Chapter 90: 90

In the integrated exam I reached rank 784, however my overall score got me to 1st rank among all the first years of Royal Class.

The reason was very simple.

Simply put, I got an A+ in all midterm evaluations of the professor’s individual subjects.

Thanks to my training with Ellen, my knowledge about swordsmanship theory as well as my swordsmanship skills improved, so I won against all my opponents in the midterm students’ tournament competition until I encountered Ellen.

Did that mean that these guys weren’t even as good as my pseudo swordsmanship?

Or perhaps the requirements for turning swordsmanship into a talent were just that strict.

I didn’t even have to use my supernatural ability except when I was fighting Ellen. Of course, when I faced her I was beaten down in less than 5 seconds as usual.

Anyway, Ellen obviously got an A+ for the swordsmanship classes, and I, who showed tremendous improvements, also got one. The regular class students, with whom I took the classes together with, initially ignored me for being nothing special, even though I was also part of the Royal Class. However, that day when they witnessed the tremendous improvement my skills underwent in just a few months, they also seemed to acknowledge me as someone from the Royal Class.

I also wasn’t very good at Horseback Riding at first, but I now knew how to ride a horse better than anyone else in that class, so I got an A+.

The evaluation for the Magic Sensitivity class was done by checking the total amount my magic power increased, and that yoga master told me that mine had increased abnormally fast. My score was only surpassed by Cayer Vioden, who had a huge magic pool, so I got an A+ there as well.

As for the Supernatural power classes, it was inevitable that I would get the highest score in them, because I had enormous control over my power after all, and it seems like I received the highest score in Meditation because apparently my concentration was just as tremendous as my control. I was just pretty patient though. 

And since Divine studies and Alchemy were reliant on memorization, I simply got the highest score by studying normally. As for comprehensive physical education, with the assistance of my supernatural power, I was able to clear all the physical tests, also giving me the highest score.

Ellen and I were the only ones who received the highest score in all of the professor’s individual subjects.

However, Ellen got 2 questions wrong in the integrated exam.

So I ranked first.

I was only aiming to be among the top 10 of the integrated exam, but I ended up reaching 1st place on the wrong ranking and because of subjects I didn’t even properly prepare for.

“…….”

All the students except Ellen, even Bertus, were looking at me somewhat strangely.

Just what is that bastard?

Their expressions showed a complex mix of surprise and doubt.

* * *

Apart from me, Bertus also seemed to have been victorious in his competition against Charlotte. Charlotte’s total ranking was 6th. She did well on her written exams, but she couldn’t get a grade for the physical classes because of her weak constitution, so this result was only natural. 

“What the…. How are you ranked first? How does that make sense?”

Harriet asked me something like that, ready to fight the results. It seemed like she didn’t understand how this could have happened.

“It doesn’t matter whether you think it makes sense or not. It’s reality after all, you know?”

“Lies! I can’t believe it!”

“Sure, by the way, good work reaching 8th place.”

Harriet was placed 8th. At my slight provocation, her face turned bright red.

“I-I’m majoring in magic, so my magic subjects are all that matters! I don’t have to do well on something like some lowly integrated exam!”

Of course, Harriet was only interested in magic, so she didn’t even spare a glance on any other subject that didn’t have anything to do with her major.

“I see, so what? You still lost.”

Her face turned even redder when she heard me say that she ‘lost’. All our classmates were watching what was happening here, so I stood up and tapped Harriet on her shoulder.

“Hey, 8th place. Someone ranked 8th should just live like someone ranked 8th. Just stay quiet.”

“W-What!”

“What? Are you jealous? That you can only admire the life of someone ranked 1st from afar? Hahahahahahahahahaha!”

Now Harriet’s face turned bluish as I showed her a deliberate and malicious smile, teasing her to the limit. Bertus covered his mouth and was quietly chuckling at this rather funny scene, and the others seemed to suffer from cognitive dissonance, because they just witnessed me teasing Harriet so openly.

They knew I was rather blunt with Harriet, but they didn’t know that it was to such an extent.

“Y-You! You! You dirty beggar!”

Harriet, calling me a dirty beggar, hurt me as much as an ant’s kick.

“And you’re the young lady of a Grand Duchy who lost against a dirty beggar…. No! You didn’t even barely lose! You’re 8th place! You lost to me by miles! Hehehehe! Our Grand Princess truly is great and sublime.”

