Exam D-Day
Exam D-Day
The laboratory without Professor Haspelt was silence itself.
The fact that the witch wasn't here at this hour felt strangely off, yet wonderfully liberating. I wished this sense of liberation could continue forever.
Given that tomorrow's condition was paramount, going to bed early tonight was the correct answer. But knowing that everything would be decided tomorrow made it hard to catch any sleep at all.
It was some time after sunset. Suffering from mild insomnia, I stepped outside the stable with nothing better to do. With countless stars dotting the sky and the arc lamps on the ground illuminating the campus, the atmosphere was thick with a romantic ambience.
Normally, around this spot, you could catch glimpses of couples striking poses and confessing their feelings....
That wasn't very entertaining. Since this area also served as a dumping ground for lovers, if I was lucky, I could witness exactly that on my way back from work. In this world devoid of stimulating cultural content, plenty of people found gleeful fascination in watching someone else's romance fall apart.
Anyway, that aside.
I had a reason for staying out here without crashing until midnight. It was to calculate the optimal route for tomorrow's exam.
[Special Theory: Euler-Lagrange Variational Theory]
...Did I really need to use something like this just to time a route? I wasn't some iron ball rolling down an inclined plane.
The written exam was held in the Lubter Liberal Arts Hall, and the practical exam in the Grand Stadium.
Now, I had to think. What was the fastest way to get to the Grand Stadium via the cafeteria immediately after the written exam?
I wandered here and there, checking each leg's time. Because I knew the geography well, I determined that—excluding the time needed to enter and exit the cafeteria—the distance from the start point to the target point could be covered in about six minutes and thirty seconds.
Anxiety really did drive a person to worry about things like this. Professor Haspelt was definitely partly to blame for my personality turning out this way.
She'd ream me out if I couldn't do even one thing properly. If she would just fix her perfectionist streak, she'd probably become a decent human being.
In any case, I'd rather die than be sold to that perverted prince for 30,000 gold coins. Not only would the magic research required for returning to my original world be delayed exponentially, but the very idea of rolling around in bed with a man every night was revolting.
Therefore, I had to pass tomorrow's exam.
Absolutely.
**
Inside a carriage heading toward the Northern Continent.
"Meri."
"What."
Kleis, who had been lost in troubled thoughts, quietly called out her friend's nickname.
"What do you think the Imperial Household's reason was for suddenly summoning us to the north?"
"I don't know either."
Meri and Kleis tilted their heads as they looked at each other.
The two were peers who had made names for themselves on the northern front as capable combat mages. Although their social standing differed, they became friends soon after enrolling and remained close until they were appointed as professors.
This was an outcome made possible because Tillet Academy adhered to a policy that all students, at least during their undergraduate years, must be educated in an environment of equality.
Meri had originally been a commoner without even a surname. She lost her parents to magic beasts as a child and wandered the market streets begging like a vagrant. While never quite a slave, she had lived a life comparable to one.
Even so, she earned money relentlessly and did not waste a single coin. The memory of staying hidden in a dilapidated village near the academy, then scavenging problem sets and textbooks discarded by enrolled students on trash collection days and reading them like mad was now something of a point of pride for Meri.
Kleis, born as the heir of a Great Ducal House and raised without want, could not feel Meri's efforts in the exact same way, but she considered Meri a person of exceptional fortitude and kept her as a friend. If the class system had been maintained even within Tillet, the relationship between the two could never have developed as it had.
As the carriage raced on in a daze, the sleet falling outside the window had at some point turned into thick snowflakes. Kleis, who had been staring at the pattering silver dust, spoke again.
"Are you confident your eye won't hurt?"
This time, it was clearly in a joking tone.
"It's already hurting. Thinking about going back there practically gives me PTSD."
In a battle fought right before her discharge, Meri had lost one eye to an Extinction-class magic beast. For other mages it might not matter, but for an Earth Magic user who needed a wide view of the battlefield, it was a critical injury.
It was around that time that Kleis had also felt the limits of Fire Magic. The two had been discharged from the military on the same day, at the same hour, and returned to their alma mater to begin their teaching careers. It was customary in the Empire for soldiers who had walked the elite path to be appointed as professors at Tillet to train the next generation.
"When do you think we'll arrive?"
"I don't know. Probably at least another hour."
After that, the two passed the time by exchanging pointless small talk. They lacked the leisure to keep their mouths busy, since they had to conserve their Mana Cigarettes in case of a possible combat situation.
It was, truly, a tedious stretch of time.
