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“It’s fine if you understand. Rather, the platinum coin is really worth that much?” Leisha was greatly surprised.
“Yes. A single platinum coin is an amount needed to run a count’s territory for a month. If you think about it, our village is much smaller than a count’s territory, but we spend a lot of money.”
“How large is our village usually?”
“Hmm, if you look at the population, it’s about one small territory in terms of the empire’s territory? In reality, the village should be called a city, but we call it a village for convenience.”
“Then why did you make it difficult and ask to exchange five?”
“That’s because, I learned from Den that when asking a stranger for a request, it’s good to put pressure from three different aspects.”
“Three aspects?”
“Yes. Force, status, and money. With enough of these things, there isn’t a person who won’t give in~”
At the sight of the sighing Leisha, Lancelot had no choice but to trail off. While looking back at what she might have done wrong, Leisha wanted to grab Den’s collar and shake him, asking what he taught the innocent Lancelot. If Den were here, he would have protested saying he taught Lancelot because he was too innocent. At least he didn’t teach how to use the opponent’s weaknesses to threaten, pry into their weakness, or create and attack their weakness.
Leisha knew nothing of this and thought Den being kind was bullshit and asked Mac who had a serious face, “What are you thinking about so seriously?”
Mac slipped out of his contemplation and answered, “Ah, the flow of mana is more active than usual. I almost killed that merchant by mistake while releasing my aura.”
Zahanna wasn’t mistaken when he thought he saw his life flashing before his eyes. If something were to go wrong, the released aura by Mac could have given him a heart attack and killed him.
An astonished Lancelot yelled, “What?! You can’t kill him! There aren’t many people who can acquire the supplies that the village needs!”
“Hahaha, I know. That’s why I forcefully suppressed it.”
“Please be careful in the future.” Lancelot folded his arms and exuded an intimidating pressure that made Mac feel awkward.
It felt as if all the people around were turned into pudding. Mac gave a bitter smile. “Now I think I’m starting to understand why Bloody-nim would want to come back home.”[1]
Mac felt like he understood why people outside the village called the Crows a battle race rather than a battle tribe. If there was this much of a difference, then there was nothing to say even if they said it was a different race.
“Rather, can you speak like how you were speaking to the merchant before? It sounded cool when you spoke with a deep voice on purpose,” Leisha said with a slight blush on her face.
Mac smiled frivolously and waved at the remark. “Ahahaha, there’s no way. It was so cheesy I could die. If His Excellency, the Diplomat didn’t order me to do it before we entered the city, then I would never have done it.”
Leisha had a look of discontent on her face. But Mac only smiled, stroking his goatee.
Before they knew it, the branch manager of the Druval Market returned to the room with rolling tables displaying the items. Lancelot and Zahanna prepared for the second round of negotiations.
-o-
The entrance examination for the magic and knight school was a fairly famous event that was part of the four major festivals, along with Thanksgiving, New Year’s, and the emperor’s birthday.
In order, there were entrance exams for entering low-rank and middle-rank knight and magic schools and in the evening, soon-to-graduate students took an exam in order to become a court magician or knight. Each exam was public, allowing the people of the capital to enjoy the magic and brilliant sword competitions that they normally couldn’t see. Because there were few opportunities to see such competitions, it had effectively turned into a festival.
In reality, the reason why new students were accepted during an awkward time in the fall semester was that if they did it in spring, it would overlap with New Year’s festival, the biggest festival in the empire, leading to accidents from massive crowds. Therefore, rather than trying to manage and disperse the massive crowds, it was just easier to move the spring exam to fall.
Actually, the main attraction was not the students taking the entrance exam but the prospective graduates’ exam to be court magician or knight.
However, since I came to watch the crybaby siblings’, aka Lisbon and Alice, entrance exams, I wasn’t planning on going to the exam for prospective graduates. I had no desire to get bumped into in the crowd. If I was going to watch, then I would watch from afar with clairvoyance like magic.
We are going to start the entrance examination for the low-rank knight school, examinees please gather at the Glory Plaza.
I was standing at the front of the magic school listening to the announcement, and waiting for the crybaby siblings. According to the schedule, there were about 20 minutes left until the magic school exam but they had yet to show up. As I was wondering if something had happened and if I should go check the boarding house, someone shouted my name from afar.
“Den! Over here!”
About 100 meters in front, Lisbon was waving and smiling, while Alice covered her face with one hand from embarrassment and hit her brother in the side with the other. Before I knew it, the crybaby siblings were bickering.
“Seriously, it’s embarrassing so stop!”
“Hahaha, what do you mean, it’s not like we are greeting a stranger.”
“It’s because strangers are staring!”
I laughed at the siblings who were walking over having the same conversation as usual.
“You guys came later than I expected.”
Alice gave Lisbon a side glare and said, “We were late because my brother foolishly worked out to the point of being drenched and had to shower.”
“Ahaha, sorry. But you were stalling time saying you didn’t like your outfit, so I thought it was a waste of time to not work out.”
