“Wow. Finally, a registrant who doesn’t have that terrible hairstyle has arrived.”
Tired eyes sweep over me, sizing me up as if estimating a price. Can someone with such dilated eyes really make a proper evaluation?
“Did you come to the wrong guild?”
“I’m here to take the exam for the Mage Guild.”
“For that, your magical power seems a bit… hmm. But it’s not like I can stop you from checking, right?”
Oh, she’s talking to herself and convincing herself at the same time.
The receptionist turns her gaze away, grabs a card from the corner of the desk, and hands it to me. I examine the card closely.
Is this instead of a number tag?
“The exam will start in 30 minutes. You can rest in an appropriate spot or attend to other matters. When the time comes, you’ll feel a tingling shock from the card. That will signal you to go into that room.”
“Tingling shock?”
“It’s a good way to prevent examinees from forgetting. Watching them get startled and rush in for the exam is quite the spectacle.”
That subtle smirk—is it frustration toward troublesome registrants, or is she just naturally unpleasant?
I thought she was a normal person! I believed her because she had a face like a burnt-out civil servant!
Who gives signals via electric shocks anyway!
Mage Guild. Surely, there’s not one sane person in the guild, right?
There have indeed been a lot of absurd quests that pass through the Mage Guild, but I never expected something like this.
She’s not sane. Not sane at all.
Seriously, a guild that sends out signals with electric shocks and people with mohawk hairstyles.
“Can’t you just do it normally with vibrations…?”
“Then some people might forget. That’d be inefficient, right?”
“Inefficient…”
“Anyway, I need to move on to the next person, so could you please go?”
“Before that, I have one question. Where can I take the test to see if I have the qualities of a mage? A friend wants to take it.”
“Over there.”
The staff pointed to a corner of the lobby. Could it be that oddly torture chair-looking test device? Quite the sophisticated hobby. The person next to it must be checking the results.
“If you sit in that chair, you can know if you have magical talent in a few minutes. Most people end up like that person over there…”
The receptionist trailed off. Just like she mentioned, I saw people despairing near the chair. Those who have been judged to have no talent for magic. If Millia ends up joining that line, what will I say to comfort her?
“Big one, could you please step aside now? The line is long.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Good luck. Maybe?”
What kind of “maybe” is that? I left the unsettling goodbye behind and headed to join Millia.
Millia was peeking around the chair, enjoying the view. As I approached, she clung to me and said,
“Johann, that looks so uncomfortable…”
The torture chair—no, the magical talent test device really does look way too sketchy. It somehow seems like it would twist your joints or electrically torture you the moment you sit down.
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to sit.”
“…No! I will sit!”
With a determined face, Millia looked up at me. Well, even if it looks like a torture chair, it was designed for quickly figuring out if someone has magical talent, so it should be fine. I crossed my arms and watched Millia sit in the chair.
As soon as she sat down with a tense expression, strange red light began emanating from the chair. The people before her must’ve glowed blue? That ominous color made Millia’s face tense.
“This is weird…”
“Hmmm… The color of the magical power is unique. It doesn’t seem like you have great talent, but you should be able to use simple magic. I recommend purchasing ‘Let’s Learn! Basic Magic!’ at Kelin’s bookstore, three blocks to the right of the Mage Guild.”
“I can use magic!”
The staff, recording the results, stated in a nonchalant voice. Still, since she can use magic, Millia seemed happy as she got up from the chair and approached me.
“Congratulations.”
“Hehe, let’s go buy the book quickly!”
“Hold on, you haven’t taken the exam yet.”
“I know!”
As I watched Millia, who was jumping around happily, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my chest.
“Millia. I’m going to take the exam, so wait here in the guild. If you lose something here, it’ll be hard to find—”
“Got it!”
Nothing should happen, right?
It’s just the guild, what could possibly happen?
I buried my anxieties and headed to the exam site.
——————
What is this?
“The exam is simple. Just use as much magic as you want on that golem.”
Once I entered the exam room, the examiner explained the exam conditions in a dry voice.
Too simple.
I looked at the golem, which was just a bunch of rocks crudely stuck together in a humanoid shape, like a snowman. Still, there were blue lines drawn on the rock’s surface. Is that some kind of magic circle?
I don’t know, but I’m kinda disappointed.
With its quirky appearance, the test seems boring. I mean, I didn’t want a weird test, but… I naturally pulled out my shovel then paused and looked at the exam proctor, who seemed really uninterested in what was happening here.
“Can I use tools?”
“Using them is allowed. However, tools that require magic cannot be used due to the magic of the examination room.”
So they’re trying to prevent cheating to obtain a certification, huh? The exam seems shoddy, but the execution is surprisingly meticulous. I pulled out my folded shovel and carefully examined the golem. It seemed designed from the start not to move; even when I reached out with my shovel, it didn’t budge my way.
Should I just hit it with a skill?
No, if I’m going to do it half-heartedly, I might as well avoid wasting opportunities to obtain a certification. So, I squatted down and lightly tapped the floor with the shovel. I felt it from the moment I came in: this isn’t an ordinary floor. It’s probably made of some special material.
I kinda want to break it to see, but… Can I break it?
When I turned my head to look at the proctor with that question, they glanced at me and opened their mouth.
“In this exam room, you can do whatever you want. However, attacking the examiner will disqualify you.”
