Chapter 36
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 36
“An unexpected result?”
Isley slowly nodded at Kiriel’s question.
“Yes. Quite interesting, indeed.”
“What is it? Tell me, tell me!”
Kiriel’s eyes sparkled as she shot up from her seat, leaning toward Isley. It was clear she assumed the “unexpected result” he mentioned was her own performance.
I watched her from the side, stifling a laugh.
As Kiriel pressed for an answer, Isley elaborated.
“An unexpected individual achieved a remarkable score. Considering their usual performance, this result is a sign of significant progress. It is truly worthy of praise.”
“!”
A bright smile bloomed on Kiriel’s face. Convinced that she was the one Professor Isley was talking about, she glanced down at me with a smug smirk.
Heh. Her condescending look was grating, but since it was a dream she’d soon wake from, I let her enjoy the delusion for a moment longer.
“Ahem. Then, Professor Isley, could you perhaps announce my score?” Kiriel asked, striking a confident pose.
Isley looked at her and adjusted his glasses. “Are you sure you want me to announce it here?”
“Yes, absolutely!”
Full of anticipation, Kiriel waited. Isley revealed her score.
“17 points. That is 5 points higher than your last test. Congratulations. Please continue to strive for improvement.”
“Oh, yes… Thank you.”
Kiriel looked bewildered. She scratched her cheek for a moment before blinking at Isley. “But Professor, for all that buildup, that’s not really a ‘remarkable’ improvement, is it?”
“Of course not. The unexpected result I was referring to was Roen’s.”
In an instant, Kiriel’s face twisted as if she’d bitten into a rotten lemon.
Isley turned his gaze to me and offered his congratulations.
“Roen, my compliments. You must have studied Spiritology diligently. I thought you would be far too busy with the recent territory war.”
“Thank you, Professor,” I replied calmly.
“How many points… What did Roen get?” Kiriel asked, snapping out of her daze.
Isley sought my consent. “Is it all right to reveal your score, Roen?”
“Yes, I don’t mind.”
As I nodded, Isley announced the result.
“80 points. Aside from the sections we haven’t covered in class yet, you answered almost every question correctly. That is quite an accomplishment.”
80 points. It was a calculated score. To be honest, I could have hit 100 if I wanted to. I already knew most of the material, and for the parts I didn’t, I could have used the System Encyclopedia to get a perfect mark.
But suddenly scoring a 100 would only attract unnecessary suspicion. Of course, considering Roen’s usual grades, even an 80 was a massive leap, but I had adjusted it to the exact level needed to secure an A in Spiritology.
As my score was revealed, Kiriel slammed her desk and yelled.
“No way! What trick did you use? The whole academy knows you’re terrible at studying!”
“Your words are a bit harsh. I simply studied hard. That’s all.”
“Hey! You think studying hard is all it takes to do that?!”
Her outburst was met with nodding heads from the other students. I observed their reactions and gave a small internal shrug.
…They have a point.
For a guy who always scraped the bottom of the barrel to suddenly pull an upper-tier score was, admittedly, hard to swallow. But what could I do?
I crossed my arms confidently and adopted an arrogant tone.
“I can. It’s not that I couldn’t study before—I just chose not to.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Professor, isn’t it possible Roen cheated?” Kiriel demanded.
Isley adjusted his glasses again, his voice calm and firm.
“My mana permeates this entire lecture hall. As long as the spirits’ eyes are watching, cheating is impossible. Furthermore, such an assumption is incredibly rude to Roen, Miss Kiriel.”
“Ugh… Hmph.”
Realizing she had overstepped, Kiriel flinched and lowered her head.
After calming Kiriel down, Isley turned back to me with further praise.
“Come to think of it, I heard you’ve also been achieving excellent results in your Introduction to Intermediate Magic class recently, Roen. It seems this is no mere coincidence or trick. In any case, this is a very surprising result. I hope you continue to maintain these grades.”
*
“This is ridiculous! Right?!”
In a café located in the Alvheim District of the Voltimir Territory, three girls were gathered over tea. Surrounded by lush greenery, Kiriel pounded on the wooden table, venting her frustration.
