Today is the 28th of the Month of Earth. Only two days remain until the beginning of another year and the long-awaited New Year celebration. But before the cadets of Melas can enjoy the holidays, they need to go through a trial called the semester’s final tests. The tests have two parts, one are the general exams, which are about subjects like Math, History and the likes. The other are the specialized exams, which include varied special tests from each of their own Department. The 27th, yesterday, was the date for the general exams. And yes, they crammed all the exams for the general subjects into one day. Don’t ask me how absurd it was.

I think I did good enough on those exams. The rules forbid the students from using any kind of magic or tool during (and before) the examination. So of course, that included 「Remembrance」, the spell that would be a god-sent for students back in my own world. However, theoretical exams like this are the common norm back when I’m still on Earth, so the hard part was cramming as much as I can before the destined day.

But well, let’s put that aside since this is not the end of the finals, and I still have a bunch of problems to solve. Today, the 28th, is the real deal for the cadets studying in this academy. One can say the general exams were just a warm up, and the real tests lie with the specialized exams. The ones that will decide whether you’re gonna spend the new year with your family, or with the teachers and the make-up lessons in this cold and lonely castle.

The weather is pretty good today. The sun is high, the temperature is good, though it’s still a little cold outside. A perfect day for the exam, and for the Familiar competition as well.

I hadn’t got another chance to talk with Deborah ever since that day. And even when we got a chance to meet, neither of us were capable of saying something. Pretty awkward for both of us. That would mean the two of us hadn’t got anything that would resemble a battle plan, right before the fight. Sounds bad, real bad.

But well, I’ll make up something along the way. According to Kardia’s words, the content for the competition changes each year, so in a way, a battle plan isn’t that important. Let’s hope Deborah also thinks that way.

Put the competition aside for the moment. Right now, I have more important things to focus on.

“We have arrived.”

Our proctor – Mrs. Prophetissima – leads us to the entrance of Darkwood forest. What awaits us at the forest’s entrance is an enormous rock, about two meters tall, one that I have never seen at this place before, and I’ve been around here a lot. There seems to be nothing special about the rock, it’s just your ordinary annoying big rock staying at one place to bother people. I wonder what is its purpose for lying here. Are we supposed to split it in half using a karate chop or something?

“Your task is very simple. Each one of you will have to destroy this rock using your knowledge of alchemy, whether it be tools or Image Magic. Your result will be based on the time you take and the mean you use to destroy the rock.”

So karate chop is a no-no, but I almost get it right, almost.

“I believed all of you have taken preparations beforehand. Well then, I will begin the exam. The first cadet to take the exam is…Akuma.”

Mrs.Prophetissima takes a look at the name list and says my name out loud. Since the Headmaster registered me with the fake name I gave her and there is no other students in my class that has a name starts with the initial A, I get bestowed the privilege of being the first one to take on the exam. It’s not exactly a problem though, I come prepared, so this should be easy, I hope.

I walk toward the rock. Within six meters radius around the rock, there lies a magic circle. It is faint and obscure, but those who are used to the art of Image Magic can notice it immediately. I guess this is used to prevent the rock’s debris from harming the students should someone decides to blow it up in the most flashy and destructive way. It’s pretty convenient, considering what I’m going to do.

“You may begin the exam.”

My clock starts ticking the moment the cue gets dropped by our proctor. I need to finish this fast, but first, information is weapon. I need to gather more info about my opponent first.

“⅃ɘƚ ƚʜɘ ʞnowlɘbǫɘ oʇ olb ɘnliǫʜƚ my ƨiǫʜƚƨ.”

I quickly chant the 「Analyze」 spell. With my reinforced eyes, I take another glance at the rock. The main component of this rock is…rock (obviously, duh!). So in a sense, this is just a normal rock. But when I take a deeper look inside, I find out this rock’s density is much higher than a normal rock, like it was enchanted to be this dense. However, the density drops the deeper it is to the rock’s center, making its center a lot more fragile than its outer shell. I deduce that the weak point of this rock is in its center core.

