Chapter 38 - First Assignment (2)

Acel told the two that he was going to meet his group members and got up. Since the assignment would start in just two days, it seemed good to meet them today when there were no classes. The two seemed to have similar thoughts, as they dispersed to meet their own group members after sending Acel off.

The location is... roughly outside the academy building.

Acel looked around while moving according to the arrow drawn on the paper.

It seemed the explanation sessions for other departments had ended too, as students holding papers were actively roaming the academy grounds. Among them were some groups that had already gathered all their members and were discussing, and others who were openly disappointed upon seeing their group members.

"...Ah, fuck. Why are they all non-combat trash except for me? How am I supposed to solve requests with this?"

"W-well... we could at least gather herbs, right? I'm from the Alchemy Department, so I know herbs well..."

"Like that'll get us a high grade. Huh? We'll easily take first place for sure, fuck."

It was natural for complaints to arise since group members were randomly selected. But what could be done? To begin with, luck was also an important factor in group assignments. Even if I was good, there was nothing I could do if the whole team was subpar—an unfair system. That was why it was the assignment method professors like best.

Occasionally there were people who somehow manage to solve things alone even when all group members were useless, but such cases were extremely rare. Most of the time, people ended up sinking together due to teammates dragging them down.

I hope that's not me.

Acel thought and sighed deeply as he completely left the academy building.

As he came out to the street, the arrow started pointing to a certain cafe. He entered the cafe without hesitation. The door opened with a tinkling sound, and the employee making drinks spoke to him with a bright expression.

"Welcome! Are you here for the group assignment?" she spoke as if she already knew everything, and guided Acel, who nodded with a skeptical expression.

"Those gathered for the assignment are inside. You must order at least one drink when you sit down."

"Yes. Thank you."

"Enjoy your time!" the employee said with a bright expression and focused back on making drinks. 

Acel entered the noisy interior of the cafe and stepped into the space the employee had guided him to. Unlike the noisy outside, it was an extremely quiet space. The seats were divided like rooms so that conversations inside couldn't be heard from outside.

Was this the reason for choosing this place?

He had wondered why they gathered in such a place when there were other good locations. It seemed they had chosen a fairly good place in their own way.

Acel took out the paper and moved his steps briskly towards the room the arrow was pointing to. As he stood in front of the room, the arrow blinked at short intervals. It meant right in front. He put away the paper and knocked on the door.

There was no answer. Instead, someone flung the door open.

"Oh my, who is this?"

The first thing that caught his eye when the door opened was twitching golden fox ears. 

Acel unconsciously muttered while looking at the soft ears swaying back and forth, "A beastkin?"

"Hehe, what's with that reaction? Is this your first time seeing a beastkin?"

She was a girl with impressive golden fox ears and hair, a tail, and captivating eyes. She swished her large tail and smiled brightly.

"Are you from Group 2?"

Then she took out a paper indicating the leader of Group 2 from her chest. Acel also came to his senses and nodded while showing his paper.

"So you were the leader."

"As it happens, yes. But rather than talking here, come inside. Everyone except you is already gathered."

"Which department are you from?" Acel asked as he followed her into the room. 

The girl puffed her cheeks and answered.

"We do that during self-introductions, Mr. Magic Department Top Student. So just sit down for now."

She went behind Acel's back and pushed him towards an empty seat. Acel thought about activating his shield to block it, but he just let himself be pushed as she wanted. Perhaps due to the beastkin's unique strength, Acel's body moved smoothly as she desired.

"Sit down."

She pulled out a soft chair and gently seated Acel on it. Acel sat down with a calm expression and met the gazes of two people staring at him with dumbfounded expressions.

One was a mage, and one was a spearman. Acel stared directly into the mage's eyes and opened his mouth.

"You're a spirit mage."

"...!"

"There's mana unique to spirits mixed in your magical power. Judging by the energy... earth-based? The mage himself can't use magic other than spirit formulas, but his bond with spirits seems good, so it shouldn't be a big problem."

"...Can you tell such things because you're the top student in the Magic Department?"

"It's just a trivial skill."

The spirit mage smiled bitterly at Acel's answer. He summoned the spirit he had contracted with and carefully placed it on top of his head.

A low-level spirit made of earth. A lizard-shaped spirit with consciousness but not overgrown settled on his head, flicking its tongue.

