Sending the despondent Kaern off on the magic ship.
There was a brief incident, but the survival midterms quickly resumed. The students’ mood wasn’t too bad.
It was probably due to Kaern Deste’s rather poor reputation for causing a ruckus.
“Did the youngest knight fail? That little brat monopolizing that small spring and just washing armor all day?”
“Thank goodness. He always screams about being a knight or something, making hunting difficult!”
“We can use that to our advantage. The prey runs to the opposite side of where he’s screaming. But now we can’t use it anymore.”
Honestly, I didn’t think someone who wears full plate armor in this weather was taking survival seriously.
So the students, who had gathered, naturally dispersed.
I watched as Beatrice and Millia sneakily took the supply box.
Beatrice seemed to have become pretty accustomed to survival, but…
‘Millia.’
She’s a student to keep an eye on, a name to remember. Not right now, but…
In a year, when the protagonist becomes a second-year student, Millia will be at the center of a key event. A not-so-good meaning.
For now, spreading baseless rumors will suffice; there’s no need to meddle unnecessarily. Just keeping watch is enough.
‘By the way, I thought it would be another incident but surprisingly, I saw some gain.’
Honestly, compared to everything that happened till now, this was just mundane, and it didn’t really demand much in expenses.
Most importantly, I finally got a chance to squeeze some money out of Julius.
As I bowed my head to the exam officer and professors, who were going back to their work, I quietly whispered in the headmistress’s ear.
“Headmistress, you did well earlier.”
“Yikes!?”
“…Headmistress?”
“Ah, ahem. Sorry, I didn’t expect that… Anyway, it went well as the finance director said.”
“Thanks to you, Headmistress.”
It’s true. How did I stop her from throwing punches when Ruth pointed his sword at me?
I desperately gestured with my hand that was in my pocket behind my back. Please control yourself. Whether it’s rank 6 or not, if the headmistress throws a punch, we’re all dead.
Most importantly, displaying that anger right in front of Kaern effectively pressured him and got what we wanted.
The headmistress was also becoming quite the finance director(?).
‘Lord Julius.’
He wasn’t someone who directly appeared in the Dark Kingdom. He was an important figure when they mentioned recruiting the youngest knight, Kaern Deste. Of course, that’s just in the academy part I played.
A rank 7 swordsman, head of the royal knights, and one of the richest in the kingdom.
Apart from my desire to meet him, I don’t know Julius that well. I’ve only gotten to know his personality and information through game descriptions and Kaern’s lines.
In fact, in that area…
“Headmistress, do you perhaps know Lord Julius well?”
“Um, I guess so? He was with my brother back when he was a student.”
…A brother?
She had a brother?
“Ah, when I say brother, I mean Claudia Duke. I’m just a tad, just a tad older than him, so we called it that when we traveled together for a bit.”
“Uh…okay.”
Calling a rank 8 swordsman a brother now? Won’t Lisha faint if she hears that? I’m suddenly curious about the headmistress’s past.
But the duke I know is an old man with full white hair, right? The headmistress is older than him? What on earth? Given the headmistress’s youthful appearance, it’s more like her body is genuinely young rather than just stopping the aging process.
Is this some martial arts secret technique or something?
“Anyway, I see him occasionally whenever I go to the royal family, but Julius, he’s… how should I put it?”
“…?”
“A pushover?”
“Excuse me?”
Did someone just call a pushover a pushover?
I momentarily experienced cognitive dissonance, but in the slightly awkward expression of the headmistress, I organized my thoughts.
So…
Julius is enough of a pushover for the headmistress to call him that? But he’s the richest in the kingdom?
Not the best? How did he become rich?
“When this is over, I’d like to meet him.”
“Didn’t the finance director mention wanting to meet him?”
“That’s true, but I didn’t think that he’d be evaluated that way by you.”
“…Hmm, should I be pleased or angry…?”
“You can be pleased.”
Anyway, meeting Pushover Julius will be after the island midterm is over. While I tried to return to that island with the headmistress, two people caught my eye.
One was the protagonist.
‘What’s up with that guy since earlier?’
Beatrice and Millia were carrying a supply box while constantly glaring at me—what on earth are they thinking?
But then again, did I ever know what the protagonist was thinking in the first place? So I’ll just let it pass for now.
The other was Professor Circe.
“Professor Circe.”
“………….”
“Professor?”
She’s been trembling since earlier. She seems to dislike me a lot, yet she’s trying to hide behind me out of fear of the headmistress.
Why on earth…?
“……Wait.”
“……….”
“You, your rank is…?”
I felt a considerably weak magic power from Professor Circe. This isn’t a change that can happen simply because of fear.
I’m not a mage, but I know when such phenomena occur.
Rank drop.
A rare phenomenon resulting from injuries that threaten life or a very large trauma.
