This Is Really No Joke
Professor Rave was a mage of Imperial descent.
And if there was one thing he detested above all else, it was the Dragon Principal’s commoner-friendly governance of the Academy.
The Empire poured immense subsidies into this institution year after year, yet the beneficiaries were not Imperial aristocrats, but frontier nobles—and, worse still, uncivilized commoners.
“Unacceptable. I will permit neither the redistribution of wealth nor the elevation of the lower classes. Especially not in my, Professor Rave’s, Imperial Magicology lectures.”
And so, he had sprung a pop quiz.
A high-stakes examination carrying a devastating weight of points.
A test designed to be unilaterally advantageous to students of Imperial nobility.
“And yet, what on earth is this?!”
Second Imperial Princess Mesgaki had received the finest, most rigorous education the Imperial Palace had to offer.
The Saintess, chosen by the one true goddess Sophemy, had been raised under the personal tutelage of the Holy See.
Standing above those two—the very pride of the Empire—was the name of an uncouth commoner who possessed neither Imperial citizenship nor a single drop of noble blood.
“Even if I concede that Her Highness and the Saintess were burdened by grave state responsibilities, how do you explain the rest of this? Am I truly expected to accept these numbers?!”
In overall averages, the future pillars of the Empire had been soundly trounced by the backwater rabble.
It was not as though the 981st Imperial cohort lacked ability. In fact, compared to previous years, their average scores were considerably higher. In any ordinary year, an Imperial noble scoring above ten points on this notoriously brutal quiz was hailed as a genius, while a frontier bumpkin managing five was considered an outright miracle.
That was precisely the problem.
The overall class average had skyrocketed to more than double that of any prior year.
Faced with an anomaly so staggering, Rave arrived at the only logical conclusion.
“The test was leaked.”
There were no signs of a break-in.
The protective enchantments warding both the question sheets and the answer keys remained completely intact.
Even so, there was one person in this academy who rendered every mundane guarantee of security utterly moot—a thorn in his side who operated outside the law.
“Bronze d'Estrada. You insolent, thieving criminal playing at chivalry! It was you, wasn't it?!”
To drag the dignity of an Imperial noble professor through the mud like this would have warranted public execution back in the Empire.
“I will never forget this humiliation.”
“Hey, Isabelle. You went through all that trouble to get the test paper, and you shared it with everyone in Group A? Don't you think that's such a waste?”
Titocoga whined, her expression practically screaming how unfair she thought it was.
Isabelle smoothly swept the question sheet behind her back.
“You're right. It is a waste. Guess I won't let you see it anymore.”
“Wah! No, let me look at it a bit longer! Please! Hurry! I haven't memorized all the questions and answers yet!”
“Then stop complaining and just read it quietly.”
Isabelle had distributed both the questions and the answers to every student attending the Magicology lecture. Of course, securing them in the first place had been entirely Orknodi’s doing, and Isabelle had merely received the spoils from her hand.
“Are you really okay with this?” Isabelle had asked earlier. “Giving something so precious to me, I mean. If you showed this to the Imperial students, you could have raked in a mountain of Points.”
“Out of everyone taking Magicology, Isabelle is my closest friend!” Orknodi had replied brightly.
Valuing friendship over profit.
Among adventuring parties, that was supposed to be common sense, but when astronomical interests were on the line, common sense was usually the first thing to shatter. Knowing all too well that not every band of adventurers was made up of decent people like the Esonia Adventurer Party, Isabelle found Orknodi’s pure goodwill all the more blinding.
The world was crawling with scum who would sell out their own comrades for a few measly copper coins. For a child raised as an assassin by a shadow syndicate like the Waihiemhai Foundation to maintain such an untainted, generous heart was nothing short of a miracle.
“……Thank you.”
“Heheh. Don't mention it!”
Meanwhile, Professor Bronze felt a twinge of regret over Orknodi’s behavior, watching her hand over a leaked exam that could have made her a fortune to a friend completely free of charge.
The best part of being a chivalrous thief was that it made you disgustingly rich.
