'I have to stop this......'
Lloyd, who would guarantee Garahevi's comfortable future. (He would not.)
He had to stop the Knight School, which had no particular talent besides making swords shine, from stealing Lloyd away with cowardly methods. (They were cowardly.)
Whatever it took!
There was even a solemn air about Garahevi as he headed to the Magic School practical-placement-test site.
The many assistants trembled at the thought of meeting his eyes and hid in the shadows of the hallway.
He looked as domineering as a prince of the desert leading all the people out of Egypt.
Every Academy professor wanted excellent students to come to their school.
Not because it was rewarding to teach students who understood two things when taught one, but because of the budget.
The more excellent students a school had, the more budget it could secure.
In that sense, Lloyd was this semester's biggest catch.
He had made an absurdly strong impression by earning a perfect score on the written placement test, something no freshman had achieved in the last ten years.
Of course, because of the “minor” issue at the entrance ceremony, some professors found him burdensome.
But.
- Look at Professor Pontius's practical grading sheet. Everyone except two people failed? Does that make any sense? This is blatant favoritism and an abuse of a professor's authority!
- Hear, hear!!!
That did not mean they had the slightest intention of handing Lloyd to another school.
Especially not to the Knight School, the gathering of Aura fetishists who constantly swaggered that they were the best.
It hurt their stomachs when the Magic School's budget shrank, but it turned their stomachs when the Knight School's budget grew.
To begin with, even if you asked a three-year-old which the Academy's number-one school was, they would say the Magic School.
- This is no longer Lloyd Schultz's placement test! The pride of our Magic School is at stake!
- Oooooh!!!
- They used cowardly means first, so we cannot simply stand by with our hands in our pockets.
- Magic School! Magic School!
For the honor of his school—and his own comfortable future—Garahevi was ready to begin a mud fight.
What kind of mud fight, you ask?
Cowardly means for cowardly means.
If Pontius favored Lloyd, Garahevi would outdo him with overwhelming favoritism.
If only two people, including Lloyd, passed the Knight School practical test, then the Magic School practical test would pass Lloyd alone!
And so the Knight School would not dare spout nonsense such as, “Lloyd's best grade is in the Knight School, so the Knight School will take him.”
Upon arriving at the Magic School practical-placement-test site, Garahevi waved a finger in the air without giving the freshmen time even to answer.
“Good to meet you all. I am Professor Garahevi of the Magic School. The Magic School practical placement test you will take today is......”
A two-legged crow with the heads of a dragon and an eagle, holding a sword and staff in its two feet.
The coat of arms of the Solarian Empire.
A complex, magnificent emblem that would be difficult to trace even on paper floated in the air, radiating clear light.
“If you produce a mana body in a shape as close as possible to the mana body I have made, you will pass.”
The Magic School practical-placement-test site, which had been full of the freshmen's murmurs, fell silent.
Simply put, a mana body was a “pouch that holds mana.”
And every spell began by creating a mana body. It was a kind of foundational exercise.
Naturally, there was no way freshmen who had only just entered the Academy could create mana bodies.
One of the first-semester objectives of the Academy first-year Magic School liberal-arts course was to “complete a mana body,” after all.
Of course, it would be different if they were the eldest legitimate son of a noble who had received private tutoring or even spent time around a mage tower.
“......?”
“What is that?”
“You're telling us to do that right now?”
But this was not a possibility for sons of concubines and illegitimate children who had never even dared to dream of such things.
“Ah, the mana attribute composing the mana body is unrestricted, so do not worry too much.”
This was a test impossible to pass from the start.
'Hehe, Pontius. Half-hearted favoritism has no meaning. Then again, can someone who only knows how to swing a sword and ride a horse be expected to use his head?'
Except for one person.
Lloyd, who was exchanging knowing smiles and glances with Garahevi—the one person Garahevi planned to pass immediately and without question even if he could not complete a mana body and merely scribbled something vaguely similar.
'As expected of a hidden royal, he seems to have understood my intent at once.'
A professor who suddenly cast “You shall not pass” on the freshmen.
And the only freshman who had coordinated with such a professor in advance.
“Then we shall begin at once with Freshman Number 1.”
It did not take long for everyone but those two to be seized by shock and terror.
***
If anyone asks about the future of the Academy Magic School, I will stand tall and answer with confidence.
I don't know how to make a mana body!
Because I really don't. What even is a mana body in the first place?
It was not as though I had never played a mage-related seed in <Jjam Academy>, but that did not mean I knew how to cast magic.
