First Exam!
First exam!
Takahashi Griebe.
That was how the old man introduced himself as he handed me his business card.
Having been unceremoniously dumped into the back seat, I stared down at it in silence.
An Academy professor, just as expected.
"Sorry about snatching you up out of nowhere like that. Did I give you quite a scare, student?"
His manner had suddenly turned grandfatherly and kind.
I answered in a tone of pure disbelief.
"You call that a question?"
"Hahaha, fair enough. Let me apologize again. Still, I'm not a bad person, you know."
Obviously a professor wouldn't be harboring some weird ulterior motive. Judging by the muttering earlier, he seemed to be competing with someone named Teacher Kim — this was probably some kind of talent-poaching scheme.
"Got anything you want to ask? Or shall I do the explaining?"
"Explaining?"
"We're going to be working together from here on, after all. Want to hear about the lab? Or my personal life?"
The blond man in the passenger seat laughed.
"Professor. You're coming on a little strong… It's not like she's being sold into slavery."
"Oh, hush, you. Slavery? What opportunity does an Academy freshman get that's better than this?"
"You should at least ask her first, though, right?"
Listening quietly to their exchange, I pieced together the full story.
Professor Griebe, who had been thoroughly humiliated by another instructor at the graduation project competition year after year, had apparently ground his teeth and gone hunting for talent this time around. But talent wasn't something you just found by looking, and the blond in the passenger seat had spotted me and recommended me to the professor.
"…Pew."
"What was that just now, Felix?"
"Nothing?"
Come to think of it, one of the white Party Bears I'd sold was sitting in the passenger seat. I'd only just noticed because the golem craftsman was holding it.
The Party Bear turned its head slightly in my direction, so I glared at it.
Stay still. Don't move.
{…….}
If anyone saw it moving right now, it was a one-hundred-percent lab kidnapping — in every sense of the word.
"Thank you so much for the ride, Professor Griebe!"
The moment we arrived at the Academy, I shouted it out.
Professor Griebe looked like he was about to say something, then simply nodded like an interviewer wrapping up.
"Mm-hmm. Right. See you later."
Later, my foot.
I'd enrolled precisely because I was looking forward to some long-overdue solo living. If I'd wanted to be some professor's disciple, I wouldn't have gotten hit by a car and died in my previous life either.
"I'd rather spend that time hanging out with Yena."
"Who's Yena?"
Someone answered my muttering, and when I turned around, Elaine was standing there with a bright smile.
She spread both arms wide in a cheerful greeting and said,
"I've been waiting for you this whole time, Pecia. Thought it'd be nice if we went to the entrance ceremony together."
"Huh? Waiting? You could've just texted me."
I'd originally planned to be fashionably late. She almost would've been standing around all day.
Elaine grinned.
"It's fine. Felix already told me you were going to get kidnapped."
"Ah."
Right — Felix was a craftsman of the Ispellen family.
Sure enough, Elaine asked,
"So how was it? Professor Griebe?"
She'd clearly been briefed in advance on today's little incident. Which meant Elaine and Professor Griebe might already know each other.
I deflected with a question of my own, not wanting the conversation to get any more annoying.
"I don't know anything yet, honestly. What do you think? Does he seem like a decent guy?"
If he was a reasonable, kindly sort, I'd formally turn down the lab. If not, I'd just go into hiding.
Elaine closed her eyes for a moment as if thinking, then opened them again.
"He's just a good person."
"Huh?"
Elaine slapped me on the back with a cheerful whap!
"Come on, don't worry so much. It's a good thing either way. A research student already as a freshman? My friend really is something else."
"……."
The entrance ceremony was nothing special.
The principal came out and gave a speech. The teachers came out and blah-blah-blahed.
I was busy sleeping in dreamland the whole time, so I didn't catch a single word of it.
What does sleeping in dreamland mean?
Exactly what it sounds like — sleeping even inside a dream. It's my second-favorite dream in the world.
