Chapter 70

Chapter 70

“Hello. Treat me like I don’t exist and just act as usual.”

After a simple self-introduction, Lorain sat down and opened the textbook. Rick, Meilyn, and Camibarez glanced at her occasionally, even while looking at their notes.

‘How the hell do we treat you like someone who doesn’t exist?!’

She was none other than the daughter of Nefthis. It was never a comfortable atmosphere.

The lecture room felt very stuffy.

‘……By the way.’

Meilyn rolled her eyes.

‘How does Simon know Lorain?’

Meilyn was skeptical, but she understood after a bit of thought.

Simon was the Special Admission No.1, having been recommended by Nefthis. Even if he was acquainted with her daughter, there was nothing strange about it.

‘So pretty………’

Camibarez was in pure admiration.

Black hair as though painted with the night sky combined with ruby-colored eyes. And even that unique, hard-to-approach atmosphere.

Among Kizen’s students, Lorain had a unique feeling.

And Rick, who valued connections more than anyone else, wanted to talk with Lorain. However, he was holding back because he thought there was a higher chance that he’d be marked as someone strange through a slip of the tongue than getting close to her.

‘Let’s just study.’

Scratch scratch.

Only the sound of quills could be heard in the quiet lecture room. The once boisterous atmosphere had gone silent, but in fact, this atmosphere was better for studying.

Everyone worked hard to study so that they wouldn’t mind Lorain.

“……”

Then, as if she was stuck at some part, Lorain bit her lip and frowned.

Simon, who caught that, quietly asked her,

“Can’t solve it?”

“……Yeah.”

“Where?”

“Number 7 over here.”

Simon said in a loud voice as if to let others hear it,

“Oh, is that so? Meilyn is really good at problems with Curses, though.”

Meilyn, who had her head lowered and concentrated on her studies, raised her head, blushing.

She was moving to mouth, ‘Hey! Shut up!’, but the moment Lorain raised her head, she quickly closed her mouth.

Simon giggled and said,

“Meilyn, could you please explain this to her?”

“……Uh, sure.”

In the end, Meilyn awkwardly approached Lorain before standing next to her and starting to explain Problem 7.

It was only natural that Lorain couldn’t solve it. She didn’t know the formula.

After listening to Meilyn’s explanation, Lorain nodded her head.

“Then, if you substitute into that formula, it would be like this.”

She’d only heard the formula, but Lorain was smoothly writing down the solution in her notebook.”

“Yeah, that’s right! You’re really good at this.”

It wasn’t empty words. Meilyn really did mean it.

Was this what they meant by, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all? She had a surprising ability to understand.

“But why did you reduce all the fractions here on solving?”

“Because this is the only way that I know. Is it wrong?”

“Mm… No! It’s not like that. This kind of approach is also quite impressive. Hold on…”

After a while, Meilyn, who was teaching, was more excited. Simon thought while looking at her,

‘Is she like a laid-back genius… or something like that?’

Lorain’s skills were undisputed.

People said she was weak at written tests, but in fact, it felt like she had enough ability, but was not motivated or couldn’t find any inspiration. Of course, this was just Simon’s speculation.

After Meilyn started off, Rick and Camibarez also exchanged words with her. Everyone thought she was extremely serious and scary, but Lorain treated them more warmly than they thought.

Nom.

Hungry, she took a bite of the snack that Rick brought. She nodded her head as though it suited her palate.

“What’s this?”

“Grain cookies from Rochest.”

Quickly replied Rick. Lorain let out a small admiration.

“I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

“Want me to tell you the location?”

The mood started to loosen up, and Simon looked at them with a feeling of accomplishment and relief.

Lorain also said that she’d leave after an hour or two, but she stayed longer when her studies went better than expected, and the other members of the group also felt less pressure and welcomed Lorain.

Time passed, and it was getting dark. The manager came and told them that they had to empty the lecture room now.

“Bye guys!”

“Today’s study session was great!”

Everyone said their goodbyes. They wanted to play more in the evening as a break if they could do as they pleased, but it was exam period, so they decided to study individually.

Simon decided to walk Lorain to the exit of Kizen.

“……So it’s already been a month.”

Muttered Lorain before looking at Simon.

“Is school life fun?”

“It’s the best.”

Simon grinned.

“Is this life precious enough to take such a risk?”

“Yeah.”

Simon answered without hesitation.

She nodded slowly, draped her robe on, and then put on a hood. As soon as she opened her arms, a subspace was revealed in the air and a wonderful skeleton horse appeared from within.

“Thank you for walking me here. I’ll be going now.”

She held the tall skeleton horse’s torso with her palms and climbed up in one leap.

As Simon lightly stroked the skeleton horse’s head, the skeleton horse made a purring sound and rubbed Simon’s palm with its head.

“Simon.”

“Yeah?”

“Doubt everything. Trust no one.”

“……?”

After leaving those words, she pulled the reins of the Skeleton horse and left.

* * *

Translator – Ramen

Proofreader – Artethrax

* * *

Time flew during the exam period. 

When Simon woke up and went to school, he could find himself lying in bed before he knew it, exhausted.

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Due to next week’s midterm exam issue and the Duel Evaluation being slightly dealt with, all the students started preparing for the exams. The professors also seemed to like the student’s awakening of concentration, as the students had been flustered for a while due to the duels.

Simon also adopted Meilyn’s study method, increasing the number of notes and reviewing for 20 minutes immediately after class. He memorized important questions and solved sample problems in his spare time.

‘……At this point, it’s a battle of stamina.’

He learned a lot in preparation for the last Duel Evaluation. He did cut down on sleep, but he avoided crazy things such as staying up all night as much as possible. He focused on every minute and second of the moments where his eyes were open.

