The Stage of the Promotion Exam
A few days later, during Basic Dark Magic class, the information every student had been desperate for finally spilled from Jane's lips.
"An announcement regarding the exams has come down from Kizen headquarters."
Finally!
Simon and the rest of Class A made no effort to hide their tension, swallowing hard. The notoriously brutal exam rumored to weed out two or three hundred of the first-years. With a rustle of paper, Jane unfolded the document she'd received from the teaching assistants.
"The stage for this year's promotion exam, the fifth BMAT, and the integrated exam will be..."
Her voice rang out clearer than ever.
"A dungeon."
A dungeon! Simon clenched his fist. So the time had finally come to step into that truly unknown space.
"See? What did I tell you?" Dick snickered.
The promotion exam took on a different format every year. Last year, students had been sent to an island swarming with monsters; the year before, it had been a dungeon. Since they'd already done an island survival assessment this year, Dick had guessed it would be a dungeon this time—and his guess had been right on the money.
"First, there are documents you will all need to complete."
At Jane's gesture, the teaching assistants bustled about, setting papers down on each student's desk.
"...Ah, right."
Simon let out a wry smile as he flipped through the pages. It was the very document students informally called the 'Waiver of Bodily Rights.' In summary: we acknowledge the danger of this exam and agree to hold the school blameless under any and all circumstances while it is in progress. Having filled it out countless times already in his time at Kizen, Simon felt less shock than a sense of grim inevitability—the look on every student's face said the same thing: so it's finally here.
"The danger level of this promotion exam will be on an entirely different scale from anything you've faced before," Jane said. "Every exam up until now was planned and controlled by Kizen headquarters. This one is not. Inside the dungeon, you will receive help from no one. If your Barrier Gauge reaches 0%, the convenient teleportation magic that would normally return you to the school—"
Her voice dropped like a hammer onto the lecture hall.
"—does not exist. Death in this exam is real death. No one knows what might happen inside a dungeon, and nothing can be guaranteed. If you intend to withdraw, now is your last chance."
Thwap.
She set the papers down on the podium and took her seat—even the way she sat radiated aristocratic poise. "Simply surviving Kizen's first year to the end is a credential that could earn you a living somewhere. The choice is yours."
Scritch!
The moment she finished speaking, Dick was the first to sign the document. Simon and the other students followed, gripping their quills and pressing their names into the paper with firm, deliberate strokes. They had survived this far—the thought of backing down now, on the very threshold of second year, never crossed anyone's mind.
"It seems we have no cowards among us, at the very least."
Once the teaching assistants had collected the documents, Jane rose from her chair and returned to the podium. "Now, let me explain the rules of the exam."
As he listened, Simon reflected that the sheer scale of it was every bit as Kizen as he'd expected. All first-year students would enter the dungeon together, each wearing an unbreakable artifact with built-in recording magic around their neck. The objective for the entire student body was singular: clear the dungeon. Because dungeons were extremely dangerous spaces, combat between fellow students was strictly forbidden—anyone caught would be expelled on the spot. And the moment the dungeon was cleared, the exam would end for everyone.
"Put another way," Jane emphasized, "the exam continues until the dungeon is cleared. It might take a week. It might take a month. Or perhaps, when next year's new students enroll, some of you will still be down there, unable to find your way out."
Brutal.
The same thought struck every student at once. This was Kizen's infamous promotion exam, after all—it was no accident that only about three hundred of the original thousand enrollees survived the first year. And because the stakes were so astronomically high, Jane was deliberately driving home every warning she could to instill a sense of crisis.
Pop!
A hand shot up at that moment—it was the person everyone had expected.
"Jamie Victoria, Professor! How do we clear the dungeon?"
Jane gave her a slight nod. "Inside a dungeon, there exists a core entity known as the Dungeon Lord—or the 'boss monster,' as it's sometimes called. Destroy this key entity, the one that drives the space's mutation, and the dungeon will collapse naturally, returning you all to the original world."
This time, a male student raised his hand. "Scott Snyder, Professor! You just said the goal for the entire student body is clearing the dungeon. So are we allowed to attack the Dungeon Lord too? Could all 647 of us just rush it at once, six hundred forty-seven against one?"
"Yes, you may."
The students began murmuring among themselves, while Scott lowered his hand and was telling his group members, "Well, doesn't that sound too easy?"
"That said," Jane added, "I suspect only a tiny handful of those 647 students will ever reach the final chamber where the Dungeon Lord waits."
"R-Right, fair point."
This time it was Meilyn, seated toward the back, who raised her hand. Jane acknowledged her with a tilt of her head.
"Meilyn Villenne! I'd like to know how the promotion exam will be evaluated and graded."
A model student's question, through and through.
"The evaluation criterion is your performance in the dungeon. What judgments you make, what monsters you hunt and with what dark magic, how you respond to emergencies, securing food, clothing, and shelter, maintaining your mental state, setting your objectives—everything you do in there will be subject to evaluation."
Since the promotion exam was the final test of the first year, it functioned as a comprehensive examination of everything they had learned, experienced, felt, and mastered as necromancers up to this point.
"However, I said the criterion is performance in service of the dungeon's objective. Meaningful grades will only come from acting toward the goal of clearing the dungeon."
That gave even the sharp-witted Meilyn pause. "I... I don't quite understand. Could you give us an example?"
"Consider a student who spends the entire exam mindlessly slaughtering every monster that spawns, purely for the sake of his grade."
With astonishing speed, she sketched the figure of a person on the blackboard. "Now consider another student who deliberately draws the swarming monsters toward himself to buy time for his classmates fighting the Dungeon Lord. Even if the first student kills more monsters, Kizen will award the second student a far higher score."
