Twenty-Second Chapter
Selection Matches
The Seven Nations Friendship Magical Tournament.
It was a large annual event between the magical institutes of all the nations.
Students who would be future Magicmasters represented their institute as they competed with their trained techniques. And as the institutes were supported by taxes, the tournament also served to show off their excellent students and national power.
Of course, the main idea was a competition between nations with their dignity at stake.
As the tournament was meant to be a competition of skills between novice Magicmasters, it took the form of simple matches. In other words, battles. But considering the purpose of a Magicmaster, it should have simulated fighting Fiends.
In reality, the contestants were urged to consider the matches as battles against Fiends in accordance with regulations—but politics were involved in everything.
And this tournament was no exception. Ultimately, as a tournament between students, it became a place for the nations to compete against each other.
The results of the tournament didn’t just add to national prestige. It also helped to advertise the winning nation’s institute to those looking to become Magicmasters, and all nations worked energetically to raise their value in the eyes of the people.
The winner of the tournament received glory and all kinds of bonuses, which had a tendency to get flashier as the years went by.
Visitors attending the tournament increased with each year, and furthermore, it was broadcast in all the nations, making it an entertaining and festive event that citizens everywhere looked forward to.
During the rulers conference, the nations held different kinds of motives when they officially announced their recognition of the tournament opening. But almost none of the regular citizens had any idea of this. They were simply excited over the annual event.
* * *
Leaving the world’s hustle and bustle aside...
Once Alus returned from the rulers conference, he immediately got to work on the research he’d left behind. Summer vacation was coming to an end, and he had to put the remaining time he had before the new term to good use.
During the day, he trained Tesfia, Alice, and Loki in live combat. And then he devoted himself to his research late into the night.
Toward the end of August, Alus often traveled to Folen to advise Budna on the new AWR.
At best, he was getting three hours of sleep per night. And even Alus could feel his mind dulling.
Then there were the selection matches. In the name of fairness, the students battled each other for one of the remaining spots to compete in the tournament, and the matches were held over two days as the new term began. The other spots had already been taken up by the students with the best grades.
Roughly 400 students competed, and selecting the few contestants out of that crowd required quite a bit of time.
The battles were also fought under different rules from the tournament. Specifically, each match consisted of ten people fighting at the same time. In other words, it was a battle royale, with the last person standing moving on to the next round.
This kind of match required not just skill, but clever planning based on the other contestants. With Alus’ skills there was nothing to worry about, so he pushed all of that into a corner of his mind as he busily went about his days, until it was finally the day of the selection matches.
“If you’ve got enough free time to come watch, how about focusing on your training?” Alus furrowed his brows and told Loki. The selection matches were just about to begin at the training grounds. He wanted to get this over with as soon as possible and was not in a good mood.
“As your partner, I can’t do that. Besides... watching your match is yet another form of training, A-Al...” Loki struggled to stop herself from saying ‘Sir Alus.’
A battle against a first-rate Magicmaster would be one thing, but Alus couldn’t imagine what there was to learn from a battle against students.
But he couldn’t reject just Loki. Shifting his glance a little, he could see two familiar people seated at the training grounds. Having already been chosen as representatives, it was only natural they would want to know who would fight alongside them as soon as possible.
That said, surely there was no need for them to arrive this far ahead of time and intently stare his way.
Alus gave up on trying to send Loki back, but he couldn’t help but feel exasperated.
In the meantime, the selection matches were finally about to begin.
“Al, good luck,” Loki said with a blush. Considering the way she was smiling, Alus felt like this had been her goal all along. In fact, the scene looked like a wife seeing her husband off. The young girl appearing more mature made Alus feel perplexed.
At the same time, a stir spread among those—almost all of the male students—who saw Loki look that way.
The first-year students were allotted five partitions within the training grounds. There was a lot of activity in the training grounds, but it calmed down as the time for the matches closed in, and replacing it was a chilling silence.
As that was going on, Alus exchanged a few final words with Loki. He then gave her a short wave and headed over to one of the partitions, within which were nine other students already waiting.
With so many contestants, the matches took the form of a battle royale, as previously stated. Once Alus was inside, they were ten, and everyone for the match had gathered. The entrance behind him silently closed.
