A week after the exam began, the mages started giving up one by one. The distinction between them was stark, depending on their level.
Those at the bottom lingered around Problems 1 through 4, while those in the middle stopped at Problem 5.
Those at the top were divided between whether they had completed Problem 6 or challenged Problem 7, and those at the very top were split between whether they had solved more than half of Problem 7 or solved it completely.
No one spoke of Problem 8.
Yet for every student, the fact that they had “experienced this exam” became a badge of honor. It was a privilege granted to only 150 of the 300 new mages.
Even senior mages, and even active professors, had asked about the exam.
……And today.
Saturday noon, when every exam in the University Magic Tower had ended.
Sylvia was absorbed in Problem 8, having lost all sense of time.
Her disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes were utterly unlike the usual Sylvia, but she did not stop the rampage of her mana.
She had devoted nearly five days to Problem 8.
In that time, the number of magic circles she had drawn had already surpassed seven.
Many and varied spells were intricately at work within this Problem 8, so she had separated each linkage of magic one by one and transplanted them onto the answer sheets.
She had drawn seven magic circles in total so far, but she had no idea how many more remained.
No wonder the answer sheets had seemed unusually large and numerous.
“……!”
As she was writing the eighth magic circle, pain flared in her head and eyes. Sylvia hurriedly stopped the nosebleed that threatened to drip. If blood spread for no reason, it could cause problems with the answer sheet.
She immediately stepped out of the exam room. She saw the drops of blood falling onto the corridor, and her own reflection in the Magic Tower window.
She looked shabby.
Haggard.
“……”
At this rate, she might die.
Let’s rest for just a bit.
Sylvia tidied herself with a light Cleanse.
In front of the Magic Tower elevator, the face she had seen for ten days was nodding off.
“Excuse me.”
“Ah, uh-eu, ah, yes. Miss Sylvia, going out, are you going out?”
“Yes.”
“Yes. Confirmed.”
She took the elevator and left the Magic Tower.
Fortunately, the area all around was quiet, and Sylvia walked through a nearby park. Then she sat on a bench placed at random.
“……”
A garden was visible right in front of her.
The garden on the university grounds was ordinary.
Grass and flowers and trees grew upon the earth, and above them were the sun and the sky. In truth, the fact that the grass, flowers, and trees had grown was thanks to the nutrients given by the sun and sky.
A garden, like Problem 8, was the result of independent elements being connected into one.
Then perhaps Grand Magic was ultimately not so different from tending a garden.
Her father had once said something.
Even if a thousand or ten thousand Solda-class mages gathered, they could not manifest Grand Magic; professor-class mages needed thirty to manifest Grand Magic, but an Archmage did it alone.
That was why, for the past sixty years, there had been only one Archmage: Demakan.
Now over a hundred years old, he would probably be able to handle Problem 8 with just a glance.
“……”
Sylvia closed her eyes for a moment.
She opened them.
The position of the sun had changed. As Sylvia was trying to interpret that puzzling phenomenon magically, she suddenly started in shock and sprang to her feet.
She had fallen asleep.
“……!”
Sylvia hurriedly ran back to the Magic Tower and checked the clock.
4 p.m.
Exactly 31 hours and 59 minutes remained until Sunday midnight.
Sylvia sat down in her chair again. She scribbled with her mana and her mage’s pen.
An exam problem in which a dozen or so spells interlocked like gears.
Sylvia carefully dismantled and isolated those connections, then analyzed them.
With no idea at all what the magic circles she made like this would turn into, without even daring to guess, she pressed on with extreme concentration.
Tick, tick, tick—
The clock seemed to move as if it alone had been sped up.
During that time, Sylvia’s mana—an amount reaching a full ten thousand—was ceaselessly consumed and affixed to the answer sheets, and,
At last.
“……Eleven.”
There were eleven completed answer sheets in total.
She laid those answer sheets on the floor. She studied the order and the structure of their combination closely.
One magic circle engraved on magic paper, two, three, four……
Thus, the eleven cores connected perfectly.
A single deep breath.
Into this magic, into nearly 150 hours of effort, she breathed her mana.
———!
The magic circles recorded on the answer sheets and her soul resonated with each other.
Goooooooo……
A trembling that seemed to shake her heart.
