Entrance Exam (4)

"Wait. This is ridiculous."

Raeli had more or less figured out what the Sword Saint was after, and she was thoroughly displeased. He wanted to use someone else as a stepping stone so he could shine.

"What's so ridiculous about it?"

The Sword Saint asked it back as if he genuinely couldn't see what he'd done wrong. The other examinees, hungry to watch him slaughter a monster, started urging me to go in already.

"You're going to fail anyway. Might as well fail now, right?"

"Get in there and get out. I want to see how that cocky bastard takes down a demon."

"If every stat is F-Grade, doesn't he drop in one hit? Pfft."

The stat evaluation from a moment ago had left a deep mark. Anyone with numbers lower than mine sat beneath me. Anyone with numbers higher sat above. That was how they'd already carved one another into ranks — and I, with a full set of F's, had been written off as the bottom of the barrel.

Which made this the perfect chance. Every eye in the room was on me. I could overturn that impression right here.

I accepted the Sword Saint's proposal.

"Fine."

"Hey—!"

"I told you, there's nothing to worry about."

I showed Raeli the Origin of the Star hanging at my throat. Even if she didn't know what it was, she would at least understand I had one serious card to play. I gave her my word, and she held herself back, choosing to trust me.

"You can't get hurt. I have to protect you."

"Yeah."

I started toward the barrier. Nobody expected a thing from me. Almost nobody.

Franc watched with bright, shining eyes. Raeli had a death-grip on the hilt of her sheathed sword, ready to charge in the instant anything went wrong.

All I had to do was meet those tiny expectations.

I passed through the barrier. The moment I did, the monster caught the scent of a human. Its head snapped up and locked onto me.

A lesser demon, strictly speaking. Yeah. Before the regression, this thing would've been falling over itself to bury its skull in my face. You'd need a high-ranking demon at the very least to even think about going toe-to-toe with me.

GROOOAAARRR!

Having just lost its prey, the demon had grown even more savage. The veins rising across its black hide made it obvious it wanted to tear me apart on the spot.

I was perfectly calm. The people watching were not.

"Hey — hey, isn't he going to die?"

"What are you doing? Get out of there!"

The demon charged. I did nothing. More precisely, I was preparing to use the Origin of the Star. I clasped both hands over my chest.

That single word was enough. The necklace began to pour out a torrent of mana. The star at the Origin's heart spun, then spun faster, until it was whirling at a speed the eye could no longer follow.

Wiiiiing—

The Origin of the Star's broken, unfair ability: mana amplification. Every ten seconds — double, quadruple, eightfold, sixteenfold. In a mere hundred seconds it could work a miracle, multiplying existing magical power by one thousand twenty-four.

Which is why an Archmage, already overflowing with mana, becomes completely broken with this thing in hand. Amplify for about forty seconds and you can drop a Meteor capable of leveling a city.

Streams of light spread outward, and a magic circle took shape along their paths. The circle burned with a fierce blue radiance — the nature of mana itself.

This part still feels unfamiliar.

Probably because I was used to drawing black magic circles every day. A blue magic circle. If I ever deployed black magic in my left hand and regular magic in my right, the spectacle would be something to see. One side black. The other a brilliant blue.

GROOOAAR!

Not that any of that mattered. What mattered was killing the lesser demon standing in front of me.

My fingers moved. Magic poured forth in answer.

A blaze of light swallowed the demon, and for the briefest instant there was a scream, the sound of flesh burning — then the demon evaporated where it stood.

Ssssssshk—

All that remained was a crater gouged deep into the floor. A breathless silence settled over everything.

Franc was in a foul mood. Every insult hurled at Argal had sounded like an insult hurled at her.

They don't know a thing.

The Pinnacle. Every mage's aspiration. The height Argal had reached was the destination Franc herself was aiming for — her role model, in other words. And how infuriating was it to watch that role model get insulted and undervalued by a crowd of nobodies?

Every physical stat an F? They were going to dismiss that man over something so trivial? The knowledge inside his head was a realm none of them could reach even if they all clung to his ankles.

I just have to endure it. For now.

The Argal she knew hated commotion. She didn't want to step forward and end up resented for it, so she simply watched in silence. Meanwhile her sharp mind was thoroughly analyzing his condition — a man who possessed not a scrap of mana.

It isn't common for an Archmage to lose their mana, but...

If you widened the possibilities as far as they would go, there were mages who traded mana for knowledge. And mages weren't fools. He would have prepared some other method to compensate for what had vanished.

To Franc's eyes, that method was Argal's necklace. Faint but constant, mana was leaking from it.

The physical evaluation wrapped up. The trouble started when the examiner led the examinees into another testing chamber, and a blue-haired man picked a fight with Argal.

No — it was worse than a fight. He was telling Argal to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be his stepping stone so that he could shine.

I can't let this one slide.

She was about to step in without reservation. She stood. She started to move. But before Franc could do anything, Argal walked into the enclosure and began fighting the demon himself.

So she was certain he would show them something. What followed was astonishment.

Endlessly amplifying mana. An impossible gift for designing magic circles. And then, chantless casting on top of it all.

J-just how many techniques did he weave into a single spell?

Multi-chanting. Chantless casting. Three-dimensional magic circles. Spell architecture. Spell acceleration. Mana dominion. Each one was a technique that took years to even begin using properly. Argal had executed all of them in a mere ten ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seconds.

The completed spell melted the demon without a single flaw.

Wooooom—

A residual hum lingered with the enormous light. After a brief hush, the room erupted. A buzz of voices rose on every side.

