WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 12

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At dawn, I left the shop, breathing in the cold air. Everything I needed was stored inside the body of the attendant puppet following behind me.

Far in the distance stood a massive gate that looked well over a hundred meters tall. It was so enormous that it could be seen even from these outer slums, and it was the entrance to the exam site that opened only once a year. On this day alone, this vast city opened every gate and accepted visitors.

I kept walking, heading straight for that enormous gate. Eleven years. Today marked the eleventh time I had walked this road. It felt awkward and familiar at the same time. I walked slowly. At least today, there were no mages rolling around on the ground. They would all be walking toward that gate.

The center of the slums was packed with people despite the early hour.

"Hey, going again today, huh!"

It was a familiar voice. Evan, the boss sword-user. I shot him a sideways glare. Maybe he had come out to watch the people going to take the exam, because both his hands were full of food. Behind him stood a whole crowd of people with swords hanging from them.

Rotten luck first thing in the morning. I could smell the iron reek created by the tangled magical power of all those swords. I raised a wall of wind to block what was in front of me.

"Get lost."

"Come now, don't be like that. Want a bite? Freshly grilled lizard."

I glanced at what he held out with one hand. Some unidentifiable meat had been skewered on a stick. The attendant puppet knocked it away. The sword-user bastard quietly pulled his hand back.

"That puppet has changed quite a bit, hasn't it?"

He looked a little surprised. Well, it had been ten months since I last met him. Anger flared inside me again. This bastard had used me as an offering back then. Curses rose to my throat.

But I did not say them out loud. Thinking about it now, that had helped me in a way. It had given me the chance to learn from Professor. I decided to bury all the bad feelings from before. Debts and grudges always had to be calculated thoroughly.

And he had reason to be surprised. My puppet now was different from before. I had learned more in the past year than all the knowledge I had built up over the last twenty years. The attendant puppet behind me was practically the essence of that. Among the puppets I had made, only Butler and the turtle surpassed it.

I sneered at him and kept walking down the road. Leaving the other members of his organization behind, he came up beside me.

"Are you really not going to eat this?"

The puppet knocked away the arm he kept offering. He withdrew his hand in disappointment.

"You used to be such a pure young man. When did you get so worn down by the world?"

Mostly because of you. I grumbled inwardly. For a moment, I lost my composure. Hoo. I took a deep breath and cleared my head. The solemn resolve I had built up earlier suddenly felt pointless. Fine. I might as well relax like this and take the exam comfortably.

"You seem to have learned a bit from the Explorer, hm? Compared to last year, you're a different person."

The Explorer? Ah, did he mean Professor Irian? This bastard apparently did not know she was a university professor. Of course. The time I spent receiving Professor's teachings had been the richest and most rewarding period of my life as a mage.

The outer wall began to come into view. It was the barrier dividing the slums from the city, and it was covered in powerful protective magic so no mage could carelessly break in.

The city gate, the only passage through, was wide open unlike usual. I passed through it and headed inside. The sword-user bastard stayed outside the wall, offering that unknown meat to passersby. I prayed for the souls of anyone who accepted it. Something strange had definitely been smeared on it.

Inside the wall was a bustling city. It was full of culture and civilization that could not be found in the slums. Even so, no one strayed from the road or stopped to look around. That was because soldiers lined the road from end to end. Each and every one of them was a mage. As guards protecting this city, their magical power became a kind of pressure that crushed the spirits of those heading inside.

I had once wanted to live here too. But without a clear identity and a recommendation, entering this place was impossible. Those who entered the university, those from great families, those who served the Empire. Only people like that earned the right to be citizens.

And at the center of this city stood a massive gate. A transfer gate, a strange gate that leaped across space. Once a year, the many people who gathered to take the exam passed through that gate.

At first, I thought that gate could take me to the university too. It could not.

The gate leading to the university was an extremely small, shabby wooden door beside that enormous gate. When I first saw it, I was a bit flustered. Was that really the door leading to the university? It looked far too unimpressive.

But the vast magical power it gave off made it impossible to even think of approaching carelessly. They said that door had existed since before this city was built, and even before this Empire was founded.

When I first learned about the university, the mage who taught me, Ojo, said this: the university was another world created by the archmage. Inside it, excellent mages trained and refined themselves. Drawn by those words, I had come all the way here.

That door was the only path leading to that world. That was why this huge university city had been built around it. The realm of creating an entire world. I could not even imagine what level that was.

The stream of people was guided by the soldiers and led toward the gate. I also followed them and walked toward the huge transfer gate. Transfer gates like this existed all across the continent. Once a year, the Empire opened them solely for the university exam and gathered mages from across the continent in one place.

A slight dizziness hit me as I passed through the gate. When I came to my senses, I was standing in a space painted entirely white. In front of me floated one enormous face. It was the exam receptionist. I had been very scared the first time I saw it.

"Please submit the participation fee."

