Entrance Exam (3)
Compared with the rumor that Ellie and Dane Edwick were going to challenge every single first-year student at the Academy, only about fifty students actually showed up at the arena on the day of the exam.
Ellie swept her gaze over the stands and thought, It’s smaller-scale than I’m used to, I guess.
According to what she’d heard from Melitt, the Academy accepted around a hundred new students each year.
If this had been a school back in the world she’d come from—Seoul, in particular—one grade alone might have held two or three hundred students. It was only natural, then, that this place felt sparsely populated.
Of course, the difference came down to purpose. Ordinary schools existed to educate the general public, while the Academy existed to raise the very best among mages. If she had to compare it to anything, it was closer to an elite academy for gifted students.
So should I say half the freshmen came, or only half showed up? Come to think of it, there are probably still some kids who haven’t arrived yet.
Five of them were Dane’s lackeys, the same ones she’d seen that day.
“Go on, Lord Dane, blast her away!”
“Kyah! Young Lord Edwick is so cool!”
Ellie paid them no mind and kept walking until she spotted a familiar face.
Ah, it’s Clea.
When Ellie waved at the girl with pale blue hair, Clea returned the greeting with an expression that said she found it absurd, but did it all the same.
So, in the end, did that make them friends?
If you asked Ellie, she’d say yes. If you asked Clea, she’d probably go “mm” and trail off.
On the opposite side from the students, a few faculty members sat watching. Among them were Headmaster Scathach and Melitt.
Ellie waved at them too. Melitt was timid, but she still lifted a hand in response, while the headmaster raised and lowered her small hand with casual grace.
Philia isn’t here?
Ellie searched for the red-haired girl she’d worked so hard to close the distance with yesterday, but she couldn’t find her.
That’s cold. I know it’s nothing major, but this is the sort of event where a friend should be in front of everyone.
Ellie bounced lightly in place, partly to loosen up, thinking that if Philia had heard that, she would have pointed out that they weren’t friends in the first place.
“Then, if all the participants are ready, we shall begin. I, Count Frad Ressanti—Academy professor and examiner—shall preside over this trial.”
Looking at Ressanti’s mustache, Ellie thought, Oh, so this is the guy who tried to steal the professor position meant for Melitt.
“Yes, I’m ready!”
She answered brightly, deliberately bouncing a little more.
As expected, Ressanti’s face briefly soured.
Ha. This guy, seriously.
He was probably thinking she was no student and should stop acting familiar with him like one.
And the fact that he’d introduced himself as a count was surely meant to pressure the orphan girl standing before him.
Still, Ressanti had enough common sense not to voice those thoughts in front of everyone.
“Then….”
He coughed awkwardly and turned his gaze toward Dane as well. After confirming the boy’s nod, Ressanti finally began in earnest.
“First, since most of the students here—perhaps even the duelists themselves—likely know little about it, or only learned of it in a hurry, I shall explain the rules of the Three-Fold Comparison once.”
He held up three fingers.
“Victory will be decided through three contests, and the one who wins two of them shall be the final winner. In the event of consecutive victories, the last round may or may not be held, but today we shall proceed to the end even if the winner is already determined.”
Ellie gave a dry smile inwardly. His intention was obvious: he wasn’t about to cut off the young lord’s chance to show off with only two rounds.
“All matches must, naturally, be carried out entirely with magic. The first test concerns distance. The second, precision. The third and final, strength.”
Ressanti warned them with a stern expression.
“Let me repeat: you are to use only magic. If you resort to any other method, you will be disqualified on the spot, so be careful.”
That stern look was aimed at Ellie alone, as if warning her not to think about using her body to make up for what magic couldn’t do.
Ellie merely kept smiling inwardly.
“Then let us begin. First, the test of distance.”
Ressanti lifted the cloth covering the items in front of him, revealing two balls. They were about the size of bowling balls and made of cast iron.
“This ball—”
He pointed to a straight line drawn across the arena.
