The main building of Tesca Academy.
Past the large entrance, a notice board could be seen straight ahead.
It was a large green board made with magic, the size of an entire picture window.
Today, an unusual number of students had been coming here since morning.
And the students who checked the board each clutched their heads.
“It’s real!”
“It’s true?”
“Kawin Anper? Who the hell is this bastard?”
“Th-this is insane. He’s a first-year?”
“Senior Cedric. Why would he make that call?”
“No way! I thought Senior Cedric would pick me!”
A week after Kawin had dropped his bombshell in the lecture room.
The list of ‘Challenges’ selected by the graduates had been posted on the board.
Most of the names on the list were students who had become Third-Years this year.
Even pro tips could only be absorbed by those with a certain level of skill.
First- and second-years, with their large gap in skill, were outside the graduates’ interest.
Except for just one.
Kawin Anper.
Step. Step.
The freshman who had grabbed the attention of the entire Academy in one go.
Kawin Anper stepped inside the main building.
‘That’s Kawin?’
‘He doesn’t look all that impressive……’
‘How did he get picked by Senior Cedric?’
‘Wasn’t Lightning magic…… pissant stuff?’
Kawin indifferently cut through the pouring gazes.
When he looked up at the board, his reaction wasn’t much different from the other students’.
“It’s real.”
Cedric really had chosen him.
Even though Kawin hadn’t even submitted a Challenge application.
The reaction was the same, but Kawin’s feelings toward Cedric were the exact opposite of the students’.
‘He must really have been sore about me getting close to Frasel.’
Kawin smiled slyly.
At first, he had been cautious about standing out to people.
But now that it had come to this, he thought it was actually for the better.
The Grimoire made from the red carpet.
To decipher it, he needed to catch the eyes of many professors.
In that sense, the Graduation Challenge with Cedric was a good opportunity to show what he could do.
‘There’s also something I want to check for myself.’
Having checked the list, Kawin turned around.
Before he knew it, a female student in a cat mask was standing in front of him.
“Kawin. I have something to tell you, just the two of us.”
“Mm.”
Kawin nodded, and the students around them went wide-eyed.
To the upperclassmen, the way the two of them talked was unfamiliar.
“Frasel…… isn’t she the Seventh Imperial Princess?”
“The rumored cat mask……!”
“Her voice is dripping with honey.”
“Those two. What’s their relationship?”
“Tch. First Senior Cedric, and now he’s hogging the Imperial Princess' attention too?”
“Damn it. If you’re jealous, you lose!”
“He’s all pale-faced like he’s wearing face powder. A man ought to have a healthy look! Like me!”
“Wipe your tears first before you talk……”
Leaving behind the misunderstanding gazes flying at them, Kawin and Frasel settled in the innermost seats of the student café.
“What’s going on?”
“Well……”
Frasel hesitated, fidgeting with her fingers.
Soon she lifted her head abruptly.
“I-I’ll make a request to the Imperial Guard. To have you taken out of the Challenge, Kawin.”
“To the Imperial Guard?”
Kawin rounded his lips.
Cedric Guardner.
He came from a family of the Imperial Guard that had served the Imperial Household for generations.
There would surely be someone connected to Cedric in the current Imperial Guard as well.
The problem was,
“Frasel. Didn’t you say you had no one close to you in the Imperial Household?”
“I-it’s not that I have no one.”
Perhaps flustered by Kawin’s words, her thin shoulders flinched.
“Th-there are one or two.”
“Ah. I see……”
“The other students seem to envy you, Kawin. But I know. Cedric didn’t choose you in a good way.”
“Oh.”
Kawin blinked his blue eyes as if surprised.
Had she sensed some bad vibe from Cedric?
She was sincerely worried about Kawin’s safety.
“He probably didn’t like that I, an Imperial Princess, follow you around and keep getting assaulted.”
“Calling it assault is a bit……”
“O-of course, I’m the one who wanted it.”
Kawin chuckled.
Anyway, Frasel had pinned it down correctly.
The words ‘proper lesson’ had come out of Cedric’s own mouth, so there would be no heartwarming scene at this Graduation Challenge.
He would only be satisfied once something or other was broken.
‘The same goes for me, too.’
Kawin held out a coffee cup filled with ice to Frasel.
“Drink. Looks like there’s nobody around.”
“Mm-hm.”
Frasel lifted her cat mask slightly and drank the coffee.
Kawin, who had been watching with an indifferent face, suddenly had his eyes light up.
“Frasel. You……?”
“Hehe. You noticed?”
An excited voice flowed out from under the slightly raised mask.
Kawin definitely saw it.
The breakouts that had covered her face had improved considerably.
“It’s all thanks to you, Kawin. I’m always grateful.”
“Thanks to me?”
“Yeah. Because you’ve been pounding my mask, it’s getting better little by little. That’s why I don’t want you getting hurt, all the more.”
“Then could it be…… when you asked about Lightning’s hidden power, that’s what you meant?”
“Of course. Kawin, is it a power even you don’t know about?”
“……Haha.”
Kawin chuckled.
He had put his guard way up over what she’d said a week ago.
Now he saw it had been pointless.
“Yeah. I didn’t know. I don’t know the principle, but it seems like a really good thing for you, Frasel.”
“Kawin……”
“You’re right. Senior Cedric probably opened the Challenge to warn me. Meaning I shouldn’t treat a member of the Imperial House carelessly.”
“Right. So……”
“What do you think?”
Kawin’s question flew in before Frasel could finish.
She trailed off, flustered for a moment.
“What I…… think?”
“Forget Cedric and the Challenge. I’m asking how you want things to be with me from now on.”
“I…… well……”
A clear voice flowed from inside the cat mask.
