The professor looked down the list and skimmed through the names of the examinees again. After a quick check, she flipped back to the first page.

“The exam will be in reverse order of the names that were called. The assistants should send the examinees to the test site in turn as previously arranged.”

“Yes, Professor.”

The professor left the gym at the same time as an assistant answered. One of the assistants who remained behind called out the examinees. The 20 people lined up and exited.

Yuria realized the details of the exam had been explained before her arrival. She was thinking of asking an assistant but then noticed that a girl with long, wavy, blonde hair was moving to a seat in the back and went to talk to her.

“Hello?”

The girl, whose eyes looked like a cat, became vigilant upon seeing Yuria approach her.

Thinking that the girl who looked like a cat with fur standing straight was cute, Yuria introduced herself. “I am Yuria.”

Hesitating at the other’s introduction, the blonde girl said her name, “I’m Alice von Carter.”

Yuria pondered about Alice’s name and realized that the latter would be taking the test almost at the end.

“Wait, von Carter? Do you happen to know Mr. Den and Mr. Lisbon?”

Alice became warier of Yuria. She grabbed the chair and moved away from the other a little while asking, “How do you know that name?”

It had only been about a month since Alice came to the capital. It was safe to say that she knew no one else in the capital except for her brother, Lisbon, the boarding house owner, Mrs. Arscilla, and Den, who was also a boarder there. But suddenly, a situation arose where a stranger approached her while mentioning the names of her brother and friend. So she was even more on guard.

“Wait, please calm down. I just happened to meet you here a moment ago and did introductions. I was just asking because you and Mr. Lisbon have the same last name.”

“They’re my brother and friend. You met them by chance?”

When Alice glanced at Yuria full of suspicion, the latter nodded her head hard.

“Yes, Mr. Den and I met for the first time in the morning at the library, and I became acquainted with Mr. Lisbon as he was with Mister Den at the low-rank knight school exam site.”

“With Den?” The places mentioned by Yuria were places where Den and Lisbon said they wanted to go, so her words seemed credible.

Of course, it was not enough to fully lower her guard!

Yuria gladly began to tell her story when Alice mentioned Den’s name.

“Yes, I happened to meet Mister Den in the library by chance, but it seems he has profound knowledge of alchemy.”

“Alchemy?”

It was the first time that Alice was hearing about it. No, although she said she was close with Den in the first place, she had never heard anything about him before he came to the capital. She only knew that he had lived in a remote mountain valley. Although the fact had offended her, she could interrogate him about it later. Right now, there was something she had to take care of first.

“No, that aside. Why did you talk to me? Listening to your story, it doesn’t seem like you knew that I knew Den.”

Yuria laughed shyly as Alice poked at the key point. “Well that’s, actually, I arrived late.”

”’Yes, I know.”

“Thanks to that, I didn’t get an explanation about the test, so I came to talk to you about it. Hehe.”

Alice was dumbfounded when Yuria stuck her tongue out and laughed. She thought that it should be something she should ask the assistants standing in front of the gym, not an unknown person like herself.

Alice answered casually, as it was not too much to answer. “This exam is based on three categories: flying, magic shooting, and your own specialty that you have the most confidence in. The assessment usually looks for magic materialization speed, magic efficiency, flight height, and in magic shooting, power and range can provide extra points. Flying accounts for 40 points, mana shooting 40 points and special magic 20% point, for a total of 100 for a perfect score.”

Alice swallowed the last part, “But yours is 90 points.”

Alice seemed to have a screw loose like her brother, but she was not cruel enough to make a biting remark towards someone she just met.

Yuria thanked Alice for her kind explanation and began to tell the story of her coming to the capital. Alice wanted to tell Yuria to shut up and leave, but with good timing, Yuria brought up the story of meeting Den in the library and so she quietly listened to Yuria.

-o-

When Lisbon and I slowly arrived at the magic school’s exam site, Alphonso was sitting at the front of the spectator seats, giving off a lonely aura that was apparent to anyone. No matter how I looked at it, be it their hair or eyes, they were a tribe that was more alike to snow rabbits than monkeys. For some reason, I thought it would be a bother if I talked to him, so I tried to sit behind the crowd, but I forgot that the guy I was with was a pushover.

“Is your name Alphonso? Can I sit next to you?”

Pushover Crybaby had gone to the front of the stands and was talking to Alphonso.

Being suddenly spoken to, Alphonso flinched at Pushover’s voice, shook off his lonely aura, and nodded. Then, he looked around hard and found me a little further away, waved his arms wide, and brightly smiled.

No matter how I looked at it, he looked happier to see me than Lisbon, who actually went to talk to him. I didn’t even do anything for him. That’s strange. I had no choice but to go sit in the front.

