The Boycott Declaration

The next morning, a new day of classes began.

The first period was Jane's Introductory Dark Magic class, and as she had warned them in advance, her BMAT feedback was merciless. She went through the students one by one, picking apart every flaw that needed correcting.

And the point she raised with Simon was, predictably, the thirty full minutes it took him to summon his Blood Golem. Jane went beyond mere criticism—she walked him through ways to simplify the spell ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠formula and even taught him training methods for new hemomancy techniques. Every word of it was advice worth its weight in gold.

Once the feedback session ended, Jane changed venues. The Class A students moved to the indoor training hall nearby.

"Practicals, out of nowhere? What's she planning to teach us?"

"No idea."

Most of the students were already wound tight from hearing the theme of the third BMAT, so the atmosphere in class was better than ever.

"Alright."

Jane stepped forward and addressed them.

"Today, we're going to learn how to reinforce the cohesion of a magic circle."

"!"

The four members of Group 7 exchanged meaningful glances.

Under the supervision of the teaching assistants, the students lined up at fixed intervals, each holding their basic Jet-Black Arrow circle open as they waited.

Then one of the assistants summoned a black wind of dark magic.

Veeeeeeeng!

"Ugh!"

"I can't see a thing!"

It felt like being dropped into the middle of a black dust storm. Thankfully, the students themselves were unharmed—not even their eyes stung—but their magic circles were another story.

Exposed to the black gale, the circles gradually cracked and then shattered entirely. From all around came the ringing shatter of magic circles breaking, one after another.

When the wind finally died down, not a single student in Class A was still holding their circle.

"Harder than it looks."

"I thought at least one person would hold out."

A few students grumbled their disappointment to each other.

"Wait—could this BMAT be about wind or flying?"

"Oh, yeah! It totally could!"

Every so often, a student whose information traveled a little too slow would jump to a completely wrong conclusion. Hearing it, Dick snickered and nudged Simon's elbow.

"Pay attention, please."

Jane came forward again.

"There's no need to feel discouraged. Everyone failed, which means you all get to start from the same footing. Now, let me explain the three elements of magic circle cohesion."

Every student, Simon included, perked up their ears.

The base. The cohesion formulas. The ecosystem.

If even one of these three elements was lacking, she explained, the circle was bound to collapse.

"Think back to how your circle was just destroyed."

She drew a magic circle onto a portable blackboard as she spoke.

"If your circle was destroyed from the outside in, there's a strong chance the structural design of your base was flawed. The base is the circle's outermost layer of protection."

"If it collapsed from the inside, the problem lies in cohesion. The fastest fix is to add additional cohesion formulas within ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the circle—though that requires sacrificing something else, like attack power, output, or casting speed."

"And in some cases, the circle is fine overall except for one specific formula malfunctioning. When that happens, you need to question whether the connections between your formulas are sound. A circle with what we call a 'healthy ecosystem' never collapses easily."

To sum up Jane's lecture simply: it felt like following a story so tightly woven from beginning to end, with not a single gap in its logic, that its resolution felt inevitable. She divided the students into three categories and prescribed a remedy for each.

After the students patched their weak points, the assistant whipped up the black wind again—and six students succeeded. The failures had each been lacking one of the three elements.

She handed out the next prescription, the assistant raised the wind once more, and this time a full twenty-five succeeded.

Then, on the fourth attempt—

"Got it!!"

Every last student in Class A, Simon included, succeeded.

From total failure to a flawless, not-one-person-left-out success. Her class was nothing short of magic. The students traded conversations with flushed, electrified faces.

"Now THIS is what a class should be!"

"I don't know about anything else, but we're seriously blessed with our homeroom professor."

With the training hall practical over, they returned to the lecture room, where Jane layered on theoretical instruction as well. Her explanation of formula modification in particular was enormously useful to Simon.

I'll need to give the Blood Golem and the Jet-Black Torpedo another round of polish too.

Somewhere in the middle of the lecture, ideas for cutting down that thirty-minute casting time came bursting out of him. He wanted to sprint out of the lecture room right that instant and start reworking the circle—and he wanted to prepare one designed to be cast at sea.

