Man Proposes, God Disposes
Man Proposes, God Disposes
─ This concludes the 1024th Tillet Academy Entrance Examination in its entirety. All examinees, please check that you have not left any belongings behind, pack your things, and return home safely.
─ The results of this entrance examination will be announced by post in exactly two weeks, at 7 o'clock in the morning.
─ To all examinees, thank you for your hard work.
"Hah...."
It was finally over.
As the tension drained away, anxiety filled the empty space.
What would happen if I didn't get in? Would I be stuck in this world forever, unable to ever set eyes on chimaek again? All sorts of thoughts swirled around in my head that evening.
Students filed out of the campus under the orange glow of the sunset.
Parents waited at the main gate, handing out snacks like chocolate.
A female student cried that she'd messed up, while a male student shouted confidently that he was sure he'd passed.
I took in every last detail of that scenery, then turned away.
"Hey! Did your practical go well?"
This was already the third time. The self-proclaimed dwarf descendant looked up at me with an arrogant glint in her eyes.
The biggest characteristic of children was how bad they were at hiding their emotions. Judging from her overall expression and body language, the exam had obviously gone well for the little shorty.
"What are you doing not going home, shorty?"
"I came to see the face of a magicless yellow-eyes. So I'm asking you, did your exam go well!"
"Somehow."
I had no hobby of chewing over things that had already passed. What was done was done. My priority was to think about the work I had to do tomorrow.
But first, I had to shake this one off.
"Why have you been following me around, anyway? Didn't we just meet today?"
"The Earth Spirit King whispers to me that if I stick with you, something good is bound to happen!"
"I don't have money to buy you food, so go ask someone else, shorty."
"I'm not shorty! Call me by my proper name!"
"You've never told me your name."
"Ack."
The shorty cleared her throat with a keheum, keheum, as if she'd choked on her own saliva. She could at least cover her mouth when she coughed.
The shorty held out her hand to me.
"Frey. Frey Shelkerni."
Contrary to her appearance, it was a rather refined name. Given that she had a family name, she was probably a noble.
"I gave my name first. Now you!"
"Aether. I don't have a family name."
"Whoa, you're a commoner?"
Here, too, I stuck with my "tell no lies" strategy.
"No, a graduate student."
"Aha! So that's why you have no house!"
For some reason, I felt pissed off.
The shorty—Frey—trotted after me as I headed to the dining hall for dinner. Thanks to all the examinees having cleared out, even with it being dinnertime I had no trouble finding a seat.
As I let the shorty's ceaseless prattling go in one ear and out the other while eating, my tray emptied in no time. Since I'd kept to my usual pace, I inhaled everything within five minutes.
Leaving Frey—who admonished me that I'd get indigestion eating like that—behind, I headed for the research building. For some reason, she kept following even when I consistently gave her no reaction. It felt like I'd picked up a stray puppy on the roadside....
Eventually, the little mutt barged right into Professor Haspelt's laboratory. I started to say something, then just let out a sigh to express my current state of mind.
"Whoa, this is your master's lab?"
Master, right. Back when I first arrived here, that was what I used to call Professor Haspelt.
When was it that I changed the title to "Professor" because she said she didn't like it? I couldn't even remember anymore.
Watching Frey bounce around the supply room and main laboratory like a child at an amusement park for the first time made my head go blank. No matter how I looked at it, she didn't have the mental age to apply to the academy.
"Don't touch anyth—"
"Whoa, this is a transistor!"
My feet stopped on their way toward Frey.
Unfazed by the dirty look I shot her, the shorty picked up a magic stone sitting on Professor Haspelt's desk and turned it over and over, inspecting it.
Ah, right. The last question of Basic Magic Theory.
Since it had appeared on today's written exam, it was hardly strange that Frey knew the word transistor.
Still, of all things, they had to pull out a transistor circuit-writing question. I got that it was for sorting out the top examinees, but that was too much.
"So what did you come in here for?"
