Chapter 54
“Y-Yumia... did you train aura too!?”
“Shh.”
I’ve trained it to the point where I can keep it up for about ten seconds.
But all I’d really done was use the Tower’s power to raise a force I barely understood.
If it went out, I’d have to wait around forever, which was a pain.
I stabbed my sword into the wall.
Then I carefully traced a circle, like I was sawing.
Then if I pushed the cut-out section...
a neat hole cut in the shape of an O.
I was going to fill the remaining space with putty anyway, so I made it a little bigger than necessary.
“…Done, yay!”
“Waaah!!”
Aris and I cheered.
I hadn’t thought about the aftermath, but I liked how neat it looked.
And once I’d done all the cable management and filled the gaps with putty...!
“It’s done!”
I’d succeeded in bringing modern conveniences into the magic world.
“I-It really worked...?”
Aris still looked dazed.
“Aura sure is handy.”
“When did you learn aura too?”
“There are ways. Keep it a secret.”
“I would’ve kept it secret without being told, but... aura is supposed to be the exclusive domain of knights. How did you even get it...?”
“Let’s turn it on!”
I’d been keeping the barrier up while running the generator since this morning.
It took a whopping 20 percent of my mana stones, but thanks to that, I filled a super-high-capacity battery to the brim.
This should last three days.
“Maybe it’s about time I went out to farm mana stones too.”
I hadn’t used a high-grade mana stone, but the Tower was basically a tutorial-style gate to begin with.
It yielded more artifacts and miscellaneous rewards than mana stones.
“Isn’t it hard to get mana stones at school?”
“I’ll just go back to the modern world sometime... ah.”
I said that casually, then cut myself off when I saw Aris looking puzzled.
“I’m going back to my hometown. Want to come with me sometime?”
“Hmm... Yumia’s hometown does sound interesting. It’s not a dangerous place, right?”
“This place is way more dangerous.”
At the very least, Earth doesn’t have dragons living in its forests.
“Then I’d love to! I’m interested in Yumia’s hometown!”
Good, I got the go-ahead.
I really did need a healer by now.
“Then shall we turn it on?”
“Yes!”
I took out the remote with batteries in it and hit the power button.
A dinging sound rang from the standing air conditioner in the living room.
“W-Wow!”
And then, a little later.
“Yumia! The air is cool!”
Aris bounced up and down.
I felt the drowsiness and catharsis of a comfort I’d forgotten about.
Was modern technology really this good?
“Wow... it really is nice.”
An air conditioner really is god-tier.
We stood in front of the air conditioner for quite a while.
***
I called them over right away.
If you get something good, you’re supposed to show it off.
“It’s hot, so why’d you call usss... I wanna gooo...”
“Then why did you call us? I can’t stay in a girl’s room for long in the first place.”
Ah, come to think of it, the gender ratio is off.
‘No, in a way, it is?’
Whether to call it balanced or not was another matter.
I’d called Linia too, and she came along while rubbing her sleepy eyes.
Her bright pink hair was sticking a little to her skin, probably from sweat.
It seemed she’d been taking a long nap since there were no lectures today.
“...The air... it’s not hot? No, it isn’t even humid?”
Linia, clutching a pillow, instantly shook off her sleep.
“What did you do? Did you deploy a barrier spell to adjust the temperature? No, that wouldn’t explain why it isn’t sticky either.”
Robert stepped into the room, looking amazed.
“Here, a welcome drink.”
I handed each of them an iced tea in a glass filled with ice.
Robert and Linia entered the room holding them.
Their gazes went to the air conditioner.
“Is that a magic tool? I can’t feel any mana.”
“Maybe it’s not that you can’t feel it?”
“I can feel mana just fine too.”
Tch, teasing them was a failure.
Linia and Robert discussed the air conditioner with interest.
“Amazing. How did they implement a temperature-control magic circle without even using mana?”
“My family home has magic circles installed too, but this one looks like it can control humidity as well as temperature more easily.”
“May I touch it?”
“By all means.”
Haha, it’s not that big a deal.
No, actually, it is.
It’s actually a huge deal.
Thanks to the air conditioner, I felt great about being able to show off in front of people from another world for once.
After a few minutes of discussion, Robert and Linia reached a conclusion.
“Absurd.”
“Yeah.”
I watched the scene while drinking iced tea, then stood up.
“All right, Robert.”
“What is it?”
“Get out now.”
“What?”
This is a girls’ dorm, after all.
Of course, I don’t care at all, but since I’m done showing off, you need to leave.
“H-Hey, wait! Because of Linia, I barely even got to feel the cool air...”
Because Linia occupied the spot in front of the air conditioner, Robert barely got to enjoy the breeze.
“That’s none of my concern.”
I escorted Robert out.
After Robert disappeared from the room,
Linia had somehow even spread out a blanket and was reading a magic book.
...Where did she get that book from...
“Ah, that’s my book!”
“I’m not leaving?”
“Huh? You should go back to your room and sleep!”
Aris tried shaking Linia.
“Linia’s going to stay here.”
She really seemed to mean it.