All that left is how to destroy it. But the moment I get a hold over its weakness, that problem has become trivial.

I touch the rock with my left index finger. With concentrated soul energy at the tip, I begin drawing a magic circle. Starting with a big circle on the rock’s body, I write the four characters with the meaning of Earth in Ancient Tongue at the positions of the four cardinal directions. Then, I begin to rotate my finger nearer and nearer to the center to draw a spiral. The only thing left is some minor details. With this, I’m done preparing the spell.

“Well then.”

I press my left index finger to the center of the magic circle and activate the spell. The spiral starts to shine, creating a hole inside the circle as per purpose of this spell. 「Distortion」 is this spell’s name. Its main purpose is to disfigure the objects inside of its effective radius. However, due to the law of conservation of mass, the mass “left out” from the spell’s effect has to go “somewhere”. And that somewhere on this rock is currently at its back. There is a small pillar of rock at the opposite of the hole I created. I bet the total mass of the left over rock pillar is the same of those used to make my hole, but that is irrelevant since I’m going to destroy all of it anyway.

I take out the main star of this party which is previously hiding underneath my cloak. It’s a white box with the size and shape similar to a wine box. On the body of the box, there is a magic circle with the word Lightning (in Ancient Tongue of course) along with random details. I press the center of the magic circle to active the spell, and drop the whole box to the hole I just created. Quickly afterward, I command the Distortion spell to fill back the hole again. With this, my task is done.

All that left for me is to get the hell out of this place. And I run like being chased by a man eating monster closing on my ass, despite the confused looks my classmates give me. But please, if they know what I just put inside the rock is, they’ll take the same course of action as I did.

The clock keeps ticking. Five seconds to four seconds, and with passing time, the clock hits the timer at zero, the very same time I get myself to safety behind the protective barrier.

BOOM!

The rock gets shattered to pieces as my little box exploded inside of it. Some debris find their way to the direction of the students, but the protective barrier does its job. What remains of the rock is a handful of its foundation. I think I did good enough. All of the students look at the remaining rocks in awe, all except Kardia who’s sitting alone outside of the crowd, contented with watching from afar. She knows what that is, since she was the one who helped me made that thing. We exchange looks, and Kardia just simply give me a “Good job” head nod from where she’s sitting.

What inside the box is a red-colored plastic explosive called Semtex - the other famous plastic explosive that isn’t C4. It’s a rather insensitive to physical force or heat, so in order to detonate this baby, I added a small amount of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (or PETN for short) in the box to use as detonator. The magic circle outside was used to detonate the PETN inside by sparking it with electricity, and in turn, detonate the whole box. The tricky part is manipulating the magic circle for it to properly act as a timer detonator. I got help from Kardia in order to finish it. The trick she taught me was a technique called “layered-spell”.

To put it in layman’s term, that would be drawing a magic circle on top of another magic circle, with the activation of one leading to the activation of the other. I just simply draw a magic circle that was customized to activate in the span of 7 seconds, when that time is up, it will activate the magic circle underneath, which then create an electric spark to the PETN inside and the rest is history. Complicated stuff. That’s why I called this creation of mine “RG Bomb”, stands for Rube Goldberg.

And don’t ask me on how the hell did I create plastic explosives with an alchemy pot, I have enough technobabble inside my head already.

“Well done, Mr.Akuma.”

With a voice that isn’t too different from her daily tone, Mrs.Prophetissima give me her words of confirmation on my test. I expect her reaction to be more…in awe, then I find myself having that very reaction when the debris of the destroyed rock suddenly pull themselves back to their original position and reassemble themselves to become the rock from before. The new rock looks…brand new, it’s like my RG Bomb earlier hasn’t been used on (or in) that rock from the start. With the test’s objective returning to its original state, the proctor simply continues the test with a shout.

“Next!”

