Editor : Amethyst00



“Good day, everyone! It’s here again this year! The biggest first-semester event for the first-years—the Summoned Beast Race! A warm welcome to all of you! I’m Runeba Tess, a third-year student of the Summoning Department, and today’s commentator!”

Waaaaaaah!

The training grounds for summoning roared with the cheers of students.

Celia wore a sour expression.

“This is supposed to be an exam?”

There had been spectators for the Knight Studies duelling exam as well, but the Summoning Department’s practical exam was on a completely different scale.

There was not only a live commentary, but even proper spectator stands.

On top of that, they had even installed projection magic in visible spots for the audience.

Sitting beside Celia, Rhys burst into laughter.

“The Summoned Beast Race is a long-standing tradition of the Summoning Department’s exams, so it’s super popular. Plus, it’s also a chosen event during exchange matches with other Hero Academies, so the hype’s even bigger.”

“Student Council President! We’re from the Newspaper Club! That first-year next to you—is she your younger sister, Celia Zerdinger?”

A male student with a recording-type magic device hanging around his neck approached, holding a notepad and pen.

“That’s right.”

“Oho! Then could I do an interview with the both of you?”

The Newspaper Club student made his request.

“Popcorn here! Cold drinks here!”

“Place your bets! Who’s going to take first place? The odds right now are like this!”

On top of that, students from the Merchant Club were out, running stalls and even arranging betting.

What kind of exam is this supposed to be?!

The first-years, who until now had been in a solemn exam atmosphere, were internally screaming at this sudden festival-like atmosphere.

And the ones suffering the most mental damage in all of this were, of course, the first-year Summoning students themselves.

“Why the hell are they all crowding around and making such a racket so we can’t focus!”

When Tade clutched his head and shouted, the nearby first-years all showed faces of agreement.

They had already been tense to the limit, and with the whole school gathered to treat it like a festival, they had no idea how to handle it.

In fact, this atmosphere only made the pressure worse.

Of course, not everyone was flustered.

Typical examples were the Summoning Department’s ace students—Eliza and Walden.

“To think they’d treat me, a daughter of House Hergin, as nothing more than a spectacle. This is unpleasant.”

Eliza furrowed her delicate brows, and her followers all nodded in agreement.

Walden, as always, simply stood silently at her side with his expressionless face.

Eliza glanced sideways at him, then turned her gaze toward Leo, who was warming up nearby.

Leo was stretching his legs, bending and straightening his knees. Eliza sneered as she spoke to him.

“You showed remarkable skill in the Knight Studies practical exam, but did you prepare just as well for the Summoning Department’s exam?”

“Of course.”

“As expected of the class representative, overflowing with confidence.”

Eliza narrowed her eyes.

“Yet, I never saw even a glimpse of you at practice for the Summoning exam… You must think this test is beneath you?”

Normally, in a Summoned Beast Race, students would ride the summoned beasts they had contracted with.

But many first-years hadn’t yet managed to form contracts with flying beasts.

So Lumene provided griffons for them.

The core of the exam was how quickly they could tame these griffons.

The Summoning Department had provided training sessions throughout the exam period, but Leo never once showed up.

“Hey, Eliza. That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?”

Tade grimaced at her pointed remark.

But the surrounding students’ gazes toward Leo were anything but kind.

“Honestly, she’s not wrong. He has been slacking.”

“He’s famous in Knight Studies and Magic Studies, sure, but in Summoning? He’s got raw power and that’s it. I’ve never seen him contract with a spirit or a beast.”

“Doesn’t he just look down on Summoning?”

“If he’s planning to half-ass this, he should just drop out.”

Because the number of student in Summoning Department was small, its students tended to have strong attachment and pride in it.

So when Leo, who hadn’t even attended practice once, displayed such confidence, resentment was inevitable.

The Summoned Beast Race required full use of summoning skills to quickly clear obstacles and cross the finish line.

The obstacles were tough, and interference between competitors was allowed.

It was common for people to get seriously hurt.

And yet Leo, facing such a dangerous event, had never once practiced, so to the Summoning students, his attitude was infuriating.

Of course, in his past life Leo had fought with beasts through countless ground, sea, and aerial battles—but no student here knew that.

“That’s going too far.”

“Ha! You’re defending him just because you’re in the same class rep group?”

A student from Class 5 snapped, only to be mocked by one from another class.

“This isn’t looking good.”

Chen Xia stepped in to mediate.

“I understand everyone’s on edge before the exam, but slander is—”

“Chen Xia, since you’ve got good grades in Knight Studies, you don’t really care about Summoning, huh?”

One girl sneered.

Now she became the target, and Class 10 flared up in her defense.

The Summoning students glared at one another, a hostile tension brewing.

Leo clicked his tongue at the sight.

“How noisy.”

A low, heavy voice rumbled.

Everyone’s eyes turned.

Walden, who had been sitting with his arms crossed and eyes closed as if uninterested, had now opened his amber eyes.

“If you’re going to bark and divide sides just because someone’s ridden beasts a few more times, then do it somewhere out of my sight.”

“What did you say? What did you just say, Walden!”

“I said it’s irritating to hear you act like riding beasts a bit more makes you some big deal.”

The Summoning student from the eastern continent, Sen Liu, scowled as he confronted blank-faced Walden on behalf of the others.

“What, hit a nerve? You hardly even showed up for the taming training yourself.”

Looking at the boy, Walden smirked faintly.

“What’s that smirk for?”

“Want me to tell you why I didn’t show up for training?”

“What?”

“Because it wasn’t worth training. Unlike you half-baked fools who can’t even handle griffons properly, I don’t need it.”

At those words, sparks practically flew from the students’ eyes.

“You bastard!”

One student threw a punch at Walden—

Thump!

