Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Entrance Exam (1)

“You do not have to pretend like that.”

“…What do you mean?”

Who was she trying to fool?

I rubbed the bridge of my nose.

“If I was mistaken, then I apologize. I caught a whiff of something reptilian, so I thought I would check just in case……”

SNICK!

Before I could even react properly, a sharp sting grazed my left cheek.

When I pressed a hand to it, blood came away from the lightly cut skin.

Good grief, how vicious.

“…Would it not be better to mind your tongue?”

Her once-gentle eyes had narrowed sharply, and the atmosphere around her had grown cold in an instant.

Without taking my eyes off her, I wiped away the blood seeping from my cheek and continued.

“Did you really think I would fail to recognize the headmaster of Saengterminum Academy?”

“Hmph. So you are perceptive after all. I was going to drag you inside the academy before confronting you.”

What an overbearing voice.

“That is a strange thing to hear from someone who had been tailing me since the mountains.”

“You knew that too? Hm… well, fine. If you already know who I am, then this will be easier.”

The woman lowered her head slightly, her tone laced with irritation.

“The Dark Empire has issued a wanted order for you and has been searching quite enthusiastically, you know?”

She slowly raised the head she had lowered.

“I can overlook you crossing the border. But then you hide your face with a curse and try to enter the academy I run? I suppose you really are the Mad Dog. You would have to be insane to pull a stunt this crazy.”

At some point, her eyes had ceased to be human. 

They had become the vertical, slit pupils unique to reptiles.

“Would you not agree, Aron Bayonel?”

The Mask Curse is a mid-rank Black Magic spell.

Combined with my own mastery over Black Magic, it is enough to keep most people from seeing through to my true appearance.

But even that cannot deceive the Dragon’s Eye, which possesses the insight to pierce the very essence of mana.

And that figure… no, that creature, was a dragon concealing her true form beneath Polymorph.

‘Leviathan.’

A Blue Dragon Hatchling and the headmaster of Saengterminum Academy.

Having effortlessly pierced my identity, she glared at me.

“Follow me.”

Turning her back to me, the headmaster jerked her chin.

Even though she knew I was Aron Bayonel, she walked away as though completely unguarded, but really?

A dragon is still a dragon, even if she is only a hatchling.

And that dragon possessed enough power to turn Saengterminum’s territory into a neutral zone that no nation dared lay a hand on.

‘It is not as though I have two lives to spare.’

I had realized I was being followed, but even so, I had failed to sense her presence itself.

I had no intention of defying the will of a transcendent being like that.

From the moment I decided to enroll in Saengterminum once more, I had already resolved that I would make use of her position if I could, not refuse it.

I followed behind her, and the headmaster led me away from the sunlit streets into a dim alley.

“All right. Let me hear it.”

Leaning her back against one wall at an angle, she folded her arms, and two sky-blue horns protruded from her head.

“What made you cross Saengterminum’s border?”

“To enroll in Saengterminum Academy and place myself under the protection of Lady Leviathan, who stands before me.”

“Call me Levia. Shorter.”

“Then Lady Levia it is.”

She still liked making people shorten her name.

“And yet the one seeking protection disguised his face and tried to submit an application? Without considering how I, the person in question, might react?”

“If my identity came to light right now, it would become troublesome in many ways.”

“Troublesome, hm……. Well, with a wanted order out for you, I suppose so. If you had brazenly applied under your real name, the Dark Empire would probably have demanded that I hand you over. Yes, that would have been irritating in many ways.”

She did not interrupt me. 

She let me finish everything I had to say.

Which was only natural. 

If she had not been even slightly interested in me, then the moment she realized I had crossed the border, she would have beaten me half to death and thrown me out of Saengterminum without a word.

But instead, she had approached me and was asking why.

It was not out of consideration for me.

“I am curious. Why did you flee the Dark Empire? No matter how rotten your personality may have been, you were still the child of one of the Four Great Houses. They would not have treated you carelessly.”

It was simply because she was intrigued.

For dragons, that is practically instinct. 

They tend to act according to what draws their interest, without bothering with the yardsticks of politics or ideology.

And I could say with confidence that I had become more than interesting enough to satisfy this dragon’s curiosity.

