The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide - Chapter 78

With the now somewhat-carefree environment at the school, Head Dean McDowell felt a bit of relief.

Sitting at his desk in his private office at Trix Hall, the older gentleman stretched for a bit before looking over the pile of documents.

Since the pile was only reports on academic work conducted over the break, it was less than half of what he usually handled. It was great that his workload had decreased, but the fact that he was in a position where he had to work even though it was a break was quite disappointing.

Being a figure of authority to such a degree, he rarely complained about the workload itself. But still, at the very least McDowell often wished that he could maintain at least some quality of life.

“Today is the day of the freshman class assignment examination…”

The professors in charge of handling the class assignment for the Combat Department, Magic Department, and Alchemy Department had all submitted their reports.

The location and contents of the examination were all different, but they had all come up with their own acceptable grading standards and content.

Among them, the magic department’s test seemed to be the most interesting.

The magic department’s class assignment examination had always been supervised by Professor Glast. The school had full confidence in his judgment, so they had left everything entirely to his discernment.

But now that Professor Glast, who had been in charge of selecting individuals within the freshman class, was gone… How would the magic department judge and assess the student’s abilities?

He contemplated that question with much interest.

The new professor in charge of the class assignment examination was Glast’s top pupil, Cleoh Elpin. He often heard rumors about her amongst the veteran professors.

It sounded like she was someone that had saved a country in her previous life. Otherwise, how else could she have such luck when it came to the people around her? Or so the rumors said.

The people she met with were always of the utmost talent, whether it was teachers or students. As if she were truly born with the luck of attracting great people, there really were no subpar people around her.

He had often heard, from a teacher’s standpoint, just how enviable a fortune it was that she had.

“Hmm…”

Dean McDowell wondered if she really was such a lucky person.

When he grabbed ahold and looked through the directory of members in her lab, he started to feel unsure if that really was a so-called list of elites that didn’t have a single subpar person.

Thinking that there must be a reason for everything, he convinced himself of that fact. Dean McDowell then signed the papers before handing them off.

Laboratory Directory Report – Assistant Professor Cleoh Elpin

Head of Laboratory: Cleoh Elpin

Senior Assistant: Anise Haylan

School’s Scholarship Staff:

Onyx Pelomier

Ed Rothstaylor

Clevius Nortondale

***

“This is not good… Hahaha…”

Assistant Professor Cleoh sat at the summit of Right Mountain as she breathed out a sigh of concern.

In front of the altar were about five or six broken magically engineered items.

“The circuit itself must have been twisted by an external impact. It’s not even working if I infuse it with magic power. I’ll have to ask the professor of Magic Engineering to repair this separately. But there’s no time for that right now…”

Apparition Disk.

It was a rare grade magically engineered item. A tool that made opponents fall into confusion with the apparition of a variety of wild beasts and monsters.

The point was to use dozens of them as traps to spread out along the path to the summit. There were still a lot of other disk’s left, so having only five or six of them broken might seem like it wouldn’t affect the bigger picture.

“I can’t believe it was the most important disks that broke… We’re in trouble.”

The purple disks that Anise was carrying were a different kind from the others.

They were made with much more delicate circuits and a decent amount of magic power… They were the ones that would serve as the final hurdle for the class assignment examination.

While the regular disks would show apparitions of wolves and kobolds, the purple disks would instead show full-blown monsters and wild beasts.

As far as I knew, most of the first-year students were defeated by the grizzly bears, red-blooded gargoyles, the eternal banshees, and the like that came from the purple disks.

They were all enemies that couldn’t be dealt with at a freshman’s level. Later, when the school questioned Assistant Professor Cleoh, there was a frightening anecdote where she naively responded ‘Eh? Didn’t they need to be at least of this level to enter Class A?’

An old eagle is better than a young crow. She really was Professor Glast’s disciple.

Even though she might appear innocent to the world, she was cold-blooded when it came to things of importance. You really couldn’t hastily judge a person based on impression alone.

“There’s nothing that can be done. There are still a few purple disks left… We’ll just have to continue the exam using them. We will just have to try and set them up in overlapping sections to cover it up.”

Even though she said such words of comfort, Assistant Professor Cleoh knew well that it wasn’t good.

The smaller the number of purple disks that were set up, the easier the exam itself became, and all the more luck-based to pass.

Students that had good luck and didn’t come across a purple disk would easily pass. However, those that might have even put in more effort… If they came across a purple disk, that meant they would definitely be eliminated.

