“Ah, well...”
Mel hesitated to answer Rex’s question.
‘Is that really such an impressive thing...?’
He had done countless tasks harsher than this. Work of this level had been routine in the Ceronis family, where he had once served.
Anyone capable of circulating mana within their body could have handled it far faster, even alone.
“This guy failed the exam too. And at twenty-three, no less.”
It was Louis who answered Rex’s question, even adding unnecessary details.
The question had not been directed at Louis, but after hearing the answer, Rex’s puzzlement only deepened.
‘With physical ability like that, he failed the exam until that age? His physical ability alone should be enough to pass.’
How much bad luck would have to pile up for such a thing to be possible?
If this young man had taken the exam in front of him, who had just been working as an examiner for the entrance test...
Twenty-three, huh...
“What a shame.”
According to the rules of Sigrian Academy, if one failed to gain admission by the age of twenty-three, there were no further chances.
Perhaps if a high-ranking professor recommended him it would be different, but as someone only at the fourth rank, Rex had no authority to offer this young man a chance at a retest.
“Are we finished now?”
Mel asked Rex.
“Ah, yes, we are.”
Because it had ended far earlier than expected, Rex’s reply was delayed for a moment.
“Would you perhaps be interested in some additional work? This isn’t the only task we have...”
“Additional work, you say?”
“Of course, you’ll be paid more for it. Twice... no, how about three times as much?”
At Rex’s proposal, Mel thought for a moment.
Doing something this simple for triple the pay...
For him, nearly penniless as he was, triple pay was quite an appealing offer.
If they had tried to make him do it without paying, he would have refused at once, but if they were offering triple the extra compensation, there was no reason to decline.
“Understood. Do we start right away?”
At Mel’s question, which served as his acceptance, Rex shook his head.
“No. It’s lunchtime, so you should eat before working. Don’t you think? For now, rest and fill your stomachs, then come back here in an hour.”
At Rex’s perfectly reasonable words, Mel nodded.
.
.
.
At a restaurant near the testing grounds, Mel and Louis ordered some suitable food and picked up their utensils.
“Ah... I’m so tired I don’t even have much of an appetite. But additional work, huh...”
Louis, hungry from the hard labor yet with his appetite diminished instead, pecked at his food as he spoke.
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to do it, do you? I doubt they’d object.”
“It’s triple pay. After failing, my pockets are tight too. Besides...”
Louis looked at Mel, then stopped whatever he had been about to say.
‘He’s probably planning to ride on my coattails anyway. How shallow.’
He could have called him out on it, but Mel decided not to bother.
Unlike him, this fellow had genuinely failed the exam. At a glance, it was easy enough to see why.
‘What they focus on in the nobles’ exam is the ability to operate mana, was it? Since there isn’t even a hair’s breadth of mana residue to be felt from this guy, of course he’d fail year after year.’
Mel gauged Louis’s level based on what he had seen while working together.
Since he had a noble surname, for all his faults he must have considered himself a noble and foolishly thrown himself at the nobles’ exam.
But the nobles’ exam was different from the ordinary commoners’ exam.
The essential qualification for students of noble birth entering Sigrian Academy was the mana within their bodies.
Without that, this young man named Louis could never pass the nobles’ exam.
‘It would be far more likely for him to train hard, improve his physical abilities, and pass through the commoners’ exam instead.’
If he passed the commoners’ exam, which did not measure internal mana, became a commoner entrant, and built up respectable grades, he could even be taught something like a basic mana cultivation method.
Recalling the setting of this romance-fantasy world, where the distinction between commoner and noble was determined not by surname but by the presence or absence of mana within the body, Mel put food into his mouth.
“Are you finished eating?”
Having filled his stomach to a reasonable degree, Mel spoke to Louis.
It was about time to head off for the additional work.
“Ugh! The break is already over...!”
Despite having no appetite, Louis forced food into his mouth to replenish his strength, then hurriedly rose from his seat.
Rex greeted Mel and Louis as they arrived at the workplace on time, then opened his mouth.
“The work is the same. The test dummies weren’t only in that place earlier, you see.”
The academy’s commoner testing ground was not limited to this place. There were several testing grounds scattered throughout the academy, and this was merely one of them.
“In places where many examinees gather, the exams are still in full swing. And naturally, there are that many more dummies.”
“Hrk!”
Hearing Rex’s words, Louis let out a gasp as if he had foreseen his future.
“So that’s why you’re paying triple.”
“If you don’t want to do it, you can quit even now. I won’t stop you.”
Rex’s answer showed he had nothing to lose.
No, in truth, the ones with something to lose were Mel and Louis.
And the side with something to lose was always the one that clung on.
“Let’s go.”
At Mel’s urging, Rex nodded and moved off.
It was a different commoner testing ground from before. Only, in scale, it was incomparably larger than the place they had first worked.
“Haaat!”
“Hap!”
They could see several examinees taking the entrance exam.
Thwack!
Thud!
The examinees attacked the test dummies with their respective weapons. Many of the dummies, made from solid logs, stood firm despite the fierce blows.
