Chapter 15
“Mm-hmm, good. Very good.”
In the control room, where markers of every color were lit up, the superintendent nodded with satisfaction, a mug filled with coffee in hand.
The vice principal had already stormed out, seemingly unable to bear it any longer after biting his lips in frustration, but the superintendent did not seem to care in the slightest.
He patted the shoulder of the supervisor overseeing Martin’s group, whose marker was glowing green, as if encouraging him, then turned around while humming to himself.
“Department Head, please come over here for a moment.”
Just then, a supervisor’s voice rang out.
“Hm?”
The superintendent paused and looked over. He saw Levan, head of the Magitech Department, approaching the supervisor who had raised his hand.
“What is it?”
“Unexpected movement has been detected from Miss Ellie’s group.”
“What do you mean, unexpected movement?”
“Well… They didn’t enter the dungeon. They turned around and started walking away.”
“What?”
Levan tilted his head as if asking what on earth that meant.
The supervisor also scratched his head awkwardly and continued.
“I’m not sure either. They stayed in front of the cave for about five minutes, then suddenly changed direction and began moving away.”
“Moving away? Where to?”
A voice suddenly cut into the conversation. It was Erica, who had briefly left with the vice principal and had just returned to the control room.
“I’m not sure. I don’t know exactly either….”
The supervisor scratched his head and trailed off. Levan frowned and stared intently at the map.
A brief silence passed, and then an “Huh?” escaped him.
“Wait a moment. Isn’t this the direction of the final exam site?”
“Huh?”
This time, the supervisor asked back in confusion. He raised his gaze to the map again. When he lifted his wand and murmured a short spell, the shortest route from Ellie’s group to the final exam site began glowing as a yellow line.
“Huh?”
Come to think of it, the red dot was indeed moving steadily along the yellow line toward the final exam site.
“What kind of absurdity is this?”
The superintendent shouted and barged into the conversation. He carelessly set down the coffee mug in his hand on a nearby supervisor’s desk, then strode toward Levan.
After glaring at the red dot’s movement with a deeply furrowed brow for a moment, the superintendent approached the supervisor in charge of that group and roughly snatched away the score sheet.
“S-Superintendent?”
The supervisor turned around in confusion, but the superintendent paid him no mind. Wetting his finger, he rapidly flipped through the score sheet. At last, he handed it back with a dangerously sour expression.
“What is this supposed to mean…? They’ve received full marks in every category so far?”
“Y-yes, Superintendent. Miss Ellie’s group has thus far excelled in the cooperation and creativity our academy values….”
“Do you think that makes any sense? Even Martin’s group, which completed every task in the shortest possible time, didn’t receive full marks!”
The superintendent no longer seemed to be making any effort to hide his feelings.
“Superintendent, please calm down. I personally witnessed Miss Ellie’s group solving the tasks.”
This time, Levan grabbed his arm and tried to restrain him.
The superintendent moved his lips as though he still had more to say, but then seemed to realize something, shrugged, and raised both hands.
“My apologies. I got a little excited.”
Then he looked up at the map again and spoke coldly.
“They’ve performed admirably on every task so far, but what a pity. To think they would be caught red-handed cheating of all things.”
“Cheating… sir?”
“Yes, cheating. Obviously, isn’t it? Heading for the final exam site without even passing Stage 4 is an undeniable violation of the rules.”
The superintendent gave a sinister smile.
“Of course, I’m not saying we should disqualify everyone. There’s no way Miss Ellie, the young lady of the illustrious House Clostermann, would have committed such cheating. Surely one of her teammates incited them all. Perhaps all three except Ellie, even.”
It was blatant favoritism.
“Hmm….”
But even Levan found it difficult to refute him. It was an undeniable fact that those children had skipped Stage 4 and headed for the final exam site.
Regardless of the circumstances, some action had to be taken for violating the rules. For the sake of fairness, someone had to take responsibility.
“Wait a moment.”
At that moment, Erica approached them.
