CRASH—!
No sooner had I finished speaking than the two students’ forms vanished with a thunderous roar.
When I waved a hand and cleared the thickly billowing dust, all that remained where the two had stood was a wildly gouged patch of earth.
I let out a hollow laugh and once again marveled at the existence of knights.
‘Emma is one thing, but even Gess....’
The future Traitor Lord could be that capable. But Gess was a student who had only briefly appeared as an extra in the original work.
Nevertheless, Gess’s movements escaped my vision in an instant.
He was merely an ordinary second-year student at the academy, but Gess, too, was a prodigy talented enough to enter a prestigious academy and possessed the potential to someday become a knight.
As I admired him while once again resenting Curse of the Underachiever, which blocked my own growth, the usually quiet Professor Nia spoke to me.
“C-Chairman... Would it be all right if I leave for a moment...?”
“Hm? Why?”
I asked with a puzzled expression.
The forest paths of the Exam Forest were protected by barriers so that magic beasts could not enter, so it would not matter if Professor Nia left... but was she not today’s examiner in the first place?
She was the one supposed to evaluate the students’ abilities in place of me, someone wholly unfamiliar with magic and swordsmanship. No matter how generously I looked at it, her saying she wanted to leave was nothing but dereliction of duty.
‘I thought she was diligent, even if she was timid.’
My brow naturally furrowed, and perhaps sensing my displeasure, Professor Nia unusually rushed out an explanation.
“I-I never received an official notice saying that the z-zones of the Exam Forest had changed recently...! So I wanted to inspect the barrier core to confirm...!!”
Ah, so that was it.
“In that case, I grant you permission. I will watch the two from here, so go and return.”
What else could I do when a mage said she was going to inspect the barriers?
I saw Nia Filoni off and pulled out the crystal ball that would transmit the students’ screens in real time.
“I was told I only need to pour mana into it.”
I was still not accustomed to the sensation of using mana, but I could now move it somewhat as I wished.
Thanks to that, I activated the crystal ball without any trial and error and fixed my gaze on the screen that appeared.
‘The magic beasts for the second-year test are Orcs. I heard the ones living in this forest form packs, but with the abilities they just showed, it will not be a problem.’
I did not expect either of them to struggle against Orcs, and the situation was exactly as I expected.
SQUEEE. SQUEAK.
The sight contained in the small crystal ball was a one-sided slaughter.
Hoo....
I was currently seeing through Gess’s eyes.
Gess spotted five Orcs approaching from nearby. He seemed to draw a breath for a moment before instantly charging into the middle of the Orc pack.
Then he cut down two with a single strike and escaped before the opponents’ weapons could even touch him.
GRRAHK?!
The moment the remaining three were flustered by the sudden attack, he shifted his direction slightly and cut down one more at the flank. Then he pierced the hearts of the remaining two, who were positioned in a straight line.
Five Orcs were wiped out before even a minute had passed.
Gess slaughtering Orcs, who possessed bodies and muscles far beyond the human average, was proof that knights could continue to exist even in a world where magic, an absurdly unfair ability, existed.
‘Was Gess Grade 3? At this point, I do not even feel like trying to follow him....’
No matter how hard I tried, it was a level I could neither reach nor even think of reaching, since I was blocked at Grade 2.
I grumbled softly and switched the crystal ball to Emma’s screen.
I had roughly confirmed Gess’s skill, so I intended to leave the detailed evaluation to Professor Nia and check Emma’s ability, the main objective of this test....
GRRROWL....
For some reason, Emma was facing a huge silver wolf she should never have encountered.
“......?”
At first, I could not understand.
Of the four zones of the Exam Forest that the secretary had given me information about, there was no zone where wolves lived.
However, the moment I realized that the silver wolf facing Emma was a Grade 6 magic beast—a Lycanthrope who was the master of the Exam Forest and should have been isolated in the central zone—I froze completely.
It was a major incident.
Emma Novician disliked every situation surrounding her.
That her rightful grades had been taken away through an absurd framing. That she was on the verge of expulsion because she could not receive her scholarship. That she had nearly lost a duel she accepted because she could not restrain her anger. That the chairman had saved her.
Lastly, that the chairman had officially acknowledged her fraudulent conduct. Everything.
‘Why only me....’
Why did only she have to suffer such harsh treatment?
Her fellow students would be finishing their grueling exams and preparing for an enjoyable vacation, so why did only she have to be dragged into the Special Department, a den of troublemakers, and face her worst enemy?
Was it because the House of Baron Novician was a poor, powerless house located in the countryside?
Then why had Gess Alep, whom she cursed even in her dreams, entered the Special Department with her?
‘...If not for that.’
Naturally, Emma had no intention of forgiving Gess Alep.
At the time, she had been too overwhelmed by the shock of her sword breaking to react properly.
However, after carefully reviewing the duel, she had realized that Gess had used some underhanded trick and tried to injure her arm.
Thus, the moment she entered the chairman’s office and faced Gess Alep, Emma had been about to draw her sword.
Until the chairman brought up unrestricted campus service.
‘Campus service as soon as the daily schedule ends... With no free time and no time to train....’
A knight aspirant repeatedly performing endless campus service with no rest and no time to train.
When she heard that Gess Alep had received such a punishment, even Emma could not help but feel some sympathy, so she postponed swinging her sword at him.
“GRUUK!”
SLASH—
Emma lightly split the Orc blocking her path in two with a swing of her sword. As she filled her legs with mana and crossed the forest, she recalled the chairman who had given Gess Alep such a punishment.
‘What was he thinking?’
To Emma, the chairman was the unknown itself.
At first, like every other student, she had only thought of the chairman as a scoundrel and the culprit ruining the academy. However, from a certain point onward, she could no longer think that way.
