Chapter 57: Is it funny that the Magic-Armored Golem went out of control?

“Damn it! How did you manage to beat me this time too!” Elsa stared at the composed Charlotte with a “If only I were not born, you would be nothing” expression.

She absolutely refused to accept that she had lost to Charlotte by a single point.

Fortunately, the assessment was still ongoing. All she had to do was surpass Charlotte in the next assessment and secure first place.

And the next assessment was a practical combat test.

The academy had prepared five Magic-Armored Golems with excellent attack and defense modes. However, these Golems could not utilize both modes simultaneously. Once they entered attack mode, their defense mode would be disabled.

The future witches participating in the test had to use the shooting magic they had just learned to hit an apple tied to the head of a Magic-Armored Golem.

Of course, to prevent the girls from being injured by the Golems during the test, the surrounding witches had distributed three simple talismans to each of them before the test.

Whenever a participant was attacked by a Magic-Armored Golem, one talisman would be consumed to negate the damage.

If all three talismans were used up and the participant still hadn’t hit the apple on the Golem’s head, they would have to withdraw from the fight. If they continued to participate, any further injury would be their own responsibility.

After clarifying the rules, Elsa’s face lit up with joy.

Combat was her specialty. After all, she had been practicing swordsmanship with her Sister Alice every day since she was seven.

Although she wasn’t as naturally gifted in swordsmanship as Sister Alice, having sparred with her for two or three years, she had mastered the small combat techniques.

When to attack, when to defend, when to dodge, when to escape…

Elsa was confident that no one in the arena was more skilled than her.

After the testing witch called “Start,” Elsa intended to charge forward and claim the first victory.

However, she suddenly noticed that the instructor named Mashiro was stopping Charlotte, who was about to charge.

“Charlotte, you are forbidden from using any magic other than shooting magic until this test is over. If you use any other magic, your exam results will be immediately canceled. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your mother to know that you failed the exam due to such a small matter.”

“Huh?” Charlotte looked completely incredulous.

“Forbidden from using other magic?” How did this Mashiro woman know that she could use more than just one type of magic?

And how did she know she even had a mother?

Wait, how did she know that Mom Rhynes would punish her severely if she failed the exam for such a small reason?

‘Could it be that this person actually knows Mom Rhynes?’

After all, Mom Rhynes was a senior figure in the witch world. It was normal for her to have a few secret witch friends.

“If you can’t control yourself and keep wanting to break the rules, I have a special tool to help you. If you wear this, you’ll only be able to use shooting magic.”

Saying this, Mashiro pulled a red collar out of her dimensional space.

“I am not wearing that thing!”

Charlotte quickly moved away from the seemingly dangerous Mashiro.

‘I really don’t know what kind of mental state this woman is in. Do all witches become like this after being witches for a long time?’

Charlotte ran to Elsa’s side, looking at the Magic-Armored Golems wandering inside the hall, ready to join the fight. But when she turned her head, she saw the utterly confused expression on Elsa’s face.

“What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean, ‘forbidden from using other magic’? Did you learn magic before?”

“Oh, I started learning magic four years ago,” Charlotte replied dismissively.

“Four… so you’ve been able to use magic since you were six?”

“Of course! What’s so strange about that! Alright, stop spacing out. The apples on the Golems’ heads are limited. If we stay here and don’t get any apples, we’ll both be disqualified. You wouldn’t want your mother to know you failed the exam for such a small matter, would you?” Charlotte used Mashiro’s own lines against her.

After saying this, Charlotte joined the fight, leaving Elsa standing alone, dumbfounded.

After a long pause, Elsa frantically shook her head, slapping her cheeks to clear her mind.

“Elsa, Elsa, what are you hesitating for? Didn’t you promise Sister Alice that you would become the strongest witch in the world? How can you become timid just because you ran into a magical genius who’s slightly better than you?”

Taking a deep breath, Elsa calmed down.

“She’s just a magical genius. She’s no match for me, who trains diligently!”

Following that, Elsa also joined the battle for the apples.

A powerful magic barrier had been placed over the hall beforehand, so even if the girls’ shooting magic missed the Golems, it wouldn’t blast craters into the hall floor.

However, this magic barrier was only for defending against shooting magic. If someone were to use other magic to attack, the barrier would instantly collapse.

This was the main reason Mashiro forbade Charlotte from using other magic.

With Charlotte’s power, it would be easy for her to blow the entire hall sky-high.

Now, numerous girls were clustered together, engaged in an intense battle of offense and defense with the five gigantic Magic-Armored Golems.

Because there were so many participating girls, everyone found it difficult to effectively dodge the Golems’ attacks when they entered attack mode. The result was that a single Golem attack would consume one talisman from a large group of girls.

After a few area-of-effect attacks, several girls were forced to withdraw from the fight because their talismans were used up.

As more and more people retreated from the battlefield, the remaining participants gained much more space to maneuver.

But even so, the difficulty of the assessment did not lessen with the expansion of the movement space.

For the other girls, they weren’t good at shooting moving targets. They stood still and shot for a long time without a single hit.

For Charlotte, who had extensive combat experience, hitting a moving target was very simple.

However, every magical bullet she fired was blocked by the Golems’ riot shields, which they used only in their defense mode.

She had noticed from the start that her magic bullets were being blocked by the Golems’ riot shields.

Therefore, she had aimed for the apple on the head of the Golem that was in attack mode.

However, after she fired a few magic bullets, a Golem in defense mode suddenly rushed over, blocking all the magic bullets she had fired.

