Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Chapter 13. A Freshman Gets Access Permission?!

The Challenges wouldn’t take long.

Oracle’s words proved true.

“Arena 3. Unconscious confirmed.”

“Damn it... I surrender...!”

Before lunchtime even arrived, all one hundred and fifty Challenges were over.

It was thanks to Oracle’s magic, which monitored fifteen matches at once.

Thud.

“Haaah!”

“I... I think I’m dying.”

Nearly every student collapsed from exhaustion.

Some were on all fours, dry-heaving into the ground.

Most Challenges had been fought between students of similar ability, resulting in bloody close matches.

These were newly awakened First-Circle mages with no real combat experience.

Winner and loser alike had been forced to give everything they had.

“Ugh. I’m gonna die.”

Walther Franken groaned as he pushed himself upright.

Even though he had won more easily than most, he too was suffering from exhaustion.

“Are you two... monsters?”

Walther stared dumbfoundedly toward one side.

Only two students were still standing perfectly fine after their Challenges.

Frasel Illuma, the top-ranked freshman.

And Kawin Anper, the last-ranked freshman.

The cat-masked princess had somehow ended up standing beside Kawin.

She claimed there was nowhere else to sit because everyone was sprawled across the ground.

Kawin saw no reason to stop her.

At Walther’s question, he shrugged casually.

“We finished first.”

“Yeah. And the ones who fought at the same time as you are all dead over there.”

Walther pointed behind him.

One student struggled upright on trembling limbs.

Another immediately planted his face into the dirt.

Another slept deeply with his mouth hanging wide open.

They were all low-ranked students who had fought at the same time as Kawin.

“Finishing earlier doesn’t explain it.”

Necromancers instinctively enjoyed research and analysis.

That tendency had ignited Walther’s curiosity.

“Did you deliberately enter last? For the bonus points?”

Kawin thought for a moment.

How could he escape this annoying situation?

His answer was simple.

Agree.

“You caught me.”

“Hah! You calculating bastard! How far ahead did you plan all this?”

Walther’s mouth fell open in admiration.

Then he hurried to Kawin’s side and whispered,

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you hid your strength before enrolling. That’s what friends are for, right?”

“Thanks. Really.”

“Haha. It’s nothing!”

Kawin thought,

no matter how he looked at it, Walther didn’t seem much like a necromancer.

He was cheerful, for one thing, and not naturally suspicious at all.

“Frasel. You look just as fine as Kawin.”

Perhaps Frasel was thinking the same thing as Kawin.

Her answer was simple and concise.

“I’m royalty.”

“Hmm. Fair enough!”

Kawin chuckled and returned to where the students had originally lined up.

Now that every Challenge was finished, all they had to do was say goodbye and leave.

But Oracle apparently still had business to handle.

“Everyone, return to your places.”

After addressing the groaning students, Oracle approached Kawin.

“Kawin Anper.”

“Yes, Professor.”

“What do you think of detection magic? Magic that lets you see what is hidden far away and expose what others try to conceal.”

The students following behind widened their eyes.

They had realized the implication behind Oracle’s question.

“Hmm...”

Kawin recalled Oracle’s magic from earlier.

Magic that could ‘see’ many things at once and reveal what someone was ‘hiding.’

For Kawin, that held a special meaning.

So he smiled brightly and answered,

“I think it’s wonderful magic.”

“Oh! Is that so?”

Oracle’s cheeks lifted at the answer.

It was the first genuinely pleased smile he had shown throughout the Challenge.

“Kawin Anper. If you ever have questions, you may visit my laboratory whenever you wish. I’m granting you permanent access.”

“What?”

Kawin blinked his clear blue eyes twice.

It was rather sudden generosity.

“That concludes today’s Challenges. Spend the remaining time as you wish, and report to the dining hall at the proper hour.”

With those words, Oracle quickly disappeared.

The instant the professor vanished, Walther rushed over, spraying spit as he asked,

“K-Kawin! I heard that right, didn’t I? He gave you permanent access?”

“...Seems like it.”

“Whoa. How does something like that happen?!”

Walther grabbed his head with both hands.

“Professor Oracle must really have taken a liking to you.”

“Really?”

“Obviously! This is only the first day of Challenges! Giving access after seeing one fight is the first time it’s ever happened since Tesca was founded!”

As Walther said, entering a professor’s laboratory was extremely difficult.

Far more than Kawin realized.

“The procedure is fucking complicated, and even completing it doesn’t guarantee permission. More importantly...”

Walther swallowed once, apparently tense just talking about it.

“The students with access are the ones professors choose their Protégés from.”

Protégé.

Kawin had heard of it.

A student each Academy professor could designate only once.

Some called them direct disciples, others favorite pupils.

They received the professor’s favor and virtually every privilege an Academy student could enjoy.

At Tesca Academy, where graduating was already brutally difficult, having a professor behind you was immensely valuable.

“They say third-years nearing graduation camp outside laboratory doors twenty-four hours a day. Not to become Protégés—just to get access!”

And Kawin had just received that coveted access.

Walther’s excitement seemed justified.

“A freshman with access! On the very first day of Challenges!”

“Walther.”

“Yeah?”

“If you say it one more time, I think every student in the Academy will hear you.”

“Oops!”

Only then did Walther look around and scratch his head.

The other students’ expressions weren’t much different from his.

From their perspective, Kawin had obtained on his first day something they might fail to earn after three years of struggle.