Originally a rank 6 mage, Circe was now…
…rank 5!
“Professor Circe, why didn’t you mention it earlier? Did you hate coconuts enough to suffer a rank drop?”
“…What?”
“Then from today on, please request tropical fruits. I was getting tired of coconuts anyway.”
So what?
After all, that rank drop? A few months of rest will resolve itself, right? It’ll return back eventually, right?
Of course, whether Professor Circe can afford those few months of rest while having 98% of her salary cut and focusing on hair loss treatment research is another question.
But the way the headmistress cried for this woman and the hot-headedness I could calculate from the profits that could have been gained from healing potion improvement research means I won’t be generous.
I tapped Circe’s shoulders as if she had lost her words and turned back to the now somehow proud-looking headmistress.
“Headmistress? Did something nice happen today?”
“…Well, you see, I had a goal planned for this business trip. A slightly personal goal.”
“You had such a thing?”
“Honestly, I could do it anytime, but I can’t just impose it on my side… I’ve been holding back a few times to just rashly proceed.”
“What on earth is that?”
By the way, the headmistress has been looking at me in a somewhat sticky manner since earlier.
When Beatrice took out the clock artifact earlier, I had those absurd thoughts, but could it be…
“Tropical fruits!”
“…You mean fruits?”
“I just want to eat them right away! If I eat too much, the students won’t have any! So I was holding back, and then the finance director just happened to mention it! Yeah, that’s what it is!”
“Aha.”
Shit. I need to go fix my severe over-awareness problem.
Well, considering the age difference between the headmistress and me, why would she see me as a rational being? It’s not a factor of two or three times, but over six times.
I thought I was relatively keen in rational matters, but I guess I need to abandon that thought too.
Feeling awkward again, I asked the headmistress one last question before we returned to the island.
“By the way, Headmistress? How’s the ‘preparation’ going?”
“Ah, the planning? It’s going smoothly. I may not know much about academy stuff, but I have some expertise in this area. I’ll be able to match the date precisely.”
“That’s a relief. The impact is crucial.”
I anticipated that after the exams finished, there would be considerable complaints and protests from the students, but I have thoughts planned.
However, it’s not just my thoughts. It’s combined with the plan the headmistress directly proposed. Initially, I thought she was just stressed and temporarily gone bananas when I first heard it, but after listening to the full plan, I understood it.
She’s no longer the ‘headmistress’, with lacking abilities and being a pushover in this plan, but has returned as the ‘strongest in the kingdom’.
Because she is an expert that no one in the kingdom can fault, I have no choice but to trust her.
With that thought in mind, after embracing the headmistress, we returned to the small island where, since it was dinner time, I somehow fell asleep. When I came to, I was already on the bed.
“Ah.”
“You were sleeping well, Finance Director?”
“Ah.”
I was dying of embarrassment.
This time, instead of my cheek being damp, my forehead felt slightly wet, but I thought it was impossible to drool on my forehead, so when I asked the headmistress, she said…
“…Did you notice? I played a prank. I secretly splashed seawater on you.”
So that was it. Then, all the time my cheek felt wet, it wasn’t because I drooled, but because it was seawater?
After realizing I had been completely fooled, I tried to get my revenge on the headmistress by pouring drinks together until late at night, but…
Once again, I fell asleep first. How am I not drunk after finishing over twenty bottles of alcohol? Is this what it means to be rank 8?
Additionally, this time, the damp spot was on my nape.
Why does the headmistress only splash seawater on these specific areas…?
*
A week had passed.
While the number of commoners is the highest, the Grandis Academy also comprises a significant number of students raised nobly among the noble students.
Having thrown those students on an uninhabited island with only basic survival kits, telling them to survive for a week was certainly not a normal exam.
As such, quite a few students gave up midway, but there were also quite a number of students who managed to endure until the end.
And those students…
“This water, isn’t it? It’s really drinkable, right? It’s not one of those that will cause diarrhea all day without boiling!?”
“Oh wow, meat! Roasted meat! That’s right, it’s delicious…!!”
“Hey, hey! If we go over there, we can wash! They even provided soap!”
“I’m going first!”
“Finally, freedom!”
Under the finance director’s orders, the students were shedding tears of joy at the banquet and shower facilities prepared in advance by the academy.
Complaints? Of course, there are. Protests? They absolutely want to voice them.
However, having survived as beggars for an entire week without strength to speak, in that situation, they gathered on the largest island where those who passed the exam were clustered and spread out the banquet.
So complaints and protests were ignored while they drank water and ate to their heart’s content, and washed their filthy bodies clean.
There’s something called the Peak End effect.
It means that regardless of how tough the process was, if the ending is good, it can be interpreted positively. A famous example is recalling military service.
A week? Sure, it was tough. But of course, the dropouts aren’t here. The quitters are in the nearby port city, and those present are only the students who managed to withstand and finish.