“We barely managed to transport all of these over here, and now you’re saying that we can’t use them?”

The dreary-looking Clevius looked particularly upset as he pulled his hair.

“Wow, seriously! We went through so fucking much! How can this…!”

As he was going to say something, he quickly held his breath as he saw Anise crouching down in a corner of the altar.

The culprit behind the situation was Anise.

She was the one that thought we would handle the important magically engineered items roughly, so just in case something bad happened, she wanted to personally carry them herself. But ultimately, on the way up she ended up dropping them on the ground.

On the surface, if you didn’t have much knowledge of magic engineering, they might look rather durable. However, inside there were various sensitive circuitries, so it had to be handled with the utmost care.

The other issue came from the carefree attitude of Assistant Professor Cleoh, in which she forgot to warn us in advance about them. Anise was usually so good at taking care of her work that she had just gotten complacent and assumed that she would once again take care of everything.

“…I’m sorry. I should have been paying more attention.”

“No, it’s…”

Clevius broke into a cold sweat as he quickly bowed his head. He then fidgeted around as he played with his fingertips, muttering to himself.

“How can I get angry when you look so apologetic like that?!”

The atmosphere suddenly became solemn.

Assistant Professor Cleoh, Onyx, and Clevius all kept their mouths shut… I was the first to say something.

“Well, just sitting around like this isn’t going to fix these broken magically engineered items or the situation itself.”

What was certain was that it was now a critical situation.

As for what I knew about , it was the purple disks that Assistant Professor Cleoh had prepared that failed all of the first-year students.

Since the freshmen class assignment exam was an incident that took place far away from the main story and didn’t hold much importance, I didn’t know the exact details of how the exam went.

However, it was hard to believe that such an event took place in the storyline.

An event where Anise dropped the important magically engineered items because she was surprised to see me following right behind her…

With that being the case… The flow of the story of what was to come was not hard to imagine.

If, by chance, because of the greatly reduced level of difficulty students that were accepted into Class A started to appear and then…

It would even affect the next ‘Joint Combat Practice’ event.

The first years ran at Taylee with the desire to become the first student accepted into Class A. Then, Taylee was someone that was supposed to grab his sword and defeat all of those first years as if it were nothing. Clarice was supposed to start gaining interest in him then.

That meant that the entire story’s structure would be ruined.

Not only that, but with the first-year class assignment itself being changed, all of the events and relationships that took place between the students would also become unknown.

Of course, not everything could be perfect. If it’s something minor, that would be fine, but… It was too big of a twist.

It was something that would be too destructive for me to leave it alone.

***

What was the biggest moment, the moment when you realized you were in Silvenia, a land of learning.

If you were to ask Tanya such a question, her answer would be when she greeted her fellow noble and most honorable classmates.

Specifically speaking, Saint Clarice.

The school’s policy that the virtue of learning took precedence over one’s noble status made even the person closest to the voice of the god Telos, whom the world looked up to, walk through the education district as a regular human being.

There weren’t many people that had seen Saint Clarice in person, and if you were to see her, you would barely be able to get a decent view from the large crowd she drew.

She was a spiritual pillar of support for the millions of followers of the god Telos.

Clarice was used to standing in front of the public. She was someone that always shone brightly, wearing white holy clothes. Regardless of where she went, everyone around her would naturally kneel.

Seeing that same Clarice send her knights of the cathedral back while wearing the same Silvenia uniform was a surreal, out-of-this-world feeling for Tanya.

She wondered if it was okay for such a person to attend the school like a regular person.

Even though she was in a different outfit from her usual one, her elegance didn’t fade.

Her hair was closer to a nice gray than silver and flowed down to her waist. Her red eyes, which sent a chill down Tanya’s spine, didn’t move one bit.

Aside from that, she had a red butterfly hairpin that took up a large spot on the side of her hair. Even though it didn’t seem like she was wearing many other accessories, she still looked gorgeous.

At the entrance to Right Mountain, the new students in the magic department that had gathered together to wait for the start of the exam were frozen stiff.

Students that were believers of the Telos Religion had already knelt down. On quite a large scale, the members of House Rothstaylor, including the head of the house, were previously baptized by the Telos Religious Group. Because of that, Tanya also quickly bowed her head out of courtesy.

“Thank you, but there is no need to be so polite.”

A small but clear voice washed over the incoming students.