**
"We've arrived. This is the Northern Camp."
The coachman who had been driving the golem outside drew back the canopy and entered. The conversation thread severed, the two unsteadily stepped out into the middle of the snowy field.
The sensation of stepping on thick snow was a long-absent one. The acrid smoke and the scent of blood that wafted from this place would not be forgotten no matter how much time passed.
"Are we not being guided to the front lines?"
As far as Kleis knew, they would have to travel another hundred kilometers from here to reach the front. Yet the coachman had halted the vehicle in this intermediate zone.
There was a reason for that.
"The commander told me to have you take a brief look at that and then come back."
"That's...."
"Good heavens. What is that thing?"
The distance to the very front line was perhaps a little over two hundred kilometers. Even at such a distance, what flaunted its presence was some kind of tower.
An iron tower that pierced the clouds and stretched to the edge of the sky, its highest level unknowable. When Kleis and Meri had finished their service as war mages and become academy professors, they hadn't seen anything like this.
"It's an unidentified tower that appeared a short while ago. All magic beasts of Calamity-class or higher are pouring out of that place. The corps commander speculates that an Extinction-class has coiled itself at the very top of that tower."
Extinction-class. A term referring to the direct, sealed retainers of the Demon King from ages past.
Even a single Extinction-class magic beast was a monster capable of shaking the front lines. Whenever one of their shadows fell over the front, a national state of emergency would be declared across the Empire.
"Isn't that a catastrophe? Why wasn't it reported to the capital?!"
"His Majesty the Emperor has already received word of this. He simply withheld it from the public for fear of social unrest."
"There's a time and place for an embargo.... It's barely three hundred kilometers from here to the capital!"
The appearance of an Extinction-class magic beast on the front lines was equivalent to saying the capital could fall in a single day.
Kleis's current Fire Magic could not stop an Extinction-class. Even Herlein's golem legions would be ground to dust before one. She dared to say this because she had already experienced it once before.
How could she forget that day when the two of them had crossed the First Defense Line together and a gigantic ironclad airship had appeared before them?
"His Majesty wishes for the two of you to investigate that tower. First, if you could merely observe its exterior and lend your wisdom on how best to deal with it."
Fortunately, the order wasn't to go inside and fight. After all, pointlessly stirring up a place where an Extinction-class sat, only to have a giant burst out of the hive, would mean the Empire's annihilation that very day. When preparing an offensive, one had to be painstakingly cautious.
Kleis and Meri each nodded, then moved to the forward position. When they disembarked from the carriage again, a person wearing a three-star insignia appeared before the two women.
It was Lieutenant General Caines, the Commander of the 3rd Army Corps. A face familiar to both of them.
"Mm, welcome. It's good to see you both after so long."
The two professors, as if by prior agreement, saluted simultaneously and gave their name, rank, and unit.
"Colonel Kleis Haspelt, arriving at the front under His Majesty the Emperor's orders to investigate the iron tower."
"Colonel Meriga Herlein, reporting for the same reason."
"You're both discharged; no need to speak so stiffly. So, Herlein. Is your right eye holding up?"
"Being here makes it throb like hell."
"You're the same as ever. But we have no time to reminisce. Around this hour, the magic beasts start to flood in. I apologize for asking right as you've arrived, but I need you to follow me."
They were immediately resupplied with military equipment and scrolls. Among the scrolls Kleis received were some personally crafted by her own disciple. The performance and quality were clearly overwhelming compared to goods from elsewhere.
The three of them reached a hill. An ashen plateau, burned black and where not a single blade of grass could grow, stretched out before their eyes. Beyond it, the settled tower was disgorging magic beasts as if vomiting them out.
All of them were high-grade or Calamity-class magic beasts. To investigate the tower, they would first have to carve out a path.
"Fight conservatively, unless you want to lose your other eye too."
Even at Kleis's advice, Meri only chuckled. It seemed that, now as then, she still let worries go in one ear and out the other. What on earth was so amusing that she laughed like that?
"Sorry, sorry. I just suddenly thought of the old days."
"About what?"
"It wasn't anything deep. Ah, now that I think about it, the academy entrance exams should be over by now."
"Stop talking nonsense and focus on the enemy in front of you. You haven't lost your touch, have you?"
"Of course not."
Kleis drew her staff, and Herlein produced a scroll as tall as herself.
The number of magic beasts ahead was roughly estimated at 200,000. Was there any war mage who didn't know that even clashing with an army that size was merely a preliminary skirmish?
It looked as though it was going to be a tiring fight.