Seems like there’re still lots of things that I need to learn in this world.

…

With the the end of the practical exams, we begin to move on to the theoretical test, which is no different than the general exams yesterday, except the subject on the test is alchemy, and there’s another Item Synthesis exam after that. Since I come prepared, just like the general exams, I think I do good enough. I didn’t have much hope to begin with when I “transferred” halfway to this academy, so my main concern is simply not to fail. The end of the Item Synthesis exam also marks the end of our department’s specialized exams, and also the semester’s final test. I can hear the relieved sound of my classmates after we get out of the test classroom.

However, my problems haven’t ended, not yet.

The very moment I get out of the test room, I run back to the student council meeting room with all my might. I haven’t neglected daily physical training with Caelan, and all that workout do pay off, even just a bit. I still have some strength and breath left in my chest when I get to my destination. A feat that would tire the hell out of the previous me from before.

This place has been my (borrowed) workshop for the past week. All of my preparations for the fight are inside here. I go inside the room and begin assembling my gadgets. Namely several magazines for my handgun, a leather belt with six pipes of Semtex inside to use as hand grenades, several glass syringes and finally, an RG Bomb. The pipe bombs aren’t the problem, so are the magazines. But taking all of them out to the battlefield under my cloak is just a bit bothersome…

“You’re really going?”

A voice comes from the direction of the door. Kardia is standing there, with her hands still holding her notebooks after she’s done with the test.

“Is there any other options left?”

I answer. Silence is the only reaction coming from the girl. However, Kardia suddenly put her notebooks onto a nearby desk. She slowly walks to an old closet inside the room and takes out a black cloak. It’s similar to our cloak uniform, but the white lines at the end of the cloak indicates that it’s a different type of cloak than the common ones.

“This is…”

“Battle uniform for Melas’s Alchemists. This is the standard uniform for the 2nd year and above, but I reinforced its material to have the ability to absorb all sort of blunt physical trauma. You can protect your gears and tools while wearing this cloak. However, it’s still impervious to magic, arrows and bladed weapons.”

Kardia hands me the cloak. After a quick glance, I find several empty slots in that cloak that can be used to hold all the items in my possession, even the Rude Goldberg Bomb. Combined with the fact that this cloak is also shock resistant, all these points make it a very legit battle wear for someone like me.

“This is godsent! Thank you! But is it alright for me to take it?”

“It’s okay. Just think of it as a gift from me to you, and a token of my gratitude as well.”

Now she’s just being overly polite again. I own her more than she think she own me. A simply thank you can’t express my gratitude of her right now.

“Just promise me one thing...that you will come back here alive.”

As much as I want to tease her for worrying too much, I just simply smile and nod. This is the first time for me to have someone worry about my welfare. With people like her around, there is nothing for me to regret choosing to stay and live in this world.

Yes, to live here, to stay here, that was my wish. To be in a place where people need me. That’s why I will fight to keep this life from shattering.

“It’s okay. I will return, like always.”

“Then, may victory be with you.”

Kardia bow her head and wish me luck as I finish gearing up and take my leave.

---------------------------------

With all my battle gear under the new cloak, I run to the castle’s east gate with all my strength in hope that the competition hasn’t started yet. The quiet castle has become a lot livelier ever since the start of the semester’s finals, and it hasn’t quiet down a bit even when the finals are over. People upon people walk on the path to the castle’s east gate to become spectators of this year’s Familiar Competition. Their appearance give me a relief, actually. That would mean the competition hasn’t started…yet.

After some struggles, I get myself a clear path to continue running. After several minutes, I arrive at the castle’s east gate. This is a rather large area, since armies usually march through the castle to get to the frontline, so this place was built with the capability to hold an army in mind. Priers have already populated this place, looking to a big tv-like screen projected by a crystal-powered device. Near the castle’s iron gate, there are several people standing nearby. Most of them wear wizard hats, so I guess they are members of the Magic Arts and the participants of this competition, well, the first half of the participants, in a sense.

