11 a.m., Taimadou Academy, Class 1-A, homeroom
"I am your homeroom teacher, Ayako. Please call me 'Teacher Ayako'. Pleased to meet you all."
"…"
In front of all the students was a teacher who looked like a first-year student. The only difference was that she wore a teacher's outfit. For some reason, she had a more-mature aura.
While most students were thinking about her appearance, some were thinking about what she had said. The teacher's name was Ayako. This name had no special meaning favoring any clan. This was because upon becoming an instructor, a teacher had to use an impartial name to not show any specific favor to any one clan. Of course, she had a magic specialization, but to be a homeroom teacher, you did not need high-tier magic. If "Ayako" wanted to teach students how to wield her specialized magic, she would have been a magic instructor instead.
While there were those main two thoughts, Akane held the third one.
Coincidentally, this was not the first time Akane met "Ayako". She did not know her real name, but she recognized her from her childhood. Only Akane remembered this, as Rin was more secluded.
However, what made her confused was that it has been a long time since she happened to meet Ayako, and yet she looked nearly identical to how she had been a few years back.
"Well then, I would first like to explain our school system."
Ayako seemed to have noticed the atmosphere of the class but decided to leave it for later.
Ayako went through the basic knowledge required. How the dormitory, as well as magic chess, worked, and how classes were held. Most of them had been foretold in a briefing by the principal himself from an online recording. The takeaway was that magic chess would be explained further in detail by the general magic instructor in charge.
Suddenly, Ayako cast wind magic in the classroom. She used this to distribute the sheets of paper she brought along with her. This may have been an overzealous display of skill, but to Ayako, she was simply lazy to distribute them one by one.
"Fill out the form on your desk. I will collect it in 10 minutes. After this, I'll talk about what you all are interested in."
The form asked to fill in various kinds of data into a table on its front page: your name, magic clan, magic tier, and strangely, your favorite spell. The magic tier was constantly recorded to measure the growth of a magician. The first three were commonly asked. The last one was unorthodox.
It seemed so hilarious that this question was even asked by the school. It was so funny some students even laughed out loud when they saw the question. Ayako, however, did not show any expression, whereas the question made Rin feel a sense of insecurity and decided to consider his reason deeply.
He was not gifted with enough time, however, as he himself had to specifically think about what magic tier he should write. Considering his mana reserve level was determined to be higher than Akane's, he could not write a level below her. Yet writing too high of a level was going to be deemed suspicious, so he thought to write the same tier as Akane currently could use, the 7th tier. He was still conflicted, so he moved on to the fourth question.
At this time, Rin only had an estimation of 4 minutes to spare.
'I only have 3 minutes to think… That's too little.'
He had to think of why the fourth question was even given in the first place. He looked around the class to notice that only he and three other students were still contemplating what to write: Hana, Hijiri, and a person he did not know. Perhaps, it was in Rin's best interest to acquaint himself with that girl.
Due to the time constraint, he simply felt that the school was just testing the student in a weird way. He could not know what they were testing, though. He wrote ShiFaia (4th Flame) for his answer.
If this was an actual exam question, Rin would only get 10% of the marks; Hana 30%; and Hijiri 50%. The unknown person got 70% as he found out its true nature, and a student other than these four answered it 'correctly' without even thinking too much.
Hana realized that the question was asking what spell the student liked to cast the most in battle. Around 80% of the class wrote their highest-level spell, which Hana felt was the wrong answer. She was right in the idea that these 80% misunderstood the question but were wrong as to why it was the wrong answer and thus, only got 30%.
Hijiri had the same initial idea, but he added that the students thought the question was a redundant one to the 3rd question, which it isn't. This is true, as the school isn't stupid. Thus, the fourth question was a legitimate one: asking for your favorite spell. The reason he lost 50% however, was that the question was rightly written but not what it intended to ask.
'What is the spell you use most in battle' was what the question truly was. The school was trying to test the student's perceptiveness in regard to the unexpected. As such, writing your highest-level spell was wrong, as Hijiri thought, but only partially. It was not rare to see a magician ultimately rely on their highest-level spell in battle as a final blow, so one could think he or she 'used' it the most as they used it in every battle.
Ironically, this only was a C-grade answer, which the unknown person got. 'What is the spell you use the most' was certainly the intended question. It was only 70% of the total credit as the question was to make the student realize what spell they tended to rely on the most. In a battle, having a spell you rely on was certainly good, as it made you feel confident in your duel. On the flip side, however, the enemy could use this very fact against you. The school was trying to tell the students to not rely on a specific way or pattern to win against enemies.
As the teacher was collecting each paper from the desks, she had a change in her movement. Ayako walked considerably slower from Akane's table to the next one and appeared to smile upon seeing her sheet.
Her sheet was the odd one so far, for she did not fill out the form entirely, emptying the fourth question.
She wrote a dash for the 4th question, showing her intention to leave it blank. Ayako was enlightened to find out that at least one student got the solution right. Yes, when it came to magic, you should not give important information to anyone unless it is mandatory. Ayako never said that you had to completely fill in the form.
Why did Akane fill out the third question though? Was it not better to also leave it blank? The answer to that was that the third question was information the school already knew. Upon measuring the mana reserve count of the student, the school already determined the magic tier the student could wield. So, there was no specific reason to hide it. As Akane got both answers right, the teacher looked upon her favorably.
Unbeknownst to the teacher, Akane had no idea what was going on. The irony was that she did not have a favorite spell, which was why she had put a dash. It was rarer for this to be the case than for it to be a coincidence, so Ayako did not consider this simple reasoning.
Ayako walked slower for the students who did not write their highest tier spell as their fourth answer. However, she stopped moving after taking the sheet from a particular student's desk.
What surprised her was Rin's sheet, which also had a blank, as compared to Akane's dash. The blank was in a different question, however: the third question.
Rin did not write his highest tier magic, which logically would be absurd as they had already measured their mana reserve values. However, Ayako remembered that Rin's value was undetermined. Upon this, she changed her initial perspective toward the Hitotsu duo. She had thought that Akane was the smarter one, but now she favored Rin more.
Rin did not reveal the most important information to him, and it seemed that he only answered the fourth question as in comparison to the third, it did not seem as important. Probably to satisfy the school, he simply put an answer. His answer to the last question was probably false as well, Ayako thought, but there was also the off chance that he did not consider its complete intention. The idea that Rin could have either known the real intention of the fourth question and purposely written a wrong answer, or thought it was irrelevant compared to the third, made Ayako extremely impressed by Rin. However, she could not help but also feel sad.
'How lost is he?'
While thinking solemnly, she heard a voice.
"Teacher Ayako, may I meet you after class?"
The voice came from beside Ayako as she was standing still. It belonged to Rin. She was surprised by this sudden favor, but it seemed to align with what she planned to ask him.
"Okay, Rin."