Naturally, the conversations shared also revolved around the exam.
“Did you see Baron Valentins crying and giving up? Aren’t nobles supposed to handle things easily? That was a shame to watch.”
“Honestly, I’m not saying I could pull it off, but it’s not like it was utterly impossible, right? If you can’t handle this, can you even call yourself a Grandis Academy student?”
“So, that wild boar, I? Like, BAM! Shot it with an arrow, all alone!”
“You almost got hit by that wild boar.”
“Anyway, I didn’t get hit, so it’s fine! I’m strong because I survived!”
Good or bad, these are students who lived confined together on an uninhabited island. Although some incidents like looting occurred, building friendships among the same team or forming bonds with allies happened far more.
As those students gathered and shared their tales from the past week, laughing at the quitters who aren’t here, they thought, Should we really voice any complaints or protests in this atmosphere? For now, it’s best to eat and chat to our hearts’ content and voice it once we get back to the academy later.
However, that thought was interrupted by…
[Now, we will have a speech from the Headmistress!]
“Headmistress?”
“Suddenly?”
“Students, you’ve worked hard. Since this was probably the first exam of this kind, I thought there’d be many remarks. Regardless, I sincerely congratulate all of you for completing the challenging exam.”
The headmistress’s words serenely lifted the atmosphere.
“And so, specially for those who completed, an additional scholarship will be awarded to you.”
“”””Wow!!!””””
It wasn’t a large sum, but it felt somewhat like compensation for their struggles.
And then…
“Students, do you see something on the horizon over there?”
“Uh…?”
“What’s that? It wasn’t there earlier?”
“…Wait, isn’t it huge? How is it visible from here, considering how far the horizon is…?”
“It’s a Kraken.”
“……What?”
“Wait, are you saying it’s a real Kraken? A rank 7 monster!?”
“I-it’s not coming this way, right!?”
“Help!”
“Students, there’s no need to panic. The most important fact right now is that, surprisingly, the Kraken is very tasty.”
“Headmistress…?”
“Everyone, keep an eye on me.”
As the Kraken suddenly appeared and rapidly approached, the initially panicking students were swiftly subdued by the headmistress’s sheer force and she casually stepped onto the water.
She seemed so calm that instead of the students panicking more or fleeing, they just stared at her.
“She’s walking on water…?”
“Can a person do that?”
“Normal people can’t. Only someone like the headmistress can.”
“W-what does that matter! The Kraken is over there───”
“Hunting a Kraken is a first in a while.”
WHOOSH!!!
With a gentle smile, the headmistress leaped from the surface of the water, kicking up a massive spray.
The resulting wave was substantial, but astonishingly, it evaded the island the students were on, creating a magnificent spectacle.
High above, the headmistress soared so high that you could barely see her with an upward tilt of the head!
[GRYYYYYAAAAAAA!]
“Mm, it’s a young one? Normally, I’d ask for its parents to accompany it.”
Ki!
The defining energy level marking the boundary between ranks 5 and 6 among martial artists, akin to sword aura.
Even a rank 7 martial artist can only infuse their fists with Ki, yet the headmistress shrouded her entire body and even the island’s location in a protective layer of Ki.
As students and exam officials alike gaped in awe, the headmistress grinned,
“But I can still serve a nourishing meal to the finance director!”
[CRACK, WHAAAAT!?]
BOOM!!!
A deafening sound resounded, followed by the Kraken bursting like a balloon.
With legs over 30m long and a body length exceeding 100m even as a juvenile, the Kraken— a calamity of the sea— met its end with a single punch from the headmistress.
As it sank, spraying blood and ink, the headmistress easily collected its legs with Ki, looking as if it was something she had done many times.
“Mm, the waves are a bit high?”
SMASH!!!
With a wave of her hand, she effortlessly dispelled the tsunami created from that punch and returned with a smile to the students.
She placed the numerous legs, each comparable in size to a tower, on the shore and cheerfully exclaimed,
“Now, hurry and eat!”
“”””………….””””
As expected…
None of the students who were on that island voiced complaints or protests after returning to the academy.
Not to mention, the headmistress’s Kraken hunt was also observed in the port city where the dropouts were.
“What was that noise just now…?”
“That was the sound of our headmistress defeating a Kraken. I’m sure you remember the deal, right?”
“…In the future, the Grandis Academy will receive free rentals of magic ships. Thank you for the Kraken hunt.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
“Um?”
“The bounty from the Kraken hunt that the Duke sought is still unspent?”
“…….”
A finance director who secured everything from free rentals of magic ships to compensation from the noble in the port city for slaying the Kraken evidently left everyone satisfied.
“………How did it get killed?”
Only a question arose for the reincarnator.
A curiosity that couldn’t be released.
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