The ten students distanced themselves from one another, and gripped their AWRs with tense hands. When it was confirmed that all students in all five partitions were ready, a buzzer signaling the start rang out.
Alus decided to evaluate the other students in his partition.
They’re no good.
After just a glance, he’d seen through them, and let out a sigh.
All of the contestants carried themselves like you’d expect from an inexperienced novice Magicmaster. Because of their focus on magic skills, they didn’t learn practical body movements.
Reality was different from training where you aimed for an unmoving target, Alus grumbled to himself. The way the others carefully stopped in place and took their time to cast a spell was like they were asking to get hit. The magical battle had already begun, but Alus seemingly paid it no heed.
Incidentally, he had another reason for observing the other contestants instead of immediately wiping them all out. Felinella had asked him to pick up on any talented contestants in the middle of the match, if possible.
Just going up against Alus in these selection matches was pretty much a guaranteed loss, so it would be too bad if a capable student lost without their chance to shine.
Alus knew this too, so his actions would be deliberate. This was the bare minimum consideration needed to raise Alpha’s overall strength at the tournament.
Without letting anyone catch on to his true abilities, Alus observed the other nine contestants and slowly went into action. He wasn’t carrying an AWR with him this time, so he couldn’t use any flashy spells.
Alus purposefully walked to the center, where all kinds of spells were flying about. The idea was that there was no risk if the contestants just repeatedly cast spells over and over again, without learning.
“‹‹Flame Burst››” “‹‹Ice Arrow››” “‹‹Wind Thrust››”
Before long, concentrated fire rained down on the reckless Alus.
There was no need to consider what a person making a target out of themselves was thinking. Moreover, said target wasn’t carrying an AWR, so it was only natural they’d be taken out first.
But that didn’t happen this time.
Alus suppressed his mana to its very limits, enchanting his hands with the bare minimum necessary. It was like a sparkling, thin film that an inexperienced Magicmaster wouldn’t even be able to notice.
Without even blocking or erasing the fireball, ice arrow, and wind slash, Alus lightly touched them, and they easily moved out of the way. With his far superior skills, he used his mana to guide the incoming spells and they simply curved away.
And as for the reactions—
“...!!” “...!!” “...!!”
“Huh? No way!” The only remaining contestant, a female student, let out a voice of surprise.
From an onlooker’s perspective, it appeared that eight students had splendidly taken themselves out.
Only a handful of people in the training grounds were able to pick up on what Alus had done. Or more accurately, since it was just students here, only Loki and Felinella noticed.
While he didn’t send the magic back at its caster like Alice’s Reflection, Alus could easily alter the course of the students’ clumsy spells to hit the other contestants. Of course, that was because the ‘targets’ surrounding him weren’t moving skillfully.
He then followed up by gently striking the remaining girl, who stood spacing, and with that it was over. The only reason she had made it out of the first exchange was because nobody was standing opposite her.
The buzzer signaling the end of the match rang out, and as Alus stepped out of the partition, he could hear remarks such as “What a lucky guy” and the like. But he took no notice of it.
It appeared the other groups were still battling. Tesfia and Alice, sitting on the upper level of seats around the training grounds, blinked in mute amazement. Even for those two, it would take some time to recognize that the unnatural finish to that match was because Alus was there.
“Good work out there. I could only just barely see what happened at the beginning,” Loki said, handing Alus a towel.
“Thanks. It wasn’t anything impressive, though.” Alus wouldn’t work up a sweat over something like that, but he’d feel bad if he disregarded her goodwill, so he accepted it anyways.
Loki could tell he’d deflected the magic, but didn’t see how he had done it.
The first step was to use an enchanted palm to guide the flow of magic using the bare minimum amount of strength. Ultimately, she’d seen him move the first fireball, but was unable to perceive the speed at which he’d handled the other seven spells.
“You’ll learn how to do it yourself too, eventually. The trick is mana control. All attributes have an ideal mana density. By maintaining that, you can touch the flow of mana itself without obstructing the spell. From there, you can adjust its aim without overwriting the spell.”
