Placement Exam (1)

Perhaps it was the murderous aura Lee Sudok had been radiating throughout his entire explanation, because the whole class made its way to the Arena under an atmosphere of crushing tension.

Go Hyeon-woo, on the other hand, looked slightly flushed with excitement.

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"So this is the 'big day' Brother Shin spoke of yesterday. I find myself greatly anticipating it."

"Yeah, I could tell from the moment I met you that you'd be the type to love PvP."

"A duel against the strong is always a pleasure. Though tell me—how exactly does this placement exam proceed?"

I held up three fingers.

"You're matched against three random opponents, and you take points based on your wins. 300 points per victory."

"Sweeping all three bouts would yield a full 900 points, then?"

"That's right."

"And if one loses, or the bout ends in a draw? Are points deducted as well?"

"No deductions. You just get nothing. One win, one draw, one loss comes out to 300, 0, and 0."

"I see. Understood."

If everyone started PvP from zero points, it would only be the lower-ranked students who got gleefully beaten to a pulp. To prevent at least some of that, the academy held the placement exam on day one, spacing everyone out by 300-point increments according to their ability.

The procession of first-years led by Lee Sudok soon merged with the other first-year classes, and together they headed for the Arena. The classes might differ, but the placement exam was conducted by the entire first-year cohort simultaneously.

After a short walk, a colossal dome-shaped building filled our field of view.

The Arena's layout resembled a modern stadium: spectator stands encircling a central stage where the matches took place. The difference was that stage itself.

It was the crowning achievement of every magical and scientific discipline, capable of recreating any terrain one could imagine. A volcanic zone where meteors fell and lava flowed, a ravine lashed by lightning like falling rain—even a deep lake, if it came to that.

For now, though, nothing special. Just gray tile stretching out flat and unbroken.

Scoreboards floated above it, and since the placement exam hadn't started yet, they displayed something other than scores.

Environment and rules—the two elements that composed every PvP match.

Carry out enough missions as a hero, and you eventually realize that subduing your opponent isn't always the objective. The classic example is an escort mission, where protecting the VIP takes absolute priority over eliminating the assassin.

Anyone who had mindlessly pumped nothing but raw power knew the kind of mishap that followed all too well: you sweep the enemies aside with overwhelming force, only for the person you were supposed to protect to end up dead anyway.

Precisely to prepare students for all manner of environments and situations, PvP rules were changed on a regular basis.

[Deathmatch], the rule for this placement exam, was one of PvP's staple formats. Simple enough: the bout didn't end until one person's health was fully depleted, they were rendered combat-incapable, or they declared defeat.

Add the [5-Minute Limit] on top, and any match undecided after five minutes concluded by judges' decision or draw.

The environment was the Circular Colosseum—a round space sized just right for two people to trade blows. The massive central stage was divided into several independent arenas, and pairs of students would be teleported in to fight their matches.

Lee Sudok seated the Class 3 students in the stands and explained exactly that. A few seats away, the teacher of the neighboring class appeared to be giving the same briefing.

"Then we begin. Students called by name, enter the arena. Choi Jeongpil. Park Gyeong-a."

One boy and one girl rose from their seats. The moment their feet touched the magic circle before the arena, they vanished—and reappeared inside one of the many arenas.

The scoreboard above them changed.

Lee Sudok confirmed they were ready and gave a curt nod.

The instant the match began, the two of them—neither willing to be second—surged their mana upward. They cloaked themselves in the shimmering energy like armor, closed the distance in a blink, and collided at the center of the arena.

— KWA-BOOM!!

An explosion rang out, and the numbers on the scoreboard shifted.

Having verified that much, Lee Sudok turned away. Plenty of arenas sat empty still, and he had a great many more names to call.

"Next. Go Hyeon-woo. Hwang Hyeok."

"Oh! My turn at last."

Go Hyeon-woo sprang up from his seat, visibly delighted. His body was already itching for action, it seemed—he ran his hand slowly over the iron sword at his hip.

"I shall return."

"Go get 'em."

While I waited for my own turn, I pulled up the quest that had just arrived.

All I needed was a single win in PvP and a middle-of-the-pack or better result in the dungeon stage. Even if I coasted, it would be a cakewalk—practically a drive-by quest, as far as I was concerned.

What truly mattered right now lay elsewhere.

The scouting.

The placement exam wasn't something you could finish by simply doing well yourself. This PvP portion was being held in front of the entire first-year class.