"To work."
"Uek, you could at least slack off for one day!"
This was the whisper of a demon. I couldn't let myself be tempted by the demon and forget my original station.
I just had to hold on a little longer.
I refused Frey's demand to grab a drink and pulled out the Hardcover Book. The shorty puffed up her cheeks, calling me unreasonable, then announced she was returning to the inn where she was staying.
KWAAAAAANG─!!
I wished she'd close the door a little more gently.
Anyway.
With the entrance exam over, something surfaced in my mind. It was the war scroll Professor Haspelt had ordered me to complete within three months. I hoped it would turn out to be a parting gift.
Fwip.
[Top-Grade Fire Magic — Flare]
[Herein lies the path to the sun, the fourth state, and the fifth state.]
[▷ You have not yet learned this magic.]
[▷ This is an incomplete Magic Art. Acquisition through research rather than learning is recommended.]
"What's with this description?"
An all-nighter tonight was confirmed.
**
The stench of burning wafted from every direction.
Kleis pinched her nose and surveyed the battlefield.
Most of the high-grade magic beasts that had poured forth in the fourth wave had been suppressed. She had burned the wolf-like creatures to ash and torn the raptor-resembling monsters in half.
By her estimate, their numbers ranged from two hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand. Adding together the magic beasts from the first through third waves, a mountain of machines exceeding well over a million rolled across the ground like fallen leaves.
There was also a calamity-class magic beast that she and Herlein had coordinated to bring down. Its corpse had been dragged in front of the hill.
High-grade magic beasts allowed them to harvest a mountain of high-quality magic stones, but regrettably, Kleis had not discovered the transistors she wanted.
Wasn't it about time the offensive started dying down?
No. Whenever she had that thought, the next wave inevitably crashed in.
"They're coming."
Dududududududu─.
Beyond the horizon, the hoofbeats signaling the start of the fifth wave rang out. Two-headed reptiles tore through the air and charged at the encampment.
"Meri, are you about ready?"
"Yeah. This should be enough."
Meri, who had replenished her MP with mana cigarettes, nodded at Kleis's gesture and drew the staff made from a branch of the World Tree, plunging it into the ground.
[Top-Grade Earth Magic — Mecharomancia]
With the declaration, the surrounding mana particles scattered in all directions. The monster corpses that had been strewn carelessly across the ground slowly began to lift their heads.
Severed parts were patched up with the corpses of other magic beasts. Burn scars were entirely carved away, then mixed with soil and kneaded into thick armor and reborn.
Compounds of magic beast and magic beast gave rise to yet more magic beasts.
Magical beasts that had died and been revived. Earth mages called them 'golems'.
With Meri's declaration, the high-grade magic beasts that had driven the empire's soldiers into nightmares until now underwent metamorphosis into high-grade golems.
Their number was roughly eight hundred thousand. It fell slightly short compared to the number Kleis had felled, but at the very least it looked more than sufficient to fill this sprawling battlefield.
The dead magic beasts—the golems—were no longer on their own side. They were on the side of humanity, and also on the side of the nonhuman races, elves included. Obeying their new master's orders, the magic beasts shook the very axis of the earth as they began trampling their former comrades.
"Creation, high-grade golem Rexon."
Having transmuted a horse-like golem from the remaining materials, Meri hoisted Kleis aboard and followed the golem procession.
"Meri, we shouldn't get too close. Don't go charging in excitedly and get yourself hurt like the old days."
"I know. By the way, what was it we needed to check again? The tower's exterior?"
"The exterior and the exit from which the magic beasts emerge. It'd be even better if we could use trigonometry to calculate how high it is."
The two of them descended the hill under the golems' protection and then raced straight toward the front lines. It wasn't a very pleasant drive. The air grazing their cheeks was not cool in the slightest.
Kleis and Meri were running the same calculations. Almost simultaneously, the two women worked out the golem's speed and the elapsed time to estimate the distance from the grassland to the tower.
