Failure. Failure. Failure.
Failure. Failure. Failure.
"Maybelle! Get your hands off that scroll this instant!"
At Violet's shout, every student's head turned in unison to follow the professor's gaze.
A female student, visibly frayed to the breaking point, stood fidgeting with a scroll unfurled in her grip — then, without warning, her arm ignited.
"A-ah... Ah!"
Violet wove a tight, blue membrane and wrapped it over the girl's arm again and again. Maybelle's face had already gone bone-white.
"What were you thinking, holding a volatile scroll in your bare hand? Are you in your right mind?"
Professor Violet bent over, inspecting the remaining scroll fragments, then let out a long, weary sigh.
"Unquenchable flame...? Where did you even get a scroll like this? If you're going to get hold of one, at least learn how to handle it first."
I'll have to escort her to the infirmary. Every student in earshot heard Violet mutter those words clearly.
Violet turned toward the students who had been watching in silence.
"Everyone stay put and do nothing. I have plainly overestimated you all."
"Ughhh...."
Her face smeared with tears, Maybelle shook uncontrollably as she walked after Violet.
The instant they passed from view, Aria burst into laughter.
"You've got to be kidding me... Is she just completely inept?"
"Right? Scrolls aren't hard — you either unfurl them or throw them. How did she even get an A-rank?"
"They hand out A-rank to every nobody and their dog these days~ And she looked like she brought some expensive scrolls, too. Let's have a look at what she's carrying."
Muttering to herself, Aria reached for Maybelle's scroll bag on the ground.
"Why don't you just leave it alone."
The words slipped out before I could stop them. The act of putting one's hands freely on someone else's belongings rubbed me profoundly the wrong way.
Aria and her hangers-on whipped their heads toward me. I didn't bother trying to avoid their eyes.
"Well, look who it is. If it isn't Plan."
Aria strode right up to me. Up close, her head tilted to the side, she swept her eyes over me from top to bottom with a crooked stare.
"Plan, you sounded really impressive when you answered earlier. I nearly blew my top."
She cast a glance around the room, then let out a laugh.
"Hey, everyone~ Plan, the F-rank admit, says he can dungeon-delve without scrolls. Pretty much advertising in advance that he's going to cheat, don't you think?"
At that, the other students burst into loud laughter.
I genuinely could not fathom which part of that was supposed to be funny.
After turning it over, and turning it over some more,
I finally deduced that Aria and these students believed I was a cheater. It didn't make me angry. It merely struck me as deeply laughable — their low level of perception was the only thing on display here.
In the end, I couldn't hold it in and let out a quiet snicker myself. Aria cocked her head, as if she couldn't make sense of me.
"What's this. He's laughing? Guess even he thinks it's absurd."
"Aria Fontaine."
Looking evenly into her sky-blue eyes, I spoke her name in a low voice.
At the same instant, I snapped my thumb and forefinger together sharply in the empty air.
"What. Why are you even saying my name — mmf?!"
Aria Fontaine never finished her sentence. More precisely, I made certain she couldn't finish it.
It was nothing more than a simple application of telekinesis — I clamped both of her lips shut. Even without direct physical contact, it felt disgustingly unpleasant.
"Mmf... Mmf! Mmph!"
Panic clearly taking over, Aria grabbed her own lips with both hands.
No matter how hard she tried to pry them open with her fingers, the sealed seam of her mouth refused to part. The spectacle was richly absurd.
"......!"
Belatedly realizing she couldn't open her mouth by her own strength, she glared at me with bulging eyes, ready to kill.
The meaning was plainly that she wanted me to release her this instant. I had no such intention.
Professor Violet was conveniently absent from the training ground, and I had no intention of standing around suffering through nonsense I didn't want to hear.
I have always lived this way. Every arc of the life I carved out, endured, and walked through has been like this.
The students who had been looking back and forth between Aria and me began to murmur, first one, then another.
"Is Aria being suppressed right now?"
"......Isn't she? She can't seem to open her mouth?"
