Hum.
The red eye formed on his forehead moved without rest.
Fifteen fine lines stretched out from that eye.
They were relaying everything happening on the sparring grounds.
“That's insane…….”
“What kind of magic is that?”
“It's kind of creepy, but…… it's cool!”
Unlike the hardworking red eye, the two original eyes beneath it were firmly shut.
If you covered just the forehead, he looked like someone enjoying a nap on the sofa.
To Oracle, something like freshmen sparring stirred no interest at all.
The early part of the Challenge in particular featured the lower-ranked students, so it felt even more tedious.
Just once.
There had been one unexpected choice, but
‘A last-placer challenging the top student is more common than one would think.’
A last-placer challenging the top student when his inferiority complex exploded.
A last-placer challenging with the mindset of scratching a lottery ticket, aiming for a bonus-point jackpot.
A last-placer who could not accept that he was last.
Once every few years, last-placers would throw down a challenge to the top student like that.
And then, soon enough,
‘They were trampled into mush.’
Not once had an upset occurred.
The entrance exam rankings had been designed personally by Tesca Academy's Headmaster.
The top student had reasons for being the top student, and the last-placer had reasons, too.
He had thought the match between Kawin and Frasel would end the same way.
However,
JOLT!
Oracle, who had been sprawled out like a napping lion, suddenly sprang up like a coil spring.
At some point, his two eyes had opened as wide as the eye on his forehead.
“What?”
Three eyes chased a single screen.
The first one created among the fifteen screens floating above his head.
It was Kawin and Frasel's sparring ground.
RRRIP!
Was this what it felt like to cut a well-ripened peach with a famed sword?
A distinct fissure was forming in the Royal Arka that Frasel had released.
Kawin, swinging something sharp as he encroached on Frasel's domain.
The three eyes watching that sight trembled mercilessly.
“This is…… impossible!”
The power of the imperial family, Royal Arka.
Oracle knew all too well what kind of might it held.
Non-attribute, containing no characteristic whatsoever.
That was why neither fire, nor water, nor wind, nor earth worked against it.
Even black magic was the same.
By nature, all magic had affinities, but Royal Arka simply would not listen to reason.
Should one say it resembled an emperor's command that forced one-sided obedience?
‘And yet…….’
She might be the youngest, but Frasel was also a mage who had inherited imperial blood.
The Royal Arka she released was definitely the ‘genuine article.’
But Kawin, facing it, seemed to be saying exactly this.
‘So. What about it?’
Oracle's heart dropped.
The sight of the imperial house's power being damaged was certainly a shock, but what had chilled his blood was something else.
‘Isn't he just like…… those damned bastards?’
A thousand-year enemy.
The arch-nemeses of mages, who could be called the sworn foes of the Empire.
Swordmasters.
The way he tore through the mage's space and closed in reminded him exactly of Astallon's Swordmasters.
‘I…… am feeling that about a mere freshman?’
A greenhorn who would probably still have a Mongolian spot if you pulled down his pants.
That was what Kawin Anper was in Oracle's eyes.
A freshman who had only just enrolled.
And the very lowest of 300 at that.
Why would he sense the afterimage of a Swordmaster in such an inferior student?
Like the other teachers at Tesca, Oracle had a wealth of combat experience.
Among it, he had even faced knights of the ‘Iron Empire.’
That experience was whispering in Oracle's ear.
That the 300th-placer before his eyes was not simply last place.
‘Truly, for the first time in a long while…….’
He had found a freshman worth keeping an eye on.
While Oracle was thinking this, Kawin had already reached right under Frasel's nose.
***
‘Danger!’
Frasel wanted to scream on the spot.
She might be the youngest, but she, too, had inherited imperial blood.
She had completed every elite education available in childhood.
Royal Arka.
Even the countless instructors who had taught her had not been able to properly hold back the imperial house's unique power.
And yet.
At an academy like this, of all places.
And by the very lowest of 300, no less, she never imagined Royal Arka would be stripped bare.
‘He was supposed to be Lightning-line!’
But what Kawin was doing went beyond even a Mana Brawler.
Naturally, she had thought she would win this Challenge easily.
Kawin's magic attribute was Lightning, notorious for being pitiful.
Magic only slightly better than static electricity.
So she had thought he would put on some cute little show and then get crushed by Royal Arka.
But that had been a misjudgment.
SWOOSH!
Faster and more agile than the Mana Brawlers guarding the Imperial Palace.
And reckless.
Above all, she had never once seen an ‘ordinary person’ tear Royal Arka apart like a boiled radish.
After all, the only thing that could suppress Royal Arka was the Royal Arka of another imperial.
“Hup!”
Behind the mask, Frasel's face flushed bright red.
To her, the current situation was an unbearable insult and humiliation.
‘What do I do?’
Everyone wanted to crown their first Challenge with a win.
Frasel, who had expected an easy victory with Royal Arka, sensed that the situation had become very difficult.
In the end, that emotion stirred Frasel's unconscious.
Something she had been consciously pressing down.
Something she had thought must never be used at the Academy.