"Warren Brundel. As you said, I'm a mage who learned spirit formulas. It's an honor to meet Genesis' disciple."

"You're praising me too much."

Acel chuckled as he answered. 

Warren continued with a serious expression, "I saw you using magic during the entrance exam. The sight of you driving high-level magic against Lord Fernan is still vivid in my eyes. You're probably similar in age to me, but I feel respect for you having already reached that level."

"Hey hey, is this guy really that good?"

The spearman who had been silent until now cut into Warren's words. Warren frowned and growled softly.

"I'm talking, aren't I? Don't interrupt."

"Ha, your attitude is so different. Is this a mage cartel? If you act like this, I can't cooperate either."

"Both of you, stop it."

The fox-eared girl sighed deeply and said to the two who had started glaring at each other. She smiled awkwardly and looked at Acel.

"I'm sorry. They say these two had a clash during the entrance exam. It seems that resentment still remains."

"Clash? That wasn't a clash, it was one-sided plunder. This bastard took advantage of our group being exhausted and ran away with our backpack containing cores!"

"Is it a problem to plunder in an exam where plundering is allowed? You're just squawking unnecessarily. Are all mages so resentful? Or is it just you?"

"You son of a bitch!" Warren shouted as he jumped up from his seat. 

The spirit sitting on his head resonated with Warren's emotions and glared. The spearman smiled as he faced that sticky magical power head-on.

The conversation after that continued with content blaming each other. The girl kept trying to stop them, but the argument showed no signs of ending.

It seemed like they would just keep fighting all day if left alone. Acel sighed deeply and leaned back against the backrest.

He quite liked watching fights themselves. However, that should be in the form of duels where they competed in skill. Such verbal fights where they simply blamed each other only made viewers feel unpleasant.

It was the same now.

He was staying quiet thinking they'd stop after a while, but as time passed, they acted like they were about to charge at each other. The girl tried to mediate but they didn't listen at all.

This group assignment is ruined.

Acel thought inwardly and sighed deeply. He had hoped it wouldn't be like this, but to think such a mess would happen from the first group assignment. He openly showed his displeasure and drew magical power into the air.

The formless magical power split into two branches. Acel swung the magical power simultaneously and made them collide.

Boom!!

A huge roar filled the inside of the room. Warren and the spearman who had been noisily arguing suddenly stopped talking, and the girl looked at Acel while covering her ears with her hands. 

Acel met the gazes of the three and muttered lowly, "As far as I know, self-introductions aren't over yet."

"..."

"I'd like to know the names, specialties, and departments of the spearman and leader. It'll be easier to choose which request to take that way."

His tone and actions were as if he himself were the leader. But no one could argue against this.

Warren and the spearman were intimidated by the overwhelming pressure felt from Acel's magical power, and the girl's eyes sparkled as if she had found a treasure.

She opened her mouth with her black eyes fully open, "I'm Saya from the Magic Engineering Department. I run a small merchant guild and can use a bit of sorcery."

"Sorcery?"

"Yes. I specialize in disruption like hypnosis or illusions. Although I'm in a non-combat department, I'm not completely incapable of fighting."

It was welcome news. Acel didn't know much about sorcery, but judging by how she spoke about it herself, it seemed she had her own methods. This way, it didn't seem like there would be much problem even if they took on high-difficulty requests.

Acel thought this and turned his head towards the spearman. He met Acel's gaze and glared, but soon lost in terms of pressure.

"...Quill. I use spears and I'm a former mercenary. I can definitely handle the vanguard."

"Good."

Acel nodded and leaned his upper body slightly forward.

"I'm Acel. I'm a mage and mainly use lightning formulas and fire formulas. I can handle other types of magic to some extent too."

"...You mean you're a multi-attribute holder?"

"That's right."

"That's crazy. It's my first time seeing one in person," Warren muttered and stared intently at Acel. 

Acel lightly received his gaze and looked at Saya as he spoke.

"This should be enough, right?"

Saya didn't ask "What?" There were things one could know without needing to hear them.

Clearly, he had organized the situation in place of herself, the leader, so from now on she should lead the situation.

It was what she wanted. Saya smiled brightly and expressed her gratitude to him.

She took in each of her group members with her eyes and opened her mouth.

"First, our goal is to create a magic tool, since I'm the only non-combat department student and I'm from Magic Engineering. Because of this, we can't take easy requests like herb gathering."

"Doesn't that not matter? With this composition, most requests should be..."

