I Became a Mythical-Tier Tamer Due To A System Error Chapter 79
Understanding Basic Magic, the final question.
「20. Write the answer to 1 plus 1.」
「※ However, only answers submitted to this professor via mana transmission will be accepted.」
Submitting the answer through mana transmission?
Karin closed her eyes and tried to search for a flow of mana.
‘Ugh, I can’t do this. Let’s just skip it…….’
As expected, it was pointless.
Searching for a needle in the desert must mean something like this.
Meanwhile, Elined glared at the problem with sharp eyes.
‘……That professor. I don’t like him. To think he’d put out a problem like this.’
It wasn’t even a prank.
And he gave it to first-years, no less.
‘There’s a hundred extra points on the line, but it’s an impossible problem for a student to solve.’
Just what was he thinking when he assigned this?
Nixie looked at question 20 and felt only one thing.
‘How rude.’
Just by seeing the problem, she could sense Professor Belzrover’s arrogance.
As if it were saying, ‘Try it, though you won’t be able to solve it.’
If it had been a class, maybe, but was this necessary in an exam meant to evaluate students’ ability?
The more she thought of his arrogant gaze, the more she felt his lack of respect toward students.
……All of them, along with the other cadets, completely dismissed question 20 as a waste of time.
A problem unsolvable with a first-year’s skills.
That was the conclusion they reached.
---
「20. Write the answer to 1 plus 1.」
「※ However, only answers submitted to this professor via mana transmission will be accepted.」
I stared at the question, falling into quiet thought.
‘Understanding Basic Magic, question 20…….’
In the game’s setting, it had been the overwhelmingly hardest bonus question on the first-year exam.
‘There were years when not even a single cadet solved it.’
It sounded grand in the lore……
But from a gamer’s perspective, it wasn’t much of a gimmick at all.
In the game, if the ‘Mana’ stat reached a certain threshold, the problem solved itself automatically without any effort.
‘From the first episode to the exam episode, you had to pour everything into Mana to unlock this question.’
However, the reward for solving it wasn’t particularly great.
All you got was extra points in the subject ‘Understanding Basic Magic.’
That was it.
Because all investment went into Mana, the character ended up with unbalanced stats.
And often, that resulted in a character unable to clear later episodes.
‘So-called…… a ruined build.’
For all the trouble, the reward ended up being a minus.
‘But I have to do it.’
I exhaled softly.
I had no choice but to solve this question.
‘Because this is the most likely way to reset the main storyline.’
It wasn’t just a way to earn test points.
It was a means to persuade a character that deviated from the canon, Professor Belzrover.
I closed my eyes.
‘In the game, if your Mana stat was high enough, you could see the flow of mana.’
No, not see it, perhaps, but sense it.
The pure crystallization of mana could never be seen by the naked eye.
So I gave up on sight.
I judged it easier to close my eyes and focus on mana instead.
……In the pitch-blackness, nothing could be seen.
How much time passed?
‘……There it is.’
A single jewel-like speck appeared in the middle of the darkness.
It was tiny, like a grain of sand.
‘Let’s widen the view.’
I focused on the speck and looked around it.
Like a tidal flat revealed by receding water beneath the sea.
Countless specks slowly appeared in the darkness.
‘The whole world is filled with mana.’
Looking closely at the sand-like specks, I saw threads as thin as hair connecting them.
……This was the flow of mana, the paths they formed.
‘Thousands, tens of thousands…… no, even more.’
Among the countless tangled manas, twisted like threads of yarn, only one was the answer.
Only one path led to Belzrover.
Which should I choose?
‘The professor’s office security is strict. It won’t allow a connection so easily.’
On top of that, Professor Belzrover was an arrogant elite who set himself apart from others.
Naturally, it wouldn’t be ordinary.
I would have to choose the most peculiar, the rarest mana.
Most of the mana shone blue.
Among them, I also saw some green, red, and yellow ones.
And those weren’t too hard to find either.
As I stared at the threads for a while, one caught my eye.
‘……A golden mana.’
The thinnest, most difficult to reach.
If it was this, anyone else would find it nearly impossible to grasp.
‘Can I reach it?’
I slowly reached out toward it.
Perhaps because my Mana stat had been temporarily boosted.
It wasn’t as difficult as I thought.
I drew closer and closer to the golden mana that had seemed so far away.
‘……Got it.’
As the golden thread touched me.
A new stimulus flowed into my brain.
---
Main Building, 32nd floor of the Professors’ Wing, Belzrover’s Dark Attribute Laboratory.
It was shortly after the exam had begun.
Belzrover sat in his chair, leisurely reading a book.
His eyes, fixed on the pages, twitched when they sensed a current of mana.
At the same time, a sudden transmission came through.
Crackle, crackle……
Static began to bleed into the mana transmission.
Belzrover glanced at his wristwatch.
‘Strange.’
Not even ten minutes had passed since the exam began.
And yet, already a student was attempting a transmission.
The mana was still unstable, so it was not yet possible to submit an answer.
But the fact that a transmission had reached him at all was surprising.