The result came out quickly. The minimum height of the tower, back-calculated using trigonometric ratios, was unbelievable.
"What'd you get, roughly?"
"Around 1.8 kilometers."
"I have 2.1 kilometers."
It was a height that would go down in the annals of magic tower architecture. The two of them clicked their tongues and pressed even further forward.
"It's unimaginably sturdy."
"Just the exterior looks like it won't break easily. And it's absolutely massive, too."
Even the tower's main gate alone approached a hundred meters across. Beasts up to fifty times larger than a human emerged from within it, so an average person would probably have collapsed on the spot, trembling in terror.
Magical beasts poured endlessly from the tower. As the two professors drew closer to the Iron Tower, it wasn't their imagination that the rate at which it spawned beasts intensified. The golems they had brought with them gradually began to be pushed back, and their allies were being ground away by the hundreds per second.
They couldn't remain here any longer.
"Let's retreat."
"I was thinking the same thing just now."
The decision was swift. Having roughly scanned even the magic tower's exterior, the two turned their mounts around and headed for the base.
Fortunately, the magic beast advance quieted down after the fifth wave ended. Kleis and Meri kept their guard up to the last, then contacted the frontline signal corps and withdrew to the rear where the corps commander was located.
"Twenty-eight hours, twenty-one minutes elapsed from the start of the wave to the end. Good work, both of you."
With the lieutenant general's encouragement, the two women collapsed then and there. It was because they had pulled the troops back and fought the battle on their own in order to protect even one more of the green novice mages who were newly deployed to the front line.
Kleis didn't even have the strength left to conjure a single flame in her hand. The nap she took the moment she finished her investigation report was sweeter than any sleep she had ever known in this world. It was a deep slumber the likes of which she had not tasted in a truly long time.
On the third day, the two informed the frontline soldiers of the types of magic beasts emerging from the magic tower and the strategies against them, then boarded a carriage bound for the capital.
"Puheheh."
It was past midnight when they returned. A curfew was in effect in some of the alleyways. Upon entering the capital, they were cautioned by the guards for wandering around at night, leading to a comical incident where the guards prostrated themselves the moment the two showed their identification.
"Then get home safe."
"You too, Meri."
After parting ways midway, Kleis, who had been heading toward her own mansion, abruptly turned her steps toward the academy.
It was to see her assistant's face.
Three whole days had passed since she left her behind, unattended, but the thought that the girl might have fled never crossed her mind. Because until now, her assistant had not attempted escape even once.
Two years ago, when Kleis herself had been bedridden with the flu, rather than vanishing, the child had nursed her at her side. It was after that incident that Kleis had removed the iron collar that symbolized her slave status.
'Now that I think of it, I did task her with writing Flare.'
Flare—the ultimate fire-type magic that Kleis had been researching bit by bit ever since she was discharged from the military.
Flare was the only weapon capable of standing against extinction-class threats. At least, that was Kleis's conclusion.
When the imperial household had requested to trade for Aether, she had not conveyed that fact to the person in question. It was because letting her know for no good reason might make her start half-assing her work thereafter, which could be troublesome.
If Flare was not completed, a future where the country was devoured by magic beasts could come to pass. In such a situation, rather than researching all by herself from start to finish, it was more advantageous to borrow even a moment of help from a member of the Gold-Eye Tribe and salvage even one idea.
Thus, the conclusion she had reached was one.
She would defer as much of the Flare research as possible to her assistant, then complete the remainder herself.
"Heuh...."
It was a good plan. A very good plan.
That was what she'd thought.
'What is it, this feeling that something will become empty....'
First.... First, she would push the difficult thoughts aside for later. Right now, her head was entirely saturated with fatigue and her emotions were dulled.
'Since I'm already here, I might as well see my assistant's face before I go.'
Kleis dragged her utterly spent body and moved toward the quarters where Aether stayed.
Her retreating figure somehow resembled that of a person utterly soaked in drink.