"Why?" Lucinelle questioned, still doubtful.
Aleandro stared at Lucinelle, who had given him a lackluster response. "... I wasn't informed. But I'm taking the two of you regardless." Displeased by the lack of respect, the barrier lifted both of them.
The two swordmaidens drew their swords and attempted to break free. The barrier cracked under their strikes a few times, but it quickly restored itself under Aleandro's gaze.
Seeing that, Serika inhaled deeply and condensed aura into her sword, unleashing an aura-imbued slash that sliced through the barrier. Lucinelle followed with a series of slashes to widen the opening, each strike traced with bright green light.
They both dashed out at the same time, only to land in a soft ground, submerged up to their waist. However, they didn't attack, as the familiar magic brought a familiar voice.
"Oh my, these two cuties are still as cautious as ever."
Another instructor had come, attracted by the commotion. Serika and Lucinelle turned to the woman who had just arrived.
They flinched upon seeing her, especially Serika. Had this been any time apart from wearing their uniform, they would've cheerfully rushed over and hugged her.
"Instructor Celine. You are late." But the other instructor wasn't so pleased.
"Yes, Aleandro. I had a good sleep last night, so I ended up sleeping a few extra minutes."
"… You are two hours late," the man said sternly. "I had to preside over all of the entrants due to your negligence."
"I see! Aleandro sure is capable, hmm?" the instructor called Celine then proceeded to pat the mans shoulders with a smile.
"This will be deducted in your performance rating and pay."
"Ehhh!? No waaayyy! That's so mean Aleandro!"
"Sis, it's Miss Celine!" While the two instructors bickered, Serika nudged Lucinelle, who also seemed slightly perturbed. "Shh, Seri. We're on duty." She was someone they looked up to back in their academy days.
Just like many other prospects from various families, the two of them were no different. Sponsored by the Duke's household, they entered the academy to learn and strengthen themselves
Back when they were still students, Celine was an instructor who helped them in various ways and acted as their guardian. She protected them from those who sought to damage their reputation and push them down from the class rankings.
Miss Celine stopped arguing with Aleandro and turned her gaze toward the two girls. She took out a colorful staff decorated with what appeared to be a toy cat's head at the tip.
"Ey!" The two girls were ejected from the ground as her staff emitted a magic circle of a strange pink color that passed through them. With that, their armor turned into furred clothes with their stomachs exposed, along with matching cat ears and paws.
"Gyaa! Miss Celine! Noo!"
"Ghk!"
Serika screamed in fright, shivering as she recalled the days when they were punished to wear this embarrassing outfit. Lucinelle grunted but endured it silently as her face reddened.
"You two are still the same kittens as before hehe, so lively."
"Miss Celine, I have been tasked to take them to the headmas—"
"Yes, yes, Alea. Let's do that later, I have something to say to these students of mine."
"Alea… Please refrain from referring to me as such…" Aleandro with his veins bulging and brows twitching complained.
"Okay! If you say so! In the meantime, wait until our conversation is over, okay?" This time, Miss Celine's gaze became a bit more serious as she spoke. "There's still some time until the examination is done anyway. I'm just going to do my duty as an instructor. These two unpolished gems have finally returned to our academy after all."
"… Do as you wish." Sighing, Aleandro gave up. He could take the two girls later. At that, Celine expressed her gratitude before facing the students.
"So, you two. What's with leaving the academy and your studies behind, hm?" Behind that sweet smile was something both swordmaidens feared. They did not want to risk being turned into puppet dolls for a whole week again.
Their sense of hunger, sleep, and the need to relieve themselves would all be taken away. They had to spend several days adjusting to normal life afterward.
"Miss Celine, we…" This time it was Serika who spoke. Lucinelle was never good with answering questions and kept her mouth shut.
…
As the two swordmaidens were caught in a predicament of their own, Xian found himself in a room. Perfectly gray, with four walls, a roof, and ground to stand on. His belongings were gone, even the hidden weapons on his body.
Only his clothes remained. His butler's case was missing. Around him were scattered weapons and supplies.
'So it's this one. The Grid Maze.' It was exactly as he remembered. A maze that worked like a grid, where one could choose any of the four directions. But no exit would be found even if someone walked straight ahead. Instead, they would be trapped in an endless loop.
