1400 HOURS
ALPHEIM
COMBAT GROUND EPSILON
THE SECOND EXAMINATION BEGINS.
"Welcome to Combat Ground Epsilon. I am Marten Pine, head of the disciplinary squad and joint third seat on the student council. I will be in charge of overseeing your examination."
Marten, flanked by ten members of his disciplinary squad, marched up to the assembled students. He assessed the hundred or so that had been assigned to him. If all went well, the exam would conclude in about three hours. Most of them weren't that powerful - one of Marten's power-gaugers had told him that. As with every batch, there were a few groups to worry about, but Marten was certain that he and his men would be able to prevent any catastrophes.
"Today, you will infiltrate and exfiltrate from a subsection of Yggdrasil's underground facility, Helheim. Your task will be to enter the vault within and input your team's code, something that will be assigned to you upon entrance. The first team to do so will receive more points, and so on and so forth. Note that the vault door is impervious to traditional magic attacks. It has been reinforced by multiple Fortification, Nullification and Repulsion spells. As your senior, it is my duty to warn you that any attempt to breach it will most likely result in failure. Don't waste your mana."
"On your way down, you will face off against Einherjar and Valkyrja that have so kindly taken time out of their schedules to facilitate these exams. These are trained combatants you are going up against. They will treat you as intruders, and as such will attack on sight. The location of the vault will remain unknown to you. In order to find it, you must either interrogate any facilitator you take down, or acquire some other means to do so. The floor plans present in the building will not show the vault's location." Marten had two of his assistants project a scaled-down replica of the abandoned Helheim laboratory using rudimentary hard light magic. Several of the students ooh'ed and ahh'ed. He had to resist the urge to rub his temples. Those were most likely the low-tiers. Any sort of magic was impressive to them.
"To clarify, you will have three hours in total to accomplish your task. The first three teams to successfully emerge will be guaranteed a spot in the next examination regardless of their performance in the previous one. Any others will be subjected to regular grading, and as such are liable to be expelled from school grounds. As a final note, do note that while you are allowed to use magic on other examinees, remember that lethal spells are not allowed, although highly destructive discharges that are performed outside the immediate vicinity of another examinee are permitted. If you are capable of performing magic without the usage of glyphs, you are to use glyphs when engaging in combat to indicate as such. Are there any questions?"
The assembly was silent. Marten nodded. He could feel the electric tension in the air. Everyone here, low-tiered or not, was ready and raring to go. At the very least, Marten figured, they'd put up a good fight. He motioned for another one of his assistants to transmit the codes to the phones of every team's members. When his assistant gave the go-ahead, Marten turned to the students.
"THE EXAM BEGINS NOW!"
--
Marten yelled just as Ilise's phone beeped. She had no time to contemplate how Mistilteinn had gotten their hands on her phone number, but she assumed it was probably part of the application form Bianca had filled up for her. Her teammates were still gathered around her in a semi-group huddle, with Siegfried and Roza keeping their distance from each other.
Ilise noted that several groups had elected to forgo planning altogether and run straight for the barely-noticeable entrance to the laboratory. She heard the sound of glyphs being summoned and spells detonating less than a minute later. Eventually, the din of combat faded, leaving their team among the ones that had yet to depart.
"What's the plan?" Tobias asked. He looked restless. He was constantly fiddling with the cuffs of his uniform.
"We should find an Einherjar. Or a Valkyrja. With a Kaiserin on our team, we should be able to take them on no problem. We interrogate them, get the location of the vault and bust our way in, then beat the crap outta anyone that tries to stop us." Roza said, slamming her knuckles into her palm. She had a wicked grin on her face. "Everyone in favour?"
Rei and Tobias nodded somewhat hesitantly. Roza's grin turned into a borderline slasher smile. "Great! That's a majority vote! Let's get moving." Once again, she completely ignored Siegfried.