Every time Charlotte opened fire on the Golem in attack mode, there was always a Golem in defense mode nearby to take the hit for it.

After several consecutive attempts with the same result, Charlotte grew angry.

“Seriously? Are they just single-targeting me?”

If Mashiro hadn’t forbidden her from using other magic, Charlotte would have gone all-out and blown those Golems to bits by now.

Elsa, who was watching from the side, burst into laughter.

“I can’t believe you’re so pathetic! You’ve been shooting for so long and haven’t hit a single thing!”

“If you’ve got the guts, why don’t you try hitting it!” Charlotte shot a fierce, displeased glare at Elsa.

“Hmph, that’s easy! Watch how I do it!”

Saying this, Elsa waved her wand and fired a magic bullet at one of the Golems.

The result was exactly the same as Charlotte’s attempts. Just as the magic bullet was about to hit the target, a Golem in defense mode suddenly darted across and blocked it with its riot shield.

“Huh?”

Elsa was briefly stunned, but she continued to try shooting several more times. But each time, the magic bullet was blocked by a Golem in defense mode with its riot shield.

“You’re just as bad as me!” Charlotte, watching from the side, felt much better.

She understood now. The academy had programmed the Golems with an instruction to single-target her and Elsa. As soon as she or Elsa fired a magic bullet, the other Golems in defense mode would immediately rush out to take the hit.

If she and Elsa didn’t cooperate and continued to fight separately, they would never hit that apple, even if they shot forever.

“Damn it! Why are these Magic-Armored Golems so annoying?” Elsa, who was already flustered from the repeated misses, hadn’t noticed this.

After all, she didn’t seem like the type to use her brain in the first place.

“Hey!” Thinking this, Charlotte walked over to Elsa’s side and raised her hand, pressing it against Elsa’s hand, which was furiously firing. “You’ll never hit it if you keep shooting like this! How about we work together?”

“Eh?”

As Charlotte touched her, the magic bullet Elsa was about to fire suddenly changed direction. After ricocheting off the magic barrier nearby, it finally struck the nape of one of the Golems, causing it to suddenly stop and freeze in place.

However, no one else noticed this.

Elsa was currently discussing the collaboration plan with Charlotte.

“Cooperate? Hmph, did you see me about to hit it and get desperate because you didn’t want to lose to me?” Although no one knew where Elsa got the courage, a look of mysterious confidence appeared on her face.

“You’re such an idiot! Can’t you see that the surrounding Golems are single-targeting you? With your no-skill shooting, it would be a miracle if you could bypass those Golems and hit the target!”

“Ngh…” Although being called an idiot by Charlotte annoyed her, the now-calm Elsa agreed with Charlotte’s assessment.

The Golems’ actions were indeed very strange. Even though there were still many girls shooting non-stop in the arena, the Golems seemed to ignore them and focused all their defense on her and Charlotte.

It was as if they knew from the start that she was their biggest enemy.

“Then how do we cooperate?”

“You draw away the Golems that are specifically blocking our shots, and I’ll take the opportunity to run behind the Golem and easily shoot the apple!”

“I see!” Elsa nodded in agreement, but then she suddenly realized, “Wait a minute, doesn’t that just mean I’ll be doing all the work for you?”

Charlotte gently clicked her tongue, seemingly implying, “How did this kid suddenly get smart now?”

“Hmph, I’m not as easily fooled as you think!” Elsa became smug again.

“Then tell me, if we don’t follow my plan, how else can we break through those big brutes’ defenses?”

“The answer is simple: you draw them away!”

“Wouldn’t that just hand the victory to you?”

Clearly, Charlotte was quite competitive about the outcome of this test.

“Then how about this? We run to either side of the Golem and fire simultaneously. We’ll leave it to fate which side they defend!”

Charlotte suggested.

Elsa considered it for a moment. Since she had nothing to lose from the suggestion, she readily accepted.

“Alright! Let’s do it!”

And so, Charlotte and Elsa quickly positioned themselves on the left and right sides of the Golem.

“I’ll count three, two, one, and then we’ll shoot together!” Charlotte shouted. “Three! Two! One!”

After a brief silence.

“I already counted to one, why didn’t you shoot?”

“You didn’t move either!”

It turned out that after Charlotte counted to one, neither Elsa nor Charlotte fired a magic bullet at the Golem.

Everyone knew that whoever shot first would immediately attract the Golem’s attention, allowing the other side to win effortlessly.

Charlotte had been calculating this from the start, but she didn’t realize that Elsa, who was about to act on the count of one, had suddenly realized the same thing.

So, the two of them just stood there on either side of the Golem, taking a break.

During this time, the magic bullets fired by the other girls also whizzed past them.

The firepower seemed decent, but they just couldn’t hit anything.

“Speaking of which,” Charlotte suddenly noticed, “Something’s not right. These Magic-Armored Golems haven’t attacked anyone for a long time.”

“Hmm?”

Charlotte and Elsa looked up simultaneously and saw the Golem in attack mode, which was being protected by the four other Golems in defense mode, suddenly flash a murderous red light. It swung its weapon stock and smashed its four protective comrades to pieces. It then turned its full firepower on the girls who were still taking the test. Countless, dense magical bullets, as if Yuan Shen had been activated, rained down on them.

In the blink of an eye, the talismans of all the girls were completely consumed. Some girls, who didn’t retreat in time after their talismans were used up, were hit by the magic bullets, instantly shredding their clothes, making the color of their underwear clearly visible.

In a split second, screams echoed throughout the hall, and the scene became completely uncontrollable.

“Holy shit, the Magic-Armored Golems have gone out of control!”