From the supplies, he took one potion each for HP and MP. He chose a longsword as his main weapon and daggers as backup weapons tucked behind his back. But he did not stop there and took a hammer as well.
Once he was done, a note hovered in front of him.
It was the list of rules.
Find the exit within two hours
No killing or fighting fellow Entrants
Use of magic is allowed as long as the maze isn't destroyed
Failure to comply or find the exit is equivalent to failing the exam, and participation in the next round of tests is forfeited regardless of expenses.
'They really had to elaborate on the expenses part.' As far as Xian was concerned, the academy loved money so much it was crazy. They would exploit nobles for as long as they could milk them.
'Well, the money are always well spent.' Besides, it was not his money anyway.
Xian began to walk while thinking. To get out of the Grid Maze, there was a certain pattern one had to follow, a pattern he had gone through plenty of times. In this case, he did not need to do much work at all. He purposely took wrong turns for the first few minutes in order not to appear
suspicious.
'I need to start thinking about my own money.' If he was going to stay in this world for a long time, he had to gather money even if he could regress. He could not always rely on the Duke's household or Carmillia.
While his salary as her butler was generous, it would not be enough to support his stat doping plans and other activities.
'I can't believe I have the same problem as those regressors in the novels I read…' Like any regression protagonist, he had to secure steady funding first. Luckily, with his game experience, he knew exactly who to approach.
After one turn, the room had changed. It now had soil instead of solid rock, with some walls made of rough stone. As the room changed, it meant he was going in the right direction. And when that happened.
"There you are."
Small summons as monsters are encountered. They gave an abysmally low exp and didn't have much effect, but they attacked and swarmed aggressively.
'Cube slimes' Xian smirked at the absurd mob before him. This was a really bad prank by the devs.
At first these harmless little creatures appeared in the maze. But after the fourth room change, it becomes a cluster fuck of swarms of different monsters that took more effort to get rid of.
Attacking them as a player merely wastes time and offers no real benefit. They only exist to tire out inexperienced players and distract them, since at this stage the player has not leveled up yet. In this case, some dumb entrants might fall for it as well.
The real challenge was reaching the seventh type of room due to the sheer number of monsters. There was a chance he could finish first, though he could also hide his abilities. But to be honest, there were more benefits to finishing first. It also aligned with one of the heroines' routes he liked.
As Xian recalled his knowledge of the maze, he purposely made slow decisions. Since someone might be watching, he deliberately stood in front of random directions for a while before proceeding with the correct one.
It wasn't much, but it served as a convincing enough disguise, lest the instructors think he was cheating. Gradually, the room began to change. The soil turned to lush grass, vines crept up the walls, and the ceiling morphed into a false blue sky.
Although, there was another thing he had to be careful of.
"Oh-ho! What presence stirreth through yonder hallway?"
Encountering other entrants.
"Aha! Another valiant challenger! Praise the stars, for I feared I had wandered this endless maze alone!"
She was a girl he didn't want anything to do with.
"Good sir! Might I inquire what strange realm this twisting maze may be? Mine path hath become naught but a spiraling torment!"
'This is crazy.' Xian grimaced, he wanted to slap the protagonist for being too slow. His expression have no effect on this obnoxious girl before him.
He remembered that one of the heroine's scenes occurred in the Grid Maze. One of his curious playthrough and it made him press Alt F4 eventually.
A hopeless heroine when it came to direction and only knew brute force. Only the protagonist could save her in the Grid Maze and lead her to the exit.
Ruminaria, from the 'Hero's Village'. She was here, perhaps due to her high luck stat that he remembered, but the protagonist was nowhere to be found.
'Maybe meeting me was also part of her luck…' It wouldn't be impossible to think of it that way. Among the heroine's, Ruminaria has the highest luck, even surpassing any other characters.
"Art thou deafened, good sir? Must I cry out louder within this cruel maze?"
"No. Don't speak."
hearing that, she stared with a dumb expression. Then, she made muffled sounds with one hand clapped over her mouth, while the other gestured in frantic, theatrical mimicry.
'What the hell.' Xian thought. He didn't understand why she took him seriously, but he moved on anyway.
