*Crack-*
The sound of a man’s teeth grinding while looking at the letter was clearly audible.
Next to him, a middle-aged man dressed in a suit, polishing a cup, glanced over at him.
“Did you pass?”
“······.”
“You failed, huh.”
“······Yes.”
The man crumpled the letter and tossed it into the trash can.
He had crammed for a month, dedicating himself to studying magic.
He thought he did fairly well.
Though he was not well-versed in theory, he had used magic so much that he figured learning would come quickly.
But his name was nowhere to be found on the entrance exam results notification.
Even after checking three times, it remained the same.
Siegfried Hertlocker.
That name could not be found at all.
“I knew it would be like this. They expect you to pass the Imperial University with just a month’s preparation? Is that even reasonable?”
“It was my shortcoming.”
“Plenty of others have passed after repeating a year or two. What’s that about? You said there were no questions you couldn’t solve, right? If you study for another year, you’ll definitely pass next year—”
“Next year won’t exist.”
Hertlocker’s assertion left the man silent.
It was true.
The intelligence agency’s ambitiously planned ‘Imperial University Terror Operation’ was all set up with the premise that Hertlocker would enroll this year.
The worst terror plan, aimed at assassinating all students and professors, had already passed.
“So, are you giving up on the Imperial University?”
“No. Emilia is still there.”
“What can that girl do alone?”
“She’ll do reconnaissance excellently. We’ll change the target from a terror site to surveillance.”
The man silently stared at Hertlocker, who spoke plainly.
This was a guy who had rolled through battlefields for over a decade.
He had hoped that this poor guy, who had never done anything in society, could at least enter university and become more human, even if just for a moment.
But now, Hertlocker was nothing more than a stiff killing machine.
“Then are you going back to headquarters to help with this operation?”
“Not yet. I still have things to do.”
“What are they?”
“I have a collaborator at the Imperial University. Now that she’s no longer needed, she must be eliminated.”
“······.”
Seeing Hertlocker speak so coldly made the man smile bitterly.
The plan to enroll Hertlocker in the Imperial University to let him live peacefully for a while had failed.
That meant a bloody storm was coming.
It meant reactivating the ‘killing machine.’
*
“Is it around here······?”
Erica walked around, constantly glancing back.
Before the semester began, the Imperial University was almost deserted, with hardly anyone except passing staff or professors.
What she was looking for in such an empty university was none other than the single dorm room.
– Are you talking about the top student? He has already moved into the single dorm room.
She had burst in on the head professor, demanding to meet the top student, only to receive this response.
It was hard to believe someone would move into a dorm before even enrolling.
However, knowing that the head professor wouldn’t lie, Erica was heading straight to the dormitory building.
‘I can’t stand not knowing what kind of guy he is!’
The prodigy among prodigies.
Since childhood, Erica had been called the best among the noble offspring, achieving unmatched grades.
Even now, she could confidently say she was the best magician among her peers, but the gap with second place was no longer as overwhelming as before.
So, losing the top spot was something she somewhat expected.
She even contemplated that a late-blooming lower noble’s offspring might surpass her, which would be quite humiliating for Erica.
However, she never imagined the top student would be a commoner she had never heard of before.
It wasn’t just losing the top spot that mattered; the issue was that she didn’t even know his name.
Not realizing there was someone better than her infuriated her pride like nothing else.
Therefore, it was essential to find out what kind of person Schlus Hainkel, with that clumsy name, was.
At the very least, she wanted to confirm that he wasn’t smarter than her, that his taking the top spot was just a fluke.
She had to check the possibility of surpassing him again.
“Is this… it?”
She was sure it was behind the dormitory building.
Erica rounded the building and passed through a small forest along a path.
Before long, the forest ended, and Erica’s mouth dropped open at what lay before her.
“Wow······.”
There was an unexpectedly vast garden and a modest mansion that she could never have imagined on the university grounds.
“Small” only meant in terms of mansions, but considering the name ‘single dorm room,’ it was ridiculously excessive.
She had heard there were various perks for the top student, but she never imagined she’d be provided with such space.
She pushed the front door, and it opened without much resistance.
Erica stepped into the garden, admiring the well-kept flower beds.
*Knock knock knock…*
Three knocks on the front door.
But there was no response.
Since the mansion was quite large, it might take some time for an attendant to come.
Deciding to wait patiently, Erica’s patience ran out after 30 seconds, and she began banging on the door with her fist.
“Geez······.”
Still, there was no response.
No sounds of someone rushing over or talking could be heard.
Could it be that the house was empty?
“*Hmm·····?*”
As Erica checked the space at the back of the mansion, her head tilted.
She noticed a door on what appeared to be a storage building was open.
She quickly composed herself and headed in that direction.
‘As expected.’
There was a presence inside.
Could it be Schlus Hainkel?
Erica thought of making a grand entrance by raising her voice right from the start.
“······Hello!”
But as soon as she turned her eyes towards the inside, her mouth suddenly shut.
There was a pool of blood pooled on the floor.
Moreover, there were bloodstains leading up to the entrance, suggesting someone had crawled over leaving bloody traces.
It looked like a murder scene.
Standing at the center was a middle-aged woman holding a mop, locking eyes with Erica.
“What brings you here?”
“Uh. Well, um—”
“What are you doing here?”
A hoarse man’s voice came from behind.
Erica jumped and quickly turned around.
There stood a fierce-looking man in a school uniform, sporting dark circles under his eyes.
“Ah! I’m sorry!”
“······.”
Initially, Erica thought he must be an upperclassman given his confident demeanor and attitude, but then she soon noticed something was odd.
This was the single dorm room.
If that was the case, how could the identity of the man appearing here not be obvious?
