Expulsion
-You're expelled.
Nephthys said it with a smile.
Did she truly understand the weight of that word? Her expression was so composed that Simon wondered, if only for a heartbeat, whether she did.
The hall sank into a stunned, quiet stillness — dead silence, as if everyone had stopped breathing. Then, one by one, murmurs rose from the students, swelling until they burst into a full chorus of shouts.
"Y-you can't be serious?"
"A real expulsion?"
Second-year life at Kizen had been peaceful. They might have believed it back in first year, when one student got expelled every single day. But now, in second year, the sudden announcement of a 'failure = expulsion' rule was more than enough to send everyone into shock.
"...Are they actually going to expel people for real?"
"Don't you know how Kizen works? Rank one or special admission — it doesn't matter, you get expelled all the same. And if Nephthys herself is running it, obviously she'll do exactly that."
While the students floundered in confusion, murmuring among themselves—
"......"
"......"
Asseraz and Merdiana exchanged meaningful smiles.
Well, this just made my job a whole lot easier.
The corners of Merdiana's mouth curled upward.
Before long, Nephthys — who had thrown the entire student body into a panic — turned her head.
"Get ready, Jane!"
"Yes, ma'am."
Jane left her seat, and Nephthys swept her gaze across the students.
"Of course, that doesn't mean failing the exam is the end of the road! Survival or victory. You haven't forgotten, have you? Capture the Volcano Castle Lord, and no matter how much time remains, this exam ends in 'the students' victory.'"
The students' victory.
Without offering a single word of further explanation, Nephthys spun on her heel.
"Then, let's begin!"
Snap!
Nephthys snapped her fingers. In that instant, magic circles bloomed beneath every chair the students sat in, lifting them gently into the air.
"W-we're starting right now?!"
"Wait, hold on a second—!"
Nephthys waved her adorably small arms back and forth, giving the airborne students a cheerful farewell.
"Good luck!"
The students' bodies vanished in a blaze of brilliant magic-circle light.
"......"
Simon's blurry sense of time slowly reassembled itself. His thoughts, which had been floating in a daze, came back to him. The bitter scent of grass filled his nose, and somewhere in the distance he could hear the crash of waves. Only then did Simon push himself up.
"This place is..."
The Rehlon Archipelago — the very place he'd only seen on screen earlier. At some point, Simon had been dropped directly onto that stage. One of the five starting points.
He looked around. The terrain was strewn with boulders as far as the eye could see. The sea glimmered nearby, and far in the distance he could make out the great volcano of the central island.
Rumble-
Rrrrrrrrumble-
The mountain churned with an unsettling sound, as though it could boil over at any moment. Magma rose out of the crater and sank back down in an endless cycle, and even at this distance he could feel the heat pressing against his skin.
When he craned his neck all the way back, the sky was pitch black with volcanic debris. High-altitude flight looked like a deadly proposition in a place like this.
Smells like a volcano.
Simon was just pressing a hand to his aching forehead and trying to rise when something caught at his feet. He picked it up and brought it before his eyes.
"This is..."
The output device Jane had described at the briefing.
[The exam will begin in 5 minutes.]
[For your safety, please remain in place for the next 5 minutes.]
A pre-recorded voice was playing from the device. Simon strapped it to his left wrist and fastened it tight so it wouldn't come loose.
"And what's this book?"
Flutter.
An exam guidebook, lying beside the output device.
The author was listed as 'Endolas Vaudeville.' It was only a few pages long, but every explanation they hadn't heard before the transfer, along with all the detailed rules, was written inside. Simon chuckled despite himself.
"...They don't even let us study the detailed rules, then dump us straight into the field like this."
Kizen's exams always kept the core rule — the one that decided victory and defeat — dead simple. But there were always smaller, finer rules layered on top, and how thoroughly you understood and exploited those details mattered more than anyone admitted.
The examiners' real intent, he suspected, was to deny the students any time to pool what they'd figured out about the details with one another.
Absolute, every-man-for-himself isolation. Since there was still time before the exam officially began, Simon quickly paged through the guidebook.
"So there's a point system, like the island survival assessment."
That much was familiar.
Hunt a monster, or reach certain locations, and a glowing cluster of red light would drop.
Hold the output device up to it, or press the 'collect' button, and the light would be absorbed automatically and converted into points.
Unlike the first-year island assessment, however, points would not factor into their grades.
They're for purchasing things?
Simon switched on the output device. A mana screen unfolded, and lines of fine text scrolled across it. It turned out to be a full list of items purchasable with points.
Everything from simple food and water to tents, shelter, and even a full ship could be bought.
"This is almost too generous."
It felt like it couldn't possibly be allowed.
Thinking back to the first-year island survival assessment, that had been survival in the truest sense. You had to find and purify your own water, build your own shelter, and secure food by hunting monsters and eating their meat.
This second-year survival assessment was far gentler on all those fronts. Even if students didn't think much about it at all, as long as they earned enough points, they could hold out.
"And it doesn't even look that hard to earn points."
Monster hunting.
Area exploration.
First discovery of a location.
Achievement milestones.
It certainly didn't seem like you'd have to slaughter fifty monsters just to earn a single chocolate bar.
Just then, a voice rang out from the output device.
[All 370 students have been summoned. The exam will now begin.]
Finally.
A timer appeared at the center of the output device.
