“Stop there.”
“What are you?!”
The enraged yellow-haired man tried to shake off Gale’s arm, but after undergoing the bone-shedding transformation, Gale’s grip strength was enough to lightly crush the wrist of someone his age.
“Ggh... let go of me...!”
“I’ll let go if you say you won’t cause a scene.”
Gale stared straight at him.
Neatly swept-back yellow hair.
Eyebrows lowered as if in anger.
‘Lionel, huh.’
His face looked young, so Gale had not recognized him, but this was someone he knew.
When Gale had just enlisted in the Imperial Army,
Lionel had been serving as an instructor at the active-duty soldier training unit. He had been infamous for using his position to give unreasonable orders to the soldiers, accepting bribes, and all sorts of other rotten behavior.
Since he had indeed been in the Imperial Army before, it was probably true that he had received a recommendation from a former officer. But in a situation like this, Gale did not feel even the slightest desire to consider that and go easy on him.
When Gale applied enough strength to break his wrist, a scream leaked out.
“Aaagh...!”
“Answer quickly. Say you won’t cause a scene.”
It was then.
“Enough.”
A sharp voice came from beside them.
He turned his head.
Standing there was a woman so pretty she might have been a model.
Over her neat black military uniform, her hair, like the night sky, flowed down, and her purple eyes shone.
Gale immediately let go.
“What is this commotion?”
When she asked the girl at the registration desk, the girl explained what had just happened.
The woman nodded as if she understood.
“If the person I know is the one you mean, Respon is his middle name. Check the family name Marton.”
“Ah... understood.”
After they waited for a moment, the girl diligently searched through a bundle of documents filled with cursive writing, and soon answered that she had found it.
The woman looked at Lionel with an expressionless face and said,
“He mainly uses the name Respon due to personal circumstances. Seeing as you do not know the internal affairs of his house, it seems you are not that close to him after all.”
Lionel looked humiliated.
There was no malice in her words, but since the buying and selling of former-officer recommendation letters was also secretly rampant, Gale thought she was being sarcastic toward him.
“Do you have anything else to say?”
“...No.”
“The conduct you just displayed goes against the dignity of the Imperial Army. Keep in mind that you will be disadvantaged in the exam to follow.”
“Ggh....”
Her black hair fluttered as her eyes turned toward Gale.
“You. Name?”
“My name is Gale.”
“Did you come to apply for the special track as well?”
“That is correct.”
Her purple eyes were so deep they seemed to peer into Gale’s insides.
“You do not seem to be a noble... Who is your patron?”
“Count Orhan.”
At that, the corners of her lips moved slightly.
Was she connected to Count Orhan?
He could not be certain, but it felt as though she was trying hard to hide a smile.
“...Finish your registration quickly.”
After she left, those who had been watching the situation quietly murmured among themselves.
“That person... She’s the one, right?”
“Yes. That’s Lady Yuria of House Kastra, famous for its quick-draw swordsmanship. From the black uniform, I heard rumors that she had joined the Military Police, and it seems they were true.”
Aside from the Imperial Knight Order and the knight orders of various noble families, the Imperial Army was broadly divided into three units.
The Guard Unit, which protected the Empire’s walls.
The Scout Unit, which observed and guarded against threats outside the Empire.
And the Military Police, which managed those units while protecting the safety of citizens and public order within the Empire.
‘Yuria joined the Military Police, just like before.’
Gale looked at her back and smiled.
The Military Police was a unit that boasted an enormous competition rate even within the Imperial Army.
It was more comfortable than the Guard Unit, which had daily duties, and safer than the Scout Unit, which fought magical beasts.
Perhaps because of that, nobles took a particular interest in it, since it had the perfect conditions for quietly serving while wearing a military uniform.
‘Though it was the first unit to become corrupt.’
It was also the unit Gale was aiming for as he enlisted this time.
There were still many mountains to climb before he could enter the Military Police, but once he belonged to it, he would be granted autonomous investigative authority and a greater degree of freedom compared to other Imperial soldiers.
‘If that happens, it’ll be easier to intervene in things happening inside and outside the Imperial Army.’
To prevent the Empire’s destruction, he needed to make the right people his allies and build power within the military.
In that sense, it would be advantageous to build a good relationship with someone like Yuria, who had held proper convictions as an Imperial soldier even after the war broke out.
‘I’ll have to go greet her again soon.’
Gale was thinking that to himself as he waited for his turn, when he heard a voice beside him that was as faint as a mosquito crawling.
“Umm....”
When he turned his head, Runo stood there with an awkward expression.
He was still here?
“Um... I should have told you I was leaving....”
“Ahh. Thank you for bringing me here. I’ll go back on my own.”
“Understood. Please do your best!”
He had even come in his work clothes from the morning, and Gale wondered if he had kept him too long.
He felt needlessly sorry.
Only after Runo left and Gale waited for quite a while did his turn finally come.
Perhaps because there had been several situations before him like the one with Lionel, it took longer than he had expected.
Gale took Count Orhan’s letter of recommendation out of the subspace pouch and handed it over. Since Count Orhan was on the list of former officers, the registration ended more easily than expected.
“Registration is complete. Once you finish the qualification exam, the enlistment procedure will be complete. Master Gale, please go to the building over there and wait.”
“Understood.”
Where she pointed stood a simple two-story building.
‘I didn’t expect I’d end up taking the noncommissioned officer qualification exam twice.’
Gale had experience enlisting as an active-duty soldier and being promoted all the way to Staff Sergeant.
The qualification exam was one of the procedures for testing whether someone had the vessel to serve as a noncommissioned officer. It was a simple test where each person demonstrated swordsmanship or used magic in front of witnesses affiliated with the Imperial Army.
