The Mana Stone lights embedded in the ceiling.
The dynamic and beautiful statues.
And even paintings so large they made one’s jaw drop.
Everything was extraordinary, one after another.
But Kawin’s steps passed by all of them.
Tesca Academy, which trained mages.
It went without saying, but the building was full of magic.
Anything that got dirty was immediately treated with ‘Cleanse,’ and the surfaces of the paintings were covered with a very small magic shield.
Perhaps it was that very characteristic of a magic academy that had clouded Kawin’s eyes.
Halt.
Kawin’s legs, which had been walking for a long while, came to a stop.
Having thrown off his shoes and socks, Kawin was barefoot.
‘Here.’
The place where Kawin stopped was none other than the very center of the red carpet.
Looking back, there were more than one or two strange things.
This Auditorium was where all the Academy students gathered.
From freshmen to the graduating class, their numbers easily reached five hundred.
It was only natural for even a faint footprint to be left behind.
Yet not a single stain had formed on this red carpet.
‘I should have looked more closely.’
Was this what they meant when they said it’s darkest under the lamp?
He had thought it stayed clean because it had a shield spell on it, like the paintings on the walls.
But now he saw that wasn’t the case.
Swipe.
Kawin bent at the waist and stroked the red carpet with his palm.
There was no shield cast by any other mage here.
In other words, this red carpet was preventing damage ‘by itself.’
Just like the Grimoire of Archmage Dharma,
which had radiated light on its own for hundreds of years, making its presence known.
Thump.
The moment an assumption turned into conviction.
Kawin’s heart pounded fiercely.
Thump-thump!
He felt that even sprinting at full speed until he was out of breath wouldn’t make it pound this hard.
Slowly.
Very carefully.
Kawin swept the soles of his feet across it.
On the surface, the red carpet looked as smooth as silk.
But if Kawin’s judgment was right, this carpet shouldn’t be merely smooth.
Shff. Shff.
Moving while sweeping the soles of his feet like this, he felt like a snake walking on two legs.
Naturally, he couldn’t pick up any speed.
It was a truly slow and tedious process, but Kawin silently carried out the work(?).
Patience.
For a life without sight, patience was like a lifelong friend.
Hours passed, but Kawin repeated the same motion.
The red carpet began at a circular starting point in the very middle of the Auditorium and stretched all the way to the far end of the corridor.
At some point while repeating the tedious process,
Halt.
The corners of Kawin’s mouth slowly rose.
“Got it.”
He had finally found it.
At one point on the carpet, which had dragged on tediously like a hunt for a hidden gem,
there were bumps that pressed against the soles of his feet.
Two, left and right.
Three rows, top to bottom.
There was no need to explain what this pattern meant.
“Haha. I did it.”
The red carpet that hundreds of students walked over without a thought.
It was no different for the professors.
Even Headmaster Dorothy knew it was a Grimoire handed over by the Empire, but
‘No one could decipher it.’
Kawin was the only person in this world who knew the Braille system.
And that Braille was the script that held the very foundation of magic.
A Grimoire only I can see.
After Archmage Dharma’s, it was yet another Grimoire that Kawin had discovered.
Shff. Shff.
Braille set at regular intervals.
Sensing with the soles of his feet what he had always read with his fingers felt novel.
It took that much longer to decipher, but Kawin didn’t dislike this tedious time at all.
The fresh fun he had felt when he first learned Braille.
‘Who knew I’d feel that again here?’
As he deciphered the Grimoire, the corners of Kawin’s mouth rose higher and higher.
As time went on, he got the knack of it.
And the first sentence of the Grimoire he deciphered was,
[Hey, you mongrel─bastards!]
Despite the utterly serious situation,
Kawin couldn’t hold back the laughter bursting out of him.
‘Why are all the Grimoires like this?’
The Grimoire of Archmage Dharma, which he had deciphered earlier.
Its first sentence had also been a curse.
