NOVEL NEXT Chapter 36: Placement Exams I
Stats Update:
“I really must insist that you take the single room.” Charles said as they stood around the shared dormitory at the Royal Military Academy on the day of orientation.
Being of high status, Charles received a large section of one of the dorms dedicated to himself and his attendants, as well as being allowed to bring along two servants to take care of the housework. It was a luxurious space with five bedrooms, its own toilet and bath, a living room and even its own kitchen. It was like a small house or a large communal condo.
However, only one of the bedrooms was a single person bedroom. The rest had two beds and were meant to be shared.
“Young Master, I am but an attendant, it wouldn’t make sense for me to have a room to myself while you have to bunk.” Scarlet said, practicing her attendant act for when they were in front of others. “And besides. Me having my own bedroom when I don’t sleep is rather pointless.”
“You might not sleep, but you will need to change clothes.” Charles said seriously. “Everyone who has any business being in here already knows who you are, and no one outside has to know that I am rooming with Andy. You take the single room.”
“...Alright. But tell me if you change your mind. You know how bad he snores, right?” Scarlet said with a small smile.
“Hey!” Andy’s voice came shouting out of the room, getting a laugh from Scarlet and a grin out of Charles.
“Oh, I know about his snoring. I packed noise canceling magic tools to help with it.” Charles said with confidence.
“My juniors are so rude.” Andy moped as he put away the last of Charles’ things.
“If you want them to respect you, then behave yourself.” Nico said as he came out of his own room. “I don’t want to have to keep bailing you out of trouble like I did last year.”
Nico was the oldest of Charles’ future retainers, who turned 10 shortly after Scarlet met him. This unfortunately meant for him that he had not received the full advantages of having trained with resistance training clothes, and in the end, had only gotten the Tier 5 Cold Berserker Class, which he accepted without taking the gambit, as he didn’t have the preparations necessary to make it work, and would be at the Royal Military Academy first with only a few allies.
Not that he was bitter. He viewed his goal as being to pave the way for the others and be ready to help.in any way he could. Sidney, the second oldest, had also foregone the gambit, but had managed to make it to a Tier 6 Shadow Walker Class. The two of them had been working together at the Academy for the past 3 years in order to learn the ins and outs of the Labyrinth as well as the Academy in general, gathering what allies they could.
“Did you all study the notes I gave you for the placement exam?” Nico asked Charles, Scarlet and Garci.
“Of course. We can’t afford not to pass.” Charles replied with a nod.
Despite being a Military Academy, the lower levels still have basic classes like math, science, magical theory and history. But rather than being made to take the courses, you were given the chance to test out of them. Only if you failed to impress were you made to take the classes.
And this didn’t just apply to normal classes. Things like basic swordsmanship, magic, military strategy, enchanting, and other courses unique to the school could also be tested out of.
And since classes would conflict with their Labyrinth exploration time, they wanted to take as few of them as humanly possible.
Nico had doing his homework, gathering information on all of the exams so that they would be prepared for the kinds of questions they would see.
“I’m pretty sure Charles and Garci will be fine. Bran however…” Andy trailed off awkwardly. “Just make sure you don’t overdo it. If you write an answer that is too complex for the graders to understand, they might not let you out of the magical theory class. Or worse, they might ask you to teach it.”
“That won’t… um… I’ll keep that in mind.” Scarlet said before just agreeing with him.
Now that she thought about it, she had received an offer for a teaching job under her ‘Rebecca’ alias. ...She had honestly considered taking it just to get access to the Labyrinth earlier, but teaching was a really big hassall and would cut into her training. Plus, she really didn’t want to deal with all of the disrespectful students she would have, who wouldn’t like having a teacher who was younger than they were.
“Alright. Then we’ll take you to the exam hall. Might as well get it all over with as quickly as possible.” Nico said.
“Right. Lead the way.” Charles replied with a nod of his head.
In all of the TV shows and Manga Scarlet had watched and read in her previous life, they always went on about how schools were divided based on what ‘clique’ you belong to.
Now, Scarlet had never been to a school before, not since getting out of the boarding school where… things happened, so she really wouldn’t know.
But it did seem like there were some sort of divisions within this school as people walked around. “What are those crests on people’s uniforms?” Scarlet asked as she looked around at the other students, many of whom had patches stitched onto their uniforms.
“They are the sigils of their factions.” Andy replied. “Oak Shield for the Old Nobles. Eagle is the Nationalists. The Book and Quill is the Scholars’ faction. And the Shining Star is for the Heroic Faction. Students usually wear them to show which faction they are from.”
“I see.” Scarlet said with a bit of a frown.
Seemed a little odd to have something to divide people like this at a school meant to prepare people for raising the future defenders of the Kingdom. You would think that cooperation would be most important.
Scarlet only had a general idea of what the individual faction were, and what they stood for.
The Old Nobles faction wanted the individual nobles to have more power within their territory so that they could further improve their own territories. The Nationalist group wanted there to be a stronger central power which would regulate interactions between the different nobles, which inherently took away individual nobles’ power, putting them in direct opposition to the Old Nobles.
