Midterm Exam: That's Mine!!
Because it had strong magic resistance, a sword was necessary. The moment I heard those words, I snatched up my blade and dashed straight out.
“Kyeeeeeeeek!”
“A wyvern? It looks pretty small, so it’s probably not fully grown….”
“That’s a Mutant Wyvern that underwent black mage experiments! Its body melted and regenerated repeatedly, which shrank its size, but it gained powerful resistance to magic!”
“Oh.”
While I was piecing together the identity of the monster in front of me, the old professor kindly filled in the details.
“…Then why didn’t they just kill it instead of bringing it here?”
“Can’t you tell just by looking? It’s clear proof that the black mages are pouring tremendous effort into countering magic!”
“Ah, got it.”
So they’d brought the thing to study what the black mages were up to. “Wait, they were researching something like this in an academy club?”
“It was only temporary storage! The only place inside the academy to keep a live captured monster was the Magic Research Club warehouse!”
Apparently they had their own unfair circumstances. Well, none of that mattered to me.
“Kyeeeeeeeek!”
“Ugh, up close that screech really hurts the ears.”
I swung my sword at the jaw of the wyvern that was busy howling for no reason.
Whoosh!
“Kyeeeeeeeek!”
“Small or not, it’s still a wyvern. Pretty damn fast!”
But the ones who can brawl with dragons and win are first and second place. So what about me, stuck in third?
“Then I just need to swing it so you can’t dodge!”
When fighting a dragon, I need to at least force a draw or scrape by with a narrow victory. Against a wyvern, then…
“Kyee—glrk?!”
“Shut your mouth first.”
One slash was enough to seal its jaws. By driving the sword up through the lower jaw, the whole snout got skewered.
“Glrrrrr…!”
The moment the suffering beast tried to bring the claws on its wingtips toward its mouth, a blade shot out from the back of my gauntlet. While my sword kept its jaws pinned, I rammed the gauntlet blade straight into its neck.
Shunk!
“Glrrgh…! Glk….”
Thud!
Almost disappointingly, the wyvern’s life ended just like that.
…I’d dealt with it quickly, but this didn’t feel like anything that would help me grow.
“At this level, even the professor could’ve won with a kitchen knife, right?”
Seeing how easily it was pierced despite its magic resistance, I glanced at the old professor.
“…Don’t spout nonsense.”
The professor pinched his forehead, looking utterly fed up. I’d been completely serious, though… Ah, whatever.
“Are you all right, Ella?”
“Ah, Ashen…”
“To block a wyvern’s venom breath with holy power—you really are amazing.”
“N-no, it’s nothing… Compared to me, the one who instantly defeated a monster like that was you, Ashen…”
“Ah, that’s nothing special for someone who knows how to use a sword. The idiot should’ve spat poison the second it saw me instead of just screeching its head off.”
If it had shot venom the moment it spotted me, things would’ve been a lot harder. If I messed up the block, the people behind me might have been hit. But the creature must have felt threatened the instant it saw me, because it screamed first. Unfortunately for it, that level of noise couldn’t stun me after I’d already wrapped my ears in mana.
A normal knight department student couldn’t have blocked their hearing with mana, but the wyvern’s mistake was assuming I couldn’t use magic just because I was holding a sword. If it wanted to survive, it should have considered every possibility.
That was how I ended up involved in the incident that happened to Ella. It wrapped up at the level of a light warm-up.
…I really hope the next event is something that actually pushes me harder.
The attack on the first day of admission. The black mage that showed up at the restaurant where we went for dinner. The monster escape from the Magic Research Club room. Several incidents had occurred in quick succession, and as a result the academy—supposed to be the empire’s pride—had become a famous incident hotspot with three major events in a single month.
Of course, I’d heard that after the first-day attack the chairman and faculty held meetings to strengthen countermeasures, but… stopping things from coming in from outside only meant incidents would just erupt from inside, and even if they blocked them, the odds of those defenses being breached were high.
Because that’s how RoFan worlds work.
So there was no real need to worry about the accidents that would happen from now on. They’d come find me even if I just sat still. Therefore, what mattered more to me in the current situation was…
“The midterms…”
That’s right. The midterms. If someone asked whether I’d studied, the answer was yes. The problem was that I was double-majoring. Double major meant four times the exams. And each department had completely different test formats.
