The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 23: The Entrance Ceremony (1)

On a cold, cloudy day in March, the bell of the steeple rang nine times.

─ We will now begin Tilette Magic Academy’s 1024th entrance ceremony. We ask that new students and guests make their way to their designated seats and teachers, please help the students find the right place.

The entrance ceremony was taking place at the Academy’s northern amphitheater.

There was a podium and two chairs in the center of the amphitheater. The two chairs were prepared by the school for the first and second place students.

The whole program took place in the center of the stage from the opening ceremony rehearsal to the closing ceremony.

The teachers were standing along the outside of the theater. They were all readied with staff-summoning spells in case of anything going wrong during the ceremony.

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One of them was Meriga Heerlein. The way she had her arms crossed with two high-grade golems behind her was enough to portray an ideal for the students of Earth Magic.

Next to Meriga, Klais stood slightly slouched over. There were deep dark circles beneath her eyes.

She must have fought big with the Prince.

Prince Klion had also applied to Tilette Academy and passed. There were suspicions about whether he had received the bonus marks for Imperials or not but that was quickly silenced.

Either way, the Prince would be in the gifted class. The gifted class was assigned to freshmen with excellent admission test marks who could potentially skip grades or achieve early graduation. Normally, acceptees until 20th to 25th place belonged to this class.

That homeroom teacher is going to have a hard time.

Meriga looked sideways at her friend and her dead eyes, then sighed under her breath.

In terms of tiredness, both Klais and Meriga were at their limits.

The problem being the recent increase of carnivorous beasts in the back mountain of Tilette Academy.

The back mountains of the Academy were mainly used as training grounds for the lower years. It was usually inhabited by low-level beasts so it’d never endanger the people of the state as long as it was well-managed. And they were weak enough to defeat without magic, anyway.

Hence, the low-level beasts were targeted to teach combat to first years who were encountering a monster for the first time. Usually, the Academy Board would’ve been supervising to maintain an appropriate number.

That should’ve been the case.

It’s strange no matter how I think about it. The number of Drakes shouldn’t have multiplied this quickly within such a short span.

The sudden flooding of the mid-level Magic Beast, the Iron Drake. They were the reason why the board was in a conundrum.

Iron Drakes normally resided deep within the mountain. Although they could be found all over mountain ranges, the Academy’s back mountain was small so there weren’t many of them living there.

And since those Drake frequently came down to the foot of the mountain, it was actually causing a headache for the board’s professors managing the mountain.

The growth of carnivorous beasts led to a decrease in the number of low-level beasts since the stronger ones obtained energy from the weaker.

Unlike the low-level Magic Beasts that could be defeated even by civilians without proper Combat Magic, the absolute majority from the mid-levels consisted of the most vicious species. They had no qualms about attacking humans first.

Unless they were a trained higher year student, most first years just entering the Academy didn’t know how to handle a mid-level beast.

It wasn’t much different for a student who had been studying and training in magic even before entering. Knowing a lot of offensive magic and using it appropriately in combat were two different things.

It had already been three months since the professors inquired about the reason behind the overflow of Drakes. However, they hadn’t been able to find out anything despite sending an investigation team.

The one possible cause they identified was a cave located in the deepest part of the mountain.

It was a horizontal cave with many low-level beast corpses within and around it.

What can you do? We’ll just have to wait until the investigation team completes further inspection.

There was only one thing that could be done currently at the school. That was to check for any Drakes that might cross over the mountain into the amphitheater and stop them beforehand.

Half of the Academy’s faculty were standing guard at the entrance to the back mountain in order to subdue any beasts immediately on the spot if they appeared.

Due to the cloudy weather, the ceremony proceeded under a gloomy atmosphere.

Meriga had a bad feeling about today. The eye that she had lost in war many years ago was throbbing.

Please, don’t let anything go wrong.

**

─ This concludes the principal’s welcome speech for the freshmen. Next, we have the joint oath by the freshmen representatives.

Off to one side of the stage, two students were passing the time watching the principal’s back.

One was a male elf student who entered as first place.

The other was... not a Golden-Eyed girl who made second place. It was a girl with red eyes and even shoulder-length hair.

Lotte, who was the student in third place, was sitting here as a replacement for the currently absent Golden-Eyed girl.

Why didn’t she come?

Lotte was speculating why Aether hadn’t come to the entrance ceremony, hence her ears didn’t register any of the principal’s welcome speech.