Rough but upright breathing.
And a steady smell of sweat.
“From now on too, I want to keep getting along with you, Kawin.”
Frasel was speaking sincerely.
“That’s enough. Frasel, you’re worried I’ll get hurt in the Challenge, right?”
“Well…… yes?”
“Then there’s no need to worry.”
After taking a sip of coffee, Kawin said it coolly, like cold ice.
“Because I’m not going to take a single hit.”
***
“Right! Distinguished guests, please come this way!”
“Who parked a carriage here? Have you no conscience?”
“Th-the Vice Tower Master has arrived! Contact the staff, quickly!”
“Company Heads who contacted us in advance, please come this way!”
Even students who loved to sleep in had no choice but to get out of bed today.
The place was full of commotion, starting all the way from the distant Academy entrance.
The 99th Graduation Ceremony of Tesca Academy.
It was the day Tesca, boasting a long history of a hundred years, would produce ten geniuses.
“We will now begin the Tesca Academy Graduation Ceremony!”
The declaration, laced with magic power, resonated in the hearts of the people who had come.
Overhead, magical flower petals covered the sky,
and the band dispatched from the capital began a majestic performance.
In step with the booming of the big drum, the ten graduates began to walk.
They were no longer apprentice mages who had to build up achievements.
Starting today, they would become ‘Initiates’ incorporated into Illumina’s forces.
“Wow……”
The students of Tesca Academy gathered on the right side.
Their fiery gazes turned toward the graduates.
The reason they had come to this Academy.
The being they were determined to become.
That ultimate ideal stood in the very middle of the venue.
“Just looking at them, they look fucking strong.”
“But why do their eyes look so fierce?”
“I feel like I’ll piss myself if I make eye contact.”
“Can’t blame them. They must have fought nonstop for three years in this goddamn Tesca.”
“Will we…… end up with scary faces like that later too?”
“Except for that black-haired senior, they all look like Astallon bastards.”
Admiration and fear.
Somewhere in between.
The current students of Tesca Academy felt as though they were looking at beings high up in the heavens.
And off to one side,
“Hey, hey. You’ve got to be joking.”
Walther, looking thoroughly daunted, asked the cat mask sitting beside him.
“Kawin’s going to go up against guys like that?”
“Mm-hm.”
Frasel nodded slightly.
“And I heard Senior Cedric is in the top three in grades among the graduates. And he’s the best as a Mana Brawler.”
“Huh!”
Walther’s face stiffened.
As if he had a splitting headache,
he kept rubbing his temples with a Skeleton Soldier’s bone.
“You said you had coffee alone together yesterday. Didn’t Kawin say anything? Like wanting to run away, or asking you to get him out by Imperial decree?”
“He did…… say something.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he won’t take a single hit.”
“Well, obviously. No matter how well Kawin can fly or crawl, could he beat Senior Cedric? Especially since Senior Cedric is a Mana Brawler……”
“Him.”
“Mana Brawler……. What?”
“Kawin himself said he won’t take a single hit.”
Walther Franken dropped his jaw, showing off the length of his tongue.
After falling into a brief panic, Walther stared at the building deeper inside the venue.
“Kawin might say things like he’s grabbing at drifting clouds, but……”
“He never says anything he can’t keep.”
Frasel picked up where Walther had left off.
At some point, her hands had clasped together as if in prayer.
‘Kawin. Don’t get hurt. Even if you do, I’ll heal you.’
Just as you did for me.
At the place her earnest gaze was directed, what Kawin was doing was……
***
“Heh heh heh.”
Laughing idly.
It was a good thing no one was around, or they would have thought he had gone mad from fear of the Challenge.
‘Thanks. In more ways than one.’
Kawin was sincerely grateful to Senior Cedric.
The reason was,
WHOOOM!
Orbis, Kawin’s very own Circle, which had become two layers at some point.
‘It feels like I’m wearing one more ring on my finger.’
That was how weighty and solid it felt.
Orbis' Circle had become two layers, and the sparks crackling around it had grown fiercer as well.
What this meant was obvious.
His amount of mana had grown.
The strength of his magic power had grown fiercer as well.
The Divine Bolt from when he had first deciphered the Grimoire would now be shattered to pieces by today’s Divine Bolt.
[Stormlord-Second Step]
[Passive : Current Devour Lv2]
[Passive : Electron Perception Lv2]
[Passive : Lightning Flash Lv2]
[First Orbis]
Every figure engraved in Orbis pointed to the ‘next stage.’
Not only his mana and magic power, but even the special abilities Dharma had passed on had leaped a stage.
How had this become possible?
‘It’s all the result of preparation.’
Current Devour.
To make use of it, he had fought frequently.
He had caught Bane, the Astallon spy,
and held Challenges with Frasel practically every other day.
And even,
‘Cedric Guardner,’
with whom he had exchanged a brief bout a week ago.
Ironically, the single exchange with Cedric had been decisive.
Not a run-of-the-mill 1-Circle freshman, but a 2-Circle graduate.
The magic power that collided with Cedric’s was delivered intact to Orbis through ‘Current Devour,’ and as a result……
‘The Grimoire’s power has been upgraded.’
Orbis, which had been a single line, had increased to two layers.
That intuitive growth made him feel full without even eating.
How much stronger had he gotten?
It couldn’t have been better timing.
After all, he would soon face a promising graduate of Tesca Academy.
‘Cedric. I wonder if he knows.’
That picking a fight with him,
and the Challenge about to unfold,
were such sweet nourishment for this side.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Kawin Anper. Are you ready?”
A staff member’s voice came from outside the waiting room door.
Instead of answering, Kawin pulled the doorknob hard.