At this point, maybe every Grimoire opened with profanity?
Thinking such an absurd thought, Kawin read on through the Braille.
[Mere mortals who can’t even live a hundred years, daring to imprison a primordial being?]
[I won’t let this slide! You damned bastards!]
[No! I was wrong! I’ll do whatever you say, so let me out of here!]
[I’ll tear off your limbs and toss them to the werewolves as snacks!]
[I will never forgive you!]
[But if you let me out of here, maybe I could forgive you?]
[Kyahaha! I’m right here and nobody knows, nyah-nyah!]
[Are you insane? What crazy bastard thought of making a Grimoire out of a carpet?]
“……What is this?”
A deflated voice came out of Kawin’s mouth.
With each sentence he deciphered, the emotions of the Grimoire’s owner shifted from moment to moment.
Put nicely, it felt innocent and childlike; put badly……
‘No. Stop getting distracted and focus.’
If he kept following that flow of emotions, it felt like his own mind would go strange too.
Kawin calmed himself and focused on deciphering.
The qualification to obtain the Grimoire.
That was deciphering its contents to the very end.
“Huh……?”
Following the red carpet, Kawin arrived at the Main Hall of the main building.
His closed eyes trembled violently.
“That’s some joke.”
Tesca Academy’s Headmaster, Dorothy.
He had clearly said so.
That he would give a hint but could not tell him the method.
Only then could Kawin fully understand the truth behind those words.
“I have to reach…… all of this, all the way to the end?”
He had never once thought about it.
How far the red carpet stretched.
The red carpet continued up the stairs and, on the second floor, branched out like tree limbs, leading into several rooms.
And the owners of those rooms were all
‘professors.’
***
“……Kawin. You’re acting a bit weird today, aren’t you?”
Breakfast time at Tesca Academy.
Walther, sitting across from him, put down his fork.
“Me?”
“Yeah. You keep snickering every now and then, and then you suddenly heave a sigh deep enough to make the ground cave in. What’s going on?”
“It’s what it looks like. Something good and something difficult came along at the same time.”
“Something good and something difficult?”
After thinking for a moment, Walther clapped his palms together. Clap!
“Got it! The good thing is that you got plenty of rest yesterday because classes were canceled, and the difficult thing is that classes start again today, right? Honestly, same here.”
“…….”
Kawin gazed blankly at Walther.
Then he pointed at Walther’s solar plexus with the tip of his index finger.
“Right on the mark.”
“Haha. I’m always pretty sharp, you know!”
Kawin grinned and polished off the food in front of him.
Of course, it was the wrong answer.
There was only one reason Kawin was laughing and sighing.
The Academy’s Grimoire.
‘The red carpet splits into several branches. And they lead into the professors’ rooms.’
It went without saying, but entering the professors’ rooms at will was strictly forbidden.
There would be secret research and techniques the professors were pursuing there.
Couldn’t he sneak in without getting caught?
Kawin shook his head.
The professors of Tesca Academy were skilled individuals with at least 3 Circles.
They would surely notice an intruder’s traces.
In particular, with illusion-related magic like Professor Valeria’s, there was a risk of getting caught in a trap.
To enter a professor’s room freely, for a long time, and even……
‘Barefoot.’
A bitter taste seeped into Kawin’s smile.
He came to a conclusion.
This wasn’t a problem to be solved with an irregular move.
To check all the Braille on the red carpet, there was only the orthodox method.
And the name of that orthodox method was ‘permission.’
“Walther. You said you know a lot about this Academy’s history too, right?”
“Mm. Of course.”
“Has any upperclassman ever gotten an access permit from every professor?”
“Eh?”
Walther’s thick eyebrows shot up and down.
“That’s impossible. Winning over even one professor is like plucking a star from the sky. Where would you find an upperclassman who got an access permit from every professor?”
“So it is hard.”