Anyway, the moment the ceremony ended I slipped out of the auditorium and headed for the dorms.
You found the dorms by looking for the pigeon statues on the roof — two of them facing each other with wings spread. The whole building had white outer walls and an entrance that looked like a Greek temple, so it was easy enough to spot.
"Oh my, Pecia. A single room?"
Before I knew it, Elaine had tagged along at my heels.
Maybe because she was the student representative, a whole crowd of what looked like her friends had already gathered behind her. Everyone was looking at me with that oh, the one from the Joel family, right? expression.
Talking back to Kang Jihun at the orientation and getting thrown must have left quite an impression.
I shrugged once and asked back,
"You got a single too, Elaine?"
Elaine narrowed her eyes lightly with a smile and shook her head.
"Nope, not me."
"Huh?"
"It'd be boring alone, right? We finally get to meet friends — of course we should room together! Pillow fights, pajama parties, fun stories at night!"
"……!"
She's insane.
"Hehe, I'll definitely invite you too, Pecia. Look forward to it."
"No, I'm fine, really……."
"Fine, nothing. Oh, and this is a present."
Elaine pulled a file folder out of her bag and held it out.
"What's this?"
"Prep materials. If you want to have fun in first year, it's best to knock out the basics ahead of time. You caught the rough explanation at the entrance ceremony earlier, right?"
"……Sure did? But don't you need these?"
"I already memorized everything! Once you memorize yours, we can all hang out in the afternoons!"
Ah. So she was planning to do something with me too.
Professors, friends — I had no idea how airtight the dorm lock system was. I was going to hole up and pretend I didn't exist no matter what.
I hugged the folder to my chest and smiled.
"Thanks. I'll read it carefully."
"Okay! See you tomorrow afternoon!"
Afternoon, my foot.
I checked only tomorrow's class schedule and locations, then spent the entire day sleeping without so much as glancing at the prep materials.
I dragged myself out of bed ridiculously late and trudged toward the classroom building.
Along the way I roughly smoothed down my bedhead and took a long pull from the Americano I'd brought from the amusement park.
…Ugh. Exhausting.
Even though I'd slept from the previous morning and woken up at eight the next day, my body was still craving rest.
"Pecia! I thought you weren't coming!"
Elaine greeted me in front of the classroom.
When she grilled me about what I'd been doing all day yesterday without answering a single message, I told her the plain truth.
Elaine chewed over my words for a moment like her brain had short-circuited, then asked,
"You slept……? For over twenty hours?"
"Yep."
Elaine snorted a laugh.
"You're joking, right? Can a person even do that?"
"Not joking. There's a whole world of leisure you know nothing about."
"What are you, a koala?"
Leaving the unconvinced Elaine behind, I entered the classroom first.
……!
My mouth fell open on its own.
Because what stretched out before me looked like a royal academy straight out of a novel.
A massive chandelier. A teacher's desk the size of a presidential office desk. Gold-leaf wall decorations and……
No. None of that mattered.
What school classroom in the world had a ceiling rounded like a dome, painted with Greek mythological scenes?
They're seriously going to teach Korean, English, and math in here? Not hold a magical society summit?
It was so lavish the thought came unbidden.
I wasn't the only one stunned — the kids all started oohing and ahhing, chattering noisily among themselves.
"This is what two thousand in tuition gets you!"
"Celebrity vibes much?"
"Whoa, dude, that painting of the woman is moving! Her boobs are coming out!"
"……?"
"This bastard pretends he doesn't care and his head snaps right around. Liar, you pervert."
"Hey, it's not like that. This statue actually moves, that's why."
"Yeah, sure, you absolute freak."
"No, just look. It's moving!"
In the middle of all that, someone poked the roughly thirty-centimeter wizard statue on the teacher's desk. The statue swung its tiny staff in a wide arc and scattered glittering dust into the air.
