An Unexpected Feast Before the Storm
A woman in a crisp formal suit, her bobbed hair neatly combed, stood with a clipboard tucked under her arm and a look of clear displeasure on her face.
Bahil clicked his tongue, then put on a smile.
"It's nothing at all, Vice Principal."
"……I believe I just heard a tongue click, but I'll let it slide. The event is about to begin. Please return to your seat."
Bahil headed back into the Great Auditorium, and Byeolya followed as well, letting out a cheerful laugh as she mingled in with the other students.
Jane had just turned to leave when—
"Professor Jane! We made it back safe and sound!"
Simon greeted her with a bright grin. Jane glanced back over her shoulder and gave a small nod.
"Yes. I'm glad you all returned without incident."
Dick quietly murmured as he watched her retreating figure.
"Professor Jane is a stone statue through and through. Not a bit of change. I thought she'd soften up a little once we got to know her."
"Yeah?"
Simon smiled.
"The way I saw it, she seemed really happy to see us."
"……You call that happy?"
"Simon~"
At the voice calling his name from behind, Simon turned around.
"Oh, Cami!"
Camibarez, in her academy uniform for the first time in ages, came trotting up in quick little steps. The bat wings on her back fluttered again and again, as if they themselves were glad to see him.
"Hey! What is it, what happened? What did Professor Jane say to you?"
Right behind her came Meilin, her sky-blue hair rippling like a stream.
"Just that she was glad we made it back safely."
"Professor Jane said that? That's a surprise."
Camibarez came up close and giggled.
"A whole new schedule is starting! Let's all work hard together, okay?"
She clenched both fists and cheered. Everyone's expressions went soft and melty. It was the kind of feeling that soothed the heart and healed you from the inside.
"Alright! Let's survive this 4th BMAT too and make it all the way to the 5th—!"
"Still not dead yet, huh. Trash."
Dick's head whipped around.
Hector, massive and unhurried, stood with his hands in his pockets, smirking.
"What a shame."
Around him, Hector's notorious faction snickered and traded laughs.
When Hector's gaze—the same gaze that had mocked Dick—swung over to Simon, his expression grew serious for a moment. Then he simply said 'let's go' and turned his back.
The faction swarmed after him in a noisy clot.
"Hector! Hurry up and tell us the story about fighting three priests three-on-one in the Neutral Zone!"
"Wasn't that five-on-one?"
Watching Hector's noisy crowd depart, Meilin let out a long sigh.
"I wonder when those guys are ever going to grow up."
Dick snickered and added his two cents.
"Honestly, I just think of them as kids who need a little attention, so they don't even piss me off anymore."
Camibarez gave the three of them a shove on the back.
"Come on, let's get inside too!"
The moment Simon's group stepped into the Great Auditorium, they froze in shock.
"Wh-what is all this?"
An astonishing scene spread out before their eyes. The auditorium's rows of straight benches had vanished entirely, and round tables had been set in their place.
And at the center, laid out buffet-style, was an endless display of lavish dishes of every kind.
Chefs bustled about, filling the tables with freshly cooked, still-warm food, while in front of the podium musicians played classical music.
"A-a formal banquet?"
"……Wow."
The students were beside themselves with excitement. Simon's group, too, hurried to claim a round table at the front before anyone else could arrive.
They stripped off their uniform jackets, draped them over chairs to 'reserve' their seats, then went off to load up on food.
'There are so many dishes I've never seen before.'
Simon's pupils, a boy raised in a mountain village, spun wildly. No matter how many feasts like this he attended, he never quite got used to them. For now, he filled his plate with the familiar dishes and headed back.
The other three had already returned and were chatting away.
Even the food they'd chosen showed their personalities. Dick went heavy on carbohydrates with a fish-heavy plate, Meilin picked salads and pasta, and Camibarez favored the meat dishes.
"Shall I pour you some wine?"
