Ch.23Chapter 23. Announcement of the Inter-Grade Competition Events (3)

Cynthia was beginning to doubt what she had seen with her own eyes for the first time.

On the first day of school when there was friction between Ryu and Cain Hover, she clearly remembered Cain launching a flame bird at Ryu with the intention of killing someone, and Ryu somehow making that flame bird disappear.

The flame bird that Hover had launched that day showed absolutely no signs of being forcibly dispersed due to poor mana control, as Ryu had claimed.

‘Was it really Cain Hover who messed up his mana control…?’

“Ughhhh. How do you make this look so easy?”

“…I believe knights speak through their swords.”

“No, no! That’s not how you do it… I think there’s something wrong with this circuit design…!”

Cynthia was seriously wondering if she had misinterpreted what she saw that day as she watched Ryu struggling to keep up.

If Ryu was deliberately pretending to be unable to properly handle mana right now, she should play along.

After all, he’d been stuck at the same point for several days now.

“…At this point, I’m genuinely curious.”

“Hm?”

“How did you score over 300 points on the entrance exam…?”

“Hey, that’s different from this. I told you I’m a practical fighter.”

“No, no matter how you look at it, how can someone who can’t even perform basic magic like this make any sense?”

“…Nnngh.”

Cynthia let out a small sigh as she watched Ryu pout at her critical question, but then close his eyes again to try to concentrate.

The magic that Ryu was trying so hard to cast right now wasn’t anything special.

It was a protection spell that anyone who knew how to handle mana could easily perform with a little effort, even if they weren’t a mage.

It was a relatively simple spell that even Cynthia herself, who really lacked confidence in fields requiring calculations like magic or theory, could learn in just a few days.

Of course, it was simple compared to other magical formulas, but since “magic” itself was inherently difficult as a discipline, it certainly wasn’t easy—but still, she couldn’t believe he was struggling this much.

“Oh! Is it like this?”

“Y-yes, that’s right! But you need to extend the circuit downward and spread it out for much more stability…”

“Sigh.”

Once again, Ryu’s magic was only half-complete.

A faint protective barrier of mana had formed around his upper body above the waist, but below the waist, the barrier had started to form but then stopped.

‘So what he showed that day wasn’t magic? Or did I really see wrong…’

Cynthia briefly looked at Ryu, who was still struggling, and Emily, who was calmly explaining magic to him beside him, before giving up and sitting down in a corner of the training ground.

It had already been a week since the exact announcement about the inter-grade competition came out.

Thanks to the competition schedule being suddenly moved up, Cynthia and the rest of the first-year representatives were in the middle of a grueling daily schedule.

In the mornings, they attended lectures like other students, and in the afternoons, they gathered at the training ground with their homeroom teacher, Professor Amillion, for individual training disguised as lectures.

From the first day, Professor Amillion taught magic to everyone, saying they all needed to know basic magic, even though there were only two aspiring mages.

At first, Cynthia thought it was too tailored for mages, but the protection spell that the professor first taught was very useful even for her, who wasn’t a mage.

With the protection spell activated, she could ignore moderate impacts from outside and focus solely on drawing her bowstring.

“I think Ryu would be better suited as a knight than a mage.”

“Yeah. I completely agree.”

“And yet you’re trying to learn magic…”

Cynthia suddenly became curious as she listened to Elaine, who had naturally sat down next to her, apparently tired of watching Ryu like herself.

Why did Elaine think so highly of Ryu?

Come to think of it, it wasn’t like she could have directly seen how Ryu performed in the Golem Hit test, and there was no way a commoner like Ryu and a member of the Six Families like Sinclair would have had any connection before enrollment.

“By the way, Elaine.”

“Yes?”

“Why do you… how should I put it, believe in Ryu so much? You didn’t actually see him take the Golem Hit test either, right?”

Cynthia thought it was a rather late question to ask, but she was genuinely curious.

After spending a few days with Elaine, Cynthia naturally came to realize that Elaine trusted Ryu almost to an excessive degree.

She herself had at least directly seen Ryu use some kind of special technique when he had friction with Cain Hover, but Elaine wasn’t even there.

Yet Elaine didn’t doubt Ryu’s abilities at all.

“Oh, Ryu saved me once.”

“Huh? When?”

“It was on the day of the entrance exam. There were people who attacked me, but Ryu took action first and subdued them.”

