Darkness.
The training grounds were submerged in the darkness of midnight.
The full moon had passed, and the new moon was drawing near.
But that wasn’t the only reason this place felt dark. No, he wasn’t even sure. It was simply how the professor felt.
It didn’t seem like the natural darkness of night.
Under normal circumstances, his eyes, honed as a knight’s, would have been more than capable of gathering what little light there was. The nearby magic lamps had been turned off, but those still lit farther away were emitting enough light. The same was true of the massive clock hanging above the Knight Department’s main building.
The faint glow seeping through the clock’s face was clearly illuminating the training grounds.
And yet.
“Damn it.”
It felt as though the very concept of darkness had been laid over this space.
A clinging darkness that gnawed at the mind like a nightmare. An oppressive blackness that left one unsure of what to do.
That sensation had been lingering for some time now.
Like a cemetery at night. A waning moon. Sinking shadows……
“Is it because of that scrap of paper?!”
The paper stuck to the opponent’s face.
There had been no incantation, no gesture to activate a spell. And yet, strangely enough, the magic circle covering the man’s face was emitting an unsettling magical presence on its own.
“It’s necessary.”
The man spoke in a gloomy tone. The professor quietly swallowed his saliva.
“On the surface, he’s just a frail-looking young man. I can’t sense anything.”
And yet, something was off. The professor’s mana core had awakened before he even realized it.
His instincts were sounding a fierce alarm, screaming that the opponent was dangerous.
It was the same sensation he’d felt when facing monsters on the northern front, like standing before something inhuman.
“Especially that right hand…… I don’t know what it is, but that thing is dangerous.”
The professor raised his sword.
“Then, as a professor, I will eliminate you.”
“Eliminate me? Over nothing more than adding a single record?”
“If it is committed in this sacred place of education and evaluation, then it is already a grave crime!”
The second realm a swordsman can reach.
Beyond mana merely taking on color, swordsmanship that assumes form itself is unleashed.
The form the professor possessed was “Blizzard”.
Bathed in coldly surging blue light, the man with his face concealed let a smile show.
“Must be from the north.”
“Be prepared to lose an arm!”
In the same instant, the distance between them vanished. He seized the timing, half-concealing his breath.
It was a technique the professor had carved into his own body while fighting monsters that treated combat as instinct.
A high-speed slashing advance. One that, to anyone experiencing it for the first time, would leave them unable to react before losing their limbs.
“Got you—!”
The moment he swung his sword in certainty—
Between the trajectory of the blade and the man’s shoulder, a strange piece of metal slipped into place.
Clang!
It was blocked. By the iron armor wrapped around the opponent’s right arm.
“What—?!”
The timing had been one that no human reflexes could possibly stop.
Moreover, the professor’s strike had clearly taken form as sword aura. There was no way it should have been so easily deflected.
And yet, it was.
“…He saw it and blocked it. Those aren’t human reflexes.”
The professor realized it within a single exchange.
After all, no matter how far a swordsman pushed their training, there was a hard limit to how much reflexes could be honed.
Surpassing the physical human limit of 0.1 seconds was normally impossible.
That was why the standard response was to predict the strike. By reading muscle movement, eye position, and posture.
But what the man before him had just done was not prediction.
Even after having his rhythm stolen and being struck head-on, he had still reacted.
That clearly exceeded human limits.
“…I can’t win by trading blows.”
A judgment as swift as instinct. After a brief feint, the professor retreated.
If he couldn’t win in close exchanges, the idea was to open some distance and fight with long-range techniques.
But perhaps that judgment itself was a mistake.
Beyond the paper covering his face, the faintly visible curve of the man’s mouth formed an unmistakable grin.
With a crackling spark, he raised his left hand and murmured softly.
“Object manipulation. Thorn Hail. Extreme rotation.”
“…M-Magic?!”
What formed there was a long, spike-like projectile spinning violently.
As the professor hurriedly tried to close the distance again, the man continued chanting without pause.
“Enhanced manipulation. Hyper Shot.”
The next instant—
Screeeeeech──!!!!
A shattering roar overwhelmed the world.
In a flash, the air was torn apart. The impact of the thrown spike, which displaced the atmosphere in an instant, shook even the branches of distant trees.
It wasn’t thought that moved his body, but instinct. The professor reflexively brought the flat of his blade up before his chest.
Creaaaak!
“Urgh!”
Power that defied common sense. With an impact force that stretched the ligaments in his elbows to their limit, the professor was sent sliding back a long distance.
“Th-This…!”
The sudden overexertion of his mana core drained the color from his face.
“To unleash magic like that with only a few incantations…! A fighter who can overwhelm a professor…!”
He would die. He would lose. There was a clear and undeniable gap in ability.
Grinding his teeth, he glared at his opponent.
“…Huh?”
But something was strange. Someone capable of such an attack should have been able to finish him off immediately with a follow-up strike.
And yet, for some reason, the man wasn’t rushing toward him but toward something beyond—
The evaluation magical device.
“Oh no!”
Overwhelmed by the pressure, he had completely forgotten what had started this fight in the first place.
“Y-You bastard!! Don’t tamper with it!!”
The reply was infuriatingly simple.
“No.”
“Y-you—! You can’t! You bastard! The students are not your property! Over my dead body will I allow—!”
That was when it happened.
Someone grabbed his shoulder.
Thinking reinforcements had finally arrived after hearing the commotion, he turned his head—
“Hello, Professor. You’re still awake at such a late hour?”
Peach-colored hair.
That was all he managed to register in that fleeting instant.
