Genius and Genius
Flora Tepes watched the students who had entered the dungeon. It was her duty as proctor of the entrance exam.
She was not, of course, watching all several thousand of them. The Academy's ambitious artificial dungeon had an anti-cheating system built in, so even misconduct that unfolded beyond a proctor's sight could still be caught.
She watched because she wanted to see the outstanding students' skill with her own eyes. And the outstanding students who had caught her interest had been decided long before the exam even began.
"Department Head. This class is quite the golden generation. Their future looks promising."
Joseph Kerr, Vice-Head of the Swordsmanship Department, spoke as he studied the observation screens that had bloomed in front of them. Wrapped in formidable muscle that looked ready to burst through his heavy clothes, Kerr looked more like a prison warden than an examiner.
He was not wrong. This class was a golden generation even among golden generations. The Royal Capital papers had run special features on its leading figures before a single examinee had even stepped into a dungeon.
"Among the swordsmen, the student who stands out most is still Arsha Swordhorn. The Swordhorn family. A house that has grown at a startling pace these past few years. They poured everything into cultivating talent, and it seems that investment has finally borne fruit."
Arsha Swordhorn had chosen the middle dungeon: Wyvern's Canyon.
Wyvern's Canyon was an unfavorable dungeon for warrior types. Arsha Swordhorn hunted the wyverns that came screaming toward her as if matchups of that sort were beneath her notice.
"Yes. Rumors that circulate through the Royal Capital are exaggerated more often than not, but that doesn't seem to be the case with Arsha Swordhorn."
The swift blade she wielded set Flora's heart racing as a fellow swordswoman. Fast, powerful, and honest. In every stroke, it was as if the countless drops of blood and sweat the girl had poured into her sword were laid bare.
She hasn't fully blossomed yet. That's exactly why I expect even more.
A student with what people commonly called the talent of a Sword Master.
That was Arsha Swordhorn. From a teacher's perspective, she was the kind of student who made teaching a genuine pleasure.
"The spearman Bohn Zaborg is quite something as well. He chose the Burning Volcano dungeon."
"A dungeon that favors spearmen. Even accounting for that, the skill he's showing is impressive."
Better known by the epithet Silver-Haired Noble than by his own name, Bohn Zaborg quietly hunted the drakes that charged him, a spear gleaming silver in his hands to match the moniker.
The Zaborg family was one of the continent's most prestigious spear houses. Their peculiar spear arts, specialized more in sweeping strikes than in thrusts, were a closely guarded secret of the line.
Flora had already taught two heirs of that house. Both had been called geniuses by the world, and both had deserved the word. Bohn Zaborg, however, seemed to possess a talent that outstripped even those two older brothers.
"The warrior side has quite the glittering lineup."
"They still don't quite match the mage side."
Flora said it as she turned her gaze. Where her eyes settled was a girl with a petite, almost doll-like frame and hair like living flame.
Sara Leoris.
Eldest daughter of the Leoris family, and the genius of the century named as the star of this golden generation.
Even in a house that had never once produced an heir who was not a genius, she was called a prodigy who appeared once in a thousand years.
"Casting chantless magic at that speed... that is not student-level work."
Hunting wyverns was not even a passing amusement for Sara Leoris. A single glance, and it was over.
She did with ease what others could not. Even Flora had not been able to do that at her age.
"That's already five, is it?"
"She's fast. Not even half the time has passed. More than half the students have already been eliminated, though."
Watching freaks of nature like Arsha, Bohn, and Sara slaughter monsters so easily, one might be tempted to think the Academy entrance exam was actually rather easy. It was not.
A little less than half the allotted time had gone by, and half of the examinees who had been the best in their own regions were already gone. The difficulty was, in fact, quite well judged. Just because a handful of monsters were being massacred by a handful of monsters of a different kind did not mean the exam was sweet.
"But who is that examinee beside Sara Leoris?"
Kerr asked, looking at the blond student at Sara's side. He was handsome enough to dazzle — handsome enough that Flora's gaze was stolen before she knew it.
"Hmm. I memorized every promising face in this class, but I don't know that one. Who is he?"
"Ah! I believe I know. Was the name Johann?"
"Johann? A noble?"
"No. A commoner. There is a well-known bakery near the Royal Capital called Dwarf's Hearth. It is more famous for the son's face than for the bread. That is certainly Johann."
At Kerr's words, Flora studied the face of the examinee named Johann on the screen more closely. Looks like that, she had to admit, would make a man famous for his face alone.
"Traveling with Sara Leoris... surely he isn't trying to receive help?"
The purpose of the exam was to obtain medals. Flora had clearly said that stealing another person's medals was forbidden, but she had never said that receiving another person's help was forbidden.
That, however, fell squarely into the category of tricks she had mentioned. The entrance exam was, at its core, a place to evaluate individual aptitude.
Borrowing someone else's power in such a setting was no different from cheating. It was misconduct for which immediate disqualification would not have been strange at all.
"Hmm. I warned them so clearly, and this one still has more guts than his looks suggest."
"Well, it does not appear he has received any help as of yet."