“Are you, by any chance—”
“I’m Schlus Hainkel.”
The man looked down at Erica expressionlessly.
The moment she heard that name, Erica’s cheeks flushed bright red.
“So what brings you here?”
Before Hainkel could finish speaking, Erica dashed out across the garden at lightning speed.
Mortified, she couldn’t bear to lift her head.
*
“What in the world was that about?”
I sighed in disbelief.
To break into someone’s house and then suddenly run away?
That silver-haired brat must be Erica.
Erica von der Lichtenburg.
A viscount’s daughter who excelled at the Imperial University, destined to become a respected elder in the magic community.
Ah, with the protagonist failing to enroll, now she wasn’t anything at all.
And her father is actually…
Never mind. That’s not important anymore.
“Have you already been discharged?”
“Yes. I heard you took me to the hospital. Thank you very much.”
“No, I just did what I had to do…”
I had healed quickly, so I discharged myself right away.
Although my entire body ached, and I was equally exhausted.
But it seemed I returned too early, as the cleaning of the training room wasn’t finished yet.
“I’ll help you.”
“Eh? Help with what?”
“Cleaning.”
“No. That’s my job, so why—”
“I’m doing it because I want to use the training room quickly.”
“Ah······.”
I wasn’t even trying to be helpful.
I just wanted to get the training room ready to be used as soon as possible, so no one could catch me before the semester began.
I had little time left, and much to figure out and do before it started.
Therefore, I needed to prepare the training room to be usable as quickly as possible, even if it was a little messy with a blood puddle.
Though no way I could use it like that… still, it felt a bit icky.
“Thank you.”
“No, thanks to Schlus, we finished early. Well then…”
As Miss Mary exited the training room, closing the door behind her, she snapped her fingers, reactivating the barrier that enclosed the training room tightly.
Once the control over it had been passed to me, I could turn it on and off freely.
“So what do I do now…?”
There was plenty to do.
For starters, since the date had changed, I could now rewrite ‘Memory of True Self’ and ‘Selection and Concentration.’
That meant I needed to train in swordsmanship and check whether I could convert mana energy to mana using ‘Selection and Concentration’ on mana sensitivity…
Damn, this is all so annoying.
Having stayed up all night yesterday and dipped into the underworld once, my body felt incredibly heavy.
Just walking here was no ordinary task.
I desperately wanted to take a nap.
But if I fell asleep now, I might end up sleeping for a minimum of 20 hours, so I was desperately trying to stay awake.
*Huff…* “What’s this?”
Looking into the mirror, I felt something was off.
I’d noticed my eyes looked bloodshot since yesterday.
But the current sense of unease was somewhat different.
If my eyes were normal, how would they look?
Of course, they should be so bloodshot they’d look ready to pop.
But my eyes, on the other hand, were as white as could be, seeming livelier than any part of my body, thus looking almost dead.
‘No, this is insane.’
In that instant, everything in front of me went black.
The quiet white noise that filled the training room disappeared too.
I must have cursed, but all I felt was my lips moving without making any sound.
Sight and hearing had been completely cut off.
I had felt this kind of sensation before.
Yes, just like when I was trapped in the Barrier of Fear.
Back then, I had no idea why it had happened, but now I think I understand.
There was a setting I had written down long ago.
If blind or deaf individuals had exceptionally high mana sensitivity, they could perceive the vibrations of mana and use it like sight or hearing.
Ironically, Schlus Hainkel also had an extremely high mana sensitivity.
That stat was 75. In the original work, even the protagonist would reach that stat only in the latter part.
Feeling curious about why it was so high, it was because he was seeing and hearing through mana.
So in the Mana Vacuum state of the Barrier of Fear, vision and hearing were blocked.
Well, thanks to that ‘fearful’ scenario, I got a perfect score since I couldn’t see anything, but…
That was acceptable back then.
But why am I feeling this way again now?
I can only answer that with ‘because I became aware of it.’
It seems that Schlus Hainkel lost his sight and hearing a long time ago and started to see and hear through mana.
Having done it so effortlessly for so long, he probably embodied it completely and reached the point of doing it instinctively.
Even if the owner of the body changed, it still reflexively manifested the vibrations of mana visually and audibly.
I had been so immersed in it that I hadn’t noticed at all.
But just as I became conscious of it, it dragged me into the conscious realm.
It’s like how you don’t notice where you place your tongue until you start thinking about it, and then you feel like you’re going crazy about where to put it.
‘First, stay calm. Focus on detecting the fluctuations of mana.’
If Schlus Hainkel could do it, so could I since I inherited his body.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the mana enveloping my body.
With sight and hearing suspended, the only sensation was mana, so it wasn’t too difficult.
I then analyzed the frequency and waveforms of that vibration and transformed it into forms of light and sound.
“Wow, damn. I thought I would die from the pressure.”
Soon, sight and hearing returned.
I felt as refreshing as if I had been under the water for a long time and just came up for air.
“Ugh.”
······I almost lost my sight again the moment I let my guard down.
Since I brought it into the conscious realm once, if my concentration broke, I feared I’d lose my sight again.
How could I push it back into the subconscious realm?
“Tsk······.”
What can I do? Well, I guess I’ll have to keep listening and seeing through mana every day until it becomes second nature.
It dawned on me: time and effort were simply the solutions I needed—an obvious yet disappointing conclusion.
“Who the hell is Schlus Hainkel?”
My curiosity about this guy’s identity grew even stronger this time.
Stats far below average.
An internal circuit that doctors would call “utter nonsense.”
And blind and deaf on top of that.
He had too many flaws in his body…
I wondered if a sea cucumber could outlive him in good health.
I didn’t know if this guy could survive until the end of the story with such a body.