Which meant I could observe every other student's match from start to finish. And the information gathered there—another student's weapon, skills, tendencies, habits, weaknesses—would prove invaluable in the PvP matches that would run all semester long.

The fools who could only fidget while waiting for their own turn were amateurs; the sharp ones had already fixed their eyes on the arena. Every single battle was one more to commit to memory.

For me, this was an excellent opportunity. My first goal: flag promising candidates worth raising to EX-rank later. My second: memorize the students with decent skills or traits worth [Copying]. In the long run, both mattered enormously.

'That one's got good instincts. His stats are way behind, but he doesn't get pushed back. Worth raising.'

'That one's all flash—pure equipment carry.'

'Ooh, that's a rare skill. Noted.'

I was in the middle of dissecting match after match when my name was called.

"Kim Ho. Hong Yeon-hwa."

I glanced around; nobody else had stood up. Hong Yeon-hwa must be in another class. Somewhere in the stands, no doubt, she was thinking much the same thing I was.

The moment I stepped onto the tiny teleportation circle, my view transformed in an instant—I had been moved inside one of the Circular Colosseum's arenas. Immediately, someone materialized on the circle across from me.

A girl with red hair. A wand of no great length, set with a fat ruby.

'Ruby Magic Tower.'

A tower specializing in fire-element magic. With first-rate destructive power and superb battlefield control, the Ruby Tower Master had been one of my go-to picks among S-rank heroes—I'd brought her along on missions more often than I cared to admit.

So facing a mage from her tower left me with a strange feeling. Something like the guilt of tormenting a subordinate's disciple.

'Poor thing... but what can I do? It's the placement exam. I need to win too.'

She'd just have to play along with my act for five short minutes.

Hong Yeon-hwa was a rising star, the bearer of the Ruby Magic Tower's every expectation. Her goal was to become the next Tower Master, and to make that a reality, she first had to conquer this Dragon Slayer Academy. If she could stand at the very summit, having shoved past heavyweights like the Sword Empress's disciple, the Topaz Magic Tower's treasured daughter, and the heirs of great martial clans, then the moment she returned to her tower after graduation, the road ahead would be paved in gold.

This placement exam was to be the first great stride of that journey.

And yet... the man who appeared as her first opponent left her with nothing but disappointment.

Kim Ho? A name she'd neither heard nor seen before. Placement exam or not, surely there should be some standard—if you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wanted your fame to climb, you had to topple an opponent with at least some name value.

Something about him reeked, somehow. And the weapon he'd deigned to bring was pathetic. One look told her it was an [Staff of the Earth (E)]—a junk item that even apprentice mages passed over. A staff that amplified earth-element or protective magic by an ant's eyelash; from her perspective, it might as well have been a plain stick.

'So he's not an earth-wood mage.'

Relations with the Emerald Magic Tower weren't exactly warm, but she'd made a point of learning the faces of their mages. This man was definitively not one of theirs. And having no connection to Emerald Tower meant the odds of him having trained earth magic dropped sharply.

By process of elimination, the conclusion: protection or utility magic rather than earth.

Furthermore, his use of a long staff suggested a mage who had abandoned mobility in favor of raw output—the so-called artillery-type caster.

A supporter. An artillery-type caster. Which meant—

'I'll end this quickly.'

The moment both combatants took their positions, the scoreboard began its countdown.

The instant the match began, Hong Yeon-hwa thrust her wand forward.

— Fwoom!

Her opponent's upper body was swallowed by a small burst of flame. A rank-E ignition spell: Combustion. Its destructive power was modest, but its strength lay in an extremely short cast time. Even if that pathetic-looking supporter threw up a protective spell, she could punch through it easily enough—but a grinding, drawn-out match was the last thing she wanted. She'd craved a clean, overwhelming victory, and so she hadn't given him even a sliver of time to cast.

— Whoa, did you see that cast?

— Something flashed, so I guess that was a spell.

— That's the Ruby Magic Tower for you.

The gasps of admiration from the stands carried all the way down to the arena. To Hong Yeon-hwa, it was the most natural praise in the world.

However...

She checked the scoreboard and doubted her own eyes. She'd known it wouldn't end in one blow... but 100%? Not even a single percent of impact?

She turned her gaze back to find Kim Ho standing right where he'd been, arms hanging loose, utterly at ease.

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What was this? Was the Staff of the Earth a decoy, and was he actually wearing some defensive artifact?

'Then how about this?'

Hong Yeon-hwa drew her mana up and began to cast. She formed a sphere of mana above her wand and packed it full of a flame formula.

"..."