“If you continuously express your utmost courtesy, school life itself may become difficult. So, please, simplify your courtesy for me.”

Despite Clarice saying so, the students were still reluctant to raise their heads.

The first person to raise their head was Tanya Rothstaylor.

In terms of nobility in status, she was someone that could at least rub shoulders with Clarice.

“I am most honored to meet you, Saint Clarice. I am Tanya Rothstaylor, the heir to House Rothstaylor.”

“Oh my, House Rothstaylor. I believe the head of house, Krepin, has been baptized before. Though, it happened I was still quite young, so I don’t remember it well.”

“It was the most honorable day.”

Every move Tanya made was full of confidence, all while remaining courteous and respectful, which was a refreshing shock to the other classmates.

As an esteemed daughter, Tanya made sure that her elegance and grace was always as sharp as a knife. But at the same time, she rarely showed a persona that bowed or yielded in front of anyone.

But no matter how strong her personality might be, when the other person was a saint, the story changed.

“I heard about what happened to the eldest daughter Arnen a few years ago. Even though it’s a bit late, I would like to offer you my uttermost condolences.”

It was Arwen, not Arnen. But Tanya didn’t bother to correct her. If she had tried to correct her, the atmosphere would have become rather awkward.

Given the status of a saint who lived a life meeting many aristocrats all over the country, it was hard to expect her to remember everyone and memorize the names of their children.

The fact that she was close to remembering her family was something Tanya considered an honor.

In the first place, there was no one else at Silvenia Academy besides Princess Penia that could face her and Clarice at the same level.

“It’s an honor that you remembered and gave your condolences. Once I become an adult, I will also come to get baptized.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it, Miss Tanya.”

After saying that and exchanging laughter, the once rigid atmosphere now seemed to have relaxed. The students around them that were hesitant had begun to slowly relax a bit.

Meeting with the saint was a really memorable event, but the most important thing was the class assignment examination that was being held.

The Combat Department was at the student square. The Magic Department was at the entrance of Right Mountain. The Alchemy Department was underground in Obel Hall.

Depending on your department, the place you gathered and the contents of the test differed, but the goal stayed the same.

To be assigned to Class A.

For years, the status of Class A had been ridiculously elevated, with Professor Glast being in charge of the class assignment exam.

Even just looking at the current Class A students in the second year, you could clearly see that. Lucy, Lortel, Ziggs, Ayla, and Adele… More than half of the students were already considered and treated as aces.

In addition to its status, there were also additional benefits for students in Class A.

The tuition fee was free of charge, the privilege to enter Ophelis Hall—a highly praised dormitory that everyone looked up to—and even most of the student welfare facilities were also free of charge.

Whether you wanted the high honor or the practical benefits, Class A was bound to be coveted as an incoming first year.

The same was true for all of the students gathered at the entrance of Right Mountain. Most of the students wanted to enter Class A for their own reasons.

“They said the flash of light that comes from the top of Right Mountain would be the signal…”

Tanya muttered that to herself as she looked up from the crowd at the top of Right Mountain.

With a flash of light as the signal, all kinds of magic power began to in imbued into the magic power stones hidden across the mountain.

Using your own Magic Resonance to find the magic power stones, then presenting them to the altar at the summit of the mountain. That was how you passed the exam.

The type of Magic Power stone you found, the time it took, and the method used to break through to the summit was used as the scoring criteria. They had to hurry.

One way or another, everyone was an incoming first year student of Silveria.

It wasn’t simply a place where those with high and noble status had gathered. There were also many individuals given permission to attend thanks to their ridiculous talent and skills in various fields. Of course, even though they might already be talented… That just increased how much they wanted to learn.

Even if you limited it to the students in the Magic Department, just how many students were there?

The saint of Telos, Clarice. The heir to House Rothstaylor, Tanya. The heir to the Loken mercenaries, Eigg. The youngest researcher in Togg’s magic power society, Joseph… Other than them, there were too many to say.

Everyone looked up at the summit of the mountain.

The tip of the vaguely visible altar was higher than they had thought.

***

Within House Nortondale, the GhostBlade lived. That was an old rumor.

Losing its sense of identity, it couldn’t tell the difference between friend and foe. With a dagger, it would stab your eyes, pull your chin off with its bare hands, rip off human flesh, and break your bones.

No matter what it might be, if it had a sharp object in its hand, it would rip apart any flesh it could see and be in complete ecstasy as it covered itself in blood.

