Extra info which I did not mention last chapter.

Both Albert and Kyle are a year 5 students, currently 15 years old.

Albert has a blonde ponytail, while Kyle has white smooth hair, covering one of his eyes… Sorry. I fail as an author.

I still need improvements in describing hairstyle.

I think I’ll make a page of all the characters, I might be able to describe them better there.

This is one busy week for me, but next week is my break! For a week! Yay!

No revamp chapter today…Sorry, but I promise I’ll get one out this Thursday!

Enjoy the story.

The year passed normally after the Blazing Hound incident. In one of the morning assemblies, the principal, Eiden, announced that there will be someone hired to take care of issues like that. And his words were fully true. The portals that appear randomly in the forest had mostly disappeared, and in the 9th month, a poor student met a Snow Demon, which was destroyed by a shadow right in front of him.

No one knew what the shadow was, but everyone felt nice that there was someone protecting them.

Not that we have much time to ponder about it. It is already the last semester of the year, and the finals are coming up.

We can’t afford to slack off for the finals, especially for first years like us. This test is going to determine which year we are going to skip to, except for Combat, due to the fact that we will work better with people of the same age. If we didn’t do our best, it is possible for us to be forced to waste a year or two relearning useless stuff.

The first exam up is the Combat exam. Since it has the most students, it is going to be cleared out right at the beginning, with one year of students every day. Being first years, our test marks the beginning of the whole test season.

We entered the dome together, while Professor Gwen was marking the attendance. Mel, who was behind her, waved a hand at me. I waved back, while waiting for the test to start.

Nobody and I, along with all the non-pure mages, are to fight various instructors, while pure mages will fight Professor Gwen. Ashley alone has a different test, where Mel would fight her head on.

I was surprised, Mel had always been healing, and never fought, and their turn came quickly. Both of them got on the battlefield, and Ashley prepared multiple barriers, as well as one from Professor Gwen herself, while Mel had her staff floating beside her.

“I hope we have a nice battle~” Mel said bowing while smiling, and Ashley bowed back. “The battle starts when I get on the staff, are you ready?” Ashley nodded, tensed up.

And then she got on her staff.

“DIE!” The woman on the staff screamed, her facial expression distorting into one of pure madness.

Wait! That is still Mel, right???

The crazed woman on a staff threw giant fireballs over and over from multiple directions directly at Ashley, while she created a few more barriers to divert the attacks, sending some flying towards other fireballs, causing them to explode agianst each other. Every single fireball made the ones from the blazing hound look like a joke.

All the time she was throwing them, she was laughing madly, as if screaming. All the students stepped away in fear as the fireballs she threw became larger and larger over time.

Professor Gwen created a water dome around the battlefield to prevent stray shots flying out, while Mel continued throwing them over and over for two whole minutes. After that, she charged forwards, her staff burning, and she jumped off her staff. While still in the air, she turned and swung her stalff, hard, into Ashley’s barriers. It destroyed all 6 barriers directly, and crashed into Gwen’s barrier, which flickered as Ashley flew off into the water dome.

How strong even IS that attack?

Ashley got quite high marks though. From later talks with Mel, I would realize that she is insanely strong when on her staff, strong enough to wipe my father in 1 hit if she manages to hit it, and if he doesn’t use any spells, although dad is still stronger than her overall. In terms of brute force though, there was no match up to now.

Nobody’s turn came up soon after, and he had to fight an instructor. As usual, he had no weapons, but this time he brought some drones from engineering classes.

Cheap and dirty tactics are allowed, after all. Few people fight fair when you have to risk so much in a battle.

His strongest weapons are his knives. After the blazing hound incident, he found out a few more ways to use it. Now, with 8 knives (all blunt), he fought the instructor head on. He even had 3 flying orbs, which shoots bolts of mana towards the instructor at random intervals.

With expert control in all his weapons, he managed to push the instructor quite hard, especially since he can control the knives in 4 pairs of 2, and all 3 orbs individually, which is really good, as I personally can only control one at a time.

The battle ended when the instructor activated his skill . A huge tornado appeared when he slashed, and all the drones, as well as Nobody himself, was sent flying up. He was caught with a water ball from Gwen, but all his drone were ruined.

And after everyone is done, it was finally my turn. I went up, with both my weapons ready, fighting against the principal himself, with a slim sword and a bow. Most of the students gasped, with a few cries of “The principal!” While Nobody was pointing at him, shouting, “That’s the dead dude from the Adventurer’s guild!” Which I didn’t understand. Did they meet before?

I didn’t know his fighting style, but if he often works with my dad, he won’t be a pushover. I readied my stance, and he drew his bow, not pointing at me.