“You’re noisy. If you’re a knight, then respectfully wait for a lady.”
At this rate, as usual, Alice would vent her anger and Lisbon would go on acting like a fool, so I tried to calm down the girl about to take the exam.
“Now now, let’s go on inside. Alice, are you going to the exam venue first?”
“Yes, I was planning to. Even though the test won’t be for a little while longer. I’m sorry, but please keep this fool company.” Alice smiled helplessly, pointing to Lisbon.
Upon my affirmation, she thanked me and headed to the magic school exam venue.
Come to think of it, it’s been quite a while since I was alone with Lisbon because usually there’s always the three of us. Perhaps except for the times when it was just the two of us sleeping on the way to the capital, the three of us were always together. However, there was nothing I could do since these crybaby siblings were the first and only friends I had made since leaving my hometown. After arriving at the capital, I had no spare time to make friends as I invested it all in keeping the prime minister’s eyes away from me by being a mysterious thief, and also because I was looking for the civil servant exam papers.
“What shall we do now?”
At my question, Lisbon smiled brightly as usual and said, “Let’s go to the low-rank knight school exam!”
Of course, the answer was as expected.
“If we want to watch Alice’s exam, we can only watch for about 20 minutes but I still want to see it.”
I nodded. Today was kind of half a festival and I had already planned on following the crybaby siblings since they’d worked very hard to prepare, so I planned to go by Lisbon’s decisions.
“Even if the magic school exam starts, Alice won’t be taking it right away, so we should be able to watch for a little longer than 20 minutes. We can just briefly check the order of the examinees, then go to the knight school exam venue. Ah, when is the middle-rank knight school exam?”
“3 o’clock. It’s 2 now, so we should head to the exam venue in 40 minutes.”
Lisbon, saying he might not be able to make it for Alice’s exam, headed for Glory Plaza.
-o-
Alphonso felt dejected to see hundreds of competitors filling the plaza around him. This tension was unfamiliar to him whose only test in his life was the recent coming-of-age ceremony.
The coming-of-age ceremony, of course, was tense like this one, but it was a test where he competed against himself, whereas now it was a test against hundreds of competitors. The pressure from the crowd was heavier than he had imagined.
“Alphonso!”
In the midst of nervousness, a familiar voice called him.
“Yuria?”
When Alphonso turned his head, he realized that he had his twin sister with him.
“What are you thinking so much about that you didn’t even notice me approaching?”
When Yuria playfully scolded, Alphonso, who was about to cry, replied, “That... I’m nervous. No, wait! Isn’t the magic school exam in 20 minutes? Why are you here?!”
Yuria should have been preparing her mana at the exam venue by now. So why was she here?
She shrugged as if it was not important, and replied, “The exam isn’t so difficult that I need to prepare my mana. I can just go over when the exam starts.”
Yuria thought that it was easy enough for even Alphonso to take and pass the exam right now. No matter how untalented her brother was in the village, he was still a magician who created a pocket space, even if it was only 10cm long. Pocket space boasted a high difficulty amongst other high-level spatial magics. If you thought about it, it was safe to say that Alphonso creating a pocket space was a miracle that might never happen again in his lifetime.
“Are you sure?” a shocked Alphonso asked.
However, Yuria replied matter-of-factly, “According to Uncle, I’m mostly taking the exam only in name, so even if I go after watching yours, it won’t be late. Your match is sooner, right?”
“Yeah. It’s group one, number 5.”
The low-rank knight school exam had 20 people per group simultaneously taking the exam. Each examinee had a match with a student from the middle-rank knight school, and five instructors ranked them based on ability.
“Come to think of it, where is Uncle?”
Alphonso thought that Uncle was coming to see him, so he looked around when he couldn’t find him.
Yuria said to Alphonso, “Ah, Uncle said he would be a little late. Some imperial princess is apparently trying to enter the magic school and so they had extra work setting up a separate exam for her. But he said he would be here for your exam, so don’t worry.”
“Ok, all right.”
Alphonso clenched his fist and inwardly yelled, “Ajah! You got this!”[2]
We will be starting the low-rank knight school examination now. Those whose names are called, please go to the training hall which has been prepared next to the plaza.
The names of the examinees were called one after another through a loudspeaker by someone who appeared to be an instructor, and among those names was Alphonso’s.
“I’ll be going!”
“I’ll be in the viewing area, so come right after the test.”
“Ok!”
Alphonso busily headed to the training hall, and Yuria went to the nearby spectator seats.
1. Mac is referring to when Bloody previously talked about how much of a pain it was that he was too strong compared to everyone outside and had to constantly control his strength. He talked about how he kept accidentally bending spoons. Now that Mac has accidentally almost killed someone, he realizes too that it’s a hassle having to control his strength for the weak people outside the village. Also, nim is something that you say after a person’s name to be very formal or indicate their higher social status.
2. ‘Ajah’ is just a sound people say to fire themselves up.