Now, it had become a daily routine to visit the cafe, library, or dormitory study hall after class.

“Gaaaah! Faster!”

While studying at the campus cafe, Rick suddenly pretended to be choked with emotion.

“Please, let this week pass already! Ugh! Can you really call this the life of a person?”

Simon, who was studying in the seat next to him, chuckled.

“You there.”

It was then. A girl flipping through magazines in the back window seat glared at Rick.

“Do you all wanna die? Be quiet.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

Rick quickly bowed his head. The female student turned her head irritatedly.

“……Come on, she doesn’t have to go that far, right?”

As Simon murmured, Rick quickly put the finger on his lips and shushed Simon.

“That person is a second-year student.”

If there was one thing that changed starting this week, it was that the second- and third-years had finally come back to Kizen.

Since the dormitories and campuses where the classes were held were divided by year level, it was rare to meet them during class. However, after class, they could occasionally meet at the campus cafe or library.

It was not so clear, but second-year students had a small red mark on the collar of the Kizen school uniform, and third-year students had a gray mark.

In particular, the third-years were so busy with missions and practical exercises you couldn’t really encounter them. The student council and clan management were also organized mainly by the second-years.

“You’d better watch out for the higher years.”

Rick continued while lowering his voice,

“The difference in power and authority that first-years and second-years have are as far apart as the earth from the skies. There’s nothing good about being marked by them pointlessly.”

Even Simon, who was new to school, had that much common sense. The two resumed studying for the exam.

The next day, and the day after that too.

Whether he was sleeping or lying on his desk, Simon’s mind seemed to be spinning with the formulas and knowledge he had learned in class. Some students had nosebleeds in the middle of the class, and others banged their heads on their desks during class due to lack of sleep.

But no one gave up.

As long as you were part of the group called ‘Kizen’, you couldn’t escape from the tight tension that strangles your neck. If you couldn’t overcome this much pressure, it was wise to leave the school.

A few days later, in Jane’s Beginner Dark Magic class.

“The duration of the performance evaluation is 60 minutes.”

Although it was a performance evaluation before the exam period, there were no complaints from the students. Needless to say, this evaluation had a strong tendency to prepare the students for the midterm exams.

It was a class in which the members of the group sat around each other and worked through a giant test paper that was over 2 meters long. Questions from all 8 subjects, excluding Beginner Dark Magic, were included in this test paper.

‘It’s certainly advantageous if all four members of the team have different majors.’

Simon glanced around.

Students who had overlapping majors were still busy fighting over the things that they’d be doing.

“Focus!”

Group leader Meilyn stretched out her fingers and elaborately gave instructions.

“I’ll do Curses, Cami’s on Hemomancy, Rick’s on Mechanics, and Simon’s on Summoning. If there’s a problem that you don’t understand while solving, mark it with a star and move on quickly. Questions that are confusing or you think need a re-check mark with a triangle. I’ll check them out in numerical order. And if you’re done solving your own majors, Cami will cover Poisonous Alchemy, Simon will cover Combat Magic, and Rick will cover Defense Against the Holy Arts. You got it?”

In the written test, Meilyn’s strength was more than half of the rest of them combined, so everyone quickly nodded.

“There’s quite a lot of Summoning problems. I can trust you with this, right Simon?”

Simon grinned at Meilyn’s words.

“Of course.”

Jane looked at her wristwatch and opened her mouth.

“Well then. We’ll begin the exam.”

Slide!

The sound of 16 groups taking off the covers of their test papers was heard.

Simon quickly looked for the Summoning problems.

It was Summoning starting from question 41.

41. Choose an undead that breeds through reproduction. (2 points)

Zombie

Skeleton

Specter

Ghoul

Lich

‘No.4, Ghoul. A special case of undead which sexually reproduces. The babies grow into adults in one month, and there’s no maternal love toward the parents.’

Simon quickly checked No.4 and proceeded with the next question.

42. When trying to modify from a normal zombie to a mad zombie, which of the following is incorrect as a detailed formula that can be added to the magic circle?

Construction

Rage

Despair

Madness

Convulsion

‘It’s No.5 for sure. There’s no reason to use a duplicate formula. The regular zombie formula already has Convulsion!’

The corners of Simon’s lips rose.

He knew all of them, and he could solve them well! He was so happy that he wanted to scream.

‘So studying was this much fun?’

It was still vivid in his memory. The utter helplessness he felt in Jane’s first test.

But now it was different.

Simon started solving the problems frantically.

Meilyn, who was solving a curse formula problem, smiled, looking at him.

‘……Hmph. Looks like he did work hard.’

During the time of group selection, Simon declared that he’d quit Kizen if he couldn’t exceed Meilyn’s Summoning score.

Of course, the students around them were listening, but his words weren’t compulsory and he could brush it off if Meilyn, the party involved, forgave him.

‘Needless to say, I’m not just gonna forgive you.’

Now Meilyn didn’t want Simon to leave Kizen. However, she did owe him a debt from the Cyclops performance evaluation. She was planning to overcome Simon in Summoning this time and pay off that debt.

Obviously, she didn’t tell Simon about that. She wanted Simon to study with tension.

“Hey, Meilyn! Help me with Question 25, Jet-Black Mechanics!”

Suddenly shouted Rick, interfering.

Meilyn, who had been looking at Simon with a serious face, quickly turned to look at Rick with an annoyed expression.

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“I told you to just mark it with a star and move on if you don’t get it, you goddamned wuss!”

“Ugh, I can’t! If I can’t get this uncomfortable feeling off, it’ll affect me solving the other proble—!”

“Just give up!!”

——