She passed straight by the superintendent and stood in front of the supervisor. Looking up at the enormous three-dimensional map in the center, she made a request.
“Please mark the locations of all the Stage 4 dungeons on the map.”
“Ah, yes.”
When the supervisor holding a wand recited a short spell, dozens of sparkling markers appeared on the map.
Erica stroked her chin for a moment as she stared at them. Then, as though she had realized something, she widened her eyes and turned to Levan.
“Couldn’t we calculate the final exam site backward from the distribution of these Stage 4 dungeons?”
“What?”
Levan tilted his head for a moment, then soon let out a short exclamation of realization.
“Ah! Yes, that isn’t impossible. For the sake of fairness, all the Stage 4 dungeons are arranged at roughly similar distances from the final exam site.”
But then he shook his head.
“However, it won’t be easy for the students at the site to work that out backward. More than half of the groups haven’t even reached Stage 4 yet.”
Clearly, if they knew the exact locations of the Stage 4 dungeons, it would theoretically be possible to identify the final exam site by finding the center of the circle containing those points.
But the information on the students’ current locations was far too incomplete. Even if they had been told the locations of several Stage 4 dungeons, once the positions of groups still stuck at Stage 3 were mixed in as noise, drawing an accurate circle would be virtually impossible.
“But… what if we had recorded the routes all the other groups have taken so far? Without needing the locations of every Stage 4 dungeon, if we could secure the positions of about ten ‘genuine’ Stage 4 groups, we should be able to estimate the center of the circle.”
Erica looked at Levan with a serious expression.
“Th-that….”
In theory, she wasn’t wrong.
However….
“Miss Erica, those children are still young. They’re only first-year students. It would be unrealistic for them to make such an elaborate plan in advance, and besides, there isn’t even a detection spell capable of covering this entire mountain, is there?”
As the superintendent pointed out, it was ‘realistically’ impossible.
Moreover, there were no high-tier advanced spells in the field of detection magic. Even Erica herself, who had once been called a peerless genius, was incapable of sensing the mana of the entire mountain at once.
“But… if that isn’t the case, how else can we explain those children’s movements?”
Erica argued back, sounding somewhat dejected.
“Why insist on taking such a difficult route? It’s simple if we just assume they cheated.”
The superintendent spoke sarcastically.
“Superintendent! As an educator, I don’t think it’s right to dismiss the students’ potential as mere cheating!”
Erica’s voice rose.
“Then perhaps you should convince me, Miss Erica. I mean, present an assumption that I can accept.”
The superintendent wore a relaxed expression.
Erica lightly bit her lip.
“Couldn’t we simply verify it with the students directly once all the exams are over?”
“You want us to believe the words of people who cheated?”
“The school is the one that should determine whether it’s true.”
Then Erica turned to Levan. Looking somewhat bewildered, Levan nodded.
“Ah, of course our fine teachers will judge the matter fairly.”
But the superintendent was not flustered in the slightest. Rather, he smirked and continued.
“However, the meeting with the Deputy Minister is the day after tomorrow. There’s no way the investigation will be complete within two days, so wouldn’t it be more respectful to the Deputy Minister if we provisionally assumed those students had cheated and excluded them?”
“……Ugh.”
Erica clenched her teeth without realizing it.
She wanted to shout, ‘Then I’ll tell my father and ask him to postpone the meeting!’ But she couldn’t bring herself to do so.
Even while physically and mentally exhausted after losing Evan, her father had refrained from withdrawing this proposal solely out of concern for his alma mater. She could not trouble him with an uncertain suspicion of cheating.
“……”
In the end, Erica lowered her head. Levan also merely bit his lower lip in frustration and could not add anything.
The superintendent smiled in satisfaction and clapped his hands.
“Well then, let’s consider this discussion concluded. Ah, of course, since that group did in fact reach the final exam site second, after Martin’s group, I suppose it would be all right to give at least Miss Ellie a fair evaluation.”
‘In the end, he’s only afraid to cross House Clostermann….’
