A Problem Has Occurred, But It's Not Our Jurisdiction
The exams were finally over. The students were so busy chattering about which tests they had taken and what kind of performances they had delivered that they could barely think straight. The Knight and Military Department students, who had clearly racked up high scores based on their own merits, wore expressions ranging from triumphant to exhausted. In contrast, the Magic, Art, and Administrative Department students—whose scores depended entirely on their professors’ subjective judgment—wandered around with faces like they had bitten into something rotten. You could tell exactly how brutal the questions had been just by looking at them.
“─That’s it for today. You all worked hard on the exams, so go get some proper rest.”
“Wooooooah—!!”
The students who had been waiting in the classroom for the professor’s signal erupted in cheers the moment they heard those words. True to the academy’s reputation for nurturing the empire’s finest, it still had a conscience; no additional classes were scheduled on the day the exams ended. The students, worn out from a full day of effort, either headed back to the dorms to shake off their fatigue or slipped out of the academy to enjoy the rare break in the city.
In the middle of all that, Kyle made his way to the Magic Department with Gawain, both wearing sour expressions.
“What? You’re kidding me.”
“Kyle Meyer’s test results are missing…”
“Why?”
“We don’t know either. It’s clearly some kind of error, but we can’t figure out the cause.”
The Magic Department professor scratched his cheek as he spoke. All Knight Department exams were supposed to be recorded through magic, yet for some reason Kyle’s test had left no record at all. In other words, there was no proof that he had successfully completed the mission.
Gawain immediately launched into a fierce protest.
“Professor, I saw with my own two eyes that the kid finished the mission successfully. That should be enough, shouldn’t it?”
“Th-the test scores are left entirely to the elementals so that neither professors nor instructors can interfere. Those elementals read the recorded magic and calculate the points. No matter what you say, Sir Gawain, I doubt the elementals will listen…”
“Oh yeah? Those little fairies will listen just fine if they don’t want to die.”
The moment Gawain drew his sword with a sharp schwing, the Magic Department professor began clinging to him, desperately begging him to please put it away.
Watching the two professors make a scene, Kyle—who had been quietly thinking—asked cautiously.
“When exactly did the recording stop?”
“Ah, from this part right here.”
Realizing it would be faster to convince Kyle than to argue with the overwhelming Gawain, the professor quickly showed him the recorded footage. In the video, Kyle had barely materialized in the virtual world before he checked his equipment. He examined the compass and map, then tested the sword at his waist to make sure it was undamaged. The instant he drew the blade and gave it a light swing up and down, the video shattered.
“The recording failed from this point onward.”
“…I see.”
After watching the footage, Kyle understood perfectly why his test hadn’t been recorded. The Aura Blade. The blade of light that cut through anything had struck the magic core, destroying the recording function.
Kyle glanced at Gawain. As expected of an Aura Master, Gawain had already figured out what happened. Since both the headmaster and the duke had ordered them to hide Kyle’s true rank, the two men simply exchanged knowing looks and nodded.
“─Ahem. Still, no record means no score? That’s ridiculous.”
“However, we can’t realistically make only Kyle retake the exam…”
“I’ll speak to the headmaster myself. Handle it separately. Got it?”
“If Professor Gawain is willing to speak on the matter…”
Leaving behind the Magic Department professor, who sighed in relief now that the annoying problem was no longer his responsibility, the pair stepped out of the building. They looked at each other and let out wry chuckles.
“You used it, didn’t you?”
“Yes. As a test.”
“Don’t pull out your Aura Blade so carelessly.”
“Is it really that serious?”
“I’m not telling you to hide your strength. I’m telling you to be careful.”
Gawain’s eyes grew distant, as if lost in old memories. Like any elderly veteran, he began recounting an experience from his youth.
“Listen, Kyle. This world is too fragile. It’s as weak as a sandcastle—one touch and it crumbles.”
Those were the words of a hero who had lived as an Aura Master. The world was fragile. So fragile that even reaching out required caution.
“That’s why I say don’t draw it recklessly. Every time you bring that thing out, everything too weak to endure it comes crashing down…”
“But old man, you’re always groaning in pain from those war wounds.”
“…Ahem.”
“And yet you talk about how fragile the world is… I don’t think you’re qualified to say that.”
“Hey, you brat. Shut your mouth.”
After gruffly scolding Kyle for teasing him, Gawain headed straight for the headmaster’s office.
“You go back and rest.”
“Huh? Is that really okay?”
“I’m the examiner. What are you going to do by tagging along?”
“Fair enough.”
“Don’t worry about it. Go on.”
Waving Kyle off like a student should go enjoy himself, Gawain continued on his way. Kyle turned his steps toward the dormitory.
The rest of the group, who had already finished their own exams and were waiting for him, greeted Kyle warmly.
