Chapter 53

The day of the preliminaries dawned, and the sky was perfectly clear.

Though even if it had rained, my father probably would have made it stop.

“Haha, the weather is so nice, I feel like forfeiting.”

Looking at the clear sky, I grabbed my Academy cloak.

The cloak provided by the Academy is classified as a uniform, but hardly anyone wears it on a daily basis.

The reason being that it is an important supplied item, and losing it would result in disciplinary action.

I, too, had never taken it out except for that one time I went to the dungeon.

However, it is mandatory to wear it during the Flowering Festival. Even with Professor Artemia around, it’s best to avoid injury.

In any case, I don’t have swordsmanship lectures, and the Flowering Festival scores and midterm exam scores are separate.

Since I want to hide the ‘I Am the Writer’ skill as much as possible, I’ll have to fight using only the magic I’ve learned, and since I’ll have to surrender the moment someone gets close, it’ll be difficult to get very far.

My father might be disappointed, but he wouldn’t want me to get hurt either.

Then I should probably aim to be eliminated in the preliminaries and hold back—

+++

<Sudden Quest>

The Flowering Festival is an important event at the Academy.

Good results will greatly influence future evaluations.

Receive a medal at the Flowering Festival.

-Reward: Special Title, EXP 5000

-Failure Penalty: Debuff, Vulnerable to Status Ailments (8,760 hours)

+++

What kind of crazy game is this!

A medal? A meeedaaal??

I stared blankly at the system window in front of me.

The text didn’t change, and just like that, I was—

royally X-ed.

* * *

A Flowering Festival medal.

It was a symbol of honor awarded only to the top three students with the highest combined scores, even though the Flowering Festival was basically a competition between grades.

For reference, in the game, it was a symbol of a pushover, only given if you placed in the top 3 at the annually held Flowering Festival event.

Here stands a pushover user who has a whopping 4 Flowering Festival medals, which are so hard to get that a typical Lapidemy gamer would struggle to get even one, with only 30 released in 10 years.

“A special title, huh.”

In-game, it was just a symbol of a pushover that didn’t affect performance in any way.

The stats that came with the special title were very, very concerning. In fact, besides that…

“Vulnerable to status ailments is going too far!”

The only comfort was that it wasn’t a permanent debuff like when I faced Iris, but 8,760 hours was basically telling me to get screwed for a whole year.

Which means I have to get an overwhelming score among the first-years.

“Are you kidding me?!”

How the hell am I, the weakest of the weak, supposed to get a medal that even Lucian barely got in 3rd place!

This is too much, it’s just too much. It’s too much, sir. Three strikes, you’re out.

“Hoo!”

It’s a medal that a first-year has rarely received in the 1,000-year history of Lapis Academy.

As it’s that difficult of a quest, the experience points are substantial, and the special title is also attractive.

Compared to that, the demerits of failure are simply terrible.

So what can I do? I have to win somehow.

“I didn’t intend to stand out.”

The fortunate thing was that I had a feeling that if I used my knowledge of the game and the system, it would just be ridiculously difficult, not impossible.

* * *

“Are all these the monsters used in the main competition?”

A rookie mercenary exclaimed in admiration after checking the various types of monsters trapped in iron cages.

“Yeah, don’t get too close.”

“And the students are the ones who catch these things?”

At the rookie’s question, another mercenary who had contracted with the Academy several times burst into hearty laughter.

“Do you think they only catch one? The top student of the third year could probably catch this much alone and still have room to spare!”

“He’s probably younger than me, that’s amazing.”

“It’s not Lapis Academy for nothing. What was it? They say the Descendant of the Hero who pulled out the Holy Sword also enrolled this time!”

Even if one was not a citizen of the Empire, the legend of the hero who saved the world with the Holy Sword bestowed by god, punished heretics, and was the first to wear the emperor’s crown on his head, was enough to make one’s heart pound.

Not only that, but his death, which prophesied the next hero, was also romantic.

And the Academy that the successor hero prophesied by the first hero attends!

There was romance in Lapis Academy.

“If I were a little younger, I would have taken the entrance exam!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You’d be rejected at the document screening stage!”

Even if one couldn’t attend the Academy, being able to work on a commission from the Academy was a good thing in its own right.

The pay was good, and it served as proof of the mercenary group’s credibility.

The Red Feather Mercenary Corps, who were lucky enough to receive a commission from the Academy, put more effort into this first commission than ever before.

“That’s harsh! I was pretty well-known in my village, you know!”

Unless one was a noble, one needed a talent that surpassed skill to enter the Academy.

Lapis Academy was a place where talents from all over the continent gathered.

Just being able to enter the Academy like this by joining a mercenary group was a great joy for the rookie.

“Are we sturdy over there?”

“Yes! No problem─”

The words “no problem” were never finished.

The mercenary, wondering about the sudden silence, headed to where the rookie was.

“Why did you stop talking in the middle of─”

However, it was the mercenary who also stopped talking.

Something bright red was splattered on the floor.

The mercenary who had slumped to the ground looked up with trembling eyes.

At the thing that should have been bound inside the iron cage, drooling saliva mixed with blood.

“Ah, ah─”

The words couldn’t be formed properly.

Soon, silence fell.

The ripples of the anomaly came a little suddenly, but quietly and slowly.