“Whoever throws it farther in the direction indicated by the line shall be the winner. Only the distance traveled in that direction will be measured, so keep that in mind.”
“I have a question.”
Ellie raised her hand and asked.
“…What is it?”
Whether he recognized her as a student or not, he couldn’t exactly refuse a question in a situation like this.
“May I touch both balls for a moment? I want to verify whether they weigh the same.”
“……I did say that I am presiding over this trial, did I not?”
“Yes.”
Still smiling on the outside, Ellie asked, “I’m a rather anxious person, so I’d appreciate your understanding. Count Ressanti, sir.”
“…!”
Calling him a count instead of a professor at the Academy was no different from saying, You don’t treat me like a student, so I won’t treat you like a professor either.
That little orphan brat…!
But Ressanti could neither scold her nor vent his rage, because he himself had introduced himself as both count and professor. It would have looked ridiculous to get angry over her using the very title he’d named first.
In the faculty stands, Scathach stifled a laugh.
“This Ellie child is becoming more and more to my liking.”
The professor beside her nodded. It was Professor Otomar, who taught Common Magic Language.
“She’s got some real backbone, and she’s witty too. I’d like to see her in class sometime.”
While the two of them talked, Ellie picked up the two balls and finished comparing them.
“Yes, this should be fine. Thank you, I guess? Count, sir.”
Ressanti gritted his teeth and pressed on.
“Then let us begin. Young Lord Edwick.”
“Hmph.”
Dane stepped forward and drew out his wand.
He took a breath, gathered mana, and then—
“Zehta Plus Ruan!”
The spell activated. With a booming whoosh, the cast-iron weight the size of a bowling ball shot far into the distance.
Gasps swept through the stands.
“Ooooh….”
“Young Lord Edwick!”
There was a reason he was one of the most anticipated first-years this year.
Dane’s ball rolled and rolled until it finally stopped far away. From here, it was so distant that the bowling ball looked no bigger than a peppercorn.
Ressanti gestured to Ellie.
Does he not even want to speak to me?
Ellie drew in a breath.
Then, since she didn’t have a wand yet, she would simply do it barehanded.
“‘Fly.’”
Several spectators, from both the faculty and student sides alike, tilted their heads.
“What was that?”
“A magic language?”
“Professor Telman, have you ever heard of it?”
“No, it appears to be that student’s own personal magic language.”
The result, however, was unfortunate. Ellie’s ball did fly far, but after measuring it, her loss came by barely a meter.
Cheers and cries of support burst from the student stands for Young Lord Edwick.
“Of course it’s Young Lord Edwick!”
“Looks like that girl hasn’t even properly learned magic!”
“Throw that rootless bitch out already!”
By contrast, the faculty stands were filled with disappointed murmurs.
“Hmm….”
“Mm….”
“Umm….”
The professors thought, That student… she didn’t even learn magic language properly?
Of course, if she was merely a rough gem, then there’d been no way she could study magic systematically. That much was obvious. Still, they’d at least expected her to have picked up a proper magic language somewhere, or learned by peeking over someone’s shoulder while reading books.
And yet, on the same matter, the professors reached a conclusion entirely different from Dane’s crowd.
And she still sent it that far?
She produced output comparable to a student raised with ducal family support?
She hadn’t even been properly taught, and she already showed promise?
Any teacher would have wanted to take her in and properly train her.
Two of the professors decided then and there.
Even if Ellie loses this match, I’ll find a way to admit her somehow.
Forget the match—she’s getting into the Academy, no matter what.
At this point, there was no longer any way for Ellie to fail to enter the Academy.
But Ellie had no way of knowing that, and even if she had, it wouldn’t have changed her behavior in the slightest.
Good.
She had no intention of losing.
I’ve got the feel of it now.
Ellie was under a restriction: she had to use magic without exposing the color she’d inherited.
So, through the night before, she and Melitt had kept testing it. How much mana she could gather before the seal on that color broke, and where the limit lay.
But adjusting her sense in a real battle required one actual attempt. That had just happened now.