Upon entering the next room, he noticed the girl had followed him.
'Tsk. Is she getting second with me?' Xian felt really annoyed that he's going to carry a heroine he didn't like.
"Haaah! Mine breath dwindles… but please, forgive this gallant soul! For silence is a mighty task, most valiant stranger!"
She gasped, hands on her hips like she'd just run a battlefield lap. Xian ignored her and went on, as if unable to hear anything. But, as if it was too much for the girl to stay silent, she had a lot to say.
"Ah! A most grievous error I've committed—forgetting to ask thy noble name! What appellation doth my rescuer bear?"
"Hmm? The room doth shift again! That meaneth I treadeth the righteous path beside my benefactor!"
"Ohh! Leave these vile creatures to me, that I may repay thy gallant favor, noble stranger!"
Finally, after a series of lively reactions, the obnoxious heroine saw the swarm of small monsters and rushed at them. Xian took the chance to shake her off. It was the final room before the last one he'd worried about. With a heroine like Ruminaria seeing monsters to slay, she's gonna go crazy
with it.
Once again, he encountered a heroine he wasn't familiar with. She wasn't even a heroine that he would ever attempt to conquer. Just the way she talked with her high pitched and exaggerated words was grinding on his ears.
'Good luck with you, Hero's descendant. May we never cross paths again.' He might actually take measures not to cross paths to her specifically later on.
'That protagonist needs to step up his game.' He blamed the protagonist for taking too long to find Ruminaria.
…
'Hm? We have our first finisher?' A professor wearing glasses and sporting a thick square beard glanced up from the book he was reading.
'Who's this guy?' Upon looking closer, he failed to recognize Xian, who wasn't among the top anticipated entrants this year. He also wasn't on the secret dark horse candidates list he painstakingly acquired.
"Name?"
"Xian."
"Hmm. There, participant number 879. You may proceed to the next examination grounds."
"Don't I need to wait for the others?" Xian asked just in case. Since in the game, after an exam, there's usually a gathering and possible scenes.
"No? Why would you do that?" The professor gave him a puzzled look.
"… Alright then." Recalling that Ruminaria might catch up to him, he went to the next examination grounds.
Later, the second finisher arrived. The professor sensed her presence, yet she was nowhere to be seen.
"Sigh… Really? Am I supposed to put a blank in your name?" the professor muttered with a frown.
"Remove your tricks so I can record you."
Slowly, the air shimmered as a girl revealed herself, half-lidded eyes heavy with boredom, wearing an ornate blue robe etched with runes.
'Now that's what I'm talking about.' The professor recognized this student as one of the special entrants to look out for this year. He took out two booklets, one to record the entrants and their placements, particularly the top finishers, and another containing the predicted rankings and wagers on which candidates would place within the top ten.
It was an insider betting pool that some professors and academy staff secretly participated in. Even the headmaster himself was eager to place a wager, though officially such things were "strictly prohibited."
'Top four, eh? She's ranked quite high.' He glanced at the list again.
'But in terms of power… she's top three?' According to the booklet, this contender had already learned more than a hundred spells at a young age, both utility and offensive, and had been praised by the elder wizards of the Atheneum.
"Participant 14. You may proceed with the second examination. Or, stay there should you somehow want to…"
She walked past him while yawning and disappeared without a word. The professor did not mind the rudeness. He was about to return to his book when another participant arrived, panting.
An orange-haired girl with a neat side-parted hairstyle stood there, already wearing the academy's official uniform.
"Hah, hah, I made it."After catching her breath, she noticed the professor and straightened immediately. "Am I first!?" One moment she was exhausted, the next she stood eagerly awaiting the answer
'Top 7 contender… she came 3rd huh?' This one was from an especially respectable background, from the clan where a pillar came from.
"Third."
"What!?" Her shoulders drooped as she cursed internally. Her perfect streak had already been broken during the examination, and two others had already surpassed her.
"Ah! This won't do, sir, I'm going to the second examination right away!"
"Ah yes, just go through that door…" Before he could even finish speaking, the girl dashed away, leaving dust in her wake.
"Candidate number 7. Third place…" He muttered writing the results. While writing, he thought it would have been perfect if she had finished in seventh place.