“Forget current students. Even if you count every past graduate, there probably wasn’t anyone like that. Honestly, there’s no need for it either. An access permit is the preliminary step to becoming a professor’s direct disciple, right? It’s normal to pick just one professor who suits your magic and focus on winning them over.”
“That makes sense.”
“Why are you suddenly asking about that?”
“I just got a permit from Professor Oracle, so the question suddenly came to mind.”
“Haha. Getting an access permit on the very first day of Challenges is amazing, of course. But to get an access permit from every professor, you’d have to stand out in every subject the professors teach. If a student ever did achieve something like that, you could safely call them the greatest genius in Tesca Academy’s history.”
“Thanks for explaining.”
Kawin nodded.
The greatest genius in the Academy’s history, huh.
He had no particular interest in something like that.
Good grades didn’t get you more scholarship money, and he didn’t want to graduate early either.
‘If anything, that’d be a problem. If I graduated before even finding the Grimoire, I’d be forced out of here.’
Every subject had now finished its first class.
Until now, Kawin had no particular intention of becoming an honor student.
But now his mind had changed.
‘I have to become one. The greatest genius in the Academy’s history.’
He would win the favor of every professor and obtain their access permits.
There was only one direct disciple per professor, but access permits could be obtained from multiple professors.
With free access, he would read the Braille on the red carpet inside each professor’s room.
‘Barefoot.’
Kawin pictured himself storming into the professors’ offices with his shoes and socks thrown off.
He was chuckling to himself and cutting into his steak when
“Kawin! Kawin!”
A clear but urgent voice came from far away.
A voice he had already grown used to.
The owner of the voice was the seventh Imperial Princess of the Illumina Empire.
Frasel Illuma.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you for ages.”
Frasel panted so hard her shoulders heaved.
With a high-born Imperial Princess having rushed over in one breath, the attention of everyone around them was drawn in an instant.
“L-let’s do it! That thing!”
Frasel shouted at Kawin in an excited voice.
Walther, beside him, let his jaw drop wide open, while Kawin tried hard to keep his composure.
“What’s going on? You’ve never once come to the dining hall.”
“Mm-hm. I didn’t come here to eat. I came to do that thing with you, Kawin!”
“So…… would you calmly tell me what that is?”
“S-sorry. When I’m in a hurry, the words don’t come to me very well.”
Frasel, who had been scratching the forehead of her cat mask, soon clapped her hands.
“A Challenge! Right! I came to do a Challenge! We couldn’t do one yesterday because classes were canceled, remember?”
“Ah.”
Kawin brightened.
From his standpoint, there was no reason to refuse.
“A Challenge is always welcome. It’s just that I’m still eating.”
“Okay. I’ll sit here and wait. Until you’re done eating.”
CRACK. The sound of stone splitting could be heard.
It was coming from Walther, who had frozen with his fork in hand.
‘Can’t blame him.’
However much the Academy claimed that status didn’t matter.
To run to a dining hall she had never once visited, for Kawin’s sake, and say she would wait until he finished eating.
It was an overly humble attitude to call the behavior of an Imperial Princess.
On top of that, she wasn’t even sitting on a chair. She was hugging her knees and looking up at him!
But Walther’s surprises weren’t over yet.
“Kawin. Sorry to bother you while you’re eating. But can I ask you one favor?”
“Go ahead.”
“During the Challenge, can you hit me in the face a lot? Like you did last time! Way more than last time!”
“……I never directly struck your face. That time……”
“It doesn’t matter how! I just need you to pound me in the face!”
Watching the conversation, Walther finally put his fork down.
He turned his head with dumbfounded eyes.
“Kawin. For some reason, whenever I’m with you, I feel like my common sense is crumbling.”
Kawin smiled bitterly and put the last piece of steak in his mouth.
He didn’t quite know why Frasel was acting like that.
But what he had to do from now on was clear.
“Walther. Can you be the Observer?”
“Well…… of course!”
What he had to do now was get stronger.