“... Would I really be able to do that?” Loki asked with a wry smile. It wasn’t until Alus mentioned it that she realized he had altered his enchantment. But it made perfect sense. Touching magic was the same as getting hit by its power. Being able to deflect it unharmed meant that some kind of spell or mana control was at play.
However, being able to do that level of extremely delicate mana control would require a maddening amount of training. Thinking about it made Loki sigh in her mind.
Meanwhile, the other person around Loki’s skill level was sitting in the middle of the people already selected for the tournament, and let out a sigh as she rested her chin in her hand.
So there wasn’t anyone then...
The words she thought referred to the evaluation she’d asked Alus to perform. In the end, that meant that there hadn’t been anyone in the group that caught Alus’ eye. The extremely short match time was proof enough of that. After all, it was over in less than a minute after starting.
Felinella’s head started to hurt as she thought of the difficulties she’d be facing in the future.
An hour passed.
While Alus wasn’t participating in his own matches, he glanced over at the other matches, judging the other students’ abilities.
Is he seriously trying to compete in the tournament with that level of skill...? Alus looked at a male student clenching his fist and raising it high in the air to celebrate his victory. He was aghast at the sight as he grumbled.
He could feel a headache coming on, but had no idea that he was feeling the same way as Felinella had a while ago.
Finally, they reached the last of the selection matches, with only 21 remaining first-year students. The students that made it all this way would be randomly put into groups of five, fighting it out in a battle royale as in the previous rounds.
The only difference was the number of contestants. With four groups of students, the winners of those groups would move on to the tournament. Moreover, with there being twenty-one students, Alus’ group ended up having six contestants.
But to Alus, these contestants weren’t much different from the others he’d fought, as he let out his umpteenth sigh. Even he began to worry for Alpha’s prospects of winning the tournament.
From his observations, he had an initially favorable impression of those who fought without relying purely on magic, but it appeared the reason for that was because they couldn’t properly use magic to begin with. Their close combat skills were amateurish, and they couldn’t use magic unless they actually stopped moving.
The students casting spells at each other while standing still were frightening. But the fact that they’d made it this far like that meant they must have some guts.
As magic was flung around, Alus touched the side of the Fire Arrow flying his way and changed its trajectory. The arrow of flames accelerated to twice its speed, striking the back of a student fighting in close quarters.
Letting out a pitiable groan, the student was hit by a follow-up attack and knocked out of the fight.
That’s one. The situation was ever changing even as Alus analyzed the battle.
Having advanced this far, everyone at least had a basic sense of danger. And they were vigilant against Alus, who didn’t even have his guard up.
He hoped they would take each other out, but all of the contestants instead began working together to take out the biggest threat.
The other students came to surround Alus, calmed themselves down, and looked for an opening.
I guess I stood out too much. Alus rubbed the back of his neck as he sighed.
After confirming all of the spells coming his way, he made his move. He altered the course of the small fireballs flying toward his face, sending them toward the other contestants.
However, the contestants this time around were on a slightly higher level, and he had no choice but to destroy the final fireball with the enchanted palm of his hand.
“‹‹Mud Hand››”
After he crushed the small fireball, someone else followed up with an earth attribute spell. A massive hand made out of a lump of earth crawled out of the ground.
The next moment, the hand was fiercely swung down toward the ground as if to crush Alus.
However, he was no longer positioned between the hand and the ground. Instead, he’d already closed in on the male student who’d cast the fireballs.
He’d done it pretty slowly too, moving at the same speed as his opponent. But the student’s eyes shot wide open as he swung his AWR down by reflex.
Since he’d gone through the effort of swinging the weapon at this close of a range, Alus found himself bored.
The male student put all of his strength into the swing but hit nothing but air. In fact, before the weapon could even hit the ground, Alus had struck him on the back of his head with his palm. And that was all she wrote.
Leaving the student knocked out with a single strike, Alus stopped for a moment, mumbling, “Oh, so you dodged that?”
Of course, the male student was still unconscious. Alus was instead referring to the female student who’d evaded the small fireball he’d sent her way.
The female student who’d cast Mud Hand was clutching her staff-shaped AWR, standing stock still. She stared at the scorch mark from the fireball she’d just barely been able to throw herself out of the way of. Considering she’d been attacked immediately after casting a spell of her own, she shouldn’t have had any leeway to dodge it.
