Midterms (4)
One week remained until the midterms.
Karl wanted to become a creative person. No—not just him. The entire magic class did.
"Danjeol! Ragaadol! Ra-eogeu!"
"Lady Bella, what kind of incantation is that? No magic is even coming out."
"Yhw s'taht. Won't ebyam a suoiretsym cigam emoc tuo fi I esaever eht sdrow ylevitaerc."
"Ah. I can't understand a word of that."
Some twisted their chants into bizarre shapes.
"What the hell are you doing right now?"
"Clothing is the most fundamental expression of a person's mental image! So I changed mine to become creative!"
"And that's why a musclebound guy like you is wearing a girls' school uniform?"
"To awaken the opposite side of myself!"
"I'm going to kill you."
Some changed their outfits.
"You damn bastards! Send me one more report like that and I'll burn every last one of you!"
Some screamed into empty air…
That's Young Master Katram, isn't it? Why?
"Look closely at my great discovery."
"What did you find that's got you so worked up?"
"Don't be shocked by a discovery of the century. Behold."
"Huh?"
"A glow-in-the-dark dinosaur."
"You lunatic."
And some simply did pointless nonsense.
A single magic demonstration from Frey had driven the magic class into a frenzy. Karl couldn't understand it. Was creativity supposed to work like that?
He treated the others as freaks and put distance between them, swearing he would never devolve into something so vulgar.
And the other students, for their part, quietly edged away from Karl.
Karl had hung a golden bell from every single strand of his violet hair, replaced his uniform with translucent magic circuits, and covered his vital areas with leaves.
"I'm really looking forward to the midterms."
"Frey, can I hit you?"
"I'd rather not die, so I'll pass."
"Then how are you going to fix this disaster?"
Iren pointed across the lecture hall. The classroom—Karl's appearance especially the crowning jewel—looked like a parallel universe of pure chaos. Academy students, no, nobles, were half out of their minds, tearing through magic circles in outfits and behaviors no aristocrat should ever be caught dead in.
"Should I use Reality Broken one more time?"
"Wasn't it Broken Reality? What even is that magic?"
"If you're asking about the difference between a broken reality and breaking reality, that would require a rather philosophical discussion."
"Do you actually want to get hit?"
Iren curled her fingers into a hook. Get caught in that and flesh would tear like paper.
"Well, we should just leave them alone."
"I have no reason to look at those monstrosities."
"Isn't that just our friends putting in effort? Even if it turns out to be completely futile, watching over them is what a true friend does, isn't it?"
"The only person over there you could even call a friend is Karl, right?"
"Hitting me where it hurts, Iren. Trying to rattle my mind so you can take the advantage on the midterms?"
"Ugh, fine. With the class atmosphere like this, I can't even set a proper mood."
"Mood?"
"Like this."
Iren gently laced her fingers through mine. I wanted to shake her off, but I was too afraid my fingers would snap like soft taffy to pull away.
"Lately I've liked that Frey doesn't pull away when I do this. But with the classroom like this, there's no romance at all."
"D-do you not know why I'm not pulling my hand away?"
"Hm? There was a separate reason?"
"If you don't know, never mind."
At any rate, I had no intention of interfering with students who were putting in effort. Their direction didn't seem particularly wrong, either. If there are a hundred million people, there are a hundred million paths of training.
"Come to think of it, aren't you curious, Iren?"
"Don't dodge. I'll hear what you're curious about first."
"Department Head Alketo left the magic class a multi-layered magic circle. So what on earth did the knight class receive?"
"That is kind of curious."
"Shall we go look?"
"Sure."
It was self-study period anyway, so we slipped out of the lecture hall at our leisure.
The Academy's structure was split in two, with the magic class on the right and the knight class on the left.
For the Academy of the magic-centric Valencia Empire, the knight class wasn't treated poorly at all—because knights possessed many advantages mages simply didn't.
First, their magic resistance was high. A knight who poured mana into physical reinforcement could take most spells without so much as a scratch. Put a beginner mage against a beginner knight, and the knight won eight times out of ten.
Second, the cost of training them was overwhelmingly cheaper than mages. Knights themselves were money sinks, of course, but far less expensive to raise than mages.
Third, the foundation of warfare had always been infantry and cavalry. The existence of knights who commanded infantry was indispensable, magic empire or not.
In other words, spreading a hundred well-trained knights across every front was better than dominating a single battlefield with one well-trained mage.
That was also why most mages—save for a select few—handled politics within the Empire. A mediocre mage brought far more benefit managing state affairs than marching onto a battlefield.
