Non-Flammable Trash Belongs in the Right Place
The students standing in line to turn in their findings were chatting away.
“How many did you gather?”
“Not many. It’s a relief I at least found one mandrake root in Area B.”
They all held sacks in their hands. Some looked noticeably heavy, while others were pitifully empty.
Our group of four walked over to where the first-years were clustered and joined the queue. Every head immediately swiveled in our direction. Linia quickly ducked behind me and Robert.
“Whoa, look at the top-student combo. Their sacks are completely stuffed!”
Aris and Linia’s sacks were so bulging it was fair to call them enormous.
“That much weight would’ve needed a lightness spell, right? Can first-years even use something like that?”
“Idiot, she’s the top student—a genius from the Dreamwell family. If she uses her unique magic, there’s nothing she can’t pull off.”
“But the second-place kid and Robert’s sacks look pretty empty.”
“I heard the four of them are close. Maybe they didn’t share?”
“Inside the exam, everyone’s a competitor. That’s just how it is.”
Hmm. Truth was, there had been no need to share. My inventory was so full it was about to burst. The real problem was that sorting all the mixed poisonous herbs would mean no sleep tonight. I decided not to bother correcting their misunderstanding.
“But wasn’t stealing from other first-years against the rules?”
“Don’t even start. They say if a fight breaks out, the spirits swarm in and shut it down.”
…Spirits?
“There were spirits?”
“Huh? What are you even saying? They followed us around the whole exam, watching us the entire time.”
“They were cute.”
Aris asked with a puzzled tilt of her head while Linia muttered her personal opinion.
“Now that you mention it, I didn’t see a single spirit. I figured at least a few low-level ones would’ve shown up.”
Come to think of it, I had never seen a spirit.
One Feared by Spirits (R-rank)
“Ah.”
I had picked up that trait before. Was this its doing? It probably happened after Adrian strengthened my Dragon Eyes. Dragon mana and spirits might simply be incompatible.
“Well, it doesn’t matter.”
I could just ask Adrian about it later.
After a short wait, our turn came. The four of us stepped into a tent and sat on the chairs provided since only one team could submit at a time. Aris and Linia went first, handing over their bulging sacks. The examiner let out an impressed whistle.
“You gathered quite a lot. Students like this appear once every few years, but yours stands out even among them.”
The herbs were a nice mix from Areas A, B, and C. It looked like they hadn’t charged straight into Area A like we had. He sorted through them with practiced hands, meticulously checking for any poisonous plants.
“No poisonous herbs either. Excellent!”
Both Linia and Aris received perfect scores.
“We did it!”
“Mm. That works.”
Aris looked delighted to finally reap the rewards of her hard work.
“Next team, please step forward.”
“Yep.”
The examiner reached into our sack, then his eyes flew wide open.
“You brought some truly valuable material. This doesn’t appear often even in Area A. The third-years didn’t interfere?”
“We beat them all up and came.”
“Haha, you’re certainly full of spirit.”
He seemed to take it as a funny joke. It wasn’t.
He reached into the sack again.
Seeing rare materials come out one after another left him visibly flustered. I had gotten irritated while sorting earlier and simply stuffed in everything that would guarantee high points.
“…One hundred points.”
“Oh, and. Do these count toward the score too?”
I decided to ask about the flags whose purpose I had been curious about the whole time. He looked startled and fired back a question of his own.
“H-how did you obtain those!”
“Huh? I stole them?”
“Those are scoring flags for the third-years! There’s no way a first-year should have been able to acquire them…”
Thud. Thud. Several more heavy flags dropped out.
Ah. I still had about twenty more.
He stood there dazed for a moment before barely pulling himself together.
“…Please return them later. There is no separate first-year scoring system for these flags.”
“What about our score?”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I got completely distracted by the flags. This is the first time I’ve seen anything like it… Both of you receive one hundred points. Congratulations.”
He offered the congratulations with a kindly smile, but his eyes never left the bundle of flags in my arms.
How was I supposed to return these? The second I handed over twenty of them I would draw way too much attention.
They’re not even useful.
I should just take them back to Earth and dump them in a landfill. But would they even burn?
“Did you hear about that?”
“Hear about what?”
“You know how the third-year magic combat class is normally just about protecting your own flag?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, someone leaked a massive amount of them, so now they’re short on flags.”
“What?”
“I heard a rumor that an examiner disguised as a first-year did it. The monitoring spirit that was supposed to watch him ran away, so…”
“And?”
“There’s that mass flag-spawning event, right? It’s basically a bloodbath for the top ranks.”
“So what.”
“Even the bottom-rankers jumped in and it’s total chaos. I’m thinking we should head over to support them. There are definitely going to be injuries.”