Aris tried to get Linia moving somehow, but Linia didn’t budge.
“Linia can make the room cool with magic, can’t she!”
“Huh, really?”
“Hmm... I can make at least ice.”
Then do that.
“But it gets hot again soon enough... and when the humidity gets high, my hair gets all damp and limp...”
There seemed to be a lot of problems with that.
“I’ll just stay until the temperature-control magic circle gets fixed... I can even stay in the storage room.”
“Hmm... it’s sudden, but that’s fine.”
We’d been hanging out together a lot lately, so we’d gotten close.
Aris looked at me approvingly.
It honestly didn’t matter.
The A Dorm was about as spacious as a decent apartment.
It just didn’t have beds, so it could easily accommodate one person.
And Linia’s magical range was far broader than mine.
No, honestly, she could use just about any spell.
“Linia, can you use In Code?”
“Hmm? I can even do higher-level ones. If you want me to teach you, I can...”
“Okay, hired.”
As soon as she heard that, Linia settled into a corner and curled herself into a ball.
I’d acquired a purring mini magic library.
***
And that was how someone with a vaguely catlike vibe got added to the room.
But the important thing was that the final exam date for Potion Studies had been set, and
the midterm for Magical Repair had started much earlier than expected.
The midterm had been set up to be simple.
Unlike that, Magical Repair couldn’t escape Karnarov’s clutches even for the final exam.
“The Magical Repair final exam will be an open-book test.”
“Huh?”
“Yes! I didn’t study!”
“Phew... thank goodness. There were a lot of parts I couldn’t study.”
You idiots.
Even if I only went to university for a short time, I know this much.
I’ve never seen a professor say it’s open-book and then have it be normal!
“The exam will last 18 hours, from morning until midnight.”
“...What?”
“N-no, you’re joking, right?”
“Have you ever seen Professor Karnarov joke? That one is serious!”
Karnarov continued speaking with a solemn expression, no matter what the students said.
“You may go out and eat or do whatever you want. However, all acts of talking to other people or exchanging information are forbidden.”
A prohibition was engraved on the students.
The exam that followed was truly Karnarov through and through.
Questions that had been beautifully transformed from practice problems.
And questions you’d never even seen, but could solve if you managed to use what you’d learned well.
Questions that had to be proven through magical logic.
And questions that simply couldn’t be solved, leaving you to clutch your head.
The exam began under that tension.
By the time it ended, it had become a test that just sent everyone out dead on their feet.
“Hm. Time’s up.”
The exam hall was in shambles.
The four of us, including Linia and me.
And only the ones who had originally been diligent remained.
Everyone else had submitted their papers and run away.
I should’ve done that too.
[Magic Square Mathematician is entering overload! Cooldown: 3 days]
The Magic Square Mathematician coughed up blood and collapsed.
I kept reviving it whenever it overloaded and feeding it the problems again.
The first cooldown had definitely been 10 minutes, but by the end it had stretched to three hours, and once the exam was over, it completely collapsed.
‘Good work...’
Without that, I probably wouldn’t have been able to solve them all.
Though solving them and getting them right were separate matters.
“Hm. Good work, everyone.”
Most of them had submitted early and run, but Karnarov seemed not to care at all.
“Since time is up, I’ll collect the exam papers. And now I will announce the notice for the Basic Offensive Magic final exam, so...”
[Those who ran away, come running back and take a look. It’s Lecture Hall 201 in the Faculty Building.]
The mark engraved for the prohibition glowed.
And it felt like Karnarov’s words were being directly slammed into my brain.
Even if I’d been asleep, this was the kind of thing that would keep echoing in my head.
“I-It’s finally over...”
Aris staggered and slammed her head into the desk.
Whew, still, that’s a relief.
Now only the easy ones are left.
Potion Studies and Basic Offensive Magic aren’t tiring subjects, at least.
I made a ton of potions because of the money.
Thanks to that, my proficiency went up enormously too.
Though now I had to make them because of the air conditioner.
Basic Offensive Magic probably won’t need much preparation, like the midterm.
‘Now I just need to memorize the herb chart well...’
And then, after reading the notice Karnarov had posted, I shuddered.
[Basic Offensive Magic Final Exam Notice]
You will fight the examiner in a one-on-one duel.
The examiner will fight in a designated arena for one minute.
The victory condition is incapacitating or forcing the surrender of one side.
If one minute passes, the student side wins.
Until 30 seconds have passed, the examiner will not use attacks that consume more mana than the average student.
However, defensive measures will be adjusted to suit that student’s ability.
Until five seconds remain, the examiner will not use anything other than Basic Offensive Magic, Basic Defensive Magic, and martial arts.
The examiner will not use silent casting, for the sake of broadening the student’s horizons.
If you endure 30 seconds, you will receive full marks.
If you endure 55 seconds, you will be considered to have taken the [Magic Combat] course.
You will be awarded a B-equivalent grade.
Third-years may choose whether to retake it.
If you endure one minute, you will be considered to have taken the [Magic Combat] course.
You will be awarded an A+-equivalent grade.
The examiner will be Professor Ivan G. Karnarov.