Side Story:
Do Your Best, Miss Mariette!
The entrance exam for the August Academy was finally here!
I was feeling pretty confident thanks to Miss Mile’s tutoring, but this wasn’t just any old exam—this was the scholarship exam. The bar was way higher. As Miami Satodele put it in one of her novels, it was “a great, high, wall of power.”
Ugh! What happens if I don’t pass?
Not only would I not live up to Father’s expectations, but the payment for Miss Mile hinged on my success; she had done all the work of teaching me for free. Not passing after that would be unforgivable…
I thought the essay portion of the exam should be relatively simple, and, well, even the math part would be super easy, thanks to the methods she taught me. But no matter how easy those parts were, most people got pretty close to full marks, so whether I passed or failed would come down to the practical exam. The written portion was really just there to weed out the totally hopeless students.
“Up next, number 183!”
Oh, they just called my number!
I better hurry…
“I am applicant number 183, Mariette. Thank you for having me!”
I bowed my head to the test proctor and announced my name and number, after which I received my instructions.
“Now, please face that target and fire your preferred type of magic. If your specialty is healing or support magic, there will be a separate exam for those afterward, so you are welcome to abstain.”
I had not been too good with attack spells before, but now, thanks to Miss Mile, I’m pretty decent.
“That will be fine. Here I go…” I said, turning to the target—a wooden humanoid figure clad in scrap armor about ten meters ahead of me—and firing off a spell.
“Fire Lance!”
Kabooom!
All right, I hit the target!
I wonder if that’ll give me enough points to pass…
“Wha…? Silent casting?! And three bursts at once?! She completely blew away the target…”
“What?! How?!”
“That sound just now—”
There seemed to be a sudden gathering of teachers from the school. The test proctor was speaking with them. Would I still be able to take the next exam? I did what they told me to, so I should at least be graded, right? Could I go on to the next task?
“I am applicant number 183, Mariette. Thank you for having me!”
“Yes, now, we would like to see some things other than combat magic. What other kinds of magic can you use?”
“Well, I’m good with healing magic, defensive magic, and fire, water, earth, and wind-based spells, equally.”
“Huh?”
“I’m about the same with all of them.”
“Huh?!”
They seemed rather surprised by this, but according to what Miss Mile taught me, all magic has fundamentally the same properties, so the level of difficulty doesn’t change between the different types. Though perhaps that’s simply because Miss Mile put in a word with the followers of the Goddess on my behalf…
I glanced back behind the proctor to see a cage with four jackalopes. They were all bound, with twigs in their mouths, their horns broken off… This was the testing ground for healing and support magic, so I guessed we were supposed to use those jackalopes to show off our skills. It would be bad if something happened to go wrong with a human subject, after all. This was probably a natural consideration though, according to Miss Mile, even healing magic, or the sort of spells you use for daily chores, could be used to murder people.
In order for me to show off my healing magic, those poor, defenseless creatures had to be hurt first… That was rather…
I would not hesitate to fell a monster that was attacking me, but capturing and then toying with a helpless creature simply did not sit well with me. Especially a soft and fluffy jackalope, or a kobold, with its adorable face…
As for goblins or orcs? They could be pulverized for all I cared!
That said, as much as it bothered me, if it were not done, I would never be able to show off my special healing magic, and that would mean not passing the exam…
It would have been one thing if this were the normal exam, but there is a far higher expectation for scholarship students, who are receiving tuition and lodging free of charge. Since we didn’t have any more money after paying for my brothers’ tuitions, if I messed this up, that would mean I could not go to school at all. Aah—what to do?
Guh! Jackalopes were monsters! They hurt people with those horns and sharp teeth. It wasn’t fair of them to try and elicit sympathy, staring at me with those sad eyes while they were all trapped and defenseless like that!
Gah! The proctor grabbed one of those jackalopes by the ears and brought it right over and…
“Gyaaaaah!!!”
Huh? What was with that ridiculous scream?! The proctor froze in shock, too.
I looked around, surprised, only to see…
Aah! Over at the combat magic grading grounds, two people were rolling around on the ground—on fire!
“A magical explosion?”
Indeed, it might have been a magical explosion, just like Miss Mile had told me about. A magical explosion, akin to runaway magic—something feared by mages. It occurred when a mage messed up and lost control of their magic, causing a spell to go off abnormally.
In a normal casting error, the spell simply would not work, or it would be weakened, or go off in the wrong direction, or else have something other than the intended effect. At any rate, it would just be an error. However, in some rare cases, when someone tried to use magic more powerful than they were capable of, it would result in an explosion .
And if that spell happened to be a dangerous attack spell—particularly a fire spell—then…
“Graaaaaahh!!!”
…this would happen.
Some applicant had probably tried to cast an attack spell that was beyond their capabilities by brute force, hoping to get a high mark. The applicant, as well as the proctor who had been standing nearby, were now caught up in an eddy of flame and writhing on the ground. Rather than making a move to help, everyone was standing stock-still and watching them—including the nearby teachers, the upperclassmen who were assisting, and, of course, all of the other applicants.
What? Why?
This was no time to just stand around!
“Just a moment!”
I rushed over to the writhing pair…
“(Great Dark Nanogods, lend me your strength!) Hydro Bomb!”
This was just the place to use the hydro bomb Miss Mile taught me! The fire they were fighting wasn’t natural, but magical, so wind magic would just spread the blaze. My priority was putting out the flames on these two before the burns went too deep—and it worked! The explosive force of the water ball cooled things down and swept the fire away!
At this point, the teachers finally came back to their senses and rushed over to the pair, pulling them up. With a bit of healing magic, they would be fine.
