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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: TushChen
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‘Damn it.’
If I got labeled with an unprecedented descriptor, I’d gain too much fame.
There would also be many people picking fights with me.
It seemed I needed to handle the situation first.
“Wait a moment. I think this stone only had one layer of magic on it, not multiple layers.”
At my words, Roman’s face, which had been frozen in surprise, regained some expression.
“Ah, is that so? I see… Well, a first-year student couldn’t possibly be at this level already. Maybe the stone was defective.”
Roman nodded as if that made more sense to him.
The students also seemed to laugh, thinking “Ah, that explains it.”
“Alright. Then let’s do the test again.”
Roman turned to prepare a new stone.
Meanwhile, Livia tilted her head and stared at me.
“Senior…?”
Livia, who had been sitting right next to me the whole time, would have known that the stone was fine.
I whispered quietly into Livia’s ear.
“Keep it a secret.”
At my words, Livia nodded brightly, with a face happy to be sharing a secret.
“This is a perfectly fine stone that I’ve checked several times. Try with this one.”
Roman brought a new stone and placed it in front of me.
He was glaring sharply, as if daring me to try cheating.
I looked at the stone for a moment, then infused it with magic, using a bit less power than before.
Huh?
But this stone had one more layer of magic added, making it triple-layered.
It seemed the third layer of magic was Roman’s.
‘I can’t believe he’d do something like this.’
He apparently wanted me, his rival’s son, to get a low score.
When I turned to look at Roman, he was twisting the corners of his mouth in an unpleasant smile, unaware that I had noticed.
It was childish jealousy and revenge for someone his age.
This is troublesome.
Even for me, it’s difficult to accurately break a stone with triple-layered magic in a short time.
Still, I needed to get a good score.
But at that moment.
Ding!
The blessing activated again.
Cracks began to form in Roman’s magic, which was part of the triple-layered spell on the stone.
The balance of the other spells had been disrupted due to the forced layering.
I exploited this imbalance, destroying the stone from the inside out.
Crack! Boom!
The stone broke again.
This time, however, instead of turning to powder like before, it shattered into sharp fragments.
I quickly used a condensation spell to gather most of the fragments back into a stone shape, preventing them from flying in random directions.
Except for one fragment.
“…!”
Just as one of the flying fragments was about to strike Roman, who was too surprised to react.
“I’m sorry, Professor.”
I caught the stone fragment flying towards Roman with magic.
Roman, who had been cross-eyed staring at the piece of stone that nearly hit him between the eyes, exhaled heavily.
“I couldn’t catch them all.”
I said nonchalantly, slowly pulling back the fragment that had stopped in front of Roman’s eyes.
The stone returned to my hand and burrowed between the other stone pieces, forming a rough stone shape.
“It was an accident, so you’ll understand, right, Professor?”
“You…!”
Roman seemed angry at my words for a moment and was about to raise his voice, but he stopped speaking due to the murmuring around us.
There were so many students watching and whispering about the situation.
“…Y-Yes.”
Roman nodded forcibly, as if trying to salvage his shattered pride.
However, his tightly clenched fist could be seen trembling.
Roman must be confused and scared now.
He must be wondering if I noticed the magic he put on the stone, and whether I intentionally let one stone fragment slip.
He might even be questioning if such a thing was even possible.
Let him wonder all he wants.
His head must be about to explode.
‘I acted on impulse.’
This was something Roman brought upon himself.
From the moment it was triple-layered, it was difficult for me to control how much I would break the stone voluntarily.
Even though I tried to adjust moderately, this is how things turned out.
“Did you see? The Deinhart young lord broke the stone…”
“Didn’t the professor check it several times earlier? Does that mean he can really break this stone? A first-year like me?”
As I listened to the voices of the incredulous children, I hoped this rumor wouldn’t spread too far.
And Livia was also looking at me with disbelieving eyes.
She had an exceptional level of magic compared to the other students here.
Livia seemed to have realized that I had destroyed not just double, but triple-layered magic.
“…Keep it a secret.”
At my words, Livia once again smiled with joy.