Its mouth opened.
"Congratulations on your enrollment."
The kids' gasps doubled in volume. With a hundred people in the room it was deafening, so I quietly covered my ears.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Seo Yunji, and I'll be teaching you Mana Acquisition Theory. Nice to meet you!"
With a sharp clap of her hands, the teacher who appeared was a slender woman in her thirties. She had a hooked nose and a strict-looking face, but since we were still freshmen she didn't bother reining anyone in.
She waited with a smile until the chirping of the students died down, then continued. Even with a voice-amplifying magic tool in front of her, she remained calm and composed.
"So… even though it's called Mana Acquisition, we'll also be covering the basics of elemental magic overall. You heard about this at yesterday's entrance ceremony, right? Only those who participate diligently will be able to advance through the curriculum quickly."
What is she talking about?
One male student raised a question.
"Teacher, so that includes today?"
"Of course. Thirty minutes of class, twenty minutes of testing."
As it turned out, every class came paired with a test.
Score under thirty and you got remedial lessons; pass and you were exempt from afternoon classes — so it demanded some serious focus. And if you averaged ninety or higher across the three morning subjects, you could take advanced-class lessons early or enjoy other activities.
Of course, just resting was also fine.
Damn it. So that's why she told me to prep.
I never imagined the system worked like this. Isn't this the kind of thing you're supposed to announce at the entrance ceremony?
I had no intention of lingering in a room full of a hundred chirping chicks. If I could finish class early, I was going to do exactly that.
Unfortunately, the lesson was nowhere near that easy — and as someone who'd come entirely from the outside world, I was drowning in unfamiliar terminology.
More importantly, I wasn't particularly good at studying. In the end I sat there blankly and let the thirty minutes slip away.
"All right—! Testing starts now. For reference, if you use mana, this Marche here will detect it."
The moment the teacher gave the wizard statue a light tap, the exam began.
To prevent cheating, all electronic devices and magic tools were banned.
I stared blankly at the single sheet of A4 paper.
Fifteen multiple-choice questions and one short-answer.
If you'd studied hard, they were common-sense questions that wouldn't take more than twenty seconds each.
…….
I really just want to go sleep already. I don't want remedial class.
Ten minutes later.
"You little—! Helping someone cheat already?"
"What?"
"Scratching your neck four times, knocking on the desk three times, one cough, scratching your head five times. Four, three, one, five. Did you think I wouldn't notice just because you didn't use mana? On your feet!"
At the teacher's bellow, one male student stood up with a bewildered look on his face.
Seo Yunji collected his exam paper on the spot and scrawled a giant red X across it.
"W-what are you doing?!"
"Cheating is an automatic zero, no excuses."
"I wasn't helping anyone cheat! And I never even coughed!"
The indignant student protested, but the result didn't change. Every nearby student had seen him coughing deliberately.
Having secured the surrounding testimony, the teacher clicked her tongue.
"Ugh. A Joel family kid, already at it. Stop giving your father grief!"
"No, I'm telling you—! For fuck's sake."
"Watch your mouth. Want to go see Teacher Alked again?"
Just then, a purple-haired girl stepped forward holding her exam paper, eyes darting this way and that.
Seo Yunji looked at the student.
"What? Finished already?"
"Yes, but that's not the important part."
"……?"
"I was sitting right behind him, and I honestly didn't cheat."
"……."
Seo Yunji studied Pecia for a long moment, then nodded.
"I know. After that fight at the entrance ceremony, there's no way you'd cheat."
"Hehe."
The two of them were already famous from the scuffle at the entrance ceremony.
As she graded Pecia's paper, Seo Yunji called out to the class.
"Hurry up and come out! Adriel Joel Kang. Who colluded with this kid! ……Oh my, and look at that — Student Pecia scored high. Ninety-one points. Congratulations."
Pecia glanced sideways at Kang Jihun and swallowed hard.
"Thank you."