Tall, graceful waiters approached and asked. Dick nearly jumped out of his skin.
"We—we're allowed to drink? On campus?"
"By special exception, Lord Nephthys has permitted it for this occasion only."
"Whoa!"
One look was enough to see that Kizen had pulled out all the stops for this banquet.
"Still, the fact that they put on a spread like this… maybe sending all the kids off to suffer in the Neutral Zone pricked their conscience a little, huh?"
Meilin, who clearly didn't dislike occasions like this, swept her hair back and sipped her wine with elegant poise. When they were together she could be rough and casual, but at times like this she carried herself with the grace of a high noble's daughter.
"Mm!"
A moment after her first sip, her eyes went wide.
"This isn't the cheap stuff! This is expensive wine!"
Simon took a sip as well and nodded with satisfaction. Camibarez, apparently finding alcohol a bit much for her, was quietly sipping orange juice instead.
"I-I'll clear your plates for you~"
Just then, a woman in a maid's uniform appeared, pushing a cart with timid little steps, and began stacking the empty dishes onto it.
Meilin popped the last mushroom dish into her mouth and held out her empty plate.
"Please take this one too—wait. Huh?!"
Her eyes went wide, and she pointed a finger at the maid.
"Senior TA?! What are you doing here?!"
The woman in the maid's outfit was none other than Jane's Head TA.
Her face flushed scarlet, she raised a finger to her lips and hissed.
"Shh! Keep it down, it's embarrassing!"
When Simon's, Dick's, and Camibarez's eyes all turned to her as well, she looked ready to burst into tears.
"C-come on, as fellow human beings, aren't you supposed to pretend you don't see this kind of thing?!"
"Pfft-haha!"
Meilin covered her mouth and burst out laughing, and the Head TA's face grew even redder.
'……Th-this is so awkward.'
Reading the room, Simon stood up and tried to load his own empty plate onto the cart, but she pushed him back down into his seat, telling him to just stay put.
"Wh-why is a TA here, though?"
Camibarez asked, blinking her round eyes.
"……Ahem. We do what we must to make a living."
"?"
The TA shook her head slowly.
"You all are in the bright, fresh prime of your lives, so you wouldn't understand—but it's all these little setbacks, piling up one after another, that turn us into adults."
"……"
The moment the air turned oddly melancholy, the TA hastily added:
"Ah, no, honestly it's nothing dramatic. Word came down that this event was short-staffed, so they requested support. The TAs played rock-paper-scissors for the five slots, and, well… here I am."
As she spoke, a thin sheen of tears welled in her eyes.
"A maid… me… at my rank…"
"G-good luck!"
Camibarez offered her quiet encouragement.
"Senior TA."
Dick abruptly cut in. Knowing his personality well, she looked at him with a pitiful little whine.
"If you tease me, I really will cry."
"No no, it's not that… I was just going to say, at least you're better off than that guy."
Dick pointed to the side.
At the next table, Brad—the Magic Combat TA—was clearing dishes in a maid's uniform.
His hulking, rock-hard muscles were on the verge of bursting the uniform at the seams, and the hair visible beneath his billowing skirt was lowering the students' appetites in real time.
"Hm."
The Head TA gave an awkward laugh.
"I do feel a little better now."
"More power to you!"
And so the banquet atmosphere grew warmer and merrier by the minute.
But whenever happiness that feels too good for one's station goes on too long, people inevitably begin to suspect it.
"Ah, this is terrifying!!"
Dick slammed his palm down on the round table.
"Why are these Kizen people being so nice to us? What exactly are they planning, feeding us this well?!"
"Maybe it's something like this?"
Simon took a sip of wine and mimed a voice.
"H-have you all enjoyed yourselves? We will now begin the 4th BMAT."
Meilin and Camibarez let out near-screams at his words.
"Hey!! Don't jinx it, quit saying stuff like that!"
"I-it's Kizen, so it could actually happen, and that scares me!"
