Chapter 468

The picnic ended with the talent show as the last event.

The one who received the most attention was the princess. Despite the spirits being fierce due to the flood, the princess skillfully soothed them and showed a magic combination, making Yi-Han sullen.

'Why do those spirits, who usually listen so well, go crazy like mad undead only when they see me?'

"Everyone enjoyed the picnic, so go back and study harder."

"..."

"..."

"Why is there no answer? Do you want to have more picnics?"

"We are grateful for your grace!"

"We will study hard!!"

Yi-Han was slightly amazed to see the students' eyes burning with murderous energy.

No matter how much Yi-Han said, 'Please study a bit, you have to avoid failing,' it was much more effective when the skull principal threw out a single word.

'Could it be that you prepared today's picnic with this in mind?'

"Kekekekeke!"

The skull principal laughed merrily, perhaps because his mood had improved with the students' anger.

Seeing that, Yi-Han canceled the thought he had just had.

'He must have just been bored.'

The <Basic Imperial Geometry and Arithmetic in Depth> exam took place in a dry classroom.

The students, sitting at their desks, were moved to tears by the mere ability to write with quill and ink.

"This is an exam...!"

"If it's an exam like this, I can take a few more!"

Of course, the joy lasted only until they received the questions. The faces of the students who received the questions distorted.

[Imperial mage Tadingo decided to accurately calculate the area of the tower to receive research funding...]

"Damn Tadingo. He's bringing it upon himself."

"Damn Empire. Acting so arrogant over a single research fund. Why do we need to calculate the area?"

"Everyone, be quiet."

Professor Alpen warned the muttering students.

The students focused on the questions while groaning.

[What are the areas of the following shapes?]

[What are the areas of the circles as shown in the following figure?]

While his friends were suffering, Yi-Han was quickly solving...

...instead, he was puzzled.

'Isn't this too difficult compared to what I expected?'

Unlike other lectures, this arithmetic-related lecture was one of the fields Yi-Han was confident in.

Naturally, even while his friends were hastily studying, he had clicked his tongue, thinking, 'You should have studied regularly,' but...

[Imperial mage Tadingo is watching a fireball flying from 1m away from the target. If the differential coefficient specified in the figure is 20m/s, the ratio of the movement angle of mage Tadingo's pupils is...]

"????"

No matter how he thought about it, the difficulty level was too high.

It was to the extent that he doubted if his friends could solve it.

'Did the skull principal possibly instigate this?'

If the angry skull principal had threatened with a knife from behind, even Professor Alpen might have had no choice.

Yi-Han decided to stop worrying for now and solve the questions first. The time was limited, and even Yi-Han could make mistakes since it had been a while since he had solved such difficult questions.

'It's been a while since I've touched such difficult questions...'

But the accumulated knowledge didn't go anywhere. As he started calculating while scribbling with the quill, he somehow grasped the clues.

"Ugh."

"Damn that Tadingo bastard... Just live quietly..."

"How are we supposed to solve this..."

Even when Professor Alpen warned them, groans periodically burst out among the students.

Yi-Han understood.

If it was this difficult for Yi-Han, how much more difficult would it be for his friends?

'The questions are a bit too difficult. The results of this exam will be downward standardized.'

It wasn't easy even for experienced professors to adjust the exam difficulty.

Yi-Han predicted that after this exam, Professor Alpen would reflect and lower the difficulty of the final exam.

"I will submit."

"Hmm... Excellent. I was worried, but you did well."

Professor Alpen, who received Yi-Han's answer sheet, the first to be submitted, glanced through it and nodded with a satisfied smile.

If it were the usual Yi-Han, he would have noticed the sense of incongruity felt from 'I was worried,' but Yi-Han, who had already consumed mental strength from the tiring picnic and solving difficult exam questions, failed to notice the incongruity.

"Enough. Everyone, submit."

While waiting seated, the exam ended, and the students submitted their answer sheets with gloomy expressions.

The friends who submitted their answer sheets rushed to Yi-Han without exception.

"Wardanaz. What was the answer to question 1???"

"Hey. Question 1 was easy. How can you ask about that? It's three, right? Wardanaz?"

"It was three?! Damn it. I was debating between two and three... Why is that Tadingo guy so gluttonous? He should have just eaten what he was given!"

"???"

Yi-Han, who had been listening to his friends' noisy questions, felt something strange.

Huh?

"Two, three... What are you talking about? What was the question?"

"The maximum number of high-quality white bread that the poor mage Tadingo can eat while saving research funds as much as possible?"

"When the distance between the pegasus and the ground stable specified in the figure is changing at a rate of differential coefficient of 400km/h, the altitude of the pegasus is... Wait. Number of bread?"

Yi-Han definitely felt something strange.

The exam papers his friends had solved were very different from the ones he had solved.

He thought the order of the questions might be different, but that wasn't the case either. For now, none of his friends seemed to have solved the questions Yi-Han had received.

"What kind of magic is this?"

"What is that?"

"...Professor. Professor??"

Yi-Han quickly caught up with Professor Alpen, who was about to leave, and asked.

"I think there was something wrong with the exam."

"Strange. Mr. Wardanaz. You must have gotten a perfect score, right? In what aspect was there a problem?"

Professor Alpen took out the answer sheet, puzzled.

Yi-Han calmly said,

"It's not that the exam questions were strange, but I think I took a different exam from my friends."

"Ah. Is that what you meant? Yes. Mr. Wardanaz received different questions."

Professor Alpen spoke naturally as if saying, 'It rained this morning.'

Of course, Yi-Han couldn't accept it naturally. Confused by the professor's words that shattered common sense, he asked again.

