D-4 to Verification Deadline
Day two, just before dawn.
After catching two hours of fragmented sleep on the lab sofa, Professor Kollider rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t afford more rest. He still hadn’t solved the problem.
As always, sleep helped. A cup of morning coffee refreshed his brain—but no, he still couldn’t see anything new.
Nothing had changed.
He buried his head in the test sheet again and battled it until morning... only to be left with nothing but emptiness.
“What the hell IS this thing?! What is he trying to make here?!”
By now, Kollider seriously wondered if Professor Dante Hiakapo had deliberately sent this absurd exam to mess with him.
Was there bad blood between them?
Sure, things seemed smoothed over after the airship incident and the faculty meeting...
But what if that bastard was just petty?
Unlike himself, who was clearly magnanimous!!
“...Ah.”
No.
That wasn’t it.
The three lines at the top of the exam were too precise, too brilliant, to be born of pettiness.
This formula, these circuits—they had structure and purpose.
“...Ahhh...”
Thud!
He slammed his forehead onto the desk and twitched at the impact, strands of hair scattering.
Normally, he’d have been horrified—but not now. Not when the pride of an elite senior professor was on the line.
A few lost hairs were the least of his worries.
“...I swear I’ll crack this cursed thing today.”
Gritting his teeth, Kollider locked his lab door.
He had to open it again with his own hands six hours later.
“P-Professor? Are you alright?”
“......”
“Your face looks really pale...”
“......”
He was dazed.
Too much focus.
Formulas and circuits swam through his mind. But still, no progress.
It was driving him insane.
Who was he?
A proclaimed genius from the Lemontree barony. A prodigy so brilliant his hometown put up banners in his honor. Called a genius cadet at Hiaka. Sent to study in the Empire. Second author on the solution to the Ravioli Conundrum—
Ping!
“Gah! What the—?!”
A message?
It was Dante!
– Dante: Is it ready?
Damn it!
Why was he checking in already?! He’d said five days!
But... hadn’t he boasted it would only take a day or two?
– Kollider: Give me a little more time. Nearly there.
– Dante: Understood.
He’d tried to brush him off.
– Dante: If you find any issues in the verification, please don’t hesitate to point them out. Criticism is welcome. I want this exam to be flawless.
That reply... ripped Kollider’s heart in half.
Flawless? He couldn’t even understand it, let alone critique it...
– Kollider: Got it.
He ended the chat and sat in silence.
‘Still... there’s a reason he asked me, isn’t there?’
It had to be because he looked like the most capable professor.
...Yeah, no.
That was not the time for self-delusion.
‘Screw it. This is a disaster.’
He had no choice. He needed help.
From his fellow illusion faculty.
“You called, Senior Professor?”
“Why does it smell like cigarettes in here...? Did you light up?”
“You said there was a curious problem? What’s it about?”
Thirty minutes later, five professors from the Assassination Department's illusion faculty gathered in his lab.
Kollider handed them copies of the exam and explained: this was Dante’s final, and though he saw no problems, he wanted their opinions.
“Hmmm...”
“Let’s see...”
“......”
For nearly three hours, they all stared at the problem.
None of them found a single flaw.
Because—none of them understood it!
“...You don’t get it either?”
Kollider asked casually.
“Not at all. It’s clearly something incredibly sophisticated. My guess is, it’s about range?”
“Wrong. It’s about duration—long-term illusion sustainability formulas!”
“You’re both wrong. It’s about scalability!”
“The hell it is! What are you, fresh out of kindergarten?! How’s this scalability? You really trying to show off how short your magical resume is?”
The professors started arguing.
Kollider couldn’t help but chuckle internally.
Damn right. I’m not the only one who doesn’t get it.
And all their guesses? No deeper than his own.
“......”
But then the gloom crept back in.
Because if none of them knew—
That meant this entire room full of professors didn’t understand a single damn thing.
“So what exactly is this illusion formula about?”
“......”
Finally, the question was directed back at Kollider.
He sighed.
“...I don’t know.”
“Sorry?”
“I said I don’t know. Goddamn it. I’m embarrassed, but I’ll be honest. Dante sent this to me for verification—and I don’t even know what field of illusion it belongs to.”
“Ah...”
“Mmm...”
“So that’s why you called us. Because we’re all... illusion experts...”
“Well, we don’t exactly have a clue either...”
“......”
Saying it out loud was strangely cathartic.
“Senior Professor. Why don’t we just... ask him for the answer?”
“What? Are you crazy?!”
“W-What?”
“That’s the one thing we absolutely cannot do!!”
Being honest with them was fine.