The face, whose gender I could not tell, spoke. The puppet that had followed me inside took a pouch from its chest. One hundred mana stones. In gold coins, that was about one hundred thousand gold. Because of this damn participation fee, no matter how much money I earned, it was never enough. This was also why I had not been able to take the exam for ten years after leaving the island.

I threw it into the bastard's mouth. Then I took another sheet of paper from my chest. It was the recommendation letter Professor had given me. How much had I suffered to obtain this recommendation letter?

No, it was not suffering. It was grace bestowed by Professor. I could only be grateful for Professor's blessing. No amount of explanation would be enough to describe how moved I had been when I received this.

When I put that in the bastard's mouth too, it swallowed them. Then, after smacking its lips a few times, it opened its mouth wide with a crack. Inside, pitch-black darkness swayed.

When I entered, the darkness soaked into my body. I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to it. It felt as if my body was flowing somewhere. Then, at some point, I sensed the surroundings growing bright.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a single droplet. I was inside it. I looked beyond the droplet. I saw many people trapped inside droplets like me. And far below, there were even more droplets. I was slowly falling toward them.

I checked the sky. A huge rift in space had opened, and the darkness I had just passed through was contained within it. The moment a person popped out from inside, a droplet wrapped around them and drifted down. Droplets like this were falling endlessly.

Droplets, huh. Was this exam related to water? I still did not know. The exam came in a different form every time, so it was too early to judge carelessly. But this time, no matter what exam appeared, I was confident.

After gaining enlightenment from Professor, my old fixed ideas had been broken. There was no competition, and no attacking. I would simply support others perfectly. That mindset was the sincere attitude I would show others during this exam. They would also understand my heart and stop being hostile toward me.

The droplets kept falling without end. I had no idea how many there were. Since every mage who wanted to enter the university gathered here, the number had to be enormous. Evan, that sword-user bastard's words suddenly came to mind. He had once tried to count how many people came, and he said more than a hundred thousand passed through the transfer gate in the university city alone.

Since transfer gates like this were scattered all across the continent, I could not imagine how many people entered each year. On top of that, the participation fee was one hundred mana stones per person. There was a reason the Empire did its utmost to manage the exam. Money was duplicating itself. How could they resist that?

Should I rest a little? As soon as I thought that, the puppet read my mind and took out a chair. I sat down and looked around. Mages were each preparing for the exam inside countless droplets floating at regular distances above the ground. The puppet poured me a cup of tea. The scent drifting at the tip of my nose was wonderfully sweet.

Inside it bloomed several flowers made just for me. Unlike Professor, I did not really like sweet flavors. So I focused entirely on the texture of the flowers. I drank the tea and held the flower in my mouth. As the flower swam over my tongue, each petal fell away and settled on it.

At that moment, the scent and texture contained within burst through my mouth. Ah. For a moment, I was impressed. The petals stacked layer by layer and created a harmonious taste. It was so excellent that I admired it despite having made it myself. While drinking the tea, I scattered magical power to examine how the droplet had been formed.

A long time passed. When I took out a watch and checked, roughly six hours had gone by. The transfer gate closed exactly at twelve o'clock, so the exam would begin soon. The number of droplets falling from the sky gradually decreased. At last, the rift also shrank, and the sky closed.

At that moment, a screen appeared in front of the droplet. The exam had begun.

Solve the five tasks. (100 points total. Pass with 60 points or higher.)

Task 1. Escape the droplet within 30 minutes by using the provided magic. (10 points)

(Failure to use the provided magic will result in disqualification.)

Task 2. Reach the destination within 24 hours as a randomly assigned group of five. (20 points)

(10-point deduction if a group member falls behind or dies.)

Task 3. Build a fortress at the destination from Task 2. (20 points)

(Individual evaluation.)

Task 4. Use the fortress from Task 3 to protect an important item and endure for 2 weeks. (30 points)

(10-point deduction if a group member dies. Disqualification if the protected item is damaged.)

Task 5. Select the First Contributor and fifth contributor for Task 4. (20 points)

(Base 10 points. The First Contributor receives 10 bonus points, and the fifth contributor receives a 10-point deduction.)

Mm, it was a task exam.

I was lucky this time. The task exam had appeared fairly often among the exams I had taken so far. Including today, it had come up five times out of eleven. Last year, I had expected a task exam and prepared a great deal, only for a duel exam to appear and ruin everything.

None of the tasks told me to be hostile to my other group members, so this was an exam where I could make full use of my strengths. The fifth task bothered me a little. They called them group members, but was this not basically pushing everyone to keep each other in check?

Still, no matter what, I had to solve Task 1 first. If I failed to handle this, I would be eliminated immediately.

When I touched Task 1 with my finger, another screen appeared. Then I heard droplets bursting around me. Startled, I looked around and saw people simply popping their droplets and leaving. The droplet in front of me was like that. The moment the droplet burst, the person vanished right away. Seeing that, I snorted. Those bastards had not even read the task properly.

The reason I had come early was to figure out the task in advance. It was a very small clue, but the fact that we started inside droplets alone was enough to guess that they were connected to the exam. The others probably knew too. That was why I had already analyzed the droplet's properties in full. It was just a simple droplet made of magical power.