Even for House Nortondale, who were the greatest swordsmen on the continent, it proved to be too difficult to bring back the boy that was born with such an inner devil.

No matter how much he pretended to be a person, the moment he lost his rationality there was blood around him. A monster with blood red eyes that went around ferociously killing those around him. To such a creature, traditional morals didn’t apply.

Even though he was never taught to use a sword, he still knew how. Only two days after he opened his eyes to magic power, he began to wrap mana around his sword.

His talent as a swordsman was outstanding, but his fundamentals as a human being were the opposite.

Even Evian Nortondale, the head of the Nortondale House, eventually gave up on him.

The members of the Nortondale House were all well aware.

Clevius Nortondale couldn’t do anything about the demonic nature he was born with, which fought against his will.

In order to rein in something demonic that is within you, ultimately you needed to keep yourself away from your innate power.

Rumors of a blood crazy GhostBlade, accusations of being shamed by his family, and the constant pressure of being a monster made it difficult for those around him. Clevius lived his childhood years with that burden. The label of being a monster followed him his entire life.

His lack of self-esteem made him a gloomy person, but at the very least his life as a blood crazy monster had ended.

He was no longer happy holding a sword. He was terrified of his power, which might end up killing someone. He would rather run away than fight.

The fear that he had become accustomed to ate away at his inner self. It was inevitable that he would one day no longer have any self-esteem left.

“You should grab a sword.”

The words came from Ed Rothstaylor.

At the ‘Substitute Altar’ at the summit of Right Mountain, all of the members of Cleoh’s lab had gathered together to voice their opinions. Among them, an alternative was proposed by Ed Rothstaylor, who looked like he was lost in his thought by himself.

“Let’s change the content of the exam.”

“The last hurdle they have to face can be to get past us. If they can make it to the altar by breaking through their upperclassmen, then that means they should be more than qualified for Class A. That’s a good enough reasoning. Generally speaking, students of Class A should be stronger or more skilled than their upperclassmen, who are only a year or two older than them.”

“You want us to personally fight the freshmen that come up…? Then, who will supervise everything?”

“There’s no need to. The point of supervising is to make sure there isn’t any cheating, but if we become the test itself, then there won’t be any reason to supervise. And I’m sure that Onyx will be able to handle supervising the students’ safety on his own.”

Right Mountain was difficult to cover all by yourself. But with Onyx, who was an expert at fight magic, he should at least be able to cover to the extent of any safety accidents, if not cheating as well.

“But… In the first place, we already submitted the report regarding the exam to the school. If we were to change the content of the test now…!”

“We can just report it again later, Anise. If we just revise the report a bit later and submit it, then there will be no problem.”

“So, we are going to conduct the exam first and then revise the report after? Isn’t that against school regulations?”

“If we run over to submit the report now, it’ll work. The person in charge of the report… Assistant Professor Cleoh can take care of that.”

After saying that, they all looked at Assistant Professor Cleoh.

Ed Rothstaylor might have made the point, but it was Assistant Professor Cleoh that had the power to make the decision.

“Hm…Hmm…? You want me to write up the report right now and submit it again…? What?! You’re telling me I have to do even more paperwork?!”

“Isn’t it possible?”

“Running like crazy all the way to the lab, then making copies right away… I guess it’s possible to barely finish right before the exam results come out…?”

As Cleoh thought hard by herself, humming, she began to ask Ed a question.

“If this continues as is, the difficulty of the exam will be too easy, so there will ultimately be too many students succeeding in getting into Class A… There will be a lot to talk and explaining I would need to do if that happened… but, on the contrary, if we do as you say and you guys take on the role of defending the altar, will you be able to face all of the students?”

“Technically speaking, we won’t have to face off against all of them. Just those that have found a magic power stone and gotten past the apparition-type magically engineered items.”

“If they went through all of that, won’t they be pretty strong?”

“Most of them will be exhausted by the time they get to us anyway. I think Ed’s idea will be better than I had originally thought.”

Even though there weren’t any purple disks, breaking through the ordinary disks as well was quite challenging.

At the center of the group, Ed once again rubbed his face. He pushed his bangs back as he took a deep breath before speaking honestly.

“To sum it up, this is what we’ll do. While Assistant Professor Cleoh goes to quickly write up the report, Onyx will supervise the students’ safety, Clevius will block the south entrance to the altar, and Anise will block the north entrance.”

“Then, what about you Ed?”

When Anise said so, Ed tapped on the altar.