Determined to let her prospective disciple taste that exhilarating luxury firsthand, Bronze brought valuable merchandise to class and organized a practical exercise in distinguishing genuine articles from forgeries.
“Among these three sheets of paper, deduce which one is the authentic exam sheet. Whichever student answers the most stages correctly will receive the exam sheet and its answer key as their prize.”
Bronze raised a finger, her lips curving into a roguish smirk.
“However, this test does not merely require finding the real one. You must also explain precisely why the counterfeits are fake.”
The exercise began with clumsy forgeries written in nonsensical gibberish, advancing to copies differing only in handwriting, followed by sheets using subtly distinct paper textures. With every stage, the counterfeits grew terrifyingly closer to the original.
As the students realized just how many variables had to be weighed to discern truth from falsehood, they naturally absorbed the core principles behind Developing an Eye.
Even so, one student stood on a completely different plane, displaying a talent that bordered on master-class perfection.
That student, naturally, was Orknodi.
“No way. We’re second-years who've already been through a similar practical once before,” Bigstone groaned, clutching his head. “Losing to another second-year is one thing, but getting crushed by a freshman?!”
“To be fair, your discernment is roughly on par with an active adventurer, Senior,” Isabelle offered consolingly. “Your score wasn't bad at all. You just had terrible luck with your opponent.”
Unlike the first stage, which everyone had cleared with ease, the difficulty ramped up steeply from stage two onward. By the time stage four rolled around, even Isabelle and Bigstone had been ruthlessly eliminated.
“Are you seriously a freshman?” Lizna asked, staring at Giselle. “Your eyes are way too sharp.”
“I am far more astonished by your discerning eye, Senior,” Giselle replied smoothly with a squint of his eyes. “It is hard to believe you were retained from last year with such sharp judgment.”
“Well, obviously. I’m the successor to the Lizna Merchant Firm, so I have to take pride in my appraisal skills.”
“Fascinating. Do you have any particular trick to it?”
“When you suffer the sheer embarrassment of having a firm named directly after you, you study like mad just to avoid dishonoring your own name. Why don't you found something like the Giselle Firm yourself?”
“Haha. It seems your parents possessed an extraordinary amount of love for their daughter. I think I shall pass on that particular embarrassment, however.”
Bigstone’s female friend Lizna was eliminated in stage five, right alongside Giselle.
“……Tsk. And here I thought I had decent eyes,” the taciturn swordsman Sing muttered under his breath.
“……Agreed,” echoed another quiet second-year senior beside him.
The two men of few words were eliminated together in stage six.
As a result, the exam sheet and its complete answer key fell entirely into the hands of the sole survivor of stage six: Orknodi.
Under normal circumstances, when magic forged the paper and dispel-countermeasures locked down the text, picking out the genuine article was virtually impossible, no matter how talented the student.
“In that case, you just have to cast a new spell on them!” Orknodi had explained breezily. “A counterfeit that's already crammed full of concealment magic won't have any mana capacity left to hold another spell. The sheet that refuses to accept the spell is the fake!”
“A brilliant deduction,” Professor Bronze had said, leaning forward with genuine curiosity. “Yet you didn't cast a single spell, Student Orknodi. How did you pick the real one?”
“Um…… pure gamer's intuition?”
In reality, Orknodi had simply known from her extensive game knowledge that the correct answer was hard-coded to always spawn on the far-right slot. But Professor Bronze, already completely resolved to take the girl as her prized disciple, nodded with profound satisfaction, declaring that sharp intuition was the greatest virtue a chivalrous thief could possess.
Even so, Orknodi’s habit of handing away massive windfalls to those around her without securing profit was a troubling flaw. It might align with the righteous spirit of a folk hero, but it would never fill her pockets with gold.
Next time, I'll have to investigate student relationships beforehand, Bronze mused. I need to steal something tied to a professor who doesn't have a single personal connection among the student body.
Unless that stuck-up Imperial aristocrat wanted the world to know he couldn't even protect his own quiz papers, Rave wouldn't dare breathe a word of this breach. Striking a second target wouldn't be difficult in the slightest.
Come to think of it, acquiring something that aids her physical growth might be even better.