The Scholars’ faction was mostly made up of non-military and younger noble families who were tired of being treated as second class to their more militaristic counterparts. They argued that the job of governing should go to people who were trained in governing, rather than in swinging the sword. ...They got a point. Not only would they be more effective at governing, it would mean the soldiers would further dedicate themselves to their training.
Problem was, their leadership were a bunch of greedy and corrupt assholes.
The Heroic Faction was the youngest and smallest of the four, having appeared in order to support the current King, and had an agenda based solely around kissing the man’s ass. Which was sad, because the King didn’t pay them any more mind than he did any of the other factions. They were all just a bunch of fanboys.
None of Charles’ attendants wore any sort of symbol, as they were supposed to be neutral, though most would assume they were in league with either the Scholars’ faction, do to Charles’ father training to be a good leader rather than a good soldier, or the Heroic faction, since his grandfather was one of the Big 10.
“Are you here for the placement exam?” An instructor ask them as they approached the building.
“Yes. That is right.” Charles replied.
“The exam is held in the auditorium over there, but you will be required to leave your Bonds in the gymnasium until you are finished.” The instructor informed them.
“Understood.” Charles replied as they moved to gym to drop off their Bonds. “Don’t cause any trouble.” Charles told Leon, stroking the lion’s mane.
(So long as the others know their place.) Leon huffed, puffing out his chest.
Despite having shrunk down to his old size, he was still a good deal stronger than the Bonds of the other students, since he had evolved for a second time.
“Keep an eye on him for me. Okay, Crimson.” Scarlet said, scratching Branwen’s chin.
“You can count on me.” Branwen replied in the voice of a very mature man.
(I don’t need a babysitter!) Leon complained but Charles just smiled at him before they all left to go and take their exams.
The math, science and basic reading skills exam was first. The math and science parts were surprisingly in depth, but it was probably meant as a milestone test, to see how far the child could get, rather than being expected to complete it all.
Scarlet, with her college level education in her previous life, breezed through it. More annoyed by its length than anything else.
Mathematics had progressed much further in her previous world than they had in this one. Biology was about on the same level, because magic could be used to examine things at the nanoscopic level, but all of the physics and chemistry theory that requires higher level math lagged behind.
After that was history.
It was probably Scarlet’s weakest subject, but most of it was supposed to be the basics of history, something they would teach in an elementary school. So she didn’t have any problems. Her [Memorization] skill was high enough to remember every name of every king and the dates which they ruled, as well as all of the wars and the different factions that the Kings were supported by when they were Princes.
But as the final exam was rolling around, Scarlet was running out of steam.
WHO DECIDED TO OUTLAW SNACKS DURING THE EXAMS!?!
Her stomach was growling as she pushed through the magic theory exam as fast as she could, breezing through problem after problem, wanting to finish so that she could finally leave and eat something.
She was starting to get looks from the other people in the room, as they wondered if she had smuggled in her Bond and that it was acting out, because of how loud her stomach was demanding satisfaction.
Why has she done something as stupid as train the [Big Eater] skill!? With the skill at level 80, she could hardly go three hours without eating if she didn’t want her stomach to start to protest. And it had been FOUR hours since her last meal!
She was nearing the end of the test when she read the final problem and nearly let out a scream of rage.
‘Construct a proof showing that there exists a counter spell to every spell.’
THIS WAS GOING TO TAKE FOREVER!
Her stomach growled more angrily, drawing tears, and pushing Scarlet forward. She would withstand the pain of having her skin slowly burned away, but hunger was just too much for her. Her quill moved so fast that her already messy chicken scratch became even more large and blotchy, but she didn’t care. It was still legible.
Page after page was filled until she had a stack of fifteen sheets sitting next to her before the girl was finally done.
The proctor looked at her in confusion as she packed up all of her things, slammed the stack of papers on the desk and bolted out of the room, not wanting to waste a minute of her scheduled lunch time.
She didn’t get to see the world renowned professor's increasingly shocked face as he read over her proof.
The cafeteria was going to have to rethink its all you can eat policy, as Scarlet paid five silver to get into the buffet and proceeded to stack twelve plates of food onto her tray before finding a table and digging in.
She had eaten all of it and had gone back for a second round before Charles and the rest of the group arrived with Branwen on his shoulder.
“I can’t believe you forgot to get me!” Branwen cried tears of betrayal as she saw her partner stuffing her face.
“Sorry. I was just… really hungry.” Scarlet said guiltily between bites. “You have no idea... how lucky you are... to need nothing but mana… to feel satisfied.”
“Well, since you’ve already made a spectacle of yourself, we might as well join you.” Andy said with a tired sigh before walking off to go and grab his own food.
Scarlet only then looked up properly to see all the eyes that were staring at her. “Do they have to stare?” She mumbled before returning to her food.
Normally, people would awkwardly pick at it while under such eyes, but Scarlet couldn’t help but continue to eat.
“Where do you put it all?” Nico asked in wonder as the girl finished her 19th plate and added it to the growing stack.