On the screen that appeared was a magic circle. The moment I saw it, my mouth naturally fell open. Over the past year, I had learned many spells under Professor Irian and drawn plenty of magic circles, but I had seen very few spells as beautiful as the magic before my eyes.

The delicacy of the circuits forming the magic circle was something else too. Each flow of magical power forming the magic was filled with beauty beyond my level.

At the same time, though, it was also a simple spell, simple enough for me to understand. To create magic this easy and this excellent. Respect rose in me for the mage who had provided this spell.

First, to understand the magic, I used it on a mana stone that the attendant puppet offered me. Mana stones had the property of fully containing magical power, so they were compatible with just about any kind of magic. When I used the magic, intense light began to rise from the previously plain surface of the mana stone.

As I analyzed the effects produced by the magic, I roughly guessed the name of the spell. "Glowing magic," or should I call it gloss magic? The intense light was strong enough to feel like it had heat.

How could I use this on the droplet? Some people began leaving their droplets the moment they saw the magic. Someone created a beam, and someone else teleported. Had they already finished analyzing it?

I could not catch up to geniuses like that. I had no intention of trying either. I would just focus on what I had to do.

Still, the methods they used were impressive. They were worth using as reference. A beam, huh. They had definitely modified the magic before using it. That was probably why such an easy and simple spell had been given as the task. First, I needed to analyze the properties of this magic more deeply.

The puppet took out a scroll and spread it in front of me. I quickly wrote down the effects of this magic.

Light, heat, persistence, intense luminescence, temperature increase, simple structure, fast reaction speed, high magical power efficiency, excellent compatibility, ease of modification.

Among these, what was the central and most important feature? Light. The magic circle that formed this spell pursued light in every part. That intense intent seeped out from the circuits. Hm. In that case, if I gathered this magic together and kept gathering it, it would become a beam like before.

The moment I realized that, I also realized I could not do it. It would require an enormous amount of magical power. A wanderer like me could not manage that.

Still, I liked the beam. A beam was a kind of condensed light. Then if I condensed light too, I should be able to obtain enough destructive power. In that case, I only needed to gather light into a single point. Then even if it was not as large as their beams, even if it was as tiny as a dot, it would still create a sufficient concentration of light.

I slightly changed the flow of the magic. I modified the circuit, removing persistence in exchange for making it emit stronger light and heat, even if only for an instant. Editing magic and granting it to puppets. That was an ability Professor had watched over the past year and judged useful.

I began drawing a design on the scroll. Which puppet should I put this magic into? The magic emitted light. I had to make many spells overlap and form a single point. In that case, a perfect sphere would be best.

The design was completed quickly. Paper suited this puppet better than wood. The puppet took several sheets of paper from its chest. I carved many magic circles into them according to the design. Even though the magic had not been activated yet, a soft light lingered on them. I folded those papers and shaped them into a round sphere.

It was complete. I put magical power into it. Every magic circle was located inside this sphere. Magical power drained away like an ebbing tide and began heating those magic circles. Light poured out strongly. It was visible even through the paper.

The light overlapped and built up inside the paper, and soon the paper sphere heated up bright red. I threw it into the air and quickly hid behind the puppet. The puppet activated several layers of defensive magic and held me.

Yes, it was a bomb. I had carved explosion magic onto the paper. It was the only attack magic I had been permitted to use. This magic delivered an impact inside the sphere. Inside the sphere, at the center of the light. The light gathered into that one point rode the impact and spread outward. That created tremendous pressure, shattering the paper sphere and swallowing the surroundings. It was intense light and heat.

They crushed the entire droplet. I had hidden behind the puppet in advance, but a fairly numbing shock wave still struck my body. Hoo. Still, I had succeeded. I inspected the puppet. Even though it had used defensive magic, it was scorched here and there. The shock had been stronger than I expected.

I repaired the puppet with magical power. It soon recovered its previous appearance and stood behind me. When I checked the time, twenty-six minutes had passed. I had used almost the full thirty minutes. I came down to the ground and looked at the droplets above my head. There were still plenty that had not burst.

Twenty-seven minutes, twenty-eight minutes, twenty-nine minutes, thirty minutes.

Time was up. The droplets burst in an instant. And every person inside them vanished. Eliminated. An enormous number of people had been eliminated in a flash.

What would have happened if this had been before Professor educated me? I might have been floundering without even knowing what kind of magic that was. The mages who had come down to the ground watched each other's reactions. Then, at some point, the surroundings grew dark. It was like before, when space moved.

But unlike before, a single line of light existed in that darkness. The line of light stretching into the distance met with other lines. Did that mean I should follow it? When I obediently followed the light, an intersection began to come into view. And so did the people approaching that intersection.

Five people. These were the people I would complete the tasks with from now on. All of them were showing off their own distinct personalities. I looked over them and smiled. Good, good. It seemed good teammates had been selected after all.

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