In that instant, eighty percent of her mana was consumed, and,
The appearance of the exam room transformed completely.
“……”
Some landscape she did not know covered the exam room. The manifested magic stretched beyond the walls and ceiling.
In an instant, this space was separated from the world.
—On the ground, cypress trees and wheat fields gather together and ripple; in the sky, clear winds like coiling currents and intense starlight seethe. In the simple village scenery where a drawbridge comes and goes, in the view of a vegetable garden on a hill and a turning windmill, the figure of a sunflower seen somewhere is beautiful.
This was a space realized by Deculein’s hand. A tribute offered to the young mage who had solved all eleven sheets of formulae.
“……”
In Sylvia’s eyes…… it was a painting filled with dazzling colors. An oil painting that glimmered hotly, as if paint were spreading.
It was art that trembled so keenly it felt cold.
“Sylvia.”
From somewhere, a voice drifted in like the wind. Sylvia widened her eyes and turned to look there.
At the heart of that fantastic harmony of magic and oil painting stood Deculein. As always, he wore an immaculate suit, so perfect it made one wonder whether he was a magical being.
Looking at Sylvia, he said,
“Congratulations.”
……Kim Woojin’s soul harbored a strong longing, at least for art.
It was an ambition he had never managed to abandon, even as he was swept along by the ways of the world and by reality. It was a dream that “that guy” had helped him keep.
Though he lacked the talent and could not reach the destination he desired, ultimately remaining in a secluded shade, the memories of Kim Woojin from those days combined with Deculein’s trait, 「Aesthetic Sense」.
Having obtained the artistic talent he had so longed for, he came, in a world other than Earth, to imitate the masterpieces of an era that remained in his mind. He painted the art of the hometown he carried within him through the illusion called magic.
Starry Night, Road with Cypress and Star, Sunflowers, Vegetable Gardens at Montmartre……
The creator of these paintings was a man who had floundered in endless pain and sorrow.
A fleeting outsider who, in the end, was never recognized in his life.
A painter named Vincent, who, amid the anguish between death and madness, made the most primal beauty bloom.
How ecstatic and beautiful were the canvases left by his life, burning more fiercely than anyone else’s?
“……”
Sylvia slowly closed her eyes.
Even with her eyes closed, the scene did not disappear. It burned hot, as if she had suffered a burn.
All of this was magic.
Every color was an element.
The fields she had never seen anywhere seemed to move as though alive, and standing at the center of the oil painting, she felt her soul tremble.
The tremble soon spread into resonance.
……At that moment.
“Thank you.”
Deculein said something incomprehensible.
“……?”
Sylvia looked back at Deculein. She did not know what he was thanking her for, but Deculein was saying it sincerely.
“……You did well.”
A landscape that he could never have reproduced with his own mana, yet had desperately wanted to see with his own two eyes at least once.
That was why he was grateful to Sylvia.
He did not know how she would understand it, but fortunately, she seemed to accept it in her own way and nodded.
Sylvia turned back again and surrendered herself to the magical scenery. For a long time, she felt that wind, fragrance, color, movement, and light.
Then suddenly, she felt heat running down her cheek.
A moist warmth.
A single line of tears she had lost after her mother passed away.
“……”
When Sylvia wiped away that tear and turned around.
Deculein had already left.
……She had wanted to return the words of thanks.
* * *
Knock, knock—
Allen opened the exam room door along with a knock.
In the room filled with the sweet smell of coffee, Epherene was sitting.
It was an ordinarily messy room. Many magic circles had been transplanted onto the answer sheets strewn across the floor.
She had approached a process similar to Sylvia’s, but in the end, she had failed.
“Debutante Epherene. Time is up.”
“!”
Epherene flinched and raised her head to look at Allen.
“Ah…… Is that so.”
Scratching her hair, she smiled bitterly.
“That’s a shame.”
Allen merely smiled back at her. Epherene hesitated, looking embarrassed and regretful, then said,
“But, Assistant Professor. This exam problem……”
“Ah, yes. I’ll give it to you. Professor Deculein told me to send it to you as a new exam sheet together with a vault spell. However, you’ll need one drop of blood.”
There were four people in total who had solved up to Problem 7, but only two had filled all eleven days.
Epherene was one of them, so she was more than deserving of a reward.