The reason it differed from the active-duty soldier test, which only involved a simple physical examination, was that it served as a standard for judging whether one was capable enough to match the difference between those who gave orders and those who followed them.
Of course, a high noble ranked near the top in influence within the Empire might be able to receive an exception, but ordinary special track applicants had to prove in the qualification exam that they possessed the qualifications befitting a noncommissioned officer.
When he headed toward the place the receptionist had pointed out, his eyes met Lionel’s, who was just coming out after finishing the exam.
Gale did not know what risk Yuria had mentioned, but judging by Lionel’s expression, it was certainly not something good.
As he passed Gale, Lionel said, “I will not forget the humiliation I suffered today. If we meet again, you had better be prepared.”
“Do as you like.”
After lightly ignoring him and entering the exam building, Gale saw chairs arranged along the walls with a wooden door inside as the center.
Around five or six people were seated there, but perhaps because they were all nervous, a strange silence had settled over the place.
He sat in an empty seat and waited for a while, until the door ahead opened.
From within came an attendant neatly dressed in a formal uniform and a boy with his shoulders drooping.
‘He definitely seems to have failed.’
As Gale watched the sight with pity, the attendant said, “Thank you for your efforts. Next, Miss Riona Rainbolt, please enter.”
The person called rose from her seat and headed inside the door.
One by one, like that.
Through the faint sounds coming from inside, Gale quietly passed the time while deciding in his head who had passed and who had failed.
“Next, Master Gale, please enter.”
At the voice calling him, Gale lightly loosened his body, which had grown stiff while waiting, and headed inside the door.
***
“The ninety-first applicant today. Master Gale.”
When he entered, he saw a long table stretching across the room opposite the door.
Behind it sat five examiners.
Each of them had a powerful impression, but Gale’s eyes first went to the old man sitting at the far right.
Deren Armezia.
His white hair was neatly swept back, and on the arms he had folded across his chest were muscles so enormous that his age seemed irrelevant.
Sitting there with a bored expression, he was a capable mage who, after retiring from the Imperial Army, had entered the Magic Tower and even worked as an educator there.
When the war against the Celestials broke out, he immediately joined the Imperial Army, distinguished himself on the front lines, and was a true soldier who cried out for the Empire until the moment he died.
‘I’m glad to see him again... but no matter how I look at him, he really doesn’t suit being a mage.’
Aside from him, the person who stood out was...
‘Back then, were people from the Magic Tower serving as examiners too?’
Gale thought this as he looked at the red-haired woman sitting in the center.
Fire Witch Plea.
Once known by that name, she had even then been known for wielding powerful flame-attribute magic.
When the war against the Celestials began, there had been people in the world who expected her to distinguish herself, but she, who had been the Red Magic Tower Master at the time, never showed herself in the end.
‘As for the rest... I don’t really know.’
The others aside from those two were people he did not remember.
All of them wore bored expressions and looked as though they were tired from the ongoing evaluations.
Gale bowed his head in greeting.
“My name is Gale.”
“Good to meet you.”
The examiner sitting on the far left spoke.
“Now then, what are you planning to show us?”
“Magic.”
At that, the atmosphere changed.
Deren, who had been sitting at the far right, had his eyes sparkle with interest.
He glanced over the application, then looked back at Gale.
“It says here that you are fifteen... Hm. I can certainly feel the presence of mana.”
Then Plea asked, “Are you from the Magic Tower?”
“No.”
“Then where did you learn? Outside the imperial territories, the only place one can learn proper magic should be the Magic Tower.”
“I learned from a teacher I know.”
At that, another examiner spoke in a drained voice.
“Tsk, tsk. There are people like you from time to time. Those who learn mana operations somewhere and claim they can use magic.”
The atmosphere grew worse and worse.
Deren, on the other hand, said with shining eyes,
“A teacher... Are you saying someone still remains outside the Empire who passes down their magic? How interesting.”
Gale thought Deren was truly impressive for saying only what he wanted to say in an atmosphere like this, and replied,
“The world is wide, after all.”
“You are quite right. Even at my age, there are still countless sights I do not know. Now then, let us see it. Use your magic toward the training dummy over there.”
At that moment, another examiner spoke in a displeasing voice.
“Do not strain yourself too hard. We have had ninety applicants today alone, but only a few of them managed to leave any trace of themselves.”
Gale smiled at those words and replied, “Then I will begin.”
Gale looked at the dummy placed in front of him.
Just as the examiner had said, there had been about ninety participants today alone, but the training dummy only had a few light scratches on its helmet. It was practically brand new.
When he sent mana flowing around his eyes and looked at the dummy, he could faintly see the flow of mana moving around it.
‘I knew it wasn’t made to be broken in the first place, but was it this much?’
Defensive magic of 2nd Tier or higher had been placed on the dummy.
At present, Gale was merely a 1st Tier mage, so in theory, piercing that defensive barrier with Gale’s magic was nearly impossible.
‘Shall I try using that?’
If he used the anti-magic structure he had understood while staying up all night at the Orhan estate last time,
then he felt he could somehow deal with a barrier of that level even with 1st Tier magic.
Of course, giving anti-magic properties to a magical projectile that was mana itself was theoretically a nearly impossible level of difficulty.
But for Gale, who had a genius talent for understanding and handling mana itself, that much was within the realm of possibility.
Gale quietly closed his eyes and operated his mana, weaving magical formulas into both hands.
‘It’s worth trying.’
Magic circles rose over both his hands.
Seeing that, the examiners quietly whispered.
“Oh... multi-casting.”
“To already use multi-casting at that age is absurd...!”
“...Let us watch for now.”
Gale finished constructing the formulas and slowly opened his eyes.
As he brought both hands together, he muttered in a low voice, “Wind Blade.”
Then the formless blade created at Gale’s fingertips shot toward the dummy at tremendous speed.