Survival or Victory!
“Hmmmmmm—”
Nephthys sat in a chair that was barely taller than she was, swinging her short legs back and forth as she pored over the documents with a stubbornly frozen expression.
“Uuuuuum—”
Something was clearly displeasing her. She narrowed her eyes, puffed out her cheeks, stuck out her lips, shifted her sitting posture—fidgeting in every way imaginable.
Jane, standing at attention behind her, felt her eyebrow twitch.
“Hrrrrrrmm—”
“Enough fidgeting, if you please, and tell us what you think.”
“Fine, fine.”
Nephthys stuck her tongue out at Jane, then turned to look at the seated professors. Before long, she was waving the papers in her hand back and forth.
“Is all of this real? Hmm? What is wrong with our 329th class?”
“…….”
The professors and headquarters staff who had gathered for the meeting held their tongues.
Nephthys flipped a page with a flutter.
“Stealing someone else's Mission Assessment materials. Cursing other people's experimental props. And in this latest Mission Assessment, deliberate sabotage of other students' missions during student combat. Why are there so many cases warranting major disciplinary action? And every single statement of testimony says the same thing.”
Thump—
She set the papers down.
“I tried to drag others down so that I could survive.”
“…….”
As a heavy silence settled over the room, someone resting their chin on their hand spat out a remark.
“Well, what's the problem? Competition has always been a virtue at Kizen.”
“Professor Byeolya!”
Hong Peng tried to cut her off, but Byeolya kept going.
The world runs on the law of the jungle. The weak get culled. That's on the ones who get got, not the ones doing the getting.”
“You didn't need to put it in quite that tone, but I agree with the sentiment.”
It was Stacy Sezan, the professor in charge of the 2nd-year Spirit Studies department, who spoke up next.
“Kizen is the finest educational institution on the Continent, and the secret to producing only the most exceptional necromancers is extreme competition. Tempering and forging our students through fierce rivalry until they graduate as supreme masterpieces—that is our role as educators.”
Having listened quietly, Nephthys now turned her gaze toward Aaron, the Summoning professor.
Aaron tried to sneak his eyes away, but Nephthys hehe'd and stared him down relentlessly.
Left with no choice, Aaron brushed back his disheveled hair and spoke.
“Competition has its merits and its drawbacks. That said, I believe the recent behavior of certain 2nd-years has gone too far.”
A sense that as long as you didn't get caught, fraud and deception were fair game had spread rampant among the students.
Midterms and finals where Kizen professors personally supervised, large-scale exams run by headquarters staff—those were difficult to rig, so whenever the students were completely outside the school's reach, as during the Mission Assessment, their reins tended to come loose. There had even been cases of students actively seeking out rivals to suppress them.
“I agree.”
Hong Peng chimed in with a gentle smile.
“I believe there are students confusing competition-for-growth with competition-for-victory.”
Having heard the professors out, Nephthys set the papers down with a faint smile.
“Okay! I'll keep everything you've said in mind. Now then! What did we gather here to talk about again?”
“…We've already discussed that, Headmistress. This is the meeting to decide the venue for this year's 2nd-Year Group Exam.”
Jane answered thus and shot a glance at one of the professors. A tall, elderly professor caught her signal and stepped briskly forward.
Preston Patton.
He was the professor in charge of the 2nd-year Hemomancy department.
“Now then, allow this old man to do the explaining, Nephthys, if you would. Please direct your attention to this screen—much obliged.”
At his gesture, a mana screen flickered to life.
When the images of three islands appeared on the mana screen, Nephthys's eyes lit up and sparkled.
“Of the eight candidate sites, the faculty and headquarters staff have narrowed it down to these three after deliberation. Of the three, I recommend this one.”
A map of one island expanded, accompanied by a detailed explanation of its natural environment, climate, and native monsters.
“Gidan Island is home to a massive ogre colony.”
He stretched out his hand.
“Every single plant and animal on the island is lethally dangerous to humans. It is an extreme environment where human life is simply impossible—but I believe it is time our students learned to contend with high-risk, large-scale monsters! From the moment the students are dropped onto that island, they will have to live like dwarves—running, hiding, and surviving for their lives. And…”
The map widened to reveal the other islands nearby.
“The destination will be set on a separate island a little farther out. That is where the Lord Ogre resides. The student who defeats that monster will receive the highest possible grade. As for travel between islands, we leave that to the students' own ingenuity. The waters are crawling with marine monsters, so crossing by raft will be difficult. We can expect a wide range of approaches—undeading an ogre and riding it across, for instance.”
He turned his head.
“What do you… th—”
Zzz—
Nephthys had nodded off, her head bobbing—then she woke with a sudden 'ah' and beamed.
“Nope!”
“Pardon?”
Stacy Sezan, seated beside her, covered her mouth and laughed.
“A battlefield crawling with large monsters. I understand the urge to force an environment that favors one's own department, but the world rarely bends to our wishes, does it?”
“Ah—ahem!”
“Lady Nephthys!”
Stacy Sezan, the middle-aged professor beloved by students for her forthright, no-nonsense personality, sprang up from her seat.
“I recommend Serin Island. Hunting large monsters and enduring an extreme environment alone cannot measure a student's true capability. Serin Island has…”
Nephthys accepted the Serin Island file from Jane, skimmed it, then flung it away.
“Nope!”
“…….”
Stacy's mouth clamped shut into a flat line, while Preston allowed himself the faintest smile.
Nephthys had Jane hand over every single island file, then flung them one by one behind her head.
