Chapter 31: Preparation (1)

The beginning of the semester passed in a blur. The two weeks were a busy time, filled with starting classes, dealing with the constant stream of minor events, making new friends, and forming relationships.

Because of that, investigating the ‘seed’ was put on the back burner a bit.

Information about the seed couldn’t be found even in the Arcana Academy’s Great Library, and the midterm exam period was slowly approaching.

Right now, the midterm exam scores were more terrifying than the destruction of the world. I was a top student in my previous life, having graduated from a prestigious university, but here I was just an average, mid-tier student.

The 16 years of education I received from elementary school to university in my previous life became useless the moment magic threw classical mechanics into the trash.

The medieval fantasy world was not kind to a 21st-century transmigrator who was more familiar with physics than with magic circle calculations or magic engineering.

“Sigh…seriously.”

In the end, I sighed deeply and closed the book.

After doing homework, training, and spending the remaining time studying, it was already midnight.

I turned my gaze to the window. The orderly lights from the streetlights in the autonomous district were still bright at this hour.

It looks like this, yet it’s strangely modern in some ways. I wish the exam questions were a little more modern.

“Why on earth do swordsmen have to learn magic engineering…”

I muttered in a sullen voice and slowly got up. My stiff body stretched, and a pleasant groan escaped me involuntarily.

I raised my arms and stretched, revealing a healthy six-pack under my short T-shirt. Looking at that, I released the tension in my body.

“Sigh…”

I lightly waved my hand and turned off the desk lamp, then sat down on the chair on the terrace. I wanted to lie down in bed right away, but there were still things I had to do.

Finding the seed can be postponed a little.

If the other seeds grew similarly to the cherry blossom tree, I wouldn’t be completely out of time. Besides, I was still too weak to travel around looking for seeds.

The maximum level in this game is 200. A level of 47 was very high for the early stages, but I still needed to become stronger.

“So, first I need to deal with the immediate problem.”

The background of the first main event of [Arcana Academy] is the third day of the midterm exam.

During the practical exam, a terrorist attack is planned that will completely shatter the mental state of the still-green first-year students.

Unfortunately, even I, a transmigrator, couldn’t prevent that terrorist attack in advance.

The main events changed slightly each playthrough, so even knowing the future, it was impossible to prepare for them completely. A kind of consideration for multiple playthroughs.

“…I don’t need that kind of consideration.”

I muttered quietly and took out a notebook.

At first glance, it was just a blank spare notebook. However, as soon as I injected mana into the first page, crawling letters appeared.

[Midterm Exam Attack Incident Outline]

There are a total of three attacks that occur during the midterm exam.

The gate that opens in the middle of the midterm exam practical location, the gate that opens in the academy dormitory, and the guys who will appear in the basement of the academy’s main building.

The gate side is not something to worry about. It’s a gate opened to draw the attention of the teachers, so although there are many, the average level of the monsters that come out is around 20 to 30.

The Arcana Academy is the best academy in the Empire. There’s no way a prestigious academy can’t stop a low-level monster wave.

“So, I guess I should be concerned about the main building side.”

What to worry about was the main building of the academy.

The great barrier that protects the Arcana Academy and the surrounding autonomous district. The core of that great barrier is located in the basement of the academy’s main building.

The goal of the guys in this attack is the core of this great barrier. They send the teachers and the main forces to the gate side and try to infiltrate the academy.

Of course, the teachers of the academy are not fools. There’s no way the core of the world’s best academy would be easily taken down by a daytime terrorist group.

It was impossible for outsiders to even enter the academy grounds by conventional methods in the first place.

So, they decided to implant space transfer magic circles in the students’ bodies.

When the attack begins, the teachers evacuate the students to the main building. The plan of the guys is to activate the transfer magic circle at that time.

“Seriously, they’re just so creatively dirty.”

The first midterm exam, which was called a newbie-killer because of its difficulty. I couldn’t help but let out a sharp, self-deprecating remark as I recalled that development.

