Chapter 55: Fake
Harold took notice of the missing seat, gazing at it for a few moments. However, he looked away soon after.
"I shall begin the class."
My brows furrowed, but I decided not to harp on it too much. Instead, I decided to use this period to ponder over what could've happened and what I should do about it. Then, if he was still missing after-
"Sorry, I'm late!"
My head snapped to the side, seeing Nathan awkwardly rush into the classroom breathlessly. There was an awkward smile on his face as he scratched the back of his head.
The first thing I felt was relief.
Yet, I also felt a weird sensation. It was like the world underneath me suddenly bent to the side, making me feel like I was falling off the edge. But I put that aside for now.
Charlotte looked at him with excitement and waved happily.
"Natan!"
She quickly put on a displeased expression though.
"How could you be late? You are undermining the status of the Golden Gold School!"
Nathan let out a laugh.
"Haha, sorry, sorry. It's good to see you again though, Charlotte."
Wait, what?
Charlotte blushed and turned away.
"W-What? I guess it's good to see you too, but it's not like I really care!"
Nathan simply smiled before sitting back down.
No. Not Nathan. Because that person definitely was not Nathan. Unless Nathan suddenly learned how to method act perfectly as the main character, that was not him. It was more like this guy was Natan.
The actual protagonist of this shitty game.
...But why?
I noticed that Natan shot a hopeful and curious-looking gaze my way, but didn't end up saying anything.
It creeped me the fuck out.
As for Harold, he simply chastised him for being late before leading us all to the magic practice range. Once we got there, he announced that we would be having a test. Harold made it clear that this test was not nearly as important as things like the midterms or finals, but it was a test nonetheless.
Several people were quite surprised that there was a test already, but nobody raised any complaints. Although it wasn't ideal for some people, it appeared they accepted it because of the strictness of the school.
Once we had made it to the practice range, Harold raised his hands and conjured a giant fifty-meter-wide target made out of ice that wasn't too far away. It had slightly different shades of ice, making it easy to tell the thresholds within.
Right afterward, he cleared his throat.
"I will now begin explaining the rules of the test. You will be required to use fire magic. There are three criteria that this test will be based on.
First, how long you take to cast your spell.
Secondly, how close to the center of the target that your spell is.
Finally, how much destructive power is behind that spell.
The last two factors will have the most weight on your score, so please do not rush when taking the test. From here, I will call you up one by one to take this test."
Hm. From the sounds of it, being able to cast the spell really quickly was not something valued all that much. That made me feel a bit irked since that was pretty much the only thing I was good at.
But at the same time, I could understand the sentiment of not wanting people to just rush their spells.
Though just because I could understand it, didn't mean I liked it.
He began naming people off and they proceeded to cast the fire spells and aim at the target. Though, for the first person that went, he already had to chastise them.
"You must maintain a mana barrier to protect yourself! Should you be injured after casting your spell, the smallest punishment is deducted points, and the worst is being disqualified altogether!"
The girl that was trying to skimp on the mana barrier had flinched, then casted the spell as she was supposed to. It took her probably five or so minutes until she finally finished, forming a decently-sized fireball in her hand. It was about a basketball in size.
With a bit of awkwardness, she held it out toward the target.
Several seconds later, it shot forth, heading toward the center. However, it ended up losing some of its momentum, dipping down, then exploding more to the bottom of the target.
She let out a gasp.
"Could I redo that?"
Harold let out a sigh.
"No, your score is already set in stone."
The girl looked to be rather disappointed by that, even though she didn't do all that bad. Frankly, I'm not sure if I could conjure up a similarly-sized fireball without straining myself a bit.
One after another, people were sent up to test out their skills.
A thing I noted was that most people needed at the very least two whole minutes to finish casting their spell. I hadn't really paid attention last time we were to practice the fire spell, but it appeared as though it was quite difficult for them.
At the time, it took me roughly a minute to cast the fire spell.
But now, I was fairly confident in doing it in thirty seconds, assuming that power wasn't too important. Unfortunately, it did seem that power was in fact important.
Eventually, it was Sam's turn to go up. He did so proudly and held out his hand, but before the spell even formed, Harold scolded him.
"You were already preparing the spell beforehand. Since you've decided to do that, your time will be based on when you first began preparing until you finish casting now."
Sam's expression distorted significantly as the fireball formed from the tip of his finger.
"You never said anything about that! I wasn't breaking any of the rules you set!"
Harold simply nodded.
"Yes, I did not explicitly mention it. However, it is based on time, and it will only be fair if I take it from when you first started preparing."
I couldn't help but feel pity, but also a bit of contempt. I mean, Harold already clearly established he could see all of us moving our mana around, why are you trying to pull tricks now?
Though, Sam ended up gnashing his teeth in anger. He finished casting the spell, making it slightly larger than a basketball before propelling it to the target. The fireball didn't hit the center but was not far off.
