The Terror of the Seniors
Bellocasio let out a hollow laugh at the sight of the sophomores packing the infirmary from wall to wall.
He glanced down at the medical tags hanging above the beds, which listed diagnoses like Severe Frostbite and Acute Hypothermia of the Extremities. With a flick of his finger, he flipped one of the tags over to read the patient's name on the back.
This was the fellow he had earmarked to serve as the figurehead for the Red Teeth Mushroom Illegal Growers Association. Yet despite a knack for ordering his flunkies around, the boy hadn't managed to pull off a single successful operation.
“I wondered where you’d vanished to,” Bellocasio drawled, “only to find the lot of you looking this pathetic.”
“It wasn't our fault…! Those monsters were just too damn strong! Damn it all… how on earth is the bond between their Upper Class and Lower Class freshmen so unbreakable?!”
“The Upper Class stepped in to help the Lower Class?”
“Without a doubt! We went after the Lower Class at first, just as planned. But then an Upper Class student barged in out of nowhere and flash-froze the entire deluge!”
Paper Company felt genuinely wronged.
Enchanting a moving target was notoriously difficult, and bringing such a dynamic mass to a dead halt relied heavily on the caster's precision and mana control. The mage had to pin down the spatial coordinates, suppress countless variable fluctuations, and relentlessly condense energy that naturally sought to disperse. The wider the spell's perimeter, the more astronomical the required mana, mental strain, and geometric calculations became.
“She froze a churning fluid over five centimeters thick in a single breath and maintained it for more than twenty minutes! And her mana was so overwhelming that she kept laying down ice sheets far beyond the blast radius with every step!”
For the first time, a flicker of genuine surprise showed in Bellocasio’s eyes.
“The Upper Class truly lives up to its name. To think a mere freshman could display such performance.”
Magic was ultimately a struggle between intellect and elemental affinity. High intellect allowed a caster to streamline formula calculations, drastically reducing the mental strain and mana required. Any incomplete calculations left in the sequence could then be coaxed into shape through sheer affinity, imbuing the mana with the caster's willpower so that the element formed itself naturally.
One either had to be brilliant, or blessed with transcendent elemental compatibility. Anyone lacking both had to endure years of brutal survival training in extreme environments where that element reigned supreme, acclimatizing themselves at the brink of death. If they lacked the stomach for that, their only choice was to hit the books, grinding out formulas through sheer effort to shoulder the massive computational burden.
Yet it had barely been ten days since the semester began. How much theory could a freshman possibly have mastered in that sliver of time? This had to be the work of unadulterated elemental affinity.
“You’ve been through a lot,” Bellocasio murmured, softening his expression. Incompetence was a sin, but being caught in a natural disaster was merely misfortune.
“Y-You understand…?”
“I am a reasonable man, despite appearances. I have no desire to throw childish tantrums or demand that you make the impossible possible.”
“Bellocasio…! I always thought you were an obnoxious bastard who just ordered people around from the shadows, but your heart is truly warm!”
Bellocasio decided to pivot his strategy. The recent ice incident had made one thing abundantly clear: the freshman Lower Class could be toyed with at any time. The real obstacle was the Upper Class—specifically, the two students who had thoroughly dismantled Paper Company's operation.
“Group A's valedictorian, Orknodi. And Northern Grand Duchess Irene. From now on, we focus entirely on those two.”
“Orknodi…! Because of that devious little brat, rumors are spreading everywhere that I'm absolute scum who beats ten-year-old girls with all his might! I'll never forgive her!!”
“Good. Do not lose that rage.”
By a stroke of wretched luck, it had also been Orknodi who had ruined Bellocasio's contract scam. If they wanted to bend the first-years to their will, she had to be dealt with first.
“Starting today, investigate Orknodi. Quietly. Without getting caught, if at all possible. Can you handle that?”
“I'll put everything I have into it!” Paper Company declared, steeling his resolve.
Upon stepping out of the ward, Paper Company was greeted by several members of the illegal farming ring announcing their immediate departure.
“Those Upper Class freaks are too strong, regardless of what grade they're in. We don't stand a chance.”
“To hell with revenge. Wasting time on this nonsense is making me fall behind on my lectures. I’m out.”
“Do you have any idea how terrifying it was watching the Wind Walker spell on my boots wither away by the second as I ran for the infirmary? I'm never putting myself through a nightmare like that again.”
Paper Company couldn't bring himself to call them cowards. He still vividly remembered the terror of feeling his boots and the hem of his robe freeze solid in an instant. In the blink of an eye, an immense wave of mana had swept through the floodwaters, locking them in bitter, bone-chilling frost.
With every step, an agonizing chill had surged upward. His socks could barely stop his skin from sticking to the frozen ground, forcing him to squeeze out every drop of mana he possessed just to keep the frost from creeping up into his marrow. And whenever they thought they had reached the perimeter of the spell, Irene would cast another wave across their path on her way to class, forcing them to keep trudging through tears of despair.
—No… my mana’s completely dry…!
—Aaargh! My feet are numb!
—Don't touch the ground with your bare hands! If your skin freezes to the ice, you're done for!
At their core, they were underachievers so desperate to expand their mana reserves that they had resorted to illegally cultivating Red Teeth Mushrooms. Facing a frozen expanse that demanded vast reserves of energy, running out of mana and succumbing to frostbite had been an inevitability.