For Roen—who had always been on her level—to get a score like that was unbelievable, even if it was just a pop quiz. Even Kiriel’s aides, Lina and Silphy, felt compelled to side with her this time.
“Yes. It is certainly strange.”
“That’s right. There’s no way someone’s grades can jump that high so suddenly~”
With their agreement, Kiriel’s eyes lit up.
“See? See? I only went up by 5 points, so there’s no way Roen could suddenly get a score like that!”
“…I don’t think that part is particularly relevant,” Silphy muttered.
“Maybe he has some kind of secret connection with Professor Isley~?” Lina suggested.
Kiriel thought for a moment, then shook her head. “…The professor isn’t that kind of person.”
Professor Isley was a beastkin from the Great Forest—a pure-blooded deer, close to his primal origins. Not only was his conduct always upright and impeccable, but his knowledge of Spiritology was peerless. He was also popular with the students for being approachable and making his lectures engaging.
I can’t believe a professor like him would help a guy like Roen.
Looking into those gentle, deer-like eyes, he was definitely not that kind of person… or rather, not that kind of deer.
“But… there’s no other way he could have gotten that score so suddenly.”
“But there was the territory war, and he’s been getting good grades in his intermediate magic class, too~ If you think of this quiz as an extension of that, maybe it’s possible~?”
Lina added to Silphy’s analysis by mentioning the recent news. “Speaking of which, did you see the newspaper, Lady Kiriel?”
“I saw it. It was so infuriating I almost tore it up.”
The newspaper had featured a massive picture of Roen’s arrogant face plastered on the front page. She hadn’t actually torn it, but it had soured her mood so much she’d thrown it away immediately.
“I don’t know what kind of trick he used~ but it’s a fact that Roen won his duel against Chepesi, the president of Jerome Academy~”
“That Chepesi girl, what’s her rank in the competitive matches?” Kiriel asked.
“41st.”
“That’s incredibly high. What’s Roen’s rank?”
“Um… he’s outside the top 1,000, so I don’t know his exact rank.”
Kiriel compared the two and shrugged. “Does that make any sense?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
No matter how many variables existed in a real battle, a student ranked outside the top 1,000 couldn’t possibly defeat a student in the top 50. It wasn’t even like a child beating an adult; it was more like an ant fighting and winning against an elephant.
“Even a cow catching a mouse by walking backward has its limits, you know~ There’s a huge weight class difference~”
At Lina’s words, Kiriel quietly asked Silphy for clarification. “…What kind of metaphor is that?”
“It means it’s unbelievable to say he won by sheer luck.”
“Lina, use simpler words from now on. The continental common tongue is difficult.”
“Yes, yes~”
In any case, everything involving Roen was a string of absurdities. It would be one thing if he had always been a smart, promising student. But for someone who used to crawl along the bottom to suddenly perform like this… it felt staged.
“…He must have used some despicable trick.”
“That is the logical conclusion,” Silphy agreed.
He must have used hypnosis or illusions, or perhaps he was blackmailing someone.
“Yes! That has to be it!”
Thump—!
Kiriel slammed the poor table again. From the very beginning, Roen becoming the Student Council President was suspicious beyond measure. He must have lobbied his way into the position.
Expanding on that thought, it was possible that due to external pressure, the poor Professor Isley had fallen victim to Roen’s schemes and had no choice but to praise him. That girl, Chepesi, must have also been threatened by Roen and forced to take a dive.
“Yes, that’s exactly what happened.”
Having established her own wild theory, Kiriel began to bite her nails.
“What strange idea are you cooking up now?”
“Lady Kiriel has always been like this~”
“Lina, Silphy. This isn’t about studying right now.”
Thud.
Although they had gathered to study, Kiriel casually closed her textbook. She decided she was the only one who could solve this problem. It definitely wasn’t because she didn’t want to study.
At this rate, just hoping for Roen to get himself expelled is impossible…
If Roen kept using these tricks to meet the grade and ranking requirements to maintain his position, waiting for him to fail on his own would be a waste of time. There was the option of impeaching him through a student-wide vote, but…
The atmosphere has been strange lately.
It felt like public opinion of Roen had shifted after the territory war. Of course, given his past deeds, it was like dropping a single drop of clean water into a vat of black ink, but still.