“Isn’t that a problem? You should be sleeping.”
His consciousness flickered.
***
“Object manipulation. Barrier release.”
The scattered orbs rose into the air.
With the barrier’s release, the darkness that had covered the campus began to fade away.
Pop—pop—pop—pop.
The magic lamps flickered, then slowly returned to full brightness.
“…What was that?”
I tilted my head. I had won, but it felt like an oddly unsatisfying victory.
It felt like the opponent had made some completely absurd misunderstanding partway through.
Using the application of my constitution that Austin taught me to push my reflexes to the absolute limit had certainly worked.
But because I couldn’t maintain that state for long, my plan had been to retreat and switch tactics if the professor forced prolonged exchanges…
“…Why did he give me distance? Was it this? Did he mistake me for a swordsman?”
I murmured as I looked at the executioner’s sword on my right arm slowly fading away.
“Hmm.”
Well, the result turned out fine, so I guess that was that.
Anyway, good is good.
“I did well, right?”
“Yeah, Sally. That was good coordination.”
“Hehe. Then you’ll definitely give me the reward you promised, right?”
At Sally’s grin, I nodded. Calling it a reward was an exaggeration anyway, so it wasn’t anything difficult.
“But still, is this really enough?”
“It’s perfect.”
“Hmm… is that so.”
Sally stared at the records I had manipulated. She tilted them this way and that for no reason, but that wasn’t going to change anything.
[Magic-Counter Swordsmanship Evaluation]
[1st Place – Camilla Bliss (500 points)]
[2nd Place – ??? (499 points)]
“Why? Does it not sit right with you?”
“Yes. In the end, it’s still manipulation, isn’t it? Would anyone really be happy about losing because of rigging?”
I shrugged.
“As long as it doesn’t get found out, it’s fine.”
“……If it does get found out later, wouldn’t that turn a friendly relationship into a hostile one?”
“By then, I’ll already have achieved my objective, so it won’t matter.”
“As long as you achieve your objective…?”
Sally hesitated and looked at me.
“Sir Adel. This is kind of sudden, but I really, really have to ask, just in case. Are you like that when you’re dating too?”
“Hmm? Is there a goal to dating? …Ah. Well, isn’t that usually how it is?”
If there’s a goal to dating, it’s marriage in the end.
And after getting married, there aren’t many couples who stay the same as when they were just lovers.
Thinking that, I answered, but for some reason Sally looked utterly shocked.
“S-So as long as you can do that, you don’t care what happens afterward?”
“That…? Not exactly, but doesn’t it usually end up like that?”
“Usually… w-what kind of ‘usually’ is that?! You shameless man! I-I don’t like that! It sounds like you’re only meeting someone for that!”
“No. Like it or not, don’t men and women meet for that? Usually?”
Are people not dating with marriage in mind?
But then Sally’s face turned bright red as she shouted.
“I-I’m not like that! Never! That kind of thing is fine too, but I won’t meet someone with only those feelings!!”
“I-I see.”
I nodded awkwardly.
Not meeting someone with marriage in mind.
It seems she values free-spirited romance.
“Let’s get out of here first and think later.”
People who sensed something strange would be gathering soon.
I crumpled up the paper I had stuck to my face and shoved it into my pocket.
***
Dawn.
In the heart of Camilla Bliss, who had greeted the morning earlier than anyone else, a tempest was raging.
[Magic-Counter Swordsmanship Evaluation]
[1st Place – Camilla Bliss (500 points)]
[2nd Place – ??? (499 points)]
She had been informed of the results.
“Anyway, Camilla. Make sure you stay on guard as well.”
“……Understood.”
It was still too early for the day to have truly begun.
Yet the Knight Department was bustling from early morning. It was because of the talk about an attack that had occurred the previous night.
She slowly turned her back on the training grounds.
“…….”
Her pace, which had been brisk when she came here, had slowed. Before she knew it, she was taking in the surrounding nature she had never really noticed before.
The chill of the early dawn air. The morning sunlight gradually growing brighter. The refreshing scent of greenery drifting pleasantly to her senses.
At these things she had forgotten while focusing so intensely on her exams, she let out a small smile.
So I won. Against that mysterious person.
Outwardly, she barely showed it, but Camilla was clearly elated. It felt as though the efforts of the past several days were all being rewarded at once.
Then, across from her.
A lone figure brushed past the side of the buoyant Camilla.
Suddenly, a whisper pierced her ear.
“Are you happy over a mere one-point difference? If you want to settle things properly, come to the central fountain in the capital on Saturday afternoon.”
“……!”
At those words, Camilla flinched and turned her head.
A one-point difference.
Someone who knew that gap in score, which the students did not yet know.
At that, she instinctively realized the identity of the person who had just passed by.
“…….”
But when she turned around, there was no one there anymore. They had already vanished into the forest that had been cultivated in the distance.
“……What was that just now.”
Could the being that passed by moments ago have been—
That mysterious figure,
“???”?
With that thought, Camilla would go to the promised place. After all, that groundwork had been deliberately laid.
Surely, that was the case.
That was the scenario Adel had planned out.
The scheme of a veteran who had poured twenty thousand hours into a single game.
A psychological trap devised because he knew Camilla’s personality, the character he had played the most over all that time.
“…….”
However, even Adel had failed to anticipate one thing.
No, rather, it was something that only someone like him could not have foreseen.
Because throughout those twenty thousand hours, all he had ever looked at was the story on a screen.
A variable he had never even thought to consider.
Camilla sniffed the air, then tilted her head in confusion.
“……Adel?”
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