It would not have been much different even if you brought in a veteran player who had done nothing but play mage seeds.
Whether I was a veteran player or not, we used magic the same way in the end: clicking a keyboard and mouse.
Amid these thoughts, the scene of the Magic School practical placement test entered my sight.
“Hm, the shape is quite similar, but regrettably I can see a few gaps. Even so, you worked hard.”
“......Huff, th-thank you.”
No matter how I looked at it, it resembled not a two-legged crow with dragon and eagle heads, but a Dalgona piece made by a Squid Game contestant who had been eliminated.
Yet Garahevi encouraged the freshman with the gentlest smile in the world.
Thanks to that, the atmosphere at the placement-test site had relaxed considerably from what it had been at first.
Still, the freshman just before me was among those who had managed to draw even a roughly similar mana body.
There were freshmen who could feel mana but could not complete a mana body, or whose mana body was lumpy.
There were even freshmen who failed to feel mana at all.
“Wow, this bastard is pretty good at mana bodies.”
“No matter how I think about it, the Magic School is not where I belong.”
“If the placement test is this hard, how rough will the actual classes be?”
The freshmen gathered snugly with peers who had gotten similar results and discussed how grueling the Magic School was.
Hearing their conversation put me at ease.
Since Garahevi had moonlighted with Academy parents from before, I figured his ability to read the room was sharp, at least.
I had asked him to ensure that I received the highest grades in Magic School liberal-arts courses throughout my first year.
There were two ways to make that happen.
Raise my grades.
Or lower everyone else's.
The former would naturally be obvious. All the more so if I did not know the first thing about magic.
So it seemed Garahevi had chosen the latter.
Set placement-test questions no freshman could pass and lower the average itself sharply.
“Next, Freshman Number 21.”
“Yes!”
That way, even if I performed poorly, it would not show.
Rather, later on, if Garahevi gave me even the tiniest amount of extra credit for whatever reason, I would pull ahead.
Even if another freshman complained, he could fire back, “Then why didn't you take the placement test better if you don't like it?”
How did I know this sort of thing?
Because we used similar seasoning when selecting providers for government-supported projects. Whether it was Korea or the Solarian Empire, people lived the same way everywhere.
“Number 21, I am Graysong Silva.”
“Oh, it is you. Go ahead and begin.”
I could watch the other freshmen's placement tests with a little more peace of mind.
Then I heard a name I had heard somewhere before.
“Is that him?”
“Yeah, the top scorer on the written placement test among this year's freshmen.”
If my memory was correct, that student's parent had made a request to Garahevi.
But unless it was a long-term cooperative relationship like mine, grades bought with money did not last long.
What was Graysong Silva's magical ability really like?
“Ohh......”
For the first time that day, Garahevi let out an exclamation of admiration.
He was a freshman with hair so short that, if you took him to the gate of a military training center rather than Jjam Academy, you would wonder if he was enlisting today.
Astonishingly, the mana body Graysong Silva made was even roughly similar to Garahevi's mana body.
“It is the best mana body I have seen so far. There are no gaps, and the form is well defined.”
“Thank you!”
With a pleased expression, Garahevi wrote more on the grading sheet than he had for the previous students.
(Of course, he did not forget to give me a wink at the end.)
At the same time, I updated the information on Graysong Silva in the notepad in my mind.
'Note: Graysong Silva. Family has money. Shaved head. Magic School prospect......'
A family wealthy enough to open its wallet for the grades of a son of a concubine or illegitimate child rather than the eldest legitimate son.
And his own magical ability was not bad, either.
If I coaxed him properly, he seemed like a decent long-term piece for shaking the lines of succession of the hereditary nobles.
Of course, I still had to confirm whether “Silva” was the same surname as his father's, so for now I was only putting him in the shopping cart.
“Then, next freshman, come forward.”
“Yes, I am Number 22, Lloyd Schultz.”
Meanwhile, my turn arrived.
“Do not burden yourself too heavily; simply do the best you can.”
Garahevi's voice, attitude, and even the smile that somehow reminded me of Representative Han Gyeong-su.
I could be certain, beyond merely feeling relieved.
Mana body or not, I would take first place in this Magic School practical placement test.
What? Fairness? What was fairness, if not being allowed to take the placement test with me?
I was perfectly relaxed, and since I knew I could not use anything even resembling magic anyway.
“Then, I will begin.”
Still, considering Garahevi's dignity as the proctor and the other freshmen's eyes, I did at least pretend to trace the emblem he had drawn exactly.
Tracing it itself was not difficult.
