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Thursday.
Summoning Magic class.
It was Professor Wendy's third class.
Professor Wendy, with her blonde hair tied in pigtails, held the title of the youngest tenured professor at Elton Academy.
Despite her bright and cute face, she was a formidable figure who had earned a tenured professorship in her twenties.
"Welcome, everyone. I'm glad to see you all attended the third class without forgetting. Thank you."
She thanked them for attending the class, but all freshmen in the Magic Department were required to take all detailed subject classes in the first semester.
Only with special reasons could they miss a class.
"But there's a face I haven't seen before? Are you perhaps the student who...?"
"I'm Davian Naone. My swordsmanship major classes overlapped, so this is my first Summoning Magic class today. I apologize."
"Ah, you're the student who's double majoring. I hear your magical talent is extraordinary?"
Latia, sitting to his left, reacted to the word "magical talent."
She turned her head and glared at Davian once.
Professor Wendy continued, "I did receive a letter saying you would study on your own to catch up, in place of attending the classes, right?"
"Yes, I did."
"Good. Well, since you're supposedly so talented, I trust you've caught up on the content of the past two classes through self-study. Then, let's proceed with today's class. Everyone, please open your textbooks to page 78."
Luna asked in a small voice from beside him, "Did you preview the textbook?"
"Uh, roughly."
"You shouldn't just roughly preview it..."
"What do you mean?"
"She's really scary. Professor Wendy."
"I know."
He already knew from his experiences in previous iterations.
Professor Wendy might be smiling with that cute face, but she was known for mercilessly berating students who didn't keep up with the class.
But he wasn't too worried.
He didn't need to preview anything in the first place.
He had already taken the Summoning Magic class three times.
"There are entities that can be summoned with a summoning magic circle, and entities that cannot. No matter how large and elaborate the summoning magic circle is, there are entities that cannot be summoned. What are those entities? Davian."
Professor Wendy's sudden question.
The sound of swallowing saliva could be heard from here and there.
As if it wasn't bad enough that they would face a torrent of harsh words if they didn't answer properly, the question fell to Davian, who had skipped the first two classes due to his double major.
Luna looked at Davian with a worried expression.
'This is bad. Professor Wendy is unlikely to look favorably upon Davian skipping her classes...'
Contrary to Luna's worries, the answer flowed smoothly from Davian's mouth.
"It depends on the mage. The entities that can be summoned vary depending on the amount of magic power that can be infused into the summoning magic circle. Also, entities with the intellectual capacity to break the summoning magic circle's call, and powerful entities that can ignore the summoning magic circle's call altogether, cannot be summoned no matter how large a summoning magic circle is drawn."
"Correct. You've been studying well on your own, Davian. Then, who are some entities with the intellectual capacity to break the magic circle's call?"
"Most demons, spirits, and intelligent lifeforms from other dimensions."
Professor Wendy twisted her hair with her finger and continued to ask, "But there have been quite a few cases where high-level intelligent lifeforms like demons and spirits have been summoned. How can you explain that?"
"There are cases where they willingly follow the magic circle's call, and cases where they are bound by a contractual relationship with the summoning mage. Both the former and the latter have in common that they chose to do so themselves."
"Hoh hoh hoh. There's a reason everyone's talking about Davian. You must be short on time because of your double major, but you've studied very well on your own."
"No, I apologize for not being able to attend the classes properly."
"Hoh hoh hoh. No, it's an honor to have such an excellent student like Davian in my class. Now, please come forward and draw a summoning magic circle on the blackboard."
Professor Wendy walked to the front of the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and stretched her arm out towards Davian.
"Let's do a goblin, the most common monster in the demon realm. Since many have already crossed over into our dimension, you must know a lot about goblins, right?"
It was a clear trap.
A goblin summoning magic circle.
The other students had only heard a brief verbal explanation at the end of the last class.
It was only the third Summoning Magic class, and no student here could draw the summoning magic circle without looking at the textbook.
That's how elaborate and complex summoning magic circles were.
First, you had to have an accurate understanding of the magic circle, and you had to be able to insert accurate information about the entity you wanted to summon into the basic structure of the magic circle.
Of course, knowing the exact coordinates of where the entity you wanted to summon existed would further increase the success rate of the summoning.
Moreover, Professor Wendy had said to summon a goblin, saying it was the most common monster.
This was also a trap.
No mage would bother trying to summon goblins, which had already crossed over into this dimension in countless numbers.
Therefore, it was only written in the academy's textbooks for practice purposes, and no mage would learn a magic circle specifically for summoning goblins.
It even took into account the possibility that Davian had separately learned Summoning Magic before entering the academy.
"What are you doing? Come out and draw it, Davian."
Latia said in a low voice, "Just go out and apologize. What can you do if your other major classes overlap? Professor Wendy's being too harsh. I can't even draw that right now."
Luna also chimed in with a worried look.
"Yeah, Davian. Just apologize and ignore the harsh words the professor throws at you. You couldn't help it."
Davian slowly got up and went up to the podium.
Davian took the chalk that Professor Wendy was holding out.
"I'm sorry."
"Yes? What for? You've been giving very satisfactory answers so far, Davian."
"Because goblins are monsters that are rarely used in Summoning Magic, I don't know the exact information and codes. Since there are already too many monsters that have crossed over into this world."
"Oh, is that so? That's a shame. The students here had a class on how to draw goblin summoning magic circles last time."
They had heard about it.
But there wasn't a single student here who could immediately draw a goblin summoning magic circle.
"I heard that you showed us how to summon a gargoyle in the first class."
"So? Are you going to try drawing a summoning magic circle to summon a gargoyle instead of a goblin?"
"Yes. Since you said it was the first summoning magic you showed in the classes I didn't attend, I self-studied the summoning magic circle for summoning a gargoyle."
