Chapter 21 - Entrance Exam (7)

On the fifth day of the exam.

Acel and the other two repeatedly disposed of golems as soon as they were created in the golem generation zone they had found through detection magic. The interval between golem creations wasn't very long, but thanks to the three of them taking turns killing them, none of them felt fatigue.

"Oh, one came out," Elena, sitting on a rock, said. 

Acel, whose turn it was, immediately stopped what he was doing and manifested magic towards the golem.

[Heat Fragrance Construction Sacrifice]

Invisible heat was released. In an instant, the golem's form melted away, and just before the core turned to ashes, Acel fished it out with a magic thread. There was a slightly scorched mark, but the magical power contained inside wasn't damaged. Acel threw the core into a roughly dug hole and resumed his previous work.

The work wasn't much. It was a dismantling process to understand how this huge golem operated with just this small orb by disassembling the core. As it required not only talent in magic but also delicate hand skills, Acel concentrated all his attention on tapping and splitting the core.

"Knife."

"Here!"

As he held out his hand to the side and spoke, Elena handed over a dagger made of blood. Acel took the dagger and gently scraped the edge of the core. Ellen, watching this scene, leaned against a tree and let out a hollow laugh.

"...Can you really figure it out by doing that?"

"I've already figured out about half of it," Acel answered while manipulating the knife to avoid damaging the magical power contained in the core.

"Roughly speaking, it's a core created by a 7th rank mage. They've applied magical engineering to increase the efficiency of magical power and connected the spell formula to the outside. In simple terms, this core is merely a power source to move the golem, but the spell formulas and calculations needed to actually construct the golem all depend on some device outside."

"..."

"If we destroy the device that exists outside, all the golems here will stop operating and collapse instantly. The power might still be alive, but the spell formula maintaining that body will be shattered. It would be the only weakness of these infinitely reproducing golems."

Acel looked into the split core with an interested gaze.

"The reason golems are continuously generated here is because a one-time activation teleportation spell formula is engraved on the core. When the spell formula is activated through the device, it teleports to the coordinates here and activates the construction spell formula. It uses soil and sand to create the skeleton of the body, and changes its properties to have skin like rock. It's interesting."

"...Acel, you're being really pervy right now," Elena said with a slightly disgusted expression. 

Acel lightly ignored her words and tucked the split core into his chest.

"If I get the chance, I'd like to meet the construction mage who created these golems. They're probably a mage majoring in magical engineering. I wonder how much amazing knowledge they have."

"...From my point of view, you figuring this out seems more amazing," Ellen muttered as she picked up her axe after confirming a newly generated golem. 

Despite the double-bladed axe being much larger than her height, she lightly rotated it as if handling a feather and swung it horizontally.

Following that trajectory, the golem's waist was severed. The golem, whose body was divided into upper and lower halves as soon as it was born, flailed its hands as if confused, but even that was cleanly cut off. Ellen split the upper body of the golem, which only had its head left, in half and extracted the core. The golem soon scattered into sand.

"That makes 100," Ellen muttered as she put the core into the dug hole.

It had already been two days since they settled here. During that time, except for sleeping hours, they all focused on hunting golems, so it was natural that cores were overflowing. With this amount, they could even smile and share a bit if other participants came looking to loot.

We'll easily pass the exam.

Ellen thought as she watched Elena, whose turn had come, drawing out blood.

The Academy entrance exam was notorious for its vicious difficulty. In fact, even this exam wasn't easy if one only considered the difficulty level. Although the golems' durability was weak, their destructive power was as strong as skilled Experts.

A power that could shatter one’s entire body if one let their guard down even a little. It was somewhat easier to face them head-on, but the golems that attempted ambushes were quite tricky. Some even shot stone arrows from a distance.

Their appearance, as if copying superhuman beings from an actual battlefield, was objectively not an easy opponent. Since the supervisors didn't tell how many cores needed to be collected, the situation could only become more daunting.

But if one could shatter them as soon as they were born like this, it was a different story.

Golems whose designed intelligence hadn't settled yet didn't react even when an attack approached. They only started reacting after some part of their body was cut or broken. Even then, they just struggled in confusion. Honestly, golems moving like this were very easy to deal with.

This was the result. A heap of accumulated cores. Considering that the activation condition for the device Acel had mentioned was 50 cores, they only needed to accumulate 50 more for everyone to pass the entrance exam.

Not much left.

Ellen exhaled deeply and hung the axe on her shoulder. Elena, who had returned with cores, appeared in her eyes.

"Now it's 101!"

It really wasn't far off.

***

Injuries occurring in the academy entrance exam were always a thing. Although the form of the exam changed every year, there was always combat, so it was inevitable that there would be injuries, whether minor or severe.

Some criticize this exam structure as wrong.

In fact, it was true. What academy put participants in a death game from the entrance exam and only rescued them when they were on the verge of death?

Other academies, except Luminus Academy, conducted entrance exams solely with written tests and safe practical tests, regardless of whether it was a non-combat or combat department. Due to this difference, the safety issue of Luminus Academy's combat department entrance exam was raised every year.

But the headmistress never yielded to public opinion.

— The reason we're evaluated as the best among academies is because of that special entrance exam. It filters out the weak as the first screening. I don't want just any riffraff, but talents who can really make a difference in war.

