Thanks to HiroLsn’s suggestion, I have decided to rename Alusu Reigin as Ars Reign. Sorry for any inconveniences and thank you.

Saikyou Mahous.h.i.+ no Inton Keikaku

Part 1 Chapter 1

2. Battle Practice

From second period all the way until lunch was battle practice. Every changing room had sets of practice uniforms courtesy of the academy, and the males changing rooms were full of hostility towards Ars.

「Ch, guys like you with no motivation should quit already.」

However Ars didn’t seem to feel uncomfortable at all from what was just directed towards him.

For someone who had served in the military ever since he was a small child, this was an everyday occurrence to him. Of course as he piled up achievements and raised his rank, the ridicule stopped. In previous cases, not reacting was the best course of action so Ars didn’t respond to the remarks thrown at him. On the contrary, he felt a sense of nostalgia as he remembered old memories.

He rapidly finished changing, and this time left the room with a small book.

The dome-shaped practice arena used magic to change physical damage into mental damage so even if a person fainted, there would be no damage to their physical body. As long as it was inside the designated area, all types of magic was affected by this.

When he was in the army, they also had training facilities similar to this.

A battle practice was basically just a fight that permitted martial arts, weapons and magic etc. Your opponent would be projected onto a panel in the center of the dome.

Teachers could also partic.i.p.ate, but they mostly served a second role as a referee, monitoring the diligent students during battle practices.

When the teacher presses the shuffle b.u.t.ton, names would begin to display one after another.

To prevent any possible collisions, the practice arena was divided into many sections as protective walls were erected with magic.

It was also permitted to use weapons in the practice arena. However it was limited to only magical devices, and these weapons would raise a mages magic efficiency* such as AWR (a.s.sist weapon recovery), or more commonly referred to as 《Aura》 which was a type of a.s.sistance device which helped mages recover their power.

Because swords or axes made with simply steel would be completely useless against the hard skin of demons, there weren’t many mages who used such tools. On the contrary, people who often wore swords did so for a personal reason, as wearing such a weapon was similar to telling the entire world that you weren’t a mage.

The academy had arranged various types of weapons for use in the practice arena. Mostly because there weren’t many first year students who had their own AWR device. If a person did possess an AWR device, it was most likely that they had already gone through training before they entered this academy.

Naturally, Ars was among one of them. However, what he possessed currently was something of no practical use ― a book.

「As one would expect of a n.o.ble…」

Someone in the crowd revealed their admiration.

In the middle of a circle of students stood Tesfia, with a katana hanging from her waist.

(How old-fas.h.i.+oned……)

Ars, who had seen many different types of weapons during his time in the military recalled that there weren’t many people that chose to make a katana into their AWR. A double-edged blade was easier to use than a single-bladed katana, which made it the common choice.

「It’s our family heirloom that’s been pa.s.sed down for many generations. I’ve always been using it so I’m already used to it by now.」

Tesfia was the only person who possessed their own AWR. She was the only person in our cla.s.s, and maybe even the only person in our grade. From now on apprentice mages would start to discover their own strengths, and find a weapon best suited for their needs. By the time you graduate, everyone would have their own personal AWR.

That’s how significant raising one’s magic efficiency is.

If you wanted to summon flames or water, doing so through a weapon would reduced the amount of wasted magic, and you wouldn’t have to continuously chant to trigger magic. As a matter of fact, AWRs were developed before the systematization* of magic. There was no doubt that guns or blades were powerless before magic.  Such weapons could barely scratch the skin of demons, much less inflict a fatal would. So people started to wonder if you would be able to slice or pierce through their skin with magic, which sparked the development of AWRs.

At that time they imbued swords with magic, raising it’s destructive power. However hard and unbreakable blades was the limit for the newly implemented AWR technology. Currently, any blade could go through a magic technique named 《Lost Spell》 and through engraving, it was possible for the weapon to act as an intermediary for magic. As a result chanting could be omitted and it also became possible to subjugate the previously undefeatable demons in close combat.

If you confronted a demon with such a weapon, you would instantly regret it.

In the midst of everyone’s admiration, Tesfia stole a glance at Ars, slightly pulled her katana out of it’s scabbard towards him.

She wanted to provoke him, but Ars planned on getting through this practice battle lesson peacefully. In truth, he just wanted to read his book.

On the section of the blade that Tesfia pulled out, you could see 《Lost Spell》 engraved all over it.

The shuffling on the panel finished, and one by one the names of many unfamiliar students were displayed.

The panel went through the first practice area, the second practice area, and finally in the third practice area Ars’s name appeared.

Although he wasn’t her opponent, their practice areas were close to each other which caused her to gazed irritably towards him.