But bowing his head to Dante?
He would rather die.
He still had time—five days. And none of them had lectures this week.
“Everyone, help me out here. We can’t let this turn into a situation where illusion professors are just sitting around gawking at someone else’s exam!”
“Yes, sir!”
Kollider messaged Dante:
“I’ll need a few more days.”
Then dove back into analysis with the others.
And as the sun rose the next day—
Among the exhausted, greasy, unshaven professors...
“Aha...!”
One suddenly shot to his feet.
With a gleaming grin—
“...Nope. Still have no fucking clue!”
D-3 to Verification Deadline
D-2
“Goddamn it! You can’t approach it like that!”
Evening.
“What the hell do you know?! It’s scalability! I’m telling you!”
The brawl finally erupted.
“How is this scalability?! What, did your brain expand too?! Think logically, asshole! Would you add scalability to a student’s final exam?! What is this, building a car from wheels and an engine?! It’s a damn test! It needs to be solvable! That’s the whole point!”
“You idiot! One question requires complexity! If there’s only one, you’ve gotta make it scalable or there’s no way to differentiate skill levels!”
Wham! Thud!
They finally grabbed each other by the collars and started swinging.
“You son of a bitch!”
“My ribs! You hit my ribs!”
“Don’t pull my hair!!”
Smash! Crash!
Desks toppled. Lab destroyed.
Kollider gently stroked his nose, satisfied.
Heh. Absolute chaos.
He was close to madness himself.
But it only fueled his obsession.
“What the hell is it...?”
What the hell was that damn punk Professor Dante trying to show the students with this exam?
For now—he had to stop the fight.
“Alright, alright. Break it up—”
“You bastard! I’m going to go ask Dante right now!”
“Hey, hey, calm down—”
“Go ask him! Go on, you son of a bitch! Wanna bet on it?! 5 million Hika? 10 million?!”
“Hell yeah! Let’s go, bitch! Bet 100 million! Put your house and land up for it!”
“......”
Kollider took a deep breath.
Then bellowed:
“SILENCE!!!!”
CRASHHHH!!!
The windows all exploded from a sonic illusion. The volume amplification spell made sure it hit hard.
It worked. The professors froze mid-brawl.
“Stop it!”
“Sorry, Senior Professor...”
“We got carried away...”
“Enough. That’s enough!”
“So... are we giving up?”
“No. We don’t give up. We’re professors—we have pride. Dignity.”
“True...”
“But being a professor doesn’t mean we stop learning. So we’ll go to Zone 2.”
“Zone 2...?”
The Department of Magic.
Assassination Illusion and Magical Illusion were different fields.
For power and combat readiness, Assassination Illusion was superior.
But for research, for academic depth—Magical Illusion held the crown.
Which meant, maybe the mages would understand.
“But... they might not be much help.”
“Hm?”
“The Head of Magical Illusion defected after the last incident, remember?”
“...Ah.”
Tch!
Kollider clicked his tongue, frowning.
Professor Gloomy, the traitor. Rumor had it she crippled Hiaka’s entire illusion research sector with her betrayal.
“...Still, we’re going. Even their senior staff are better than us right now.”
“Yeah, let’s go. At this point, I’d take help from a cat if it could solve this damn thing.”
The professors loaded into a car and drove to Zone 2.
They sought out several senior faculty from Magical Illusion.
But the department felt like a funeral parlor.
Just as expected, the disaster wrought by Gloomy had left the entire division in ruins.
“She took everything. Equipment, research, confidential circuits... anything remotely valuable. Can you believe that?”
“Ah... unreal...”
They tried to comfort their bruised egos with food.
And belatedly sought advice from the Department of Magical Illusion.
“Wow, this is incredibly difficult. Who came up with this?”
The senior professor of Magical Illusion smiled brightly.
Wait—difficult?
“Ah, well...”
“Ah-ah-ah! Don’t tell me. Let me guess.”
“...Excuse me?”
The professor’s eyes sparkled.
“This absolutely reeks of someone from the Abraxas school of illusion assassins or mages, doesn’t it? Oh! I know! It’s got to be Challenger Cruxiel, right?”
“No, no...”
“No? Then maybe Aegion from the Radiant Star⁺₊⋆? That guy loves problems like this—takes a basic formula and hyper-engineers it with dense layering.”
“Ah, no, actually...”
“Not Aegion either? Hmm. Then who made this monster?”
“......”
At this point, Kollider and the rest of the assassination professors were speechless.
Is it... really on that level?
Was it?
Formulas and circuits sophisticated enough to be mistaken for the work of a [Challenger] or a [Constellation]?
