Practical Exam (2)
"You're a monster."
That was Luna's verdict after watching me take down the iron golem without a single scratch.
A monster?
Well, I'd admit I was born with a rather exceptional talent, I suppose.
But let's not get anything twisted — people with talent equal to mine are actually pretty easy to find.
What defines me is the mage who fills in the gaps of mediocre talent with sheer hard work. That's who I am.
So calling me a monster wasn't quite right. That word belonged to the likes of the mage who became a Tower Master while still a child, or the Sword Saint who made Knight Commander in his twenties.
People like Muriel, the Hero, the Saintess, or the current Sage were on another plane entirely — so far beyond "monster" that even the word felt insufficient.
"If I become Empress, I'll appoint you as an Imperial Mage. You should be honored."
"Who said anything about being an Imperial Mage?"
Who gave her the authority to appoint and dismiss people like that?
An Imperial Mage was nothing more than the Emperor's dog, bound in loyalty to the crown. I'd sooner be a mage of the Tower, genuinely devoted to magical research, than one of those money-and-status-chasing lapdogs.
"Anyway, why do you keep following me around?"
"Because your odds of survival look higher when I'm with you. Help me out, and I won't forget it. I'll repay you."
"Watch your tone."
"...I will repay you."
As we made our way through the exam grounds, the bodies of students felled by iron golems came into view here and there. A collapsed golem lay nearby, so they'd clearly put up a decent fight — but numbers trump everything, and they must have been worn down by the endless waves of iron.
She was holding her own pretty well, actually.
That is, Lily was.
I couldn't tell whether this situation had driven her into some kind of rampage and made her stronger, but being capable of something on this scale was more than enough proof of talent in its own right.
Call it an unexpected side hidden beneath that small frame and her usual timid demeanor. Honestly, you should never judge a mage by appearances — and yet I'd caught myself assuming she was fragile. I had to reflect on that.
"...Ah, wait. Hold on. I'm coming with you."
As I climbed the slope, the distance between me and Luna — who'd been trotting along behind me until a moment ago — began to stretch. And I thought I was pacing myself. Didn't expect her to fall this far behind.
"You really have no stamina, huh?"
"That's not it..."
Luna shifted her legs, fidgeting. She rubbed her thighs together, restless and fidgety.
"What's wrong with you? You look like a puppy that needs to pee."
"It's not big... it's the small kind..."
Ah.
So it was actually happening?
Come to think of it, I'd never once seen her step away the whole time we'd been together.
"Go quick and come back. If you're late, I'm leaving you behind."
Luna grabbed my arm just as I turned to hurry off.
"Hey hey hey hey! Wait. I'm scared to go alone. What if insects or cannibals ambush me while I'm defenseless?"
"So what do you want me to do, keep watch?"
"Yes."
Unbelievable. Did she really have a reason to push through this exam to such lengths?
If I were in Luna's position, I'd never trust a guy like me — I'd have just gone alone and called it a day.
When I asked, Luna gave her answer.
"I have to get good results. If I'm going to become an Imperial Mage, there can't be a single weak point in my record."
Ah. Right, that makes sense.
Even with a Paternity Test Kit in hand, getting close to the Emperor was no easy feat. Even if her claim to being an Imperial Princess were true, it was all meaningless if she couldn't get the paternity test administered.
So her real goal was Imperial Mage — the one position with direct access to the Emperor. And for that, she was gritting her teeth and enduring everything, making sure not a single flaw showed.
"Fine. I'll keep watch, so hurry up and take care of it."
Tap tap tap tap.
The faint sound of buttons coming undone on a skirt, then a soft whisper of fabric sliding over skin.
"Are your ears covered?"
"Yep."
"If your ears are covered, how are you answering me?"
Sharp one, aren't you.
"Did you cover them?"
"..."
My ears were covered.
"─────"
Something of Luna's voice faintly reached me — probably her confirming whether I could hear — but the words were unintelligible. Probably just her checking in, I figured.
So there I stood, palms pressed tight over my ears, wary of any mana reactions around us for roughly a minute.
Tap tap.
Luna tapped my shoulder with her finger to signal she was done.
"You take forever. How long were you holding it?"
"You lunatic! No wait, don't turn around!"
I'd started to turn my head at her tapping, only for her to grab both my cheeks and wrench them aside. It was nearly lethal intent.
Then came the scrape-scrape-scrape of dirt being kicked over, and a gust of wind swept up a cloud of dust. Apparently she'd buried it like a cat, sand over the top and all.
Face still clamped in Luna's grip, I muttered,
"Ugh, and you didn't even wash your hands before touching my face. Disgusting."
"Hey!!"
"The water's all gone, so I can trust you to keep up from here, right?"
"You and your mouth, I swear!!"
"Let's go."