Kim Ho, who had been standing there blankly the entire time, moved for the first time. He tilted his staff slowly at a diagonal and raised his other hand toward her.

A gesture that looked exactly like someone about to unravel an opponent's magic with his bare hand. Seeing it, Hong Yeon-hwa frowned—because no mage alive could fail to recognize it.

'Dispel.'

A spell-unraveling magic. But in her experience, Dispel was meant to be used covertly, without the slightest hint of warning. Casting it this brazenly carried only one meaning:

I'm such a novice that I can't use Dispel properly.

Or else—

Against the likes of you, I don't even need to hide it.

'That's kind of infuriating.'

The latter reading was surely a stretch, but her mood soured all the same. Yet contrary to the anger boiling in her chest, she cooled her head and focused on completing the spell. If he intended to Dispel her, she simply had to finish the formula fast and launch it before he could.

"..."

Kim Ho still held one hand outstretched toward her. But since her magic was proceeding without the slightest interference, he seemed to have failed to time it properly. His expression remained placid, but inside, he had to be sweating.

Hong Yeon-hwa allowed herself a knowing smile.

'Too late!'

A sphere of flame the size of a person's torso was complete. She hurled it straight at him. You dare pull tricks on me? I'll make you regret it!

— KWA-BOOM!!

The blazing fireball swallowed Kim Ho whole, then erupted a second time, blanketing the entire area in flames. Feeling the heat wash against her cheeks, Hong Yeon-hwa curled one corner of her mouth upward.

'It's over.'

Had he taken a direct hit from Flame Orb in real combat, he'd have been burned to ash. But his uniform carried its own D-rank protective enchantment, and the Arena had every manner of safety mechanism guarding its students, so he wouldn't have died. Combat-incapacitated at minimum, though—that much was certain.

She hoped the crushing blow hadn't broken his spirit and ruined the rest of his placement exam.

And yet...

"...Huh?"

Her mouth slowly fell open as she read the scoreboard. She whipped her gaze forward, and through the slowly dying flames, Kim Ho's figure came into view.

Perfectly fine. No different from before—just standing there in place. As if to say this much fire meant nothing to him.

'He actually... dispelled it?'

There was no other way to explain him coming out unscathed. Had he cast Dispel at the very instant before impact, unraveling the spell at the last possible moment? Was dispelling a completed spell even possible?

Above all, what stunned her most was this: she had failed to catch the moment he used it at all.

A chill ran down her spine.

'R-right. I must have let my guard down.'

Hong Yeon-hwa chastised herself for underestimating her opponent based on appearances alone. This man, too, was a hero candidate who had fought his way through ferocious competition into this Dragon Slayer Academy. There was no way he'd be a pushover.

She drew a deep breath and gripped her wand tight. Her next spell could just as easily be interrupted. In that case, she'd settle it with a magic-circle formula—something almost immune to Dispel.

— VMMMM—

Hong Yeon-hwa drew her mana up once more. The mana released from her ruby painted a crimson magic circle at Kim Ho's feet. His gaze flicked down, checking the circle ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beneath him.

"..."

A spell would fall precisely where the magic circle appeared. It was a simple cause and effect anyone could grasp. Therefore, if a circle manifested at your feet, the obvious move was to get as far away from it as possible.

Hong Yeon-hwa fully expected Kim Ho to scramble clear, and she had her follow-up ready to snare him the moment he did.

But...

'...He's not moving?'

Kim Ho appeared to intend to hold his ground. Far from dodging, he planted the tip of his staff firmly into the floor. He was abandoning what little mobility he had left entirely.

Given that he was most likely a supporter, it read as an intent to meet her head-on with a powerful defensive spell.

"Ha. Haha."

Hong Yeon-hwa let out a disbelieving breath. There was no way he didn't know she was from the Ruby Magic Tower. He knew full well that her fire magic yielded to no other element in raw destructive power—and still he dared to gamble everything on a defensive spell?

Fine then. Have it your way.

— FLASH!

The ruby set in her wand blazed with light. The crimson circle's diameter swelled to twice its size, additional formulas filled the empty space, and the whole array drank in a deeper, sharper red.

Kim Ho, meanwhile, didn't so much as twitch—a statue with his staff rooted in the ground, simply waiting for her. To Hong Yeon-hwa's eyes, he seemed to be asking, So when exactly are you planning to cast?

'No need to rush me—I'm casting right now!'

Go on, then—try blocking this!

— KRA-BOOOOM!

A pillar of fire erupted from the massive magic circle.