Pass Him
Right after the written exam ended, Kyle and Yuri left the academy and chatted about the test. While the specific questions had completely vanished from memory, the fact that they had taken the exam—and the emotions felt during it—remained, so they could roughly gauge how well or poorly they had done. Of course, Kyle remembered every single question without any trouble.
“The exam was easy, right?”
“Hahaha! Sure was.”
“I think I might’ve even gotten a perfect score.”
“Oh, impressive.”
Yuri was the one who kept starting the conversations. She was now his official fiancée, recognized by the duke himself. She had countless questions about her betrothed—questions that had piled up over ten long years. Even with her normally cold and reserved personality, the mountain of curiosity was impossible to ignore.
“If I do well on the practical, I might even take first place.”
“Now that really is impressive.”
“How about you, Kyle?”
“First place? Obviously mine.”
If an Aura Master didn’t take first place, then who would? Kyle was confident. He could easily score 100—hell, even 140—on the practical exam. Yuri let out an admiring gasp at his bold claim.
“Did you do well on the written part too?”
“Huh?”
“First place is determined by combining both written and practical scores.”
“Hmm. A perfect score on the written might be tough.”
“Then it might be difficult. There’s a rumor that the academy’s written exam is made easy enough for commoners to pass.”
“……What?”
Kyle let out a confused groan and stared at Yuri. She tilted her head and explained the academy’s situation.
Dairos Academy had been founded to gather talented individuals. Naturally, talent wasn’t limited to nobles alone. There were gifted commoners as well, and the written exam was known to be so simple that even an illiterate commoner could avoid failing after just a week of study. Because it was that easy, any educated noble was expected to score perfectly—though, of course, that was only a rumor.
“……What if someone fails?”
“It probably won’t happen, but even with a perfect practical score, you’d still be rejected if you fail the written.”
“Ah.”
Kyle sighed. A perfect practical score still meant failure? What kind of ridiculous rule was that? Determined to pass even if it meant revealing he was a Master, Kyle began preparing for the practical exam.
The day of the practical exam arrived.
“I definitely told you all to come at me.”
Gawain, the instructor for the Knight Department’s practical exam, stepped over the dozens of examinees sprawled at his feet and approached the few still standing.
“Are you disobeying my orders?”
“N-no, sir!”
“Oh? Then you’re just cowards who can’t follow orders even when you hear them.”
“……Haaaaah—!”
A few examinees, flustered by Gawain’s words, charged forward. They had the makings of good soldiers, but not knights. Gawain knocked them out in an instant, then turned to the three examinees still standing there blankly.
“Just what kind of guts do you three have to still be standing?”
“—Instructor, even if you’re the instructor, you’ll regret underestimating us.”
At those words, the examinee beside Kyle carefully spoke up. Drawing his sword, he approached Gawain with a confident expression. Kyle sensed the Aura emanating from the blade and understood why the man was so bold.
‘……An Expert?’
“Hmm. You’ve got the skill to back up that confidence.”
Gawain, being a fellow Master, had sensed the same thing. He grinned and stared at the nameless examinee.
“Name?”
“Hundred.”
“Good. Hundred. Come.”
The next moment, Hundred wrapped himself in Aura and dashed forward. But Kyle already knew exactly what would happen next—he had experienced it firsthand against the usurper. Just as he had done to Kyle, Gawain casually deflected Hundred’s sword and struck his jaw with the hilt. Leaving the unconscious Hundred behind, Gawain looked at the two remaining examinees.
“You two got anything to show me?”
“Uh, no……”
“—Nothing special.”
Only after everyone else had fallen did Kyle cautiously step forward. He paid no mind to the trembling examinee beside him—he was going to fail anyway. Kyle loosened his muscles by circulating a bit of Aura through his body, then pointed his sword at Gawain.
His blade moved so slowly that it was almost imperceptible, yet it stuck firmly to Gawain’s sword. Realizing too late that their blades had met, Gawain tried to pull away, but Kyle’s Aura was faster, flowing along the instructor’s blade.