He went off with a huff, and I heard a few people here and there laughing at him.
More people went up, and I couldn't help but notice a rather radical difference in magic power among the people. It was fairly easy to tell who got in this class because they got full marks, and which ones got in because of how powerful their magic was with their beach ball sized fireballs. A scant few actually messed up the casting process itself. They were given a second chance, but Harold counted the time from when they first started casting.
It wasn't a hard pattern, but those that got in because of their power tended to be less accurate, but those that had it the other way around usually hit close to the center.
After some time, it was Raisa's turn.
She took a deep breath before raising her finger. In roughly a minute and a half, a fireball had appeared on her finger. Considering the average was about four minutes, that was quite impressive.
A smile formed on her face as she seemed to realize it, but the size of it wasn't that noteworthy, about fifteen centimeters. She frowned soon after but didn't mull over it. After taking a few seconds to aim, she sent the fireball forth, landing just barely off the bullseye of it.
She got a few passing approving comments and established herself as above average, but people weren't that shocked. Though there were things to be improved on, Raisa left with a satisfied expression.
After her, was Arianne.
She was clearly nervous once she had gotten up. Her gaze drifted over towards me and lingered a few moments. It was almost like she wanted me to cheer her on or something.
...But like, that really wasn't my thing.
I decided to just smile a little, which seemed to be enough for her as she also smiled brightly before turning back.
Arianne held out a finger towards the target and began casting. She had closed her eyes and was clearly concentrating rather hard. Once a few minutes had passed, it became clear that she wasn't going to be finished any time soon.
But after seven minutes had passed, a rather large fireball had formed on her fingertip. If I had to say, the diameter was about half a meter. It sparked commotion among the class, as that was pretty damn big.
Still, Nathan's flamethrower technique was still far greater than this.
Unfortunately, it appeared Arianne had forgotten what she was supposed to do and lobbed it forth with her eyes closed.
It was only when she opened her eyes once more did she realize her mistake.
"Ah!"
The fireball exploded at the bottom of the target. Technically speaking, it did reach the center of the target because of how large the explosion was, but that was to the credit of the size of the fireball more than anything else.
Silence fell after this strange display, making those that thought this was impressive find it hard to say anything.
Arianne covered her face in shame before rushing off.
Next, I was called up.
Once I did get up there, I heard someone cheer for me.
"You got this, Bryson!"
Except it was the last person I expected to do such a thing.
Natan.
I shook off the creepy crawly feeling I had all over my skin and just focused on casting the spell. Though soon after, I heard Raisa and Arianne also wish me good luck as though not wanting to be outdone.
...If you really cared about how well I would do, then you would've kept silent so I could focus!
Brushing aside my frustration, I focused my mana on condensing the cores, trying to pour extra in to create a larger fireball. Unfortunately, despite meditating for long periods of time, my mana reserve remained the same.
As such, I soon found myself in a position where adding mana would strain me too much, lest there were not enough for the nodes. It's not as though I didn't have any more mana in my body, because I still had a decent amount.
However, calling upon all of it at once would overwhelm the body from shock at the sudden deprivation. Even though many people wanted to cheese the system, they would still not make this kind of mistake. I guess it was still Class A after all.
Upon connecting it all together, a fireball formed at the top of my fingers.
I heard several surprised gasps once I finished. Probably since it had only taken me fifty seconds to conjure this thing. In fact, I probably could've done this under forty, but I just wanted to be extra careful and take my time lest I messed up the spell.
I mean, I hadn't messed up doing a normal spell yet, but you never know.
Sweat formed on my forehead, and my body felt a tad bit weak. I had used up a decent amount of mana. And to show for it, I had a fireball that was just barely more than twenty centimeters wide.
I flicked my finger, slamming it into the center of the target.
It wasn't a particularly large fireball, so hitting the center was easy enough.
After I walked off, it had then become Charlotte's turn.
She had walked on pretty confidently, having her arms crossed. Then, Natan called out to her.
"You got this!"
This made Charlotte blush, holding the side of her cheek in embarrassment.
"Y-Yeah! I already knew that, idiot!"
She was smiling. But to hide that fact, she tried to put a hand over her mouth. Still, it wouldn't exactly take a genius to see her emotions from the rest of her face.
But while she was flustered, it didn't stop her from casting. After two and a half minutes, a large fireball formed at the tip of her finger. While definitely bigger than mine, it still felt short by a decent amount from Arianne's.
After taking a second to aim, Charlotte landed dead center on the target. Right after, she turned to Natan with puffed cheeks.
"W-Was that good?"
Natan let out a laugh and gave a thumbs up.
"That was amazing!"
Charlotte once again put a hand above her mouth to hide her smile.
"Is that so? I suppose it's only natural for someone like me."
Then, Natan was called up.
All of my focus sharpened significantly at this point. How well he performed here would tell me a lot about the current Natan.
Maybe I could even use this to expose him as the fake.
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