"Yes. Fortunately, our group members' combat power is quite substantial, so we can easily handle requests like monster subjugation. This means it won't be very difficult to obtain materials for making magic tools," Saya said while taking out a magic engineering blueprint from her backpack placed on the floor and putting it on the table.

"So, I plan to make a machine that requires many materials but has definite performance in return. It's called a 'Blood Copier'. It's a magic engineering machine that can copy and transfuse the blood of a target regardless of whose blood is put in. Since it's often used on battlefields, the blueprint is already widely distributed. I have experience making it too."

"What materials are needed?"

"We can just buy metals with money from solving requests, and we just need to figure out how to get the important materials—self-regenerating factor and refined doppelganger blood."

As soon as Saya finished speaking, she turned her backpack upside down onto the table. Request forms instantly rolled out onto the table, and she quickly sorted out only the necessary ones and neatly arranged them.

"Self-regenerating factor costs 40 gold coins based on market price. Doppelganger blood is 10 gold coins. If we're talking about refined blood, it's 20 gold coins."

"That's fucking expensive," Quill grumbled. 

Acel agreed with his words.

He had never hunted monsters before. As a result, he didn't know anything about the prices of byproducts from monster hunting. From his perspective, the prices of materials Saya mentioned were beyond imagination.

Requests that flowed into the academy were much less dangerous than those taken by mercenaries or hunters. This was because only requests that weren't so dangerous were brought in for students' safety.

But because of this, the amount of compensation received for solving requests wasn't that much either. To buy those things with that small amount of compensation, they would have to solve dozens of requests.

"We absolutely can't do it in 2 weeks," Warren said. 

He looked at Saya and continued speaking, "A total of 60 gold coins. Unless we can use our own money, there's not enough time to purchase with just the compensation received from solving requests. It's impossible."

"That would be true if we were trying to gather gold coins."

Saya answered with a bright smile, "That's why I was thinking we should go doppelganger hunting."

She smoothly pulled out a small piece of paper hidden among the request forms.

A shabbier paper than the other request forms. It wasn't dirty from handling. It was made with low-quality paper from the start. Acel narrowed his eyes and read the contents of the request.

[Recently, more and more residents are reporting seeing recently deceased villagers moving around exactly as they were when alive. According to testimonies of those who have conversed with them, they were unable to communicate properly and often exhibited strange behaviors like repeating the same words or suddenly screaming and running away.]

[And those who had conversations with them started suffering from high fevers a week later. Eventually, people even started dying. My wife died like that too. Now my son has also caught the fever.]

[Please. Please solve the abnormal phenomenon in our village. As compensation, we will give 5 gold coins and a dagger that has been passed down in our village for generations. Please, please help us.]

"The compensation is small," Quill said as soon as he finished reading the request.

"What can we do with 5 gold coins? We can't even buy doppelganger blood."

"Of course. But we plan to focus on hunting doppelgangers rather than the compensation."

"...Doppelganger hunting?"

"Yes. The contents of the request, it's clearly the work of doppelgangers. Dead people returning in their previous form, falling ill and dying after encountering them, deteriorated thinking ability making proper conversation and communication impossible. These are all characteristics of doppelgangers."

Saya smiled seductively and waved the request form.

"We'll buy metals with the request compensation, and directly hunt and extract doppelganger blood. While we're at it, if we extract a large amount and sell it, we should be able to buy self-regenerating substances too. Since I can refine blood, if we take some time to refine and sell it, we might be able to earn even more."

"...You came up with this plan right after confirming your group members today?" Warren muttered in a skeptical voice. 

Saya chuckled and nodded.

"Instant judgment and improvisation are essential virtues for a merchant. So, does anyone have any other plans?"

There was no answer. Saya put the request form back into her backpack with a smiling face.

"Then let's plan to depart in two days. The sooner the better. And Acel?"

"...?"

"Let's go shopping together tomorrow for items needed for the request. Since we're going monster hunting, I think it's most important to hear a mage's opinion. You can come with me, right?"

Acel thought for a moment, then nodded. There was no reason to refuse.

"Alright."

"Great. When do your classes end tomorrow?"

"3 PM. You?"

"Mine end at 2 PM. I'll go first and wait for you. Is that okay?"

"Don't wait too long."

"Okay~" Saya answered, stretching out the end of her words.

The corners of her eyes curved into crescents.