“Something like this?”
“……You—what is this?”
Gawain stared at Kyle in disbelief. Kyle withdrew his sword and sheathed it. He hadn’t shown direct proof of being an Aura Master, but Gawain had surely realized the truth.
‘How do you hide being a Master from another Master?’
Unless Kyle deliberately threw the match, anyone who crossed swords with him would immediately know he was a Master—and he had no intention of losing on purpose just to keep his secret. Besides, there was another reason he couldn’t afford to lose.
If he bombed the written exam and the practical too, he might actually fail to get in……
If Hundred hadn’t appeared, Kyle might have tried pretending to be an Expert, but with an Expert already present, only a Master would draw attention.
“I’ll be going now, old man.”
“What’s your name?”
“Kyle Meyer.”
“The Empire’s Guardian Sword. I see. The Empire’s future looks bright.”
Kyle shrugged at the praise and left the exam grounds. As he walked away, he could hear Gawain bellowing at the last remaining examinee who still hadn’t moved. Leaving the shouting behind, Kyle felt an unfounded confidence that he would pass.
After all, the academy wouldn’t be crazy enough to reject a Master, right?
“Now then, we will begin selecting the academy’s new students.”
Once all exams were over, the professors gathered to choose who would be admitted. The process was simple: combine written and practical scores, then determine whether each student was a suitable candidate. Of course, there were a few people who had to be accepted regardless of scores—the imperial family and priests sent by the Holy Kingdom. Aside from them, admission was decided entirely by these scores.
Filtering through so many examinees was a long and tedious task, so usually only the younger professors participated. But today was different—Gawain, the veteran professor and Master, had joined. Thanks to his presence, the other professors threw themselves into the review with extra enthusiasm. None of them wanted to look lazy in front of Gawain.
“Ahem, don’t mind me.”
“No, how could we…… You’re a hero of the Empire, Sir Gawain.”
“How many years ago are we talking about here?”
Gawain chuckled like a kindly old man while flipping through the documents, searching for a particular file. When the other professors asked if he was looking for someone, he shook his head.
“May. Fail. Rejected……”
“Kingswin. Practical fail, rejected.”
“Hightel, fail. Rejected……?”
As the review continued, the professors noticed an unusually high number of failures this year and tilted their heads in confusion. Normally, the number of failures was less than half this amount. The examinees’ level couldn’t have dropped so drastically, and even if it had, the passing rate should have been adjusted accordingly. Yet the failures were strangely numerous—and when they checked, every single one was from the Knight Department. Specifically, all of them were examinees who had taken the practical exam under Gawain.
“Um, Sir Gawain……? Could you explain this?”
“Explain what?”
“The fact that every examinee under your supervision failed.”
“Every single one failed? That’s impossible!”
Gawain shouted in protest. “There must be someone I passed!”
“No…… there isn’t?”
“That can’t be!”
At the other professors’ words, Gawain frantically searched through the exam records in disbelief. While he was busy, one professor spoke up carefully.
“……Sir Gawain? I hesitate to say this, but this child named May Bell is a talented swordswoman. She’s won several swordsmanship tournaments.”
“That’s not what matters!”
“How is it not important? We’re talking about biased exam results right now!”
A tense silence fell over the room after the professor’s outburst. Gawain, still flipping through papers, slowly raised his head and stared at the man who had shouted. He was a fellow Knight Department professor—a genius who had reached Expert at a young age and secured a teaching position. But he was no match for Gawain, a living hero of the Empire and a Master.
“May Bell…… Now that you mention it, she shares your surname.”
“Ah, well—that’s…… She’s my relative……”
“So because she’s your relative, she should pass even without skill?”
“That’s not what I meant! She truly possesses exceptional talent……”
“I don’t see it. Are you saying your eye for talent is better than mine?”