The girl didn’t think she’d be able to dodge it either, but she seemed to understand now that she’d jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Realizing that she’d noticed him deflecting the magic, Alus glanced at the girl who was fearfully staring at him.
The female student quickly readied her AWR. She hadn’t consulted with the remaining male student beforehand, but it was only natural that they’d both focus on Alus.
This was a little unexpected to Alus, but it only served to delay the end of the match a little longer.
He started off by walking towards the male student, gradually picking up the pace to running speed. It was still the kind of speed a normal student could pull off, but the male student panicked and thrust out his double-edged blade AWR.
“F...‹‹Fire Blast››”
The magic formula engraved on the sword hurriedly lit up, as if answering its owner’s panic, creating a fireball as large as a human head.
The blazing fireball appeared in front of Alus and shot out.
The female student followed suit, tapping her staff against the ground and calling out the spell name.
“‹‹Rock Net››”
Waves of hardened lumps of earth attacked Alus from both sides to seal his movements.
He caught a glimpse of the girl from the corner of his eye. Binding magic, huh... it’s well made.
The information for magic construction was accurate, but because of how careful she was in creating it, it wouldn’t be fast enough to catch up to Alus when he was being serious. Getting out would be simple, but he’d stand out too much.
Just as the waves of earth were about to hit him, the fireball came flying at him.
After the fireball was enveloped in the earth—an explosion occurred.
Seeing fire leak out of the cracks in the mound of earth, the two Magicmasters let out sighs of relief.
And it wasn’t just those two who thought it was over. Everyone thought that Alus was down for the count.
After the fire died out, the dome of earth returned to mana particles as the field was covered in dust.
“—?!”
Indeed, the earth spell should no longer be in effect.
And the flames should have died out long ago.
However, smoldering embers could be seen within the smoke... or rather, it was burning far too much to be called embers. And it grew stronger as smoke billowed out.
The flames visibly changed shape, taking on the form of a huge, crimson serpent that slid across the ground toward the two students.
The next moment—they were swallowed whole by the torrent of flames.
There really is a limit to how big of a spell I can rewrite without my AWR. My processing can’t keep up with it.
As the flames moved onto the students, Alus appeared from the same spot where he’d been before. He’d altered the structure of Fire Blast and remade it into his own spell.
I didn’t bring my AWR with me because I figured they were just students, but I guess it was a misstep.
He’d purposefully turned the altered fire spell into a sloppy intermediate level spell, but when it hit the two students, the male student stopped moving.
As for the female student, however...
Oh? Not bad, not bad at all.
She appeared to have immediately made a wall of earth, pushing herself against it to survive the onslaught of fire. As the completely burnt wall collapsed, she appeared from behind it, coughing. But there was still the will to fight burning in her eyes.
What just happened could have looked like the male student’s fireball exploding one more time and its aftermath sweeping over the two students as well, rather than being Alus’ spell.
Alus had been the one to alter the spell, but he was aware that he was pushing it, and could sense as much from the spectators stirring in their seats.
For the time being, he walked up to the male student and picked up his sword AWR, giving the magic formula engraved on it a look.
Just the basics of the fire attribute, huh. That was only natural considering it was Institute property loaned to him. This kind of cheap, mass-produced AWR wouldn’t be able to handle Alus’ output. So all he had to do was enchant it.
Alus slowly walked over to the remaining female student.
And the female student in question, despite her frozen expression, still had an unyielding look in her eye. That much could be seen from the mana flowing into her AWR as well.
So she’s more decent at magic combat than the others, but what about close combat...?
Alus dashed towards her and recklessly swung the sword AWR with his momentum. Just the thought of throwing out such a sloppy attack embarrassed him.
He also reduced the quality of his enchantment to a level that wouldn’t come off as unnatural, but since proper technique had been drilled into him, it took a lot of focus to do it imperfectly.
The female student, while not at Alice’s level, managed to firmly block his strike.
Multiple dull metallic sounds rang out, and after a couple of exchanges her eyes seemed to have adjusted to his attacks, as she predicted the trajectory of Alus’ sword and moved her staff to get ahead of it.
