novelraw Chapter 36
Chapter 36
Chapter 36
The moment the Pegasus’s hoof came crashing down toward Hapert, Hapert’s measuring device was crushed on the spot.
Not only Kiena, the owner of the Summoning Relic, but even Hapert couldn’t immediately accept the result before his eyes, and the wide duel arena was filled with silence.
It wasn’t just the two of them—both their supervising teachers, Kanyu and Ever, wore the same bewildered expressions.
I quietly checked Nide’s expression.
She was no different from Kanyu and Ever.
"……An unexpected result. The first duel goes to the Summoning Department. Fire-element student Hapert, return to your seat immediately."
Still, perhaps because she held the rank of professor, she regained her composure quickly and continued the duel.
[Scoreboard]
-Summoning: 1(1)
With Nide’s announcement, the scoreboard updated, officially signaling the end of the duel between Kiena and Hapert.
The winner was Kiena.
It was a fairly shocking outcome—Hapert, Ever, and even the other elemental students were wearing expressions of disbelief.
Kiena, the victor, reacted no differently.
Until this duel had taken place, she had practiced only summoning magic alone, and this was her first time in actual combat. She wouldn’t have been able to gauge how strong her magic was within 1st Class.
She was probably thinking, ‘Is my magic really this strong?’
Kiena seemed to have regained her confidence, her expression brightening at once.
Then she looked back and forth between Banshi, Hei, and me on the 2nd-floor Elemental Seats, smiling with her eyes and nodding.
I silently gave her a thumbs-up.
“Hapert, head upstairs.”
“W-wait just a moment! I just made a small mistake! I have to try again!”
As expected, Hapert wasn’t someone who accepted results easily.
He started making unreasonable excuses.
Splash!
Suddenly, a small wave rippled beneath Hapert’s feet and blasted him up to the 2nd-floor Elemental Seats.
As expected, that kind of excuse was never going to work.
“Students do not talk back to professors. Now, let’s move straight to the next duel.”
Still, given the situation, that was a clean way to proceed. Not bad at all.
[Scoreboard]
Summoning: 5(5)
Kiena continued to defeat the other departments’ students one after another.
Five consecutive wins.
She completely overwhelmed every student except those from the Dark element.
Watching Kiena as she stepped into each duel, only one phrase came to mind.
‘Unexpected chaos.’
My original plan had been to exploit the revised school rules—moving back and forth between the Dark and Fire elements to push both departments’ students into the upper ranks.
No, to fix them there.
As long as only Fire and Dark were in the top ranks, the penalties would remain locked onto those two departments, and the still-immature young students would be left in confusion.
That reasoning was easy to confirm just by observing Hapert and his gang.
That was why they had tried to intimidate me yesterday by pulling me aside and telling me to sit at the Dark Elemental Seats.
Moreover, Hapert had even planned to intentionally lose in the duel.
But because his opponent happened to be Kiena, he refused to lose to someone he considered a commoner, and the unexpected result had simply been the outcome.
By moving between the Fire and Dark elements, the point differences between the two groups would shrink, causing the rankings to fluctuate hourly.
However, Kiena’s growth—something even I hadn’t predicted—made my plan feel even more solid.
Judging from the process of her five consecutive victories, I believed that within 1st Class, the only mages capable of opposing her were Banshi and me.
Therefore, the top three ranks would naturally be fixed as Fire, Dark, and Summoning.
Grin.
‘Thanks to Kiena, things are moving in a very entertaining direction.’
As far as my own judgment went, the only top-tier students in 1st Class were Banshi and Kiena.
Hei had also grown, but since I hadn’t yet seen his fully honed skill with my own eyes, I couldn’t make a firm judgment.
Even so, based on what I’d seen in the Fire element class, his growth was nearly on par with Kiena’s.
Hei’s only “talent” had been that his body was absurdly sturdy for his age.
But ever since he’d happened to get his hands on the Ed Family’s magic tome, he suddenly began showing talent.
I found that suspicious, of course, but at least within 1st Class, his skill wasn’t something to worry about.
While I was thinking that, the next duel was drawn.
This time, it was the Dark element—my group.
And the student selected was, coincidentally……
[Artel]
It was my turn.
I slowly stood up and descended, taking a reasonable distance from Kiena.
“Kiena, that was amazing.”
“Hehe, even if you’re Artel, I’m not going to go easy on you!”
With five consecutive wins under her belt, her confidence was firmly locked in place.
She had simply summoned a single Pegasus and stood still, yet her opponents had practically self-destructed. No wonder she was having fun.
"That goes for me as well."
But the 1st place belonged to the Dark element, where I stood.
I had no intention of yielding that.
I, too, had my own plan.
And so the duel between Kiena and me began.
Kiena summoned her Pegasus the moment the duel started, looking at me with a triumphant expression.
‘Her real body is defenseless, so one solid hit to the summoner would end it…’
Even if I didn’t know summoning magic, at the very least I knew how to deal with a summoner—knowledge gained through hellish experience.
Sylarid, the Double Caster who had been both a Dark-element mage and a summoner, praised in magical society’s history as the strongest and the worst.
The Full Moon Battle about 450 years ago, when he fought alongside swordsmen.