‘Such a case is…… extremely rare.’
No, perhaps this was the first time.
Understanding Basic Magic, question 20 at the very end.
It was always given as a bonus question in a slightly altered form each year.
A student who solved it came along maybe once in an entire year.
It was never intended to be solved seriously by the whole student body.
‘A problem for the select few.’
It existed to honor the rare genius Belzrover deemed worthy.
A challenge for a handful of talents to test their limits.
If a student solved it.
It meant they had mastered the fundamentals of magic completely.
And mastering the fundamentals was something even graduates struggled with.
‘Was there such a student in this class?’
There were countless manas floating in the air.
Each mana carried its own unique flow.
Out of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of streams, only one path led to Belzrover.
‘And yet, someone managed to solve it.’
Something unobtainable through a lifetime of effort.
A talent in mana detection, granted only to the chosen at birth.
Only through that gift, applied endlessly in experiments of mana-to-mana reactions.
Only after deriving thousands of results could one solve question 20.
But then.
Crackle……. Belz…… rover…….
A transmission appeared, less than ten minutes in, completely out of the blue.
The voice carried not the answer to the problem, but the professor’s name.
The sky is……
Sensing something abnormal.
Belzrover focused quietly on the transmission.
I know what you did.
“……”
The sender was unknown.
But by calculating the mana in reverse, he could collect a clue……
And the answer came: examinee number 377.
‘377.’
Belzrover, who had been sitting comfortably, suddenly leaned forward from his chair.
“……Dedenkman.”
Belzrover remembered every examinee’s number.
There was no way his memory was wrong.
377 was undeniably Dedenkman’s exam number.
‘……How could Dedenkman possibly?’
Belzrover knew his level very well.
There was no way he used proper means.
Did he use an illicit device?
Or receive someone’s help?
If not, did he happen to succeed by one-in-millions chance?
As Belzrover wondered how Dedenkman had reached him.
If he presented the mark carved on his neck as evidence.
Belzrover froze.
He rubbed the spot on his neck hidden beneath his clothes.
Your crime will be greatly reduced.
Belzrover’s eyes widened more and more.
……Turn yourself in.
Click.
The transmission ended there.
“……”
Belzrover stared wide-eyed, stiff in place.
Then slowly leaned back into his chair again.
“……Phew.”
Belzrover let out a deep sigh.
It was during the Victory Festival incident.
He had deliberately suppressed mana in the Main Building performance hall, forcing the famous singer’s concert into the secondary hall.
He had unleashed living corpses to keep watch around the Princess.
And he had transmitted that information somewhere else.
He remembered all of it clearly.
……But none of it had been Belzrover’s own will.
‘Someone controlled me.’
The fact of being manipulated cracked his pride, so he told no one.
But Dedenkman knew it.
‘……So this is the end.’
Yes.
He never had a choice to begin with.
Even if he had been controlled.
The fact remained he committed crimes with his own hands.
‘……His words are right.’
If he tried to bury this truth, he would lose even the chance to turn himself in.
And besides, there was already a witness named Dedenkman.
‘It’s better to surrender and seek reduction.’
It was the perfect chance to blow away the problem that would otherwise torment him for months, years.
‘But how did he know?’
How could Dedenkman know it was him?
And more than that, how did that failing student, of all people.
Get ahead of far better students to be the first to find the answer?
As he mulled it over.
His eyes landed on a folded newspaper on the desk.
The large headline read, “Who is the Black Knight?”
“……Ha.”
A hollow laugh escaped Belzrover’s lips.
Could it be that the rumored Black Knight was none other than……
“That pathetic Dedenkman…….”
His memories flickered past like a panorama.
A hollow shell with no skill or substance, filled only with bravado.
A fool who could not understand theory, always fooling around during class.
A typical noble brat, weak before the strong and cruel before the weak.
‘But all of that…….’
Was a false image fabricated by Villed.
Belzrover pressed his brow and let out a sigh.
“I underestimated…… my student far too much.”
He stared up at the ceiling, looking exhausted.
……Indeed, this was Yggdrasil.
After working here so long, he might have forgotten that fact.
Whether student or professor.
This was a place where every kind of being in the world gathered.
‘This wasn’t a town where one should expect common sense. And yet I forgot, lulled into adaptation.’
Like the second son of Dedenkman.
It wasn’t impossible for someone to hide their identity and play the clown.
He might not know the reason, but such behavior was never without intent.
As he gazed at the ceiling with eyes emptied of burden.
“Professor, I brought the documents you requested.”
A teaching assistant stepped into the office, setting the documents on the desk.
Belzrover looked at him steadily and spoke.
“Contact the Knights.”
“Yes, what should I tell them?”
“Tell them that an accomplice of the Victory Festival incident is waiting in the Dark Attribute research lab.”
“Yes, understo…… what?”
The assistant blinked in disbelief, as if he misheard.
Belzrover burst out into hearty laughter.
“Why so surprised?”
That laughter.
It was the first the assistant had heard in his five years of service.
“I mean to turn myself in.”
He was smiling, having set down all the weight upon his heart.