Ch. 21

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[Spread Flame]

Blue flames instantly spread out from her body in every direction.

The flames precisely targeted only the wet patches of ground, quickly evaporating the sodden earth.

"So that's the famous Lady Marey's blue flame..."

"Whoa... look how precisely it moves."

The students, who'd been frozen stiff by the incredible match before, gradually started chattering again as they watched her spell.

"But no matter how easy Water Droplet is supposed to be among spells... what kind of Talent lets her complete a formula that fast?"

"How much mana must she have to pull off something like that without her expression even changing?"

As the Magic Department students on one side started murmuring among themselves, the Knight Department students, watching their reactions, began whispering too.

"Waterspout's a spell with strong rotational force... how did he manage to break through it?"

"Wouldn't it have been easier to just attack before the droplets even fell?"

Maybe it was because I'd just heard Aria's explanation earlier.

I was starting to notice the difference in perspective between the Magic Department and the Knight Department.

"I thought this was nothing special, but it's actually more interesting than I expected."

The moment I became aware of that difference in perspective, I found myself able to keep chaining one thought into the next.

It felt something like playing chess alone, working out the best possible move to beat yourself.

Since I had no mana to begin with, I'd always relied on tight, calculated tactics to win fights, and it seemed clear that being able to calculate more moves ahead would only raise my odds of victory even further.

"Oh no... Aden's up next..."

Hmm, already Aden's turn?

Once the area had been cleared by Marey's flames, people gradually began gathering back toward the center.

"Since things are more or less cleared up, we'll begin the next match! The Knight Department's Aden!"

Aden was a handsome man possessed of a refinement that neither the Crown Prince nor Jeffrey could quite match.

He looked more like a noble than actual nobles did.

To the point that, despite his hair being blue rather than blond, he was occasionally suspected of having Imperial blood mixed in somewhere.

But right now, stepping forward, Aden looked so exhausted, as if he hadn't slept properly at all, that he gave off an almost decadent atmosphere.

"Damn... what did the Knight Department do in a past life to end up in the same class as guys that handsome?"

"Meanwhile, the Magic Department is..."

"Hey, we've got Jeffrey!"

"Ah, well, I suppose that's a matter of taste."

Come to think of it, when I used to have dark circles under my eyes from sleepless nights on missions, people around me always said it made me look sketchy, not appealing.

Anyway, the hollow look under Aden's eyes suggested he still hadn't managed to shake off his guilt over the students' deaths.

Maybe it was because this was destined to become a burden he'd carry for the rest of his life.

Watching him struggle to shake it off felt frustrating, but also left me with a bit of an ache of sympathy.

"The Magic Department's Joseph Versolt!"

While I was still listening to the girls' nonsensical chatter, a man stepped forward at the call of his name.

He wasn't quite on Aden's level, but he had a decently handsome appearance and a neat, put-together air, thanks to his hair being combed back cleanly.

The unusual part was that he seemed to make no effort at all to hide the contempt on his face toward Aden, despite the two of them having no particular connection.

What's this? Someone else who feels the same kind of anger I do?

"Then we'll begin the third match now!"

The moment Anna shouted, as if he'd been waiting for exactly this cue, Joseph pressed both hands to the ground and completed his formula.

[Surging Stone Pillar]

Mana surged out from his two palms pressed to the ground, racing swiftly through the earth before violently erupting in front of Aden.

As Aden dodged backward, another spell activated right behind him, as if the man had anticipated this exact move.

[Antlion Pit]

It was a binding spell that sucked in and hindered movement the instant a foot touched the ground.

Seeing the ground beneath his feet sink into a mortar shape, Aden snapped his hips, using the rotation of his body to leap into midair.

In that split second instant, Aden cleared the spell laid out across the ground and landed back down.

But just as he felt he'd dodged everything, a massive fist made of stone had already reached right in front of his face.

[Giant's Fist]

It was an attack that fully exploited the relentless, rapid-fire nature characteristic of Earth-attribute combat.

The only person from the Versolt family I'd ever seen before the regression was Tilda Versolt, the academy's current vice-principal, so I never expected there'd be someone in that family capable of fighting this cleanly.

Being able to deploy exactly the right spell at exactly the right moment in a fast-paced combat situation deserved considerable credit on its own.

There were certain situations where someone using magic with this kind of tight, methodical precision could actually be more threatening than a style like Jeffrey's, which simply overwhelmed opponents with sheer volume backed by overwhelming mana.

Boom!

But just as I thought Aden had been hit by the Giant's Fist, a roaring blast rang out, and the spell vanished without leaving a trace.

Joseph froze for a moment at this sudden, incomprehensible turn of events.

Even having had his spell broken through, Aden simply stood still where he was, looking at his opponent with nothing but sad eyes.

"How dare a mere commoner look me straight in the eye?"

Not liking that look in Aden's eyes, Joseph pressed both hands, once again brimming with mana, to the ground and continued casting.

Pillars laden with far greater mana than before began erupting all around Aden.

"If only..."

But easily dispelling this spell as well with a single swing of his sword, Aden muttered quietly.

"If only a few more of the people listed on this bracket were still back at the dormitory..."

Apparently flustered that his spell had been blocked so effortlessly, Joseph hastily prepared something stronger.

"What's that supposed to mean?! You worthless bug!"