On a side note, while normally, in Archery, drawing your bow before battle is not allowed, for Combat, it was advised. Even my stance had me pointing my pistol at him.

“Start!”

I instantly fired 2 shots, one to his left, and the other to his right, and charged forwards. Eiden smiled as he watched me, and he slashed the ground once before stepping back.

He had placed a nearly invisible mana ball on the ground, and I quickly stepped back before I ran into it. The moment I did so, the ground exploded, with shockwave, flying out diagonally from the ground, shot out. It didn’t extend outwards, so no damage was taken, but my shots were wasted.

That’s when Eiden jumped forwards, as if flying towards me. He swung his leg as he flew forwards, and I dodged, preparing to slash. But the attack that was supposed to hit was blocked by his sword easily, and he tumbled behind me, kicking twice, once with a back kick and another somersault kick.

I staggered forwards into a roll at the first kick, and the second kick, intended to launch me into the air, failed to connect. While rolling forwards, I fired a shot with my pistol. Eiden easily dodged the slash, but failed to dodge my follow up skill . After firing the shot, and before I actually steadied myself, I had quickly jumped forwards, stomping the ground with my feet, and staggered Eiden. I slashed him 4 times with the wooden sword, which he desperately blocked before countering with a lunge himself.

I stepped back, and tried to slash again, but with Eiden countered it with a mana charged kick, which send my sword flying off.

I mentally cursed myself for letting myself get disarmed so easily, and Eiden pressed hard on me.

But, I have learnt how to fight when I lost my sword thanks to Senpai! So I fought him using my pistol to block and shoot. In that sense, I have a small advantage in the sense that, if I block right, I can still shoot him to force him to disengage. That happened soon enough, and with a distance, I dashed towards my sword.

A few arrows flew towards me, But I dodged them, suffering from just a light scratch on my shin.

I used another of my skills . It was a skill which I will take a stance where I repeatedly shoot, while walking, allowing me free movement while restricting my enemy. This skill allows me to get quite close to the enemy as they try to dodge my shots, since no matter where they try to dodge I can always shoot them, unless if they are much faster than me. Eiden, though, was forced to constantly dodge and I walked steadily towards him.

I doubt he is moving at full speed.

When I got close enough, I broke out of my stance, and charged forwards with a kick. Eiden dodged it, but I quickly followed up with multiple slashes and shots. Not surprisingly, he blocked and parried all of them with his sword only. Even so, I pushed him back, and back, and back.

Then the ground exploded.

It was the same magic that Eiden used earlier, and he casted it without me noticing. As I was in the air, trying to create a barrier to stabilize myself, Eiden took out his short bow, and the arms extended, turning it into a long bow.

And drew back a wooden blunted arrow.

“Stop! The battle is over!” Gwen desperately said, but Eiden still fired the arrow.

The ceiling behind me was instantly destroyed.

The arrow flew just past me, the winds from the arrow pushing me away, and I fell into a water ball from Gwen.

I suddenly remembered. Eiden is a ranged sniper, not a melee fighter.

“Very well done, boy. Very well done. Be more careful of traps like that though, also, perhaps you might want to check around for mana more. It gives good indication when people use spells.” He advised, before leaving the students in awe.

Sorry. My mana pool is too horrible for even that…

Even so, I’m grateful for my mark. It is quite high, and I’m satisfied with it. Even if I could have done better in the battle… No, I had done my best.

Also, someone should fix that hole in the ceiling…

The swordsmanship test was next, after 8 days. It, however, was a simple 1 minute spar that the instructor used to judge the student, before forcefully ending it.

For my battle, he ended it with a .

And I flew again. This time horizontally. Towards the wall.

Ouch.

The marks I got wasn’t too high, but since I mainly fight with both weapons, marks like this was expected.

Should I continue taking swordsmanship? Oh well, no reason not to for the moment.

Engineering though…If one thought that the swordsmanship instructor was lazy, the engineering test was a whole new level of ‘lazy’. Atler entered the workshop, while all students from all years where waiting at the same time, and told us that we have 3 days to make whatever ‘shit’ we can, and he promptly left the workshop.

I improved my pistol, reinforcing it, while modifying it to let it shoot physical bullets. It had the same weight too, but it was slightly unbalanced. I also added a few things to the pistol, allowing it to shoot multiple shots at a time, or charge up before shooting for more power.

Nobody, on the other hand, improved an item called a hoverboard, which he made earlier in the year. He modified the whole thing into a shoe, and with it, he could basically fly with the cost of mana. There is only one problem, that is, it is hugely inefficient. He could barely fly for 5 minutes before running out of mana.