At first, she relied on brawn, pouring a degree of mana into her AWR as she swung it, but as time passed her movements began flowing more smoothly. Still on the defensive, she began to ward off the attacks.
Quickly realizing she was at a disadvantage in skill, she turned her focus to evading his attacks. As she did, she kept up her flow of mana, and the magic formula engraved on her staff began to glow.
She worked through the process of casting a spell, one step at a time, as she dodged Alus’ attacks. The amount of mana she’d poured into her AWR was quite considerable as well, and just as she was ready to cast—
The female student took a step back as Alus’ attack barely grazed her. She then drew a straight line on the ground with her AWR while taking another step backwards.
Alus could easily keep up with her retreat. However, spotting the line in the ground, he chose to let her finish.
And she used that opening to strike the ground with the handle of her AWR.
“‹‹Thorn Pierce››”
The line in the ground symbolized the spell’s invocation coordinates.
In front of Alus, a thorn of rock sprang out of the ground, threatening to pierce straight through his chest. If he’d been taken by surprise, it would have surely hit him.
And even the female student felt like she’d done it. Instead, the scene that next played out before her eyes was completely different from what she’d imagined.
She’d activated her spell with perfect timing. But as the Thorn Pierce shot out, Alus switched his grip on his sword to a reverse grip and stabbed it into the ground.
The speed of his movements far surpassed what a normal person could do. As a result, the sharp tip of Thorn Pierce was split in half, with each part flying left and right as if to dodge Alus.
The spell had been easily cut through after it had materialized as a phenomenon. After stretching through the air, the two halves of the Thorn Pierce returned to mana particles.
“... No way.”
The female student stared at the sight that had played out before her with her jaw dropped. She was no longer able to think up another move. After all, the spell she’d just used was her ace up the sleeve.
By the time she came back to her senses, the distance between them was already gone.
“—?!”
The first thing that came to her mind was a token resistance in the form of a thrust thrown out by reflex. It was a sluggish attack. The tip of her staff was flung out towards Alus’ abdomen, but he deflected it by striking the staff with the sword’s handle.
A sharp metallic clang rang out.
The female student crouched down to pick up her AWR, but against an opponent like Alus, that wasn’t going to fly.
With the tip of a sword pointed at her pale neck, she could do nothing but admit her defeat.
Thunderous applause for the two erupted from the astonished audience.
The first to clap their hands was either Felinella or Loki. Either way, an emotion akin to worship for Alus was mixed in with the applause, and either way, it was an ovation for the two combatants.
Alus disregarded the excited audience as he looked toward Felinella. He didn’t need to say anything for her to joyfully nod back at him. The female student had put up quite a bit of resistance against him. He was telling Felinella to take her ability into consideration.
With this, Alus had now qualified for the tournament. As he moved to leave the training grounds, he realized that all eyes were still fixed on him.
He hadn’t really been aware of it before, but a lot of people at the Institute had begun paying attention to him. Especially since he was always hanging out with the three top scoring first-year students.
So far, there had been suspicions and malicious rumors of illicit relationships, but now many that accepted his abilities were wondering how much Alus had trained during vacation.
“I knew you were strong, Alus.” A refreshing voice came from behind him. It belonged to the female student he’d been fighting moments ago. “I feel like I can understand why Fia, Alice, and even Ms. Loki gather around you!”
Turning around, Alus saw the female student smile. No trace of frustration in her defeat. “That’s not true. My grades are average.”
“If you’re going to say that, then mine are about average too.”
“Even though you can use magic that well?”
It was clear that she had an affinity for earth magic. In terms of characteristics, earth magic tended to be looked down on compared to the other attributes. Or rather, moving and hardening earth required constant focusing on the spell, and it used up a lot of mana. Even novice level spells required quite a bit of information in their construction. In other words, casting earth spells required more time.
As Alus thought about this, it started making sense to him. Considering how the people around her reacted, it appeared she was the one who had actually made progress during the vacation. She hadn’t been picked due to her grades, so she instead decided to take part in the selection matches, and the amount of effort she’d put into it was clear.
And as if to back up Alus’ suspicion—“I worked very hard for today, but I guess it can’t be helped. A loss is a loss. So, congratulations.”