"It wasn't a mistake?"

"Why do you think it was a mistake? To be clear, it was definitely not a mistake."

"...Uh, Professor. That... If you take the same lecture, don't you take the same exam?"

Yi-Han asked, enduring the feeling of becoming a fool saying something too obvious.

"Originally, yes. But there are exceptions. If you receive questions that are so easy that you can solve them with your eyes closed, it won't be any challenge, right?"

"..."

'Is he a crazy person?'

Yi-Han was very flustered when he faced the calm madness of Professor Alpen Knighton, whom he had thought would be somewhat sane as a former imperial bureaucrat.

'I underestimated Einroguard again!'

Even though he had vowed not to underestimate it again, he had been unintentionally deceived.

Yi-Han blamed his own complacency.

"I see... I see. So the difficulty of my exam increased because I solved the problems well during lecture time..."

"Rather than that, I decided after seeing you teach other students well. I thought it would be meaningless to that extent."

Yi-Han unconsciously glanced at his friends leaving the lecture room.

Suddenly, they looked like enemies rather than friends.

"But Professor. That... Learning and challenge and whatever... It's all good, but there are scores included in the evaluation, right?"

Professor Alpen nodded.

"It will be compared with other students, so won't there be an issue of fairness?"

"You don't have to worry about that."

"Ah. As expected, you had a method."

Yi-Han was slightly relieved.

Even if Professor Alpen wasn't the skull principal, he wouldn't have given only Yi-Han difficult questions without any thought...

"Anyway, since Mr. Wardanaz got a perfect score, you'll be the top student."

"..."

'Is he really a crazy person?'

Yi-Han had to make an effort to hold back the rebuttal crawling up his throat.

No, I got a perfect score because I worked hard and was lucky, but if I had made a single mistake, it would have been deducted right away, so what were you going to do if that happened...

"During the final..."

"You'll get a perfect score then too. Now you know you don't have to worry, right?"

Professor Alpen cut off Yi-Han's words and continued his own. His tone was unrelenting.

"No, logically speaking..."

"I thought Mr. Wardanaz wouldn't care about grades..."

"Pardon?"

It was the most insulting misunderstanding he had received since entering the academy.

"Well, since you care about your friends so much, it's natural to ask like this, wondering if you received special treatment."

The wrinkled old professor looked at Yi-Han with a satisfied gaze as if looking at a future great mage.

Usually, mages with even a little talent tended to fall into the path of arrogance and dogmatism because of that talent, but this boy from the Wardanaz family had an ocean-like talent yet didn't lose his altruism.

If all mages were like this, how much more at ease would the imperial bureaucrats be?

"There was no such special treatment, so you don't have to worry. Solving more difficult questions than others is not special treatment. Ah, of course, a diligent and fair-minded boy might think it's special treatment."

"...Yes. Well, anyway, I'm a bit uncomfortable with special treatment..."

"But no one except Mr. Wardanaz would think it's special treatment. Above all, it would be a greater loss for Mr. Wardanaz, who has to take numerous lectures when he becomes a 2nd-year student, to waste time in vain. For all the people of the Empire as well."

Yi-Han was at a loss for words.

Not because it was logical and reasonable, but because he was appalled by the professor's eloquence, attaching the people of the Empire to Yi-Han solving more difficult questions.

'Is he really, really a crazy person?!'

Professor Alpen concluded the conversation with a benevolent face.

"The reward of putting down the writing brush and stacks of paper and teaching students at Einroguard must be something like this... Oops. I talked too much. I'll get going now. Ah. Mr. Wardanaz?"

"Yes?"

Yi-Han answered absentmindedly, his mental strength exhausted.

"I'll make sure the remaining lectures of this semester become a solid foundation for Mr. Wardanaz's research."

"..."

In Yi-Han's eyes, the face of the kind old professor looked like the skull principal.

Richmond of the Shyles family lay sprawled in his room.

At first, it was nice to be able to rest on a soft and dry bed while his friends were suffering, but after some time passed, he started to worry about his friends for no reason.

"Professor. Have my friends not come back yet?"

"It will take a while."

"I see."

10 minutes later.

Richmond closed the book he was reading and asked outside the door again.

"Professor. When will my friends come?"

"Ah. Can't you just shut your mouth and stay still?!"

Unfortunately, Professor Parsellet's other personality popped out from inside and shouted loudly.

Richmond was startled and bowed his head.

"I, I'm sorry."

"No. I'm sorry. My temper is bad..."

"...What's bad about it!! If you came in leaving your friends behind, just enjoy it!"

Before the words were finished, a voice with a completely different tone flowed out of the professor's mouth.

Then Richmond's guilt multiplied several times.

'Damn it. I shouldn't have accepted the professor's offer, right?'

At first, when Professor Parsellet came and proposed with 'comfortable rest, cozy warmth, soft bed,' he thought it was luck and thoughtlessly accepted...

As time passed, he missed his friends.

And above all, Professor Parsellet, who went back and forth as if multiple people were talking alone, was too scary.

'If I somehow throw a clue out the window... Huh?'

Richmond was startled to see a familiar friend's face below the high window.

Surprisingly, Wardanaz had accurately found the bottom of the tower and was pacing around.

'Over here! Wardanaz! Over here!'

Richmond wanted to shout, but there was no way to convey the sound.

If Wardanaz left like this...

'Right. Let's make a rope using the blanket and bedding. With transformation magic...'

Bang!

With a fierce sound, the window flew away. Richmond, who had been making a rope, was appalled and only blinked his eyes.

Wardanaz was riding a griffin and flying in the sky.