Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Class Placement Exam (2)

“I told you that bastard’s seriously weird! He’s breaking magic with a sword!!!”

At Reina’s shout, the other instructors could only fall silent.

““...””

Because they knew better than anyone what those words meant.

“I know too. That it makes no sense. But you all saw it, didn’t you? This time, without any bullshit like ‘luck.’”

“Huh...”

Only then did the instructor come back to his senses at Reina’s sharp words and let out a groan.

“The issue is how he did it.”

Dispel was fundamentally a high-difficulty technique possible only when one understood the magic cast by an opponent better than the opponent did.

“For now, the battle isn’t over yet, so let’s keep watching a little longer.”

“I agree.”

With those words, the instructors once again focused on the screen.

—Slice!

Just then, Amon’s right arm, whose gauntlet had disappeared, was being cut off.

—Fuck!! What the hell is this!!!

Inside the illusion magic, the pain was reduced to less than a fifth, so Amon did not faint just because his arm had been cut off, but it was more than enough to shock him.

Zeto’s dispel continued in succession.

This time, it was the gauntlet on the left arm.

—Slice!

Amon’s defenseless left arm was cut off.

Soon, Amon collapsed to his knees before Zeto.

“It’s over.”

“It seems the mental shock is as great as the arrogance he had.”

“Well, he lost completely to an opponent whose name and face he didn’t even know, one who couldn’t even see.”

“I do not think Student Amon Caligus was weak.”

Along with the instructor’s words, Amon’s head, as he sat there collapsed, flew off.

“He simply met an opponent he never expected.”

With this, another round of the exam ended.

The instructors began scoring the two people who had remained until the end.

“Amon’s response was a bit lacking.”

“Response? In my opinion, he responded exactly like a first-year student. Even we would have been flustered by that.”

There was no major underrating of Amon.

Though he had lost to Zeto, he had still placed second, and it was also true that he had handled four enemies with ease.

“What is everyone’s evaluation of Student Zeto?”

“Hmm...”

Unexpectedly, the instructor who knew swordsmanship well fell into thought.

The others were curious about his opinion too, so they waited for him to open his mouth.

“His swordsmanship... had nothing particularly special about it.”

“What?”

“Exactly as I said. I saw nothing special in his swordsmanship. In his ‘swordsmanship.’”

“Then...”

“That is the problem. It was not particularly special swordsmanship, and yet he showed magic nullification... a dispel.”

Since those were the words of a veteran old soldier who had gone through countless battlefields, everyone could not help but feel puzzled.

If there was nothing special about his swordsmanship either.

How on earth had Zeto dispelled magic with a sword?

At that moment, Reina, who had been listening quietly, opened her mouth.

“Then. There’s only one possibility.”

But someone else continued the words Reina had spoken.

“It can only mean he touched and broke the structural ‘weakness’ of the magic, right?”

In that instant, everyone’s attention focused on him.

First, because it was the first time he had opened his mouth during the exam.

Second, because he was the only one present who was not an instructor.

“Could you not cut in as if it were only natural? And why is this guy even here?”

Reina snapped at the man who had interrupted her.

“What choice do we have...”

At the words of another instructor that followed, everyone nodded. Considering his status, the instructors had no choice either.

“I came because there seemed to be an interesting spectacle. Still, I kept my mouth shut until now, didn’t I?”

He said that and smiled.

His narrow eyes were always brimming with suspicion whenever one looked at them.

“Father told me to do some work anyway. So this kills two birds with one stone.”

His name was Edward Klaus.

His father was none other than Juliut Klaus, the twenty-first headmaster of Innocence Academy.

“Everyone was acting frustratingly over something obvious, so it was hard to keep my mouth closed. I absolutely hate troublesome matters, you see.”

“Hah.”

Reina snorted at Edward.

Edward showed no sign of minding it and continued speaking.

“To get to the point. Magic inevitably has structural weaknesses, and by applying magical interference there, one nullifies the opponent’s magic. Dispel. I assume everyone knows at least this much... But this dispel requires an essential prerequisite, doesn’t it?”

“...One must possess a better understanding of the magic cast by the opponent than the opponent does?”

Reina easily answered Edward’s sudden quiz.

This was a process meant to support Edward’s explanation.

“But that student called Zeto cannot properly handle even mana, let alone magic.”

Edward uttered meaningful words without losing his smile.

“That’s true. That’s why it makes no sense, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sure everyone thinks so. But in my opinion... he is ‘seeing’ it.”

“What are you talking about?”

He was clearly blind, so what did he mean, seeing?

The instructors frowned at Edward’s absurd remark.

“Ahh, to be precise, rather than ‘seeing,’ perhaps ‘feeling’ would be the right expression. Well, this is only my guess, but...”