About to graduate from Necropia as the valedictorian, then escaped.

Fled beyond the borders of the Dark Empire.

Currently a wanted fugitive throughout the Dark Empire.

And as of today, identity fraud had been added to the list.

Hmm… looking at it like that, I really do sound like a criminal, but let us not dwell on trivial details.

“Leaving the enrollment aside, why should I overlook the fact that you trespassed into Saengterminum?”

That was a rather hurtful thing to say.

Let us see if she could still say that after looking at this.

“Because you are going to want me.”

“What?”

Before Levia could continue, I pulled off the leather glove on my right hand and summoned my Demonic Armament over that hand alone.

Levia cast a dull glance at the blood-red energy rising over my right hand, but—

FLASH!

“…What?”

The moment she saw the brilliant light that burst from my hand, she straightened abruptly and could do nothing but widen her eyes.

“H-Holy Power? No, that is a Sacred Mark!”

With the expression of someone who had just been struck on the back of the head, Levia stared back and forth between my face and the back of my right hand.

“You… you are a Black Mage. How is there a Sacred Mark engraved on your body?”

“How should I know?”

“What do you mean, ‘How should I know,’ you brat?”

“It appeared somehow. If you want, investigate it yourself. I am losing my mind because I do not know the reason either.”

At least as far as why the Sacred Mark had appeared, I did not tell her the truth.

No matter how much of a dragon she was, I doubted she would understand that I had Returned to the Past, and even if she did, the moment she learned that fact, most of the events destined to occur in this timeline would be thrown into disarray.

As someone who knew the future, that was the last thing I wanted.

“…So you did not flee because you wished to. You fled because you had no choice.”

The shock faded from her face, and she sank into thought.

“Who knows that a Sacred Mark has manifested on you?”

“I cannot say for certain myself… but aside from you and me, probably no one. I did not even tell my father.”

“That is why you had no choice but to hide your face?”

If the Dark Empire or the Holy Empire learned that I, a Black Mage, had come to bear a Sacred Mark, both empires would become obsessed with securing me. 

In the worst case, they might even try to kill me.

And Levia was not someone who would fail to understand that.

“Hmm… fine. At least until you pass the entrance exam, hide the fact that you are Aron Bayonel however you can. Neither the Holy Empire nor the Dark Empire will dare lay a hand on you once you become my student.”

I had expected something along those lines, but it was still an astonishingly generous condition.

“It is impressive enough that someone your age can use the Mask Curse so steadily.”

Though she appears arrogant and cold on the surface, Levia is not, by nature, an evil dragon.

She is a dragon who pursues only curiosity and interest, but she founded the academy because she wanted to witness the growth of immature humans. 

She has no desire to see someone with talent die meaninglessly.

“You are not going to tell me that you cannot pass the entrance exam, are you?”

“Of course not.”

I had come to Saengterminum precisely because I knew her personality.

Since she was the headmaster of Saengterminum, there was quite a lot I knew about Levia.

From the fact that she founded the academy because she wished to become a source of strength for people, wanting to protect those who suffered at the hands of demons and monsters.

To the fact that it would be that very kindness that would one day cost her life.

I know it all.

“May I ask one thing?”

As that thought crossed my mind, I found myself voicing a question I had never managed to ask before my Return to the Past.

“What?”

“You founded an academy to eliminate demons and monsters, so why do you not take the lead in eliminating them yourself?”

“…You ask the strangest things.”

Rubbing the back of her neck, Levia answered with visible displeasure.

“Because it is my choice. Do you not think that is not a question for someone who has not even enrolled in Saengterminum yet?”

“…I see.”

“Just focus on passing the entrance exam.”

WHOOSH!

With her business concluded, Levia used the high-tier spell Teleport and vanished without a trace.

For several seconds, I stood there motionless, staring at the place where she had leaned.

“What a pointless question.”

Muttering that brief impression, I turned away.

In the previous timeline, the question had come to me naturally.

If Levia had gone so far as to found an academy in order to eliminate monsters, then why had she never taken the lead in eradicating them herself?

Many people had questioned the contradiction in her actions.

But whenever such questions were raised, she always gave an answer much like the one she had just given me.