And Dante Hiakapo—barely thirty—was producing questions that looked like arcane riddles for something as mundane as a final exam?
“...That punk might actually be insane.”
It couldn’t be!
This was absurd!
“Yeah? I mean, with the way he’s been acting since the whole Gloomy incident...”
“I can’t believe someone that sharp is actually breaking down...”
The assassination professors whispered behind their hands, twirling fingers at their temples.
Crazy. He had to be.
Either way.
They still had no answer.
“Should we go get lunch? The other Magical Illusion professors said they’d be here this afternoon.”
“Let’s. We haven’t eaten anything all night...”
“What about you, Senior Professor?”
All eyes turned to Kollider.
He looked even more haggard than yesterday—his mouth crumpled like a bulldog’s, though it soon softened.
“...Let’s go.”
Everyone understood.
That was a quiet admission of defeat.
Kollider decided to tell Dante: The verification is complete. I couldn’t find any problems.
Embarrassing, yes—but it was the truth.
His pride had cracked.
It was a sad reality, but it seemed Dante was on a higher academic tier than himself. Still, he couldn’t just bare his belly and say, “I have no idea what this is!”
That would shatter him completely.
“...Damn it.”
And so, they left the copied exam paper in the Magical Illusion Department’s office and went off to eat.
They couldn’t even bear to look at it anymore.
***
– Kollider: I couldn’t find any issues in the verification.
– Kollider: Took longer than expected. I even had to ask for advice.
– Kollider: It seems like a complete exam problem, but since I might be wrong, feel free to double-check elsewhere.
– Dante: Much appreciated.
– Dante: I’ll treat you to a meal sometime.
So the verification passed.
Truthfully, I had been worried.
What if it’s too difficult?
So I reflected on that.
I had underestimated the professors, even unconsciously.
But they were excellent, too.
“...It’ll work. This’ll do.”
Now I could head into finals with a clear mind.
The formula structuring the question had been difficult.
But the problem itself was simple.
Which meant everyone would solve it in their own way.
From the bottom of my heart, I hoped—
That the cadets would earn good grades.
***
“...Hm? What’s this?”
Magical Illusion Department Office.
Head Professor Galois came to a halt in front of a stray sheet of paper.
He had stopped by briefly with a group of mage associate professors.
“Ho?”
It was not a sheet he could ignore.
He began reading with great interest.
“Professor Yuha?”
“Yes, Head Professor?”
“What’s this odd-looking exam paper?”
Professor Yuha—the same senior professor who’d interacted with «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» the assassination faculty earlier—tilted his head.
“Oh, that? The assassination professors brought it in and must’ve left it. They said they’d be back after grabbing lunch.”
“Assassins? Why would they leave this here?”
Yuha explained the situation.
Galois chuckled with curiosity.
A “monster of a problem,” they called it?
“Would you like to take a look, Head Professor Galois?”
“Shall I? Anything urgent on our plate today?”
“No, sir.”
“Alright, then. Let’s see...”
He sat on the couch, monocle in place, and studied the exam.
“......”
He didn’t move for over ten minutes.
Frozen—like someone who had hit pause.
While the other senior professors scribbled with pens and analyzed formulas, he sat in complete silence.
He was solving it in his head.
Yuha watched anxiously.
After all, the assassination department’s elite professors—Kollider included—had been reduced to complete wrecks by this problem.
It had to be legendarily difficult.
But this was Galois.
Galois Grandray.
Not just Hiaka—but one of the continent’s foremost authorities in [Magic Theory].
His knowledge of [Illusion] might be lacking, but in terms of circuits and formulas, he was a peerless genius—even the Empire tried to buy him for untold sums.
He’d been shortlisted for the Obel Prize in Magic multiple years in a row.
“......”
That Galois now sat, mentally dissecting the exam.
His eyes flicked left and right, tracing every formula.
Then—he reacted.
“...Heh.”
A grin curled his lips.
Why?
Why smile?
His voice dropped low, almost to a whisper.
“It was... a tree...”
A tree?
What tree?
Just as Yuha was about to ask, Galois turned to his aides.
“Alright. Everyone sit here and take a break. I need to speak with the department head.”
“Yes, Head Professor. Should we make a copy of the exam?”
“No need. I’ve already memorized it.”
Already?
That fast?
He memorized that convoluted mess in ten minutes?
Yuha tried to stop him.
If he left now, his curiosity would never be satisfied.
But by then, Galois was already vanishing through a Teleport spell.
Just before he faded completely, he murmured—
“...What an amusing thing he’s made, that boy.”