[Monstrous Rock Shark]

Most Earth-attribute spells leaned heavily offensive, and this was one of the top spells among them.

It was a high-level spell that felt less like it consumed everything in a straight line and more like it ground everything in its path to dust.

A massive shark made of jagged rock began flying straight toward Aden, jaws gaping wide.

Even this much alone was already far beyond what any first year should have been capable of.

"If they had, maybe just a little more..."

But his opponent was already an Aden who had regressed once before.

[Single Point]

A chilling, razor sharp intensity gathered on his sword for an instant, and he casually pushed it forward.

The Monstrous Rock Shark vanished without leaving so much as a trace behind.

It was his Talent, Ignore, the apex predator standing above every spell and every Talent that existed.

If Jeffrey had left the whole area gasping in shock with his overwhelming volume of spells, Aden left it in complete silence by displaying strength in a realm that simply defied comprehension.

"If only they'd been able to live just a little longer..."

His words were filled with a bitterness deep enough to feel almost bottomless.

"Argh!"

Just as Joseph, enraged at the sight of Aden, gathered mana into both hands once more and was about to reach down toward the ground again, he found himself frozen in place, unable to move.

"Let's stop this pointless fight."

Aden had closed the distance without anyone noticing and now had his sword resting against Joseph's throat.

"...Wh-when did..."

The cold touch of the blade against his throat reminded him that, had this sparring match been a real fight, he would already be dead.

"Victory to the Knight Department's Aden!"

After a brief moment of silence, Anna's declaration of the winner rang out alone across the open field.

It had been the most intense match, and also the one that ended most anticlimactically.

Joseph had never been weak, not by any measure.

Even before the regression, among those who used Earth-attribute magic, only a handful of people had ever managed to use the Monstrous Rock Shark.

But his opponent had simply been Aden.

It had just been a matter of bad luck in the bracket.

"Whoaaa!"

At the overwhelming gap in ability displayed, another roaring cheer erupted from the Knight Department.

"Ugh!"

At that, Joseph, his face scrunched with humiliation, stepped away from the center, and Aden returned to the Knight Department as well.

"Aden..."

Even after such an overwhelming display, Aria looked at him with clear worry in her eyes.

"That's the friend who didn't eat his sandwich before, right?"

"...Huh? How did you know that?"

"You kept worrying about him even while the Magic Department was getting completely destroyed."

"Right..."

"And you don't have any friends in the Magic Department, do you?"

"That's not true... isn't Benjamin my friend?"

"What's with that face? You thought I wasn't your friend, huh? Huh?"

"Tch, this is why sharp-eyed little kids are such a pain."

"Excuse me? Hey!"

Habitually pushing her face away with my hand, I watched Aden return to the Knight Department.

Even as people around him kept telling him how amazing he was, he merely nodded briefly each time, his expression showing not a shred of joy.

Well, he'd probably stay like that for a while yet, so I figured it was best not to worry about it.

For now, it seemed better to focus on the next match.

Because this time, it was "her" turn.

"The fourth match, the Knight Department's Luna Delsia!"

At Anna's shout, from the Knight Department emerged a massive mountain.

No, Luna walked forward.

Was it simply because of her enormous size, or because of the sheer intensity radiating off of her, that this fairly wide open field suddenly felt cramped?

Maybe it was because I'd never actually seen her fight, neither before the regression nor even in Aden's life.

Honestly, I was quite curious.

"So how exactly do you know that scary girl, Benjamin?"

"Hm?"

"She just said something to you earlier."

"Ah, I guess you could say she's a friend I got to know while working out together."

Come to think of it, I still hadn't properly cleared up that misunderstanding from earlier.

Just then, Luna, looking around the field, glanced back and forth between me and Aria standing beside me, then began grinding her teeth with a loud, grating sound.

Startled by the harsh, grinding noise, Aria clung to my arm as if for dear life, and now Luna's eyes even started flickering with something like a ghostly aura.

Wow, this is actually a little scary even for me.

"For the Magic Department, Lewin Bertio!"

Apparently overwhelmed by Luna's spreading, ghostly aura, a cute, plump girl stepped forward with a wobbling gait, her pupils practically shaking.

Someone I knew.

Explaining how I knew her required a bit of backstory from before the regression.

Before the regression, back when a team was being formed to guard the World Tree's seed, the atmosphere at the time had been, quite literally, like a funeral home.

To begin with, simply traveling to the Northern continent, unfamiliar territory for humans, was dangerous enough, but on top of that, the Northern continent was already under attack by monstrous beasts.

Since those beasts were specifically targeting the World Tree's seed, guarding it inevitably meant being directly exposed to their attacks.

Because of this, people heading to the Northern continent were, quite literally, jokingly referred to as "aspiring suicides."

Because the expedition kept getting delayed due to these circumstances, the Emperor promised an enormous reward.

That was when people gradually started flocking in, and she'd been one of them at the time.

"Hahaha! Don't worry! I'll pull my weight three times over! And, um... could I maybe get paid three times the reward for that..."

Since most of the volunteers had been mercenaries, the number of mages had been dishearteningly low, and she'd boldly declared this to the worried mercenaries.

Just as she'd confidently promised, she'd ended up performing well beyond the equivalent of three people's worth.

No, to be precise, she'd actually done even more than that.

Something like... five people's worth, maybe?

"Then we begin the fourth match!"