And so—

"Great work today, everyone!"

Jane's class, which filled the entire morning to the brim, came to an end.

She and the teaching assistants swept out of the lecture room like the wind, bags in hand, while the students chattered loudly as they packed up their things.

"That was incredible! Jane was BORN to lecture on Jet-Black Mechanics!"

Meilin said, still glowing with lingering excitement, as she shoved her textbook into her bag. Dick smirked.

"Oh? That little remark! Was that a dig at Professor Eric? I'm telling everyone~"

"I never said that!!"

Meilin flared up and swung her textbook at him, and Dick ducked low to dodge.

"Ah, come on! Not again! Stop fighting, you two!"

Camibarez cried out in alarm. Simon let it wash over him and turned to Camibarez.

"Cami, do you know what our next class is?"

"Yep! Toxicology!"

At that, Meilin made a face like she'd bitten something rotten.

"First and second period are polar opposites, huh."

"Tell me about it."

Everyone was chatting as they filed toward the door—when suddenly:

Clap! Clap!

"Hey, everyone! Sorry, but can I get your attention for a minute?"

A girl stepped up to the podium and raised her voice, drawing every eye in the room. Braids falling neatly over her shoulders—her name was Claudia Menzies, Class A's foremost aspiring Toxicology student.

At her call, the students who had been about to leave halted, wondering what was going on.

"As you all know, our next class is Toxicology."

She was visibly, tremblingly tense. When the friends standing behind her whispered encouragements, she forced a smile, nodded, and pressed on.

"Professor Byeolya, our new appointment, has been forcing students to swallow poison—a class that is agonizing and barbaric."

Simon, listening quietly, felt his eyes go wide.

Hold on—what did she just say?

The other students were likewise shocked, and a murmur rippled through the room. Sure, everyone badmouthed Professor Byeolya behind her back, but no one had ever aired complaints so brazenly in front of the whole class.

"Honestly, I don't even think that qualifies as a class."

Claudia had clearly made up her mind; she was escalating further and further.

"Honestly, I'd say Professor Lang's time was better. At least back then we learned something. All we've learned from Professor Byeolya's class is that eating poison hurts. We vomit, we retch, our ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠skin breaks out—and it even wrecks our condition for the next class. You all know it's true."

The students swallowed hard. Whatever you thought of how far she was going, most of them agreed with the substance.

She slammed her palm down on a desk with a bang.

"Some students' preexisting conditions have gotten worse! Some have been stuck in the infirmary so long their grades are suffering! This is genuinely going too far, and I think—"

"Hold it."

A voice cut her off, springing out of nowhere.

That one utterance settled over the Class A lecture room like a heavy blanket of silence.

"And just who the hell do you think you are?"

From the very back row, a boy rose—his frame built like a towering mountain ridge—as his presence filled the room.

"Blocking people on their way out just to run your mouth?"

It was Hector.

Faced with this unexpected pushback from Class A's de facto enforcer, Claudia's face stiffened. Even Hector's faction members, who had been nodding along deep in her speech, turned on a dime.

"Yeah! Who does she think she is, popping off like that? Ridiculous."

"Never liked her from the start."

A hostile atmosphere congealed around Hector.

Claudia's lips trembled with fear, but she managed a strained smile.

"S-sorry, Hector. I was just—"

"Fine, so what's your actual point?"

Thankfully, he wasn't stripping her of the floor—just demanding she get to it. Bolstered by that, Claudia spoke with a grave expression.

"We're going to boycott Professor Byeolya's class."

Buzzzzzz!

The shock of the declaration made the entire lecture room erupt in an instant.

Students boycotting the class of a Kizen professor—those near-sacred figures of absolute authority! Not one of them had ever imagined such a thing.

"Let me say this up front: the boycott was not my decision alone."

With the room in an uproar, Claudia raised her voice even higher.

"Every class taking Professor Byeolya's lessons has agreed to join forces. Starting today, we're all boycotting the poison-drinking lessons—and obviously, Class A needs to move with us."

