Chapter 3 |
◈ Mistaken for a Masked Monster
──────
The Mask. Is Smiling.
Viktor. One month since possession.
Greatest achievement.
Academy entrance: cleared.
"I suppose Grandia Academy really isn't what it used to be. Watching something this far below standard actually show up hoping to enroll..."
A long, deliberate sigh from the instructor. Loud enough to make sure it was heard.
In front of him stood a boy, shuffling from foot to foot.
The instructor clicked his tongue.
'Tsk... even his face is wrong.'
The mask, most likely. A jester's grin, stretched wide and frozen across his face. If this was a fashion choice, the aesthetic sense was eccentric to say the least. Either way, the discomfort didn't shake loose.
'What a mess. A complete mess.'
He flipped through the assessment results. The crystal orb gleamed.
[Viktor]
Theory: A+
Stamina: E
Strength: E
Agility: E
Holy Power: E
Curse Resistance: E
Mana Sensitivity: E
Today's lowest scores in every category but theory. How someone like this even got the idea to sit the entrance exam was beyond him. With stats like those, even a duel against a goblin would be the clash of the century for this kid.
A trash mob, put plainly.
'Laughable.'
Some people were just like that. Blinded by their own dreams, hurling themselves at goals that were never within their reach. That type, he despised more than almost anything. Yet even as he clicked his tongue, the jester in front of him kept on grinning.
"Oh? Were my results not very good?"
"If you have eyes, read it yourself. Overall E grade."
"Doesn't E stand for Excellent?"
"Then what does A stand for?"
"Asshole? Dunce?"
"Does that make any sense to you."
The boy's bafflement was so theatrical it almost looked rehearsed. And somehow, it suited the jester mask perfectly.
The instructor dismissed him and moved on to the last part of the exam.
"Final segment. A sparring match against the proctor."
"Sparring."
"You could get hurt. Every year there are injuries, and not a few. You'd be better off withdrawing now. With those stats, you won't just fail, you'll break something and get carried off."
"That's rather unkind of you to say. I've come all this way, so of course I intend to see it through to the end. Besides, the results haven't been finalized yet."
The jester answered at his leisure.
The instructor could only scoff.
"Ha."
Not finalized, huh.
Not technically wrong. In theory, at least. If every score had been dead last, that would be one thing, but he'd at least scored a perfect mark in theory. A perfect practical could, just barely, push him through.
'He might scrape the very bottom.'
Lowest class, E Class, last seat. That was probably the best he could manage.
But only if he landed a perfect practical score.
'That's not realistic.'
Dead last in everything but theory. Stamina, strength, mana, not a single area where he stood out. No, it was worse than that. He was exceptional at being bad, across the board.
And on that basis, he expected to ace the practical? A one-on-one spar against an instructor?
"Whether he's being stubborn or just doesn't know his own limits..."
That said, you couldn't turn away someone who wanted to sit the exam.
Best to keep his strength in check, the instructor decided. No point in the kid getting seriously hurt.
"The practical is simple. Land three hits on me within ten minutes."
"Three hits."
"Any method is fine. Doesn't even need to be a punch. A brief touch counts."
"So even a graze is enough. Three times in ten minutes, at that. Isn't that a little easy?"
"......"
Is it, now.
He held the thought in his gaze, staring at the jester. The boy scratched the back of his head, sheepish.
"Well... I'll give it a go."
"Try not to get yourself hurt."
Such were the conditions for passing.
Normally, even the top students at the academy cleared this test without trouble. Mid-tier applicants found it a struggle, and anyone below that had a hard time landing even a single graze, let alone three. The instructors weren't standing around waiting to be hit. By the time a lower-ranked student was barely close to landing one, the instructor's fist had already found them five times over.
"Tsk."
By tradition, proctors were former graduates with outstanding records. For raw rookies just sitting the exam, it was a wall as high as any they'd faced.
"Do we start now?"
"Come in whenever you're ready."
The jester wasn't carrying a weapon. Just an old-fashioned robe and that unsettling mask. The instructor exhaled, having long since lost count of how many sighs this boy had drawn out of him.
'He really has no intention of giving up.'
The instructor settled into his stance. Fist clenched.
The jester, for his part, reached into his robe and drew out a thin branch. It looked like it might be a hex wand, or some kind of magic tool, but no. Just a stick. The kind you could pick up off any roadside, plain and wholly unenchanted.
