Chapter 169
Chapter 169
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 169
Chapter Title: Arthur's Promotion Exam (2)
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Makina offered a brief prayer between the two facing off before stepping back one pace.
The promotion exam began with Adrian and Arthur leaping back one step as the signal.
*-Peeing…*
It started with a thin frictional sound, like a flute.
The sound of air slicing between air, like a transparent membrane tearing.
A circular ring about 10 meters in diameter spread out beneath Adrian's feet like a transparent carpet.
"Is that the marker?"
"Yes. Have you never come to watch a promotion exam before?"
"I somehow thought it had nothing to do with me."
In fact, my enrollment had been forced upon me. There was no reason for someone like me to take interest in topics like Master Class.
This entire scene felt utterly bizarre to me.
*-Paang!*
At that moment, the lined-up sword dance troupe and orchestra scattered in an instant, encircling the exam grounds.
As if testing his own output, Arthur scattered his mana, and a pale golden wave enveloped the exam grounds like a dome.
"Wow."
"Creepy."
The discordant clash of mana against mana clearly had a strong impact on the other cadets seated in the spectator stands as well.
Amid the stirring cadets, I continued to feel a strange sense of dissonance.
'A test carried out in an atmosphere thick with killing intent like this.'
Having never observed a Master Class promotion exam before, I hadn't imagined the spectator stands would be swept up in such an atmosphere.
*-Paang!!*
*-Kwaduduk!*
The only visible information was the wave-like trails left by light colliding with light.
*-Kaaang!*
With a deafening roar that felt like it would tear off one's ears, Arthur's blade drew an arc of light.
The masked Adrian disrupted that arc of light with a short motion, as if simply showing his palm.
By omitting two of the three elements that constitute magic—mana, magic circles, and incantations—this proved Adrian was a mage who had reached a considerable realm.
*-Chaeaeang!*
A sharp sound that sent faint ripples through the eardrums.
Sparks flew from the blade, hanging motionless in the air.
Adrian stepped back one pace, but he was still in the center of the circle.
*-Teuduk…*
"Wow, with sheer force!"
Finally, Arthur gritted his teeth, tension in his jaw, and began pushing the blade suspended in midair up and down like a saw blade.
"It's... pushing him back."
Adrian, who had one arm raised as if holding a transparent shield, was being slowly pushed back by Arthur's brute strength.
In the end, to steady his stance, Adrian took one more step back and shattered the transparent barrier that had surrounded him.
*-Chaenggrang!*
*-Kwang!*
For a skilled mage, even dispelling magic becomes part of the attack.
As the barrier blocking him vanished during their contest of strength, Arthur ended up smashing not Adrian, but the ground instead.
"-[He descends upon us]."
In the end, Adrian chanted an incantation.
Then, as if the eye of a typhoon were forming right in front of him, the orderly air currents twisted backward in reverse.
"Theo—"
Rather than fighting the intensifying wind, it seemed better to move behind the spectator stands.
With that thought, as I tried to call out to Theodore, I closed my mouth again.
Theodore's eyes, fixed on the arena, were reading every single minute movement of the two.
No, it wasn't just Theodore.
Everyone in this spectator stand was pursuing the two men's movements with frightening tenacity.
*-Hweeeiing!*
As the wind's direction shifted, the side closer to Adrian—meaning Theodore's body and mine—began to be pushed little by little.
The breeze, once a mere zephyr, was gradually turning into a gale.
*-Ta-aat!*
But undaunted by the wind, Arthur leaped forward.
'A mistake?'
No matter how muscular and tall Arthur was, I thought it was obvious he'd lose his balance mid-leap and stagger.
*-Kaaang!*
But Arthur did not.
It was a true cleaving strike.
Moreover, the shockwave plunging down from above Adrian's head grew increasingly golden with each clash.
"-[He has said it shall be peace]."
Magic was ultimately something invoked by borrowing the authority of higher beings.
Depending on the type of magic one acquired, the source of white magic based on holy power was mostly scripture.
'Though there are exceptions for white mages and black mages alike.'
The shape of the magic circle and incantation change based on how one imagines and accepts that power.
The efficiency of the magic varies depending on how one simplifies it.
In other words, Adrian was blocking the sword strikes of Arthur, who rivaled a Sword Master, with nothing but short incantations.
*-Ddak.*
"-[Position fix, stabilization]."
That was why it was impressive that Theodore snapped his fingers (omitting the complex processes to simplify the magic circle with this action) and, with a brief incantation, fixed my shaking body and his own.
'Preventing unforeseen accidents includes things like this, huh.'
Theodore still kept his gaze fixed forward without even glancing my way.
The intangible power emanating from his clearly smaller stature and far from burly build made me realize the distance between Theodore and me.
*-Taaang!*
A sound like gunpowder exploding, though no gun had been fired, shook the arena.
Now, Arthur was batting away arrows of light—tangible in their substance—launched from his highly raised hand with the thickest part of his blade.