“Good riddance,” Paper Company muttered, looking toward the sole companion who had stayed by his side. “The spineless ones weeded themselves out, but we're different.”
Beside him stood Box Chowder, a sophomore from the Knight Department. Together with Paper Company from the Magic Department, they were the only two left to carry out the vendetta.
“Box. Will your credits be all right?”
“I'll manage,” Box Chowder replied flatly. “Provided I abandon one of my lectures.”
“Box…! That’s insane!”
“This ordeal taught me a lesson. Honing weapon arts and using shortcuts to inflate mana are entirely futile against true monsters.”
Attending one more class wouldn't bridge a gap of this magnitude.
“To fell a superior beast, one must adopt the hunter's mindset: uncover its weakness and strike where it hurts. Joining this operation is simply part of that rehearsal.”
He was acutely aware of his own mediocrity, yet rather than wallowing in despair, he had chosen to forge a new path. Inspired by Box Chowder's grim determination, Paper Company felt a surge of fervent ambition.
“Box. We’re going to make this work!”
The two sophomore underachievers quietly stoked the flames of their resolve.
Their background check began with basic intelligence gathering. Paper Company bribed fellow sophomores whose faces weren't widely known, handing out treats as he made his pitch.
“I'll give you these snacks, so could you go ask the freshmen what they know about Orknodi or Irene?”
“Why? Looking to beat up another kid?”
“…I'm trying to apologize!”
Most students snorted in disbelief, writing it off as pathetic excuses from absolute scum, but a few were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Repenting for past misdeeds is a form of courage in itself,” remarked Antenor, a prominent Lower Class sophomore. “I shall assist your first step toward wiping clean your dishonorable past. Keep your chin up, Paper Company.”
“T-Thank you…”
Blessed with handsome features, a sociable demeanor, and exceptional grades, the popular Antenor returned in short order with the requested intelligence.
“Her reputation is quite favorable,” Antenor reported. “This child named Orknodi. Despite being barely ten years old, as the youngest valedictorian on record, she has distinguished herself across running, physical stamina, archery, swordsmanship, commerce, and writing speed.”
“Ha. What an absolute monster… What about magic?”
“She hasn't displayed any notable magical aptitude thus far. A gift related to the arcane arts might be well received.”
Paper Company fully intended to repay that gift with an ambush, but he forced a bright smile onto his face.
“Thanks. That’s very helpful.”
“Ah, though you should avoid gifts granting cold resistance if possible.”
“Why?”
“From what I hear, when Irene unleashed her freezing magic, Orknodi traveled right alongside her, practically clinging to her back from point-blank range.”
He knew he was weak.
He knew geniuses were cut from a different cloth.
Yet rarely had he tasted an inadequacy so suffocating. His hands went slack, and the bundle he was holding crashed to the floor.
“Paper Company? What's wrong? Why did you drop your things? Did you push yourself too hard and leave the infirmary early just to show off?”
“M-Maybe so.”
Paper Company pressed a trembling hand against his temple, trying desperately to soothe his pounding head. But deep down, he knew this pain couldn't be massaged away.
It was jealousy. A towering, monstrous envy toward an incomparable prodigy was driving spikes through his skull.
‘We could barely keep our footing and wound up hospitalized from the sheer permeating chill of that frost magic…!’
Yet Orknodi, at an age far younger than theirs, had brazened through that perilous sub-zero aura at point-blank range without so much as a single visit to the medical ward.
‘Still, she must have some other weakness.’
Clinging to that sliver of hope, Paper Company pressed on with his investigation. But when he finally regrouped with Box Chowder at their designated safe house after an entire weekend of sleuthing, he froze. The hollow look in Box Chowder's sunken eyes and the bottomless despair churning within them made his own look trivial by comparison.
“What did you find to look like that?”
“I managed to acquire Orknodi’s course registration sheet.”
“Was there a problem with it?”
With a deadpan, grave expression, Box Chowder pointed to Tuesday and Thursday, Period 2.
“Do you know what this course is?”
“Never heard of it.”
“It is taught by Destroyer, the supreme rogue who served in the previous Hero Party—the greatest thief in the world.”
“Wh-What?!”
“And ever since he joined the faculty, there has only ever been a single student enrolled in his class: Orknodi. In other words, she has been personally chosen by a legendary Hero as a prime candidate for the next Hero Party.”
Even within Gift Academy, the continent's preeminent institution, vast chasms of prestige separated the faculty. A manufacturing professor renowned as the world's finest roof-tile baker could hardly hold a candle to a combat professor acclaimed as the world's finest throat-slitter.
“Th-Then, Orknodi is…”
“She is, by all accounts, the talent most likely to become the world's greatest rogue in our generation.”
“W-Wait. Hold on a second! Information gathering and counter-surveillance are a rogue's primary specialties, aren't they?! Then doesn't that mean she already knows we've been digging up intel on her for the past few days?!”
Terror flickered violently in Box Chowder’s eyes. Paper Company’s hands shook so hard that water sloshed over the rim of his cup, splashing onto the table.
“That's not all,” Box Chowder added, his voice dropping to a somber whisper.
“There's more?!”
“There are persistent rumors that she received black-ops assassination training from a noble house—that she is a practicing assassin.”
Paper Company silently made up his mind. Tonight, he would sleep inside his wardrobe instead of his bed.