In that case, let’s try breaking the floor a bit. I focused all my strength and plunged the shovel into the ground. The steel blade made from bone, even tougher than steel, penetrated after several tries. It went down a bit, maybe two finger joints, but that’s enough. I picked up the shattered stone fragments and examined them closely.
The gray stone chunks don’t look very special at first glance, but they offer a feeling of recoil against my fingers. Special material made with magic?
“Crafting.”
The stone fragment began rolling around in my palm, transforming into a bead the size of a marble. Fortunately, the skill seemed to be working.
Then it’s easy.
“Crafting.”
The gray pillar collided with the golem’s chest. The golem staggered slightly before returning to its original position and standing still. Is it literally a punching bag? Then I can just keep hitting it until it breaks.
“Crafting. Crafting. Crafting. Crafting. Crafting. Crafting.”
“Quick reusability, no signs of magical power, but considerable destructive power…”
Are they reverse-engineering data from a golem? I crossed my arms, looking up at the still intact golem. I tried hitting it with the pillar as I usually do, but it remained unscathed. It seems to absorb physical shocks pretty well.
For a qualification exam, this golem is surprisingly well-made.
“Does the exam continue until I break the golem?”
“You can end it whenever you want. Hardly any examinee has ever broken a golem. If you hit it moderately and leave, we’ll take care of the grading.”
Did people really ask that kind of question often? As soon as the staff finished speaking, they answered straight away.
“Do you think someone like you could break it?”
Should I give it a shot?
If I throw everything at it, I can break it, right?
Just because it’s tough doesn’t mean it’s tougher than a Hydra.
I’ll need to change my strategy.
“Crafting.”
This time, rather than just hitting the golem, I propped up two pillars to prevent its arms from moving and wedged the arms between them. With its arms forcibly fixed…
“Crafting. Dismantle. Crafting. Dismantle. Crafting. Dismantle. Crafting.”
I began mindlessly hammering its pinned arms.
The pillars that I had built up with as much size and mass as I could were far more powerful than the makeshift ones from earlier and caused the golem to wobble significantly each time I hit it. The pillar thick enough to pass for one of those in a temple mercilessly hit the rocky arms used to call themselves ‘hands’ while rebuilding every time.
After at least 30 hits on the same spot, it finally…
Boom!
It finally fell.
“Golem’s arm damaged. The power is ambiguous, but even after using the spell 32 times, it remains intact. Efficiency is excellent. However, it seems that the distance for using magic isn’t that far.”
The evaluation is somewhat mildly upward-sloping.
But I’m not the type to just end things here.
Immediately, I approached the fallen golem’s hand and used the skill again.
“Crafting.”
The rock that used to be a hand transformed into a broad blade, wedging itself into the cracks between the stones. Since it was made of the same material, the seam opened up noticeably compared to the columns made from the flooring.
The forced gap wanted to rejoin like a magnet, but I pushed the Made-in-Golem sword deeper and used the pillar made from the floor to slam the rock.
“Interference possible on materials with lost ownership. Interesting.”
I wonder what sounds I could hear if I break it like this. My curiosity led me to fervently continue turning the golem into a pile of rocks.
Craft, smash, fix, craft, smash, craft.
After using my skills to the point of exhaustion, I managed to elicit some emotion out of the examiner’s voice.
“Fascinating magic. Would you like to be a test subject by any chance?”
“Are you crazy?”
Of course, this guy isn’t sane either!
I felt a chill seeing someone looking at me, not like an interesting prospect but like a laboratory rat, and quickly exited the exam room.
————
“…Johann, do you understand what all this is?”
Renny sighed and pointed at the pile of letters and documents stacked on the desk. Glancing over, it seemed they were sent from the guilds I had taken exams at. I had lost track of how many times I had taken exams after running around for a week, but I did indeed take quite a few.
“The exam results are out.”
“Right. But what the heck did you do?! Why are those strict old folks so eager to take you in? Do you know how much trouble I had writing polite replies that don’t even match my personality?!”
I grabbed a luxurious-looking letter sitting on the desk and opened it.
[In our woodworking guild’s history, there has been no talent like yours. Please…]
Is it that old man?
I threw the letter back on the desk and read another one.
[With your abilities, you could aim for the top! I will support you in every way…]
“Is this how they all are?”
“Yeah. I was just thinking of getting a few qualifications. I never expected I’d rack up enough to build a tower of cards solely from certifications! It’s definitely a good thing, but…”
Renny gazed at the stack of certifications on one corner of the desk with a complex expression. With so many, it’d be hard to carry around. When introducing my experience, would I get looks that say, “What the heck is this guy doing?”
I roughly estimated the numbers and found that with a few exceptions, I had passed them all.
“Does this mean I can get a job as a knight protector?”
“Well, it’s safer to say the chances have increased significantly… ugh. I’m going to be writing a refusal response to this letter until I’m sick of it, so could you leave? It’s annoyingly tedious…”
I left the grumbling voice of Renny behind as I exited the room.
Now, the result will be determined by the heavens.
I paused in the corridor and gazed out the window toward the academy.
Once I become a knight protector, I’ll be able to intervene in incidents happening within the academy.
I’ll finally stand at the true starting line.
“Survival Academy…”
Make sure to survive.
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