“Aaaaah! You! You! You’re deeeeeead!”

Harriet couldn’t stand my teasing any longer and charged towards me, so I just opened the classroom door and left.

“Heeeeeey! Stop!”

“Just chase me! Try following me at the speed of someone ranked 8th!”

“Aaaaaarg!”

I didn’t mean to place 1st, but now that I did, it kind of felt good.

* * *

At lunchtime, Bertus sat down next to me.

“Aren’t you amazing, Reinhardt?”

“To be honest, it just somehow ended up like this.”

Bertus was satisfied as long as he got to win over Charlotte. In fact, Ellen kept on outperforming him in the original novel, but he didn’t really care. Rather, he’d appreciate that person even more as a talent he needed to acquire.

I didn’t really know if I was treating that whole being 1st thing too lightly, but I just didn’t care all that much. 

“I knew you were rather hard-working, but it’s still surprising.”

Apparently, Bertus decided to rate me even higher. Then he looked towards Ellen, who was sitting across from me.

“I truly thought that it was rather strange for a troublemaker to get Royal Class’ 1st place, over a certain someone, right?”

“Ain’t that a bit harsh?”

“No, it’s the truth though, don’t you agree?”

“Yeah, I can’t deny that.”

It seemed like Bertus thought that Ellen would be the undisputed number 1.

However, I was ranked 1st, not Ellen.

Bertus found that quite amusing. Ellen didn’t respond to his words. She was the type of person that wouldn’t care whether she placed 1st or not.

And then there was Ludwig who stopped as he passed by the table Class A was sitting at.

“Reinhardt! You got to first place, right? Congratulations!”

That guy got an A+ in everything that involved moving his body, but he was just awful in any written exam, so his rank would never change.

“Ah, yes. Thank you.”

It was Ludwig who landed in last place without a doubt. Charlotte also passed by my table, giving me a slight smile. I knew what it meant without having her to tell me.

Whenever she smiled while looking at me, I thought I might die, not in the literal sense. It was always that complex mix of joy and guilt that bubbled up in me.

She got pushed back by Bertus this time. Did she not care at all about that?

“By the way, Reinhardt, you seem to have become quite close with my sister, right?”

These words sent a soul numbing tingle down my spine.

I didn’t know if that was all he knew, or if he found out anything more. However, even the other guys in my class knew that Charlotte and I had a pretty good relationship.

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“Well…. Kind of.”

“It’s fine. No need to be so nervous.”

Bertus told me that he didn’t really care about that, so I didn’t need to worry. If anyone else told me that, I wouldn’t have minded, but this was Bertus, so I couldn’t just believe that.

When he told me to not be nervous, I got even more nervous.

“Since the midterm exams have come to a conclusion, the group missions will start soon.”

Hearing Bertus’ words, I now felt that the next event was inching closer.

“Are they going to follow the normal schedule?”

“Since nothing has happened ever since that incident, the ban on going out will be lifted soon, so the schedule won’t be changed.”

Group missions.

They were exams disguised as a trip.

They were fast approaching.

* * *

It was May. The weather was getting warmer during that month.

During the monthly physical scan, it was revealed that I had developed a new talent called Magic Sensitivity, so there was quite the uproar.

A lot of people were skeptical about my infinite aptitudes, so it was quite surprising that I actually awakened two talents already.

It caused such an uproar that I decided to postpone the awakening of my third talent. If talents just popped up one after the other, that would be suspicious in itself.

Also, there was no further reason to ban us from going out.

As Bertus said, after our common classes on Monday, Mr. Epinhauser announced the start of the group missions.

Even if it was called a mission, it was still ultimately an exam.

“Once per semester we shall conduct group missions starting with the first year of Temple’s high school department.”

“The group missions are a competition between Class A and B, but it is also a strict exam that tests your cooperative spirit and your unity as a class. Keep in mind that the more one cooperates with the group and contributes, the more points said individual will receive.”

“The grades given for group missions are reflected in your grades for the whole semester. Of course, the winning class will receive better grades.”

“Group missions can take place inside or outside of Temple.”

“This is the Royal Class, much different from the regular classes. Therefore, the tasks will be more difficult than what is given to the general classes. Be aware that very dangerous situations may arise. In fact, a lot of people might get hurt or incapacitated.”

“Of course, you are allowed to not participate in the group missions on your own judgement. In that case, the group’s score will be reduced.”

