Chapter 16

"Sorry, Louise... an exam is just an exam."

Belle spoke.

"Don't resent me. We're even, no hard feelings."

She swung her wooden sword down on Louise.

"Ugh!"

A short scream and the crack of impact rang out together.

"Ghk...!"

Belle kept striking.

"Turn thirteen."

"Belle, keep going."

"Louise, do not step back."

Louise tried to wrench herself free of the pain.

"Hold."

I clenched my right fist.

"Gurk...!"

No matter what happened, I never changed the order.

"Turn fourteen."

"Belle, push harder."

"Louise, hold fast!"

I gave the command even more firmly.

"Nghhh..."

Blood spilled from Louise's lips.

In sheer skill, she stood no chance against Belle.

"Uh... Belle, isn't this too much?"

"Don't fuss. It's only an exam."

"Belle's really... pounding her like laundry."

"Brutal, so brutal."

"Brutal? Lose and you get a zero. You fight like your life depends on it."

The mutters of the fellow trainees.

Then a voice cut through theirs.

Oscar.

"Mago, stop this...! A role's just a role!"

Veins stood out on his neck.

"Instructor, please intervene!"

At that moment—

"Mago. Are you still going?"

—even Kinjo's voice reached me.

It sounded like he was asking whether I felt no guilt, since it was practically my own fist beating Louise.

This was my chance to deceive him.

"No."

A chance to look as though I'd given up.

"Turn fifteen."

"I'm opening my eyes."

I opened them.

Belle, wooden sword poised to strike Louise, froze mid-swing.

"Mago, you've run out of chances."

"We win."

Kinjo sent me a grin.

"It's over. Mago can't use the lake anymore."

"Turn sixteen."

"Belle, advance hard. Take Mago."

"Oscar, right side."

Belle tossed her wooden sword aside as if victory were already hers.

A low boom rolled out moments later—proof she had triggered her Unique Magic.

She charged like a brawler, leading with her torso.

She reached me in an instant.

One fingertip meant defeat.

So I simply tilted my head.

An easy dodge.

Her fingertips brushed my hair as they swept past.

A silence that lasted maybe two seconds.

"K-Kinjo, she definitely saw that and dodged. She dodged with her eyes closed!"

"Impossible. The lake should be finished..."

"Some kind of mistake... ugh..."

Belle went sprawling as expected.

Kinjo can't use Belle anymore.

Only Amon remains.

But Amon had to stop Louise, who was already in front of Kinjo.

"Turn seventeen."

"A-Amon, block Louise...!"

Kinjo's order came exactly as predicted.

"Oscar, forward!"

I shouted loud while he hesitated.

"Turn eighteen."

"Oscar, keep coming."

"Wh-when did that become possible? Did we set the experiment up wrong from the start?"

"Turn nineteen!"

“Oscar, even farther forward.”

“Don’t tell me... when it rained last night......”

“Twenty!”

“Oscar.”

It was the final order.

“Just one more step.”

Oscar took that step and stopped dead—

right behind Kinjo.

“You never look behind you, Kinjo.”

Oscar, who had only marched forward, had already passed him by.

Amon and Belle were outside the lake’s boundary.

Just as I hadn’t known what they would do,

Kinjo couldn’t see Oscar at all.

Unlike me, he had no eyes in the back of his head.

Sensing the end, Kinjo opened his mouth slowly.

“I was confident in my calculations. I thought I held far more options than you. So why......”

“Exactly. You should’ve come out when I woke you yesterday.”

I lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug and grinned.

“So it was last night after all.”

He smiled like a man watching the last train leave without him.

During the First Exam,

Oscar had slipped between Kinjo and me.

It was no exaggeration to say he’d scraped into the rankings by sheer luck.

In his own words:

if we were special, he was ordinary;

if we were a plus, he was a minus.

On the chessboard he was nothing but a pawn.

That was Oscar Sita.

And that pawn had stayed behind Kinjo.

Had overtaken him.

When a pawn reaches the end, the board flips.

Promotion.

Or, as some call it, queening.

A pawn that touches the final square becomes whatever piece it pleases.

“I thought Oscar was ignoring orders and charging ahead because Louise had split our team...... but from the start he was aiming for my back......”

Kinjo muttered.

Right now Oscar was the strongest piece on the board.

Nothing could stop him.

Blinking was irrelevant—

he was already behind.

In chess, a player resigns by knocking over his own king.

Perhaps that was why Kinjo simply let himself fall.

“I’ve learned my lesson.”

He spread his arms wide.

“Damn it.”

* * *

Belle Red slammed her forehead against the bulletin board.

Drove it in like a nail.

“Me...... ranked forty-first......”

She chanted it like a broken spell, face hollow.

Beside her head hung the sheet tallying the mid-list scores.

“I’m the youngest daughter of the Red Family, one of the Three Great Noble Houses......”

Her despair knew no bottom.

Next to her, another forehead thudded against the board.

“Ha...... fourteenth? Me?”

Amon Coster.

“I’m the youngest son of the Coster Family......”

Together they exhaled a cloud of gloom thick enough to blot the sun.

“Hey, Mago, did you know?”

Kinjo piped up.

“From today, the Empire has only one Great House: Moonlight. Word is Red and Coster collapsed thanks to these two.”

He was teasing them mercilessly.