“What? There were crazy people who attacked a Sinclair? I had no idea!”

“You probably wouldn’t. We took measures to prevent any information from leaking out.”

“But… who? Did you find out who did it?”

“No.”

Cynthia thought that although Elaine’s mouth was smiling as she said no, somehow her eyes looked sad.

Elaine, who had been wearing that sad smile, quickly changed her expression and continued.

“Anyway, I could tell just from the brief movement Ryu showed that day. That Ryu is several levels more skilled than I am.”

“I see…”

Cynthia just nodded along, not knowing how to respond to Elaine’s serious answer to what she had asked lightly.

It was a more serious story than she had expected.

‘Then I guess I didn’t see wrong…’

After hearing Elaine’s words, she started looking again at Ryu, who was struggling and rearranging his mana circuits in front of them.

Is that really an act?

**

“Haah, Addy.”

“Yes.”

“I guess I really don’t have talent for magic.”

“Why are you saying that now? I told you before. You have no aptitude for magic, Captain.”

“…Hey, watch how you talk.”

Addy gave a cold response to my complaint-filled grumbling.

Academy life was more intense and less enjoyable than I had expected.

I had entered the academy thinking of my previous college life, but suddenly they announced an inter-grade competition as a test of my skills, and daily one-on-one lessons with professors followed.

Completely opposite to the academy life I had expected, it felt like I had come to a military training center with nothing but classes, training, and more classes on repeat.

In the midst of all this, Professor Amillion handed out papers filled with formulas I could barely understand, saying she was teaching magic, and then told us to try casting spells.

I chose the “mage” class because I didn’t want to study that stuff.

“By the way, I told you not to stand out, but you’ve become quite famous.”

“Me? Ah, yeah, I guess so.”

“Seriously, you should have been more moderate.”

“…If you keep criticizing me too, I’ll get sad, you know? I already got pure criticism today.”

I couldn’t help but recall Emily’s words from earlier.

‘Wow, how can someone be this bad?’ Emily had muttered in amazement, with no other intention behind her words.

She was just purely surprised at my skill level.

“Anyway, since you’re here after a while, I’ll give you a brief report. First, 50 million gold. I received it. Hehe.”

“Ohhh!”

That was very welcome news.

It seems the hourglass that I obtained with Erika on a mission a while ago has finally been converted to 50 million gold.

Even Addy was smiling, clearly pleased.

“And Erika has returned too. She said she’s going to rest for a while since she completed a big job.”

“Right, that’s only natural.”

“And Jacqueline will be back soon too.”

“Oh? Really?”

“Yes. She didn’t give details, but she sent a message saying ‘This much training is enough’ and that she’ll be back soon…”

“Hmm. Well, assign her a suitable request when she gets back, okay?”

“Yes. Other than that… there doesn’t seem to be anything else.”

It seemed there was no other news except that Jacqueline was returning sooner than expected.

Jacqueline, the captain of the Black Shadow Corps’ 3rd Division, had left for the northern part of the continent with her subordinates, saying they would improve their skills.

I was planning to visit her during the academy’s field trip to the northern continent for monster subjugation, but she’s coming back sooner than expected.

“Looks like everything’s running smoothly even without me.”

“I’ve been telling you that for a long time. So please raise my salary. Do you know how much work I do?”

“…Addy, you seem particularly disgruntled today?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“You just received 50 million gold, and you’re being stingy.”

“Whaaat? Stingy?”

“Sigh. Never mind.”

Addy let out an exaggerated sigh and made a show of loudly organizing documents by tapping them on the desk.

Seeing her openly express dissatisfaction like this, she must have really been busy lately.

“Well… take some money if there’s any left.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah. Like a bonus, you know.”

“Hehe. Understood. Oh, and this.”

Addy, having achieved her goal, smiled even more deeply than before and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper from inside her clothes.

“What is it?”

“It’s a kind of gift for our hardworking captain. The inter-grade competition starts next week, right?”

“And?”

“You’ll see when you look at it. It’s quite confidential, so don’t leak it outside, okay?”

“If you’re going that far…”

“Well then, I’ll be going.”

I waved goodbye to Addy, who left my office with an unusually bright smile, and then unfolded the paper she had given me.

“Oh, this?”

I wonder where she got this from.