Professor Wendy snorted inwardly.
'Little brat. Trying to pull a fast one.'
She must be pretending to draw a much more difficult gargoyle summoning magic circle, drawing a bit and then apologizing.
Either way, that would mean she failed the gargoyle summoning magic circle.
"Oh, really? Then go ahead and draw it."
The difficulty of summoning magic varies greatly depending on the rarity and power of the entity to be summoned.
Gargoyles were incomparably rarer and stronger than goblins.
They weren't entities that academy freshmen could dare to summon or anything.
Swish.
Davian's chalk drew a huge circle on the blackboard.
"The magic circle is too elaborate to draw on a narrow blackboard. May I sharpen the chalk a bit?"
Professor Wendy chuckled.
'She's really struggling. It's even cute.'
"That's right. It's a complex magic circle that you'd draw on a large field. The chalk is too blunt to draw it on this blackboard, right? Go ahead and sharpen it."
"Thank you."
Sagagak.
The wind elemental magic that Davian created instantly sharpened the chalk.
Swish, swish.
Davian began to draw the magic summoning circle without hesitation.
Geometric shapes continued to be drawn from his fingertips.
Professor Wendy watched the scene with interest.
'Not bad?'
But no way.
There was no way a freshman could summon a gargoyle.
It was such a time-consuming magic circle to draw, she must be hoping she'd tell her to stop in the middle.
'You think that's how it'll go?'
Professor Wendy briefly left the classroom and returned with a book.
Then, she went down from the podium and sat in Davian's seat.
'I'll wait an hour or two. Until you say you can't draw anymore and beg for forgiveness.'
Professor Wendy opened the book in a relaxed posture.
It was a sign that she would wait and see how far she could go.
30 minutes later.
Drdrdrdr.
"Kyaaak!"
"A, a gargoyle!"
The classroom suddenly became noisy.
Professor Wendy, who had unknowingly been absorbed in the book she had been enjoying lately, was startled and looked up.
Professor Wendy's eyes widened.
"W, what!"
A gargoyle's head was sticking out of the magic circle that Davian had drawn, glaring around the classroom with its fierce eyes.
"Kyaaak!"
Eventually, it opened its mouth wide and revealed its sharp teeth.
The size of the magic circle was small, so only its head was able to come out, but it began to push its shoulders in, trying to get out somehow.
Crack! Crack!
Cracks began to appear on the blackboard and the wall.
At this rate, it seemed like the gargoyle would break through the wall and come out at any moment.
"Stop! Stop it! Student Davian. That's enough!"
"I haven't finished summoning yet."
"I said stop!"
Only then did Davian withdraw the magic power he had been pushing into the summoning magic circle.
The gargoyle, which seemed like it would break through the wall even if it destroyed it, began to be sucked back into the magic circle.
"Kyaaak!"
Even in the midst of all that, the gargoyle struggled not to be dragged in, revealing its sharp teeth.
Davian, who had created wind elemental magic, pushed the gargoyle's head into the summoning circle.
Only then did the gargoyle completely enter the summoning circle.
"......"
Professor Wendy and the students were just staring at the half-destroyed classroom wall with dumbfounded expressions.
Professor Wendy, who had regained her senses, returned to the podium.
"N, now go back to your seats. Davian Naone."
Davian slowly returned to his seat.
Before he even sat down, Professor Wendy called out to Davian.
"Student Davian."
"Yes, Professor."
"Amazing. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders. I didn't think you could do this well on your own. I apologize. I won't test student Davian again."
"Thank you."
Student cafeteria.
Davian and his five friends were gathered to eat as always.
Luna, Nubes, Bellum, Bonita, Latia.
"Hey guys!"
A male student approached the table where Davian and his friends were eating, holding a plate.
Bellum was the first to recognize who it was.
"Oh? You? Aren't you that guy from back then? Bland chatterbox. What was your name...?"
"Liber! Liber Specula. From a family with the best intelligence agency on the continent! My motto is 'Information is power'! Don't you remember?"
"Oh, right. I remember. Bland chatterbox. The guy who acted like he was going to tell us something amazing and then just ran away."
Liber naturally sat down next to Davian and his friends.
"Ran away! Wait. I'll definitely find out information about how the ice spirit Glacier played an active role in the war."
"Ah, so you hadn't already found out? You're still a bland chatterbox after all."
"I said wait. That's what I'm definitely going to find out. That's not what's important right now. You guys are the party that defeated the Gray Witch, right?"
Davian, who had been eating without paying attention, looked at Liber.
"About that Gray Witch. I found out why she woke up. Aren't you curious? Who planned such a thing?"
Liber paused for a moment as the students' attention focused on him.
He was both an information collector and a natural storyteller.
"Assistant Rubens, who suddenly disappeared after that day..."
Bellum shook his head and picked up his fork again.
"Sigh. Hey, never mind. We already know. That Assistant Rubens was a spy."
The other students also seemed disappointed and began to focus on their meal again.
"Really? Then do you also know that Rubens was a spy sent by the Marino Empire? And why the Marino Empire planted a spy in our academy? Why he woke up the Gray Witch when all of our freshmen went to the Northern Ice Region?"
Clank.
Davian put down the spoon he was holding on the plate.
Then, he turned to Liber and asked, "Do you know? The reason why he woke up the Gray Witch."
"Of course! I knew you'd be curious. Hahaha. That's the reward of being an information preempter. A kind of pleasure, you could say. How about it? Curious? Curious?"
"...Leave if you're going to talk nonsense."
"Ah, okay. Just don't be too surprised when you hear it."
"Just get to the point."
"They were trying to kill all of our freshmen."
Clatter.
Luna dropped the fork she was holding in surprise.
"W, what?"
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