When someone who’s usually good messes up once, they get crucified. But a guy like Roen gets praised for doing well just one time.
If Roen continued to manipulate public opinion this way, it would become impossible to kick him out of the academy. Kiriel’s eyes burned with determination.
Silphy posed a question. “But Lady Kiriel, why do you hate Roen so much?”
“I don’t know, I just… hate him.”
Kiriel quietly clenched her fist. She certainly disliked his infamy and his behavior, but more than anything, that man… smelled.
She didn’t mean he had bad body odor. It was an indescribable feeling—a sense of repulsion. If asked to explain it, she couldn’t give a clear answer. Perhaps it was a High Elf’s intuition.
In any case, setting her intuition aside, she could never get along with someone like Roen. At least, that’s what Kiriel told herself.
*
After Spiritology class, I returned to the Student Council office. First, I went into the lab and took out the magic orb containing Bell’s Extreme Flame.
Click—.
The red magic orb was still burning intensely. Just taking it out of its container for a moment made the air heat up so quickly that my eyes stung. It felt like standing directly over a roaring barbecue grill.
I frowned and put the magic orb back into its container. Fortunately, there was nothing wrong with the orb itself, but…
It’ll be difficult to process this with my current lab equipment.
While my collection of tools was impressive, it mostly consisted of general-purpose equipment. To handle a ‘special substance’ like Bell’s Extreme Flame, I needed specialized gear.
Looks like… I’ll have to pay a visit to the black market.
The black market was a massive underground city accessible through Traum 9 and 3/4 Street. Since all sorts of rare goods from across the continent were distributed there, I could find the necessary alchemy ingredients and lab equipment.
I began to jot down a list of items to buy. First, the equipment needed to process the Extreme Flame. Second…
A combat magic artifact.
I frowned, looking at the shattered fragments of a crystal orb on my desk.
The [Aegis Shield] I had lent to Eleina during the territory war had been repaired using my alchemy’s durability restoration function. However, the magic crystal orb, [Bishak’s Grace], which was destroyed during my fight with Chepesi, was damaged beyond repair.
A relic-grade item, too. What a waste.
Everyone was buzzing about the fact that I had defeated Chepesi, but no one knew how I’d actually done it. How could a "trash" character like Roen use dozens of mana chains?
It was all the result of pushing an artifact to its absolute limit. No matter how expensive a magic crystal orb was, it normally couldn't store that many spells at once. If you could store dozens of spells in a single orb, everyone would be a mage and no one would bother with swords.
This was the result of recklessly overworking the orb using two basic alchemy skills: [Constraint] and [Amplify].
First was [Constraint]. By limiting the type of magic the crystal orb could store to a single spell—‘Mana Chain’—I stabilized its output and maximized that one function. With that, I managed to cram twenty mana chains into an orb that could originally only store five different low-level spells.
Next was [Amplify]. This ability added a random additional effect to the ‘Mana Chain’ spell. I kept rolling the random amplification gacha until I got the effect of being able to temporarily control the chains’ movements. Normally, a Mana Chain couldn’t be freely controlled after its initial launch.
I had used all these tricks to barely subdue Chepesi, but the cost was high. The excessive use of [Constraint] and [Amplify] had caused the relic-grade item to shatter during the battle. I had managed to win by scattering the broken fragments across the floor to catch her off guard, but I hadn't intended to break the item from the start.
It’s a small price to pay for obtaining the Cognitive Acceleration Stone, but…
The problem was that I now lacked a proper means of attack. Until I finished processing the magic orb and Roen could start using magic in earnest, I would need a combat artifact to fill the void.
The issue was that a practical combat class might be held before I could acquire a replacement, but that couldn’t be helped. I’ll just have to deal with it as it comes. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.
After finishing the shopping list for the black market, I left the lab.
“You’ve come out just in time,” Ciel said.
“Yay! Hello!”
When I stepped out, Ciel was greeting a guest. It seemed someone from the newspaper club had come for a story.
“An interview?” I asked.
“Yes, yes~! I’m Chloe from the Union Newspaper Club. Roen, would you be available for an interview?”
The student, Chloe, wore a beret and had a camera hanging around her neck. I readily accepted.
“Of course. I will gladly answer any questions I can.”