The knight and magic departments had a forest survival test plus some written portions. The mado engineering department required completely analyzing a given magic tool and then replicating it exactly. The economics department was purely written.
I’d gone all-out during the entrance exam and placed third in every subject, but there was no guarantee I could repeat that this time.
I’ll prepare perfectly.
So my skills wouldn’t slip any further. And so I could eventually surpass the ones above me.
But no matter how I thought about it…
“…Have I actually grown at all?”
It didn’t feel like I’d grown much while attending the academy. Sure, my skills had probably improved by a tiny margin, but nothing noticeable. No matter how I looked at it, I still felt like I’d get crushed if I fought first or second place.
Ella, how can you not cause one big incident in the week left before midterms?
I’d kept believing in the RoFan-female-protagonist magic until the very start of the exams, but sadly, no major event capable of triggering my growth ever occurred.
“Sigh…”
“What is it this time?”
“No matter how I look at it, it seems hopeless.”
“What…? You studied like crazy, didn’t you?”
“That’s obvious. I studied hard and trained hard. I even practiced multitasking—wrapping my left hand in mana to study economics while assembling magic tools with the sword in my right.”
“Wait… why would you…”
“You never know.”
“…”
Anyway.
“But no matter how I look at it, I don’t think I can beat the first and second places above me.”
“Ah… that’s definitely…”
Rui, who had been staring at me like I was insane, nodded in understanding after hearing my words.
“If you’re a madman within the bounds of common sense, then the ones above you are monsters beyond common sense.”
“Huh? Hey, why am I a madman—”
“Still, since it’s a survival test, maybe there’ll be variables? It feels like the professors deliberately chose survival format with that in mind.”
“Well, that’s true, I guess…”
I hadn’t heard the exact rules yet, but with high probability…
The test format is simple! Hunt the demonic beasts and monsters inside the forest to earn points! And… defeat other students to steal all of their points!
Since this is a joint exam between the knight and magic departments, you may encounter unexpected situations! Therefore, let your guard down at your own peril! You may form teams with friends if you wish, but the points you receive will be less than half of what you originally earned.
Yeah, that was probably it. And when it got dangerous, breaking the necklace they gave us would return us. Cutting someone else’s necklace would transfer their points to you while sending them back. It was a test system I’d seen many times before. Just another classic academy trope.
Unfortunately, the point efficiency meant I probably couldn’t team up with Rui. At his level, he should be able to survive on his own anyway.
I was double-checking the supplies I’d packed in my subspace pouch when—
“…Hey, Ashen.”
“Yeah?”
“You’ll team up with me, right?”
“Um… sorry, but this time I was planning to go solo—”
“…Is that not possible?”
“Uh…”
Rui was asking me in a trembling voice, which was rare for him. This was the first time he’d acted like this since we were kids…
“…Ah, whatever. Having you around would make things easier for me too.”
With no other choice, I agreed to team up with Rui. I didn’t know what had him so scared, but there had to be a reason.
“Thank you…”
“We’re a team, so why are you shaking like that?”
“That’s… ha, I’ll tell you later. I’m not sure yet.”
“What… never mind, suit yourself.”
Even though Rui had a delicate, almost feminine face, he used to be a back-alley orphan. Some kind of buried trauma must have been triggered. Otherwise there was no way he’d be shaking like this. Pressing him any further would be a bad move.
“All right then…”
Out of consideration for Rui, I silently checked my gauntlet one last time. And then—
“The midterm exam begins now! Everyone, tear the scrolls you were given!”
I ripped the pre-distributed scroll in half, and the test began.
Flash!
Light burst from the torn scroll. The moment my vision returned—
“Grrrrrrr…”
I found myself in a dense forest, standing in front of a wolf-type monster.
“First one down.”
“Kyaang!”
A monster several times weaker than the wyvern I’d sliced up earlier was dispatched in the blink of an eye. I immediately began moving through the forest, searching for a good spot.
It didn’t take long before I spotted a familiar head of navy-blue bobbed hair.
“Oh, Rui.”