As Kerr said, Johann was merely watching Sara's wyvern slaughter. He was not begging for medals. Even so, it was a situation in which cheating could happen at any moment, and so Flora and Kerr kept their attention on him.
Then something astonishing happened. Johann went out to hunt a wyvern himself.
No — that itself was not particularly astonishing. Examinees hunting monsters was only natural.
The problem was the way the examinee named Johann hunted.
Knife Shot
Johann's knife lodged dead-center in the brow of a wyvern in the middle of a steep dive. Struck through its vital point, the creature crashed into the ground and vanished into dust. In a heartbeat, Johann had taken a wyvern.
Anyone else watching might have said, Damn, wyverns are weak as hell. That was absolutely not the case.
Except for Sara Leoris, there was not a single student who could bring a wyvern down with one attack.
Even Arsha Swordhorn had to swing her mana sword several times to finish one. The defensive power of wyvern hide was nothing a student could afford to take lightly.
Johann's Knife Shot was certainly an excellent skill, but it did not have the raw force to kill a wyvern in a single blow.
The reason he had felled one in a single strike was only this: his knife had gone for the wyvern's sole weak point, the forehead. Of all a wyvern's hide, the brow was the softest.
"A rogue-type student, then?"
"That's how it looks, at least. He knows the wyvern's weakness exactly."
"Knowing a weakness and exploiting it are entirely different matters. That student read the wyvern's movements."
The monsters inside the dungeon were artificial life-forms created by the Academy. Their behavior was decided by mechanical algorithms programmed in advance.
"The Mini Wyvern's algorithm was to dive and pounce once it closed to within fifty meters of its target, was it not?"
"Yes. A simple algorithm, but most of the students fell for it."
That was how real combat worked. A single unexpected movement from the opponent decided victory and defeat. The glory of winning belonged to whichever side seized the advantage in those small details.
"This Johann read those wyvern movements. That is clearly..."
"He figured it out from watching Miss Leoris hunt beside him."
Kerr said it with his brow furrowed. With five opportunities, noticing the wyverns' pattern would not have been difficult... was something one could not say so easily. The proper phrasing was not as many as five times, but only five times.
"Once."
"Pardon?"
"That student named Johann only had one chance."
Flora's eyes lit as she went on.
"Sara Leoris brought them down before the wyverns ever got within fifty meters. The opportunity given to him was only once — when Sara Leoris hunted her fifth wyvern."
Hearing that, Kerr tilted his head.
Perfectly grasping an opponent's behavioral pattern from a single observation, then answering it with a response that matched it exactly?
Was that even possible?
"That's absurd."
That was Kerr's answer. Absurd. The world was not that simple.
"It is absurd. Then shall we consider another possibility? Those wyverns are artificial life-forms we specially created for this exam. So there is a chance information about them leaked. Then who leaked it? It wasn't me. Was it you?"
"Of course not. A leak of the Academy entrance exam? That is an impossibility."
"Right. If I have to choose which is more impossible, I think it's the former."
A lively interest filled Flora's eyes.
"If that kid is a genius whose intuition exists on a completely different plane from ours, this can be explained too."
"Hmm... could it not be coincidence? The possibility that he aimed poorly, and the knife happened to lodge in the wyvern's weak point."
"An interesting hypothesis. The odds are slim, but it's worth considering. But if that kid shows something like that one more time... could we still call it coincidence?"
An interesting student. He had not reached an off-the-charts realm like Sara Leoris, nor did he show the tremendous effort visible in every inch of Arsha Swordhorn.
And yet, in Flora's eyes, the student named Johann Baker stood out more than either of those two geniuses. Because Johann was a type of genius she had never seen before.
Wait. Blond. Bread?
Suddenly she remembered something her close friend Biblio had said. This examinee named Johann hit both of those keywords.
Flora touched her lips and murmured.
"A kiss, huh..."
"That's how it is."
Hearing Johann's explanation, Sara stared at him with a stunned expression.
"So you're saying you watched me hunt the wyverns and read their movements?"
"Yes. I owe you one."
Johann answered with a faint smile.
He said it lightly, but Sara knew perfectly well that it was by no means an easy thing. Even she had not noticed that the wyverns in this dungeon had such a characteristic, had she?
Of course, she had not paid attention because she had not needed the information.
No. That was an excuse, and she could not deny it. She had no choice but to acknowledge the extraordinary ability this man named Johann possessed.
She had wanted to earn his admiration. Instead, she was the one admiring him. Sara opened her mouth, tamping down the frustration that rose from deep in her chest.
"Ahem! You're quite capable. But you said you were aiming for the Academy's top rank, did you not? I already have five medals. You have only one. If you cannot catch up to me, first place will be rather difficult."
I still have the advantage in medal count. So praise me. Fervently.
Sara said as much with her entire body. In answer, Johann flicked his fingers.
"No one said the number of medals affects the score."
"That's true, but wouldn't common sense suggest that the number of medals determines the score?"
At Sara's reply, Johann's smile only deepened.
"I thought so too, at first. Until I looked at the medals."
"Until you looked at the medals...?"
At those meaningful words, Sara realized that this man was once again seeing something she had not. It felt as if he were standing above her head.
"Yes. Take a good look at this medal. This is..."