“...Pass.”
“...Fail.”
And the examiners observed the condition of the dummies, grading each according to their own standards.
Thus, those who passed and failed were decided.
It was at that moment.
“I don’t accept this!”
A sudden shout rang out.
A young examinee was huffing with anger as he shouted at an examiner.
“Why on earth did I fail! I almost knocked it down!”
The test dummy the examinee pointed at was certainly badly damaged.
“It had already been brought to that state by the examinees who went before you. You must have been delighted, thinking you were lucky because it would be easy to knock down, weren’t you?”
When the examiner, wearing a cold expression, asked in a dry tone, the examinee could not answer, as if his sore point had been struck.
“And yet you still failed to knock it down. On top of that, you even have the poor eye to think we judge pass and fail simply by whether you knock it down or not. There’s nothing more to see. Commoner. With this level, you will never cross the academy’s threshold. Next!”
At the examiner’s cold treatment, his face one of barely restrained annoyance, the examinee could not hold back his anger for an instant.
“W-what did you say! You...!”
Already furious over failing, he also happened to be holding a weapon.
Unable to control his momentary excitement, the examinee charged at the examiner.
But it was at that moment.
Whoosh!
A sudden gust of wind swept through.
“Kraaaagh!”
The sturdy examinee’s body floated into the air, then flew off and slammed into a wall.
And that was not all.
Crack! Craaack!
Most of the test dummies in the testing ground toppled like leaves in an autumn gale.
Dummies that had already been in poor condition flew in all directions along with the examinee from moments ago, and even the ones in relatively good condition were helplessly broken and rolling across the floor. It was an utter mess.
“W-wow. What the hell is that?”
Louis, watching the scene, opened his mouth wide.
‘A mana release, is it? For someone without mana, that’s a bit harsh.’
Having seen through the fact that the examiner had momentarily released the mana within his body, Mel silently watched the scene.
“Good grief, Professor Andre. In the end, you couldn’t hold back your irritation. You should have talked him down a little more gently.”
Rex, who seemed to know that examiner, clicked his tongue as he spoke.
“What do we do now? Looks like the workload’s increasing in real time.”
Rex looked at Mel and spoke in a regretful tone.
Having come this far, they were in no position to turn back. And it was not as if they could complain to that examiner.
“Dummies in that state will come here soon enough anyway. Wait until then, and once they arrive, start working.”
At Rex’s instruction, Mel nodded.
The exam had been delayed by the brief disturbance, but when a dozen or so workers who had appeared from somewhere began moving busily, it quickly resumed.
“Good grief! What a pain because of some lunatic!”
People groaned as they brought over the broken dummies one or two at a time and piled them up.
The number of dummies the examiner named Andre had just smashed was roughly thirty.
Moreover, perhaps because they had been destroyed so spectacularly, every one of them had been split into two or three pieces, so the pile grew at an alarming rate.
“Ah, maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to come...”
Realizing that he was the one who would ultimately have to deal with all of it, Louis let out heavy sighs.
“We’re getting triple pay, so what can we do? Still, since they’ve all been replaced with new ones, the workload shouldn’t increase any more.”
Seeing that all the dummies in the testing ground had been replaced with clean new ones, Mel answered as he rose from his seat.
“Shall we get started...”
Before Mel could finish speaking.
Ruuumble...!
“Hm?”
A roar sounded from somewhere. Without realizing it, Mel turned his head.
“Ah, come to think of it, there was a nobles’ testing ground nearby, wasn’t there? Flashy, huh. Ignore it. It happens from time to time.”
Louis spoke to Mel in an indifferent tone.
“Ah, is that so? Then I suppose boulders like that flying over here is something that happens from time to time too. As expected of a romance-fantasy world.”
“Hm? What did you just say?”
Louis followed Mel’s gaze and turned his own.
What entered his sight was...!
“C-crazy! What the hell is that!”
A massive boulder with a human face carved into it was flying through the sky in an arc.
It was a fairly rare and wondrous sight, enough that Louis, like Mel, nearly stared blankly for a moment.
But the boulder’s size was growing larger and larger.
And then he realized.
“Of course not! You lunatic! Hurry up and dodge!”
Louis screamed.
Kwaaaang!
And then came another explosive roar.
Judging by the volume of the sound, this time it was close by.
Had the examiner Andre from moments ago released his mana again? But this time, its direction was quite uniform.
Straight toward them.
“Uwaaaagh! W-what the hell is that now!”
Louis shrieked.
Ferocious mana was flying in from both sides.
If an ordinary human were struck directly, they would undoubtedly not come out unscathed.
Even being hit directly from one side would be enough. If it came from both sides, and at the same time?
Sensing a despairing future he did not even want to imagine, Louis had only one thing he could do.
Thud!
In the end, Louis lost consciousness. Mel grabbed the back of Louis’s neck and threw himself toward a safe zone.
And soon after, when the two forces collided...
Kwaaaaang!
A deafening roar, as if tearing the eardrums apart, resounded loudly in every direction.