Chapter 98
Even so, my daily life didn't change.
Magic practice and slacking off.
Normally, during exam season, only the former is allowed.
So I practiced magic.
“I did ittttt!!!”
“Yes?”
“I got it down to under one second!”
Spatial movement with Silver Shoes over a distance of five meters!
Of course, I was still far from the goal of 0.1 seconds and 50 meters.
But at least I got the hang of it.
“Um... spatial-type unique magic really is amazing.”
Aris said with an uneasy expression.
She seemed to have something to say.
“Hm?”
“Isn't that outside the exam scope?”
“So?”
Unique magic can't be used without a circuit.
So it made no sense for this to be on the exam syllabus.
But this was magic practice, too.
There was no problem with that.
“Shouldn't you be studying what's on the exam...?”
“Sigh, Aris.”
I pressed a hand to my forehead.
To think she hadn't realized something so basic.
“It's only natural that slacking off during exam season is way more fun, right?”
“What are you talking about!? Open your book right now!”
“Nyeeeeeek!! I don't wanna!!!”
I ran to the corner of the room.
No, this is enough, isn't it!
“You haven't finished your daily quota yet!”
“Are you my mom or something?!”
I was much older than Aris!
Then why was she trying to make me study?!
“You haven't studied Magic Logic at all!”
That... was true.
But.
“I don't need to maintain top rank anymore anyway!”
This was actually decisive.
Either way, money would come rolling in even if I half-assed the exam!
All I needed was to learn magic!
I climbed the wall and drove my fingernails into it.
“Shhaaaaaaah...”
“Why are you making a cat sound...?”
“I'm escaping from here.”
I'd already studied a reasonable amount today anyway.
I was going to go hang out with Adrian!
“Ah...!”
Then I raised my wand and chanted a spell.
“Oz Caster, Silver Sh...”
“Index, Bind.”
At that moment, ropes of mana bound me.
I hit the floor with a thud and screamed.
“Nyaaaaaak!!”
My Oz Caster's activation speed was under one second.
Someone with casting speed fast enough to beat that could only be...
“Linia, you traitor! Weren't you on my side?!”
Weren't you a fellow slacker?!
“If I had to choose, I'd say I'm on the studying side.”
No, but.
What the hell made this rope so tough?!
I tried to dispel it quickly, but Aris was faster at knocking my wand away.
I could have escaped somehow, but...
“If you keep going, you'll break the house?”
“Damn it.”
But why had Linia helped Aris tie me up?
It shouldn't matter to you whether I studied or not, right?
“You know that if you stop being a top-ranked student, we'll be kicked out of this house, right?”
“Huh?”
“It says so in the school regulations, doesn't it? Wait, I'll show you with light magic. I did register it with the library, at least.”
Linia pulled out her wand and held it out in front of me.
“Index, Display.”
[Only top-ranked students are permitted to reside in off-campus accommodations.]
Ah.
No wonder there hadn't been any restrictions at all.
So it wasn't enough to have money, after all.
“Nyeeeek...”
I crawled over to the desk, with no choice.
“I'll point out only the necessary parts of the history section for now, so try to handle the other subjects somehow.”
Linia said, yawning.
“You're much more proactive than I expected?”
Aris said.
“Let's work hard at teaching together!”
That's true.
Wasn't Linia second place right now?
Normally, you'd think of her as a rival.
“I actually rather like being with you two.”
No, but.
I was the top student, you guys.
Why were you helping me?
This was weird!
* * *
“The midterm exam period has arrived, as expected.”
Karnarof said in a low voice from the podium.
He'd only announced the simple fact that midterm exam season had arrived.
And yet, because that man was saying it, it seemed incredibly important.
‘No, it is incredibly important, actually.’
For reference, today's class was Basic Combat Arts.
It was a class for the top students, whose goal was to pass the Rank 1 mage exam with a perfect score.
And on top of that, Karnarof was also in charge of Magic Circle Mathematics.
As we waited to hear what announcement he would make,
“I intend to make a separate announcement to the whole school, but the Magic Circle Mathematics midterm will be a four-hour written exam.”
“F-four hours!?”
“Professor, that's a bit...”
I might have liked four hours if it were another professor's exam.
But Karnarof's midterm meant something slightly different.
He intended to give us questions that could only be solved by filling all four hours.