A large-scale class refusal movement, coordinated across multiple departments! The situation was snowballing far beyond anyone's control.

"To be clear, we're not trying to force Professor Byeolya to retire. If she agrees to stop feeding students poison and corrects her curriculum to follow the textbook and established scholarship, we are fully prepared to end the boycott immediately. Until then, we refuse to attend class, and we will protest in front of the Poisonous Magic Hall."

Claudia's friends moved swiftly, setting documents and quills down in front of the students. One girl came up to Simon's desk, placed a paper ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠before him with a curt 'counting on you,' and moved on.

Simon skimmed the document.

"This is a fight to reclaim the bare minimum rights we have as students."

Claudia emphasized.

"If you agree, please sign. Each and every one of your signatures will be an enormous help."

Screeeech!

Just then, Hector shoved his chair back and heaved his mountain of a body upright.

"This is garbage. I'm not listening to another word."

He turned his back and walked out of the lecture room, and Hector's faction filed out after him in a rumbling herd.

Claudia watched them go with a rigid face, and the moment Hector was out the door, she raised her voice even louder.

"Please! It's time we cut off Professor Byeolya's abuses with our own hands!"

As it turned out, Hector's early exit worked in Claudia's favor.

The students who'd been waiting to see where Hector stood started signing quickly. Swept up in the mood, several more lifted their quills too.

"I'll sign it, but I can't join the boycott with you."

One boy said as he handed the paper back to Claudia.

"I'd rather not get on a Kizen professor's bad side."

"Ah—of course, I completely understand. The signature alone means a lot. If you change your mind, come talk to me anytime."

By the ratio, more than thirty percent of Class A seemed to have signed. Simon was reading over the document, weighing it in his mind, when a commotion suddenly broke out beside him.

Cindy Vivace and Claudia were at each other's throats.

"I'm not signing."

When Cindy turned her down flatly, Claudia's face filled with betrayal.

"Cindy! I genuinely trusted you! How can you do this to me? I even shared my Toxicology notes with you before!"

"Don't really care."

Cindy dragged her chair back and stood up.

"You've quietly sat through her classes this whole time, and NOW you pull this? Why?"

"NOW? Because—"

"Let's be blunt about it."

Cindy snatched her jacket off the back of her chair and slung it over her shoulder.

"You say it's a class-wide joint boycott, but isn't it really just you rallying kids around each class's poison dweebs?"

'Dok-jjil-i'—poison dweeb—was student slang at Kizen for mocking anyone aspiring to Toxicology.

Claudia's face went stone-hard.

"Oh, and another thing. Those poison dweebs' rankings absolutely cratered in the second BMAT, and they've been whining about it through this entire assessment period. Every other professor looks after their own kids, but ours just shovels poison down our throats like the BMAT doesn't even exist."

"Hey! That has nothing to do with this! You're going too—"

"Well, since we're on the subject, I might as well finish."

Cindy shrugged.

"I don't take Toxicology, so it's no skin off my nose. And if what you're saying is true, then honestly? I hope Professor Byeolya keeps dragging those poison dweebs down forever. Kizen is the ultimate proving ground, isn't it? If someone else's misery raises my own survival rate—so be it."

She turned to face the students of Class A.

"You lot should think like Kizen students too. Let's go, guys."

Cindy and her group left the lecture room.

Claudia glared after her with venomous eyes.

"...You and I are enemies for life, Cindy."

At that, Cindy looked back over her shoulder and smirked.

"You'd have to have been friends first for any of that to mean anything."

And so it went—while some students signed on, agreeing that Byeolya's Toxicology class was unbearably cruel, there were others, like Cindy Vivace, who saw the whole thing as a chance to knock the Toxicology crowd down a peg.

It would have been enough to break anyone's spirit, but Claudia only grew more spite-driven, working the room harder than ever.

And then this time—

"Simon!"

She came right up to his desk.

"Please! This is about us students reclaiming our most basic rights. If you—Special Admission No. 1—join the boycott, it would make a tremendous difference!"

Simon, who had been silently staring at the document, slowly closed his eyes.

"......"

A moment later, his mouth opened.