Ars, without carrying any weapons walked towards the third training area while flipping through his book.

His opponent was someone he didn’t know. They were cla.s.smates but he had no interest in him. His opponent had short brown hair, and with his slanted eyes looked scornfully upon Ars. In his hand gripped a borrowed sword.

The remaining 20 or so students would be spectators, which caused Ars to have a bad feeling about this.

Half of them rushed forward to spectate Tesfia in order to learn something, and the remaining half surrounded Ars’s training area. Rather than they wanting to see who was going to win, it was more like they came to an exhibition match to scoff at him.

(What’s the deal with all of them?)

thought Ars, as he noticed a particularly sharp gaze coming from the middle of all the spectators. In the middle mixed with them all was Alice, but her gaze wasn’t the gaze that Ars felt. It wasn’t as if he was against the notion of losing though. He actually wanted to lose quickly to get this all over with.

Although he planned to lose, he had no intention of taking any damage. Deceiving all of the crowd including the teacher would be easy. Of course even with Alice or Tesfia watching, it wouldn’t change the fact that it was a trivial matter for Ars to deceive them all.

The sensation of taking damage is the worse, muttered Ars as he sighed.

「My luck’s pretty good today. This guy’s basically a sandbag.」

On one side was a sword and the other side was only a book. You could tell the outcome of the battle by just looking at it.

At the same time as the alarm that signaled the start of the battle, his opponent leapt forward. His amateur movements were painful to watch.

(He’s quite brazen in front of a crowd) thought Ars. He had also imbued his magic through the sword, but the magic aura that covered it was crude and awful. It was a disgrace to the weapon.

During the interval, she s.h.i.+fted his vision towards the page, and progressed in his reading.

His opponent took a distance from him and once again, the sword flowed with his magic. As a result, the engravings on the sword started glowing red.

「【Burn・Edge】」

The sword was covered in flames.

But from the satisfied look on his face, you could tell that he didn’t understand what he was doing. The only reason he could use the magic was thanks to the AWR’s a.s.sistance. To be able let magic manifest itself from just chanting it’s name without an AWR would roughly be the skill of a triple digit rank.

In the first place, he doesn’t even know that 【Burn・Edge】 is a rather low-leveled magic. It was a simplified version of a high-level magic called 【Enjin】(lit. flame blade), and it’s power is also lower by a few stages. To see him use that magic with such a satisfied face, even Ars felt a bit embarra.s.sed.

The spectators while not surprised by the magic, antic.i.p.ated the conclusion of this battle.

On the other side where Tesfear was fighting, cheers exploded. On Ars’s side, whenever he barely avoided an attack you could hear the crowd chant「Almost!」with excitement, but none of those were directed towards Ars.

Alice was the only one among them who nervously clenched their hands. From her rigid fingers and tightly closed palms, Ars felt the kindness that she eluded the first time they met.

It wouldn’t be good to drag this on for too long, so in order to finish this quickly Ars closed his book.

The explosion caused a cloud of dust and as it cleared, what remained was the figure of Ars lying on the ground, with his opponent towering above him exhausted.

After the alarm that signaled the end,

「――― ! ! Ars-kun……!」

Alice raised her voice. The spectators who heard her worried voice, could only switch to an expression of contempt from wanting to celebrate his defeat with both arms in the air.

But without any regard to Alice’s worries―

Ars stood up as if nothing had happened. And begun reading his book while leaving the practice area. If you had just looked at the scene of events, you wouldn’t be able to tell who was the victor and who was the loser.

As Ars noticed the dumbfounded crowd, he recognized that he might’ve been a bit too quick in getting back up. To be exact, the crowd was surprised by the fact that he was so calm which Ars didn’t realize.

I mean, how are you supposed to even take damage from that level of magic. For getting hit on purpose, he nearly instinctively dodged backwards so he considered the results to be the best he could’ve achieved.

It was unexpectedly hard to lower himself to their level. The reason why he wanted to end it so quickly was because his impulse to read his book way too great. It wasn’t something that he was aware of himself. It certainly felt like a waste of time.

As it everything concluded, the confused gazes of the spectators were all silent.

「Are you all right, Ars-kun? How’s your injury?」

Alice who had quickly ran over towards Ars examined his body from head to toe.

「You do know that you can’t get physically injured in this practice arena right?」

「……Ah!  That’s right…」

Alice still wore a dubious expression on her face as if she felt uncomfortable.

Ars glanced over his body and noticed one fault. Of course the one who caused the explosion was Ars. He hind any possible hint of what may have caused it, but Ars who unconsciously didn’t want to get his clothes dirty coated them with his magic. It wasn’t something unusual to him. Every time he went on a mission, he constantly coated his body with his own magic.