“Huu…… Thank you.”
Letting out a sigh of relief, she stood and drew blood. Then she gathered all her writing tools, clothes, and so on, and came out of the exam room.
Allen saw her off as far as the Magic Tower elevator.
“Miss Epherene, you worked very hard.”
“……Assistant Professor Allen, thank you so much, too. And thank you for the exam sheet.”
Epherene bowed deeply. She bowed so low that the bag on her back slid below the crown of her head and then came back up.
“Hehe. It’s all right.”
In front of the elevator approaching the 30th floor, Allen smiled.
“The exam sheet will arrive in three days, so look at it whenever you like and keep trying. I’ll enclose ten magic answer sheets as well.”
“Ah, truly, thank you……”
“However, don’t get buried in it.”
Ding—
Just then, the elevator arrived.
“What you couldn’t learn now, what you couldn’t realize now, you can do later, all~ of it. Someday, it’ll all~ be solved. Don’t exhaust yourself too much just because you can’t solve it day by day…… at least week by week?”
Allen looked as though he himself had no idea what he was saying. But Epherene roughly understood, so she smiled and nodded.
Her smiling face looked bright.
“Yes. Once a week, I’ll keep trying and make sure to solve it.”
“……Yes.”
For some reason, Allen watched her with envious eyes.
“Take care~”
Epherene waved at the assistant professor until the elevator doors closed.
However.
Ding—!
When those doors closed.
Her smile vanished at once. Blood flowed from her molars. She had been clenching her teeth all day long, and they were on the verge of falling out.
“……Ha.”
She buried herself in the corner of the elevator. Her shoulders trembled like that for a moment, then she struck the elevator wall with her fist.
Ding—!
“Hueaah!”
She thought the elevator had broken down.
But the doors had simply opened as usual, and though it was already nearly midnight, countless mages boarded the elevator on the 25th floor.
They were mages under professors, at least Solda or higher. No, they were slaves.
Ding—!
The elevator stopped again on the 21st floor,
Ding—!
Then again on the 19th floor,
Ding—!
Then yet again on the 12th floor.
Ding—!
Then yet yet again on the 5th floor.
The elevator came to be packed with roughly thirty mages.
“Wow, when the hell are we supposed to sleep, seriously?”
“Wait, don’t, push, please, there’s someone in the corner……”
“Exactly. The grading is driving me insane, damn it.”
“Augh…… Don’t push……”
“Once we do all this, complaints are going to come in again.”
“Save me……”
“Yeah. If we accept the complaints, the professor will go apeshit again, asking if we aren’t thinking about his dignity……”
Ding—
Epherene arrived on the first floor, practically crushed by people.
“……Hueh.”
Epherene, flung out, left the Magic Tower while feeling a dizziness close to anemia.
Trudge, trudge; stagger, stagger. Her legs, which had been walking without strength, froze at the threshold of the Magic Tower exit.
She could not walk any farther.
She could only stand still.
“Oh, it’s Ephie!”
Beyond that place lay the club she had somehow ended up founding, and somehow ended up joining.
The members of that club were waiting.
“······.”
Epherene could not endure that moment.
Her cheeks puffed out like steamed buns.
It felt as though the dam she had barely been holding back had suddenly burst.
“Ephy~ Don’t cry. Let’s just go eat. We prepared Roahawk boar at our restaurant.”
“Roahawk······.”
As she stood there blankly, her friends approached first, and soon she was walking with them as part of a single group.
“But if you cry, you don’t get any.”
“······I’m not crying. When did I ever cry?”
* * *
······Darkness descended upon the Imperial Palace, which had shone brilliantly in every season.
The retainers changed into black-and-white formal robes, and the gates of the Imperial City were shut tight.
The vast great hall of the Imperial Palace.
With the central carpet, upon which only the Emperor could tread, lying between them, the ministers, high officials, bureaucrats, and the Empire’s guardian knights knelt in ordered rows.
The Emperor of the Empire, Crebaim, sat upon his throne. Yet his figure could not be seen, hidden behind a veil.
To depart while seated─ that had been his wish.
The great hall was steeped in silence. Within it, Crebaim’s breathing could not be heard.
The retainers and knights barely held back their tears, but sobs that seemed to cut off their breath slipped out.
