episode_0018

I opened my eyes with the excruciating pain that I had become accustomed to. Since that day, my morning mood has been the worst every day because of the curse that has been eating away at me. I no longer wake up screaming or anything, but it was really hard right after I was cursed.

Slowly getting out of bed and taking a shower in the bathroom, I come out to find breakfast and clothes for today set up. Of course, Yugram did it for me. Thanks to him, Yugram is always doing the heavy work of being my doctor, bodyguard, butler, teacher, and watchman. It’s hard to count how many roles each person plays, but the scary fact is that he doesn’t even get paid…!

I don’t like eating anything in the morning, but now that I’m getting used to the academy life, I force myself to eat something and leave the dorm for the entrance exam. People I meet along the way are whispering, but I don’t care and just walk confidently. The more I worry about this, the more it grows on me and the more I talk.

In the middle, I thought I saw the boy I had been using my magic power on, but he desperately pretended not to see me.

The classroom I first entered was very clean. To be honest, I had a prejudice that since it wasn’t a proper academy, there would be a lot of poor things here and there and they would embezzle some of the tuition and run it, but I think I should apologize for that.

And then the exam began. When I glanced at the students out of the corner of my eye, I saw some using quills, some using fountain pens like me, and some using magic like Yugram, who only had quills and no inkwell.

Students can’t say out loud that they are nobles or commoners, but they eventually figure it out to some extent. It’s easy to tell whether someone is a commoner or noble just by looking at their daily habits or clothing. There are countless ways to say it without directly mentioning it. And the easiest way is to just go outside the academy grounds.

Well, you could use this in reverse to pretend to be a commoner or a noble, and even if a commoner acts like they’re a noble and shows off, it’s only the fault of the person who was fooled and they can’t be directly held legally responsible, so isn’t it not that trustworthy?

Anyway, I felt that the test paper I received was of a fairly high quality, and as I looked through the questions from the front and back, I could see that the test here also started out easy and got harder as it went on. I don’t know if this was due to the influence of the previous life or if it’s just because people all think similarly.

In order to get the average score of 60 points that I was aiming for, I decided to skip over the most difficult problems or make mistakes and solved the problems that came before them one by one. Since these were things I had learned a long time ago, I felt a little vague, but it didn’t really matter if I made mistakes, so I just moved my pen wherever my heart took me.

The most difficult problems, as anyone can see, are either briefly challenged or written down as “I don’t know.”

There were surprisingly many subjects, so it took up a lot of time. Fortunately, the exams for the engineering department only had theory and no practical skills. However, the classes at this academy were the extreme of laissez-faire. To put it in extreme terms, I heard that if you just paid your tuition, you could graduate without taking a single class. But why did you have to take all the exams for every subject? It was completely incomprehensible. If that was the case, wouldn’t the kids who had been swinging swords their whole lives and were empty-headed almost inevitably be sent straight to the lower level classes?

After all the tests were over and I checked them in my head, I thought I would get an average score of 1 or 2 points below my target score of 60. Perfect.

That’s what I thought at the time.

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“1. Leah Baker

2. Agnes Berche..」

I heard that the class assignments would be announced along with the entrance exam results, so I went to check, and guess what, my name was at the top. To be exact, it was a pseudonym.

Unless you can say where you are from, there are cases where you can’t use your real last name, and since you can’t use a famous name, you often use an alias. Of course, I can’t use my full name, so I applied with a nickname, Leah, and gave her a random last name. But why am I number one?

I went closer and looked closely and my score was a little lower than I expected, about 59 points. But I was first. It was not much different from second place, but there was a big difference in scores from third place. I honestly don’t know if this exam was that hard or if only the kids who weren’t good at studying got in.

I looked at Yugram in confusion, but it seemed like Yugram didn’t have anything to say either. After all, Yugram didn’t tell me how many points I should get, and he didn’t give me any information that would help me make a decision.

If he had insisted on getting the information, he might have been able to do so. However, he didn’t ask Yugram because he didn’t think there was a reason to do so, and Yugram probably didn’t move for the same reason.

What happened happened, and shouldn’t we just enjoy the academy in the advanced class? In the case of the girl who was looking at the bulletin board next to me and biting her thumbnail while mumbling, it seems like she’s upset because her grades are pretty bad, so I think it’d be better to get out of here quickly before getting involved with these kinds of people.

“And the wizard who pinned a person to the ground in the square!”

“I’m not a wizard and I’m not stuck in the ground.”

On my way to the dormitory, some students who seemed to be the same freshman screamed at me, so I kindly answered them and passed by. Of course, the rumors are exaggerated, but I didn’t do anything that great or severe, but I gained a lot of weight. It was just a simple carry, so even if it was hard to move right away, I didn’t hit anything wrong and break anything, so I think I could move on my own after resting a little without anyone helping me.

“Okay, wait a minute!”

In addition, I heard a voice that I remembered. The fact that I remembered it meant that it was one of the few people I had met since coming to this academy, and among them, there were even fewer men. I stopped for a moment and looked back, afraid that the same thing would happen again if I ignored it, and there it was, the man I had thought of, the boy I had lifted my magic.

I immediately thought, “This is a commoner.” I didn’t look for that kind of information, but if you can judge this way just by looking at the information at a glance, then I guess most students have a pretty good idea of each other’s ranks. This is how problems can’t help but arise. Even ordinary nobles would look down on commoners, but in this place where only problem children are gathered…

Anyway, he was a pretty cute boy. Even though he was just another brown-haired boy on the street, I thought he was really cute, so I guess I have a promising future.

“I’m busy, so please keep it brief.”

“Hi, my name is Gilbert. May I ask your name?”

As he muttered, “It’s Leah,” the boy, Gilbert, looked at him with eyes of emotion. He must be exaggerating. Well, it might be natural since he’s young. Even though he’s the same age, he’s polite and polite, and it’s kind of cute to think of it that way.

“Excuse me, are you an apostle of God?”

Hmm, this was a bit unexpected.

Thanks to his firm poker face, he wouldn’t be able to see the pitiful expression on his face, but it was a rather absurd situation. What kind of train of thought would lead to suddenly asking someone he barely knew, even though they were just meeting for the first time, if he was an apostle of God?

Yes. It may be quite natural for boys and girls of this age to be disappointed in their ordinary lives and become fascinated by some kind of special setting or destiny, and to think of themselves as separate beings from others and become absorbed in it. I just wish they didn’t include me in that target.

“This may sound strange, but when I first saw you, you had a dazzling light that made me feel like I was looking at the sun, so I didn’t think it was a bad idea. And by any chance, which class were you assigned to? By the way, I’m in the intermediate class.”

“This is the advanced class. I hope we can end the conversation here. And I will also apologize for what happened last time, so please deal with the rumors properly and do not let them spread. That’s all for now.”

It’s good news that we’re half different. If even half of us were the same, and he kept pretending to know me and included me in his worldview, it would be really terrible. If he greeted me with something like, “May you have the beautiful blessings that God has given you today,” wouldn’t even this iron-clad poker face break?

After offering an empty apology and telling him to deal with the rumors that were spreading, he turned sharply and headed back to his dorm. The boy didn’t follow him. Thank goodness.