Oh.
Simon let out a small breath of admiration. This rule ran through the entire exam. The notion of 'someone else will clear it anyway~' and grinding out pointless monster kills was blocked at the source. To earn a good grade, every single student had no choice but to push toward the shared objective of clearing the dungeon.
"Hmm—mmm. Hmm."
Beside Simon, Dick was tapping his desk with a fingertip, wearing a thoughtful frown. Then his hand shot up, and Jane pointed at him.
"Your beloved Professor Jane, it's Dick Hayward!" Dick leapt to his feet and shouted.
"Yes, Dick Hayward, the student who worries me most in this class," Jane said dryly. "So if cooperation between students is permitted, is it always better to cooperate? And how is grading handled in that case?"
Jane studied Dick in silence for a moment before answering. "I wouldn't say cooperation is always the right call. If you form a 'party' with other students, teamwork and role assignments will factor into your score."
In a party, the student assigned to defense earns points for focusing purely on defense; the one focused on support earns points just for supporting. Of course, that opens the door to deductions as well—poor team play and broken coordination could drag everyone down.
"In other words, even your little schemes could count toward your score—provided they contribute to the party."
"As expected of Professor Jane! You see right through me!"
"Sit down."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Amid scattered laughter, Dick plopped back into his chair with impressive speed. Behind him, Meilyn heaved sigh after sigh, her hand pressed to her forehead.
"...I have never in my life seen anyone as embarrassing as you."
"Don't mention it! Rave reviews are always welcome!"
"You're a complete lunatic, honestly."
After that, the questions kept coming from other students, and Jane answered each one without missing a beat. First, the type and theme of the dungeon could not be disclosed—Kizen headquarters' standing directive. Jane's only advice was to go see for themselves. The sole piece of information she could share was that the dungeon was vast: while cooperation between students was permitted, it was supposedly large enough that a student might wander the entire expedition without laying eyes on a single other person.
"The promotion exam begins one week from today," Jane said. "I trust there is no one in Class A who plans to slack off just because finals are over. Hone your abilities to their absolute limits. I would also recommend brushing up on basic dungeon knowledge. Class dismissed."
Once the schedule and contents of the promotion exam were announced, the student body descended into an uproar. Students from the other classes had received the same briefing from their own professors, so the dining hall hummed with nothing but dungeon talk from the first bite of a meal to the last.
[A dungeon the size of a small kingdom...]
Simon was climbing the hillside with Herseba, ostensibly for a stroll. Drifting along through the air beside him, she had gathered the surrounding sand into the shape of a woman.
[How exciting!]
"That's not actually what I wanted to ask about," Simon said. "I want to know whether, inside someone else's dungeon, you can still use your Third Authority to invite a target into your own."
[Of course I can!] Herseba replied, as if the question barely deserved asking. [Is the word 'dungeon' making it hard for you to wrap your head around? A space is just a space. Whether I use it here or inside a dungeon, my Authority functions perfectly. And when the duration runs out, we'll simply return to wherever we started.]
"That's a relief."
Herseba frowned. [Then why even ask? You know I hate using the Third Authority.]
After the battle with Chatel, she had spent an entire week groaning and complaining. The aftereffects had been severe—she'd even shown mild symptoms of trauma. So Simon had been gently coaxing the reluctant wand through experiments, working out ways to use her abilities more efficiently.
"Now that I think of it—!"
Simon grabbed Herseba tightly, and she let out a startled yelp. He picked up a pebble from the ground nearby and tossed it lightly into the air, then brought the wand's tip down against the ground.
Goldenization!
A patch of earth no larger than necessary transmuted to gleaming gold, and from its surface the pointed roof of a golden structure shot upward, spearing the falling pebble dead center.
"Something like this isn't too much for you, right?"
[I-I mean, no, but—ah! Not so tight!] Herseba grumbled. [The problem is the Third Authority.]
"I'll work on that too, as much as I can. Though pulling out the mummy thing at the end was probably a bit much."
Simon, swinging Herseba through the empty air and testing her abilities with every flourish, soon found himself in a lush, overgrown part of the hill.
"Time to head into the subspace, Herseba."
She blinked. [Why? The view's lovely here. Can't we look around a little longer?]
"Because if we go much further, it might get rough for a Lich like you."
-Meow!
-Mrow! Mrow! Mrow! Mrow!
At that moment, accompanied by a chorus of cats' cries, two kittens—one snowy white, one jet black—came tumbling and toddling toward Simon.
"Whitey! Blackie! Have you been good?"
[What, cats?]
The two kittens rubbed their whole bodies against Simon's legs, pestering him shamelessly to be petted, to be picked up.
"You two haven't grown an inch."
Simon grinned and scooped them up, one settling neatly into each hand.
"So you've come."
From the grass emerged an old man in a white robe, his beard long and white.
"Professor Farahan!"
It was Farahan, the professor of Divine Defense.
[Gahk! Wh-who's that?!]
Herseba trembled like a leaf in the wind. It was only natural—for the first time since becoming a Lich, she was feeling divinity up close. Mindful of her distress, Simon tucked her safely into the subspace and walked on toward the professor's cottage.
If I put a target inside Herseba's dungeon, one restriction disappears entirely. A confident smile curled across Simon's lips. A space that belongs only to me and Herseba. If I can just solve the recording artifact problem in this exam, I'll be able to use divinity freely.
Everything in my power, every option on the table. Simon resolved to move with every possibility kept open.
"Now then. Today we'll be reviewing the fundamentals of Divine Beast Studies."
"Yes, Professor!"