Although attending the ceremony was a freedom of choice, the majority of freshmen of Tilette Academy considered it a tremendous pride to have been accepted here. Not only was it highly competitive, but it guaranteed a path to success as long as they graduated.

Additionally, commoners and slaves who graduated could at least receive the title of Baron from the Emperor. Tilette Academy was the only opportunity within the Empire for the lower class to rise in status.

Most of all, the glory of enrolling with top marks as first and second place was that of a war hero who had been victorious making a triumphant return.

How many people would actually dislike basking in that honor?

As such, the first and second place voluntarily attended every year even if the school didn’t force them.

There would be the occasional eccentric one who wouldn’t show up, but there were less than ten people who’d done so in the thousand-year history of Tilette. So the absence of a top student was something abnormal, basically.

And that abnormality occurred this year. It hadn’t happened for 200 years.

“What happened to the second place student for her not to show up?”

At her colleague’s question, Meriga answered with a chuckle.

“Maybe she’s sleeping in somewhere?”

In the end, the second place student didn’t show up in time.

─ Due to the absence of the second place student, our third place will read the freshman’s oath together with the top student.

It was Tilette’s age-old tradition for the first and second place students to recite the entrance ceremony oath.

Originally, Tilette only had the top student recite the oath like the other academies but at some point, it changed to including the second place student. It had to do with the summa and magna cum laude couple who had once saved the Empire long ago from being destroyed by the beasts or something.

From then on, a rumor would go around amongst the graduates that they implemented the joint oath in hopes that more heroes would come and save the country.

─ I ask that Vermel Horde and Lotte Saliere please stand and come to the front of the stage.

Before she rose, Lotte glanced at the male elf student who entered as first place.

The elves were also famous for having many beautiful people like the Golden-Eyed. When she looked down below the stage, there were already rows of female students who’d become his fans.

Why did he come here instead of studying at Iliad?

That was the first thought that came to Lotte’s mind.

It wasn’t that she was having racist thoughts.

However, there were distinct cultural differences between humans and elves. It wasn’t a gap that could be easily reconciled. Every year, there’d be a truckload of elves returning home after giving up trying to study abroad in the Empire.

It seemed that Lotte had been somewhat correct. Vermel kept glancing around in obvious anxiety.

He especially switched his gaze back and forth between the back mountain in the north and the central square and fountain in the south. Because they were located at opposite ends, Lotte was feeling more agitated than the boy himself.

Watching Vermel stand up with a face full of worry, she speculated why this elf enrolled into Tilette. There was one immediate hypothesis.

The characteristic of elves was that they had a much higher ratio of children born with the qualifications of a Air Mage than humans. Iliad Academy was an education institution situated in the capital of the elves which concentrated on training these Air Mages.

As such, if an elf was born with talents for a different Element Magic, then it might be better for them to enter Tilette. That was what Lotte thought.

Lotte took a glimpse of Vermel’s eyes.

Olive with a tinge of jade. They were the color of someone blessed by the Elemental in control of Air Magic.

Lotte’s mind became confused.

If he has the skills to make first place here, then he’d have easily passed in Iliad.... Doesn’t Iliad give better scholarships, even?

Tilette and Iliad were academies of the same level. It was hard to say which one was higher.

Wouldn’t it be better to learn in a familiar environment.......

There was another difference between the Empire and the nation of elves. It was the political system.

The Empire still retained the status system. On the other hand, the country of elves, Kaurelia, was a nation with a Consul and parliamentary cabinet in place since the revolution occurred tens of years ago.

If political systems were different, then generally the perspectives of its people were different as well. The status system was considered normal for most citizens of the Empire, and the elves who had grown up in Kaurelia couldn’t understand this way of thinking.

No. There was no need to think like this. As long as we’ve entered this school, we’re all peers.

It was nosy of her to think beyond that. Lotte let out a small sigh and grabbed one end of the oath.

Vermel held the other end of the long oath. The tip of that hand shook minutely.

“When Vermel reads one regulation, you’ll read the next one. In that order, one at a time. Understood?”

Lotte and Vermel nodded at the vice-principal who came to brief them.

─ I ask the two freshmen representatives to please recite the oath in a loud voice.

Vermel sighed quietly and parted his mouth.

“Is this seriously what it comes to?”

As soon as he said that, one of the pillars supporting the amphitheater blasted away.