“Yes, Senior.”
The second evaluation soon ended.
Next was the third evaluation.
Unlike the first and second evaluations, the third evaluation was conducted jointly with other departments.
The reason for this lay in the special nature of the third evaluation.
The third evaluation involved actually hunting magical beasts.
Basically, fighting magical beasts is principally done in groups.
To give a sense of real combat, teams are formed by mixing departments.
Of course, the principle was to conduct it safely with one senior student as an assistant and professors from each department supervising.
The magical beasts to be hunted were only weak ones that senior students and professors had captured in advance.
‘The problem is that it’s conducted outside.’
Regardless of the system, magical beast hunting conducted outside the academy creates gaps.
And targeting those gaps, powerful magical beasts led by the Raven King Subrak, one of the seven Calamity-class beings of the Demon King’s army, would attack the students.
This is called the First Incident.
In the original work, the protagonist managed to overcome the First Incident with quite a few casualties.
However, I couldn’t afford casualties like the original protagonist.
Because of this damn achievement.
Still, I wasn’t worried.
Since it’s an early event in the original work, even the magical beasts led by the Demon King’s army were quite weak.
At my current level, much stronger than the original protagonist, I should be able to handle it sufficiently.
I slowly looked around at the students gathered on the academy’s well-manicured lawn field.
Although everyone knew they were safe, the students were nervous and uneasy about having to hunt magical beasts.
“Young Lord!”
At that moment, a bright voice was heard from afar.
Sure enough, Elena was jumping up and down and waving her hand from the Sacred Studies department side.
Beside her, Elin was holding Elena’s shoulders down as if telling her to behave.
I waved lightly at the two of them.
Livia gave them a wary look, but there was no killing intent in her eyes.
I’m proud of such a Livia.
“Those two… aren’t they the saintesses? I’ve heard of them because they’re famous.”
“That’s right. I’ll introduce you later.”
Since teams were determined by drawing lots, there was little chance of being on the same team as the saintess sisters.
‘In the original work, I did end up on the same team as Elin, who was pretending to be Elena. And Livia too.’
Elena wasn’t in the original storyline to begin with.
So there was a high possibility that the team wouldn’t be formed as I knew it.
At that moment, suddenly, there was a big commotion from the Warrior department side.
Someone was emerging from the Warrior department.
“It’s Prince Baltan. I heard he went on several magical beast subjugation missions even before coming to the academy…”
“But why is he breaking away from the formation?”
Prince Baltan.
A rough and sharp-looking blonde boy with blue eyes was leading about five of his followers, conspicuously breaking away from the formation.
‘Why does it look like… he’s coming towards me?’
And indeed, he was walking towards me.
With a bad feeling, I frowned.
“This is our first meeting. Leonhart Deinhart. I’ve heard you’re exceptionally talented as a mage. Shall we greet each other?”
Prince Baltan, who had walked up to me, extended his gloved hand.
It was clearly condescending.
Baltan was a prince who had been pushed out of the power struggle anyway.
As the eldest son of a powerful ducal family, I wasn’t lower in status.
He wasn’t even older than me like Yuria, so Baltan’s attitude was clearly disrespectful.
“…Yes. Pleased to meet you, Your Highness Baltan.”
For now, I didn’t want to openly antagonize royalty.
I hid my irritation and shook hands with him politely.
‘What’s this guy really here for?’
The atmosphere was a bit strange for him to have come just to exchange greetings.
His attitude suggested he had a clear purpose.
‘Ah. Come to think of it, didn’t this guy admire Yuria?’
If the misunderstanding that I had rejected Yuria had reached Baltan’s ears, it was quite possible.
Recalling this guy’s temperament from the novel, it wouldn’t be strange if Baltan suddenly drew his sword.
I was tense, anticipating a possible bloodshed.
However, the spark flew in a completely unexpected direction.
“Strange. This wench looks like a commoner, but why isn’t she showing proper respect to me?”
His combative gaze was directed at Livia beside me.
Livia had been looking only at me, not paying any attention to Baltan, who was a prince.
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