She ended up manifesting another ability.
SHHK!
A pitch-black energy spurted from her fingertips.
In complete contrast to the pure white radiance of Royal Arka, jet-black strands burst from the fingers of both her hands.
They called to mind very thin, menacing whips.
“……!”
In that moment, even Kawin's face stiffened considerably.
But it was not enough to threaten his body, where Lightning Flash had manifested.
‘Not a chance……!’
Each and every nerve strand in his body.
From root to tip, he pushed in an even stronger energy of thunder.
His already fast body leapt once more, like a hawk riding a tailwind.
SWOOSH!
Kawin threw himself between the ten sinister whips.
Some of the black strands grazed Kawin's cheek and thigh.
But Kawin neither turned his head nor even closed his eyes.
He had only just become able to see.
Why would he close his eyes himself?
He simply swung the energy of thunder toward the target before him.
SLASH!
The Royal Arka and the black whips Frasel used.
Magic of two different natures, but they had one thing in common.
Before a blade made of ‘Divine Bolt,’ all were equal.
The whip that had been boring toward Kawin's eyes was cleanly severed by the Divine Bolt.
At that moment, something even Kawin had not anticipated happened.
THWACK!
Part of the severed whip struck Frasel around the chin.
Since she had the mask on, she did not take a direct hit, but in a sense, that made it more of a problem.
Flip!
The cat mask that had firmly covered her face.
Having taken the impact, the lower part of the mask lifted slightly.
Since Kawin had closed in right in front of Frasel, part of her bare face was naturally revealed.
“Hm?”
Kawin's eyes widened for an instant, and a stunned voice leaked from Frasel's mouth.
“……I'm done for.”
It was Frasel's voice holding her true feelings, something never heard until now.
***
Large, clear letters were stamped at the top of the screen labeled ‘No. 1.’
[Frasel Illuma. Surrender declared.]
[Challenge Winner - Kawin Anper]
[Victory Points: 100P awarded]
[Bonus Points: 10,000P awarded]
It was a screen everyone had been watching anyway.
The jaws of the waiting students dropped to the floor.
“Sh-she really lost?”
“The Imperial Princess…… I mean, Frasel?”
“This is completely insane.”
“How could a sorry Dead-Battery Bug like that?”
“Kawin, that bastard. What the hell is he?!”
One after another, students were too restless to stay seated, their butts bouncing off their chairs.
But Professor Oracle could not say a thing to them.
After all, the first person to spring out of his seat had been Oracle himself.
After a brief moment of shock at Kawin's victory, the students looked at the points he had earned with envy.
“Wow…… he got ten thousand extra points!”
“Crazy. Aren't they handing out way too much?”
“Makes sense. Last place took down first.”
“That's the max you can get from a single Challenge.”
With this, Kawin's Challenge points stood at 100,100P.
It might be different when the rankings updated in a month, but at least today, no student could earn more points than Kawin.
“But…… why are they still just standing there?”
“If the match is over, they should come down, right?”
“Look at Frasel. Her legs have totally given out.”
“Guess she took a pretty big hit…….”
Even though the Challenge was over, the two did not come down.
Oracle's magic did not transmit sound, so the students could only guess vaguely.
“……Did you see?”
After a long silence, that was the question that came from Frasel.
Kawin nodded heavily.
Frasel's face, hidden inside the cat mask.
It had certainly been beautiful.
Golden eyes that symbolized the imperial family.
A harmless impression reminiscent of a young, beautiful cat.
Kawin was certain she was by far the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
If not for the hideous breakouts covering her entire face, that is.
Before her lovely features, the red, blotchy, lumpy breakouts caught the eye far sooner.
A face someone with a weak stomach would not want to encounter before a meal.
A look that did not suit the title of ‘Imperial Princess’ at all.
“You saw.”
Grind.
The sound of grinding teeth came from beyond the cat mask.
The voice of someone who had been caught out on what must never be discovered, what she never wanted discovered.
He might well have been overwhelmed by that atmosphere.
Yet Kawin's voice was as flat as could be.
“Now I understand. Why you bother wearing a mask.”
“You……!”
“No need to worry. I have no intention of holding someone's misfortune over them or taking advantage of it. I've had my fill of that kind of thing.”
“What?”
Frasel stared hard at Kawin.
The faint smile showing at his lips.
And a bitterness she sensed, subtler still.
Why did a handsome, platinum-blond man who seemed to have nothing to envy give off such bitterness?
A taste similar to her own festering, rotten heart.
“Instead, there's one thing I'd like to ask of you.”
“……You said you had no intention of using it, and right away you're telling me what you want?”
Frasel's voice turned cold again.
But that was only for a moment.
“I'd like us to Challenge each other often from now on. I need you.”
“What?”
Need……?
Me?
……Even after seeing this?
Frasel could not bring herself to add the rest.
Instead, she quietly lowered the hand that had been gripping her mask tight.
‘Someone who would say that to me, even after seeing my true face…….’
Actually existed in this world.
Just a little, a tremor stirred in Frasel's heart.