* * *

Most of the students attending Lapis Academy learned how to handle mana and magic, but what they focused on for fighting was bound to be different.

There were cases like magic swordsmen who used both sword and magic as their main, but since there were also cases where trying to grasp both resulted in losing both, most students usually chose one.

The Academy divided the two types of students and held the preliminaries.

And─

“You’re both on the sword side, right?”

“I suppose so.”

Zephyros and Lucian were wearing necklaces engraved with a sword, while Theo was wearing a necklace engraved with a contrasting magic wand.

I already knew this, but I was worried there might be a variable, so I’m glad.

“I thought Zephyros would be on the magic side.”

“The power of wind isn’t recognized as magic.”

The power of wind uses mana, but it’s far from the form of ordinary magic.

“There’s no need to kill my strengths. I’m a little worried about overlapping with Lucian, though.”

“Friends and rivals, something like that~ Don’t get hurt, you two!”

“You seem to be in a pretty good mood for someone saying that?”

At Zephyros’s question, Theo clamped his mouth shut.

From the moment the goal of getting a medal was set, the fewer strong rivals, the better.

In that sense, Zephyros and Lucian being on the sword side was something Theo should welcome.

“It must be your imagination~”

He’s smiling way too brightly. It can’t be his imagination.

Zephyros sighed and squeezed Theo’s shoulder.

“At least tell me what you’re up to.”

“What do you mean, up to? The things you say.”

“Before you get hurt so badly you can’t even go out.”

Zephyros’s hand on Theo’s shoulder began to tighten.

“Hey, mister. Isn’t this a threat?”

“Then what would be a threat if this isn’t?”

“I, I! Never raised you to be such a piece of trash!”

How on earth did you become such a bad kid?

Sob, sob, Theo shed pathetic fake tears.

Zephyros, on the other hand, was practically cursing him with his eyes, telling him not to pull any stupid stunts.

Becoming friends with Zephyros is a good thing, though. Theo, who had let out a slight smile, stated his goal.

“My goal is to get a medal.”

“A medal? Is it the Flowering Festival medal I know?”

“Yeah, the one they only give to the top three.”

“The one that less than 10 first-years have ever received?”

“Yeah, that one!”

At Theo’s shout, Zephyros frowned.

That medal isn’t given to the first-place student in a grade, but only to the top three with the highest scores. The higher the grade, the more advantageous, and the lower, the more disadvantageous.

But for some reason, he had a feeling that now that he had set it as his goal, he would somehow grit his teeth and achieve it.

“Should I help you?”

Lucian asked Theo.

“No, there’s no need for that.”

From Theo’s perspective, not overlapping with the protagonist was the greatest help.

Well, in the end, to get the medal, it’s advantageous to be first in the entire first year, so they’ll have to fight in the finals.

“Just don’t go easy on me and let me win in the end.”

“There’s no guarantee I’ll even make it to the finals of the Flowering Festival.”

No, that’s not it. You got first place in the first year and also got 3rd place, even if it was by a hair.

Theo looked at Lucian with a cold, dead stare.

“Even passing the preliminaries will probably be quite an ordeal, won’t it?”

“Because there are a lot of people aiming for it?”

“I suppose so.”

“Isn’t combat forbidden in the Magic Division?”

It’s only the Knight Division that allows students to fight each other. Even in the Knight Division, it’s not one against many, only one-on-one is allowed.

There were always loopholes, and the Academy turned a blind eye to such loopholes.

“You naive sweet potato.”

Theo looked at Lucian with pity.

That’s why the original Lucian also had a hard time during the Flowering Festival.

“Lucian, you should probably stick with Zephyros.”

“Isn’t the Flowering Festival an individual competition?”

This time, even Zephyros started to look at Lucian with pity.

The rules are like that. The problem is that there are loopholes, and if you’re smart enough to enter the Academy through an exam, you can use those loopholes.

“It’s not like there’s a rule that you have to fight just because you run into each other.”

“Ah.”

“So, as long as you don’t cooperate with each other, it’s fine. You can stick together.”

“I see.”

“For example, if you finish a battle with student A, and student B immediately comes up and challenges you to a fight?”

“I’d have to fight, right?”

Right, that’s the problem.

“If students B, C, D, and E keep coming at you endlessly like that, no matter how big the skill gap is, as long as you’re human, you’re bound to get tired.”

“What kind of advantage do you get from that?”

He really is too naive.

Or is he not naive, but too upright?

Either way, he was a perfect target to get screwed over if someone approached him with ill intentions.

It’s not a big concern since he has comrades to fill in those shortcomings, though.

“Cian, there are more people in the world than you think who don’t care about their own scores.”

For example, people who entered the Academy but are just fine as long as they graduate.

Or people who have already been bought by a certain faction, like Alex who picked a fight with Theo before.

And even people who approach with pure malice just to interfere because they don’t like the other person.

If it were one or two such people, it wouldn’t matter, but when it becomes ten or twenty, it becomes a meaningless war of attrition.

“Anyway, it’d be good for you two to stick together.”

Theo looked at Lucian and Zephyros.

“A big accident is scheduled to happen in the first preliminary round of the first-year Knight Division.”

Theo’s golden eyes glinted sharply.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep