either of you felt that the Headmaster has been different lately?"
"Hmm? Well… to my eyes he seems as cheerful as ever…"
"That's because you've been nursing a crush on him since the day you enrolled at Shutra, Professor Magta. The rest of us merely revere him — we don't notice those sorts of things…"
"You absolute lunatic!"
Magta's bellow set the other two laughing. She smiled along with them, but she couldn't quite erase the unease lingering in her chest.
Am I imagining things?
She was the Chief Professor who had spent more time at his side than anyone. Outwardly he was always smiling, always conducting himself as usual. And yet Magta kept sensing some unnameable, alien shift in the Headmaster.
I'm overreacting. Of all people, the Headmaster wouldn't suddenly change.
With that, she set aside thoughts of him and spent the rest of the time talking with the other professors about other things.
Luna looked down at me sitting at the desk and launched into a fiery lecture.
"First, the exams break down into two major parts: written and practical."
The written portion covered every subject — nothing we were currently studying would be left out. But some subjects mattered more than others.
"Obviously, the attribute courses."
Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Lightning. Primary and secondary attribute courses — collectively called the attribute subjects — were treated as the most important of all.
"The primary and secondary attribute exams account for seventy points of the total score."
"Seventy out of a hundred?"
"Yes. That's how critical they are."
Everything else — Special Magic Studies, Basic Attribute Studies, and the rest — added up to a mere thirty points combined. That alone told you how much weight the primary and secondary attribute exams carried.
"As for the practicals… those will only cover primary and secondary attributes."
"Ah…"
"But… I don't actually know much about the practicals myself right now."
From what Luna had gathered, it wasn't a one-day exam. The full testing period ran for two weeks: one week of written exams, one week of practicals. And the practicals weren't the kind of test where you performed a little parlor trick in front of a professor for a few minutes. That said, everything she'd heard had come secondhand from classmates she was on friendly terms with, so she couldn't vouch for the accuracy.
"They say the practicals are run differently every year, so nothing's certain."
"Right…"
A frustrating situation. The most critical piece of the puzzle, and we couldn't solve it.
Nothing I can do about it for now. At least the practicals come last. Until then, I need to stockpile as much Enel as I can.
I was currently receiving a hundred thousand Enel a week. I had roughly two hundred thousand on hand. By the time the practicals rolled around, that would be five hundred thousand — and if it came to it, I'd spend every last one of those five hundred thousand to engineer a way to win.
Which left me with nothing to do in the meantime. Studying for the written exams was meaningless for me; only the practicals truly mattered…
I quietly stood up and sidled toward Luna, who was still explaining with the fervor of someone belting out an aria.
That was when it happened.
Smack!
"Ow!"
Luna slapped my shoulder with her open palm. It didn't actually hurt, but the crisp sound startled a yelp out of me before I could stop it. She pursed her lips and started scolding.
"I let it slide yesterday, but not today!"
"But…"
"Haa… You know better than anyone how serious this situation is, Suho."
My dejected expression must have softened her a little, because her face eased as she kept talking.
"I'm worried about what Louis might do to you. That's why."
"I get that, but…"
"…Fine."
"Oh!!"
I lit up and was about to throw my arms around her — but instead of granting permission, Luna spread both palms against my chest and slowly pushed me back.
"If…"
"…?"
"If you win the wager against Louis, then I'll do everything you want."
"…Really?"
"Yes. But not right now— hm?"
Before she could finish the sentence, I was already back in the chair, staring at her with blazing eyes.
"All right! Let's study!"
"Honestly… I never know what to make of you."
Luna laughed and went back to explaining the exams.