“Quiet.”
“Next, the Basic Combat Arts midterm will be replaced with a report. Write a report using the Type 1 format.”
“Waaaaaaah!!!”
“Professor, you're the best!!”
This would be convenient.
As for Magic Circle Mathematics, I could just cram for it.
“It'll certainly be easier to study Magic Circle Mathematics.”
Linia said from beside me.
Aris's expression wasn't bad either.
“That concludes today's lecture. I hope you achieve good results on next week's midterm.”
Having said that, Karnarof left the lecture hall.
“Hmm...”
“What's wrong?”
Aris asked with a puzzled expression.
“Why do I feel a little disappointed?”
It was disappointing that something seemed like it was coming, but then didn't.
Maintaining top rank might be tough with Linia around.
But I had been hoping for something a little more unusual.
“Tsk, how boring.”
“Isn't it weird that you look for fun in exams...?”
Robert chided me.
* * *
And I immediately came to regret thinking that a week later.
“Wow, this is insanely difficult.”
I finished solving everything in three hours.
But even so, the difficulty was incredible.
Many students clutched their heads before they could even turn to the second page.
“How did you solve it?”
“I don't know either.”
I genuinely didn't know either.
I couldn't remember.
“I don't know. If I bombed it, then everyone else must have bombed it too.”
“It was insane...”
Linia's reaction was similar.
It was doable. But insanely difficult.
It was a test worthy of Karnarof.
* * *
The Potions midterm was uneventful.
It was an uneventful exam that crushed humans.
“I heard Professor Karnarof and Professor Isabel were classmates...”
“I guess birds of a feather really do flock together.”
“I don't understand any of this!”
“How are you supposed to solve that!?”
But this was easier for me.
They were questions that put into theory, one by one, the unexpected situations that could arise while actually making potions.
“Heh, idiots.”
I solved them relatively easily.
Of course, when I went into the Empire History exam afterward, a minor problem arose: I became the idiot instead.
A few days later came the final exam.
It was the Magic Logic exam.
‘This is pretty interesting too.’
To be honest, I hadn't studied particularly hard.
Because it was similar to what I had studied in college.
Of course, after studying like that, I was hit by the legendary bad luck of having the exam overlap with my Gate-clearing schedule.
‘They begged me, saying the party would be screwed without me, so I had no choice but to go.’
There was a behind-the-scenes story about how I got the highest kill count in history at the place I went to.
But that wasn't particularly important.
But...
‘This calculation is insanely complicated.’
The problem itself wasn't difficult, but the calculations were complicated enough to kill me.
Of course, it was still at a level where I could roughly cheese it with formulas.
I was somehow in the middle of doing the calculations when
the professor supervising the exam approached me.
I felt an aura of tremendous mana, and even I, who had been concentrating, had no choice but to look up reflexively.
A middle-aged gentleman wearing several UR-grade magical tools.
His appearance was far from youthful, but even so, he possessed a certain elegance.
I muttered unconsciously.
“...Bern?”
“It is quite an honor to have you call me by name, but do be careful about casually addressing a noble by his name.”
But this was exam time.
“Ah, sorry 'bout that.”
The class was taught by a teaching assistant, so I hadn't had much reason to see him.
But apparently he personally wrote and supervised the exam questions.
He watched me solve the problems for several minutes.
Then he asked, seeming intrigued.
“Have you not learned Calculation Magic?”
“Huh?”
“It was written in the exam notice, was it not? Students who had not learned Calculation Magic beforehand were instructed to learn it from the library.”
“The practice problems were solvable, so I didn't bother learning it.”
It was no different from what I'd learned in high school except for the symbols, anyway.
The Mathematician of Magic Circles helped to some extent as well.
It was just that Karnarof's standards were bizarre; this level didn't even put a strain on my Trait in the first place.
There was no particular time limit on the exam.
So I was still solving problems even after Linia, who stayed until the very end, had left.
‘Sigh, I should've learned Calculation Magic too.’
I'm screwed.
Honestly, I'd only solved the practice problems; I hadn't really studied.
The answers were correct, but the process was the problem.
After solving them all, I submitted my exam paper.
“Good work.”
Bern said in a dry tone.
His eyes behind the monocle scanned various parts of the exam paper.
His pupils trembled slightly.
“Do you have somewhere to be after this?”
“Pardon?”