“She’s wearing space bending clothes to hide the stomach.” Charles whispered.
“Hey! Don’t tell him that!” Scarlet snapped angrily, causing the boys to chuckle a bit at her expense. She was upset with them, but that didn’t stop her from scarfing down the last few plates she had in front of her, after which, she leaned back and let out a loud belch that reverberated through the room. “That’s much better.” Scarlet said, patting her full stomach as some of the people who had been watching started to clap.
...She wondered if it was wrong to ask for some kind of take out. She still had the practical exams to do.
“It seems like there is some truth behind the rumors that my uncle has decided to take in a savage animal.” A very arrogant voice said, drawing Scarlet’s attention.
Before her eyes focused on him properly, Scarlet took a look at the man’s mana and found its signature to be somewhat similar to Caesia’s, though only at about a quarter the strength. Looking at the man, she found that his long silver hair was just like Caesia and Mehal’s, increasing the probability that they were related even more.
The guy looked to be sixteen or so, maybe seventeen, with rather femine features to highlight his natural beauty. His appearance made the word jailbait come to mind. His left shoulder had an Oak Shield patch on it, so he must have belonged to the Old Nobles faction. So did the three people who were formed up behind him.
Scarlet paused, not exactly sure how to respond to this sudden confrontation. She hadn’t expected anyone to actually act like a single scene villain.
“What is the matter? Don’t you have anything to say? Don’t tell me that you are a simpleton as well as a savage.” The man said with a snide smirk.
“...I’m confused. You do realize everyone is watching you, right? Aren't you going to ruin your reputation by acting like this in front of your peers?” Scarlet said with a shake of her head.
The man glared at her due to her response, and the smirks it earned him from Charles’ crew. “Leave him alone Quin. He has nothing to do with you.” Charles said, stepping between
“How can young master Charles say such a thing? Adopted and savage he may be, but he is still family. How could he have nothing to do with me?” The now identified Quin said with the most fake smile possible. “And speaking of my family, when do you plan on returning my sister back to us?”
“Never.” Charles said flatly, his eyes narrowing. “Caesia has been a ward of our house for seven years. She has nothing to do with you, and wants nothing to do with you. If you wanted her so badly, you should have thought about that before you released her into our care.”
“What did you say, you Tier 1 trash?” Quin said, grabbing onto Charles’ collar. Lifting him off of the ground slightly, as he was a head and a half taller than Charles.
With Caesia’s Tier 6 magic-type Class being one of the top ten highest in the entire Kingdom, the old family who had once written her off as a waste of resources, and an easy way of getting a foot in the door of a Duke's house with, was now desperate to try to reclaim her.
Duke Bryce’s response to this was ‘go fuck yourselves’.
Why they believed that they could intimidate Charles, who had no say in the matter, into giving the girl up, who knows. But it was a dumb idea.
Charles maintained eye contact with the guy as he slowly lifted his own hand and grabbed the hand that was holding his collar. Scarlet almost felt sorry for the guy as she heard the bones popping and saw the pain on his face.
“I said, she is a ward of my house, and you will keep your slimy hands off of her, Tier 5 trash.” Charles said as he peeled the man’s hand away, all its bones dislocated.
(And that’s when he knew, he’d fucked up.) Branwen mentally commented as they watched Charles effortlessly shove the guy backwards, stumbling into his friends.
Quin was screaming his head off as he cradled his hand, not having a clue what had just happened or what to do about it.
He was a level 80 with a Tier 5 class. Even if the rumors about Charles’ unusually high level were true, a Level 63 with a Tier 1 class should be as weak as a baby compared to him. Something he could easily push around. And with seniority and strength being everything at the Academy, he was pretty sure he could get away with it with at worst a slap on the wrist, even if Charles was a Duke's grandson.
He had no way of knowing that Charles had recently grown to level 100, or that he had already Class Changed all the way up to a Tier 4 Class. Such things would be too absurd to even imagine. Even being a Tier 2 Class would be ridiculous.
That, along with the stat boosts from all the skills he had been training, meant that Charles was stronger than Quin by a fair margin.
The older boy was out of the picture, but his crew were starting to form up, with Charles and his friends getting ready on the other side. It looked like there was going to be a fight, and people were starting to chant, when someone interfered.
“Out of my way!” A heavy wind blew through the older boys, knocking them to the side and the magic instructor came charging forward, towards Scarlet, her test papers in his hand. “Excuse me, young man. I’ve been reading over your answers and I want to know if you could explain Claim #4 to me in greater detail. What do you mean by the symmetries of spells forming a kernel for a transformation on the set of greater phenomenon? And this part about the countability of spell families, please explain that too.”
“Ah...Okay.” Scarlet said, a little put off as the elderly man was leaning over her.
“...Bran, please tell me you didn’t answer the final problem, did you?” Nico said, rubbing his eyes. “I told you that the last problem is always supposed to be an unanswered question that they put to see how you would approach something that can’t be solved.”
...Okay! So she forgot! She was hungry alright!