Alus had a doubtful look for a moment, but he soon caught on and tried his best not to sound sarcastic. “Thank you, but I think you will be chosen too.”
“Huh?! What do you...”
“Ciee-eell!” Tesfia waved at them as she ran over, taking the girl called Ciel by the hands. “That was amazing! Being able to use magic so well!”
“I trained extra hard during vacation, after all,” Ciel said, puffing up her chest and standing on tiptoes to appear as tall as possible despite her small size.
Alice arrived, and happily praised Ciel as well.
“Hm? You guys know each other?” Since they’d called out her name, Alus figured they were at least familiar with one another.
“Are you serious? Aren’t you being too rude?” the redhead said with a sigh, and stared at Alus.
As she did, Loki, who’d appeared at his side at some point, pulled on Alus’ sleeve and whispered, “She’s Ciel Faleno, in the same class. They’re also in the same group during the practical class.”
Alus wasn’t sure what she was talking about, and looked Ciel over once more.
Ciel put on an awkward smile.
Gazing at her, Alus could faintly remember someone moving about like a small animal.
Unable to take his trying to remember her any longer, Ciel hurriedly raised her voice, putting a hand in her hair and playing with it a little. “W-Well, I cut my hair, so maybe you just can’t tell... uhm, Fia and Alice help me study after class or during free time.”
“No wonder I can’t remember, then.”
“Uhm, you were there too though...”
Alus felt the awkwardness in the air as a discouraged Ciel looked up at him. “Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah.”
Tesfia facepalmed at Alus’ blatant lie, while Alice said, “You really pay no mind to anything that doesn’t interest you, huh, Al?”
He was aware of that himself, but the way she put it didn’t sit right with him.
“I’m getting used to it, but you could at least remember the names of your classmates!”
Unusually enough, Alus had no retort for Tesfia’s sound argument. He looked at Ciel again. He had no memories of her previous hairstyle, but now her chestnut-colored hair was in a short bob that curved in under her chin. Because of her sweat, the tip of her hair was clinging onto her a little.
Her large eyes made her resemble a small animal, and her body type was not so much slender as it was petite. She had fresh bruises here and there, which were probably due to the training, and had a very delicate-looking figure.
She really did give off the impression of a small young girl, to the point that people probably questioned if she could really become a Magicmaster.
Regardless, looking at the size of her chest moving up and down in accordance with her still rough breathing, Alus could see why she was on such good terms with Tesfia. Like birds of a feather, as they say... though considering her friendship with Alice, he reconsidered that maybe that wasn’t the case. Either way, he wasn’t going to say anything out loud. He’d only bring down thunder on himself.
“Anyways, I more or less remember you now. We’re both going to participate after all.”
“Alus, what is that supposed to mean...?”
However, before Ciel’s question could be answered, the buzzer signaling the end of all the matches echoed across the training grounds.
“With this, the first year selection matches are over. The following four winners of each block will move on as contestants in the tournament...”
At some point, Felinella had descended to the training grounds and spoke as she looked at the virtual screen in front of her. She then went on to read the names of the winners of each block, including Alus.
“Moreover, considering the content of the matches, one more has been chosen by the selection committee. And that person is...”
There was room for one more first-year student. Hearing that, the students’ gazes locked on to Felinella.
“... Ms. Ciel Faleno. These five are the ones that have qualified through these selection matches.”
The eyes on Felinella turned to Ciel as one.
“Huh?! Meee?!”
“Congratulations, Ciel. That’s amazing!” Alice said.
“Of course! Ciel was the strongest one among those guys.” Tesfia followed up on Alice’s praise with a remark seemingly full of conviction. She was, of course, excluding Alus, who was practically already chosen beforehand.
“I did lose to Alus though, so I wouldn’t call myself the strongest. But thank you, Alice and Fia.”
Seeing how the female students were gathering around Ciel in droves, even Alus, who’d conveyed her abilities to Felinella, felt like there was something unique to her. That was surely because they knew of the effort she had put in.
Alus gently smiled, looking at the lively gathering around Ciel, as he realized how different the lives they lived were. In front of him was a tranquil world that he could never step into.
Turning his back on the festive group that seemed to have no end in sight, Alus left the training grounds with Loki.
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