Chapter 41
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: Final Exam (6)
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“Professor Dylan.”
“What is it?”
“Are you trying to lose?”
Around the time Roel was desperately fleeing from the monsters.
An ominous tension filled the 'Control Room' where Cigarette was currently located.
“Hearing such crude language out of nowhere is unpleasant. Can't knights even restrain their emotions?”
“I've held back as much as I could, and this is the result.”
Dylan shrugged.
It was a brazen attitude.
There was no way he didn't know what was happening on the island right now.
Sching—
Cigarette drew her sword and pointed it at Dylan's throat.
Dylan looked slightly surprised, then let out a sigh.
“Knights really are so barbaric.”
Magic circles suddenly appeared all around.
Dozens of attack spells, cast who-knows-when, locked onto Cigarette.
“What's the reason for this? I haven't done anything wrong.”
“I know you're hiding Cadet Roel.”
“Ha! You're delusional. Why would I hide that cadet?”
“Ever since you met with that cadet named Ted, you haven't shown Roel to me.”
“Who knows? Maybe it's just your imagination?”
“The monsters have been overly concentrated in one direction for a while now. I believe Cadet Roel is at the center of it, but is that just my imagination too?”
Cigarette wasn't an idiot.
She had known for some time that the 'monster burden' on the other cadets had sharply decreased since Ted and Roel met.
It was obviously magic at work, and redirecting monsters was a form of survival strategy, so she hadn't said anything...
But now, all the monsters on the island were moving.
She would have let most things slide.
Most situations on the island occurred in the demon realm too, and cadets needed to adapt to them.
But this crossed the line.
It was time to intervene.
Dylan smiled brightly in response.
“Yes, it's just your imagination. Cadet Roel is safe.”
“Then show me Cadet Roel. If I watch her for ten minutes and nothing happens, I'll apologize.”
“I refuse. Apologize first, and maybe I'll consider it.”
Neither side backed down.
Their auras clashed, sending vibrations through the air.
The hastily built structure shook. Dust rained down from the ceiling.
“Do you want me to force my way in and see for myself?”
“You think you can?”
If either moved first, the whole area would be reduced to rubble.
The assistants watching nearby fled in terror.
“Fine. Then send me to the exam grounds.”
The 'main island' serving as the exam grounds was some distance from the control room.
The control room was on a small island near the main one, so to reach the exam grounds quickly, she needed Professor Dylan's spatial transfer magic.
“That's a problem too.”
Dylan refused.
“......Understood.”
This kind of uncooperative behavior was definitely an issue.
It wouldn't end with Academy discipline.
If it reached the royals, he'd face severe 'punishment'.
And Dylan knew that full well.
'This exam has another purpose.'
As she'd said earlier, Cigarette wasn't stupid.
For Dylan to risk so much out of mere disgust for knights, it couldn't be a 'spur-of-the-moment' act.
This meant the situation on the main island was proceeding according to plan.
“Dylan Forest, from this moment, I will treat you as a criminal.”
Cigarette decided not to hold back any longer.
The surrounding air grew heavy.
She was raising her aura.
“Good grief...”
Dylan began to draw up his own mana.
A clash between the two professors was imminent.
Crackle.
It was then.
“Hm?”
The surveillance magic covering the entire island shattered all at once.
“Dylan, you...!”
“It wasn't me.”
It wasn't Dylan's doing.
This was destruction caused by external interference.
'......This wasn't part of the plan.'
Dylan's ever-present smile finally hardened.
“Let's put the fight on hold. I think we need to go there ourselves.”
From the circumstances, someone had definitely intruded on the exam grounds.
Someone powerful enough to dismantle his magic in one go, putting the cadets in danger.
Knights didn't matter one way or the other.
Those uncivilized brutes who only knew how to brawl—dead or alive, who cared.
But if even talented mages were at risk, that was a problem.
Dylan recalled all the attack spells on the verge of activation.
Recycling the mana, he deployed a massive 'spatial transfer magic'.
A magic circle spread beneath their feet.
“Let's go.”
“......What's your angle?”
“To protect the students.”
Yes, protection.
He had to safeguard those promising true hero candidates with bright futures.
The other 'impurities'...
He'd have to clean them up personally.
There's a saying.
"Magic creates miracles."
Magic is a 'supernatural' phenomenon created by humans.
It crosses distances that would take weeks by carriage in an instant.
You can soar freely through the high skies or lift the earth to peer beneath.
Some even bring rain to drought-stricken lands where everything is withering.
True miracles that ordinary people or knights can't perform.
And right now, I was witnessing a fragment of that miracle.
“Let me show you the greatness of magic.”
Five magic circles targeted me.
As the fully charged spells activated, 'elements' of different attributes attacked.
Blades of wind compressed to extreme density.
Fireballs blazing with enough ferocity to incinerate anything in their path.
High-voltage currents deadly on contact, scattered water droplets...
And finally, earth erupting from the ground to seize my legs.
I see! This explained why these idiot mages looked down on knights.
They could shoot fireballs from their hands, so swinging a sword on the ground seemed primitive.
“Pathetic.”
Allow me to say it boldly.
If mages create miracles, knights make them reality with their own hands.
Isn't cleaving a mountain with a human body a miracle too?
Groooan.
The earth coiled around my legs like it would burst them.
My feet were buried deep in the ground, but I yanked them out with sheer force.
One leg free, I quickly regained my stance.
Now to handle the four incoming attack spells head-on.
Cleave
[Sword Technique]
I didn't fire the prepared Cleave but channeled it into my sword.
No need for full power. Lightly, minding only the range, I swung.
Slash.
Mana and aura are fundamentally the same.
Just a slight alteration in mana properties, so 'magic' could be cleaved by 'sword aura'.
The bisected spells dispersed into the air.
The mages' faces twisted.
Their painstaking spells shattered—they were clearly shocked.
I deliberately pulled my other foot free as well.
“A sufficiently advanced body is indistinguishable from magic.”
“Impossible...”
“Why impossible? Because I'm a knight?”
Mages don't know.
While they studied arithmetic at desks, knights honed reaction speeds by taking beatings.
So they couldn't react to my speed.
“H-He vanished—!”
To them, I probably seemed to disappear and reappear.
“Guhk!”
I closed in instantly and struck the rearmost mage in the solar plexus.
His frail body couldn't withstand the pain and he fainted.
“Damn it!!”
Panicked, Ted thrust out his hand desperately.
A magic circle formed in an instant, trying to unleash an attack spell.
I didn't know much about magic, but his casting speed seemed fast.
Puuk.
But he was still just a mage.
“A-Arghhh!!”
I pierced the center of Ted's palm with my sword.
Blood gushed out, and Ted pathetically writhed on the ground.
“What gave you that confidence?”
“A-Argh, aaah!!”
Something was off.
They should have surrendered the moment their first attacks failed. Once a knight closes in, a mage's defeat is sealed.
Mages have the edge outdoors only because they control distance easily, yet they kept fighting after I approached.
No matter how much they hated knights, this was too reckless.
“Die!!”
Even now.
Two mages down, yet the rest still tried to kill me.
As if they couldn't make proper judgments.
“Not fear, apparently.”
I swung Cleave, taking out the remaining three at once.
I had no intent to kill, but no particular desire to spare them either.
One might have died instantly.
Anyway.
I stepped on the fallen Ted and looked up at the sky.
“You? You made these guys like this.”
A guest had just arrived.
A man glaring at me with demon-like malice, as if he wanted to kill me.
“Dylan Forest.”
The magic division professor had arrived.