I still don't understand the connection between magic and governance, though.
That those skilled in magic were also skilled in statecraft was an unshakable truth within the Empire.
I couldn't see the correlation at all. In other countries, an outstanding mage was not necessarily an outstanding politician.
The digression had run long, but the knight class building was just as magnificent as the magic class's. Even if its essence was a mass of Adamantium cloaked in illusion magic, the outward splendor was identical.
"One! Two!"
"One! Two!"
We hadn't even reached the knight classroom yet, and already vigorous shouts of exertion were ringing out. Were they training?
Irina had said that most knight class lectures consisted of basic physical conditioning. The unified rhythm of the shouts suggested this wasn't free study time the way it was for the magic class.
"I wonder what they received."
Iren's eyes sparkled as she dashed toward the knight class. Moments like this made her seem curiously pure for a princess—for someone who was usually such a smooth operator.
Peek. Iren and I peered into the knight classroom together.
It was my first time seeing it, and it was every bit a knight classroom. Rather than a lecture hall, it was broad and open like a training ground.
Inside, the knight class students were doing physical conditioning. Right now they were squatting—what looked, on the surface, like ordinary exercise.
No. They were wearing something on their arms and legs.
"I know what those are."
"What are they?"
"Weight enhancement gear. Expensive, highly efficient equipment that increases the load up to whatever the user can handle."
"Automatic weight adjusters? That's incredible."
Certainly, gear like that would help prevent injuries as well.
"You can estimate the weight from the amount of mana leaking out. For example, that guy at the very front—about fifty kilos at that level."
"Fifty kilos across four pieces? That's basically strapping an entire girl to your body."
"That's fifty kilos each."
"Suddenly that's terrifying."
The male student Iren pointed out was leaking the least mana from his gear. Which meant the other students were training with weights of at least two hundred kilos hanging off their bodies?
No wonder they'd given the magic class unlimited magic tricks. Were all these knight class types this monstrous?
With Iren's explanation giving me a baseline, I slowly checked the weights on the other knight students.
The level really is high.
Surprisingly, almost none of the students were inflated with bulky muscle. That didn't mean they'd dumped everything into mana-based physical reinforcement, either.
Mana flowed finely through every individual muscle fiber, gripping the muscle that wanted to expand. It wasn't the volume of the muscle that was different—it was the density.
That was why someone small and slender like Irina could produce monstrous strength. Through the knights' unique mana training methods, they refined power into deep muscle without adding unnecessary bulk. That seemed to be the point of the knight class.
Given that the student leaking the least mana was already wearing fifty-kilo weights each, the other students' loads were staggering. Sixty kilos, seventy kilos—some had even pushed theirs to eighty.
And the most impressive among them was, of course, Irina.
Iren let out a short laugh.
"A hundred kilos each? And she's holding back right now so she doesn't overdo it?"
"If that's her holding back, how many kilos could she manage if she didn't?"
"Who knows. A hundred fifty? Maybe more."
Truly befitting Irina, who was said to have no one among the third-years who could beat her. But doing light squats with a combined six hundred kilos of weight hanging off her? So human beings could actually be like that.
…And Iren was even stronger than Irina?
Were all the imperial family like that? Outstanding at both magic and physical strength, like Iren? Terrifying. Genuinely terrifying.
"But I don't see whatever Department Head Durum supposedly gave them. Was Department Head Alketo lying?"
"Right. Nothing special stands out."
At first I'd thought the automatic weight adjusters might be the knight class privilege. But according to Iren, they used those even on ordinary days.
So what on earth had the knight class received?
"Time's up."
A deep, resonant voice rolled through the classroom. Iren and I looked toward the rear of the hall, which we hadn't noticed before.
A massive, heavily muscled man stood there. His long hair was tied up in a ponytail, and scars covered his face and the exposed slabs of his pectorals.
His hair and eyes were both a blazing red, as if on the verge of catching fire. At his hip hung a colossal greatsword that looked capable of cleaving a fortress wall, dragging along the ground as he wore it.
Department Head of the knight class. Durum Berserk.
"I hope no one ends up in the infirmary today. How heartbroken would I be if a student got hurt after I spent good money on these scrolls."
At Department Head Durum's words, the entire knight class tensed. Scrolls? Getting hurt? What exactly—
"Don't die, you inadequate lot."
"Yes, sir!"
The moment the knight class answered in a roaring chorus, Durum tore the scroll in his hand.
And with it, a magical storm that would have shredded hundreds of ordinary people who couldn't handle mana tore through the classroom.
Wow.
So that was the knight class privilege?