Ilise raised her hand, and an eyebrow. "The Kaiserin hasn't agreed yet. Besides, we don't even know what sort of magic they'll be using. Heck, I don't even know what type of magic you guys are using, and you're my teammates."
Roza's shoulders fell. "Ilise, don't be a spoilsport. Those guys rely too much on their weapons. If you can do to them what you did to me," She smiled sheepishly and pointed at her crumpled uniform, "It'll be easy!"
"Actually, Miss Rossweisse does have a point. Teamwork is essential, and without knowledge of each other's skillsets, we might as well be going in blind." Rei said, pushing up his glasses. "I'll get the ball rolling. My sister and I have an affinity for Electric magic, which makes us Jovians. She's got a power rating of 559, while I'm at 496." Roza glared at Rei.
"Don't just side with them because Ilise agrees! You nodded your head, like, five seconds ago!" Roza said, outraged.
"I'm not siding with anyone. I'm just stating the facts, sister. It would be prudent to familiarise ourselves with each other's affinities." Rei said.
"No, no. It's okay. Your brother's right. I have an affinity for Fire magic. I'm a Promethean. My power rating is 533." Toby said. Roza stopped shooting daggers at Rei, and nodded in approval. Everyone was looking expectantly at Ilise now.
"Uh, well - I have an affinity for Kinetic magic, which isn't really a thing yet. It's kind of like, what Air magic branched from and something Yggdrasil is still working on classifying, and I'm probably the only registered one because of how I'm a Kaiserin. That makes me a Zephyrus, I guess. My power rating is 2,478. Without my Kaiserforce, which I don't think I'm allowed to use."
Now Toby was the one staring. Rei, Roza and Siegfried had all heard her earlier on, but Toby hadn't been present for it. He'd assumed that Ilise was in the nine hundreds at most. He was well aware that most of the student councillors were in the thousands, but even a rating of 500 was enough to qualify for Einherjar/Valkyrja training.
"D-don't look at me like that!" Ilise said, blushing.
"Sorry. It's just that I've never really seen someone in the thousands in action before."
Roza waved her hand in front of the two of them. "'Scuse me! Now that we're all cosied up and best buds for life, can we get going? We've been standing here for five minutes. And we're the only ones left." Roza gestured wildly at the scorched battlefield in front of them. Three students were already lying immobile on the ground, groaning in pain. Ilise winced in sympathy for them.
"But Siegfried hasn't had a chance to say his bit yet-"
"Ilise! What's it going to take for you to realise that no matter what you say about him, he's still a low-tier? Here. I'll guess for him. He's got a rating of 89, and no affinity whatsoever. Is that correct?" Roza looked pointedly at Siegfried, who laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head in response.
"Actually, it's 67."
Roza let out a laugh that was somewhere between disappointment, exasperation and hysteria. "Hah! That's even woorrrrrsssseeeee." She nearly fell over as she comically slumped. Rei had to rush forward to prop his sister up."If it helps, I can do martial arts. Kind of, anyway." Siegfried offered.
"Yeah, like that's gonna be any good against people who've spent their entire lives training with giant swords and stuff. Whatcha gonna do, Shiggy? Punch their swords till you cut your fingers off? Hit 'em with the old one-two?" Roza sniped.
"Cut it out, Roza! Can't you see that he's trying?" Ilise said. Tobias nodded in agreement. "Yeah. You can't just invalidate him because he's not a good magician. He got into Mistilteinn last year. That has to be worth something."
"Fine. Whatever you say. If your boyfriend gets his fingers cut off, it ain't my problem, okay? Now can we get going?"
The rest of the party nodded in assent.
"Phew. Finally." Roza said. With that, she dashed off for the entrance, dragging her brother with her.
"W-wait. Did she just say 'boyfriend'?" Ilise looked at Roza, who was almost to the entrance by now. Toby gave Siegfried a meaningful look, and yanked by the arm too.
Leaving Ilise to come to terms with what Roza had just said.
--