"Hehe."
The boy tossed it back and forth between his hands, switching grips over and over.
'Stalling for time?'
The thought lasted right up until something caught his eye.
Faint, but there. The air around the branch shimmered, wavering like heat rising off asphalt. His vision began to swim.
"......?"
"Well then. Starting now."
Before the instructor could react, the jester leapt.
Straight line. Simple and direct.
Crack, crackle-!
Like glass fracturing, the branch's leaves quivered. In its wake, a jet-black fissure split the air, as though the momentum had torn through something invisible.
"What-?!"
Thrown off completely. Nothing about this matched what he'd expected. Reflexively, his fist shot out.
Whoosh-!
A clean straight punch.
'Got him.'
Timed perfectly to the trajectory. He was certain.
But.
"......?!"
His fist found nothing. No impact, just the sickening sense of having swung completely wide.
Whoosh-!
The instructor stumbled forward from the momentum. The jester was gone, the figure flickering once before it scattered entirely.
'He disappeared...?'
Just as he wavered.
Thud-.
Something touched his shoulder from behind.
"That's one."
"......?!"
He spun around. The jester stood there, grinning. The corners of the mask's eyes and mouth looked wider now, the smile stretched further than before.
The instructor jerked his arm free and stepped back.
But the boy was already gone again.
Thud-.
The branch tapped his shoulder a second time.
"That's two."
"What-!"
Swipe-!
He swung his arm wide, but the jester wasn't there. Across the room, at a distance that made no sense, the boy stood as though he'd never moved at all. Head tilting, slow and even.
"......"
Was he seeing things? An illusionist, maybe?
Couldn't be. The boy's mana sensitivity was E grade. Using magic was out of the question, let alone sensing mana in the first place.
"Instructor-nim?"
"......"
"Are you all right? There's still one left."
Then how. How to explain any of this.
Movement he couldn't follow, a position that changed from one moment to the next.
'What's being done to me?'
Through the holes in the mask, eyes.
For a moment, he was certain they were flashing crimson.
No.
Was it really just a trick of the eye?
The corners of the jester's mouth split wide. A gaping maw, stretching open, and from within it bloody tears fell in fat, slow drops. Where a tongue might have been, dozens of slick, writhing tendrils squirmed over one another.
Chill-.
"Hah, hah...!"
A hallucination.
One blink, and everything was fine. No red glow, no bloody tears, no tendrils. Just the same frozen smile, grinning the same as always.
'Hallucination? A curse? A dream? Or...'
None of those.
This was something else.
"I'm coming again."
"......!"
The boy stepped forward from across the room.
The instructor forced his eyes wide, desperate not to miss a single movement.
Pat, pat-pat-.
Light, almost frivolous footsteps. A few paces forward, then back, then an elegant full turn.
'What... what is this?'
No logic he could find. In all his years, he had never seen movement so erratic, so apparently clumsy. He clenched his fist.
"Hff...!"
Tracking the trajectory, he charged magic into his fingertips. The idea of subduing the boy gently was gone. An opponent he couldn't predict. A little pain was worth it, if it meant ending this with certainty.
A white arrow drew taut, like a string pulled to breaking point.
-Lightning Magic, Third Form-
'Lightning Arrow'
Crackle-!
Light and electricity erupted outward in every direction.
This time he was certain.
Fwip-.
Gone.
The feet blurred first, then the distortion spread across the whole body. When his vision cleared, the jester was nowhere to be seen, and...
"That makes three."
Thud-.
From behind, as always.
The branch settled lightly onto his shoulder. A cold sensation swept up the back of his neck.
The instructor stood still. Didn't even turn around.
'This is...'
No.
It wasn't that his eyes had failed to keep up. This wasn't a matter of speed.
There had been no presence at all. Nothing. No sorcery, no mana, not even the faintest trace of holy power.
"How..."
The instructor murmured, dazed.
"How is this even possible...?"
Every stat, E grade.
Movement that simply should not exist at that level.
Thud, thud-.
Footsteps, heavier than they had any right to be.
The jester walked close, leaned his head forward until he was right in the instructor's face.
"Hmm?"
The mask.
Smiling.
"Is there a problem?"
The instructor swallowed.
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