*-Tukwang!*
The arrows of light grazed past the spectator stands, leaving long, gouged scars.
'So this is magic, huh. Impressive that I've survived in this academy until now.'
The thought slipped into my mind unbidden.
Their scorn was a natural instinct of the strong toward the weak, and compared to these mages, how utterly insignificant was I?
Even Makina, who rarely used offensive magic, had her senses sharpened on the duel, ready to leap in at any moment.
Not just Arthur and Adrian, but every cadet here was engaged in a battle of foresight, reading the futures of futures through their movements.
"Alma Cruise, step back a little."
As I found myself absentmindedly staring at the spectacle, Theodore swung his arm back and lightly pushed my waist.
I didn't resist his touch and allowed myself to be pushed back half a pace.
*-Kakagagak!*
It was at that instant that Arthur, who had looked as small as a finger moments ago, closed in right before my eyes.
"!!"
Riding the typhoon, Arthur had leaped straight about 200 meters in one go, landed on the flagpole bearing the banner of the Holy Aegis, and sharply changed direction.
"Ugh…!"
The pressure from that moment made some cadets cover their mouths and bow their heads.
'What is it?'
Had they been hit by Arthur's body as he turned?
As two or three cadets showed similar symptoms—clutching their mouths and staggering—two student council cadets waiting nearby rushed up to the platform with the injured.
"Cadets showing symptoms of mana poisoning must cease spectating and exit immediately!"
"Mana poisoning... from just this?"
As for me, an ignorant fool who didn't even know the 'ma' in mana, I couldn't even guess what had made them collapse and stagger.
Incompetence has more advantages than one might think.
Anyway, according to the student council's judgment, the symptoms those cadets had just shown were none other than mana poisoning.
Mana poisoning was a phenomenon where the body momentarily failed to control mana circulation when exposed to mana exceeding one's capacity—like acute indigestion for a normal person.
"Arthur's mana output has increased. Cadets who were too close and only partially defending were affected."
As a few more cadets, including the one who had clutched her mouth earlier, exited, Theodore raised his arm toward the air.
It was a posture ready to cast magic at any moment.
This stance alone consumed considerable stamina, so mages generally pushed aside all unnecessary exercise in life but diligently trained their arms.
"……"
It was the moment Theodore sealed his lips again, keeping a close watch on Arthur, who was emitting intense mana waves.
*-Kyarruk, kkarrur…*
The instant I heard that laughter, I felt trapped in a world where light had inverted.
Cheerful like a child's, imbued with inexplicable cruelty, an unknown existence impossible even to comprehend.
"Guar, dian…"
*-Guar dian an gel.*
Guardian Angel.
A bizarre sensation dominated my body, as if in a world divided solely into life and death, I alone stood on that boundary.
*-Kwadududuk!*
Arthur's blade destroyed every academy structure it grazed.
*-…Padeuduk!*
One second after the blade passed.
*-Paang!*
The stone statue in the blade's path twisted and shattered.
Amid that chaotic destruction and clashes,
*-My legions, [The Young Noble Returned from Death].*
Only the Guardian Angel's presence stood out clearly.
"……"
The Young Noble Returned from Death.
Did that refer to Arthur? And legions?
The moment I heard those words from the Guardian Angel, memories surfaced like a chain of curses.
*-If you don't kill him now, something irreversible will happen, I—…*
The voice ringing right in my ear was a flashback from my past self.
"Did I... do something to Arthur, and for what reason…?"
The Guardian Angel, taking on a sinister form and intelligence, was gathering fragments of my memories in this way.
*-Kwagagak!*
Arthur leaped and descended repeatedly, not just using the lowest exam ground but also the spectator stands, flagpoles, and tiered platforms.
Adrian coped with Arthur's fierce assault using minimal movements.
"-[Moreover, the spirit of the saint descends]."
Arthur's attacks with unpredictable paths, and Adrian's defense that yielded not an inch.
Aptitude is determined by whether one's power is based on gods or souls.
To Adrian, who wielded power based on the trajectories of gods, Arthur's resistance seemed less holy and more blasphemous.
"Did I really do that?"
I felt as if I were stepping into a perfectly laid trap of my own accord.
"Whoa, it's coming this way!"
*-Chaeang!*
Unlike Adrian, who couldn't stray beyond the 10-meter diameter circle, Arthur moved freely.
Of course, straying outside the exam grounds for more than 30 seconds resulted in automatic disqualification, so charging from outside wasn't an option.
*-Pajijik!*
It was right after that Arthur closed in at a distance on another level entirely.
It felt like that coincidence was the Guardian Angel's malicious prank.
Very much in the past, or a future that hadn't happened.
Arthur drawing the black-bladed Present Moon, his eyes gleaming with awakened ferocity.
The moment bewilderment widened my eyes, Arthur—wearing an expression as confused as mine—
drew his sword toward me.