“Then, the second event: precision.”
This time Ressanti brought out a course lined with rings, along with a steel sphere about the size of a baseball.
Each ring’s radius was only one centimeter larger than the steel sphere’s, and they were set not only in sequence but at varying heights.
“This time, the one who passes the ball through the most rings without touching them will win. Young Lord first, as before.”
Precision.
More difficult than the first and third events, where all you had to do was unleash brute force.
The students began muttering numbers to themselves. “How many could I get through?”
“Four…?”
“I can do five.”
“Honestly, I’m at three.”
Some exaggerated for pride, and others understated to hide their skill, but in the end, most hovered around four.
There were fifteen rings in total, but most were there in name only.
Dane took a slow breath and lifted his wand.
“Sarbha, motion de wand more.”
In Common Magic Language, it meant, Follow the movement of my wand from now on.
Then Dane moved the wand with exquisite control, as though conducting an orchestra, and successfully sent the sphere through a total of seven rings.
“Oh….”
“Whoa….”
The professors nodded as well. So he hadn’t received proper upbringing, but he was clearly an excellent student.
Then Ellie stepped up.
With a few exceptions, no one expected her to win.
Not even Ressanti, Dane, most of the students, or many of the professors thought the match was still in doubt.
The exceptions were Headmaster Scathach, Melitt—who clasped her hands as though praying for Ellie’s admission rather than for her own position as professor—and a few other professors.
And among the students, only one pair of bright yellow eyes watched Ellie intently: Clea’s.
Ellie shouted, “Pass through in order!”
Once again, it was a unique magic language. And a short one at that.
And yet.
The steel sphere began passing cleanly through the exact center of each ring one by one, so naturally it seemed as if it had been born to do nothing else.
It moved so smoothly that the students, who had been chatting among themselves, didn’t even realize what was happening until the ball was already midway through.
“!?”
And then shock spread through the entire stands.
Ellie’s ball had already cleared six rings and was in the middle of passing through the seventh.
And the most desperate person there, even more so than Dane, was Ressanti.
I-I have to stop this—!
The instant he tried to use his own magic to knock the ball away, cheat or no cheat, a sudden chill ran down the back of his neck.
A pair of eyes was warning him.
If he tried something like that, he would die or be gravely injured—and not only that, his attempt at cheating would be exposed to the entire world, disgracing both him and his family.
The golden eyes of Scathach, founder of the Academy, conveyed that message with a gaze that was neither cold nor hot, only utterly calm.
“Ghk…!”
So, while Ressanti froze in place, Ellie’s ball slipped neatly through the fifteenth and final ring.
Not just victory, but victory by more than a twofold margin—and if there had been more rings, she would have swept through them just as easily.
A silence of stunned disbelief settled over the arena.
Before that silence could gather weight or force, Ressanti hastily shouted, “The-final event is strength! The comparison method is to inflict as much damage as possible on this massive rock!”
The reason he had jumped straight to the third event instead of voiding the match altogether was that the third event was notoriously difficult to judge objectively.
Did their crack look bigger? Ours was deeper! That sort of forced draw could make the score one win, one loss, one tie.
Then, depending on negotiations and politics afterward, they could still split the demands evenly—allowing admission, for example, while denying the professor position.
“Because of the nature of this event, one single strike is permitted! Then, simultaneously, we—”
“Enhance!”
Kwaaaaaaaang!!
A deafening roar erupted through the arena, a sound wholly unsuited to any place of learning.
It was the sound of Ellie’s rock shattering to pieces.
In fact, the stone didn’t even have time to crumble into dust. The shockwave scattered it all instantly.
“…Huh?”
From Ressanti’s mouth, a stupid little sound slipped out as he watched overwhelming violence made manifest before his eyes.
“Mmm~”
And the girl who had unleashed that absurd destruction smiled first at the professors, then at the students, and finally at her opponent and the examiner.
“That’s my victory, right?”
Her hair and eyes, which had remained black all this time, glittered in the autumn sunlight.