The headmistress said this at the monthly Is the academy Alright Like This? meeting. Some agreed with her opinion and some were appalled, but in any case, her words were true. In fact, those who passed the entrance exam basically meant they could handle combat to some extent.

Moreover, most of those who participated in Luminus Academy's entrance exam were confident in their abilities. These people, who had been called geniuses at least once somewhere, quickly grasped the essence of the exam and strived to pass while minimizing injuries.

Thanks to this, although there were injuries, they didn't occur that much. At most about 10 people. If it went beyond that, it meant the exam difficulty was set abnormally. This was the stage where the supervisor had to take responsibility and normalize the exam difficulty.

And that stage was today.

"Fuck."

Ross, the chief supervisor of the exam, cursed as he looked inside the patient tent.

"Ugh..."

"Aaaagh! Lightning keeps sparking from my arm! Save me!"

"...That damn Grace. Who the hell is Acel? Why did she attack when I said I didn't know him!?"

"My leg, my leg..."

The inside of the tent was chaos. The few beds they had brought were long since full, and they were now in the situation of procuring additional ones from outside. This was just for those with severe injuries. If one counted the participants who gave up midway through the exam, close to dozens of people were gathered here.

It was a clear mistake in setting the exam difficulty. Ross came out of the tent, tearing at his hair.

"We're fucked."

Only curses kept coming out of his mouth.

In fact, he wasn't greatly at fault. Accidentally setting the cores for the golem generation device to slightly higher-level ones? No problem. At this level, they could deal with it flexibly by reducing the number of cores needed to pass.

Allowing looting among participants? This wasn't a problem either. Allowing looting in an exam where one searched for something was a tradition passed down through generations at the academy. Ross had just followed that.

Then, what was the real problem?

"...According to the on-site supervisor's report, currently Jin Zhao, Lady Hargelin, and Genesis' disciple have settled in the golem generation zone and are slaughtering golems."

Those bastards were the problem.

"Damn it all to hell."

The first mass casualty situation? It was when Acel caused lightning and gathered participants. Participants who gathered thinking there might be a special event prepared by the academy clashed with each other, resulting in a surge of injuries.

Next were the golems.

Golems become more violent as their numbers decrease, so it was natural that the danger of other individuals increased greatly as they had been slaughtering golems like that for days.

A mistake that could have been dealt with flexibly originally had risen to an unignorable level because of them. As a result, there was an overflow of injured people who were hurt by golems.

But yeah. He could understand up to this point. It was the supervisors' side that mistook the golem cores, and they hadn't explained that violence increases as numbers decrease.

"But damn it. Why is Lady Bydel going around saying, 'Acel, Acel' and hunting participants instead of catching golems like she's supposed to!?"

"E-even if you shout at me..."

"Ah, fuck!"

For Ross, who came from a mercenary background, cursing was like breathing. He had restrained himself while acting as an academy supervisor, but when a situation came where he had to take responsibility, his old habits naturally came out. He chewed his lips while pondering how to overcome the current situation.

That was when it happened. The door of the supervisors' outdoor conference room set up outside the forest suddenly opened. Ross was about to shout irritably at the intruder, but when he confirmed the intruder's identity, he broke out in a cold sweat.

"...Mr. Fernan."

Fernan Clark. A professor in the academy's combat department and famous even within the academy for his elegant swordsmanship. A monster who had participated in numerous wars and recently reached the level of Master.

He waved his hand towards Ross.

"Hello, Ross."

"...What brings you here…?" Ross asked. 

Fernan smiled slightly and took in the appearance of the flustered supervisors.

"Why else? I came to clean up. Wow, looking at the tents outside, it's quite a sight, isn't it? Even if it's the headmistress, with that many dropouts, she's bound to be furious, right? She might think the exam's chief supervisor has lost his mind and come running using magic herself."

"...I'm sorry. I will quickly resolve the situation."

"No, no. Don't do that. I'll handle it myself before the situation unnecessarily escalates. The headmistress gave me authority directly."

At those words, Ross' face crumpled.

"...I'm sorry for disappointing you."

"Huh? Oh, don't tell me you think you're fired? Don't worry. The higher-ups have judged that this incident is entirely due to the participants. Apparently, the level of some participants was too high or something. So it'll be over if we just deal with them somehow."

"...Are you going to kill them?"

"Are you crazy?"

Fernan glared at Ross seriously. Ross immediately lowered his eyes.

"I'm sorry. My thinking was short-sighted."

"Too short-sighted. What do you mean kill the participants? Do you want to see the academy disappear from the map? As if the headmistress would order me to do such a thing. Right?"

"...I'm sorry."

"Let's do better, Ross. Someone might think I'm some kind of pleasure killer."

Fernan patted Ross's back a couple of times and continued speaking, "I'll just test our pretty ones myself. I heard Grace Bydel is moving alone, and that Acel guy is moving with two others. I'll test Grace first, then go to the three of them."

"..."

"Oh, and the dropouts from the exam. They said to make a separate list and submit it. Later, they'll determine whether they pass through a practical test like other academies do. We need to avoid having too many dropouts."

"I understand. I'll follow your instructions."

"Good."

Fernan grinned and tapped the sword at his waist.

"Then I'm off. Let's see how skilled our potential disciples are, shall we?"

Saying this, Fernan left the conference room and spread his aura towards the forest. Soon after, Grace's presence was caught in his sensing.

His figure disappeared in an instant.