Right about then, I finally released Aria's lips.
That was enough to get the warning across, and holding on any longer would have been a waste of both time and mana.
"You... you... insane...."
The moment she recovered her freedom, Aria ignited — a roaring blaze of fury. She strode directly up to me.
By that point, every student was already watching us with bated breath. Even Trixie, who had been absorbed in something the entire time, had turned her attention this way.
"You crazy bastard. Why are you this damned insolent?"
For a moment I actually wondered if Aria had read my mind — what she'd said lined up so perfectly with my own thoughts.
I looked down at her with a flat, expressionless face.
The standoff stretched on. Without breaking her eyes away from me, Aria muttered.
"Somebody make a mana crystal."
One of her companions quickly produced a crystal. Aria drew it into the air with telekinesis and placed it between us.
"Plan, why are you this insolent?"
I didn't bother answering. She asked again.
"You started this, didn't you? You used magic because you were confident, right? Fine. Let's just settle this today. One of us drops out."
Aria glared up at me sidelong and continued.
"You took your test under the Support type, didn't you? Let's make a wager, you fuck. We launch the mana crystal. Whichever one flies the shorter distance drops out. That's how it's going to work."
Her voice was as cold as ice, but her eyes, brimming with hostility, blazed.
The other students erupted into a loud stir, as if they couldn't believe what Aria had just said.
I, too, felt a sliver of genuine admiration. Because I finally understood just how thoroughly she was looking down on me.
I didn't deliberate for long. I gave Aria a nod.
"You go first."
As my condition for accepting a wager that placed our enrollment on the line, I offered her nothing more than that. Aria snorted.
"Hah, fine. Don't try to twist your words later. You bastard."
Aria Fontaine placed her hand on the mana crystal with utter self-assurance.
For some reason, I found that attitude amusing. I briefly considered what kind of gift I ought to deliver to someone so completely convinced of her own imminent victory.
"Fuck it. Let me show you real-time how I make a dropout."
She began to concentrate.
I had also finished making my choice. The instant I drew three magic formulas simultaneously inside my mind, they began to interlock like exquisitely crafted cogs.
The magic I settled on after that brief consideration fell under the Interference category.
Violet was absent from the training ground. To put it another way, there was no one present in the plaza who could perceive higher-order magic.
Aria Fontaine was giving it her full strength. She meant to pour every ounce of her effort and ability into launching that mana crystal.
She was determined to achieve the best possible outcome and drag victory before her own eyes.
"Huh?"
But the mana crystal in the air merely wobbled slightly with a soft pfft. It never so much as twitched forward.
"What the — why is this happening."
Aria's bewildered expression was well worth watching. The crystal not flying was only to be expected.
I had interfered with the formula she must have drawn in her mind. I had interfered with part of the mana composition that would have entered her circuits. I had interrupted the flow of mana she meant to dominate and then cut it off.
Unless I knit it back together for her, that mana crystal would never receive her support and fire.
Pfft. The mana crystal wobbled once more. Growing more flustered, Aria swallowed dryly.
"Why is this happening? This has never happened to me in my life...."
Failure.
"Make her another mana crystal."
Failure.
"What the hell is the problem? I'm losing my mind, fuck."
Failure.
"......"
Another failure. I addressed Aria casually as she stood there in a cold sweat, growing more frantic by the second.
"How much longer am I supposed to wait."
"How long have you even waited? Just wait!"
I nodded and gave her a leisurely smile.
"Why, why is this happening... why is this happening to me...."
And yet another failure.
"......Why can't she do it?"
"I know — maybe she's weak in the Support type?"
"Aria said herself she was confident in it."
The other students began to murmur. With every word that landed on Aria, the color drained further from her face, giving way to a sickly pallor.
Aria Fontaine steadied her breathing. One more attempt, with everything she had.
Pfft.
And then, in front of everyone, she failed to launch it yet again.
"......"
A bead of sweat traced down her jaw and fell to the ground.
Before anyone realized it, Aria's whole body was drenched in sweat.