"That's impossible."

"He melted it in one shot."

Even a complete layman could tell it was extraordinary. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A magic circle deployed at blistering speed, and a Lightning Beam fired in the space of a single breath. Not a single examinee had expected that from Argal.

So they chose cognitive dissonance instead.

"Th-that necklace he was wearing just lit up, right?"

"Yeah. So he just fired a powerful attack using an artifact, didn't he?"

"That explains it. How else could a guy with zero mana pull off a spell like that?"

Franc was speechless. He'd only borrowed the mana. Even the Tower Master couldn't pull off something that close to incomprehensible with a volume of mana he couldn't even handle.

She sighed, lamenting how stupid they were, how they couldn't see a thing —

"That's cheating."

And then some idiot took it one step further.

I let out a short laugh.

"What is?"

"The mana that poured out of your necklace. Using an artifact on the exam isn't your own power."

The Sword Saint spoke with complete authority, as if he were the examiner himself.

"Therefore, it's cheating."

His words found agreement among the crowd. The Sword Saint had decent magical capacity himself, so when he offered that analysis, people fell in line.

"What's fair about leaning on a relic?"

"That's a foul, no question."

I considered it slowly. Or rather — there was nothing to consider. I'd let it slide once. A second time was a bit much, even for me.

The Sword Saint was opening his mouth to continue when —

Tick.

A shallow cut appeared on one of his cheeks.

His gaze snapped to the dagger that had appeared in my hand at some point. As a master of the sword, he understood immediately that what I'd just done had nothing to do with any artifact.

At the same time, the Origin of the Star began amplifying mana. All of it pressed down on the Sword Saint. At this point in time, pressure like this was probably a first for him. He'd never even met a mid-rank demon, let alone an officer of the Demon King's army.

I was curious what kind of response he'd show. The Sword Saint who, in the past, had refused to kneel even before the Demon King — now, under this crushing pressure, bent at the waist before me.

...He really is just a brat at this point.

"...I'm sorry."

To everyone watching, the Sword Saint's sudden apology was baffling. Most of them hadn't even seen what I'd done.

What irritated me was how quickly he read the situation. If it had been the Spear Saint, he would've grinned and gone for a brawl. This one knew how to hold back when facing a dangerous opponent.

"I apologize for what I did."

He accepted any humiliation.

"I looked down on you. I failed to see your skill, and I called it cheating."

With that, the Sword Saint bowed his head, then turned and walked into the testing enclosure.

...I hadn't even forgiven him yet. He'd decided on his own that putting on a show of submission would earn him a pass. Typical of a man who lived on his own self-regard.

"Examinee. Are you not returning to your seat?"

I hadn't sat down. I just stood there. The examiner looked at me strangely and pointed it out.

That guy wouldn't take long to come back out anyway. Before the examiner could even warn me for not listening, the Sword Saint had already taken down the demon. It hadn't even taken a full minute.

I stood there and called to him.

"Reinhardt."

"...You know my name?"

"How could I not."

Your sword took my head fifteen times. My dagger never even reached the tip of your boot. If I couldn't remember an opponent like that, I wouldn't be an Immortal — I'd be a brainless undead.

And. Where do you think you're going.

THUD!

"Ghk!"

I smashed the pommel of my dagger into Reinhardt's head. He took the blow and crumpled.

That felt better. He'd always boasted of invincible swordsmanship and blocked every last bit of my black magic. I'd never landed a single hit on him. To think I'd have to regress just to punch him once. A wish granted, in a way.

Reinhardt got up quickly and let out a hollow laugh — the laugh of a man who couldn't believe he'd been dropped in a single blow, even for a moment. He returned to his place without a word. I returned to mine.

The examinees who'd been sneering at me just minutes ago now ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whispered among themselves, startled.

"What was that? I couldn't even see it just now..."

"So it's not just the necklace, then?"

Raeli looked at me with open admiration when I came back. At least she'd recognized the magic, more or less.

"So that's why you were so confident! But Argal — you can use magic?"

"No. It was just the necklace."

"Really? That's some necklace."

I had no intention of telling her I could use magic. Not yet. To her — my former fiancée — it would have been strange for me to be able to use magic at all. That was why she accepted the necklace explanation so easily. She knew I'd lived an ordinary life as a young lord who'd never studied magic.

So for now, I denied it. Fortunately, the necklace made a convenient excuse. I didn't plan to hide it forever. I could tell her later.

With the situation settled, the test resumed. Scoring an F-Grade in the demon combat test meant failing. You packed your bags and left on the spot. Of course, if you'd done well on the written exam you might get another shot at the comprehensive class — but how many of the examinees taking the practical had bothered with the written test?

CRACK!

GYAAAAARGH!

Even so, the Hero killed the demon in a single second.

...The Sword Saint I could maybe handle. The Hero, though — I don't think the Origin of the Star alone would be enough to beat her.

One way or another, half of the remaining examinees were gone. Among those who survived, Raeli put up a respectable fight and earned a B-Grade. Her skill had improved more than I'd expected. In less than a month, a girl who couldn't even properly handle a single goblin tainted with Magi was now holding her own against a demon. That was a remarkable achievement. Had she possessed a talent I simply hadn't noticed?

The examiner gathered those who remained and began explaining the practical exam.

"The practical will take you into a forest where actual demons are hiding."

The examinees stirred. Except for the handful who'd received S-Grade, a demon was a wall — a monster they simply couldn't overcome. And they were supposed to fight those demons with no restrictions, no controlled environment? Anyone could see it was a suicide mission.

The examiner's voice was firm.