“Not this one either! Hate that one too!”
Like a child throwing a tantrum in a toy shop, Nephthys tossed out every candidate site, and the 2nd-year faculty were reduced to tongue-tied silence.
Then her hand stopped on the very last document—and at long last, she broke into a radiant smile.
“I like this one!”
She lifted the island of her choice up in both hands. The professors who saw her selection each let out a sigh that was more groan than breath.
Professor Preston spoke for them all.
“Ahem—Lady Nephthys. Setting aside the danger, we are concerned whether the students' abilities can be properly evaluated there.”
Nephthys turned her head.
“Jane!”
“Yes.”
“What's Endolas Vaudeville's schedule look like?”
Endolas Vaudeville was, alongside Nephthys, one of the Ten Continental Mysteries—a figure known by the epithet of the Card Necromancer.
He possessed the power to create so-called instance dungeons, and with that ability he had been deeply involved in Kizen's BMAT and a host of other in-school examinations.
Jane pulled out her notebook, skimmed the schedule, and answered.
“He is currently constructing the set for the 1st-year large-scale exam, but if we request that he come straight here upon completion, he should manage to meet the timeline.”
“There, settled?”
Nephthys smiled sweetly. The professors gave no answer, but their expressions remained clouded with worry.
She turned her head toward one more professor.
“What do you think, Bahil?”
Bahil Amagar, the Curse professor, who had spent the entire meeting in silence, scribbling something with a quill pen.
He was, in effect, the most influential member of the 2nd-year faculty after Jane herself.
Professor Bahil! Isn't this a battlefield that disadvantages the Curse department?!
Tell them to pick somewhere else!
Preston and Stacy glared at Bahil, mouths opening and closing wordlessly, but Bahil never lifted his eyes from his notebook as he answered in an indifferent voice.
“I see no problem with it.”
The two professors deflated with a long sigh.
Nephthys broke into a beaming grin and clapped her hands together.
“Then it's decided—here! As soon as Endolas Vaudeville joins us, draft the exam plan and report it to me! Oh, and one more thing!”
“?”
“On the day of the exam, I'm going to announce one suuuuuuper-important rule!”
Jane tilted her head.
“And what would that be?”
“I'm not telling you either! You'd all just object.”
This one's at it again. Jane pressed a hand to her aching forehead.
Stacy hurriedly spoke up.
“Still—don't the students need at least some advance notice if they're to prepare?”
“Fair point. Hmmm—then let's leave it at just this.”
Nephthys deliberated for a moment before declaring:
“Survival or Victory!”
With the Mission Assessment season still in full swing, the students staying on Roke Island were the first to hear the news.
The exam venue: the Rehlon Archipelago.
The theme: 'Survival or Victory'.
Plenty of speculation had swirled around this Group Exam, but the students had also learned that it would be something similar to the island survival assessment they had taken in their first year.
Those who had been on Roke Island from the start, and those returning from their Mission Assessments, threw themselves into preparations for the Group Exam at once.
“You've heard the news?”
Over in Rochest, two students sat together, deep in conversation.
One was overall rank 5, Aseraz Mikel of the Summoning department.
“That the exam theme is Survival or Victory?”
“No.”
And the other.
“I'm talking about what the New Student Council proposed.”
Overall rank 6, and representative of the Poison department.
The so-called 'Queen Bee', Merdiana.
Her hair—yellow and red mingled like autumn leaves—spilled down her shoulders as she idly swirled the straw in her drink.
Aseraz kept her silence, but in her uniform pocket sat that letter from the Student Council.
“If you'd taken down Simon Polentia as you originally intended when you joined the Summoning department, things would have turned out differently.”
“…….”
Aseraz bit her lip hard.
“Did you call me here to scold me?”
“Not to scold—to discipline.”
Tap tap—she knocked the straw against the rim of her glass, shaking off the last droplets of her drink.
“As our seniors on the New Student Council put it, the situation is simple. The concept of the 2nd-Year Group Exam is survival. I'm not sure what this 'victory' tacked onto the end means, but surviving an extreme situation will surely be the baseline. If Simon is finished off in this exam, the Summoning department can be bent a little further to your will. And as a bonus—”
She curled the corner of her mouth upward.
“The Student Council President's seat falls vacant.”
“…….”
Merdiana drained the rest of her drink lightly and rose from her seat.
“Let's go.”
“Where to?”
Merdiana gave a knowing smile.
“We have an Anti-Simon Polentia Alliance to build.”
Their first destination was the Curse department dormitory.
Perhaps because of the Mission Assessment period, few students were around. Merdiana called for a friend from her first-year class, exchanged a few words with her, and was soon being shown inside.
“This is the room.”
Merdiana and Aseraz stopped in their tracks.
Merdiana looked at the nameplate on the door and asked, puzzled.
“Does she usually live alone?”
“Ah, yeah. She had a roommate originally, but the roommate said she couldn't stand living with her anymore and…”
Click.
The girl opened the door and murmured quietly.
“Be careful. Especially if she's asleep—be extra careful then.”
Merdiana and Aseraz stepped into the room—and Aseraz let out a startled gasp.
Wooooooong!
The beds, the curtains, the desk and table—everything in the room was floating in midair, drifting lazily as though gravity had simply ceased to apply.
“Just like the rumors said.”
Merdiana curled her lips upward.
“So it's true—she's awakened her brother's power.”
“Her, her brother…?”
And there, floating on the levitating bed in her pajamas, lay a girl of small stature.
Her eyes flickered open within the covers.