The professor fell silent. Countless knights across the Empire had been trained by Gawain. To claim that the man who had raised so many knights had poor judgment was no different from insulting all of them. Unable to make an enemy of the knights, the professor kept his mouth shut. Gawain clicked his tongue and began searching for one particular examinee’s record with the others’ help.
“Find the record for the examinee named Kyle Meyer.”
At Gawain’s words, the professors scrambled to search through the mountain of papers like graduate students following orders. Thanks to their combined effort, they soon found Kyle Meyer’s record hidden among the rest.
“100 points……?”
The professor who saw the practical exam score muttered in disbelief. Who was Gawain? He was the stubborn old professor who hadn’t even given 100 points to a genius examinee who had challenged the academy as an Aura Expert two years ago. And now he had given 100? Especially considering he had given zero to everyone else, it wasn’t as if this year’s exam had been particularly easy.
“No, what is this……”
“100 points—Sir Gawain, what exactly happened here……?”
While the professors stared at Kyle Meyer’s record in shock, one of them realized why the paper had gone unnoticed until now.
“Um, Sir Gawain?”
“Hmm. What is it?”
“This examinee…… failed.”
“—What nonsense is that!”
Startled by the news that Kyle Meyer had failed, Gawain snatched the record and checked the scores.
Practical: 100/100 — Pass
Written: 10/100 — Fail
Final: Rejected
Gawain’s hands trembled as he stared at the written score. No matter how many times he looked, the word “Rejected” refused to change to “Pass.”
“Bring me this examinee’s test paper! Right now!”
“Y-yes.”
The professor was confused about what Gawain was planning, but decided it was better to obey than risk angering a Master. He quietly retrieved Kyle Meyer’s test paper. It was even worse than expected. The professor who brought it realized that even if Kyle had scored 200 on the practical, he still shouldn’t have been allowed to pass.
“Here it is……”
“Hmm.”
Gawain frowned at the first question after receiving the paper. It asked for the name of the Empire’s first emperor. He got this wrong? But when he saw the answer written below, he let out a sigh of relief.
“Who graded this?”
“Huh? Probably one of the grading committee members……”
“We need to fire them immediately. Why is this marked wrong?”
Gawain began correcting the marked-wrong answers one by one with the pen on the table.
“Couldn’t bring himself to write the Emperor’s name out of loyalty? Remarkable devotion! Correct!”
“The courage to admit he doesn’t know something he doesn’t know! Correct!”
“Bah! What use is math to a knight? This one’s correct too!”
While absurdly forcing points onto Kyle’s paper, Gawain paused at question 17, a tactics problem. It asked for the strategy needed to annihilate 5,000 soldiers with only 300. Kyle had written: “Surround and annihilate 5,000 with 300.”
Common sense said it was impossible.
“Sir Gawain, honestly, this doesn’t make sense…… How could 300 defeat 5,000?”
“Hmph, why not? The man who actually did it is standing right in front of you.”
But Gawain had once accomplished something just as impossible. The event that made him a hero of the Empire—when he had suppressed a rebellion of 5,000 with only fifty Black Lion Knights.
“If I could do it, then this is theoretically possible too, isn’t it?”
Of course, in reality, a single knight leading 300 soldiers to defeat 5,000 was impossible. If anyone else had written such an answer, Gawain would have failed them without hesitation. But since the one who wrote it was Kyle Meyer himself, he could accept it.
‘He simply wrote what he can actually do.’
And they had marked it wrong?
“So this one’s correct too. Now then……”
Gawain looked down at Kyle’s test paper. Including all the answers he had marked correct, the score came to 30 points. It wasn’t a great score, but it was just barely above failing.
“Proceed as is—no, pass him!”
After finally forcing Kyle through, the professors calmed the fuming Gawain and adjusted the scores of the other examinees who had received zeros so they would at least avoid outright failure. Thus, the Knight Department ended up filled with students who had achieved the lowest scores in academy history.