Among those people is Deborah, who’s standing there, simply sulking alone.

The referee of the competition is standing in front of the participants. She looks familiar. If I’m not wrong, that woman is Miss Walpurga – the Head of the Magic Arts. But that is irrelevant right now.

Slowly, I advance through the crowd as carefully as possible, since I don’t want to gather unwanted attention from the spectators. The closer I walk, the clearer the voices from the participants become. Miss Walpurga is reading a list of names. When a participant’s name get called, that person will walk forward, summon their familiar and go straight through the huge iron gate to parts unknown. That is the standard protocol, until Deborah’s turn, that is.

“Miss Deborah Draconis. It’s our pleasure having Lord Dargoth’s granddaughter to participate in this sort of competition.”

“I don’t care.”

Walpurga just gives a silent smile in response.

“So, where’s your familiar?”

“Not here.”

Deborah bluntly answers. If I don’t show up, she has full intention of throwing the competition away. No, maybe, that is her sole reason to come here in the first place.

“Then call him here. Summon him to this place.”

Deborah falls silent as Walpurga gives the order. That woman doesn’t look like the patience type. This is not good, I have to hurry.

“We both know what will happen if he doesn’t enter, don’t we? Do you really want to risk that consequence?”

“I…”

Deborah mumbles.

“Hmm…? I what?”

“I…don’t kn…”

“I’M HERE!!!!”

I shout. That is probably not the best course of action, since all the attention from people around radpily turns to the funny guy who’s trying to get through the crowd of participants. I know I always want to be famous, but this is a little bit…

“You…you really came.”

Says Deborah. She both looks surprised and unsurprised.

“Good reaction. Now you don’t have to worry about getting your eyes checked.”

I answer. And with that, Deborah’s sour look turns into her daily grumpy face in less than one second.

“Dramatic entry indeed. Since both of you are in condition to fight, you may walk through the gate to the battleground ahead.”

Walpurga just smiles as she writes some notes to her name list. In order to stop wasting time and stagnating the other guys, the both of us walk forward to the gate. That doesn’t stop us from bickering on the way, though.

“You’re a real idiot. Do you know that?”

As we walk through the gate, the girl that is my Master opens her mouth and starts her predictable reaction.

“I admit that I have some stupidity inside my head.”

I answer the girl. How humble of me to admit my stupidity.

“But that doesn’t make you any smarter than me, you idiotic girl!”

Deborah looks shocked.

“What !? What are you talking about, you stupid, and selfish…stupid and selfish idiot!”

“You can be more imaginative than that.”

Seriously, this is the first time I see her getting THIS worked up. Emphasized with THIS.

“You blockhead! If you’re going to die by the hand of someone, I will make sure that hand will be mine!”

“Ooooh, scary!”

I laugh. All her death threats don’t look so frightening when she’s too angry to make a serious response.

“This is more like it. Yep, it’s fine this way.”

“What are you talking about ?”

Still with a grumpy look, Deborah asks.

“I mean, being like this is fine. Let’s put all the plans, thoughts and deep philosophies aside. The both of us have already entered the competition. There’s no use for bickering over spilled milk. Our only job right now is to win! Stop thinking unnecessary thoughts!”

For a second, Deborah is stalled. She just stands there while I keep going. Of course, that leads me to halt my track as well.

“What’s the matter?”

“No, it’s nothing severe. I’m just wondering about how idiotic you are.”

“I’m not laughing.”

However, the one who’s laughing isn’t me, it’s Deborah. Though she’s just smiling rather than laughing out loud. But even that smile gets a little sour over time.

“Really…It’s like I’m being cursed or something.”

Deborah mumbles.

“Well, it won’t be a problem if you’re cursed with me. I think that would be a blessing for you instead.”

“Stop being so conceited!”

After that, the two of us continue to bicker as we walk to our destination, without knowing what awaits us ahead.