—but before it could land, Leo caught Liu’s fist.

“Start a fight before the exam, and it won’t just end with a scolding.”

“Grr! I don’t need to hear that from you!”

Liu yanked his hand free and retreated toward his fellow Summoning students.

Watching his back, Leo sighed and muttered at Walden,

“You could try choose your word bit more carefully, you know.”

“Is it wrong to speak the truth?”

“I don’t know how great you think you are, but mocking others’ effort isn’t something you’re entitled to, Walden Thaiden.”

Leo looked up at the much taller Walden. Walden gave him a cold, fleeting smile before walking off.

“This atmosphere is worse than I thought.”

Leo had just been attending the Summoning classes earnestly, but apparently, relations among the department’s students were strained.

At Leo’s words, Tade sighed.

“You wouldn’t know since you’re in so many majors, but the atmosphere in our year’s Summoning Department is… not great.”

“Why?”

“Well, our year’s top rankers are you, Xia, Walden, and Eliza, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Thing is, in Summoning, the gap between majors and minors is usually huge. But with you and Chen Xia taking top spots, the second-years gathered us for a severe reprimand about it.”

“They gathered you just for that? What a bunch of old-fashioned blowhards.”

“My point exactly! And Walden even straight-up ignored the second-years when they tried. That just pissed them off more, so they took it out on us first-years.”

“Ahh. No wonder.”

“And on top of that, when it came to prepping for this exam, you and Walden both basically never showed up for training. That just soured the mood even more.”

“Yeah, I can see why the atmosphere’s bad.”

“Exactly. So try to understand, alright?”

“Got it.”

Saying that, Leo looked around at the other students preparing for the race.

Everyone looked tense, and some were outright glaring with hostility.

'So even problems like this crop up.'

He understood how, from the outside, it might look like he was being negligent.

'Of course, I’ve no intention of half-assing this.'

Since it was a match, his goal was nothing less than first place.

bl

“Ladies and gentlemen! The time has finally come! All competitors are at the starting line!”

The first-years lined up together behind the start.

Ahead was a fenced enclosure containing griffons.

At the signal, they would have to tame a griffon and begin the race.

The Summoning students readied themselves with tense expressions.

“Rookies! Don’t get nervous! Just do as you practiced! Anyone who messed it up and can’t perform, I’ll kick your butts after this is over!”

Yura, acting as referee, raised the signal flare and shouted at her students.

At that, laughter broke out among the Summoning students.

Thanks to Yura, their nerves eased a little.

“Alright then!”

Yura raised the flare.

“Three, two, one!”

Bang!

Crack-crack-crackle!

At the very start, elemental spells rained down around Leo and Walden.

Leo froze at the sudden situation.

“Ah! What’s this! The Summoning Department students! As if coordinated beforehand, they unleash a barrage of interference at the class representative Leo and southern honor student Walden!”

The audience erupted into commotion at this unprecedented situation.

Even the Summoning students from Class 5 looked shocked.

“What the hell is that?!”

“So dirty! Damn Summoning Department!”

“Shameless! Don’t you have any pride?!”

“Fight fair, you cowards!”

“Ha ha! And boos are pouring in from Class 5!”

The stands were in an uproar.

“C-class rep!”

“Leo! Hold on, we’ll help!”

“Forget about me! Just go!”

When his classmates hesitated to start, focusing instead on dispelling the elemental interference around him, Leo shouted urgently.

“This is an exam! I’ll handle it! Don’t fall behind, just go!”

“Ugh!”

“Leo! Sorry!”

With frustrated faces, the Class 5 students finally dashed off.

The ground had been turned muddy by water spells, clutching at Leo’s feet.

Fire and wind blocked his way.

Walden, receiving the same interference, flared his mana.

“How pathetic.”

Fwssh—!

Though the elemental arts had been coordinated by multiple Summoning students, Walden dismantled it all with ease.

Something only possible with overwhelming ability.

“You look like you’re struggling. Need a hand?”

Walden smirked. Leo gave a small laugh.

“No, I’ll handle this myself.”

“Is that so? Then I’ll go on ahead.”

Walden strode leisurely toward the griffon pen.

Meanwhile, other students were already finishing taming their griffons and taking to the skies.

Watching from the start line, Leo drew on his mana.

“I knew they didn’t like me, but I didn’t expect them to all gang up like this.”

Leo chuckled lightly. From the sidelines, Yura clicked her tongue.

'That’ll be tough for him.'

If this weren’t an exam, he could probably smash through such interference.

But in this event, the restriction was that only summoning magic could be used.

And from what Yura had seen, Leo’s specialty was beast summoning, not elemental art.

Yet now he was being bombarded by an entire department’s worth of elemental interference.

To Yura, Leo was still considered unexperienced in actual combat, so it looked nearly impossible for him to overcome this.

'The rift among the first-years is deeper than I thought. But to gang up like this—it may not be against the rules, but it’s hardly a good look.'

As a professor, she had wanted to watch out for her students, but perhaps she hadn’t done enough.

She sighed, resolving to step in to calm them after the match—

“──!”

Then she heard Leo’s voice—and every hair on her body stood on end.

Like song, smooth and melodic—but it was no human tongue.

“──! ─!”

The more the melody continued, the weaker the elementals’ power became.

Fwssh—!

At last, the forces that had been blocking Leo vanished.

The elementals, bound by contracts to others, giggled and twirled around Leo in a playful dance before dispersing.

It was power that could exert influence over elementals contracted to someone else.

Did that lunatic just use Elemental Speech? That’s taught no earlier than second-year Elemental Arts classes!

Watching Leo finally set off late, Yura couldn’t help but let out a stunned laugh.

'He’s the real deal. Absolutely real. No matter what, Leo needs to be pushed into Summoning.'