Should she target the Bust-Enhancing Pill brewed by the Oriental Medicine professor?
Or perhaps the Elixir of Growth kept by the Alchemy department?
Sporting a mischievous smile identical to Orknodi’s—though blessed with the tall, curvaceous, thoroughly mature figure the little girl lacked—Professor Bronze smiled pleasantly as she began planning her next raid.
Lunchtime arrived following the second period’s Developing an Eye lecture.
As promised, the Leftover Squad assembled in the cafeteria to review their progress on the Headmaster's Teachings group assignment.
When Orknodi saw the massive bundles of flags dumped onto the table, her jaw dropped.
“Whoa. How did every single one of you manage to bring ten flags back already?”
“Beat them up.”
Hestia’s short, blunt answer made even the perpetually unflappable Orknodi blink in bewilderment.
“Excuse me?”
“We beat them up together,” Lotto added, looking strangely refreshed.
“You're joking, right?”
“I didn't hit anyone,” Jigoku declared, puffing out his chest with righteous pride.
“Instead of hitting them, I just shot them with my gun.”
Orknodi dreaded hearing the answer, but she couldn't stop the question from slipping out.
“Shot what? The training dummies?”
“What else? Our classmates holding flags, of course.”
“Whaaaat?!”
“Are you stupid? Why the hell would I waste time shooting training dummies when I'm busy collecting flags?”
“Beating and shooting people is the problem here!”
Orknodi spun around and scanned the cafeteria. Sure enough, scattered across the hall were several students sporting gruesome blue-and-purple bruises across their swollen faces.
The moment their eyes met hers, they gasped in terror, shuddering and wrenching their heads away. It was painfully obvious whose hands had carved those bruises.
“Get up. Follow me, right now.”
“Why bother?” Hestia grunted. “We already checked. They don't have any hidden flags left.”
“Yeah, once I told 'em I'd put a bullet hole in their hide for every extra flag they held back, they coughed up everything on the spot,” Jigoku chuckled.
It was a terrifyingly barbaric display of logic, entirely befitting the top-tier combat brutes of the 981st cohort.
“We're going to apologize!” Orknodi hissed.
“To weaklings like that?” Jigoku scoffed.
“If anything, shouldn't they be the ones apologizing to us?” Lotto crossed her arms haughtily. “For being so pathetically weak while sharing a grade with us?”
“Are you planning to drop out after today? This assignment is all about combat, so you had the upper hand, but what happens when a lecture requires raw intellect? Those students could completely obliterate you!”
“Me? Obliterated by those wimps?” Jigoku stroked his chin, letting his imagination wander. “What are they gonna do, smash an encyclopedia over my skull?”
“...There are exams where you nominate an opponent for an intellectual duel, where the winner takes points and the loser is drained dry.”
“Ah. Well, that would be pretty bad.”
In the end, the three followed meekly behind Orknodi as she marched toward a student whose face looked like a bruised plum.
“I heard there was an unfortunate incident with my teammates last night,” Orknodi said, clasping her hands together politely. “I'm so sorry.”
“You think an apology cuts it after beating someone half to death...? Thanks to them, I can't even chew the lunch karaage! I've been stuck eating bland porridge all day!”
“Wow, that really is terrible.”
Beating someone so badly they couldn't even enjoy good food crossed a sacred line.
Orknodi glared daggers at her squad. Wilting under the fierce gaze of their tiny leader, Hestia hung her head in genuine remorse.
“I am…… truly sorry.”
The bruised student sniffled, touching a tender cheek. “Then give back my flag.”
“Huh? Why would we give your flag back?” Orknodi tilted her head.
“Didn't you just say you came here to apologize?!”
“Yes, and we apologized.”
Who said anything about returning the loot? An apology was just an apology.
“Just kidding,” Orknodi giggled cheerfully, waving a small hand. “I'll give it back.”
“Phew……” The student slumped in relief.
“For one hundred Points each.”
“Haha. That's…… another joke, right?”
“Nope.”
Orknodi beamed, her smile sweet and terrifyingly innocent.
This was really no joke.