The Entrance Exam (2)
Franc Lurankis was certain she would take a perfect score on this exam.
No—certainty was too mild a word. This was conviction.
A genius like her simply did not exist.
She hailed from the Magic Tower, the kind of institution people ordinarily entered only after graduating from the Academy. And she was no ordinary student of the Tower. She was a prospect they cherished, a talent they doted on—so highly regarded they expected her to become its youngest elder. While others were taking their first steps as mages at the Academy, she was already running at the Magic Tower.
An Academy entrance exam was nothing.
"It's not difficult at all."
And yet there was one strange thing.
The boy sitting directly in front of her. He had a somewhat frail air about him, and he was solving problems at roughly the same pace as she was.
Just looking at his face, he did have the look of someone who'd be good at studying.
But he can't surpass me!
With that resolve burning under her ribs, she tore through more than a dozen different exams in a blur. The boy kept pace, working through his papers just as quickly. She wanted nothing more than to talk to him—to find out who on earth he was—but conversation between examinees was strictly forbidden until the written exam ended. And so her curiosity and her frustration only swelled.
"Last up is the Magic Theory exam."
The end of that hellish relay was finally in sight. This was the exam a mage—especially a mage of the Magic Tower—would naturally be most confident in. She glared at the boy in front of her and thought:
This one, you can't beat me at!
If the boy were a mage, perhaps. But she couldn't sense even a trace of mana from him. Which meant he was just a somewhat clever person, nothing more. Still, he seemed to know something about magic—the instant he received the paper, he started scribbling answers at a frantic pace.
Determined to finish even faster, Franc took her own paper with complete confidence. Then she saw the first question, and the breath punched out of her lungs.
Fundamentals of Four-Element Fusion? What Academy in the world puts THIS on an entrance exam?!
She checked the other questions just in case, and each one made her chest seize. From the first problem to the last, the paper was packed with questions so viciously difficult that even the Magic Tower's elders would have cursed the exam writer by name.
There was no secret to why a perfect score had never been achieved. They simply made it insanely hard.
Franc's hands trembled as she started on the first problem. But she was a mage with pride, so she forced her way through the deliberately twisted questions one by one, feeling her skull split apart as she went. She sank into a state of such absolute concentration that not a whisper of the world around her reached her ears.
At the very, very end, with only a single problem remaining, Franc let out a long breath.
"...Hahh. This is a problem that can't even be solved."
A written exposition of the Extreme of Magic.
If you could so much as put it into words, no one would dispute your recognition as a high-ranking mage. And if you could actually complete that exposition, it would mean you were a Transcendent. Those who had reached the Extreme numbered only a handful of Archmages on the entire continent.
She gave up cleanly and looked at the boy in front of her. He was approaching the end as well, but he was still working through the problems.
At least I'm ahead in the magic section.
She thought that, lifting her chin—and then something felt off. What the boy was doing didn't look like marking answers. It looked as though he were writing, composing something. And the only essay question on the Magic Theory exam was the last one: the one about the Extreme of Magic.
"...That's impossible."
"Examinee, please be quiet."
A proctor reprimanded her, but Franc couldn't close her gaping mouth. The moment the boy set down his pen, the proctors came to collect the papers. They gathered them one by one, took the boy's, and when they finally came for Franc's—
"W-wait!"
A sharp rustle of paper—
Franc pretended there was an unanswered question on her own sheet and snatched the boy's exam from beneath it, out of the proctor's hands.
Every answer she had arrived at was written on that paper. That alone was absurd. But something even more impossible caught her eye.
The very last question. The written exposition of the Extreme of Magic. The ultimate magic—understand it, and you became an Archmage.
"Ah..."
Seeing it, Franc felt awe. Something no elder could teach. Something even the Tower Master himself could not impart. It was not perfect. But of everything she had ever seen, it was the formula closest to the Extreme.
A flutter of paper—
"You cannot change answers after the exam has ended."
The proctor took the sheet back, but Franc could not forget the formula she had just seen. She sat there dazed, then realized the boy in front of her was looking at her. He turned away, muttering.
"So she recognized it."
Franc was so shocked she couldn't even stand.
The Extreme of Magic.
Something I'd seen more times than I could count, fighting the Hero party's Archmage to the death. Dark magic had come a long way thanks to that. Being able to wield most dark magic without an incantation, being able to drag the realm of fantasy down into reality—all of it was because I had seen the Extreme.
"And she recognized it."
Honestly, an ordinary person—no, even a considerably talented mage—could look at it and not understand. I only grasped it because I'd been beaten to death by it dozens of times. To see it once and know it for the Extreme, you'd have to be an impossible kind of genius.
"And I don't know someone like that?"
At minimum a Tower Master. At maximum an Archmage. It would be hard not to know a monster like that. Which left two possibilities, same as always. She died, or she lived an ordinary life.
And the latter wasn't even worth considering. In an age when nations crumbled and the Demon King brought the world to ruin, no one with power quietly went into hiding.
Which meant she had died. Far too early.
"Why did she die?"
Another question I'd have to figure out, step by step. Of course, it might simply be because this Academy produced so many casualties this time around. That girl might have been swept up among them.
When I finished the exam and came out, Caron was waiting for me.
"Young Master, did the exam go well?"
"Who knows."
"Please take heart. The Academy's written exam is famously difficult. Without special preparation, placing into the ordinary noble class is the norm."
I'd cheated on everything, so my scores would be fine—but I couldn't say I'd done well. Well. There was one thing I had done well. The Magic Theory exam. That one, I was confident I'd take a perfect score.