Garahevi's mana body was still floating in the air right now.
Keeping its shape exactly as it was, as though I were unlocking a smartphone, I swiped my index finger through the air.
For the freshmen before me, this would make mana of different colors burst out according to the attribute of mana each possessed.
In my case, it was a pure white that gave off a soft light......
“......Good heavens.”
Garahevi was the first to gape.
“D-Divine Magic?!”
“Huh?!”
“Could that be?”
Then came the vacant exclamations of freshmen whose names I did not know.
“No, fuck.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘No, there could not be such joy in the world!’ Professor.”
“R-Right!”
Finally came the curse I blurted out without realizing it.
After all.
An emblem so identical to the one Garahevi had drawn that it would be fair to call it a perfect copy.
A two-legged crow with the heads of a dragon and an eagle, gripping a sword and staff in its two feet.
It was floating there, firmly capturing everyone's gaze.
“Just as I expected! ......No, to think that you, Lloyd, have the aptitude for Divine Magic.”
“What is that?”
“I did not know you had a talent for jokes. Divine Magic, of all things!”
Garahevi abruptly rose to his feet as though he had forgotten the age of his knee joints.
Then, conscious of the eyes around him, he gave an awkward cough and continued.
“Mana bright and clear as light! This is proof that you have the aptitude to wield Divine Magic.”
From Garahevi's standpoint, matters had become very easy.
He had been worrying about how to award me extra points, and justification had rolled right to his feet.
The problem was with me.
Just as doing too well on the Knight School practical placement test might get me dragged into the Imperial Army.
Doing too well on the Magic School practical placement test carried the danger that I would be dragged into the Imperial Army Mage Corps.
For another freshman, it would be, “It is only a placement test, so what?” But I was already on familiar terms with Solarian III.
The more small stacks like this accumulated, the chance that the Solarian-made version of conscription would catch me would rise exponentially.
This was a crisis. A real crisis.
“......Is that so?”
Managing my expression as best I could, I shook my head at Garahevi. I understood what he meant, but stop laying it on so thick.
He looked blank for a moment, then hurriedly continued as though he understood.
“R-Right.”
Garahevi was quick to read the room after all.
“Rather than this, we must immediately contact the religious orders and have this verified......!”
As expected, Garahevi had no ability to read the room, like the corrupt professor who took kickbacks from parents.
Before I even had time to stop him, he waved his hand.
Flash!
A ball of red light shot whoosh out of the practical-placement-test site.
***
“Mm-hm, very good.”
Abbot Myers of Indulgentia Monastery and Orphanage was enjoying a peaceful weekday.
“Abbot, are you in?”
“What is it?”
“A request for the verification of Divine Magic has come from the Academy Magic School......”
“The sickness is acting up again, it is. The damn lunatic sickness.”
Until the deacon brought unwelcome news with an embarrassed expression.
Spring was a season that announced new beginnings.
That was why the Academy's new semester began in spring, and “Could This Perhaps Be Divine Magic? Syndrome” broke out in spring as well.
The vanity of noble parents who wanted to boast about their own children, or professors' struggle to win departmental budget competitions.
“Could This Perhaps Be Divine Magic? Syndrome” had various causes, but every case had the same symptom.
“What shall I tell them?”
They would immediately raise a racket under the pretext of requesting verification from the religious orders.
But from the position of an abbot who ran a monastery, an orphanage, and all sorts of other things in the capital, he could not coldly turn away the unreasonable demands of major donors.
“What shall you tell them? You go and...... No, I will. I will just go.”
Abbot Myers clicked his tongue at the deacon, whose face brightened at once, and left the monastery.
On the way to the Academy in a well-maintained carriage, then to the Magic School practical-placement-test site.
His words were already decided.
Regrettably, this is not Divine Magic. However, the student's aptitude seems outstanding in its own right, so this too must be God's grace.
If he said that, the parents or professors would be happy because their dignity remained intact, and it would be no bad lip service for Abbot Myers, who would receive a generous donation.
So he thought, until the moment he entered the Magic School practical-placement-test site.
“Oh, Abbot Myers. I apologize for summoning you so suddenly, but it is this way.”
Garahevi's familiar voice reached him.
“Professor Garahevi. As I told you before, Divine Magic is not so common....... Huh?”
Before a slender, neatly handsome freshman.
A mana body emitting a gentle, pure white light floated in the air.
“C-Could this perhaps be Divine Magic......?!”
Even Abbot Myers came down with “Could This Perhaps Be Divine Magic? Syndrome.”
It was spring.