More precisely, that began after he saved her in the duel and punished Gess.
‘At first, I thought he might actually be a good person....’
When he helped her during the duel, Emma had thought that the rumors surrounding the chairman might be misunderstandings.
People were bound to feel goodwill toward someone who helped them.
However, she could not maintain that goodwill when the chairman decided her punishment at the Disciplinary Committee and established her fraudulent conduct as fact.
‘Now I have no idea what he is thinking.’
Emma wanted to pry open the chairman’s head.
She wanted to know why he would help her, yet still push her into despair.
That was why she had accompanied him to the Exam Forest today.
She thought that if she did as the chairman instructed, she might learn what he intended.
‘But I should focus on the test now.’
However, today’s objective had changed long ago.
A top-grade magic stone. With that alone, she could prepare for her third-year tuition.
It would be a lie to say that she did not regret the mana she could gain through the magic stone as a knight, but tuition came first.
Of course, she had to defeat Gess Alep for that, but she was confident.
‘I will not be taken down helplessly like last time...!’
In the previous duel, she had exhausted her stamina through consecutive duels, and her sword had broken far too easily for her to understand, resulting in her defeat. This time was different.
Her stamina was at its peak, she had borrowed a sword by begging one of her few remaining friends, and more importantly, she was no longer underestimating Gess Alep...?
THOOM—
For an instant, a strange swell passed through her, like diving beneath the surface of water.
The moment Emma realized that sensation, she cut off the mana flowing to her legs and quickly jumped down from the tree.
THUD.
Emma had been crossing from tree to tree at high speed, and when she leaped down, the impact that rang through the forest was not remotely small.
However, the forest around her remained silent, offering no reaction whatsoever.
Emma had used the Exam Forest during her second-year midterms, so she knew how many Orcs inhabited it.
It was impossible for even one Orc not to react to that sound.
...Gulp.
Goosebumps crawled up her arms, while cold sweat formed on her neck and forehead from tension.
Emma slowly swallowed and remembered that, at some point, she had stopped seeing even traces of Orcs.
Until now, she had been caught up in various thoughts and dismissed it as unimportant... but what if she had crossed into another zone?
What if she had crossed from the second-year zone with its Orcs into the third-year or fourth-year zone?
“No. That cannot be...!”
Emma denied the question that had surfaced in her own mind.
The mages who installed the barriers of the Exam Forest could not possibly have been that careless. The barriers of the Exam Forest made it impossible to cross into another zone except through designated entrances.
Therefore, the zone she was in had to be the second-year test zone.
Unless someone—
Unless someone did the impossible and tampered with the barrier.
“...Let us go back.”
Emma instinctively realized that she had to turn back now.
She had only killed two Orcs so far. Considering the short three-hour testing period, returning the way she had come without accomplishing anything would be an enormous waste, but the strangely silent forest pushed her from behind.
However, it was not difficult to realize that she was already too late.
“Ha... Haha....”
A semitransparent blue barrier was already isolating the zone in the direction Emma had come from.
Thump. Thoom.
When she struck the blue wall with her fist, only an unpleasant ripple, like striking the surface of water, traveled back to her.
Only then did Emma realize that the strange swell from earlier had been caused by passing through the barrier.
And, sadly, that she had left the second-year zone as well.
‘...The crystal ball. Where is the crystal ball?’
Emma frantically searched the parts of her uniform where the crystal ball had been attached and quickly found the bead pinned to her chest like a brooch.
The crystal ball, made extremely small so it would not interfere with the test, looked no different from when it had first been attached. Emma let out a sigh of relief.
Sigh....
‘Thank goodness. The mana flow seems normal, and it does not look broken.’
As long as the crystal ball was not broken, there was no great need to worry.
The chairman and Professor Nia Filoni of the Magic Department were together for this test.
The chairman was not someone who would be particularly helpful in this situation, but Professor Nia Filoni was the youngest professor in the Magic Department and a master of illusion magic.
Even through the crystal ball, she would easily grasp Emma’s situation and come to rescue her.
‘Still, it would be better to wait like this, right?’
To prepare for any danger, Emma decided to conceal herself until Professor Nia arrived.
Just as she was about to take refuge in a tree of suitable height, an unfamiliar sound came from not far away.
CRACK. SNAP.
CRUNCH.
The sound of trees breaking and brush being crushed.
The vibrations were heavy enough for Emma to know from the sound alone.
For a moment, she wondered whether the source was a knight.
The weight of a knight wearing full heavy armor could produce vibrations this heavy.
However, this was the Exam Forest.
It was a forest within Calyps Academy’s vast grounds, a space that did not permit outside intruders.
Naturally, the person emerging from beyond the brush could only be an insider.
GASP—
The moment Emma finally saw the insider, she urgently covered her mouth with both hands.
The source of those heavy vibrations, an insider of the Exam Forest.
GRRROWL....
It was a silver Lycanthrope standing on two legs and proudly surveying the forest.
‘Th-the center....’
There was only one zone in the Exam Forest where a Lycanthrope could be located.
The center of the forest that had existed even before it was called the Exam Forest—before Calyps Academy had even been established.
A place surrounded by a legend that was not quite a legend: it was cheaper to seal the magic beast away than to kill it, so they had simply isolated the entire zone.
The area Emma had stepped into was that very center.
‘Stay calm. I can get out. Calm down, stay calm. Move— Move and—’
Though she felt the enormous shock shatter her mind, Emma somehow forced strength into her body.
Though she had not been noticed yet, only several dozen steps separated her from the Lycanthrope.
She had to leave this place now—
CRACK.
...GRRK?!
Of all times, the branch beneath her feet was stepped on and snapped.
As the Lycanthrope turned its head and looked directly at her, Emma despaired.