I was someone who had survived that.
However, before launching an attack, I glanced up toward the 2nd-floor Elemental Seats.
Just counting the teachers and students watching this duel, there were easily over thirty.
I couldn’t be sure whether the teachers understood the summoner’s weakness, but the students certainly didn’t.
If I attacked Kiena’s real body here, I’d be giving away the summoner’s weakness—that the true body was the real target—for free. That was something I preferred to avoid.
‘That way, I should be able to get through 1st Class without trouble.’
In that case, there was only one conclusion for me.
I would defeat the summoned relic Kiena had brought forth using my own magic.
‘Now then, which magic should I use?’
I couldn’t use anything too high in circle level.
It needed to be reasonably strong but also a spell whose usage could vary.
While I was considering what might suit a 1st Class Dark-element mage, Kiena’s Pegasus suddenly began charging toward me like a bull running at a red cloth.
‘If she wants to come at me first, that actually works out nicely.’
At that moment, an appropriate spell came to mind.
“Spear Wall.”
A thin black wall formed, perfectly aligned to match my height, as though shielding my body.
And when Kiena’s Pegasus surged within roughly 20 centimeters of me—
Fwoosh-!
Countless awls shot out from the black wall and pierced through the Pegasus’s body.
The awls stabbed straight through its entire frame, and the Pegasus, writhing in pain, soon lost all its vitality and gradually scattered into the air like sand blown apart by the wind.
“Ah……?”
Kiena’s triumphant expression completely vanished as her Pegasus disappeared in an instant.
Spear Wall was a defensive spell that automatically reacted when a projectile or object approached within a certain radius, firing awls outward.
I had deliberately suppressed its level to the lowest possible considering I was still a 1st Class student, but originally, depending on the mage’s capability, it could detect even tiny objects like dust, and its detection radius expanded accordingly.
It wasn’t even a Dark-exclusive spell—any element could manifest it, and only the attribute of the awls changed depending on the caster’s element.
But depending on the situation, it could be used offensively like this.
“Sorry, Kiena. I told you I wasn’t going to go easy on you.”
Then, as though kicking it away with my foot, I sent the Spear Wall sliding toward Kiena.
The Spear Wall glided across the ground without stopping, and Kiena, unable to think of any adequate response, squeezed her eyes shut and curled up tightly.
The Spear Wall felt as if it had eyes—I could tell precisely how far it was from Kiena.
This, too, was an ability one gained with practice.
‘Just a little more.’
I waited for the Spear Wall to get closer to Kiena, and once it crossed within the 20-centimeter radius, I made only a single awl emerge—just enough to strike the measuring device on her body.
Fwish!
Crack!
The awl struck her measuring device precisely and destroyed it successfully at the moment—
[Scoreboard]
Summoning: 5(5)
Dark: 1(1)
The scoreboard shifted, officially ending the duel.
“Kiena, go back upstairs.”
“Ah…… yes.”
With Nide’s announcement, Kiena began walking back to the Elemental Seats, her shoulders still hunched.
‘Did I go too far?’
Seeing her, who had been so confident just moments ago, now looking utterly defeated made me feel strangely uncomfortable.
Losing to me was only natural.
But because she didn’t know that, I worried her confidence might be shaken.
Kiena was a joker card for me.
If her confidence broke and it affected her summoning magic, that would be troublesome.
For a mage, the most important thing was their mental state—their mentality.
A mage’s magic could be seen as a direct reflection of their current mental condition.
Since Kiena’s role would be important moving forward, I had to encourage her so she wouldn’t shrink back too much.
“Sigh, Kiena, beating you is seriously tough!”
Kiena walked silently, but she paused for a moment.
Then, after thinking hard about something, she turned to me with a noticeably brighter expression and said one thing:
“I won’t lose next time!”
“Terrifying.”
As expected, seeing her Pegasus—who had easily overpowered all the other students—disappear so helplessly had left her more deeply wounded than she let on.
Still, the fact that she bounced back instantly from just one comment of mine was a relief.
Kiena proudly walked up to the 2nd-floor Elemental Seats.
When she arrived, her supervising teacher Kanyu beamed and patted her shoulder.
I couldn’t hear the exact words, but judging by her lips, she was saying, “You did very well.”
She must have been proud, given the extraordinary performance from the Summoning Department.
‘Now, next is the Fire element’s turn. Personally, I hope Hei gets selected.’
It was a chance to gauge just how far Hei’s practical combat ability had grown.
I quietly waited for Nide’s drawing to begin.
At the moment Artel kicked the spell called Spear Wall toward Kiena, Walfis kept tilting his head repeatedly.
‘Where in the world did he learn to use it like that? Not in my family, nor in any book I’ve ever seen.’
It puzzled him that someone would think to use a simple defensive, reflective spell in such a manner.
And that someone was only a fourteen-year-old 1st Class student.
‘Just like how he turned Fire Shroud into gauntlets in the last duel. A series of actions that defy common sense, is it?’
His suspicion deepened further.
“Now, starting the next draw.”
At that moment, Nide resumed the proceedings.
‘I’d better watch the remaining duels as well. Depending on today’s results, I may have to raise his monitoring level.’