Child Vs. Adult (1)

Examination day.

“Good morning!”

The moment Leonard flung the lecture-hall door open and strode in, the students rained glares and snapping voices down on him all at once.

“Shut it, Felix!”

“Read the room!”

Then they left him standing there, flustered and at a loss, and went right back to staring into thin air and muttering to themselves.

“I pray, I pray…”

“Please, just don’t let me botch the first exam.”

Only then did Leonard realize the mood in the room was anything but normal. He slipped quietly into his seat, reading the faces around him as he went.

This was the first examination of their lives, and the thought had strung the students so tight that strange symptoms were breaking out all over the room. Some complained of stomachaches, and a few had fainted dead away.

“Hmm. Another one’s passed out over here.”

Professor Louis, who’d come in to supervise, gave his staff one light sweep, and the students slumped across their desks came to one after another.

“Anyone carrying a charm, or who’s drunk a potion, will be found out later. Every one of you. Come forward and turn yourselves in now.”

The threat frightened a few students into confessing. What they handed in were rabbit’s-foot charms of entirely unproven effect and intelligence-boosting potions made of who knew what.

The invigilator shoved the confiscated goods off into a corner, then dosed the whole room with a stabilizing potion.

— Tap!

His staff rapped the floor, and the stack of papers on the lectern rose into the air and flew out to the students, one sheet each.

“I expect you to sit this examination diligently and honestly. Now… begin.”

— Scritch-scratch-scratch!

Once the exam actually began, the students wrote at a terrifying pace, as if none of that had ever happened. Everything they’d learned and every bit of effort they’d piled up was far too precious to throw away over a case of nerves.

“Hm.”

Professor Louis, meanwhile, was watching Leonard with eyes full of anticipation. Everyone had their eye on the boy as this term’s most promising prospect, and the professor was curious to see just how he’d answer.

Reality, however, was running in exactly the opposite direction.

“Uhh~.”

Somewhere along the way, as Leonard read the questions, his eyes had lost their focus and gone hazy.

…I’m screwed.

Maybe he’d trusted himself a little more than he should have. He’d picked up the paper with total confidence, yet it was packed with questions he couldn’t readily answer.

Lennox’s Theorem? That gets completely refuted later on and disappears. So I’m supposed to dress a wrong answer up as the right one?

Should he keep his conscience as a mage who sought the truth, or follow his instincts as a student who lived and died by his marks? Caught in the contradiction, Leonard tore at his hair.

Fine. Say he let question one go for now. What about question two?

Kurkuskuma’s theory of mana conversion… I learned it from the revised edition. How am I supposed to know what it said before the revision?

No. He could perfectly well have known.

…If he’d actually studied, instead of letting his mind wander while he read the book.

With no other choice, Leonard skipped question two as well and moved on to three. There, at last, was one he more or less knew, so he scribbled down an answer and went on to question four.

After that, though, the same thing happened again and again, and by the time he came to his senses, about a third of the paper was still blank.

Wow. No, seriously, wow…

To think he couldn’t write a single answer properly, and for a reason as absurd as this. Leonard felt like pounding his own chest in frustration. Look, he could do the practical just fine. The practical.

But there was nobody in this room who’d hear his protest out and be satisfied by it, and so the time kept ticking away…

“Right, the examination is over!”

Professor Louis’s voice rang out loudly.

A few students who hadn’t finished groaned in regret, but Professor Louis gathered in every last paper with magic, without mercy.

“Ah, I think I got question sixteen wrong.”

“What’d you put for number five?”

Whatever the results turned out to be, there was no use arguing now that it was over. The students left the lecture hall comparing answers, and Leonard trailed listlessly after them.

…I want to die.

“Shall I guess? Looks like the exam didn’t go as well as you hoped.”

“Not another word, please.”

Lunchtime.

When Johan tossed that remark out sideways, Leonard chewed and swallowed the lump of bread that had come with lunch as though he meant to grind it down and drink it.

“I had you figured the moment you sat clutching that history book for over three hours.”

“…”

Johan kept jabbing at the sore spot, and on that score Leonard truly had nothing to say. Johan seemed quite satisfied to have shut him up, and he snickered under his breath.

“Let’s see. The written papers all wrap up before lunch, so this afternoon’s the practical?”

“…I can’t wait.”

Leonard growled it through gritted teeth, and Johan only nodded without a word.

Anyone could slip up on a written paper, but there was no doubt at all about Leonard’s skill with magic. Surely nobody in his own year, or even among the upper years, could match him.

“Still, it’s strange. How is it that not one single person really knows what you can do?”

Johan asked.

“Because I’ve never had an official chance to show my magic in front of anyone. We’re first-years, after all. At this stage it’s mostly written work, not practicals.”

Honestly, if he wanted to plant a friendly image in the other students’ minds, looking a little dim like this might even be better.

“Who’s the invigilator?”

“Professor Louis Huber.”

“Good for you. You’re exactly his kind of student.”

Professor Louis taught combat magic studies. One look, firsthand, at the magic Leonard used and the way he fought, and the professor would probably go wild.

“That’s about where I stand. What about you, Sunbae?”

“Much the same as you. I’ve done nothing worth mentioning on the written side, so the results won’t be much, but the practical’s passable.”

