The Archmage in the Basement (5)

-You are a disgrace to the Crowell family.

That was what Laverna Crowell heard from her father on the day she received her admission notice from Elterion Academy.

On the day of her interview, Laverna was so nervous that she couldn't get a single proper word out.

In the end, the Department of Magic rejected her.

She hadn't merely failed to be selected as an outstanding student and enter on a scholarship—she hadn't even managed to scrape by. That said it all.

The place she was assigned to, as though she'd been shoved there, was the Department of Alchemy, one of the departments known as a gathering place for the rejects who had failed to enter the Department of Magic.

Because of that, the world of Elterion Academy was entirely gray to Laverna Crowell.

Haa—these were days when sighs escaped her on their own.

The air in the research building assigned to the Department of Alchemy in the Magic Hall Annex was damp and heavy all week long.

The nose-wrinkling stench of rotten eggs, the metallic smell of blood, and the odor of dust...