The test takers and senior students were one thing, but it was kind of shameful for the teachers to have been standing around like that. Sure, they weren’t veteran soldiers with years on the battlefield, but then again, wasn’t that why even people who have never known battle can manage healing magic?
“H-he’s dead…”
Whaaaat?!
“His heart isn’t beating, and he’s not breathing. He probably couldn’t breathe from all the smoke or else just died of the shock of being burned alive…”
Several of the teachers were applying healing magic to the proctor, who despite some major burns, seemed to be more or less all right. However, healing spells had no effect on the dead, so though several other teachers stood around the apparently breathless applicant, there was nothing they could do but look sadly over him…
“Please step aside!”
“Wah!”
I pushed one useless teacher out of the way and leaned down toward the unconscious applicant, checking his breathing.
…There was no sign of breath.
Then, I checked his heart.
…It had stopped.
The emergency lifesaving resuscitation methods that Miss Mile taught me suddenly rushed into my head.
Okay!
I removed his thick jacket, pressed my palms to the center of his chest, and started pulsing at twice a second.
I did this about thirty times, and then lifted his chin and checked his respiratory tract, and started the mou…m-mouth-to… mouth-to …
Gahh! Gaaaaaah!!!
W-why?! Whyyyyy?!?!
…B-but, a human’s life is irreplaceable…
Guh. Nghhh…
If only this were with a girl…
Sniffle sniffle…
… Smooch.
Fyooo… Fyooo…
One second each, twice in a row, then thirty more of the chest palpitations. Do that over and over again…
Gu-huh!
The boy’s breathing returned. Seeing this, I flew back on the spot, desperately wiping my mouth with the handkerchief from my pocket.
I was half in tears. No, pardon me, that’s a lie. I was fully in tears.
Gahh, my…my first kiiiiiiss!!!
“H-he came back…”
“U-unbelievable!”
“It’s a miracle!”
“Are you a goddess? Or an angel?”
“Don’t stand there like idiots! Get over there and heal him! We can worry about everything else later!!”
It looked like I could leave the rest to the teachers. Of course, if he had breathed in all that smoke, there was a chance his lungs were damaged, too. Miss Mile told me to look out for internal injuries that might not be visible from the outside. So I wasn’t off the hook just yet. I pushed through the teachers again, and…
“(Great Dark Nanogods, lend me your strength!) Heal and repair his throat, lungs, and respiratory tract. Take special care with his pulmonary sacs and blood vessels. Make sure his gas exchange capabilities are unhindered… And naturally, repair all the burns to his epidermis. Mega Heal ! ”
I stopped to apply the same treatment to the proctor as well, ignoring the slack-jawed teachers.
“H-hey kid, y-you…”
One of the teachers stopped me as I moved to step away.
“Pardon me, but I need to go cry in the corner over there…”
My first kiss had been with a stranger, in front of all those people. I’d say it was within my rights to cry, yes?
“S-sure…” The teacher seemed to understand.
All right then. I was off to the corner of the yard behind a tree, and…
Weeeeehhh!!!
After some time, I returned to the healing and support magic testing grounds, but they told me I had already proven myself on that front, so there was no need to complete any further tasks. They had graded me based on my previous showing of water and healing magic.
Well, that seemed fair enough.
After that were tests of various weapon fighting—swords, spears, bows, staves, and more—and other such martial arts, along with tests of other special skills, but I was hopeless on most other fronts, so I passed on them. As with the academic portion of the test, the additional elements were really just there to weed out the weaklings, so for me, everything hinged on the magic exam.
Still, it was hard to think that I could stand out amongst so many applicants.
Ugh! Why can’t I just know my place? Why would I let myself have such lofty hopes of attending this academy?
If I didn’t pass, my tutor, Miss Mile, would never get paid for her work. If that happened, I would just have to save up my allowance, until one day I had enough to pay her what she should have earned off my success. She taught me more than enough to merit that—really, far more…
***
A heavy silence hung over the faculty of August Academy.
“She got 95 points on the written exam. I thought we made this exam so that no matter how sharp they were, they wouldn’t get over 85 points?”
“………”
“So, how did she get 95…?”
“Ah, just a second!” said one of the instructors, interrupting the headmaster. “I had to double-check something. It was bothering me that she got just one question wrong even after getting some of the harder questions right… It turns out that it was an error in the question itself. So, that question should be excluded from the grading.”
“………”
“As for her magical technique: she used a powerful attack spell, silent cast… That’s well enough. Incredibly talented youngsters do exist now and then. However, what was the rest of that?! She brought someone back from the dead. She used a Mega Heal, even stronger than High Heal. What kind of saint is she? What kind of divine messenger?!”
“………”
In spite of their disbelief, there was no denying that what had happened was the truth, pure and simple. Furthermore, the vast majority of the instructors had borne witness to it. No one could possibly assume that it was a lie or an exaggeration. Even the headmaster was well aware of this. In fact, he was merely coping with his own disbelief at something so outrageous and regretting that he had skipped out on the scholarship student exam to retreat to his office. By leaving the exam to his subordinate instructors, it seemed he had missed his chance to witness a miracle.
However, if this girl were allowed to attend the school, he just might have another such chance.
At the very least, there was not a soul here who would be foolish enough not to give this girl a passing mark.
“So then, it is settled. We will accept Lady Mariette as a scholarship student.”
Everyone nodded in unison. None of them could possibly disagree.
Furthermore, the majority of these instructors were nobles—though typically, those without titles, who were not the heirs of their line—not a one of them thought that what the headmaster has just said was peculiar.
“Lady Mariette.”
Indeed, hadn’t he just said that she must be a “saint” or a “divine messenger”? Most of the instructors were already starting to believe this, too…
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