Leonard’s prescription had worked faster than expected. Using magic tired Johan less than before, and he could keep a clear head for a good deal longer.

“These days all I can do is laugh. To think it was a disease that could be cured this easily.”

“It’s not that easy, Sunbae. I made the medicine you’re taking myself, tailored to your symptoms. If you’d only circulated your mana, you wouldn’t have improved at all.”

Leonard said it flatly.

“Lunch is almost over anyway. I’ll get going.”

“Sure.”

He parted ways with Johan, left the dining hall, and headed straight for the practical examination room.

It was the widest, largest lecture hall in Kestral Academy, and in front of its entrance the students stood lined up along the corridor, their faces set rigid.

The examinations hadn’t been as hard as expected. There’s only so much anyone can expect from a first-year, so every written subject was graded against a fixed standard.

The problem was the practical that came next.

Botching the written papers was one thing, but nothing is as shameful as a mage who can’t properly cast even a single spell. On top of that, the invigilator for this practical was Professor Louis of combat magic studies. Anyone who did it half-heartedly was guaranteed a dressing-down.

— Creak.

Before long the examination room door opened, and Louis peeked out from inside, looked the students over and spoke.

“Come in one at a time as your names are called. Grover Riggs.”

The examination was strictly closed and run one-on-one, so by the time Leonard’s name was called it was already well past three in the afternoon.

“Leonard Felix.”

“Finally! I thought I was going to die of boredom.”

Leonard, left alone to the last and pacing the corridor, brightened up and went into the examination room. Scorch marks scarred the ceiling, the floor and the inner walls here and there.

“Today’s first-year practical is a combat magic test. Break through the magic barrier I’ve made within the time limit and smash the target behind it, and you pass.”

It was just the sort of task you’d expect from the professor in charge of combat magic, and fortunately it didn’t look all that difficult. Leonard nodded, perfectly at ease, and Professor Louis went on.

“…is what I’d planned to say, but with you, there’s no need for a handicap like that.”

“Sorry?”

The staff slipped free of Professor Louis’s hand and rose into the air like a creature with a will of its own.

“Er, Professor?”

“I’ve been curious anyway. Just how much can the youngest third-Circle mage on record really do?”

There might have been a gag order, but word that Leonard Felix stood at the third Circle had spread quietly through the nobility. And as examination day drew near, a request had come to Louis.

Verify what Leonard Felix can do.

Louis had no appetite for it, but flatly refusing wasn’t an option either. That was how powerless the standing of “a professor at Kestral Academy” really was.

And as it happens, I was curious myself.

He sank into a slightly lower stance and widened his footing, ready to answer anything at once. A professor had gone into full combat readiness against one mere student.

“Ah…”

Professor Louis’s mood aside, Leonard’s face was souring. He’d meant to grab his marks quickly and go back for some rest, and now the other side had caught fire with fighting spirit for no reason, which made the whole thing that much more of a nuisance.

What kind of day was this? Written or practical, not one thing was going the way it should.

“Professor, there’s one thing I’d like to ask… Why should I go along with this at all?”

Sitting the exam under different conditions from everyone else, with nothing to gain, made no sense. It was simply unfair. In answer to Leonard’s question, Louis said,

“Hm… Then how about this. Whatever the result, you pass, unconditionally. And if you meet my standard, I’ll add extra marks on top.”

“All right.”

Leonard nodded. At the very least, it took that much to put him in the mood.

“One thing, though. Don’t even think about going at it half-heartedly.”

“As if I would.”

Leonard shook his head at the professor’s warning. Professor Louis already knew all about him, so there was no reason to bother hiding his ability.

Besides, however outstanding his technique, Leonard stood at the third Circle and his opponent at the fourth at the very least. With a gap like that, even everything he had might not be enough.

“Start whenever you like. Come at me.”

No more words were needed.

The instant Professor Louis gave him the first strike, Leonard charged without preamble. With body-hardening magic behind it, he moved like a cannonball in flight. He drew his palm back, the way he had with Johan, and struck Professor Louis’s magic barrier with all his strength.

— KA-BOOOM!

Leonard’s arcane magic, Guts Shake, detonated. An explosive roar burst out, and a great shock drove into Professor Louis’s body. The surprise attack was nothing he’d foreseen, and the air was knocked out of him.

“Gurk!”

He gave ground two or three steps, but he didn’t black out, and his wits stayed intact. Leonard didn’t stop there, though. He went straight into his next attack.

— THWACK!

In that instant, Professor Louis’s shoulder rammed into Leonard’s body. Leonard had expected the professor to fall back, but Louis had stepped in instead and cut his motion off.

“Mm?!”

Professor Louis seized that split-second opening and loosed a Fireball at point-blank range. A small explosion went off, and Leonard was sent flying far across the hall, trailing black smoke.

“Cough… Short, but that was one fierce blow.”

Professor Louis muttered it, sounding intrigued. Leonard rubbed the stomach that had taken the spell head-on and clicked his tongue quietly. If he’d raised his barrier even a moment later, he’d have been badly burned all over.

This is going to be trickier than I thought.

Leonard’s techniques were killing techniques, made for one purpose, to kill the enemy. Killing would have been far easier, but as long as this was an exam, he had to subdue his opponent instead.

“My turn, is it?”

At Professor Louis’s words, Leonard broke into a cold sweat.