The Emperor would not endure past today, and his august body would, according to his will, be laid in a modest wooden coffin.
For three days from now, the gates of the Imperial Palace would not open; after nine days, the succession ceremony would be held; and the sons and daughters of kingdoms held as hostages, along with the heads of noble houses, would gather there······.
······At this moment, when the Emperor’s death was not far off.
First in the line of imperial succession, ‘Sophien Yekater Augus von Zifrein,’ was deep in thought within her private chambers.
“······Your Highness.”
Sophien’s knight, Keiron, spoke. Sophien let her languid gaze fall upon him. Between her thinly narrowed eyelids, crimson pupils had sunk into indolence.
“Should you not call me Your Majesty now?”
“His Majesty has not yet passed away.”
Sophien let out a faint laugh.
“No, he did that more than six months ago.”
“······.”
Without a word, Keiron drew a set of documents from his breast. They were materials for her education.
“This month’s homework.”
“Leave it.”
“It is homework.”
“You always bring me nothing but burdens. How dissatisfying.”
“Please try solving it. It is a famous problem in the world.”
Sophien, whose succession to the throne was all but certain, possessed unmistakable talent in every field.
If she took up a sword, she could have ascended to Valhalla; if she took up a book, she could have become a sage; if she learned magic, she could have easily challenged the title of archmage.
The problem was her own laziness.
Though she was already past the age of twenty, Sophien showed no such thing as passion in any field.
And yet she had no openings of her own.
She was also well-versed in the state of affairs and possessed ears that could listen. She did not commit the folly of judging rashly, and she remained aloof from any emotion. She was clear in what she bound and what she severed, gave no private affection, and distinguished between favor and resentment more sharply than a blade.
Potential superior to the current Emperor Crebaim in every field─ the very qualities of a sovereign.
“Hmm.”
Sophien looked at the sheaf of documents Keiron had handed her.
“It is magic.”
“Yes.”
Then she looked at the author of that bundle of magic.
“Deculein Grahan von Yukline?”
“You know him?”
“I do. Is he not the fellow who defended the Red Casket at Bercht? Because of that, my mood is most foul. No, what has happened to this man’s mind? Why would he suddenly defend the Red Casket?”
“······He was never a man with a good reputation to begin with.”
Keiron smiled bitterly. Sophien flung the documents aside without a word.
“Even so, please read it.”
“Why?”
“It was put up for auction on the Floating Island, and it is now at thirty thousand elne.”
“Why?”
“Only one thousand copies were sold in limited quantity, but Lord Georg of the Imperial Household, by his authority, thought it would be good if Your Highness Sophien read it—”
“Why?”
“······Read it or do not, as you please.”
“Why?”
“······.”
Sophien laughed soundlessly.
“I shall read it later. But why not give it to Crito?”
“His Highness Crito has already participated in the auction personally.”
“Of course. He is the sort to needlessly try to do everything himself.”
Crito, second in the line of succession and Sophien’s younger brother, was a mage of the ‘Lumiere’ rank who cherished magic.
“In any case, Keiron. Once I ascend the throne, what do you wish me to do with the Red Casket? Ah, should it now be not I, but We (朕)?”
At Sophien’s question, Keiron gave no answer. Sophien twisted her lips.
“You always say it. ‘Knights do not involve themselves in politics.’”
“It is, ‘Knights are sparing with their words.’”
“It means the same thing. You only close your mouth when it concerns politics. If not, then you should not have opened your mouth in ordinary times either. Yet when a blade was at your own neck, you all opened your mouths remarkably well. Every last one of you.”
“······.”
Keiron looked at Sophien.
In Keiron’s opinion, there had always been a look in Her Highness’s eyes that transcended self-interest. Some called that gaze innate dignity and solemnity, but to Keiron, who had served beside Her Highness since she was thirteen, they were simply the eyes of a rotten dead fish.
Boom─────
Just then, the drum in the great hall sounded.
Keiron quietly bit his lip.
“Your Highness, it is time for you to go.”
“So it is.”
Sophien rose from her seat. Then she walked with more confidence and majesty than anyone else. It was the natural dignity and propriety of one who seemed to have been born with them as a member of the imperial family.
The knight Keiron followed behind Her Highness with immaculate steps.