‘Well. Even without Walther, that rumor would spread quickly.’

There weren’t exactly no students around Kawin.

Thus another rumor was added to his growing collection.

“Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

“Y-yeah. Frasel, aren’t you coming?”

At Walther’s sudden invitation, Frasel’s shoulders twitched.

“Ah. I... eat separately.”

“Tch. So a princess is still a princess, huh? I can feel the invisible wall.”

“It’s not that...”

“Haha. I’m joking. Let’s eat together sometime. You’re already skinny as a stick, so don’t skip meals!”

Walther said that and walked ahead.

Before turning away, Kawin met the eyes behind Frasel’s mask.

Then gave the slightest nod.

It meant, enjoy your meal.

‘It must be hard to eat while wearing that mask.’

But taking it off would expose part of her face.

Walther wore a mask too, but what the two were trying to hide was very different.

“Enjoy your meal.”

The voice from behind the cat mask reached his back.

As time passed, more and more sincerity entered her voice.

* * *

Clatter.

After possessing a character in [Swordmaster of the Heavenly Slaughter Star],

Kawin had begun to understand sayings he never could before gaining sight.

Food that looks good tastes good.

“It’s true.”

Kawin’s hands relentlessly assaulted the plates before him.

Not even a Ninth-Circle mage summoning a magic circle could move this nimbly.

Whole-wheat bread, fresh milk, crisp salad, even steak fragrant from the open flame.

Once again, Kawin thought coming to the Academy had been the right choice.

“Kawin. The world is really unfair.”

“What are you, munch munch, talking about?”

“Fine, Frasel is skinny because she barely eats. But how do you stay so slim while eating like that three times a day?”

“That’s a misunderstanding. Until recently, I also, munch munch, didn’t eat very well.”

“Huh? You’re a viscount’s son too. Even if...”

your family is a fucking fallen Lightning house.

Walther nearly finished the sentence.

Kawin chuckled as Walther hurriedly shoved a fist into his own mouth.

“When a noble mage can’t even use magic properly, it’s hard to eat as much as you want.”

“Kawin. I didn’t mean...”

“You don’t need to feel bad. It’s not wrong. That’s why I’m eating plenty now that I’m at the Academy. I have to make up for all the years I couldn’t.”

Walther didn’t know.

How long the ‘years without enough food’ Kawin spoke of really were.

The life of a fallen noble was nothing.

His previous life had been far poorer.

“At this rate, I might double my weight soon.”

“Haha. Like Bain over there?”

Nom nom nom nom.

Where Walther pointed sat a long-haired, enormously fat man.

His backside was so wide he had pushed two chairs together to eat.

“Doesn’t even going to the bathroom look difficult with a body like that? And the craziest thing is, that guy’s a Martial Mage...!”

“He even won today, didn’t he?”

Cheers for winners.

Comfort for losers.

That was how most students reacted.

But one winner had drawn roaring laughter rather than cheers.

That was Bain.

“I think the guy Bain beat won’t sleep for a week. Imagine being a mage who loses to a waddling fat Martial Mage. Heh heh.”

“Probably.”

Walther kept snickering as he tore apart some bread.

Kawin, however, suddenly set down his fork.

His calm eyes turned toward Bain.

The fat man was sweating like rain while repeatedly draining bowls of soup.

Kawin sharpened his senses for a moment.

* * *

Deep into the night, as the moon overhead slowly tilted westward.

A sleek shadow appeared inside Tesca Academy’s main building.

Rustle.

It was clearly walking, yet made no sound.

A deadly assassination technique said to be used only by elite killers.

Phantom Walk.

A skill rarely seen in Tesca Academy, or even in the Illumina Empire.

Pause.

The black shadow searched the interior of the main building, looking this way and that.

Soon, his gaze stopped.

On a massive painting depicting dozens of mages and Swordmasters locked in battle.

“...”

The shadow stared at the painting with burning eyes.

Then that flame flared even higher.

Because he suddenly sensed someone behind him.

“That painting is called Ragnarok.”

“!”

The black-clad man glared at the other person with naked killing intent.

The one who had spoken, however, looked far too calm.

“I didn’t know either. Frasel told me.”

As though by agreement, both wore black.

The handsome platinum-blond man wore Tesca Academy’s uniform.

The man opposite him wore clothes suitable for infiltration.

“How did you... get in here? Detection magic should be active.”

“Well. Aren’t you the same?”

Kawin, owner of those dreamlike blue eyes, answered lightly.

“We came in because we know how to get through it. You and me.”

“...!”

The man opposite him said nothing more.

Both had entered a restricted area, yet for some reason that bastard looked completely relaxed.

So he kept his mouth shut.

Carelessly revealing information could expose his identity.

“You know who Frasel is, right? You’re a freshman too.”

At the word freshman, the man’s temple twitched.

Had Kawin already discovered his identity?

Impossible.

He had layered two or three safeguards over his disguise.

But at Kawin’s next words, the man in black bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

“To change your voice and body shape that much. I almost thought you were under an illusion, Bain.”

Bain.

That was the name the man had been ‘acting’ under at the Academy.

“Disguised enrollment. I’d heard the Reapers of Steel had guts, but this is beyond what I imagined.”

Grit.

Bain ground his teeth.

He felt stripped naked from head to toe.

Reapers of Steel.

Another name for Swordmasters.