First, there were no students who would let villains carve a transfer magic circle into their bodies. No matter how insane a guy was, he wouldn’t do that.

If the transfer magic circle is activated, the person with the magic circle engraved on them will die after all their mana is sucked out, so who would volunteer for that role?

So, the method the guys came up with was to disguise the magic circle as a [Fake Stigmata].

Slender fingers quickly turned the pages of the notebook, stopping on the twenty-third page. Ink spread across the white blank page, revealing words.

[Finding Holders of Fake Stigmata]

[List of Expected Holders of Fake Stigmata]

Stigmata are blessings bestowed by the stars. Even mages who manipulate the mysteries of nature have not been able to find a way to artificially bestow Stigmata.

In the first place, Stigmata itself is a mystery that transcends the existing magic system, so what could mages do?

Therefore, there were only two ways to receive a Stigmata.

Be born as the child of a Stigmata holder family like Frost or Agnes, or have a desire strong enough to reach the stars above.

So, until now, the forces of the dark cults or demon worshippers who rejected the stars and worshipped demons were weak.

Putting aside the size of the force, the absolute number of Stigmata holders themselves was incredibly low.

So they researched ways to artificially bestow Stigmata. What was born after sacrificing thousands of lives was the fake Stigmata.

That’s what the guys engraved the transfer magic circle on. If it were just a transfer magic circle, no one would touch it, but if it were a fake Stigmata, the story would be different.

The beginning of a new semester, the beginning of a new school year in March, is not always a hopeful time.

It’s a time when geniuses who were famous in each region face the wall for the first time.

It’s a time to realize that there are ‘real geniuses’ above them, like Yelena Frost and Regina Strelachia.

It’s natural for anyone to feel a sense of doubt about themselves when they see a girl who is active on the absolute defense line of the north at the young age of seventeen, and a monster magic swordsman who handles both mana and aura.

Compared to those talents, they feel that what they have is too insignificant. They feel pathetic, struggling with even low-level monsters and having a hard time coating their swords with mana.

If this sense of doubt leads to a good place like a desire for self-improvement, it’s fine, but immature seventeen-year-old children sometimes go down the wrong path.

“Like, for example, reaching out for a fake Stigmata.”

This was true for second- and third-years as well.

If you worked hard at the academy, but the new students who just entered were stronger than you, you would inevitably feel that way.

So this first midterm exam episode was not friendly to transmigrators.

There were too many students who had a motive to reach out for the fake Stigmata, and a few of them were randomly selected to carry the fake Stigmata. It was difficult to deal with even if you knew the future.

Besides, there are no practical exams between the academy entrance exam and the midterm exam.

Having a fake Stigmata makes you noticeably stronger, even if it’s not as strong as a real Stigmata holder. But since there were no practical exams, it was too difficult to notice.

“Well, at least I have someone to help me with this.”

The first-year swordsmanship instructor, Elin Agnes.

If she was a Swordmaster, she could notice the improvement in the students’ skills even without going through a practical exam.

I’ll have to get some information from Elin-sensei tomorrow. There wasn’t much I could do right now.

The easiest way would probably be to eliminate all the candidates, but then I would become the terrorist.

And I didn’t have a way to find them separately either.

“Sigh…”

I waved my hand lightly, and the notebook returned to a blank white page.

I leaned my body against the backrest to clear my complicated mind.

Normally, you wouldn’t be able to stop them in this midterm exam episode.

Taking advantage of the confusion, the guys who secretly infiltrated the main building would use the core that maintained the barrier magic and return. That was the end of this midterm exam episode.

The guys who destroyed the core of the barrier would reappear in the second semester final exam episode of the first year. If I could protect this core, Regina’s survival rate would increase significantly.

“For now, I have to save Regina.”

I didn’t want to lose Regina.

I didn’t want to let go of the girl who was broken because of my mistake. I didn’t want to break the only hope that appeared after a thousand regressions with my own hands.

I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to save the world, but I’m not a piece of trash who doesn’t even take responsibility for my mistakes.