This was the biggest reason why Bertus needed competent class members and dissuaded the other kids from taking a leave of absence.

Because the group missions held every semester were an important factor when calculating one’s final grades. If even one person was missing, there was a very high possibility that we would be at a disadvantage.

For example, even if Bertus surpassed Charlotte during the midterm exam, if Class B won in the group mission, Bertus might get pushed back by Charlotte in the end.

I also put in that setting to cause some real sparks to fly between Class A and B by introducing something similar to a competition. Anyway, the genre was still slice-of-life, so they mostly just went on a picnic, but things wouldn’t be fun like that, if all they did was go out to play. Without any action, there would only be occasional small fights and maybe some battle of nerves, but that was it.

Of course, as with every event I planned out, not all the missions would go as the teachers planned. There would be unexpected accidents, completely bizarre things happening, and sometimes they would even face real threats or emergencies.

Group missions. The best recurring event for convenient plot development.

If one thought a bit more about this, making such precious children do such dangerous things in itself was quite daunting. Who’d even do that?

Well, it was me who wrote it, so it would just happen like that.

If I wanted to shout at someone, then that would be at me from the past! I really had a lot of questions for past me!

Anyway, this would be the first group mission.

“The theme of this group mission is ‘Survival’.”

We would go to a deserted island.

There was no real reason why I chose an uninhabited island as the mission’s venue.

I was just watching an episode of Law of the Jungle while I wrote that arc.

* * *

The theme of the group mission was survival, but Mr. Epinhauser didn’t even tell us that we would be going to a deserted island. That was because they would only tell you the theme of a group mission, but only after arriving at the venue would one realize what it actually meant.

Of course, I knew exactly where we were going. I thought it might get canceled because of the terrorist incident, but that didn’t seem to be the case. 

It was only natural that everyone was somewhat confused by this absurd sounding theme. There was also one piece of good news.

The ban on going out was lifted, and the group mission would run for about five days, from next Monday to Friday. The other high schools would also conduct their group missions during that period of time, so all lectures would be stopped around that time.

“Have you noticed anyone keeping an eye on this place ever since that day?”

“I’ve been more careful since then, so I don’t think so.”

“It seems like Bertus is definitely convinced that I’m absolutely gone…. So I guess he didn’t even see the need to look for me any further.”

As the ban had been lifted, I immediately left Temple and headed to Eleris shop. Now I was able to come to this place even while I took the form of Reinhardt, however I didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks, so I took several detours then changed my appearance before I dared to enter the store.

As always, Eleris and I went upstairs to talk.

“Are you really fine with this? No matter how much Charlotte has become our ally in some capacity, this situation would put you in quite a lot of danger. You might get exposed.”

“I thought a lot about it as well, but if there were to be an emergency, I would be able to make myself disappear quite effectively. Sarkegaar and Loyar also decided to only watch the situation for now.”

Eleris had already discussed this matter with the other two.

“By the way, weren’t you somewhere else at the time we entered the store?”

Eleris had obviously locked the shop door when we arrived here, but when Charlotte came in, she suddenly appeared from upstairs.

“I haven’t cast any protection magic on the door, but I did set up a type of alarm magic on it. I sensed that the door had been destroyed, so I came back as fast as I could.”

Until that moment, Eleris had been with Airi on the Edina Islands. However, she sensed her alarm magic installed on her door going off, so she returned using teleport. She was improvising at tremendous speed. 

If she hadn’t returned in time, Charlotte might have been unaware of the truth, but she might have lost her whole store as a result, because Charlotte might have found something suspicious.

“What about Airi?”

“They are located in Rajak, the main port city of Edina. I’m occasionally checking if things are progressing without any major problems, so you don’t need to worry about them too much.”

Eleris could check on Airi and co at any time using her Teleportation spell. So she told me that there was no need to worry and that I could leave everything to her.

For now, we had decided to keep maintaining the status quo. If there were any problems on Eleris’ side, she’d be able to manage on her own. Until then, maintaining this relationship with Charlotte would be of help to us.

“Anyway.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I still had a small thing to brag about, albeit a little childish.

“I got ranked 1st.”

“……What?”

“I said I got ranked 1st.”

If it was Sarkegaar he’d react quite violently, going “Uwoooooooooaaah!”, but Eleris reacted a bit differently.

“That’s incredible, Your Highness.”

She just smiled and complimented me, which made me feel quite good.

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