With Alphonso’s sociability and Lisbon’s pushoverness combined, the two chatted as if they had known each other from before. However, truly without deviating from my expectations, he also started talking to me.

“Yes, yes! Like I was saying, I–”

The test began while I was giving an appropriate amount of enthusiastic responses. As I inwardly looked forward to it, I looked around for the location of magic circles and magic tools that could block the magic I expected.

What? Nothing? To think that the magic school’s concealing ability was at a level to deceive my eyes, I guess they didn’t say magic school just for show.

About 20 examinees walked out of a building in the distance that appeared to be a gymnasium and greeted the audience and the three magicians who appeared to be examiners.

As soon as the word “Start” was yelled out, each person got on a broom or magic wand and used flying magic. Each of the 20 rising examinees was at different heights. Some examinees barely came up to a meter, while others rose more than 5 meters.

By the time I thought the interfering magic should have appeared, all the examinees landed safely on the ground.

Wait, are you kidding me? Is that it? It’s 5 meters at most. They’re not moving fast. They’re just floating up slowly. It’s over? Where’s the interfering magic!

Contrary to my feelings, the spectators applauded as if they had seen something amazing and were surprised.

“Wow! People were flying in the sky!”

I couldn’t understand when I saw Lisbon clapping hard and being amazed.

The majority of the audience here were ordinary people who had not come across any eye-catching magic prior, so it was not strange to see that they were amazed by people flying in the sky without flying tools like a hot air balloon or paraglider. However, this pushover who was a noble and had a magician sibling, was still surprised.

Alphonso, sitting next to him, became startled not by the display of magic but by the sudden clapping and then awkwardly clapped along. From the look on his face, it seemed it was simple enough magic that he could also confidently do, so I couldn’t understand why he was also clapping.

Well, for the record, I totally agree with Alphonso’s expression, but there was only one thing I could do.

Clap, clap, clap, clap!

“Wow! It. Is. Really. Amazing~”

Ah, my facial expression was perfect, but my voice came out mixed with my real feelings. The surrounding area was still noisy with clapping, so my voice was fortunately buried. Just as it was an unwavering truth that it was better to be on the side with 17 people in a 1 vs 17 scenario, it was more comfortable to go along with the crowd. Sometimes, it was convenient to use the mob mentality like this.

The exam host came to the audience stand and asked for silence. As soon as the surrounding area became quiet, the examinees started shooting magic at targets placed 50 meters away.

Bbyong-bbbyong-bbbyong-bbbyong-!

Sounds similar to an electronic arcade game sounded from the examinees’ magic wands as magic bullets flew toward the targets.

My goodness, even in the military of my previous life, the nearest target was 100 meters… Using 50 meters, aren’t they looking down on the examinees too much? But the results showed that the magic school set a very reasonable distance. How could more than half of the 20 test-takers not even reach the target? They didn’t just miss the target. More than half of them didn’t even have a range of at least 50 meters.

Among those with a range of 50 meters, only six were able to hit the target, and only one of them was able to “destroy” the target properly. Even then, the target was only dented. If Elder Mirpa, who taught me magic, had witnessed this scene, he would have been furious and shouted, “If you can only do this much, then you might as well go follow the smell of an ogre’s butt, and scram into the woods!” In fact, on the third day after learning magic at my recommendation, my second older brother was told this. That’s right, Elder Mirpa was a cursing grandma.[1]

My applause seemed too expensive to pay for such a ridiculous show, but as a person who wanted to avoid being noticed, I decided to clap, albeit reluctantly. It was appalling to think that I had to throw away my time to watch this boring and worthless test.

In the contrary, the low-rank knight school exam was a novelty. To be honest, the low-rank knight school exam was fun because of the golden comedy shown with their bodies.

As time passed and the same spells were repeated, spectators slowly left and Lisbon left for the middle-rank knight school exam.[2]

“Sorry, I should watch it, but Aly’s exam overlaps.”

“No, it can’t be helped since Alice is towards the end. I’ll just watch Yuria’s exam first then head over to your exam,” I said with a smile to the sincerely apologetic Pushover who looked sullen.

The truth was that I didn’t want to watch this boring test anymore.

“No, it’s ok, what if you’re late for Aly’s exam?”

This kind-hearted pushover was always worrying about his sibling. Not long after sending off Lisbon, Yuria walked out of the gym.

“There comes Miss Yuria.”

Alphonso, who looked bored, smiled brightly again and waved at Yuria. “Yuria! You got it!”

Alphonso’s actions drew the eyes of the few remaining spectators and examinees around us. I covered my face with one hand and lowered my chin. We’re going to have to talk about the boy’s behavior. Rather than being embarrassed by him, I felt uncomfortable having a bunch of eyes on me.

At her brother’s cheer, Yuria smiled brightly like a sunflower and raised her thumb at us.

“Of course!”