5 minutes is quite an achievement already. I could barely do it for 5 seconds.

Damn my low mana pool.

Both of us got quite decent marks, in fact. And we were allowed to advance to the next grade of engineering. (Advanced and Expert grade engineering has only 3 years each, if no year skips are done)

The tactics exam was very, very hard. We, as a general, has to extort information from prisoners and the people in charge, both which are represented by the tactics teacher, and form a strategy. We had ‘1 day’ to obtain information, but each action will take ‘time’, for example, I asked for the layout of the castle, and used ‘1 hour’. With that, we have to protect the base for 5 days.

So basically, if we didn’t search the right things, we would waste so much time that we won’t be able to clear the test. Not that we have to clear it to pass.

My tactics included explosives using a few common stuff that my mom told me about. We used an artifact, which was made by ‘Elanor’, and it played out the whole battle. In the end, nobody succeeded in defending for the whole 5 days. Even my explosives were not enough, as they ran out in the 3rd day due to overwhelming number advantage.

And with the last test over, it was time for our break!

Name:ClintAge:9Year:1

SubjectMarksExtra comments

Combat742Good job!Swordsmanship423Allowed to skip to year 4.Tactics221Well done. You still have much to learn though.Basic engineering320Allowed to advance to advanced engineering.Excellent

“So that’s what happened for my tests!” Big brother said proudly, while I looked at him with awe.

“Eh….I want to go too!” I pouted, but big brother simply laughed and patted my head. “I wanna go! I wanna go!” I cried out in protest.

“Carla.”

“?”

“If you behave this year, I can bring you around AAA, and even introduce you to my friends. Okay?”

I looked at him with sparkling eyes, and he wiped off a little drool from my mouth, “Really???”

“I promise, okay?”

“Un!” I nodded happily. Totally unaware that he was going to introduce me to them even if I don’t behave.

“Carla! I’m back!” Papa called out as he entered the lab. I instantly jumped off Big brother and leapt into him! “Papa!”

He caught me easily and laughed. And then he looked up and saw big bro, “Yo, welcome back! No, I won’t hug you.”

Big bro grinned at those words, “Who the hell would want to hug an old man like you?”

Papa pointed at me, and both of them laughed. That’s when mama returned, she had a… tired… I think? look on her face.

“Shiina? What’s wrong?” Papa said, letting me down.

Mama looked at papa with pitiful eyes, hugged him and started to cry. Why is mommy crying? Big brother? Why are you looking away?

“Shiina! Where are you? Oh Shiina!” Someone I didn’t know shouted, and papa sighed.

“Clint, why?” Mama looked at big brother, as a familiar red haired woman entered the lab, and the woman dragged mama away. “NOOOOOOO!”

“Clint? Don’t worry too much.” Papa said, with a sigh.

I don’t understand anything….

Side story – The Shadow

“Shiina.” Dusk spoke through the communicator which was attached over his head, with a microphone in front of his mouth, “The target?”

“400 metres to the front. After that, -45 degrees, and 300 metres.” Shiina reported, while scanning the map.

Dusk and Shiina was under the request of Eiden to clear the random portals that appear in the forest. Once a week, they would travel to AAA to clear the summoned monsters and destroy the portal.

The reason they took the job was simple too.

After all, their son almost died to creatures from portals.

Dusk leapt above the forest, jumping above the trees to reach the portals quickly. As he landed, he found an inferno demon and a group of imps.

But their enemy was Dusk.

They were severely outnumbered.

“Ok, the portal closed. The next one is -45 degrees, 300 metres.” Shiina repeated as she confirmed that the portal had closed. “Wait, there seems to be a student near the portal.”

“Alive or dead? Nah, I see him. What had Eiden said about students?” Dusk said as he stood on a branch.

“’Kill the monsters. Ignore the students. That’s my job’ was what he said. Also, we should be faster. Carla would be waking up soon.” Shiina said, as she checked the time. Ever since Carla learnt about magic circles and magic diagrams, she would wake up early to pester them to teach her something. In fact, that wasn’t the problem, as she would do her own research when both she and Dusk were busy. The problem is that she would still cry when she was alone in the house.

“She would be looking for us in about 15 minutes.”

“[Light speed]”

“Isn’t that a rank 9 spell!?”

The student, who was walking in the woods to clear his mind, froze as he saw the multiple demons in front of him. They hadn’t noticed him yet, but when they did, he would be dead.

And then a shadow rushed out.

And all the demons died.

He ran back to the school, shouting something along shadows killing demons from portals, which led to he certain rumor. Luckily for Dusk, Clint never associated the shadow with his father.