The Only One Above Me
"And now, the final exam of the day!"
Konrad, the announcer presiding over the broadcast, shouted into his amplification crystal. Beside him, a mana screen was streaming the exam live.
"You are currently watching the advancement exam and the fifth BMAT! Ah—and right at the moment I was about to mention—"
Kuwaaaaaaah!
Hector, transformed into a black dragon, roared from the sky. His opponent for this exam was a white deer swinging a thousand tentacles—a creature recreated through the virtual combat system from the 'Dungeon Lord' of the dungeon they had once braved.
The black dragon flew at high speed, hammering the beast with short, rapid bursts of breath, but the Dungeon Lord danced out of the way with quick, springing hops.
Whoosh!
This time the Dungeon Lord counterattacked. A thousand white tentacles rolled across the sky like a blizzard, yet Hector only accelerated his descent, raining breath all the harder.
"Magnificent! Simply magnificent! He's dodging every single one of those attacks!"
"Hector ish one of the shtudents who've grown the mosht here at Kizen."
Hong Peng, seated beside him, wore a delighted smile.
"He never leaned on the privileges the Moore family handed him from birth. He ground himself to the bone and clawed his way to top-tier grades in every shingle shubject. That inner shtrength of his—showing his true power no matter the shircumshtance—is surely what carried him into the final ten, and now all the way to this Dungeon Lord match."
"Is that so! Remarkable!"
The announcer, who had been listening to Hong Peng's endearing drawl with a dopey grin, straightened his face at a signal from the broadcast henchman.
A variable had sprung up mid-exam. Hector's breath crashed into the onrushing tentacles and detonated, his vision swallowed by smoke for an instant.
Stab!
The tentacles seized their chance, punching up through the smoke and driving clean through the corpse dragon's wings—again and again.
Ahhh—!
A groan rippled through the parents watching the screen.
"Hector's wings have taken the hit and his flight is sealed! What a shame—hesh was so close to—huh?"
The announcer stopped mid-sentence, eyes going wide. As the smoke cleared, the mass of wings and scales lay split open like a shed snake skin, its center completely empty.
"It—it vanished! Where has Hector gone...!"
WHUMP!
Hector had burst through the smoke, having flung off the corpse dragon's shed husk, and was dropping down in nothing but his bare body. He clasped his two fists together, knuckles interlocked.
BOOM—!
His doubled fists slammed into the boss monster's skull. Black magic burst upward with a bone-rattling crack. Staggered by an impact close to a brain concussion, the boss monster reeled backward—and Hector was on it in a flash, pressing close as if to embrace it.
Hector's shirt shredded away, revealing four curse magic circles etched across his torso. The curse began driving up the temperature of both Hector and the boss monster alike.
Screeeech!
"Ghhhhhrrk!"
The announcer's mouth fell wide open.
"Wh-what sheer obsession is this! Hector is activating the curse with his own flesh and blood!"
"Shmart judgment, that."
Hong Peng said.
"Cauma ish a high-fever curse, and that Dungeon Lord is exquisitely vulnerable to temperature shifts inside its own body. Look there! It can't even keep its tentacles shtiff anymore!"
Just as she said, the tentacles coiled around Hector's body had gone slack, flopping limply without any strength in them.
The announcer hurriedly turned to her.
"B-but doesn't that put Hector himself in terrible danger?!"
"Hector, who shpits scorching Dragon Breathsh, has heat resishtance as a baseline. He can endure it!"
Then Hector wrenched his head back and—with a savage crunch!—sank his teeth into the Dungeon Lord's nape.
Splurt! Blood gushed free.
Every spectator was struck speechless by Hector's sheer ferocity. He wasn't even in Dragon Form—and he was biting a monster with his own living teeth!
"Grrrr! Grrrraaah!"
Splurt!
The teeth dug deeper, and another torrent of blood spilled out. The announcer's face flushed crimson with excitement.
"It's through! Human teeth have pierced the nape!"
Only then did the tentacles around Hector finally lose their grip. Still clutching the Dungeon Lord, Hector bent his knees and launched himself skyward with all his might.
FWOOSH!
High in the open air, Hector released the Dungeon Lord from his hands and spread his arms wide. The shed wings and scales of the corpse dragon fitted themselves over him like a garment, piece by piece, until once more he stood a black dragon.
Ssssh—
Hector held his breath and arched his upper body back. One side of his abdomen swelled outward, then undulated upward—through the belly, the chest, the esophagus—until the dragon's maw yawned open and at last a seething maelstrom of jet-black flame revealed itself.
With a thunderous roar, the full-power Dragon Breath smashed the falling Dungeon Lord into the ground and exploded. The heat scorched the grass across the whole field. The earth split, and the trees whipped back and forth in wild disarray.
Thud!
Hector touched down and looked up at the sky. A new message floated before his eyes.
Time: 21 min 07 sec
New record achieved.
1st Place
"Hector! Hector student finishes the advancement exam with the highest score on record!"
The black dragon loosed a roar of victory.
Three hours later.
"And now! Please welcome to the stage—Hector, who passed the boss battle exam in first place!"
Clapclapclapclapclap!
Escorted by the crowd's thunderous cheers, Hector climbed onto the stage. Behind him, Hong Peng was applauding as well.
"Welcome, welcome! That was an absolutely gripping performance! Haha!"
The announcer approached Hector with a cheerful laugh—then flinched without meaning to the instant their eyes met.
Aura.