An enormous mass of mana pulsed from the mountain's summit. Judging by the fine threads of mana spreading out from it in every direction, that was almost certainly Lily gone berserk. The energy didn't even bother concealing itself, radiating outward as if beckoning me to come find her — or was that just my imagination?
Either way, the summit wasn't far now.
"Daddy!"
It wasn't a wealthy household. A small plot of farmland worked by hand, a life that scraped together just enough to fill their mouths. It leaned closer to poverty than comfort — but it was a kind of life that felt familiar, warm.
There was no complaint in that. The little wooden house was small enough that the family had no choice but to gather close together, and perhaps because of it, the home was always warm, always full of harmony.
Lily, who had spent her days quietly rereading the few books they owned, dashed over the moment her father came home from the fields.
Her father crouched down and opened his arms wide, catching the running girl and sweeping her up.
"Dear, don't pick Lily up right after work. You'll get dirt all over her."
And from the kitchen, where she was preparing the meal, her mother would scold the father every single time.
"Looks like your mother's jealous."
"Mom, are you jealous?"
"Oh, hush now."
Each and every day was a happy one.
"Daddy, look! I made this doll today!"
"My, you made that well. Is it a pig?"
"Daddy! It's exactly the same, isn't it?"
Always. She always wished these days would go on forever. She believed this peaceful life, like something out of a storybook, would simply continue.
But reality is not a storybook.
Danger lurked everywhere in the world, and no hero ever appeared at the perfect moment to save the day. Unfortunately, heroes weren't idle enough to come all the way out to a remote village like theirs.
The monsters attacked — stragglers who had fled from the front lines. A border village without a single knight to defend it was razed to stubble and ash.
The adults took up farming tools and stood against the monsters, but the gap in power was absolute. They fought anyway, knowing how it would end, only to buy time for the elderly and the children to escape.
That was where Lily's parents died.
Lily had tripped and fallen as they ran, and her parents threw themselves between her and the monster's claws to shield her.
Sharp talons punched straight through fragile human flesh. Blood soaked their clothes a deep red, and drops of it fell, pat, pat, onto Lily's cheeks as she lay fallen on the ground.
"Daddy...? Mommy...?"
There weren't even any last words. The claws had pierced their chests and torn their lungs apart, so all that escaped the mouths of the parents who had wrapped themselves around their daughter was thick, dark blood.
They collapsed even as they held her. The knights from the front lines arrived too late, and they put down the monsters that had ravaged the village before Lily could lose her life in the creatures' grasp.
And so Lily was left all alone.
When everything was over and she returned home, the house felt — so unlike usual — vast and cold. A grief and loneliness beyond anything words could express crashed over her, and the young Lily wept, making her wish to the moon and the stars in the sky above.
"I miss Daddy and Mommy..."
That was the awakening of her magic.
Lily had wished to restore the souls that had fled the bodies of her dead parents — so her magic, too, took a form shaped by what lived in her heart.
The monster born of a massive supply of mana poured into the illusory magic that composed the practical exam grounds repeated that scene — the very image of Lily's trauma — over and over. It was a parasitic thing, gnawing away at a mage's mind and puppeteering it from within.
Magic reflects a mage's life.
'I'm lonely.'
She hated being alone.
'I'm cold.'
She wanted someone beside her. She wanted someone to dispel this loneliness that made even her cramped dorm room feel cavernous.
'It's too much.'
She wanted someone she could lean on. She wanted to pour out the pain that had nowhere to go and only kept piling up inside her.
But she was a coward who could never speak that heart aloud — so instead, she wished someone would notice how precarious she was, and reach out a helping hand.
Lily's magic was the expression of all of it. A plea for something to protect the version of herself that couldn't hold on alone. A distress signal, sent out so that this magic might let someone realize the state she was in.
"There you are."
And this was the moment that plea finally, finally arrived.
"Now that I'm looking at you like this, I think I understand."
CRACK! CRACK!
Fissures began to spread through a world that had known only darkness. Threads of light seeped into a landscape where not even an inch ahead could be seen.
The memories that had replayed endlessly in the light pouring from the monster's eyes, with nowhere left to be projected, scattered and dissolved.
Lily, crouched low with her arms wrapped around her own legs, lifted her head.
CRACK! CRACK!
The iron armor enclosing her had been stitched together from Lily's own mana lines, clinging stubbornly, refusing to fall away — but a pair of hands forced their way into the seams and pried the metal apart from either side.
Brilliant light flooded in. Warm sunlight was driving back the dark.
Lily shielded her forehead with a hand and squinted. The world, blurred and indistinct to eyes adjusted to darkness, grew clearer by the moment. The outlines of that scene, once as unrecognizable as smeared paint, sharpened into definition.
"Found you, Lily."
The rumbling hum that had filled her ears resolved into a clear, distinct voice.
And there stood Owen.