That it was none of their concern.

And so people simply assumed that the dragon was indulging in some private amusement.

They said she merely enjoyed watching students far beneath her grow stronger.

It was not a way of thinking an ordinary person could understand, but she was not human, and because of that, neither I nor anyone else had ever truly doubted her behavior.

‘What a farce.’

And that question was naturally answered when she met her death.

She had already known that she herself might not have much longer to live.

Because she wanted humanity not to perish after her death, she founded the academy and made it into a neutral zone, raising people who could stand against demons and monsters.

Because more than anyone, she believed in humanity’s potential.

‘In the end, she still failed… but that does not matter.’

Levia’s wish did not fail.

By Returning to the Past, I had seized another possibility.

‘From now on, things are going to change little by little, Headmaster Levia.’

A smile curved my lips.

***

A week later, the day of the entrance exam dawned.

As I left the lodging where I had stayed for the past week and drew closer to the grounds of Saengterminum Academy, applicants began gathering one after another until the place was packed with people.

Even though I was taking the exam while hiding my identity and changing my face, there was no great difficulty in completing the registration process.

That was all because of Headmaster Levia’s educational creed.

‘Anyone is welcome, so long as they can beat monsters to death well enough.’

With a headmaster who could casually declare something so savage, why would an applicant’s background matter?

At the registration desk, all I had to do was write down a name on the paper they handed me, and that was the end of it.

“Damon David, your registration is complete. Please write your desired department here.”

I had just signed in under the alias I had made up on the spot and was about to leave when a murmur rose from nearby.

I turned toward the center of it and saw a familiar figure walking toward the registration desk.

‘…So he came, Lloyd.’

A young man with long golden hair and blue eyes.

His looks were striking enough that even his gait carried a certain nobility.

“That person… is he not from House Desmond?”

“I think so. Wow, someone from one of the Dark Empire’s Four Great Houses came too?”

That bastard had also submitted his registration late in the previous timeline because he had been busy persuading his family, who opposed his coming.

It seemed that had not changed in this timeline either.

The difference between this timeline and the previous one was that, originally, I had come here to register together with Lloyd.

Unlike Lloyd, who had willingly chosen to enroll in Saengterminum, my family had forcibly shoved me into it, which created a tearfully tragic difference between the two of us…….

Back then, I had thrown a fit about not wanting to go, so my father had bound me in chains, layered curses over them, and dragged me here, if I remembered correctly.

Just thinking about my previous timeline gave me a headache, and my hand rose to my forehead.

Good riddance to my dark history. 

It was a miserable time, and I hope I never see it again.

Before long, the applicants watching Lloyd began whispering near me.

“One of the Four Great Houses… speaking of which, was there not someone from the Dark Empire’s Four Great Houses who went missing? Around Lloyd’s age too.”

“Was his name Aron?”

“Yeah. I heard he ran away right before Necropia’s graduation ceremony.”

“He was about to graduate as valedictorian, right?”

“He ran away even though he was going to graduate at the top of his class? Why? House Bayonel is just as famous as House Desmond.”

“Who knows what really happened? I heard they even issued a wanted order, and there is still no sign of him.”

The Dark Empire had spread a wanted order across the entire continent to find me, but they had not revealed the real reason for my escape.

That was because the Dark Empire believed I had formed a contract with a Top-Rank Demon.

A contractor bound to a Top-Rank Demon is like a walking time bomb. 

No one knows when the demon might seize the body.

And they had failed to stop that walking bomb from leaving Necropia and could not even determine where it had gone?

If neighboring nations condemned them for it, they would have no rebuttal.

That was why they buried the truth.

Any nation wants to hide its own mistakes.

That alone might not have been enough to make my escape sound convincing, but…….

“I heard his pride was through the roof.”

“Yeah. They called him the Mad Dog.”

“With that kind of personality, maybe he really did just snap and bolt.”

Here, the disaster that had been my personality in the previous timeline lent weight to the story.

As in, If it was Mad Dog Aron, then maybe that really could happen.

A shudder of disgust ran through me, and I looked up at the sky.

‘Damn karma…….’

I really have changed now, you know?

So why are you all spreading my notoriety however you please?