“Kyle!”
“Hey, Arthur. How’d your test go?”
“It was… decent. What about yours?”
“Hah… Don’t be too shocked when you hear this. First place is mine.”
“Ahaha, of course it is. It’d be way more surprising if someone else took it.”
Arthur laughed brightly. She seemed to have done fairly well herself. After all, she possessed the Dragon’s Heart, which granted near-limitless Aura that no one could match. At the student level, very few could stand in her way.
Kyle then turned his gaze to Yuri and Sera. Strangely, the two who had taken both the top and second spots in the entire academy—and in the Magic Department—wore expressions that looked like they had swallowed something bitter.
“…Why do those two look like that?”
“…They say they messed up the test.”
“Even the top student? How badly could they have possibly done…?”
Puzzled, Kyle approached them with a bright smile. After all, smiles were contagious. Seeing his cheerful face might lift their spirits.
“─Yuri, Sera. What’s wrong? How badly did the test go to make you look like that?”
“…It was invalidated.”
“Invalidated? What does that mean?”
“For unknown reasons, the magic didn’t function properly, so the results were declared invalid.”
“…You two, don’t tell me—”
Suspecting the truth, Kyle asked what kind of virtual world they had been sent into. The test details were confidential, so the two Magic Department students didn’t know the specifics of the Knight Department exam, but they knew one crucial fact.
“It was such a massive world that even a Knight Department professor went in personally.”
“Dozens of Military Department students entered with us.”
A virtual world large enough for a Knight Department professor and dozens of Military Department students to enter together. And in that same world, the magic had failed to function properly. No matter how he looked at it, the only place where both conditions overlapped was the exact test site Kyle had entered.
“…Uh, hang in there.”
Kyle offered them some half-hearted comfort and quickly looked away. No matter how much of a tough guy he was, he couldn’t possibly reveal the truth. All he could do was pray silently that Gawain would negotiate well with the headmaster, give him a proper score, and make the girls’ invalidation disappear as if it had never happened.
The week after the exams ended, the students grumbled about the delayed results, but none of them openly rebelled. Being curious about the scores was one thing; openly confronting the faculty was another.
While the test scores remained lost in limbo, the professors delivered a topic that set the students’ hearts on fire.
“In a few days, a festival will be held inside the academy.”
“A festival? What the…”
“It’s a cultural festival.”
At the term he had only ever heard in those island otaku anime, Kyle’s ears perked up and he focused intently on Gawain’s explanation.
“Some of you might not be familiar with it, so I’ll keep it simple… It’s just a festival run by the students themselves.”
“Why are we suddenly holding something like that?”
“It’s the Art Department’s practical exam. His Majesty the Emperor believes that true art is popular art—the kind the masses can enjoy.”
The emperor was extremely wary of the idea that art belonged only to a handful of learned artists or stubborn old professors stuck in their ways. True art, in his view, was something even an ignorant commoner would enjoy at first sight or first listen. The Art Department professors, unable to change the emperor’s philosophy, had adapted to survive.
“They involve the entire academy and have their artistic vision judged by everyone.”
Thus, the Art Department’s practical exam had evolved into a grand cultural festival that pulled in the whole academy. The other departments didn’t have much to do except enjoy the festivities and offer honest evaluations.
“Ah, and—we’re looking for people to stand guard on the day of the festival. Any volunteers?”
“Will there be extra points?”
“Okay, the guy who just asked is now mandatory.”
Bwahahaha—!
As the students burst into laughter, Kyle recalled that something always happened during this cultural festival. He couldn’t remember the details clearly, but Dairos Academy was, without question, an action game where any event inevitably led to a fight. There would probably be some incident this time too.
‘I don’t remember exactly, but… well, it doesn’t matter.’
In the past he would have agonized over trying to recall the specifics, but now there was no need. He had acquired an external memory device.
“─There isn’t one?”
“What?”
Sera, his external memory device, tilted her head as she answered. She claimed there was no fighting event during the cultural festival. I stared at her, insisting that couldn’t possibly be right.
“No, I definitely remember. Dairos Academy is a game where you fight no matter where you go, right?”
“…Wait, don’t tell me. Did you just run around picking fights with everything you saw the entire time you played?”
“Huh? If hitting them worked, they were all enemies, weren’t they?”
“They weren’t! Dairos Academy is a masterpiece! You can attack allied NPCs too! This idiot was playing a completely different game by himself!”
Hearing Sera’s outburst, I finally understood why the game’s difficulty had been absurdly high.
‘I went around picking fights with everything in sight, so of course the world couldn’t handle it…’
In the game, I hadn’t been fighting enemies—I had been fighting the entire world itself. No wonder I died over and over, master or not. Realizing the truth so late, a helpless laugh escaped me.