Perhaps because he'd just watched the young man's match, but the boy exuded an aura that was hard to approach, all of seventeen as he was. Then there was the iron-solid body that was the distillation of relentless training, the calluses everywhere you looked, the traces of painstaking effort.
Age, student status—none of it mattered. The announcer genuinely respected this boy.
"What an upset! He's beaten Chatel Maer—whom absolutely everyone expected to take first—by mere seconds, and passed the advancement exam with the best score in the year! Hector! A word, please?"
"......"
Hector took the amplification crystal from the announcer, quietly closed his eyes, then opened them. And he stared straight into the mana camera.
"Are you watching."
His voice settled low and even.
"Pass this pathetic exam with the top score, and you'll be lying in the sickroom without a care in the world—1st place locked in, just like that."
The crowd murmured. The announcer, whose job was to pounce on any juicy issue, felt his eyes gleam.
"Ah! First place would be Simon Polentia! If you have any complaints regarding Simon Polentia's clinching of first—"
The announcer fell silent mid-question, entirely against his will. Hector was glaring at him with murder in his eyes.
The announcer became a man with a mouthful of honey and nowhere to spit it, averting his gaze.
"No Kizen student—"
Hector raised the amplification crystal.
"—has any complaint about Simon Polentia's first place."
"......Ah."
"He risked his life to protect us. Coming here, beating some flimsy fake Dungeon Lord, and contesting his place would be—"
The corner of Hector's mouth curled up.
"—enough to make me sick."
The hall went quiet, and the announcer broke out in a cold sweat that ran down in streams.
Hector stared into the mana camera once more.
"I worked like a madman to catch up to you. And now that the first year is over, only one person stands above me."
His massive fist clenched tight.
The same moment.
"Hup! Hup!"
Simon, dressed in a patient's gown, was drenched in sweat, working through his conditioning in the sickroom. There was no mana screen or anything of the sort in his room, so he had no idea what kind of interview Hector had just given.
He simply trained hard. At the moment, he was doing one-handed push-ups with his other hand clasped behind his back.
[Khehehe! Training even in the middle of all this.]
Pier's avatar remarked.
[How about waiting until your body has fully recovered?]
"Haah! Only within... phew!... what I can handle, sir!"
Having at last completed his final push-up, Simon flopped down onto the floor like a starfish.
Pier looked at the sight and spoke as if he simply couldn't understand it.
[The first year is all but over, and still—new techniques, strength training. Why work yourself this hard?]
Simon answered, lying flat on his back on the floor.
"I've still got a long road ahead. The Legion needs to earn recognition, and Magnus has to be brought down."
[Indeed.]
"And if I had to attach one more reason."
Simon lifted a hand. Through the gaps between his fingers, he could see the sickroom ceiling.
"I promised to settle things with Hector before the break."
[Khehehe! You mean that boy who turns into a dragon!]
"That's the one. And with Herseba out of commission, I'll need to make up for it with the Chaos I gained this time."
Lying on his back, Simon spread both his palms open.
In one hand, Divinity.
In the other, Cloud.
He then overlapped the two palms and pressed them together. Chaos was born—three forces whirling violently against one another.
Getting this far had now become simple.
[By the way, boy.]
Pier cut in abruptly.
[Isn't being caught using Divinity even more dangerous than being caught as a Legion Commander?]
"Of course it is. That's why the ultimate goal of Chaos isn't the rotation of Divinity and Jet-Black—it's to create a completely new, third mana entirely."
Simon had been endlessly varying the ratios of Jet-Black, Divinity, and blood in search of the golden proportion.
"Take a look at this."
The combination of Jet-Black and SM-1 blood was Cloud. But somewhere amid the ratio adjustments, a new phenomenon had been observed.
"See that? The Divinity is mixing into the SM-1."
[KWHAHAHAHA!]
Pier roared with laughter.
[You've gone and made another mad discovery!]
"To be precise—"
Simon smiled.
"When Divinity came rushing in to destroy its antithesis, Jet-Black, I raised the ratio of SM-1 blood, which acts as a wall between them. And instead of piercing through the blood, the Divinity burrowed into it—trying to reach the Jet-Black from inside."
[Hmmmm!]
"So I thought—wouldn't something like this also be possible?"
Simon's eyes turned grave.
"Sealing Divinity and Jet-Black both inside SM-1 blood, and mutating them simultaneously—just like Cloud."
[Truly, another insane idea!]
Simon bolted upright.
"I contacted Professor Farahan and asked for white-magic historical records on binding blood with Divinity. Apparently the priests have healing magic that coats blood in Divinity for treatment purposes."
[Then if you were to master that technique—]
"Yes."
Simon's eyes grew serious.
"Even in Kizen—the very heartland of necromancy—Divinity might become something we can wield as a true combat asset."
Knock knock knock.
Just then, a knocking sounded from outside the sickroom. Simon hastily clamped a hand over his mouth—then remembered the sound-blocking magic circle Professor Farahan had cast for him, and belatedly relaxed.
"Yes, come in."
The door opened, and the sickroom caretaker—now a familiar face—poked her head in.
"Um, Simon? You have a visitor. Would you like to see them?"
Simon's eyes went round.
"Pardon? I don't have any visits scheduled today, do I?"
"Th-that's just it, but he's insisting he simply must see you right this moment..."
"Excuse me just a moment, please."
Before permission had even been granted, someone strode briskly past the caretaker into the ward.
It was a man dressed head to toe in a snow-white suit.
"P-Professor Bahil!"
Bahil, professor of Curse Studies, smiled at the sight of Simon.
"I'm relieved to see you looking healthy. Might we have a word?"