“What!? If something like that is happening, tell us in advance! Professors, I swear…”
“Senior, we’re just slaves. Why would they tell the slaves anything? We just roll with whatever they throw at us.”
“Sigh…”
I overheard the instructors heading toward the mountain while I walked back to the dormitory. Hmm. I felt a tiny bit guilty.
“Wow… The third-years’ exam sounds completely insane…”
“If someone hadn’t stolen all those flags, it might have been a little more peaceful.”
Robert glanced at me as he spoke.
Hey, how was I supposed to know? They should have announced the flag rules to the first-years too.
“This is clearly the organizers’ fault for not informing the first-years.”
“Do you have no conscience at all!?”
I did feel a little stabbed by that. At this rate I was going to get hit with massive karmic payback one day. Lately it really felt like I was just stacking up bad karma.
That evening, the dormitory chef—who had grown quite fond of using spices—brought out a dish in a sizzling stone bowl. Four steaks were placed in front of each of us.
“I’m usually too busy during work hours to make something like this, but I squeezed in some time especially for you.”
“Wow! You’re the best, mister!!”
I threw both arms into the air and cheered. I had only asked because I wanted to eat something tasty, but he went ahead and made portions for the other three as well. This time I had given him black pepper and steak seasoning.
“Hahaha!! If you enjoy it, I’d be grateful!”
He headed back to the kitchen, genuinely delighted by the praise.
I sliced the meat with a knife and stabbed a piece with my fork. The way the fork slid in so smoothly was incredibly satisfying.
“Kyaa, now this is meat.”
The moment it hit my tongue, the savory fat and spices blended perfectly.
“Whoa, this much flavor from spices…! Even back at my family home I never tasted anything like this!”
“Now that it’s in my mouth, I finally understand why it was worth that price.”
“I’ll enjoy it, Yumia.”
The trio’s reactions were all positive. They had grown up in noble families eating nothing but the best their whole lives, yet they were still impressed. Spices were amazing, but this chef was on another level. I hadn’t even known meat could be grilled this perfectly.
“And Yumia, could you supply a large quantity of this?”
Robert, tasting cola for the first time, spoke with his eyes wide.
“If possible, I’d like some too. I want to take it home when I return to my family.”
Cola really was popular. Honestly, even if I sold a single can for one silver, plenty of people would buy it. I needed to figure out a proper distribution network. Looked like I would have to research gates to the other world more thoroughly later.
After we finished sorting everything, washed up, changed out of our half-tattered clothes, oiled the sword, entertained pointless thoughts about swinging the club around, calmed Aris who had been startled by the mountain of herbs, exterminated the bugs hiding in the pile, sealed the flags somewhere no one would find them, and took care of all the other little things…
We collapsed, utterly exhausted, onto the floor.
The fan was running at full power.
“Ughya… I think I can live again…”
“Have you finally realized how precious I am?”
“Yes… Fighting the third-years was really hard. Didn’t you run into any third-years, Yumia?”
“We…”
I decided not to mention that we had done it more than ten times. Or that we had done it by cowardly surprise attacks from behind. Sometimes it was better not to learn that there were floors beneath rock bottom.
“Oh, right.”
I handed Aris the healer-exclusive textbook.
“What is this?”
“…Wow! I never knew something like this existed! So the human body looks like this!”
Apparently knowing anatomy lets you treat wounds far more efficiently. Since I wasn’t a healer, I had no idea. She could figure it out herself.
“I’ll study it whenever I have time! It looks like I could even apply it to my unique magic! The magic theory is a bit outdated, though!”
Aris cheerfully dismissed the entire body of research from the magic scholars in one bright sentence. Still, it seemed genuinely helpful in its own way. That was good enough for me.
Lying there like this, I finally felt some energy return. Herbology class was over. It had basically been a prerequisite for potionology anyway, so the real final exam period hadn’t even started yet.
The potionology final exam notice said we had to brew five bottles of low-grade potions three times in a row. The date was set for three weeks later.
“The repair subjects are still written exams.”
“I heard that’s actually lenient for Professor Karnarof.”
“I have no clue what the basic magic final is going to look like.”
“Same…”
This was the same Karnarof who handed out SR-rank artifacts and made us do sparring practice. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he told us to survive in the eastern forest.
“Then we’ve got a bit of free time.”
The potionology final was still far off. In that case, it was time to get started.
Air conditioner construction.
If I just drilled a hole in the wall and installed the outdoor unit, everything else could be handled somehow. There was already a simple terrace, so I could place the outdoor unit there. The only real problem was drilling the hole. The terrace door was a sliding one. Putting a hole in the door would create more headaches than it was worth, so the wall it had to be.
“But I’m sleepy, so I’ll do it tomorrow!”
I threw myself onto the bed.