But she could not say that aloud. Erica kept her head lowered and trembled as she clenched her fists.
The supervisor also wore a resigned expression as he took out the score sheet. The scratch of the quill against the paper sounded unusually loud.
But just then,
“Please wait a moment, Superintendent.”
Everyone’s gaze turned toward one place.
The vice principal, Verkis, who had left the room, now stood there with a stern expression.
“Welcome back, Vice Principal.”
The superintendent did not look surprised in the slightest. He merely greeted him with a bright smile.
Pointing toward the map, he continued.
“We were just discussing the evaluation method….”
“There is a detection spell capable of sensing the entire mountain.”
“……What?”
The superintendent asked back as though he had heard something ridiculous.
Verkis pulled a thick bundle of papers from inside his clothes. He approached the gathered group and thrust the bundle against the superintendent’s chest.
“It hasn’t been announced to the academic community yet, but an advanced detection spell certainly exists. As the professor in charge, I was helping supervise the research paper.”
“W-wait a moment. An unpublished spell?”
The superintendent looked flustered. Without even bothering to read the bundle of papers, he raised his voice.
“Are you saying a student at this school developed a new spell?”
“……What?”
Levan asked blankly, then hurriedly covered his mouth.
The nearby supervisors also began murmuring in disbelief.
It was understandable.
“Impossible! A student developing a spell independently!”
It was a legendary feat that had not been replicated even once since the archmage Rinkel, sixty years ago.
“No, even if that were true, are you saying one of those four first-year students is the developer of that spell?”
The superintendent shook his head as though mocking the very idea, having gone beyond disbelief.
Only then did Verkis stop walking and lightly bite his lip. Then he faced the superintendent directly.
“No, that isn’t the case.”
It was an honest answer.
At the same time, obvious relief and triumph spread across the superintendent’s face.
“W-what? After giving everyone a scare….”
“However, we can’t completely rule out the possibility that the student taught those students the spell.”
Verkis continued seriously, but the superintendent merely shrugged and scoffed.
“Then bring that student here at once. I’ll ask the student about the truth myself.”
“That’s… impossible.”
“Why? It seems like something I can reasonably request as superintendent.”
The superintendent smiled as though the idea were absurd.
“I know you don’t think highly of Martin. But isn’t this going too far? Trying to deceive me with a stack of papers whose origin you can’t even explain.”
He pushed the bundle of papers Verkis had handed him back into Verkis’s arms.
“Now, now, I’ll buy everyone a proper drink when today’s exam is over. I’m sure any misunderstandings will clear up over a glass of wine….”
“By the authority vested in me as vice principal, I hereby authorize these four students to pass the Stage 4 exam.”
“What?”
“I’m saying that, by my authority as vice principal, I’m awarding those students the highest score. Clearing a dungeon through the creative application of a new spell is worth several times more than merely finding the gimmick placed right in front of you.”
“……Hah.”
The superintendent pressed a hand to his forehead as though he found it preposterous. The smile vanished from his face, replaced by cold fury.
He rubbed his face with both hands for a moment, then wore an expression colder than ever. Moving right up to the vice principal, he whispered threateningly.
“Vice Principal. This isn’t a decision I’m making alone. It’s an order handed down from much higher up.”
“……”
“Besides, what’s at stake is an invitation to House Friesna, is it not? You’re making enemies of House Friesna, Martin’s House Beller, and the entire Ministry of Magic.”
“I don’t care. I’m only fulfilling my responsibility as an educator.”
Verkis answered firmly, then turned to Erica and continued.
“And this matter is directly connected to House Friesna as well.”
“……Our house?”
Erica’s shoulders twitched as though she had never expected that.
Her gaze was drawn downward as if bewitched.
And a moment later, an incredulous, dazed voice slipped from between her lips.
“Evan?”
Her gaze had fallen on the cover of the bundle of papers in Verkis’s arms.
On the very first page, the name [Author. Evan Friesna] was clearly written.