Besides, Caron didn't know I was also taking the practical. If she had, she would have comforted me by saying I could make up for it there.
"I have planned out everywhere we shall visit until the exam period ends. If we work our way from here to there, we ought to finish just as the exams conclude and you enroll."
"For the record, I signed up for the practical too."
"I beg your pardon? You must not! The practical is dangerous!"
I hadn't expected her to try to stop me on the grounds that it was dangerous. But looking at it from the outside, I was originally just an ordinary noble—neither a mage nor a swordsman. For someone like that to suddenly sit the practical exam would indeed look reckless.
"Don't worry. Nothing dangerous will happen. I'll drop out midway if I have to."
Of course I had no such intention. I needed a top-tier practical score for things to go smoothly from here.
"Ugh... Understood."
"Use the remaining living expenses as you see fit and head back. It's a long journey, so rest well and shake off the travel fatigue."
"I shall see you at the estate."
Caron bowed her head and stepped back. Reluctance and worry sat heavy on her face, but she couldn't stop me from doing what I intended, so she quietly withdrew.
"Practical exam applicants! Please gather!!"
The practical followed immediately after the written exam ended. The written portion had been held in an external Academy building; the practical would take place inside. The number of people had clearly dropped compared to before. Plenty of people were smart. Far fewer possessed genuine martial power.
The overwhelming majority of those who did were nobles. Only nobles had the guaranteed environment to invest every hour of their lives into themselves. Or wealthy commoners with money to burn.
Familiar faces were among them. Starting with the Sword Star—tall, striking, radiating charisma. The Spear Star I'd seen at registration. The girl in the oversized witch hat I'd cheated off of. And beyond them, walking at the very front, the exalted one.
The Hero.
The last person I had seen when I regressed. To see her here, still in her girlhood. I let out a dry chuckle. It was a strange feeling, looking at the tender years of someone who had once been so unshakable, so absolutely unbreakable.
As I watched her, she seemed to sense my gaze and turned her head toward me. And even at a glance, the emotion the Hero directed at me was... considerable hostility.
"...Did I do something wrong?"
I'd done plenty of wrong things before the regression, but I wondered if the Hero somehow remembered them. Otherwise it would be hard to hold that kind of hostility.
I was still turning it over when someone approached.
"Argal!"
Vivid pink hair. Two eyes burning redder than fire itself. The moment she saw me, she smiled.
Laeli Caris. It had been quite a while.
"Good to see you."
"I heard you got kidnapped on the way back to the estate and were hurt pretty badly?"
"Nothing worth worrying about."
"Don't lie. After all that, you're taking the practical?"
As she said it, Laeli checked my hand. I hadn't had any occasion to put a dagger through anyone lately, and the treatment had gone well—my left hand showed only smooth, unblemished skin. She murmured quietly.
"It's... healed."
"Enough time has passed. Of course it would."
"Healed is healed, but can you even handle the practical?"
Laeli's question was simple. In other words: did I have enough ability to fight and kill the monsters that appeared in the practical exam? I nodded.
"More than enough."
"I really can't believe that. If it looks dangerous, I'll protect you."
"That's not necessary."
"No. Absolutely."
A strange obsession colored her gaze.
"I'll protect you."
"No, I don't need—"
"I said I'll protect you."
"Fine."
If I refused here, it felt like we'd wrestle over it forever, so I just agreed. Only then did Laeli break into a radiant smile.
"Examinees, please follow me!"
"Let's go!"
The proctor herded us toward the physical assessment hall inside the Academy. Laeli grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. Did she really need to hold my hand? I wasn't sure. I let her drag me wherever she wanted.
And then—
Franc had been searching for that boy from the moment she entered the practical exam hall. To talk to him, even a little. To get even a single clue.
She should have caught him at the written exam hall, but while she'd been sitting there in a daze, the boy had walked right out. She had wandered around outside and still couldn't find him, and now the hour of the practical exam was upon her. Franc was so frustrated she nearly considered giving up the exam entirely. After all, she had lost the lead on the Extreme—the most important thing of all.
"N-no. I still shouldn't forget my original purpose."
There was a second method. Become the Archmage of the Hero's party. That, too, was a path to naturally acquiring the Extreme and becoming a Transcendent.
"Or that boy might be at the practical exam hall too!"
Taking the written exam in the first place meant you could take the practical as well. So Franc entered the practical exam hall and scanned her surroundings with fierce, unblinking focus. The effort was not wasted. She found the boy almost immediately.
Black hair. Black eyes. His face was a little pale, as if he weren't in the best of health, but that didn't matter. The moment she spotted him, Franc started to run over and grab him—but someone got there first.
"Argal!"
A noble girl with pink hair. She wore a sword at her hip, so she looked like an aspiring knight, but that was not what mattered to Franc. Her chance to speak to him had been stolen.
"This isn't right..."
Still, she could overhear the conversation between the two from nearby. She couldn't catch every word, but what she did hear, in fragments, was so absurd she had to sigh.
That woman was going to protect Argal?
And so, naturally, the words came out.
She had said it out loud, so Laeli turned her head and faced Franc.
"What?"
"I said, who's protecting whom?"
To Franc, it was an obvious fact. A mage who knew the Extreme was not someone who needed protecting. Frankly, it was insulting.
But to Laeli, those words landed differently. She hadn't been able to protect Argal. Because of that, Argal had been badly hurt. She had been the one protected by him instead. Those words had just struck the rawest nerve of a girl who carried that disgrace.
Rage filled Laeli's eyes.