Edward paused in the middle of his explanation, and all the other instructors held their breath.

Soon, after sweeping his gaze over those instructors, Edward opened his mouth.

“...What if he is reading and sensing mana itself? What if, with that ‘absurd’ sense, he can instinctively pierce through the weakness of magic he is seeing for the first time?”

The hypothesis Edward put forward was enough to draw the instructors’ interest.

“If that is the case... is it the domain of talent, or the domain of effort...”

The conversation had long since become not scoring, but a discussion about the dispel Zeto had displayed.

“Well, I have occasionally seen cases where people lose important senses like sight or hearing and their other senses are amplified...”

“Hahaha. But never to this extent. Not every blind or deaf person in the world can do something like that, after all.”

“To begin with, if even the fact that a blind person handles a sword is special, then it should already be considered a special ability. Of course, since he is an academy student, there must have been something else as well...”

“To think it would be an ability like this...”

If the instructors had felt emotions like admiration toward Eisel, who had taken the exam earlier, from Zeto they were feeling an opaque emotion called “the unknown.”

Students of excellent caliber could be seen from time to time.

Of course, Eisel was a student of historic caliber who surpassed even that.

But the “unknown” that they could not understand, like Zeto, was a different story.

“I don’t think we’ll get an answer by sitting here and talking among ourselves, will we?”

Edward organized the instructors’ heated discussion.

His words had a point.

But even so, the doubt that had grown inside the instructors’ hearts would not be resolved.

Edward, who knew that, presented an extremely simple solution to this situation.

“So, we can just speak with him directly.”

“...”

“I think that could become a form of favoritism.”

Hearing those words, Edward made a sinister smile.

“Favoritism? Instructor Kaliman. This is Innocence Academy. Within Innocence Academy, skill is everything, and one’s own martial force is everything. Favoritism? I wonder whether the students who would claim that possess even a special ability comparable to Student Zeto’s.”

Instructor Kaliman shrugged.

Instructor Kaliman merely had a deep bad history with Edward; he understood the academy’s educational methods well enough.

“But why are you, someone who isn’t even an instructor, deciding that?”

Reina’s sharp retort cut in.

But Edward’s shocking statement that followed was something no one had expected.

Even if his father, Juliut, had been present, he would not have understood.

“I’m thinking I might try being an instructor while I’m at it.”

At Edward’s remark, everyone in the room was dyed with shock.

“...And Miss Reina? In a public setting like this, I would appreciate it if you observed some courtesy.”

Edward spoke as one corner of his mouth slowly lifted.

“That bastard, seriously.”

Reina flared up at Edward’s jab and slammed the desk.

Judging by the atmosphere, it seemed a commotion might break out here.

To the instructors, Edward’s unbearably obnoxious, sinister smile looked even more unpleasant than usual today.

***

“I won.”

When the exam ended and I returned to the exam hall, that was the feeling that came to me in its purest form.

The weaknesses that had appeared even on magic.

I myself did not know my own ability accurately.

My head was still hazy, but in any case, the result was good.

When I looked around, I saw Amon standing there in a daze.

Soon, when he confirmed my appearance, the look in his eyes changed completely.

“Scary.”

Amon seemed very resentful.

Whether this would lead to his corruption or to inner growth.

If I left him alone like this, that would be up to him. He would move on to one of the two routes on his own.

But there was no need to go out of my way to make an enemy, was there?

It seemed I would need to have a deep conversation with him one of these days. A deep conversation by the name of “sparring,” that is.

Since my exam had ended as well, I returned to my place where Yuri was waiting.

When I returned to Yuri, questions poured out from her.

“Zeto, what on earth was that?!...Ah, n-no, what was that?”

Yuri’s eyes sparkled with so much excitement that she had even forgotten to use polite speech.

“What do you mean?”

Before I knew it, playing innocent in front of Yuri seemed to have become a habit.

“You dispelled Amon’s magic as if to show off, didn’t you?”

“...”

Should I call that dispel?

It was different from the dispel I knew, but it did nullify magic, so should I consider it dispel...

First, I needed a plausible excuse to answer Yuri, who was pressing me.

“I’m not too sure myself... It just sort of happened.”

“...Don’t joke around.”

“I’m serious.”

I really did not know.

I was frustrated too, because I didn’t know exactly what ability it was or what had caused it.

“...So you don’t want to tell me. I understand. Perhaps this was ‘rude’ of me.”

Yuri strongly emphasized the word rude, and after that, she deliberately whipped her head away from me and did not give me even a single glance.

To her, I should have been blind, so I was not sure what meaning that had.

Still, since I was not actually blind, I could tell.

It seemed Yuri was thoroughly sulking.