Because magic had a characteristic of becoming familiar to organic substances, it acc.u.mulated inside the body. There was no choice but to constantly emit magic. Just by emitting their magic over their body didn’t mean that it would be able to prevent any attack. At most dust and liquids would not stick themselves to their body.

On the other hand magic doesn’t have a great affinity with inorganic substances, which means that it’s power won’t be absorbed. This results in it being possible to strengthen materials and store magic inside inorganic substances. The problem was how long would it last.

Ars who was just standing in the middle of a huge dust cloud was not covered in any dirt.

Immediately ―

「More importantly, is it okay to not be concerned about your friend?」

「Fia will be all right. She’s really strong.」

Fia? Ars understood that she was talking about Tesfia, but still held no interest as he was facing away from the eighth practice area gazing towards his book. He checked to see if the book was okay from the explosion earlier and examined the front cover. No matter how much magic was protecting it, paper is paper. But there was no dirt on it at all, much less any rips.

Relieved that there were no marks, Ars flipped the book around.

「Your name was Alice, was it? It’s nearly your turn.」

「Mm」

Ars who wanted to escape off into his own little world changed the subject.

「Even though I lost, go give it your all」

「Naturally」

He didn’t really mean it but he didn’t want this to drag on.

Alice with a broad smile rolled up her sleeves.

Ars parted with her and started walking towards wall near the exit. He felt a bit of fatigue from being a bit more talkative than usual.

To the teachers, practice battle lessons were one of the more exciting lessons. Because the use of magic was forbidden outside of practice battle lessons, it was a good opportunity for the students to show the results of their training.

That’s why the figure of Ars could not be spotted within the crowd of spectators as he had already lost all interest.

Tesfia also finished her match, and triumphantly exited the practice area. As soon as started talking to Alice, she took a glance as Ars and smirked.

The next person to battle in the eighth practice area would be Alice. Her opponent was male, as battles between mages were not separated by gender. In other words instead of strength, magic ability greatly influenced battles.

Unlike the scornful crowd that watched Ars’s match, Alice’s crowd was silent and serious. As thanks for spectating his own match, Ars took a bit of time to go spectate her match.

Alice wielded a halberd.

(She’s also old-fas.h.i.+oned)

However Alice’s handling of her halberd was something to look out for. It wasn’t particularly fast or skillful spearmans.h.i.+p, but her movements were elegant. While still clunky and crude, her ability to switch from offense to defense was brilliant. It was almost like acrobatics, but there was still room left to polish. The halberd that Alice wielded was something she borrowed, but without practicing habitually one could not move like that.

Rather than a halberd, she seemed to be proficient at handling spears.

Her proficiency in martial arts certainly has value, but that alone can’t decide the victor in a magic battle.

The point is magic would decide the victor. When facing a demon, enchanting your weapon with magic would certainly be effective but even so you wouldn’t be able to beat them with just that. Because demons have amazing regeneration abilities which heals cuts and grazes instantly.

A demon’s core was located in a different area for each one of them, so accurately pinpointing it’s location difficult.

Alice’s opponent wielded bra.s.s knuckles. It was a popular weapon that mages who preferred close combat used.

For someone who only had received basic training as a mage, he used the first-cla.s.s magic skillfully. Fire, water, ice, wind, thunder and earth etc. formed the basis of offensive magic, and was also they first thing everyone learnt in basic magic cla.s.s.

Alice rotated her halberd in a circle quickly and the blade gradually began to s.h.i.+ne.

「…………….. !」

As the ice arrows made contact with the blade it would shatter into small pieces. But that wasn’t all, the debris from the ice arrows were actually sent back flying towards the caster with great force.

In an instant he collapsed, and the match was decided shortly thereafter.  In the same manner as Tesfia, a loud cheer erupted from the spectators as the power of both 4-digit mages were made known to everybody.

As she made her way nimbly out of the practice area, they and Tesfia high-fived each other like everything was planned beforehand.

(That magic just now was 【Reflection】…….. No,【Reduction】.)

【Reflection】, or more commonly named as Counter was a mid-level magic. Moreover, 【Reduction】was on a higher level than it and wasn’t a spell that a student should know. Both of them were light attribute magic. However, the number of people who could use Light magic were few. Mages could normally acquire apt.i.tude for an attribute, but in the case of Light magic, it was something that only people born with the talent could use it which was why there weren’t many people who could handle Light magic. There is also a Dark attribute, and they were all  commonly named as Elements.

However, there is also a disposition that was part of none of them. Just like Ars…..

1. 伝導率 = conductivity/efficiency↑

2. 魔法の體系化 = the organization of magic; categorizing it.↑