“I’ll protect the altar. I have something in mind, so I think it’ll be better to do as I planned. As for going into detail… I don’t think there is time for that.”

After saying as much, there was silence among the group again.

Ed’s alternative was plausible in its own way.

Anise was a model student in Elemental Studies and Clevius was the top student in the combat department.

Of course, it might be difficult for the two of them to stop all of the students that had gotten through the magically engineered items. But the freshmen would still be exhausted from it all, so about nine students should have been manageable for the two of them.

But still, there was no guarantee that everything would go perfectly. Ed, who was by himself at the altar, felt that deeply.

“Since it’s my fault things have come like this… I won’t voice any complaints.”

Anise answered with a straightforward response.

Assistant Professor Cleoh also seemed to think hard about it, but she gradually came to accept Ed’s opinion. Onyx as well seemed to have no complaints.

All that was left was Clevius.

All eyes turned towards him.

“Ahh… Ehhh… Ahhhhhh….!!!! Seriously….!”

Clevius didn’t trust Ed Rothstaylor. But with all the opinions converging to one place, it was hard to act stubborn even if you were Clevius.

“I got it…! I said I got it…!”

***

Assistant Professor Cleoh quickly climbed down the mountain.

Onyx Pelomier gathered magic power into his body little by little, starting to float.

Anise Haylan gathered the power of elemental magic and checked her body, then went to block the northern entrance.

Clevius Nortondale took out his sword as he reluctantly went to guard the southern entrance.

After everyone left to do their respective tasks, all that was left was pure silence at the altar.

There were no other noises except for the occasional passing wind.

I remained alone as I looked up at the altar for a moment. How high was the headstone that the top letters written on it couldn’t even be seen properly?

Looking around, I could see a full view of Acken Island from the top of the mountain.

From the south-east education district, the south-west commercial district, the northern forest, the north-east cliffside, all the way to the shore off in the east.

After inhaling the air from the high altitude, I inspected the magically engineered item that had fallen on the floor once more.

[ Magically Engineered Item – Apparition Disk (Purple)

A disk-shaped device that reveals the illusion of a powerful enemy through the magic power of the manufacturer.

It has a higher grade than that of a regular apparition disk. It can show a stronger enemy.

Grade: Very Rare

Production Difficulty Level: ●●◐○○

There were six of them.

Of course, it was still hard for me to fully repair them with my current magic engineering skill.

However, if I collected the internal components and tried to roughly remake them… Even if it wouldn’t produce the original output, they might produce at least a similar output.

As for time, Clevius and Anise would buy me some.

I put down the disks as I went back towards the altar.

‘Substitute Altar’.

If you presented an object that contained magic power to the alter, it will extract the magic power from it as it was then assimilated into the air and one’s body.

I took out a small leather bag from the bottom of the altar.

Assistant Professor Cleoh had brought it over. There were objects that looked like the magic power stones hidden across the mountain. It seemed that they were the leftovers after she had spread them out everywhere.

Magic power stones with that much magic power inside of them were quite expensive. But since they could easily be retrieved with collecting magic, we were supplied with a lot of them.

I took out one of the magic stones as I gave it to the altar. A faint feeling of magic power lingered on my fingertips. It had been a while since I’d felt that.

I concentrated on testing it out.

I could see something similar to a flame in the shape of a bat by focusing and giving power to my eyes.

I was still lacking in magic power like before, but the bat spirit seemed to be saying something, even though I couldn’t hear him.

The amount of magic power imbued in it given the price was not very satisfactory.

I checked the amount of magic power stones left in the leather bag as I sat on the altar.

From underneath the shining altar, Acken Island looked quite vast.

With my back slightly bent, I placed my elbows on my knees. I sat still in that comfortable position as I organized my thoughts once more.

The freshmen class assignment exam, a sudden crisis situation out of our hands, maintaining fair judgment, making sure the appropriate number of students were accepted into Class A… I’d come up with all sorts of excuses, but… sadly none of them mattered to me.

In the first place, I wasn’t willing to let a single freshman pass the exam.

I felt bad, but… It couldn’t be helped.

I used the ‘halo generator’, a magically engineered item that I was given by Assistant Professor Cleoh, as I shot a flash of light up into the sky. The signal for the start of the exam.

At the summit of Right Mountain in front the Substitute Altar.

Sitting there… I quietly looked down.

The wind from on top of the altar… No matter what, it didn’t seem to be a natural wind.