In truth, Simon wasn't the first—the majority of the students around them were having the exact same conversation at that very moment.
Right then.
Pop.
Click-click.
The lights in the Great Auditorium dimmed. Spotlights converged on the podium, and the musicians withdrew.
Broadcast Henchmen could be seen swiftly setting up standing amplification crystals.
Thud. Thud.
Every gaze in the hall snapped to the source of the footsteps.
Simon's eyes went wide.
Aaron appeared—not in his usual disheveled clothes, but dressed in a formal suit.
"……"
A crushing tension flooded the student body, and a strangled silence fell over the hall.
Aaron approached with a blank expression, checked the standing amplification crystal, then looked out at the students.
"Right now,"
he said, glancing at their rigid, overwrought faces—and smirked.
"it's not what you're thinking, so there's no need to panic."
Haaaaah—
Sighs of relief burst out from all across the hall.
"First, we'll have you fill out some paperwork."
The moment Aaron finished speaking, the Henchmen sprang into action as if they'd been waiting for the cue, swiftly distributing documents and quills to the students.
'Wh-what's this all of a sudden?'
Simon unfolded his document and checked the form.
— Official Assessment Form —
Name :
Sex :
Major :
Minor :
Available Dark Magic and Proficiency Level :
Chronic Conditions :
Trauma History :
"Chronic conditions and trauma? Why do they suddenly want us to write this stuff?"
Meilin crossed her arms, puzzled. Camibarez spoke up quietly too.
"Th-this is a little suspicious… isn't it? Ahaha."
"I honestly don't know if it's safe to answer this truthfully."
Dick was already scheming for a loophole when Aaron spoke.
"Don't get clever with it. Write down the truth, exactly as it is. This is for your own benefit as well."
Just then, someone's hand shot up. By now, Simon didn't even need to see the face—the posture and the bracelets on that wrist gave the person away instantly.
"Jamie Victoria, Professor! We're still first-years, so we don't have majors yet!"
"Write your strongest subject in the major field,"
Aaron said.
"And it does not necessarily have to be the subject you chose for your group project. Because of team composition, there are bound to be a fair number of you who selected a subject other than your true specialty. Fill it out with the subject you're actually best at."
At those very words, Meilin—who had written Curse Magic under major—could be seen crossing out the line with her quill and writing Jet-Black Mechanics in its place.
Then another student raised a hand.
"Is this going to be shown to the other students?"
"Only authorized Kizen personnel may view it. Don't worry about that—just write."
And so the once-noisy Great Auditorium fell quiet, filled for a while with nothing but the scratch-scratch of quills on paper.
Simon, who had proudly written Summoning as his major, was stumped on the minor field.
'The minor is supposed to be my second-strongest subject, right?'
Naturally, three candidates came to mind—Curse Magic, Magic Combat, and Hemomancy—but if he was picking the one he was most confident in and used most often, it was Magic Combat, hands down.
It wasn't a binding final answer, apparently, so he went ahead and wrote down Magic Combat.
'F-for some reason I can picture Professor Bahil's furious face… but it'll be fine, right?'
Once every first-year had finished their paperwork, Aaron stepped back up to the podium.
"First, I have an important announcement. And beginning with this 4th BMAT, there will be changes—so pay attention."
Hearing that, Dick pointed at himself with an excited face.
"See, see! I told you! I was right, wasn't I? I said there'd be changes!"
"Okay, okay—shut it already."
Meilin flushed red and glanced around nervously. Truly, no matter where you looked, there was no more embarrassing teammate to be found.
Simon turned his head back and focused on Aaron at the podium.
Aaron picked up the standing amplification crystal and walked to the very edge of the stage.
"First of all,"
he said, unfolding a fresh document.
"I will introduce the Necromancer who will preside over this 4th BMAT."
Simon's eyes went wide.
'There's a separate Necromancer overseeing the exam—not Kizen headquarters itself?'
Something really had changed.