“What about you? Feeling okay?”

“Not really.”

His face went flat.

“Truth is, the board’s so crowded I can’t even find a spot to bang my head.”

Kinjo had dropped from second to ninth.

“There’s still one exam left. Once the individual competency evaluation is added, the rankings could flip again.”

I offered, trying to console them.

All three turned their heads at once

and glared as if contemplating murder.

I had held the top seat through the Third Exam.

“So, Mago, where did you learn chess?”

Kinjo asked.

Had I not known the rules, I’d never have thought of promotion—

would’ve been drowning in defeat.

“From a woman.”

“A woman? Since when do you know any women?”

“What’s your definition of ‘exists’? There are girls among our cohort—Belle, Louise, plenty.”

“Forget it,” Kinjo said, waving a hand.

The woman who taught me chess.

Loser gets flicked on the forehead.

I still remember how close I came to a hole in my skull.

I sent her a silent thank-you.

I scanned the board again.

Louise Murphy, second place.

Oscar Sita, seventh.

Beyond them, only two kids from prestigious clans.

Humiliating, no doubt.

“Mago, I eavesdropped on the instructors. They said you can keep the top seat even if you only finish half the Fourth Exam.”

Belle spoke up.

“Really?”

“Try acting modest for once; it’d look good on you.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Smug bastard.”

In my last life that had been Amon’s role, but the future had shifted.

Amon Coster, once immovable at number one, now sat thirteenth—

a score that barred him from the Special Task Force.

“What are you lot doing here? Planting your heads against the notice board...?”

Louise approached, ponytail swaying.

A bandage wrapped her shoulder.

“Louise!”

Belle ran and threw her arms around her, voice trembling.

“Louise! Is your shoulder okay? I’m sorry... I’m so sorry...”

“It’s fine, really. It was just an exam, nothing we could do—and we won, so it’s over.”

“Still, I’m sorry...!”

“Enough, I said it’s okay.”

“I’ve committed a mortal sin!”

“No, Belle. You’re not to blame. If anyone, blame Mago.”

Louise turned and glared at me.

“Why am I always the villain...?”

Instinctively I shielded my cheek.

* * *

That night Amon spoke with dead seriousness.

“Tonight we do it.”

The male trainees sat in a ring around the campfire:

Kinjo, Amon, Oscar, and me—four of us.

“We absolutely must not get caught. This secret goes to the grave, understood?”

Oscar pushed back a strand of gray hair and added,

“Tomorrow—how will Louise tie her hair? The twenty-eighth meeting. Opening bet: one glass of milk.”

Amon recited it like scripture.

Kinjo leaned in, confident.

“You guys keep guessing blind; that’s why you lose every time. I’ve spent a month analyzing Louise’s patterns.”

He flourished a scribbled sheet of paper.

“Conclusion: barring surprises, tomorrow she splits it in two. I stake five glasses of milk.”

“Oof, Kinjo, opening big,” Amon muttered, pressing his brow.

I already knew they could be idiots, but I hadn’t expected them to pour such earnest energy into nonsense.

“Good point, Kinjo—‘surprises.’” Amon pressed on.

“One surprise and the future turns unpredictable. You may have your charts, but I’ve seen the very twist that’ll sink them.”

“H-how could you...?”

“Louise told the girls—”

He mimicked her voice, pitch-perfect and horrifying:

“‘I’m tired of changing my hair every day. Maybe I’ll take it easy for once.’”

A voice I never wanted to hear again.

“Therefore, I’m all-in on straight hair, same as today.”

“If Louise said that herself... I’m with Amon,” Oscar chimed.

“Mago, what do you think? First night with us—say something.”

“Are we here to play?”

Their faces froze.

“You’ve done this twenty-seven times already?”

“‘This’? You dragged me into—!”

Amon sprang up.

“Chairman Amon! I detect a traitor—what’s the sentence?”

Oscar joined the act.

“No trial needed—execute by beheading!”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“I’m disappointed in you lot. What are you doing, lighting a campfire in the middle of the night? I’d be less embarrassed if you were gossiping about your first loves.”

“M-Mago.”

At that moment, the faces of the fellow trainees darkened in an instant.

“What’s the point of doing something like this?”

“Mago...! Stop it!”

“Is guessing Louise’s hairstyle really worth getting this worked up over? Especially when we’ve even wagered precious milk?”

“Mago, I said stop...!”

Kinjo rolled his eyes to the side, signaling.

To the right.

Wondering what was there, I turned my head.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

There, I saw red eyes.

Eyes I’d seen before.

They looked exactly like a snake that had spotted its prey.

Belle’s face was lit by the campfire, half in shadow.

The flickering light made her look like a ghost.

A heavy silence fell.

Only the crackling of the firewood broke the quiet.

At that moment, Kinjo made the first move.

“It was Mago’s idea!”

“What? Belle, no—I came to stop them.”

“That’s right...! Mago’s the ringleader!”

Amon chimed in.

“No! We’re all in this together!”

Oscar, as usual, had no tact.

“Shut up, all of you. I heard everything. What do you think Louise will say when I tell her about this?”

The trainees swallowed hard, their faces tense.

“She’ll look at us with contempt.”

Belle answered her own question.

“Honestly, that sounds like a reward in itself...”

Oscar proved himself tactless for the second time.

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