Simon brushed the dirt from his trousers and rose to his feet with energy.
Start moving. That's step one.
If the examiners had lowered the difficulty on the basics — food, shelter, clothing — then the difficulty elsewhere had to be sky-high.
And above all, failing this exam meant expulsion. Even if it looked easy, the risk was irreversible.
I hope everyone else is all right.
Simon walked forward while continuing to scan the guidebook. Worried about his friends, he turned to the section on combat between students.
Defeating a fellow Kizen student earned you... nothing special.
To put it bluntly, about two chocolate bars' worth of points.
In the last island survival assessment, knocking out a student let you steal every point they carried, which was why fights broke out constantly. This time was different.
For the privilege of sending someone to expulsion and earning a lifelong grudge, the reward hardly seemed worth it.
What is this exam really about?
What was the examiners' intent?
And what did Nephthys actually want?
He still had no idea.
"Oh."
Walking quietly along, Simon spotted a student for the first time.
The student spotted him too, then quietly turned their back and slipped away. Simon felt no particular urge to give chase.
Hm. That felt awkward.
With no massive point hoard to fight over, there seemed to be no real reason for Kizen students to clash with one another.
Simon stopped walking. Beside him, a forest of densely packed trees stretched out before him.
One look was enough to tell that monsters would be crawling all over it.
I'll earn just enough points to grab a bite to eat first.
"And so! It is my great honor to greet you all once again!"
Camp Island — the place where the students had first gathered.
After the students departed, the stage now bristled with countless cameras fitted with memorial crystals. Before them sat a commentator's table, chairs, and a middle-aged man.
"Following right on the heels of yesterday's first-year exam, I'm Conrad, your commentator for this second-year group exam! I know many of you wished to watch it live, but due to safety concerns, this exam will be presented as recorded footage. We humbly ask for your understanding."
He gave a deep bow toward the cameras, then flashed a bright smile.
"Joining us today for commentary are two professors! First, please welcome the Vice Principal of Kizen and the second-year Dark Dynamics professor, Professor Jane Olivia! Good day to you!"
Jane acknowledged the greeting with the slightest dip of her head.
"Ahaha! A pleasure to see you again, Professor! You've graced us with commentary before, haven't you? It's a tremendous honor!"
"Yes."
"H-hahaha! Q-quite as ever! And to my left, we have a new professor with us today!"
He turned his head.
"Please welcome the second-year Summoning Department professor, Professor Aaron Deia!"
Bow.
Aaron too finished his greeting with a small nod.
"......"
"......"
The announcer wedged between two famously taciturn professors broke out in a cold sweat.
"S-so then, we'd like to discuss this group exam from various angles."
He glanced at the script in his hand, heaved a deep sigh, and tossed it into the trash can behind him.
"Nephthys's shocking declaration has changed a great deal about this exam! What are your thoughts?"
"First of all,"
Jane spoke.
"I expect the students, all of them crushed beneath the weight of 'failure means expulsion,' will move as cautiously and conservatively as possible."
At her words, the commentator turned a smiling face to Aaron, who smacked his lips before answering.
"I agree. For now, the students will adapt to the exam while hunting for places to hide. But once they've finished adapting, the ones who move boldly will come out ahead."
"So that's the consensus! And as we speak — look! Students on the move already!"
Life flickered to life in the eyes of Aaron and Jane as they watched the mana screens.
None other than the overall rank one student. On the screen, Simon was moving.
The exam had begun in perfect peace, but the moment Simon entered the forest, the atmosphere changed. From the very first stretch of trees, hostile monsters began swarming toward him in droves.
Lizardmen!
Worse, this stretch was dotted with pools of water and swampland, so the vast majority of the monster population was lizardmen.
They walked upright on two legs and could even handle tools — some were armed with spears and bows. A dozen or more of them were hot on Simon's trail.
Perfect timing to test the new weapon.
Simon, with good reason to be confident, grinned and slammed his left foot into the ground.
Gate Opening.
Vmmmmmm-!
The shape of a transparent magic circle rose beneath Simon's feet. Originally, Overlord could only be used while stationary, but the weapon had since been improved — the way it operated had completely changed.
Simon spread the circle's shape flat across the ground and stepped back, while the lizardmen, oblivious, came charging after him in a chaotic rush.
Now!
SHRAAAAK!
The instant Simon raised his arm, a dozen lizardmen were split in half all at once, and between the falling bodies a gleaming white blade soared into the sky.
The long blade, surging upward in a spray of blood, swept through the air and caught the sunlight.
Not bad!
Simon's Overlord.
It had once been six blades; now, in exchange for reducing that number to two, they had been joined end to end to stretch its length more than threefold.
The full-body wrap of the old form would take longer to execute, but every other spec had jumped.
Simon swung his arm once more through the air, and the Overlord that had rocketed skyward came slashing down in a furious arc, cutting down the last two monsters as well.
At the same time, he spotted two red glimmers bursting from the monsters' corpses.
So those are the points.
Simon angled the output device toward them and pressed the 'collect' button. The glimmers were sucked in wholesale, and his point total climbed.
8,600 points in just thirty minutes.
Simon was dumbfounded.
I could already afford a shelter, or a ship and food. Isn't this way too easy?
Too easy.
There was no way a Kizen exam would be this simple. The easier it felt, the more a chill ran down his spine.
Just what is supposed to happen out here?